What You’ll Hear

The show was a little late this week, because as our friend @ioshints put it, we had a “cloud ladder failure” on Sunday: Greg’s broadband was out.  But when we finally gathered ’round the great big conference room in the sky, we did it up right.  Dan was coming in loud and clear on his new Mac Book Pro, Greg reminisced about the good ol’ days of FDDI-to-token ring bridging, and Ethan made bold predictions about the virtualized networking future.

• First up was VMworld.  We didn’t go, and didn’t care (much). Okay, maybe we did want to hang with all the cool kids.  But whether here or there, we were paying attention, and some interesting products were announced from Cisco and (naturally) VMware.
• Cisco’s Virtual Security Gateway integrates with the Cisco Nexus 1000V and provides a host-facing firewall as part of a defense-in-depth strategy to secure your virtualized environment.  VSG is tightly integrated with your VMs, such that the security policy you build will follow a VM during a VMotion event.  Cool stuff, we say.  Read more about VSG from Omar Sultan, and watch a 3+ minute overview from Cuong Tran on the Cisco Data Center YouTube channel.
• Not to be outdone, VMware announced their vShield product family, pushing the mantra of “IT as a service” and trying to make security easier to deliver and flexible during change.  Do you want VMware to become the networking provider of a cloudy, virtualized world? Read even more about VMware’s long-term networking vision over at Wikibon.
• The Pushers talk about the networking world colliding with the server world at the junction point of VMware.  Do you do VMware?  Time for us network geeks to dive into the deep end of the virtualization pool…so say we all!
• Ethan and Greg are headed over to San Jose on 9/15 – 9/17 for a GestaltIT.com Net Field Day event.  We’ll be tweeting and live blogging about the vendor presentations, and you can participate! Send us the hardest questions you’ve got for the vendors, ’cause we’re talkin’ to the boffins, not the marketing types.  Vendor list coming soon.
• Xsigo would be delighted to sell you an ethernet-attached virtual I/O appliance. Bolt it into your rack, select the modules appropriate to the sort of data you’d like to shovel across your ethernet, and you’ve got a low-cost way to take advantage of that network you’ve already got.  For example, you can do FCoE without the cost and implementation challenges of a converged network adapter.  The ethernet NIC you’ve already got will work just fine!  Xsigo says more modules are coming.
• Is VEPA a gamble?  What about TRILL or FabricPath?  What’s an architect to do when the network world is changing oh-so-fast, but a data center design must be finalized today?
• The Pushers give their take on this question from listener Andrew H. “How much time do you guys typically take to implement a new technology into a live network? I always like as much lab time as I can get to make sure I don’t run into any gotchas during cutover day, but don’t want to put too many hours and end up over thinking the plan.”

Feedback

Follow the Packet Pushers on Twitter (@packetpushers | Greg @etherealmind | Dan @rovingengineer | Ethan @ecbanks), and send your queries & comments about the show to packetpushers@gmail.com.  We want to hear from you!

© Etherealmind for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Show 19 – Worlds Collide – VMware and Networking
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I’ve been hearing about Force10 Networks as a large scale ethernet switch provider for some time. It’s time to touch base and find out what they are doing.

I spoke with Steve Garrison from Force10 to get an introduction to the company and their products. I’ll let the show speak for itself.

One of the more interesting aspects is the Open Automation strategy, due to be announced later in the year, that offers support for a large number of scripting languages and, as I understand it, a collection of scripts for you to use in your own Network Management system.

Force10 offers very high density ethernet which results in less equipment, less power and less opex. Combined with their custom silicon for lossless, line rate, non blocking ethernet forwarding they have been a significant player at the high end of the market for many years.

Feedback

Follow the Packet Pushers on Twitter (@packetpushers | Greg @etherealmind and send your queries and comments about the show to packetpushers@gmail.com.  We want to hear from you!

© Etherealmind for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Runt Packet No 6 – Force10 Networks
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What You’ll Hear

This week, we get a report about HP Tech Day, and then devote most of the show to answering questions sent in by you, the listener!

• Greg talks about his visit to sunny California for HP Tech Day (click for various slideshows).  We discuss Virtual Connect in detail for no obvious reason, mostly because Ethan has great trouble expressing himself clearly.
• Greg goes long on the HP Network product range and pontificates on how HP Networking is going to come to market, and depth on the product range, some ideas on their marketing position and pricing strategy. Overall, HP is going to be here to stay whether you like it or not and impact on Cisco position.
• HP accelerated certification for Cisco certified people comes up as a topic – if you’re a CCNP or CCIE, HP wants to give you a crash course on how to make their networking gear do something useful.  We see this as a shrewd way for HP to bridge the familiarity gap.
• The Pushers express colossal ignorance about GVRP or MVRP, but Greg has promised research and a blog post.
• Dan’s getting into optical networking and DWDM a little bit.
• Citrix Netscalar isn’t getting much love from the Pushers.  F5 owns us, you see.  (Not really.)
• We learn that, as a child, Greg was forced into the Australian outback where he had to kill harmless animals in order to feed himself.  Explains a lot, doesn’t it?
• We discuss a detailed demographic profile of our audience and what we’ve learned from it.  Okay…not THAT detailed.  Well actually, we’re just making demographics up based on a single e-mail from a listener who’s early on in their networking career.
• Fact of the week – 16 HSRP groups only on a Cisco Catalyst 6500 with Sup 2 engines.
• So what about getting your CCNP with no networking experience?  Realistic or overshooting?
• How do you pick an IOS?  We talk through SafeHarbor, Dan pontificates about only getting the features you need, and we point out MD vs. ED vs. whatever else in Cisco’s various release trains.
• Want to contribute some audio to the show, maybe a question or a comment?  Record some and send it along as an attachment.  If the quality isn’t horrible, we’ll see if we can patch it in.

Feedback

Follow the Packet Pushers on Twitter (@packetpushers | Greg @etherealmind | Dan@rovingengineer | Ethan @ecbanks) and send your queries and comments about the show to packetpushers@gmail.com.  We want to hear from you!

© Etherealmind for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Show 18 – The Pushers Answer Your Questions
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A detailed look at the Big, Hot and Heavy Ethernet Switches with a large crew to talk about their practical experiences on design, selection and performance of Cisco Nexus switches. The result ? We don’t think the Nexus switches are very exciting.

Due to people commitments we recorded a double length show which will be released in two parts. This is Part 2 and Part 1 was released next weekend.

What You’ll Hear…

• On the increase in 10GbE in the Data Centre and what’s driving that. And looking at why we aren’t comfortable with the HP Flex-10 networking module for their blade servers.
• We are planning on using IP Storage, after consulting with the Server team. The cost of FC doesn’t work for us, and FCoE still isn’t here.
• A look at transient traffic loads and how the deployment of VMware DRS changes the way our backbone looks. The importance of dynamic traffic flows to VMware and what we need to do to support that.
• We take a detailed and critical look at what Cisco doesn’t tell you about the Nexus 7000 – the bad things, the missing features such as QoS, MPLS and lack of value. Not to mention the generally underwhelming performance of the product. Also, it’s big, it uses a lot of power and runs hot.

You can find Jeremy Filliben at http://jeremyfilliben.com and @jfilliben.

You can find Steve Rossen on @steve

You can find Ivan Pepelnjak at http://ioshints.info and on @ioshints.

IOS Hints Live – San Jose September 2010

You can book to join the event at ioshintsdatacenter.eventbrite.com/. There are only a limited number of seats at this unique event where Ivan Pepelnjak and Greg Ferro will both be available to discuss, review and develop your designs.

Feedback

Follow the Packet Pushers on Twitter (@packetpushers | Greg @etherealmind | Dan@rovingengineer | Ethan @ecbanks) and send your queries and comments about the show to packetpushers@gmail.com.  We want to hear from you!

© Etherealmind for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Show 17 – Big Hot and Heavy Switches – Part 2
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The Content

We talked briefly about MIMO antennas for 802.11n when used outdoors.

And then how to start learning about Wireless Networking. The most important thing to learn is a working knowledge of Radio Frequency and signal propagation.

The best place to start to learn is cwnp.com. It’s vendor neutral and highly recommended. Other recommended blogs and podcasts can be found at:

wlanpros.com

www.my80211.com

One of the best blogs is Jerome Henry wirelessccie.blogspot.com who is a Cisco Wireless CCIE.

And we touched on some common mistakes that people can make when they are starting out in wireless networking.

The Guests

Craig Schnarrs is at thewifiguy.net and @the_wifi_guy

Jeff Russell doesn’t have a Twitter account or a blog. Yet.

The Hosts

Jennifer Huber is @jenniferlucille and her blog jenniferhuber.blogspot.com

Greg @etherealmind and EtherealMind.com

Feedback

Send your queries and comments about the show to packetpushers@gmail.com.  We want to hear from you!

© Etherealmind for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Unplugged – Show 1 – Lugging That Damn AP
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A detailed look at the Big, Hot and Heavy Ethernet Switches with a large crew to talk about their practical experiences on design, selection and performance of Cisco Nexus switches. The result ? We don’t think the Nexus switches are very exciting, HP Flex10 modules are a problem, and so much more.

Due to people commitments we recorded a double length show which will be released in two parts. This is Part 1 and Part 2 will be released next weekend.

VSS & vPC – the real experience

We started with a look at the differences between Cisco’s Virtual Switching System (VSS) and their Virtual Port Channel (vPC) implementation of Multi-Chassis Etherchannel and what our preferences are for choosing and implementing. We like vPC both from a design and implementation perspectives but our experiences of VSS have been very poor and we don’t choose to use it in the Data Centre. In practical way we don’t like the way that VSS is conceptually the same as a stackable switch.

We also don’t have much time on the Catalyst 4500 because they aren’t used in our designs. Also, there are too many modules and Supervisors, and the technology is confusing. The lack of architecture information is poor.

Cisco Fabric Extender switches

We had a short look at the QoS implementation on the Cat6500, and expressed our dissatisfaction with the configuration and consistency of the implementation and some surprising tips on how to solve the QoS problem.

Service Modules

We discuss the use of Service Modules in the C6500 chassis and our experiences.

The Guests

You can find Jeremy Filliben at http://jeremyfilliben.com and @jfilliben.

You can find Steve Rossen on @steve

You can find Ivan Pepelnjak at http://ioshints.info and on @ioshints.

IOS Hints Live – San Jose September 2010

You can book to join the event at ioshintsdatacenter.eventbrite.com/. There are only a limited number of seats at this unique event where Ivan Pepelnjak and Greg Ferro will both be available to discuss, review and develop your designs.

Feedback

Follow the Packet Pushers on Twitter (@packetpushers | Greg @etherealmind | Dan@rovingengineer | Ethan @ecbanks) and send your queries and comments about the show to packetpushers@gmail.com.  We want to hear from you!

© Etherealmind for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Show 16 – Big Hot and Heavy Switches – Part 1
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Following the career discussions in some of our earlier podcasts, and his recent Blog Post “So you Want to be a Network Consultant” Kevin Bovis got in touch with me to talk about what sort of skills an engineer needs. We decided to record the discussion and so you have even more Networking in your ears.

The Show

Kevin is the Technical Services Manager for a Cisco Gold partner Cisilion and manages a reasonable sized team of Network Engineers. Kevin is also a Cisco CCIE #1578 and is still currently certified.

Because Kevin manages a team of engineers and regularly interviews and hires engineer, those looking at their career progression should enjoy listening to the show.

Feedback

Follow the Packet Pushers on Twitter (@packetpushers | Greg @etherealmind and send your queries and comments about the show to packetpushers@gmail.com.  We want to hear from you!

© Etherealmind for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Runt Packet No 5 – A Technical Services Manager Speaks
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What You’ll Hear

This week, security author, trainer, conference speaker, and consultant Raven Alder adds her bright star to the Packet Pushers constellation.  Her wit and wisdom are joined by data center geek and repeat guest Josh O’Brien, along with regulars Greg and Ethan.  Dan was sidelined unexpectedly, but plans to be back next time.

• They say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Pushers ponder this maxim as Chairman, CEO, and El Presidente Mark Hurd gets the oust at HP for certain indiscretions. Was he an extraordinary leader, or just a corporate figurehead?  Will HP’s stockholders miss him?  We think the board would have kept him if he mattered, indiscretions notwithstanding.
• Australian transportation giant RailCorp announces plans to migrate from ATM to IP.  A stunned silence ensues, and then we burst into discussion about why old equipment lives longer than it should.
• Cisco’s ACE Web Application Firewall gets two in the hat.  While no one mourns the passing of this unloved product, we wonder why Cisco opted to leave the WAF market.  Security strategy, where are thou? Thanks for the tip, Ivan.
• Raven disappears down the rabbit hole, and the Pushers follow her to Web Application Firewall wonderland.  This deep-dive discussion explains what a WAF is, who needs to deploy a WAF, where a WAF fits in a defense-in-depth strategy, common WAF deployment mistakes, and why you need Raven on speed-dial.

Feedback

Follow the Packet Pushers on Twitter (@packetpushers | Greg @etherealmind | Dan@rovingengineer | Ethan @ecbanks) and send your queries and comments about the show to packetpushers@gmail.com.  We want to hear from you!

© Etherealmind for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Show 15 – Saving the Web With Dinky Putt Putt Firewalls
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Greg has asked Doug Gourlay from Arista Networks to get his feet under the workbench and talk about Arista Networks. A reasonably new vendor to community, Arista have a unique approach to building Ethernet switches that are software driven for enhanced data centre management and better operation.

Arista Networks have interested me for some time because their hardware architecture is very different from traditional network equipment, with a focus on their EoS software platform being consistent across the entire product line. We didn’t have time to talk in more detail but either contact Arista to learn more about their product, or get in contact by leaving a comment or use the contact form, and I can schedule more time.

You can check out Arista Networks or follow Doug on Twitter at .

Follow the Packet Pushers on Twitter (@packetpushers | Greg @etherealmind | @ecbanks) and send your queries and comments about the show to packetpushers@gmail.com.

We want to hear from you!

© Etherealmind for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Runt Packet – Arista Networks and Data Centre Switching
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Jennifer Huber pulls up a chair at the workbench this week. Her experience and knowledge of in wireless networking is quite awesome.

Feedback

Follow the Packet Pushers on Twitter (@packetpushers | Greg @etherealmind | Dan @rovingengineer | Ethan @ecbanks) and send your queries and comments about the show to packetpushers@gmail.com.  We want to hear from you!

© Etherealmind for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Show 14 – Bum Bugling on Cisco Clean Air
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