Archive of posts with year '2015'
Brocade tightened up some SNMP settings with NOS 6.0.x. This improves security, but it also means that you will need to modify your configuration if you upgrade. If you don’t,...
I loathe MRTG graphs. They were cool in 2000, but now they’re showing their age. We have much better visualisation tools available, and we don’t need to be so aggressive...
I work from home these days. Therefore it’s important that I have a decent desk setup. My previous setup was pretty crappy, but I only worked from home part-time. I’ve...
Brocade Network Advisor (BNA) has a REST API for accessing Fibre Channel-related data. The documentation includes a sample Python script showing how to connect to the API to retrieve Fabric info....
This article is Part 10 in a 12-Part Series. Part 1 - War Stories: Loops that Permanently Broke the Network Part 2 - War Stories: Switches Lying about Duplex Mismatches...
Apple’s 2015 WWDC event included a great session on IPv6 & TCP changes coming with iOS 9. There is a related post to the IETF v6ops mailing list here. The...
The Docker/shipping container metaphor is overdone. I don’t think people have fully thought through what it might mean if containers do the same thing to computing as they did to shipping....
This article is Part 9 in a 12-Part Series. Part 1 - War Stories: Loops that Permanently Broke the Network Part 2 - War Stories: Switches Lying about Duplex Mismatches...
PyNOS v1.1 has been published. This is a python library that simplifies automating Brocade VDX systems. It is built on top of ncclient, and uses NETCONF to communicate with the VDX...
Fluke Networks recently released TruView Live, a subscription-based service for monitoring internal & external applications. Tests can run from Fluke-managed cloud locations, your own systems, or from dedicated hardware appliances. I’ve been...
Here’s a couple of quick hacks for working with Brocade Network Advisor. It’s unsupported, but you can run BNA on Ubuntu. You can also suppress the client-side JRE version mismatch...
I made a conscious decision to move away from full-time information security work. I retain an interest, and try to keep up with developments, but I don’t want to be...
I have been investigating a problem where an application would install on RHEL/CentOS, but not on Ubuntu. I tracked it down to a problem with shell scripts that assumed that /bin/sh...
HP IMC 7.1 E0303P13 does not support configuration backups for Brocade MLX & VDX devices. But they do have an extensible model, so it’s easy to add support. Here’s how...
ipv6-test.com is a useful site for testing IPv4 & IPv6 connectivity. It checks that v4 & v6 are working as expected, and reports your browser v4/v6 preferences. It does have one...
It’s 2015. ARIN is finally out of IPv4 addresses, more than 20% of Google users in the US are using IPv6…and vendors are still doing a half-assed job with IPv6...
Can we broadly separate Networking into Pioneers, Settlers, and Town Planners? I’ve been thinking about how to apply Simon Wardley’s PST model to networking. This leads to thinking about how...
Let’s say you’ve been offered a new job. $70k base salary, with up to $20k per year extra for on-call duties. Great! $90k! That’s $10k more than my salary now! Sign me...
If you’ve visited the Brocade website recently, you’ve probably seen the “Free NFV Certification” banner. I signed up for this several months ago, but had put off completing the course. I...
I get frustrated by those who take a narrow view of technology, and progress in general. They see things in terms of where they are now, and where they were....
I am happy to announce that I am now a Product Manager at Brocade. This is a big move for me, and one I am very excited about. I will get to work...
Check Point Identity Awareness is problematic in environments that have multiple customers, overlapping private address space, and NAT. It can be done, if you understand the traffic flows, the connections needed,...
This week’s lesson: Be consistent with your vendor naming when working with HP IMC Custom Device Adapters. When you create the new adapter directory, use exactly the same vendor name...
I have been having issues using the F5 APM client behind a Juniper SRX-110 using hide NAT. I believe I’ve tracked it down to the default timeout settings used for...
Trigger warning for Check Point haters: I’m about to say nice things about Check Point.
I got caught out by Check Point’s “Install On” column recently. Most people don’t need this setting any more, but it’s still there for legacy reasons. Time to re-evaluate.
Last year I wrote about the IPv4 Address Transfer Process. Recently I was involved in another IPv4 transfer. I was surprised to see that IPv4 prices have fallen in the...
Recently I’ve been musing on IT Generalists vs Specialists. We used to have more generalist roles, covering all parts of the stack. ITIL then pushed us towards greater specialisation. I...
NetBeez presented at Network Field Day 9, where they showed us their solution for distributed network performance monitoring. They gave the delegates a NetBeez agent to take home and test....
I have used the ”Solarized” colour scheme on my Mac for several years. This is:
I’m fundamentally lazy. That’s why automation appeals: less work for me. Get the machine to do it instead. But automating everything isn’t always the right answer. Sometimes you need to...
This article is Part 7 in a 7-Part Series. Part 1 - CCIE Preparation: Commitment Part 2 - CCIE Preparation: Study Processes and Scheduling Part 3 - CCIE Preparation: Vendors...
Recently @BobMcCouch posted a photo of the contents of his bags. He’s got a lot of gear, including a hammer, and a dent-puller. He assures us that it’s for lifting tiles, but...
Just a quick note about a problem I ran into with adding data groups to an F5 system using tmsh. I wanted to add a string data group containing a list...
Check Point firewall upgrades have always been painful. The loss of connection state is a big part of this. Existing connections stop working, and many applications need restart. It looks like...
HP IMC installation is normally a manual process, with plenty of clickey clickey clickey. This is OK for production systems, as most sites will only have one or maybe two IMC servers....
The New Zealand ISP market is dominated by Spark, Vodafone & CallPus/Orcon. A side effect of this is that if one player does the Right Thing™, it really moves the...
IPv6 adoption has been slow. But I think it’s reaching a tipping point. I’m very close to calling 2015 “The year of IPv6.” There’s plenty of people who won’t believe...
Monitoring needs to move on from traditional fault and performance polling. It should include identifying common misconfigurations and known faults. We’re all using the same technologies, so we’ve all got the...
VeloCloud was the first presenter at Network Field Day 9. They are one of the new breed of SD-WAN vendors. I’m impressed by what they’re doing, and and the potential it...
Cumulus Networks gave a great presentation at Network Field Day 9. They presented their vision of how they’re working to improve networking. But they were also clear about what they...
We all know that “Change is Hard.” But often we, as engineers, focus on the technical aspects of that change. How do I minimise customer impact while upgrading those routers?...
You know I’m not the biggest fan of vendor clubs (or influencer marketing programs, call them what you like). But if you’re going to do it, you might as well do...
The problem with obtaining certifications is that you need to renew them. CCIE is no different - I first passed the lab in September 2012, and I was overdue for...
IPv6 has been around a fair while, and we’re constantly encouraged to learn it and use it. I agree with the sentiment, but it’s been hard for most users when...
Software Defined WAN, or SD-WAN, looks to be a theme of Network Field Day 9, with presenters such as CloudGenix and VeloCloud showing us their offerings. At first glance, SD-WAN...
Just a quick note to say that Big Switch have updated their demo lab system. This is an entirely virtual lab environment that simulates a Big Switch network. You can...
The “consumerisation of IT” has an interesting side-effect. Historically people mainly used computers for work. But now that many people have smartphones, tablets and laptops at home, their perception and understanding of technology...
I’m reviewing the presenters for Network Field Day 9, in particular looking at those I’m not familiar with. NetBeez is one of those making their first Tech Field Day appearance....
As some of my readers know, I’ve done a fair bit of bike touring. Two of the challenges of bike touring are riding uphill, and riding into headwinds.
I had a fantastic time at Network Field Day 8, and now I’ve been lucky enough to be invited back to NFD9 this February.
