Rant: Just stop it with the TFTP

TFTP was first defined in 1980. That is a very long time ago in IT, and while it’s had a good run, it’s time for network engineers to stop using...

Vocus Acquisition of FX: Good for Customers?

Consolidation is happening in the New Zealand wholesale ISP market, with Vocus acquiring FX. Consolidation can lead to less competition, or it can strengthen it, by making players stronger and...

CPUG, and The Risk of Single-Admin Communities

CPUG, a Check Point user forum, is near death. The owner has been forced to get rid of it, but rather doing a graceful handover, it has been shut down...

HP OMW: Still Kicking, But Only Just

A year ago I asked “Has HP Abandoned Operations Manager?” There had been no significant development for a long time, and the signs were that HP was moving away from...

HP NNMi 10.00 Released

HP NNMi version 10.0 has been released. This is a good release, with many usability enhancements. I’m pleased to see continued development, as the future nirvana of all-powerful software defined networks...

Screen Scraping: Still Sucks

I’ve written before about “Why Screen Scraping Sucks.” Well, I can report that nothing has changed. It still sucks. This time I got caught out by the changed behaviour of...

War Stories: Gratuitous ARP and VRRP

This article is Part 6 in a 12-Part Series. Part 1 - War Stories: Loops that Permanently Broke the Network Part 2 - War Stories: Switches Lying about Duplex Mismatches...

What Happens When 20 Programs Poll The Network?

Packetpushers show 198 was a great episode about Network Automation. At one point, Greg asks:

ScienceLogic Global Network Manager

ScienceLogic 7.5 includes many enhancements and new features. One I’m interested in is “Global Manager” which can be used to massively scale out the ScienceLogic architecture. Here’s some more detail on...

HP2910al - Memory Leak with W.15.14.0007?

I have an HP 2910al switch in my lab. I was running firmware version W.15.12.0012, but needed to upgrade, to fix a bug where “~” gets added to the snmp...

HP Network Simulator - VirtualBox Version Issue

HP has released an updated Network Simulator. This uses VirtualBox to provide a hypervisor, as opposed to QEMU in earlier versions. When I tried it previously, it was unusably slow....

Network Gear Pricing - Software vs Hardware

Network equipment pricing has traditionally been based around hardware, even though most of the cost comes from the software. Trends such as bare-metal switching will clarify this cost/price relationship. But are we...