Using OmniFocus for CCDE Study

A reader asked how I use OmniFocus to help with studying for certification exams. Here’s how I’m using OmniFocus to help with CCDE study. This may not be the ‘best’...

Network Field Day 8 - I'm Going!

I am lucky enough to be invited to attend Network Field Day 8 this September, in Silicon Valley. For 3 days, I get to hang out with some of the smartest people...

No Alarms May Not Mean No Problems

Network monitoring is often a reactive process. Engineers see an alarm, and take action. Alarms mean someone broke something, and it needs attention. Deal with the alarms, and all will...

Who Said Comments Are Dead?

We don’t see as many comments on blog posts these days, as most discussion has moved to other forums, such as Twitter or Google+. But this doesn’t mean that comments...

HPN Script Repository on GitHub

Dobias van Ingen is working to get an HP Networking scripting community together. This is to take advantage of various HPN scripting capabilities, such as:

SNMP Counters - Collection Interval Variation

Counter data types are commonly used in SNMP monitoring. They are extremely useful, but there’s a couple of caveats around how to use them. Here’s a couple of issues I’ve...

CloudFlare: That Was Easy

I switched this blog over to using CloudFlare a few days ago. It’s all been pretty painless, and I highly recommend it to others.

APNIC - final 'final' /22 now available

APNIC entered their “final /8” phase in April 2011. From that time, new and existing APNIC members could request a maximum of one IPv4 /22 prefix. Once you had requested...

Using Paramiko/Python with FortiMail

Fortinet makes an email security/anti-spam appliance called FortiMail. I wanted to collect spam and virus statistics from it, to integrate with our Network Monitoring Systems. Unfortunately the data is not exposed via SNMP or API,...

Cisco Political Comments - Why?

I freely admit to not truly understanding the American political/economic system. Sure, I get the general mechanics of it, but I don’t understand the subtle plays, and why people do certain...

Getting More Information From Your Logs

Packet Pushers normally focuses on networking, but episode 192 covered “Logging Design and Best Practices.”  I often think about logging in the context of network management, so it was good...

Is Cisco Struggling with Their ACI Messaging?

Cisco ACI represents a significant shift in the way we approach networking. This sort of shift will need massive customer education to explain their new vision. I’m getting the impression...