@BrandonCarroll Archives - Tech Field Day

Riverbed Showcases SD-WAN Enhancements at Network Field Day 19

Riverbed presented at Networking Field Day earlier this year, being no stranger to the event. To get their perspective on it, be sure to read former-delegate Brandon Carroll’s post on the Riverbed blog. They introduced their SD-WAN 2.0 to the delegates, in conjunction with SteelHead SD. This delivers SD-WAN with a robust feature set to provide security and flexibility without sacrificing performance. Make sure to watch their presentation video to see Brandon give a full demo.

Why Should You Be A Field Day Delegate?

What are the benefits of being a Tech Field Day delegate? Brandon Carroll wrote up a very thoughtful piece on the subject. While the event didn’t “make” his career, it did allow it to go to new heights, thanks to the networking and knowledge gained. Though Brandon is now on the vendor side of the aisle, it’s always great to hear the value that people get from coming to our events.

How to quickly deploy Riverbed’s Xirrus wireless solution

Brandon Carroll reviews how to get up and running quickly with Riverbed’s Xirrus solution. This is a cloud-based wireless system, which impressed Brandon with its overall ease of use. He walks through creating a network, as well as adding and configuring access points.

How to deploy SkySecure hyperconverged infrastructure

Skyport Systems offers a HCI solution that allows for true cloud-management for on-site applications and workloads that can’t be moved to the cloud. Brandon Carroll looks at how the company has built a secure system from the ground up, starting with their hardware that is tamper resistant and has no management interface on the appliance itself. This article walks through how to fully deploy Skyport’s solution while maintaining and verifying inherent security.

How to get started with OpenConfig and YANG models

Most people agree that automation is the way of the future in enterprise networking, but getting to that point is much more problematic. Brandon Carroll gives an introduction on how to do this in open networking environments with OpenConfig. This vendor-neutral approach uses the data modeling language YANG to create a single model for your automation. This allows admins to not have to dig into individual CLI interfaces for each network device. Brandon’s only drawback to this approach isn’t technical, but rather organizational. Once an IT staff embraces automation, the technical merits become obvious.

Cisco Gives SP Customers Programability Features in IOS-XR

At Tech Field Day last week Brandon Carroll found that Cisco has made big strides in network programmability with their IOS-XR using OpenConfig. Instead of forcing customers into using Cisco Works, Brandon thinks this could open up network programmability to a new market.

Lofty Goals for The Campus Core: Aruba 8400 Series and OS-CX

Brandon Carroll shares his thoughts on Aruba’s new 8400 Switch series, which he saw at a Networking Field Day Exclusive event. Brandon thinks Aruba has done a good job on the hardware side of designing a switch for Campus Aggregation & Core L2/L3 Ethernet deployments. The switch is powered by the Linux based OS-CX, which allows for full programmability and features a well thought out web GUI.

Cisco SDA – Moving Software Defined to the Access Layer

Brandon Carroll attended Cisco Live US and Tech Field Day Extra where he saw a presentation on Cisco’s “The Network Intuitive.” Here, he describes what Software-Defined Access is and how it works as well as what he thinks of Cisco’s plan. He writes, “Complex network functions could be simplified if Cisco truly delivers SD-Access in they way they’ve described it… this could be a turning point for Cisco where they have a serious opportunity to be leaders in software defined network.”

Do We Really Need SSL Decryption?

Brandon Carroll doesn’t mince words. He thinks passing SSL traffic through the firewall without decrypting is akin to walking into “a war with a gun thats half loaded”. To that end, he was impressed with what he saw from Gigamon at Networking Field Day earlier this month. Their GigaSECURE Network Visibility Platform serves as a trusted man-in-the-middle to handle decryption, and to flag traffic that can’t be verified as secure.

Who is IP Infusion and Why Have You Never Heard of Them?

Brandon Carroll takes a look at IP Infusion, who presented at Networking Field Day earlier this month. The company has been around since 1999, and you may already be more familiar with their networking OS, ZebOS, than the company itself. That may largely be because of their OEM focus, but Brandon found their excited presentation quite interesting. They’ve recently thrown their hat in the disaggregation ring by offering OcNOS, a white box switch OS, and VirNOS, a virtual network OS. You may not have heard of them before, but they are definitely a company worth your interest.

Presenting Vendor Preview: Gigamon

Brandon Carroll gives us a preview of what to expect from Gigamon at Networking Field Day this week. He first saw a presentation from them at Networking Field Day all the way back in 2011. He’s really interested in learning more about their security delivery platform, GigaSECURE solution. Check out the live stream of all presentation right here to find out! Plus join the conversation on Twitter with #NFD15.

Presenting Vendor Preview: PNDA

Brandon Carroll gives us another preview of a presentation from Networking Field Day this week. This time he’s looking at PNDA. Sadly this is not an evolution on the personal digital assistant. Instead, it’s an open source scalable analytics platform, which is probably a lot more useful.

Presenting Vendor Preview: IP Infusion

Brandon Carroll reviews what to expect from IP Infusion. It’s their first presentation at a Networking Field Day event, and we’re excited to see what they’ll have on tap. Brandon is interested to see how they differentiate themselves in the network operating system space.

Presenting Vendor Preview: TELoIP

Brandon Carroll gives a preview of TELoIP, one of the presenting companies at Networking Field Day next week. They are an SD-WAN and WAN Orchestration provider. He’s really interesting in what makes their SD-WAN approach stand out. SD-WAN is now an established product in the enterprise, so Brandon is interested in their differentiation. If you want to watch along, check out the live stream during the event, or check back after for full video coverage.

Privileged to be invited to NFD15

This will be Brandon Carroll’s tenth Networking Field Day, and he’s excited. He’s looking forward to hearing more from Gigamon, IP Infusion, TELoIP, and VMware, along with catching up with other delegates, and meeting new faces. Make sure to watch along with Brandon on the live stream, and join in the conversation on Twitter using #NFD15.

Riverbed SteelConnect: A Formidable Networking Solution!

Brandon Carroll wrote up his thoughts on the Riverbed SteelConnect, as featured at Tech Field Day Extra at ONUG in October. He seemed impressed with its ease of install and initial configuration. He further walks through the SteelConnect Manager, which features some impressive social media integrations for use as a login service provider. His overall take away: very simple yet very powerful.