Network Break 194: Amazon Spooks Switch Vendors; Big Switch Brings VPCs On Prem

On the Packet Pushers’ Network Break podcast, Greg Ferro features Networking Field Day 18 presenting sponsor Big Switch and their new software designed to enable VPC-like networking in private data centers.


OpenContrail & dNOS Join The Linux Foundation, Get New Names

Drew Conry-Murray highlights the addition of two projects to the Linux Foundation, OpenContrail and dNOS. Drew got to hear about developments on OpenContrail at Networking Field Day from Juniper Networks, which is an open source derivation of their proprietary Contrail software. Drew isn’t sure if either project will become a major disruptor in the enterprise networking space, but he thinks the increasing move to open sourcing these projects will lead to “breaking the stranglehold of legacy vendors on how networks are built and operated.”


Juniper Woos The Enterprise With New Products

In this post, Drew Conry-Murray details the new offerings from Juniper Networks around multicloud networking. This comes from Drew’s most recent experience as a delegate at Networking Field Day last month.


BiB 029: Cisco At NFD17 – Automation, Telemetry & Intent

In this episode of Briefings in Brief, Drew Conry-Murray and Greg Ferro discuss what they heard from Cisco during their Networking Field Day presentation last month. Like much of the networking world, Cisco focused on how they are bringing intent, automation, and telemetry into their ecosystem.


BiB 028: VMware NSX At NFD17 – SD-WAN & Security

In this episode of Briefings in Brief, Drew Conry-Murray and Greg Ferro discuss what they saw from VMware’s NSX team at Networking Field Day last month. They touch on the company’s update on VeloCloud post-acquisition, NSX-T features, and a look at the latest version of vSphere.


BiB 027: Juniper Networks At NFD17 – A Platform Emerges

In this episode of Briefings in Brief, Drew Conry-Murray and Greg Ferro discuss the presentation from Juniper Networks at last month’s Networking Field Day. The company demoed their analytics platform AppFormix, clarified the divergence of Contrail from OpenContrail, and discussed the adoption of the P4 language across a variety of hardware.


BiB 30: Mellanox, Ixia & Cumulus At NFD17 – VXLAN & Whitebox

In this episode of Briefings in Brief, Drew Conry-Murray and Greg Ferro discuss what they saw from Mellanox, Ixia and, Cumulus Networks at Networking Field Day last month. Mellanox reviewed their switch portfolio, which can run a third-party OS like Cumulus Networks’ Cumulus Linux network OS. Ixia showed off IxNetwork, their flagship testing suite.


Off the Cuff – NFD17 Wrap Up

In the most recent “Off the Cuff” episode of Network Collective, the crew discussed what they saw at Networking Field Day last week. What happens when six delegates sit on a podcast together? Magic!


BiB 26: Extreme Networks At NFD17 – Composing Workflows For Mean Time To Payrise

Greg Ferro and Drew Conry-Murray posted a Briefings in Brief episode on what they saw from Extreme Networks at Networking Field Day last week. They focus on their presentation reviewing their automation efforts with StackStorm and Workflow Composer. Once you listen to the episode, be sure the checkout the full video of Extreme Networks presentation for yourself.


BiB 25: ThousandEyes At NFD17 – Expanding Into User Experience

Greg Ferro and Drew Conry-Murray posted a Briefings in Brief episode based on what they saw from ThousandEyes at Networking Field Day last week. They look at how the company is moving away from being strictly a visibility company, and more into monitoring overall customer experience with their internet as a network approach.


BiB 24: Juniper OpenContrail At NFD17 – One Fabric To Bind Them

Greg Ferro and Drew Conry-Murray posted a Briefings in Brief episode on Juniper Networks’ presentation from Networking Field Day last week. They focus on their announcements regarding Contrail. Juniper reviewed the difficulties of fully open sourcing OpenContrail, how Contrail and OpenContrail will diverge going forward, and where they see the commercial product going from here. Once you listen to the episode, be sure to watch the full video of their presentation.


Network Field Day 17: Mark Your Calendars!

Drew Conry-Murray and Greg Ferro from Packet Pushers will be at Networking Field Day next week. They’ll get to drink from the firehouse of presenting companies over the three day event. Remember to follow along on our live stream and tweet out questions with #NFD17.


Startup Veriflow Adds New Intent-Based Capabilities To Its Network Verification Software

At Networking Field Day, Veriflow demonstrated bringing intent-based network verification to the enterprise. Drew Conry-Murray looks at these features, which include using formal verification to build software models to see if your on-site and cloud networks are performing as you intended. Drew likes the fact that its designed for networks as they exist, not positing hypothetical networks an engineer has no way of building within an organization. Ultimately, using these software models puts the onus on organizations to use them effectively for managing networks.


Cisco’s SD-Access: All The Pieces

Drew Conry-Murray gives his thoughts on Cisco’s SD-Access. SD-Access is designed to automate common networking tasks in a campus network and is an ambitious project, but Drew is optimistic. Here, he discusses the supported hardware, the new dashboard DNA Center, as well as three additional pieces: APIC-EM, the Identity Services Engine (ISE), and the Network Data Platform.


Anuta NCX: An Orchestration Platform For Networks

Drew Conry-Murray shares his thoughts on Anuta’s NCX solution, which he saw first hand at Networking Field Day in January. NCX is an orchestration platform designed to simplify a lot of networking drudgery. To do this, high-level models are constructed with Yang, which are then translated into specific device instructions when called upon. It even does device discovery to automatically understand which versioning and configuration on network devices. Key to this, Anuta has a wide list of hardware and software partners NCX supports.


DPDK Project Moves To The Linux Foundation

Drew Conry-Murray the Data Plane Development Kit being brought into the Linux Foundation as an official project. DPDK was originally developed by Intel before being open sourced as a way to accelerate packet processing in CPUs. Drew highlights that DPDK supports not just x86, but a variety of CPU architectures, as well as being able to run on NICs from Broadcom, Cisco, and Mellanox.


PQ Show 106: Whitebox, SD-WAN & More – An NFD14 Wrapup

It’s a Networking Field Day delegate super show on the latest episode of the PQ Show podcast! Greg Ferro, Drew Conry-Murray, Eyvonne Sharp, and Kevin Myers all give their impressions from Networking Field Day from January. SD-WAN, Whitebox networking, analytics, and orchestration are all on the table. Give it a listen and check out our video coverage for more details.


Nyansa Measures Network Performance Using Mobile Devices As Sensors

Drew Conry-Murray shares his thoughts on Nyansa, who presented at Networking Field Day last month. The company has an interesting approach to analytics, they use measure user experience by using mobile device endpoints as sensors, effectively turning any phone, laptop or tablet into a sensor. These on-prem metrics are then sent to Nyansa’s cloud for further analytics and to establish baseline network performance. This can be used to easily assess problems when they deviate from these baselines, and also let you see how performance of your network stacks up to others in your vertical.


Big Switch Networks Extends VMware Visibility, Adds Mesosphere Support

Big Switch Networks presented an vast array of products at Networking Field Day last month. Drew Conry-Murray was there, and he wrote up a look at their Big Cloud Fabric, the company’s SDN software for data centers. In its 4.0 version, Big Cloud now supports vSAN storage in vSphere, continuing the solutions tight VMware integration. It also supports a variety of orchestration platforms, including OpenStack, Kubernetes, and Mesosphere. In this new version, Big Cloud Fabric continues to refine and fill out its offering.


Cumulus Networks Walks A Fine Line With New Switch Hardware

Drew Conry-Murray looks at the implications of Cumulus Networks announcement of Cumulus Express. This is a program whereby Cumulus will sell switch hardware with their Cumulus Linux distribution pre-installed. Drew found it a little surprising that a company that made its name pitching disaggregation would take the approach. He reviews what they’re offering in the product line, and how recent announcements from hardware vendors could use their switch operating system.