BackBox presented their automation tool at Networking Field Day, focusing primarily on task automation rather than network automation as a whole. By allowing specific tasks, such as backups, software updates, configuration drift remediation, and compliance checks, to be automated, BackBox eliminates the need for extensive manual labor and thus lessens the potential for errors. With API integrations and external tools for reporting, alerting and inventory, BackBox forms the groundwork that can be coordinated with other automation tools to build a comprehensive network automation strategy. Read the entire article by Gian Paolo Boarina to learn more about BackBox!
NFD31 Delegate
Gian Paolo Boarina shares his excitement about being a delegate at this week’s Networking Field Day 31. He loves Field Day events as they allow him to stay up-to-date with the latest technology trends and exchange ideas with experts in the field.
NFD23 – Juniper
Delegate Gian Paolo Boarina joined us at Networking Field Day in September. In his blog, he took a look at Juniper Networks (including the acquisition of Mist) and their cloud management and automation. Gian Paolo summarizes his thoughts on their Networking Field Day presentation by saying, “Juniper has a clear view of the roadmap and, very important, execution follows the vision.” For more from Gian Paolo, check out his blog on ifconfig.it!
NFD23 – PathSolutions
As a delegate at Networking Field Day, Gian Paolo Boarina had the opportunity to see PathSolutions present on their network monitoring solution TotalView. He writes that the scalability and broad view of the network make TotalView an intriguing option that he’d love to test out on his own network. Check out Gian Paolo’s article on his blog and the PathSolutions presentations from Networking Field Day on our website!
Home Office Setup for Remote Events on a Budget
If there is one thing that we’ve all had to work through this year, it’s finding a way to improve our our work from home setups without breaking the bank. For our Tech Field Day delegates, that means also having equipment that will help them look and sound their best for the moments that they’ll be on camera for a wide audience. Delegate Gian Paolo Boarina shared how he made his setup work heading into Networking Field Day this year. We thought his setup provided good sound and video quality, but you can be the judge yourself by checking out the Networking Field Day videos on our website!
NFD23 – IPFabric
Delegate Gian Paolo Boarina was impressed with IP Fabric’s presentations at the most recent Networking Field Day. He writes that one of IP Fabric’s strongest advantage is the time it saves its users by automating tasks like collecting network information, updating network diagrams, or troubleshooting configuration consistency. Gian Paolo thinks that all network engineers should try out IP Fabric on their network — and thank him later. To read Gian Paolo’s full analyses of the IP Fabric presentations at Networking Field day, check out his blog!
NFD23 – Arista
This isn’t the first time that Gian Palo Boarina has gotten to see Arista Networks up close and personal. While a delegate at Networking Field Day, he saw them present on a wide variety of topics including CloudVision which he says allows us to “enjoy all the benefits of a unified platform for management, automation and visibility without the burden to manage all the necessary systems.” He writes about his thoughts and observations on Arista on his blog. Be sure to check out Arista Network’s full slate of presentations on our website!
NFD23 – CatchPoint
As a delegate Gian Paolo Boarina had the chance to see Catchpoint present earlier this month at Networking Field Day and was impressed with their Digital Experience Monitoring platform. He writes that Catchpoint is a tool every Ops team might want to have because it provides visibility and analytics in a simple way to help diagnose connectivity problems. Through a dynamic presentation and demo, Catchpoint was able to showcase their monitoring product. Be sure to check out Catchpoint’s presentation and demo as well as Gian Paolo’s thoughts on his blog.
Cisco Live Europe 2019 Barcelona
Gian Paolo was at Cisco Live Europe last month. At the event, he got to network with new contact and old acquaintances, learn about ACI’s embrace of the cloud, the latest with Cisco’s SD-WAN, and get involved with DevNet. But he also can’t wait to watch the videos from Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe. He’ll be catching up on them on his lunch breaks in the coming weeks, be watch along on all the presentations too.
What is Cisco ACI?
Gian Paolo Boarina heard a lot about Cisco ACI at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe this year. This has come in handy since he’s been migrating traditional switches to Cisco ACI fabric. In this post, he looks at what exactly is ACI from the perspective of a different roles, including networking, security, and DevOps. Overall in working with Cisco ACI, Gian has found he’s needed less time configuring switches, and more time focusing on business intent.
Cisco Candid
Based on what he saw of Cisco’s Network Assurance Engine at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe this year, Gian Paolo Boarina wrote up a thorough post covering some of it’s capabilities and implications for network admins.
Security Assurance in the Data Center with Cisco Candid
In this piece, Gian Paolo Boarina takes a look at Cisco’s Network Assurance Engine, which debuted at Cisco Live Europe earlier this year. He shows how this can provide configuration and state validation as well as security compliance testing for an ACI fabric.
NFD16 day two – Cisco Project Starship a.k.a. Intersight
Gian Paolo Boarina takes a look at the debut of Cisco Intersight, which he saw at Networking Field Day last month. This allows for admins to manage remote servers via a Cisco SaaS portal, including UCS B-Series servers, C-Series servers, and HyperFlex. Gian sees as allowing MSPs and system integrators to more easily scale, as they can monitor and manage their servers through a single dashboard.
NFD16 day two – Apstra
Apstra defines “intent” for their IDN solution as “the definition of the expected outcome”. After seeing their Networking Field Day presentation, Gian Paolo Boarina appreciated their ease of use, without sacrificing important features like robust configuration validation. Instead of merely backing up different device configuration throughout the network, Apstra has designed a “snapshot of intent” that generates configurations as needed to fit it. Its a powerful model, albeit one that calls for substantial trust.
NFD16 day one – Arista
Arista’s Networking Field Day presentation definitely struck a chord with many delegates. Gian Paolo Boarina is no exception. In this post, he highlights some of the topics covered, including EOS programmability, Network Automation, Telemetry, and Routing Architecture Transformations. Gian sees Arista really differentiating from competitors with their approach to programmability and telemetry, with the latter offering a clear, fast, easy to use GUI.
Network Field Day 16
Gian Paolo Boarina returned from his first Networking Field Day event having seen presentations from eight different companies. The topics ranged from network visibility, to analytics, intent-based networking, SDN, and more. We’re looking forward to hearing Gian’s impressions of each!
NFD16 delegate
We were very excited to be able to have Gian Paolo Boarina join us at Networking Field Day last week. We’re looking forward to seeing his reactions to the presenting companies after his first event. It’s always interesting to get the perspective of someone drinking straight from the firehose for the first time.
NFD16 day one – Veriflow
Gian Paolo got a look at Veriflow’s formal verification of networks at Networking Field Day last week. This works by collecting control plane information, not actual data or flows, to build a normalized model of how the network should be operating. This can be used with their policy tools to create an intent-based networking solution. Gian was impressed (calling it “a great product), but would like to see integration with Netflow/IPFIX data to validate the models on their roadmap.
Gian Paolo Boarina
Senior Technical Advisor, CCIE[EI]#38619(10y) experienced in routing, switching, wireless, security and cloud.
