In this post, Tom Hollingsworth reviews the Forward Networks presentation about a week in the life of a network engineer from a recent Networking Field Day and how their Network Query Engine can help you get a jump on those totally unexpected problems you’re expecting. For Tom, NQE is the resource network admins can talk to in order to find the information they have to have to make the right decisions. It’s like a network encyclopedia. And any resource that can cut down on time to resolve problems or troubleshoot issues means admins can spend less of their week working on unexpected issues and more time keeping things running smoothly so those issues don’t crop up.
Tom’s Virtual Corner at Cisco Live US 2020
Tom’s Corner at Cisco Live US have become an almost legendary part of Cisco Live US lore. If you’re ever met Tom, you know he’s a people person and love making connections, especially with networking folks. Just because in-person conferences are on hold for a while, doesn’t mean that Tom can’t bring it back. That’s why he’s doing Tom’s Virtual Corner at Cisco Live US 2020. Be sure to join Tom on Zoom any time during meeting running from about 8:00am PT through 1:00pm PT. Check out the post for how to get the invite and we’ll see you there!
Leaving Legacy Behind to Build Better Networks With DriveNets
How do you build a network operating system today that has none of the technical baggage from years past? Can we ever really leave behind the technologies of yesteryear? Tom Hollingsworth reviews the DriveNets Network Operating System and how it modernizes a platform that needs to leave the legacy behind. He got a deep dive on it at Networking Field Day, where they did an architectural over, and showed how they built it from the ground up with microservices in mind.
Pensando Places Programmability First
Programming hardware isn’t easy. Unless you start out with the idea that you’re going to use a language that is easy to adapt to your needs. Tom Hollingsworth looks at the decisions made by Pensando to leverage P4 to extend its platform to adapt to the future needs of its customers. After hearing from the company at Cloud Field Day, Tom sees Pensando in the early stages of making something big, and the power of P4 will make the sky the limit. Their platform is currently shipping with NetApp and HPE systems and likely to see wider adoption, especially in cloud providers.
Ensuring Code Quality With Arista
Are you having issues with code quality? Do you feel like things keep getting worse when you install the latest patch? Maybe the process behind the scenes is broken. Perhaps you need to look at what a good example of code development looks like. Tom Hollingsworth reviews the process from Arista after their presentation at Networking Field Day.
Monitoring Application Performance From the Inside Out With Solarwinds AppOptics
Are you relying on old tools to monitor your modern applications? Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at why you should examine the way you keep an eye on your applications and how your users experience them. At Cloud Field Day, he saw that this is where SolarWinds comes into play. They have spent a great deal of time creating the best tool to handle monitoring of your application from the inside out. Their AppOptics solution does more than just monitor the response time of your pages. It digs deep into the services that compose the application to find out what’s actually going on when users run complicated queries or connect to a node that is having some performance issues.
NGINX Meshes Well With Others
What is a service mesh and how does it help containers? That’s exactly what NGINX went into during their recent Networking Field Day presentation. Tom Hollingsworth wades into the issue in this blog post. As a networking guy, Tom has had to adapt as the data center has changed over the years. The idea of a service mesh was one of the more recent concepts that Tom had to grapple with, and NGINX did a really great job during their presentation laying out what it is, and why it’s so important for the future of networking.
Exorcising Network Ghosts With VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer
Is your networking haunted? Or do you feel like problems are happening and you can’t find them? Who you gonna call? Tom Hollingsworth looks at how VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer can help you bust the ghosts that haunt your network and prove that the problems are floating around somewhere else. While definitely a spooky topic, luckily Tom found VMware’s presentation from Networking Field Day to be anything but.
A Measure of Automation With Juniper Networks
You may be automating all the things, but are you verifying and measuring the outcomes of your automation? You need to be sure before you move forward on your journey. Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at Juniper Networks Contrail Insights and how it can help you make sure you’re automating the right things. Juniper did a deep dive on Contrail Insights at Networking Field Day, showing how a journey to automation is a matter steps. For Tom, Contrail Insights might not be the most exciting step in that journey, but arguably one of the most important.
Cloud Rich Updates in Zerto 8.0
Is the cloud a part of your data protection strategy? Or are you hoping that your box of backup tapes can swim? Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at the latest updates from Zerto in their 8.0 software release, especially those that focus on the cloud. He got to hear about them from our Tech Field Day coverage, where Zerto did a deep dive on their platform and latest release. Protecting data with the cloud isn’t an emerging use case anymore, it needs to be a vital part of any businesses data resiliency plans. Zerto 8.0 building a lot of features and sophistication to make that possible.
Dell EMC SmartFabric Director- Weaving a Tapestry of Green
Are you ready to build your digital transformation project? Need a new network to make it work? Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at Dell EMC SmartFabric Director and how it can help you building out your next new project. He got to hear about SmartFabric Director at Networking Field Day, and thinks that it shows Dell EMC is on the right track for large existing infrastructures that are looking to make leaps toward digital transformation initiatives to get a handle on how to make that happen.
SD-WAN and Technical Debt
At a recent discussion with delegates at Networking Field Day, Tom Hollingsworth wondered why SD-WAN startups have been able to be so aggressive with innovating in the space, while established networking companies have struggled to keep up. This is endemic of the technical debt a lot of larger organizations carry. He considers something like Cisco’s IWAN, in many ways a precursor to modern SD-WAN. This ended up being complicated and hard to deploy because of many of the technology decisions that Cisco made years ago, resulting in both a software and hardware supply chain constraints on IWAN. Compare this to a startup, like the recent Networking Field Day presenter CloudGenix, who could design a solution around a desired functionality, rather than with a set of constraints inherited as technical debt. This SD-WAN example is just one way of looking at the role of technical debt in product development for large organizations.
Itential – The Network Glue You Need
How can you ensure your automation project doesn’t fall apart when you need to interface with APIs? Have you considered using the right glue to tie it all together? Tom Hollingsworth looks back at Itential’s presentation from Networking Field Day and how they are the glue you need to make automation happen. The company was founded to manage all the automation issues facing organizations today, by creating a standard interface to deal with the surfeit of API languages out there. Their Itential Automation Platform works with third-parties to build connectors that interface with the applications and devices on your network.
Moving Past the Edge With Aruba SD-Branch
How is SD-Branch different than SD-WAN? What features do you get that would make you want to implement one over the other? Tom Hollingsworth heard from Aruba recently at Networking Field Day looks at their implementation of SD-Branch and how it’s enabling IT teams to be more powerful past the edge. For Tom, we’re already living in the post-WAN world. The kind of holistic approach that Aruba takes with SD-Branch is what organizations need to get end-to-end control of their infrastructure.
What Is Closed-Loop Automation?
Tom Hollingsworth noticed that the term “closed-loop automation” was used a lot during a recent Networking Field Day event. This was presented as the desired end state for a lot of network automation efforts. In this post, Tom breaks down what is actually meant by the term. He contrasts this with open-loop systems, and lays out why closed-loop automation holds such allure. Overall Tom is excited at the prospect, but warns that running such an autonomous network means keeping on top of control systems to keep things running smoothly.
The Power of Communities – An Interview With David Penaloza Seijas
Your community defines who you are. But for some, the community is defined by who they are as well. In this video, Tom Hollingsworth interviews David Peneloza Seijas and discusses his role in Cisco Live, Cisco Champions, and Tech Field Day. The passion that David has for this community shines through the entire interview, and Tom really found him to be a beacon for new members to latch on to. David is definitely a champion that Tom wants to try to emulate with his own work in the Tech Field Day community.
Fast Friday – Networking Field Day 22 Thoughts
Tom Hollinsworth is a traveling man, organizing Networking Field Day and then heading out to RSA Conference in the same month. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t updating his blog. In this post, he shares a few short takes on networking, including how startups have the flexibility to not be tied to technical debt, the difficulties of product integration, why we haven’t solved the Wi-Fi registration problem, and why looking at CLI through the lens of nostalgia covers up the reality of modern network complexity. If you’re not subscribed to Tom’s blog, you’re missing out!
Does SPB Mean “Secure Path Bridging”?
The spanning tree protocol, or SPB, never really went away. But the landscape it was built to work in changed radically. Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at where SPB is now and discusses how the new steward, Extreme Networks, is positioning SPB to secure IoT and more in the data center and campus. He got to hear a deep dive on this during Networking Field Day. Get the background from Tom’s post, then be sure to dig into all of their video coverage from the event.
Answers at Your Fingertips With Forward Networks
After hearing again from Forward Networks at Networking Field Day, Tom Hollingsworth considers the implications of their Network Query Engine in this post. This effectively provides a way to ask the network for the answers by looking into the database of network configuration. This is vitally needed to provide reliability for critical cloud services, rather they relying on the old model of each networking standing as an island of configuration settings just waiting to cause unforeseen interactions. As network’s grow more complex at ever increasing rates, Forward Network approach lets admins find meaningful answers and solve this configuration conundrum.