In this post, Marina Ferreira details how she used the Cumulus Linux Demo Framework from Cumulus Networks to built her own spine and leaf architecture in about ten minutes. She was impressed by the amount of work being done in the background, even if the setup did require a bit of Linux backend knowledge. It also uses a Ansible playbook to push the configuration to the spine and leafs, as well as adding new interfaces. Along with a healthy amount of demos, she found this whiteboard session by Pete Lumbis at Networking Field Day to be invaluable.
Getting Out From Under the Policy Boulder with Juniper’s Contrail Policy Framework
Rich Stroffolino looks at Juniper Networks Contrail and how it can be used to scale policy management across hybrid networks. He first saw this at their Networking Field Day presentation earlier this year.
Looking at the Internet with ThousandEyes
Rich Stroffolino wrote up an overview of ThousandEyes, based on their presentation at Networking Field Day earlier this year. The company provides an innovative approach for monitoring SaaS app performance. Instead of limiting monitoring to traffic within an organization, they provide a framework to monitor the Internet itself as a network.
Predictable VxLAN EVPN Scale with Mellanox Spectrum
Chris Grundemann takes a look at Mellanox’s Spectrum line of Ethernet switches, as presented at their recent Networking Field Day presentation. Mellanox’s innovative ASIC design allows these switches to scale while maintaining high performance.
Unlocking VXLAN with Mellanox
After seeing Mellanox present at Networking Field Day earlier this year, Tom Hollingsworth looks at how their hardware support for VXLAN could make the dream of fast, extensible and inexpensive ethernet a reality.
Field Area Networking
Cisco’s Networking Field Day presentation on Field Area Networking definitely left an impression with delegate Nick Buraglio. He’s put together a Network Collective Short Take video on the subject, as well as writing up a blog post. He excited because what he saw would provide an alternative to LTE for low power remote IoT devices.
Short Take – Cisco Field Area Networking
At Networking Field Day earlier this year, Cisco presented on field area networking. Nick Buraglio was a delegate at the event, and shares his thoughts on what he saw in this Network Collective Short Take.
Simplifying Network Security with Context-Aware Micro-Segmentation
In this piece, Phil Gervasi reviews VMware’s context-aware micro-segmentation solution built into NSX. He got a deep dive look at this at Networking Field Day this past January. This allows organizations to bring security down to the application itself, which is vital to maintain security on east-west traffic.
Mellanox, Ixia and Cumulus: Part 3
At Networking Field Day, Mellanox presented with their partners Ixia and Cumulus Networks. John Herbert has been giving each company a look in a series of posts, with this final iteration looking at Cumulus. Based on Debian Linux, the company’s Cumulus Linux distribution offers some enticing features for a network operating system. It includes a broad range of hardware support from multiple vendors, and allows both network and linux admins to use the CLI they are most comfortable with for configuration. In the end, John concludes that it’s a “pretty sweet product.”
Mellanox, Ixia and Cumulus: Part 2
John Herbert continues his look at Mellanox’s presentation from Networking Field Day. In this post, he focuses on what he saw from the company’s partner, Ixia. He looks at their IxNetwork, which provides end-to-end network validation. John outlines the novel way IxNetwork does this, and why it could be particularly valuable to service providers.
Mellanox, Ixia and Cumulus: Part 1
John Herbert enjoyed hearing from Mellanox at Networking Field Day earlier this year. They were one of the “behind the scenes” companies that are pervasive, but often unnoticed. They made a case for their Spectrum / Spectrum 2 ASICs for white box vendors, noting considerable performance benefits over competitors.
Extreme Networks SLX Platform – Extremely Easy Analytics
Tom Hollingsworth heard from Extreme Networks at Networking Field Day earlier this year. This piece takes a look at their SLX Platform, which simplifies the process of getting analytic data out of switches.
Some Things I Learned About VeloCloud SD-WAN
Greg Farrow was surprised by what he learned about SD-WAN from VeloCloud’s presentation at Networking Field Day. The surprises included features that look an awful lot like intent-based networking, as well as PCI DSS compliant. It clearly was an eye opening presentation.
Considering The Future Of Juniper’s Contrail And OpenContrail/Tungsten
Greg Farro runs down the implecations of OpenContrail moving from a more Juniper Networks controlled open source project to the Linux Foundation. To accompany this change, OpenContrail is being rebranded to Tungsten Fabric. Greg compares this to what he saw of Juniper’s main Contrail platform, which continues to add features specifically for the enterprise market to make it viable in multi-cloud and hybrid cloud deployments.
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.”
Extreme Automation with Extreme Networks (& StackStorm)
After seeing them at Networking Field Day in January, Chris Grundemann does an extremely good job of limiting the puns, and digging into what made Extreme Networks stand out. He looks at how the company’s StackStorm acquisition laid the groundwork for their current automation solution. In the end, Chris concluded the Extreme Networks is a “formidable networking company”.
Cumulus – Not Your Average Networking
Cumulus Networks presented at Networking Field Day recently with their partner Mellanox. Larry Smith reviews what he saw from the company. Cumulus takes a core Debian Linux OS, and optimizes it to allow network engineers to configure in CLI without having to learn specific Linux commands. The benefit of a Linux core is amplified because the OS supports almost any automation tool a network admin will need.
Secure Multicloud Networking with Contrail
At Networking Field Day, Chris Grundemann got hear the latest updates from Juniper Networks’ Contrail team. The team demonstrated their growing product line, which will feature Contrail Networking, Contrail Security, Contrail Cloud, and Contrail Multicloud by the middle of 2018. For Chris, this development is a reflection of the prevalence of leaf-spine architectures, and the virtualized networks often needed to overlay them.
Cumulus Linux and NetQ
Richard McIntosh saw a presentation from a whitebox company for the first time at Networking Field Day in January, and it left an impression. Cumulus Networks presented on their Cumulus Linux and NetQ. What struck Richard is that the entire system is just a Linux distribution. This allows admins to use familiar tools for their networking, rather than have to adapt to a proprietary solution.
Orchestration From the Top Versus Automation From the Bottom
Extreme Networks and Juniper Networks made an impression with Tom Hollingsworth after Networking Field Day in January. For him, the Extreme Networks showed why they lead the way in their bottom-up approach to automation. He then breaks down how Juniper distinguishes themselves with their top-down orchestration tooling.
