Nick Buraglio, Vince Schuele, Kevin Myers, and Chris Cummings discuss the latest technology on service providers that was highlighted at the very first Networking Field Day: Service Provider this past December. Check out the latest podcast from a few of our Field Day delegates and their thoughts!
ISP Design – Building production MPLS networks with IP Infusion’s OcNOS
In preparation for their presentation at Networking Field Day 18, Kevin Myers discusses IP Infusion’s OcNOS tool in implementing whitebox. He expects whitebox to be a hot topic at the event and is excited to hear IPI present. Kevin finishes with a demonstration on how to build production MPLS networks using OcNOS
Designing a Campus Switch with a “Carrier-Grade” Mindset
Kevin Myers looks at Aruba’s 8400 chassis switch and digs into how the company can backup their claim that it’s a “carrier-grade” campus core switch. Coming from a service provider background Kevin found this a rather tall order. However after learning more about the 8400, he found this was much more than marketing bluster. Indeed carrier-grade was an integral part of the core design and development philosophy of the switch.
Preview: Networking Field Day Exclusive with Aruba (HPE) – The 8400 core switch
The world of campus networking might not be the most exciting of late. But at a Networking Field Day Exclusive event with Aruba, Kevin Myers found a lot of interesting things about their 8400 core switch. Aruba touts it as offering increased automation and visibility into the campus core. For Kevin, he was initially impressed with the switch’s data center grade ports and speeds, encryption availability, and support for Aruba’s Virtual Switching Framework. Now that Kevin’s got a deep dive on the 8400, we’re looking forward to seeing more of his impressions soon!
WISP/FISP Design – Building your future MPLS network with whitebox switching
IP Infusion presented at Networking Field Day in April. Here, Kevin Myers discusses the role of whitebox in a WISP/FISP MPLS core and compares whitebox to the traditional vendor. He also says, “whitebox is poised for rapid growth in the network world, as the climate is finally becoming favorable – even in larger companies – to use commodity hardware and not be entirely dependent on incumbent network vendors.”
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.
Whitebox networking – coming soon to an edge near you?
Whitebox networking was a hot topic at Networking Field Day last month. Kevin Myers wrote up a nice summery of what he saw on it. He starts with a brief history, then goes into an interesting application, using whiteboxes outside the data center as edge devices. Big Switch was positioning them that way in their presentation, and the implications of Barefoot Networks also saw them positioning whiteboxes for outside the data center. It’s an interesting trend.
A network geek pilgrimage
Kevin Myers is attending Networking Field Day this year. He’s excited to drink from the deluge of knowledge about to be poured his way. In this post, he talks about some of the topics he’s interested in getting more details about. One of them is SD-WAN. Kevin wants more under the hood details about specific mechanics. He’s also in seeing it an non-traditional applications, like Wireless ISP. We’ll be excited to see what Kevin’s takeaways are after the event. Stay tuned!
Kevin Myers
Kevin is a network architect that consults globally for WISP/Wireline ISPs and large enterprises.
Why design simplicity is bad for your network
Design simplicity sounds appealing. After all, it would be easier to understand, manage, and theoretically expand. But Kevin Myers wrote a piece on why this can ultimately be a failing. He was having a discussion at Network Field Day about the differences in an LTE network versus an enterprise LAN. LTE just seems to work, even though it’s serving a vary large user base. Kevin notes that this is because enterprise networks aren’t often designed by engineers with their intended purpose in mind, rather a vendor supplies the network and the engineer is in charge of implementing within that given design. These are often instructed to be simple, but as businesses merge and needs change, the network designed to be simple is often unable to scale easily to a new complex environment. It’s an interesting read that touches on why a lot of enterprise technology decisions have more to do with culture than anything else.
