My EtherealMind

Spirent Network Heroes 2012 – Nominations Open

Greg Ferro — Sun, 20 May 2012 08:29:00 +0000

Nominations for the UK Network Heroes award from Spirent are open. Since I've been asked to be a eminent judge, I'd like to see some of the best talent that UK has to offer stand up and be counted. The UK has a lot of great engineers and architects but they are rarely recognised. Here is your chance.

Network Field Day Three – Photo Retrospective

Greg Ferro — Sun, 20 May 2012 06:51:33 +0000

I stumbled over a collection of photos from Network Field Day 3 that showed some of what happened at the event. Most of the event is sitting in boardrooms going through vendor presentations, discussions and review. Lets face it, that doesn't make for great photos.

OSX: SmartSleep App Review

Greg Ferro — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:57:55 +0000

Quick review of one of my favourite system tool for the Mac - SmartSleep

How TRILL (and SPB) Can Reduce STP Risk and Mitigate Impact

Greg Ferro — Sun, 13 May 2012 18:08:32 +0000

In this post, I'm looking at network designs with ECMP cores using TRILL or SPB, I'm realising that STP is equally improved in terms of risk and performance by reducing the STP domain size which leads to better stability, reduced risk and impact mitigation

Internets of Interest for 13th May 2012

bookmarks — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:54:36 +0000

Collection of useful, relevant or just fun places on the Internets for 13th May 2012 and a bit commentary about what I’ve found interesting about them: Searching for an SDN Definition: What Is Software-Defined Networking? – Network Computing – Mike Fratto at NetworkComputing.com : I’m using VMware as an example, but there are and [...]

Internets of Interest for 9th May 2012

bookmarks — Wed, 09 May 2012 21:35:49 +0000

Collection of useful, relevant or just fun places on the Internets for 9th May 2012 and a bit commentary about what I’ve found interesting about them: Avantages of Using SVTI Based VPNs | PacketU – Paul Stewart gives a great example on SVTI. (I”m still learning here). Starting in version 12.3T (which is some [...]

Repsonse: Big Switch Networks – The Value of Openness

Greg Ferro — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:31:01 +0000

Omar Baldonado talks about the value of openness for SDN & OpenFlow My takeaway from that panel and the other speakers is that we’ve arrived here at this point in the industry because of the openness of software-defined networking. Many of the components of SDN already existed as the audience pointed out, but it is [...]

Does SDN Represent the Evolution of Network Management ? Yes but No It Doesn’t

Greg Ferro — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:29:51 +0000

SDN/OpenFlow is about Network Management, at least, in part. But the rich tools for software control dont' exist. I also think don't think that todays management _platforms_ (such as Tivoli, OpenView and BMC) are suitable for network orchestration in the future.

Response: Intel- New Switch and More Software Defined Networking

Greg Ferro — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:11:18 +0000

Intel talks about the their Fulcrum silicon (FM6000) fully supporting OpenFlow. If one of the bigger merchant silicon vendors is shipping OpenFlow ready silicon, then I would expect new products to arrive in the next few months. I believe Intel is demoing this at Interop. We’ve also contributed our Barcelona 10GbE TOR switch reference platform [...]

Response: Time for HP to Show Its SDN Hand

Greg Ferro — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:07:29 +0000

Brad Casemore makes that case that HP is not telling us enough about it’s OpenFlow technology. HP has been a major contributor to several initiatives, including QoS code for OpenFlow v1.1 and the first vendor to offer OpenFlow support on it’s network switches. Yet, HP is not necessarily getting the recognition it deserves for these [...]

Watch Out Cisco. Huawei’s Coming!

Greg Ferro — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:54:13 +0000

In this Gigaom.com piece, Stacey talks about the arrival of Huawei in America. When Huawei arrived in Europe about three/four years ago, Cisco lost a LOT of business especially when BT and other carriers changed their standard purchase to include Huawei on the approved list. Huawei had a rocky start with widely known hardware failures [...]

Response: Omar Sultan – Final Thoughts on the Open Networking Summit

Greg Ferro — Mon, 07 May 2012 11:35:26 +0000

Responding to Omar's wrap on the ONS

Check Point Launches ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus and Firewall 2013

Greg Ferro — Mon, 07 May 2012 11:19:28 +0000

Once upon a time, ZoneAlarm was the best personal firewall available. It was free, stable and excellent. I seem to remember using it from 2002-2003 or so – then Zonealarm was acquired by CheckPoint and the product was lost to the retail market. CheckPoint moved the product to corporate desktops and was lost to the [...]

Network Dictionary – Tribal Knowledge

Greg Ferro — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:30:18 +0000

Define "Tribal Knowledge"

Network Engineer’s Late Note

Greg Ferro — Thu, 03 May 2012 09:35:47 +0000

One of my co-workers sent this email after being caught in traffic. Morning All All nodes in the M25 pool are currently OOS. VIP is at present being serviced by back-up pool on the A25 ( this unfortunately is only a Pentium 386 with 500Mb of memory). That said it’s only holding a splash [...]

Cisco IOS CLI Regex: Sh Ip Bgp In

Greg Ferro — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:57:24 +0000

Vitaly left a comment on a blog post with a clever IOS CLI Regex tip. I though I would pick that apart as an exercise.

On Apple Disabling Java by Default

Greg Ferro — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:18:59 +0000

Apple is disabling Java by default in the last update which is a perfect solution to the risk that Java presents to the desktop. At the same time, it's drives a stake into the heart of Java.

IOS CLI Tip: More Accurate Pipe Commands

Greg Ferro — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:49:08 +0000

Quick tip for m

Internets of Interest for 29th April 2012

bookmarks — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:50:59 +0000

Collection of useful, relevant or just fun places on the Internets for 29th April 2012 and a bit commentary about what I’ve found interesting about them: Brand Inertia: Is Cisco Your Most Trusted IT Partner? – Ethan writes about his failing trust in Cisco, specifically, and big vendors more widely. That’s a very telling [...]

The Problem With Java Clients

Greg Ferro — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:54:35 +0000

This is typical of the problems with using Java as a management interface for a network device. The Management Application (graphical user interface used to configure the Unit’s software) runs as a stand-alone Java Web Start application (tested on Microsoft Windows™ operating system only). The application requires Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.6.0_07 or higher, although [...]

The Cloud Isn’t Cheap – Part Four or Five I Think

Greg Ferro — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:40:22 +0000

Recently, I wrote ConsultoBabble Report for Cloud Deployment of EtherealMind.com wherein I pointed out that Cloud Computing is not cheap. It’s cheap in terms of CapEx, but expensive as OpEx. Over a five year ROI, I’ve never managed to make a significant corporate project come out cheaper with cloud services of any sort. It’s always [...]

Network Dictionary – HiPPO

Greg Ferro — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:58:43 +0000

HiPPO = Highest Paid Person’s Opinion Used to describe the decision from the opinion or point of view a senior manager instead of using data or technical knowledge. Not necessarily derogatory IF the HIPPO’s opinion is well informed and a choice between available options of equal value or capability. More commonly, a senior executive will [...]

ONF Extends Their SDN to Embrace NETCONF and YANG

Greg Ferro — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:30:26 +0000

In this blog post, Calle Moberg (from Tail-F Systems who makes NETCONF software) highlights that the ONF has embraced NETCONF as mandatory for configuration of OpenFlow enabled devices. I didn’t know this was coming: [...] OF-CONFIG1.0 requires that devices supporting OF-CONFIG 1.0 MUST implement NETCONF protocol as the transport. This in turn implies as specified [...]

Change Dock Animation on OSX

Greg Ferro — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:56:14 +0000

Remove Dock Animation Completely defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -int 0;killall Dock Reset Dock Animation defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier;killall Dock Set an Ultra-Fast Dock Hide & Display Animation defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.12;killall Dock Apply commands in a terminal window etc etc. Posts Related to this ArticleOSX: Three Ways to Kill or Force Quit System [...]