Cogitation

DellEMC SmartFabric Director

SUMMARY: DellEMC seems to be tightening its focus on VMware and NSX-T fabrics by providing tools to ease the deployment of an underlay. SmartFabric Director (SFD) is a new tool to simplify that deployment and provide the needed functions for running an ethernet fabric with NSX-T on top. All the major needs for a fabric are covered to some greater or less extent. The tool can be used for other deployments as well but I think it makes most sense when putting NSX-T on top. See… Read More »DellEMC SmartFabric Director

Aruba’s SD-Branch Part #1: Solution Components

Edit: You should also check out Ed Horley’s excellent take on Aruba’s SD-Branch presentation at https://www.howfunky.com/2019/10/network-field-day-21-aruba-sd-branch.html Overview I saw a great presentation about Aruba’s SD-Branch offering as part of being a delegate for Network Field Day #21. I’m going to spend two posts covering SD-Branch as I am not extremely familiar with Aruba’s product line and I suspect I am not alone in that regard. In this first one I’ll go through the parts that form the solution and include a lot of links to… Read More »Aruba’s SD-Branch Part #1: Solution Components

NFD21 Delegate!

It is my great honor to serve with Bruno Wollman, from my CCDE study group, as a delegate to NFD21! I’ve never participated before but I have watched some of their videos and recently subscribed to the podcasts by Gestalt IT. I’m joining for the second half the week and will get to see the following companies present: Network to Code – They are well known for their role in automation and I’m keen to see their presentation. Likely many engineers I’ve taken some tentative… Read More »NFD21 Delegate!

Response: Is NAT Security? Should I remove my public IPv4 from my internal network?

This question came really as a need to transition off “public” IPv4 space on an internal network and to the more commonly RFC1918 internal address along with NAT (for security reasons). This posting is the bulk of my reply to the customer. I really see this as the often-discussed question “Is NAT security?”. My wording/frame of reference here is as if I’m writing to someone not entirely familiar with NAT. I tried to provide some reference material below ; to avoid a pure appeal-to-authority. Okay,… Read More »Response: Is NAT Security? Should I remove my public IPv4 from my internal network?

Certification News: Passed f5-201

Long Journey, Much Delay I started this journey over two years ago. When I joined my current company I decided I would get f5 certified as I didn’t think we had folks with it and I could help expand our business by being “that guy”. The reality is that we didn’t have a lot of f5 work and I had other things to master ahead of it. I went to Agility 2016, took the 201 training course and determined to get through it then. I… Read More »Certification News: Passed f5-201