VMware's vDS is a bit of a misnomer In a previous post, I covered the concept of transitivity in networking - but in Layer 2 (Ethernet) land, transitivity is critically important to understanding how VMware's Virtual Distributed Switch (vDS) works. The statement "VMware's Virtual Distributed Switch is not a …

Read More

Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) has turned out to be a great tool for deploying virtual network resources, but the "only Cisco VNFs" limitation is a bit much. Let's use this opportunity to really take advantage of the capabilities that NSX-T has for virtual network labs! Overview For the purpose of lab …

Read More

Ever wonder what it would be like to have a platform dedicated to Continuous Improvement / Testing / Labbing? Cisco's put a lot of thought into good ways to do that, and Cisco Modeling Labs(CML) is the latest iteration of their solutions to provide this as a service to enterprises and casual users alike. CML is the …

Read More

VMware's NSX Datacenter product is designed for a bit more than single enterprise virtual networking and security. When reviewing platform maximums (NSX-T 3.2 ConfigMax), the listed maximum number of Tier-1 routers is 4,000 logical routers. Achieving that number takes a degree of intentional design, however. When …

Read More

What is the point of all this software-defined infrastructure if you don't use it? In prior examples, it's a fairly straightforward path to SDN when deploying NSX Data Center, allowing a VI admin or network engineer to deploy virtual network resources via a GUI. This isn't the end of an effort, but the start of a …

Read More

Idempotence and Declarative Methods - not just buzzwords Idempotence Coined by Benjamin Peirce, this term indicates that a mathematical operation will produce a consistent result, even with repetition. Idempotence is much more complicated subject in mathematics and computer science. IT and DevOps use a simplified …

Read More

Note: This feature has been deprecated by VMware NSX-T 3.2 has been released, and has a ton of spiffy features. The NSX ALB integration is particularly neat, but while repeatedly (repeatably) breaking the integration to learn more about it, I ran into this error: When deploying NSX ALB appliances from the NSX Manager, …

Read More

DNS is a vital component of all computer networks. Also known as the "Internet Yellow Pages," this service is consumed by every household. DNS services are typically deployed in several patterns to support users and systems: DNS Forwarder: This deployment method is the most common. Everybody needs name …

Read More

At some point, we can't "do it all" with one block of code. As developers, we need to store persistent data for a variety of reasons: We want it for later execution (or to compare it to another result) We're sick of storing variables in code. This matters a lot more in compiled languages than runtime ones We …

Read More

It's probably safe to say that service provider networking is pretty unique. One particular design pattern - Looking Glasses - is extremely useful for complex dynamically routed networks. I'd really like to shift the gatekeeping needle here - networks that are complex enough to benefit from a looking glass should move …

Read More