A Network Blog by a Network Engineer

Juniper NXTWork 2015

Jeff Fry published on 2015-10-06 included in Uncategorized

Coming this November, Juniper has finally jumped into the Customer Summit bandwagon. This is something that has been asked for for many years now, a way for Juniper customers and advocates to get together and talk Juniper. This event will allow you to connect with your peers in the industry, meet current and potential new customers, and connect with Juniper leadership. Some of the primary topics of the inaugural event this year is:

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)
Software-Defined Networking (SDN)
Cloud-Enabled Enterprise
Secure Networking
Data Center Virtualization

It is time to drop the CCIE written

Jeff Fry published on 2015-07-07 included in CCIE

Back in 1993 the CCIE Cisco Certification, the first Cisco certification, was created and tested. Yes, the CCIE certification came years before the CCNA certification (1998) and thus Cisco needed a way to weed out candidates who were not ready for the CCIE lab exam. What they came up with was a Written pre-qualification exam to show that the candidate was ready to attempt the CCIE Lab exam. The CCIE Written is not a certification in itself, even though many job seekers seem to think that it is, it is just a qualifier to show that the candidate is ready to attempt the CCIE lab exam. To this day the CCIE written is still needed, regardless if the candidate does not have or has other Cisco certifications. Today though, with all the Cisco certifications, training, and the amount of Cisco networking gear in the enterprise, it is quite different and begs the question, “Does the CCIE Written still make sense today?”

Cisco Live 2015 – Monday

Jeff Fry published on 2015-06-09 included in Cisco Live

Day two is now in the books, and all I have to say is What a Keynote! I have been coming to Cisco Live for over 10 years now and I will say that this keynote did have something special to it. I think knowing that this was his list keynote as CEO of Cisco, it just had something extra to, maybe it was OK GO opening up, maybe it was the seating, or just the energy in the room. Mr. Chambers owned the room and engaged with the people in the audience.

His successor, Chuck Robbins, was able to do a nice tribute video to Mr. Chambers that covers many of the keynotes, Netvet receptions, and World of Solutions engagements over the past years. Mr. Robbins is preparing to take Cisco into the future of this industry and help it to maintain its leadership.

Cisco Live 2015 – Day 1

Jeff Fry published on 2015-06-08 included in Cisco Live

It has been an interesting start to Cisco Live 2015 this year. It is nice to see everyone refreshing friendships between people that we have not seen since San Francisco, if not longer. It is great to see many of the old (guess that what happens as years pass) faces that I have seen over the years. Below is the official Cisco Live Facbook photo of our Tweetup from last night.
2015-06-07 21.30.53

Cisco Live – Cisco Events App

Jeff Fry published on 2015-05-28 included in Uncategorized

Cisco Live is coming up fast, just over a week away as I write this. So I figured I would share some quick updates with you as you prep for the trip. Are you on Twitter? If you are be sure to add yourself to the Cisco Live 2015 Twitter list at Tom’s Corner – err, The Networking Nerd. Have you installed the Cisco Events App on your iPhone/iPad or your Android based device? No, well you should as it has everything you need for Cisco Live 2015 (plus it is free! So what is in this app? Here are some quick screen shots with the highlights. For me I have this under my Cisco Apps folder, but you will be looking for an Icon called Cisco Events. 2015-05-27 17.30.15

My Top 10 Things to Look Forward to at Cisco Live 2015

Jeff Fry published on 2015-05-14 included in Cisco Live

10. John Chambers Keynote

This year will mark John Chambers last Cisco Live Keynote as CEO of Cisco, ending his 20 year run in the position. In case you may have missed the announcement, starting on July 26th, Chuck Robbins will take over as CEO. This keynote will be John’s farewell and perhaps the welcoming of Chuck into that role. I am looking forward to what this keynote will be, but whatever it is it should be memorable and a not-to-miss event.

9. Sessions

Sessions, sessions, sessions. There are hundreds of sessions to choose from this year. Have you made your selections yet – no, then click here and get started!

8. DevNet Zone

DevNet Zone is a recent introduction at Cisco Live, but it is an important introduction. It is a place where Developers can get together and share information, learn new topics, as well as show of what they know. This is the place to learn about SDN and learn how you can use SDN in your position. If you love programming, this is YOUR Cisco Live! Still not sure what DevNet is about, check out this video from Cisco Live Milan.

Juniper Networks 2015 Innovation Showcase

Jeff Fry published on 2015-04-06 included in Junos Opinion Tech Field Day

The other week (3/11/15) I was invited by Juniper Networks to their Sunnyvale, CA HQ location to particiapte in their 2015 Innovation Showcase. I have participated in Tech Field Day events in the past so I had an understanding of what to expect but what Juniper did blew me away – it turned out that this was the launch event for their new QFX10000 series switches, the Converged Supercore Architecture based on the PTX, and Express Path for their SRX5000, and ultimately their Q5 ASIC chip.

QFX 10000

Qfx10002-left-high
The QFX10000 is Juniper Networks latest addition to Data Center networking and it comes with Juniper Networks latest purpose-built ASIC -the Q5. The Q5 chip enables unprecedented performance, port density, and scale as can be seen in the QFX 10000. What is also very interesting is that the Q5 chip uses Memory Cube technology, something that is not found in merchant silicon. The QFX10000 is a high density spine switch optimized for the Data Center (or as many call it, “the cloud.”) How high density? If you look at the image above you will see an image of the QFX100002–72Q switch. Those are 72 – 40 GbE ports in that 2U switch! That equates to 288 – 10 GbE ports! Not enough bandwidth for you? Well, you can also order these boxes with 24 – 100 GbE QSFP28 interfaces instead! That is some serious bandwidth options right there! Still not enough for you? You can get these switches in a chassis design – 8–slot and 16–slot chassis options are available. The 8–slot chassis will support up to 1152 – 10GbE ports and the 16–slot will support up to 2304 – 10GbE ports! You can find out more about the QFX 10000 here – JUNIPER QFX10000. For more information on the Memory Cube / 3-D Memory technology, there is an great post by Chang-Hong Wu on the Juniper forums – 3-D Memory.

What's in my toolbag – Update 3 – Airconsole

Jeff Fry published on 2015-03-16 included in Cool Tech

Continuing on with the “What’s in my toolbag” series ( Original Post – Update 1 – Update 2 ) this week we will discuss a handy tool called Airconsole from Get Console. There are 3 models of the Airconsole 2.0 – Standard, Pro, and XL. The Standard and Pro (this is the one I own) are the same device except that the Pro comes with two Private Server licenses. The XL comes with all the same features as the Pro device but includes a larger battery. I have a license for the private server but have yet to play with that option, if you want to know more about the Private Server option you can find it at the Get-Console website here – Private Server. The airconsole is made up of three parts – the airconsole device, a usb-RJ45 cable, and a Bluetooth USB dongle. The Bluetooth USB dongle connects to the cable ( that is the white bump in the picture below). In the box you also get a micro-USB charging cable, but that is not pictured here. 2015-03-09 15.17.00

The first thing worth mentioning with the Airconsole is that fact that it has an Ethernet port on it. What is this good for? Well, the airconsole is also a WiFi and Bluetooth device that can come in handy for more than just console access.

What's in my toolbag – Update 2 – Sergeant Clip

Jeff Fry published on 2015-03-05 included in Cool Tech

Building on the “What’s in my toolbag” series that I revisited last week with the Fluke LinkSprinter, I wanted to talk about the next new item in my tool bag. This week we will take a look at a product called SergeantClip. The SergeantClip is used to help with cable management and switch replacements. I purchased these a few months back partially based on a post by Matt Norwood on his blog over at InSearchofTech as well as I was looking for a way to make swapping out switches easier. Swapping out switches or a line card on chassis can be a royal pain in the you-know-what. Many times cables are not labeled, or if they are labeled they are actually mislabeled, and we typically need to do the swap fast as downtime is has to be kept to an absolute minimum. Even if the cables are labeled, we still want to be sure we put the cables we disconnect back into the proper port and that is where the SergeantClip helps you shine. They have two primary designs, a 6–port version that is great for 24–port switches/line-cards and a 12–port version that is great for 48–port switches/line-cards.

What's in my toolbag – Update 1 – Fluke LinkSprinter 200

Jeff Fry published on 2015-02-25 included in Cool Tech

A few years back some of us wrote on a common theme around our tools and tool-bags. These posts turned out to be quite popular and informative to many in the community, including ourselves. Since the original post back in 2011, I have added a few new toys tools to my tool-bag and figured it was time to share some of the updates with you. My first post will be about Fluke LinkSprinter 200. Before I get started, I just want to give a shout-out to a fellow Tech Field Day delegate, Bob McCouch over at HerdingPackets.Net , for telling me about this tool. So what is so special about the LinkSprinter 200 and why do you need one? Simple, just ask yourself if have you ever had to…

Track down what switch and port a network element (Computer, Server, WAP, etc) is connected to?
Find out what VLAN a port is in?
Does the port support PoE?
Check to make sure DHCP is working?
Find out what speed and duplex a port can operating at?
Do you have connectivity to your gateway and the internet?

The LinkSprinter 200 tool can do all of that and fast! I used it for a network migration the other day and it saved us hours of work. Normally we have to trace cables to find where printers are plugged into so we can change VLANs and port configurations. Normally this takes about 10–20 minutes per printer, with the LinkSPrinter we were able to get all the printers done in about 10 minutes.