Routed Port

Off on a work trip around Norway for the next eight or so days. Hope to be back with some interesting networking stories on my return.

Cisco UCS Emulator

I've started studying for my CCIE Data Centre with a bunch of lads in Oslo, Norway. This week and next, we're taking a deep dive into the UCS for the written exam. If you are like me in the sense that a UCS is a tad on the expensive side, and just a wee bit too large for the spare bedroom, and you need something to play with at home, Cisco have a UCS emulator.

I've only just started having a play, but it gives you a good feel for  it. You can do quite a few things, but you can't run an OS on any of the blades.

There is a good youtube vid showing you had to install the UCS Emulator and get the basics up and running. 

Some Extra CCIE DC Stuff

I hope to back with some more info once I've had a good play with it. Also, check out Tony Bourke's blog at Data Centre Overlords. He's also studying for the CCIE DC and currently has a great article about NPV and NPIV.

 

IPv6 Forum Certified WWW

Would you like one of these very pretty logos on your webpage? Given my Irish passport I'm committed to having green as my favourite colour even if it doesn't work with my blue background, but alas, I'm not a graphic designer. 

The logo is assigned to invididual websites who are accessible via IPv6. If you are running a website which is IPv6 capable and want to help spread the word, then you can jump over to IPv6 Forum's Enabled Program and test your site according to their specifications. They also provide a dynamic logo which informs the user if they are accessing over IPv4. You can see an example of this logo at my home site, www.cunningtek.com

Additionally, you can also get this nifty, but admittedly, not as pretty logo from 6bone here.

Why?

Why not?

Keep it Simple, but not too Simple

For the past few months I've been battling away day after day, assuaging concerns about dynamic routing, layer 3 and newer technologies such as TRILL, OTV and Fabricpath. The mandate from above is straightforward and sensible: keep it simple. Good advice, but what exactly defines simple?

Good Design versus a Lack of Understanding

It was my argument that interconnecting two data centres which are connected with dark fibre by way of layer 2 and spanning tree was not a pearler of an idea. Nothing against spanning tree, it does it job perfectly well when designed properly, but it has a place and interconnecting data centres is not one of them. I'm not going into that discussion here, but a bit of googling will show you the light. Alternatively, you can let Ivan Pepelnjak at ipsapce.net bust some myths around layer 2 data centre interconnect give you some good information.

The counter arguments to using the technologies which I proposed, in order of proposition, layer 3, OTV, Fabricpath was simple, too simple: it's too complicated, it's not operationally simple, we don't understand it.

Complication

Granted, overly complicated solutions can and most often do give rise to problems. I've created overly complicated solutions to get around a problem and have been left with the only person possessing the knolwedge internally on how the solutions works and this has in my past led to more than one bullet hole in my feet. This however shouldn't prevent perceived levels of complication from entering solutions where necessary and implemented sensibly. For example, let's look at layer 3 VMotion. It can be done, but rarely is because layer 2 data centre interconnects are easy to implement. The price that is paid most often: split brain clusters, scrambled data and both data centres failing simultaneously.

Complication is often confused with doing something properly. In the case of a business with 250 branch offices, is static routing really less complicated than OSPF, and is it really less operationally complex? What about its benefits? I don't want to compare building data centres supporting tens of thousand of users and require very high levels of security and redundancy to launching satellites or what's going on in the Large Hadron Collider, but you surely you the direction in which I am pushing this argument.

Operational Simplicity

Many times in many jobs I've encountered first and second line support (and sometimes third line) that fail to understand basic networking. Subnetting, dynamic routing protocol basics and other such bits of need to know are just not present in their arsenal of IT skills. The root cause at the core of this problem is most often not the lack of ability to learn and understand such concepts, but more often than not, it is perceived that such engineers aren't as good as the third line folk and are treated as such. I've seen it too frequently, whereby such staff are judged and graded on the number of tickets solved and not their ability to grown and learn within their diipline or the team's time to recover a service or the overall availability of systems. Create a career path, document, manage and  education. And educate. while (1) { learn(); educate();}

We Don't Understand It

This is problematic. IT moves and develops at an incredible pace. If you don't want to be left behind, whether that be your business, your IT organisation or as an individual, get up to speed and keep track of the developments in your field. Not understanding TRILL, as one example, is no excuse to span layer 2 across data centres with spanning tree.

Summary

OSPF with 5 areas, 150 branch offices over MPLS can be a challenge. As can learning Fabricpath or implementing VSANs in your data centre. They do all however, meet challenges presented and allow architectures to scale whilst being redundant. They can also be designed in accordance with best practices and documented. Keep it simple if you can, but don't let poor support practices and management put your IT strategy and solutions in jeopardy. Design, document, educate. Don't keep all that information locked up in your head, it won't benefit anyone in the long run.

 

IPv6 Certifications: Hurricane Electric & IPv6Forum

After to speaking to Marin Levy, Director IPv6 Strategy at Hurricane Electric whilst attending the Norwegian chapter of the IPv6Forum's annual conference, I agreed to go through the Hurricane Electric IPv6 certification and compare and contrast it to IPv6 Forum's own certification.

What They Are

Hurricane Electric

The Hurricane Electric IPv6 Certification is a process of testing a user's IPv6 awareness as it relates to Internet infrastructure. It is as simple as ensuring you have an IPv6 capable internet connection, whether that be a native connection as provided by an ISP (this is the case for me) or whether you use some form of tunnel, e.g. services offered be HE themselves - tunnelbroker.net, or other tunnel providers such as sixxs.net. Of course there are others, but given that I'm on a native IPv6 connection, I haven't used them all. I have however been reliably informed by friends and colleagues, that the service offered by tunnelbroker.net are somewhat more simple to get going than others. But I digress. Whilst the testing HE certification offers in its early stages can be as simple as IPv6 Internet connectivity, it can be as difficult as trying to get your domain registrar to configure IPv6 Glue Records. The process also tests your ability to to either setup your own IPv6 mail server, or your ability to get your mail provider to get onboard IPv6, that your webserver can IPv6 successfully to IPv6 only clients, and that reverse DNS queries can be performed on your IPv6 addresses. Along the way you will be presented with multiple choice questions, of which some are no brainers - typcally humourous, and others may require you to go off and do a bit of reading - educational. As you pass each step, you will be awarded a certificate, much like the one  above and to the left. The summit of the challenge is the Sage certificate. The end goal of the HE certification as I understand it is to offer an insight into how IPv6 connectivity works for the Internet, and how it affects everyday users. What we as IT professionals do massively impacts this, and HE's certification offers a wonderful insight into this. If you go about the certification and complete it within your own IT environment, you will have taken a step forward for the deployment of IPv6.