Packet Pushers Podcast

Ethan Banks and Tony Bourke discuss the Cisco Data Center certifications, focusing on the CCNA & CCNP tracks. We take a look at what the tracks cover, who the right candidates are for these tracks, and how to prep. Inevitably, a few rabbit trails are followed as we pontificate about FCoE adoption or lack thereof, Tony's progress in the CCIE DC track, the value of having Cisco DC certs but no VMware certs, the technology collision in the modern data center as job responsibilities change, and whether or not these tracks are too Cisco-focused. Oh. And isn't it about time we move to performance-based testing via challenge labs instead of multiple-choice questions at the professional level certs? Links Tony's Blog CCNA Data Center Track CCNP Data Center Track NX-OS and Cisco Nexus Switching: Next-Generation Data Center Architectures - book Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS): A Complete Reference Guide to the Cisco Data Center Virtualization Server Architecture, 2nd Edition - book coming in July 2013  

Talking with Senior Engineers from University Campus with tens to hundreds of thousands of Ethernet ports, and up to 50 000 wireless clients.What are the technology challenges of managing such huge networks. Not only do these networks handle student and academic traffic, but they also have commercial aspects including hospitals.

In this show we speak with Curt Beckmann as chairperson of Forwarding Abstractions Working Group (FAWG) at the Open Networking Foundation. The FAWG is a vendor focussed committee that aims to bridge the art of the possible in the silicon chip manufacturing space of the network vendors and the drive to deliver new features. Silicon takes years to design test and manufacture, and the OpenFlow /SDN standards are racing to add new features. The FAWG stands in the middle of that debate. Lets discuss the competing requirements and how the vendors are working to support the current OpenFlow standards, while balancing the requirements to deliver products.

Just when you thought the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Christmas couldn't get any better, Healthy Paranoia's Mrs. Y rustles up some wireless experts for an episode on 802.1X! Joining the Packetpushers Posse: Matthew "Rowdy" Gast, author of multiple O'Reilly books and chair of the security task group at the Wi-Fi Alliance. "Buffalo" Blake Krone, CCIE-Wireless and host of the "No Strings Attached" podcast. Jennifer "Widowmaker" Huber, blogger and CWNE. As usual, you'll hear Greg Ferro prancing with unicorns, mocking storage protocols and ranting about Windows XP. Show Notes: From the 802.1X IEEE standard, This standard specifies the use of EAP, the Extensible Authentication Protocol (IETF RFC 3748), to support authentication using a centrally administered Authentication Server and defines EAP encapsulation over LANs (EAPOL, Clause 11) to convey the necessary exchanges between peer PAEs (Port Access Entity) attached to a LAN.  From EAP RFC 3748, Extensible Authentication Protocol, an authentication framework which supports multiple authentication methods.  EAP typically runs directly over data link layers such asPoint-to-Point Protocol (PPP) or IEEE 802, without requiring IP.  EAP provides its own support for duplicate elimination and retransmission, but is reliant on lower layer ordering guarantees. EAP encapsulation on IEEE 802 wired media is described in [IEEE-802.1X], and encapsulation on IEEE wireless LANs in [IEEE-802.11i]. Additional EAP RFCs include 3580 (RADIUS) , 4017 and 5931 . Also a nifty EAP cheat sheet from Packetlife.net's Jeremy Stretch.

From Greg and me to you, Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays. This edition of the Packet Pushers podcast is short and sweet: Our thanks to many in the community. A fireside chat to let you know how the show has been going. What our plans are for 2013. Audio holiday greeting cards from several listeners. Please enjoy, and we'll see you next year!

On December 13, 2012, the Packet Pushers published show 128, a video podcast with Big Switch Networks, where Dan Hersey & Andrew Harding discuss & demo the Big Switch controller, and applications that run on the Big Switch controller such as Big Virtual Switch and Big Tap. If you haven't seen that show yet, you might want to give show 128 a view before listening to this podcast. What this podcast covers is the Q&A session after the formal recording of show 128 was complete. There were a lot questions from the live audience, and we talked through several of them. These questions & answers are excellent for helping a traditional network engineer better understand the Big Switch controller and how it fits into both current and future network designs. Speaking on the podcast are the usual Packet Pushers co-hosts Ethan Banks and Greg Ferro with Dan Hersey & Andrew Harding from Big Switch. What We Discuss Explain how the Big Switch controller is plumbed to the network and how it is redundant. Is there as separate or out-of-band network for control-plane or management traffic? Explain the pros and cons of physical vs. virtual switches. What version of OpenFlow is supported today, and what's the roadmap for other versions of OpenFlow? What's the status of standardization for northbound APIs? What is a REST API? What does software defined networking mean for network security? Can a Big Switch network route between L3 domains? Is there IPv6 support? What are the performance numbers? Where is the bottleneck in a Big Switch environment? What's the status of a GUI vs. CLI vs. other means of interacting with the controller? Discuss Big Switch's open approach to SDN as compared to some other vendors.  

Jeff Lapak and Dave Estes from the University of New Hampshire's InterOperability Lab join the Packet Pushers to introduce the IOL to the audience. We also chat about BroadR-Reach: Ethernet for your car. BroadR-Reach is enabling all sorts of automotive future tech, as our cars become just as networked as any of our other modern gadgets. In this show, we discuss the UNH IOL - what it is, what it does, and why you care. Then we jump into a discussion of BroadR-Reach, how it's tested, what the roadmap is, and what the use cases are for Ethernet inside of automobiles.

After all the discussions around OpenFlow and SDN, it's time to look at real products. In this podcast, you can hear Dan Hersey of Big Switch Networks, describe the Open SDN architecture and explain how the Big Network Controller provides a network application platform. Dan describes the SDN products that run on the Big Network Controller - Big Virtual Switch & Big Tap. Stay until the end for the demonstration of Big Tap, an Open SDN-based universal monitoring application.

Continuing from a previous recording, this is Part 2 of discussing events that have happened in the last month or so. Recorded on 11 November, we talk about: Vyatta acquisition by Brocade - how it fits with competitors. And a look at how Brocade works. The challenge of virtualization in smaller networks The impact of dynamic networking - decupling the physical from the virtual. A plug for the Packet Pushers Forum Discussing how LISP works, but most of us still don't get it. Show 123 – LISP Use Cases With Dino Farinacci & Victor Moreno of Cisco – Sponsored Brent Salisbury - NetworkStatic.net @NetworkStatic Bob McCouch - @bobmccouch Ethan Banks & Greg Ferro

Boston area networking startup Plexxi parks their tour bus at the Packet Pushers studios for a chat with Ethan Banks and Greg Ferro. Plexxi's Ethernet switch with optical ring interconnect using WDM makes a highly meshed network possible without requiring core switches. Add Plexxi's API and controller, and the Plexxi solution allows network architects to build affinities between systems and give them special, flexible treatment across the data center. The approach is genuinely out-of-the-box thinking, and to my mind, an outstanding example what what software defined networking really looks like. Marten Terpstra, Director of Product Management at Plexxi, brings the nerdery, talking through the Plexxi approach at both a technical and practical level. What We Discuss The Plexxi hardware solution. Interconnecting Plexxi switches using WDM over an optical ring: the LightRail interface. The concept of "Affinity Networking." The Plexxi software controller. How a Plexxi network functions without a controller (yes, it still works). Understanding the Plexxi API. How traffic is forwarded through a Plexxi domain. MLAG support and other practical matters. Use cases. Links Plexxi.com Plexxi Pulse Blog Affinity Driven Networking - Dec 2012 whitepaper (PDF)

Cisco contributes quite a bit of code to the open source world, and Michael Enescu, CTO for Open Source Initiatives, is just the guy to tell the Packet Pushers audience about it. In this discussion with hosts Ethan Banks and Greg Ferro, Michael discusses the what, why and how of Cisco's open source efforts. What We Discuss The difference between "open source" and "open standards". The open source initiatives Cisco is involved with (Linux kernel, Quantum, OpenStack, etc.) How Cisco functions internally when dealing with open source projects. The benefits Cisco customers receive due to Cisco's open source involvement. Cisco's track record of openness. Links The Yang of Open Standards, The Yin of Open Source

Shortly after the Brocade launch of the Brocade VDX in September 2012 I got Ivan Pepelnjak on the show to talk about the reality check (  OK, so this one has been sitting in the vault for too long, so shoot me). Lets get underneath the glamour of the launch event and talk performance, capacity and reality. A very fine grumpy look at vendor promises. -grin- This is the original show I recorded while at the Brocade Analyst Day - PQ – Show 11 – Brocade VDX 8770 – Technical Deep Dive You can find Ivan at his very fine blog IPspace.net and you really should have subscribed to his Webinars already.

Buffer Bloat is the overuse of buffering in network equipment. Well meaning but misguided and, most likely, stupid equipment vendors have tried to avoid packet loss by increasing the the buffers in the network. But they have missed a fundamental property of TCP and UDP protocols, if they live in a buffer for too long, the receiver will time out and request retransmission. As a result, data is transmitted twice or three times. To make matters worse, the overbuffering causes TCP fast start algorithm failure. That is, TCP must acknowledge receipt of frames and if those ACK packet are stuck in a buffer, the next tranche of data cannot be sent. Therefore, bandwidth is unused to since TCP cannot burst into the available capacity. In this podcast, we talk to Jim Gettys, who first published his take on the problem and comprehensively proved it. Since then, things have started to happen. Here in our boardroom that is fully equipped with keen minds, practical and bitter experiences, and overblown sense of what the future should look like, we attempt to tackle the issues that matter to the networking engineers. Bandwidth Delay Product http://etherealmind.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-transfer-data-rules-of-thumb/ ICSI Netalyzer - http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu http://gettys.wordpress.com/category/bufferbloat/

In this impromptu and live recording, after having twitpiss about it, Greg & Derick go head to head on the topic whether MPLS is dead in an SDN world. Lets have the debate in full and proper order, and see who can convince the listeners.

Yes boys and girls, today we tell a story of clouds. The Packetpushers attack the subject of virtualization security. You'll hear Greg Ferro and Ivan Pepelnjak* wax eloquent about unicorns and an amazing Larry Ellison imitation by Tony Bourke. We're also joined by a new friend, awesome security researcher** and entrepreneur Taylor Banks, who manages to help us keep the snark level up to Packetpusher standards. Show Notes: NIST definition of the Cloud Ace Hackware (Where Mrs. Y. does all her holiday shopping.) A series of great posts by Ivan on virtualization and the cloud. (He also has some amazing webinars on the subject.) The “appliance” approach to Big Data and Private Cloud by Brad Hedlund Cloudwashing, according to Dilbert. Hypervisor Attacks: Bluepill and Cloudburst CVE-2008-4917 and CVE-2008-4916 Cross-VM Side Channels and Their Use To Extract Private Keys   *Hopefully someday I'll be able to spell Ivan's name without looking it up. **Hey, I don't have to keep telling people that security researcher = hacker, right?