Monthly Archives: August 2022

Certification Comfort Food

Posted on by
Reply

I’m a big fan of comfort food. Maybe more than I should be. The idea of something simple and tasty just hits the right spot a lot of time, especially when I’m stressed or don’t have time to do something more involved. I know I really need to be better about cooking but you can’t beat a quick meal that uses something simple and gets the job done, right?

Now, before you ask yourself what I’m on about this week, I want you to think about that analogy in terms of certifications and learning. When we’re starting out in the industry or we’re learning a new skill we have to pick up basic ideas. The more advanced or radical the technology the more we need the kinds of explanations that make the concepts simple to understand. We need the equivalent of learning comfort food. Simple, digestible, and easy to prepare.

Climbing the Ladder

As our skills improve we have the choice to continue on and develop our capabilities to greater depths. Perhaps we want to learn everything there is to know about BGP and policies. We could even parlay that networking knowledge into new adjacencies that build on our skill sets. We also have the option of staying in the basic level and honing those skills. Instead of learning VXLAN we could spend a thousand hours practicing all the ways that you can configure a VLAN.

Which way is right? Is there a need to make a choice? People are going to feel more comfortable doing one thing over the other in almost every case. If you’re like me you want to get to the bottom of every mystery and explore every nuance of something. Once you figure it out you’re going to want to move on to the next hard problem to solve. You become a voracious reader and consumer of knowledge and before you know it you’ve run out of things to consume. It’s partially the reason why I’ve been such a prolific writer for the past twelve years. I’ve been creating the content that I wanted to consume so others can benefit.

The other side of the choice is being content with the skills you have. This is in no way a negative thing. Not everyone that cooks needs to be a four star chef that makes perfect risotto and Beef Wellington every time. There is a place for everyone that learns enough to accomplish their goals and decides that is enough for them. If the above option is the “pull” model where one is trying to pull in new knowledge as fast as possible then this is the “push” version where people must be pushed to learn additional things. Your company might move to cloud and that would facilitate a need to pick up cloud operations skills to complement the ones you have for the network or the virtualization cluster. You’re not actively seeking the knowledge until it’s needed.

Boiling the Mudpuddle

It’s all well and good when you can recognize which type of learner you are. It’s also important to know where your resources are aimed. If your top destinations for content are part of the “push” model and aim at a lower level when you’re someone that wants to grow and investigate new areas you’re going to hit a wall eventually and sour on them.

A personal story for me comes when I was racing through my certification journey in the early part of my career. Once I started with Cisco I was consuming books left and right. Every time I went into the book store I picked up a new tome to teach me more about routing or remote access networks or even firewalls. I would consume that content whenever I could and apply those lessons to my job or my certification process. Eventually I knew I was reaching a limit because there were fewer and fewer books in the bookstore that taught me things I wanted to know. It made me realize there is a target market for these resources.

Things like certification guides are aimed at a wide market. They want to teach skills to the widest possible audience. Not everyone needs to know the ins and outs of EVPN but most everyone in networking needs to know how a switch forwards frames. If you want to sell the most books which would you write about? You’d write the one that covers the most people. It’s a reality of the market. Content for the entry level and the broadest group sells the best. In today’s world the book has been replaced by the blog and the YouTube channel.

As mentioned, I started my blogging career because of the above bookstore issue. Once I started learning things that weren’t in every book I wanted to share those ideas. That got me to Tech Field Day and eventually to different things. It also made me realize that while my content may never have hundreds of thousands of readers for every post it would serve people that needed to find those lessons or understand those topics in a depth that was beyond a paragraph or two in a 400-page encyclopedia of terminology.

To me, the certification comfort food is that entry-level content. It’s always going to be there. It’s simple to write about, especially when you have good analogies to frame new concepts for people. It’s tasty when you’re starving. And you can make a very good living doing it. But if you’re the kind of person that wants to try new tastes and break away from the comfort and ease you’re going to need to figure out your own path. You need to experiment and make mistakes and struggle to conceptualize what you’re talking about. You need to expand your horizons and do new things and then tell the world how you did it. Like a recipe blog or TikTok channel for cooking you’re going to need to put your crazy ideas out there and see how it goes.

Tom’s Take

There are a lot of great creators out there that have made a very good place for themselves teaching newcomers the basics of how things work. I applaud them and wish them nothing but success. I also know that’s not for me. I started writing about my CCIE studies and the challenges I was solving the real world. Now I write about the state of the market or the changing of tech or how to build and lead teams. It’s very representative of my journey as well as the journeys of those in the community that I talk to. My very nature won’t let me stay in a little bubble and create the same things in new ways. I’m going to push the envelope and explore new things. It means I might not land in everyone’s top list but it also means I won’t be bored. Why be mac-n-cheese when I really need to be risotto?

The Puzzle of Peering with Kentik

Posted on by
1

If you’ve worked at an ISP or even just closely with them you’ve probably hearing the term peering quite a bit. Peering is essentially a reciprocal agreement to provide access to networks between two providers. Provider A agrees to allow Provider B to send traffic over and through their network in exchange for the same access in the other direction. Sounds easy, right? On a technical level it is pretty easy. You simply set up a BGP session with the partner provider and make sure all the settings match and you’ve got things rolling.

The technical part isn’t usually where peering gets complicated. Instead it’s almost always related to the business side of things. The policy and negations that have to happen for a good peering agreement take way more time that hammering out some BGP configuration stanzas. The amount of traffic to be sent, the latency requirements, and even the cost of the agreement are all things that have to be figured out before the first hello packet can be exchanged. This agreement is always up for negotiation too, since the traffic patterns can change before you realize it and put you at a disadvantage.

Peerless Data Collection

If you want to get the most out of your peering arrangement you need to know what’s going on. You need to have statistics about the key points of your agreement. You need to know if you’re holding up your end of the bargain as well as the company you’re working with. If you walk into a peering negotiation without the right data you’re going to be working from a disadvantage right away.

For example, did your partner company take all of the traffic they agreed to accept in the peering contract? Or did they have issues that forced you to send the traffic along a different route? Were you forced to send that traffic across a different route that had a higher cost? Did your users complain about network speed because of congestion outside of your control? If you can’t put your fingers on the answers to these questions quickly you’re going to find yourself with lots of angry users and customers not to mention peering partners that want answers from you as well.

Recently I had a chance to listen to a great presentation from Kentik during Networking Field Day: Service Provider. Nina Bargisten laid out some of the challenges that Kentik customers face with peering arrangements and how Kentik is helping to solve them:

One of the points that Nina discusses is that capacity planning is a huge undertaking for ISPs. With the supply chain issues that we’re currently facing in 2022 it’s not easy to order equipment to alleviate congestion problems. Even under somewhat normal circumstances it’s not likely that an ISP is going to go out and order a lot of new hardware just to deal with congestion. They might change some polices to route traffic in different directions but ultimately the decision has to be made about how to get customer packets through and out of their network to the ultimate destination.

Peering agreements can help with congestion. Adding more exit points to your network means some flows can exit through a different provider and either get to their destination faster or prevent a larger connection from being overwhelmed and congested. It’s not unlike having multiple options to use to arrive a destination when driving. Some streets are better for smaller amounts of traffic compared to larger highways and interstates that provide high-speed travel.

As mentioned above, it’s critical that you have data on your traffic and its performance. Are you sending everything through one route? Are you peering with providers that are getting less than half of the traffic load they agreed to take? These are all questions you have to ask to create a capacity plan. If you’re hearing complaints about congestion but you see that only two of your outbound connections are running a full capacity while the rest are sitting idle then you don’t have a congestion issue as much as you have a configuration problem to solve.

Kentik’s solution allows you to see what’s going on and help you make better decisions about the routes that traffic should be taking. As demonstrated above, their dashboard collects data from your network as well as many others and can tell you when you need to be configuring polices to send traffic to low volume peers instead of relying on congested links. It will also help you see trends for when links become congested and allow you to set thresholds to divide your traffic appropriately before it becomes an issue.

There’s a lot more info in the video above to help you with your capacity planning and peering negotiations. It all comes down to a simple maxim: Information is key. You can’t solve these puzzles without knowing what you have and what you need. If you’re just going to keep throwing peering agreements at a problem until it goes away you’re going to fail. You won’t solve your real issues by just adding another connection that never gets used. Instead you can use Kentik’s platform to provide the kinds of insights that will help you create value for your customers and save money at the same time.

Tom’s Take

Service providers think about traffic differently than enterprise admins. They have to worry about it coming into the network and leaving again. Instead of worrying about a couple of links to the wider Internet they have to worry about dozens. If you think it’s hard keeping track of all that data for the enterprise you can just imagine how hard it is when you scale it up to the service provider level. Thankfully companies like Kentik are applying their expertise to provide actionable information to help you make the right choices and maybe even negotiate some better deals.

If you’d like to learn more about this presentation, make sure you check out the full presentation on the Tech Field Day site or go to http://Kentik.com

Authority and Responsibility

Posted on by
Reply

Congratulations on your promotion! You’re now a manager or leader for your team. You now have to make sure everyone is getting their things done. That also means lots of reports and meetings with your manager about what’s happening and all the new rules that have to be followed in the future. Doesn’t this all sound nice?

In truth we all want to be able to help out as much as possible. Sometimes that means putting in extra work. For many it also means being promoted to a position of responsibility in a company leading a team or group of teams. That means you will have some new responsibilities and also some new authority. But what’s the difference? And why is one more foundational than the other?

Respect My Authority

Authority is “power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior”. It means you have the ability to tell people what to do. You give orders and they are followed. You tell your team the direction that you want things to go and it happens. If it doesn’t there are consequences. When you tell someone they are the boss this is what they usually picture.

Responsibility is “the quality of being responsible,” where responsible means “liable to be called on to answer”. Responsibility is being the one to discuss what happens with the people under your charge. You talk about successes and failures and ultimately serve as the face of the group. When your boss starts looking for someone to tell them what’s going on you’re the one that needs to provide the answers.

As mentioned, many people think leadership and management is about the first thing and less about the second. I’d argue that you’ve worked for them before and it hasn’t been enjoyable. Having orders barked at you or threats of disciplinary action if goals aren’t accomplished are hallmarks of someone that’s focused on authority or on a “power trip”. It’s usually a very unpleasant experience, especially if that person later gets more power or is promoted to a higher level.

Responsibility is what the rest of the population thinks of when you discuss leadership. It’s being accountable for the people you lead. It’s more about celebrating their successes with others when appropriate as well as explaining what happened when there wasn’t the success you’d hoped for. These leaders are often much easier to work for because they empower those they work with and shield you from bad managers and bosses that only want someone other than themselves to accept the responsibility for failure.

A good leader will exhibit qualities of both of these traits to a degree. However, I would argue that the biggest difference between good leaders and bad bosses is how they handle responsibility. Responsibility is the more important of the two qualities to have. That’s because you can delegate authority but you can never delegate responsibility.

Read that last part again. Slowly.

In a formal leadership role, such as a military command, you delegate authority to accomplish things. Officers delegate authority to non-commissioned officers who then may delegate to a lower level like a team leader. At no point is there only one single person issuing all the orders from on high with the expectation that they will be followed by everyone beneath them. Leaders like CEOs may have a vision for how things need to be done but they leave the authority to accomplish those goals up to the leaders closer to the task at hand.

Delegating authority ensures that things are accomplished with efficiency. Could you imagine how difficult it would be for a military command to rely on a single general to give them every single order that was necessary for them to function? That might have worked in antiquity with smaller armies but in a modern force you have to delegate authority to junior officers or enlisted soldiers in order to keep things running smoothly. You also have to trust that the people you’ve placed in that role will get things accomplished. It doesn’t always work out the way you’d like but that’s part of the role of developing good leaders.

Responsibility Bites

What about the other, more important thing? Responsibility can’t be delegated. If the captain of a ship puts a junior officer in charge and something happens? In the example of the USS Fitzgerald colliding with a merchant ship the sailors in charge of the bridge were relieved of command and the ship’s commander faced disciplinary action. Someone had to answer for the collision. The person that caused it faced disciplinary actions but so too did the people in charge. In a different situation removed from the military it might have been easy for the commander to claim they weren’t on duty or they had told someone else to do it but the legal tradition of the US Navy is that the commander of the ship is always responsible for the actions of their crew. They must answer for problems, including colliding with another ship.

Responsibility can’t be delegated. If you are the leader for your team you must answer for their actions. If their actions create success that’s an easy conversation to have. If their actions lead to problems or liability then you also must answer for those as well. You can’t just take credit for the good things. You must also provide the interface when your manager or boss needs to discuss the bad things too. Responsibility for your team fosters the connections that reinforce teamwork. It’s easy to claim it wasn’t your fault that something happened if you weren’t around for it. The best leaders accept that whatever happened must have been because of a lack of training or some other deficiency and answer for it while working to correct the issue. They take the heat to allow for time to fix the issue, either through training or through personnel replacement.

If you’re now staring to see the value of working for an organization where leaders delegate authority to a good team and accept responsibility for their actions, both good and bad, then you know how valuable that can be. Morale will go up, productivity will increase, and most importantly you’ll be training the next generation of leaders in that mold so they become effective.

However, if you’re wondering what it feels like to work in an environment that is the exact opposite, imagine a role where your boss tells you that you must be the one to answer for your actions and that they aren’t responsible for what happens. When someone complains your boss is the first to point out that it’s not their fault. When there is success they claim it was all due to their leadership. When you complain that the rules don’t allow you to be effective your boss tells you that’s just the way it is and you can’t change anything so you need to get used to it.

If that sounds familiar you’re not alone. If that sounds like the role you’re currently in perhaps it’s time to work for a better leader.

Tom’s Take

Good leaders know when to help and when to get out of the way. They don’t take charge. They take responsibility. They highlight success as a team effort and answer when success isn’t there so it can be fixed. It doesn’t have to be as strict as a military command. By delegating authority and being responsible you can set an example for everyone you work with and everyone you work for. If the culture of your organization is the exact opposite it’s time to go somewhere you are valued because bad leaders will soon have no one to take responsibility for them and they won’t be able to boss anyone around they way they really want to.

Why 2023 is the Year of Wi-Fi 6E

Posted on by
4

If you’re like me, you chuckle every time someone tells you that next year is the year of whatever technology is going to be hot. Don’t believe me? Which year was the Year of VDI again? I know that writing the title of this post probably made you shake your head in amusement but I truly believe that we’ve hit the point of adoption of Wi-Fi 6E next year.

Device Support Blooms

There are rumors that the new iPhone 14 will adopt Wi-Fi 6E. There were the same rumors when the iPhone 13 was coming out and the iPhone rumor mill is always a mixed bag but I think we’re on track this time. Part of the reason for that is the advancements made in Wi-Fi 6 Release 2. The power management features for 6ER2 are something that should appeal to mobile device users, even if the name is confusing as can be.

Mobile phones don’t make a market. If they were the only driver for wireless adoption the Samsung handsets would have everyone on 6E by now. Instead, it’s the ecosystem. Apple putting a 6E radio in the iPhone wouldn’t be enough to tip the scales. It would take a concerted effort of adoption across the board, right? Well, what else does Apple have on deck that can drive the market?

The first thing is the rumored M2 iPad Pro. It’s expected to debut in October 2022 and feature upgrades aside from the CPU like wireless charging. One of the biggest features would be the inclusion of a Wi-Fi 6E radio as well to match the new iPhone. That would mean both of Apple’s mobile devices could enjoy the faster and less congested bandwidth of 6 GHz. The iPad would also be easier to build a new chip around compared to the relatively cramped space inside the iPhone. Give the professional nature of the iPad Pro one might expect an enterprise-grade feature like 6E support to help move some units.

The second thing is the looming M2 MacBook Pro. Note for this specific example I’m talking about the 14” and 16” models that would features the Pro and Max chips, not the 13” model running a base M2. Apple packed the M1 Pro and M1 Max models with new features last year, including more ports and a snazzy case redesign. What would drive people to adopt the new model so soon? How about faster connectivity? Given that people are already complaining that the M1 Pro has slow Wi-Fi Apple could really silence their armchair critics with a Wi-Fi 6E radio.

You may notice that I’m relying heavily on Apple here as my reasoning behind the projected growth of 6E in 2023. It’s not because I’m a fanboy. It’s because Apple is one of the only companies that controls their own ecosystem to the point of being able to add support for a technology across the board and drive adoption among their user base. Sure, we’ve had 6E radios from Samsung and Dell and many others for the past year or so. Did they drive the sales of 6E radios in the enterprise? Or even in home routers? I’d argue they haven’t. But Apple isn’t the only reason why.

Oldie But Goodie

The last reason that 2023 is going to be the year of Wi-Fi 6E is because of timing. Specifically I’m talking about the timing of a refresh cycle in the enterprise. The first Wi-Fi 6 APs started coming into the market in 2019. Early adopters jumped at the chance to have more bandwidth across the board. But those APs are getting old by the standards of tech. They may still pass traffic but users that are going back to the office are going to want more than standard connectivity. Especially if those users splurged for a new iPhone or iPad for Christmas or are looking for a new work laptop of the Macintosh variety.

Enterprises may not have been packed with users for the past couple of years but that doesn’t mean the tech stood still. Faster and better is always the mantra of the cutting edge company. The revisions in the new standards would make life easier for those trying to deploy new IoT sensors or deal with with congested buildings. If enterprise vendors adopt these new APs in the early part of the year it could even function as an incentive to get people back in the office instead of the slow insecure coffee shop around the corner.

One other little quirky thing comes from an report that Intel is looking to adopt Wi-Fi 7. It may just be the cynic in me talking but as soon as we start talking about a new technology on the horizon people start assuming that the “current” cutting edge tech is ready for adoption. It’s the same as people that caution you not to install a new operating system until after the first patch or service release. Considering that Wi-Fi 6 Release 2 is effectively Wi-Fi 6E Service Pack 1 I think the cynics in the audience are going to think that it’s time to adopt Wi-Fi 6E since it’s ready for action.

Tom’s Take

Technology for the sake of tech is always going to fail. You need drivers for adoption and usage. If cool tech won the day we’d be watching Betamax movies or HD-DVD instead of streaming on Netflix. Instead, the real winners are the technologies that get used. So far that hasn’t been Wi-Fi 6E for a variety of reasons. However, with the projections of releases coming soon from Apple I think we’re going to see a massive wave of adoption of Wi-Fi 6E in 2023. And if you’re reading this in late 2023 or beyond and it didn’t happen, just mentally change the title to whatever next year is and that will be the truth.