About networkingnerd

Tom Hollingsworth, CCIE #29213, is a former network engineer and current organizer for Tech Field Day. Tom has been in the IT industry since 2002, and has been a nerd since he first drew breath.

Tech Field Day 9

Posted on June 10, 2013 by networkingnerd

It’s hard to believe that the last Tech Field Day event was held almost two years ago. Since the, the Field Day series has branched out to cover topics like Networking, Storage, and Wireless. The industry never stands still for long, however. The stars aligned and the sponsors asked to bring back the granddaddy of them all. That’s why I’m happy to announce that I’ll be attending Tech Field Day 9 from June 19-21 in Austin, TX.

There’s an all-star lineup of previous Field Day attendees with a couple of new folks sprinkled in to keep things lively:

	Alastair Cooke	@DemitasseNZ
	Trainer, Writer, Consultant, Geek. From New Zealand.
	Bob Plankers	@Plankers
	A hardcore IT generalist, virtualization expert, blogger, and vocal end user of technology.
	Carlo Costanzo	@CCostan
	Carlo is a NYC based Virtualization Consultant. He writes about whatever interests him at the time @ vCloudInfo.com
	Chris Wahl	@ChrisWahl
	The guy who is in your data center virtualizing things
	Howard Marks	@DeepStorageNet
	Storage Analyst Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
	John Obeto	@JohnObeto
	I like SMBs and Windows
	Justin Warren	@JPWarren
	The Anablogger: Old-school, long-form analysis with an irreverent twist.
	Matthew Norwood	@MatthewNorwood

	Robert Novak	@Gallifreyan
	Writer, Photographer, System Administrator, Team Builder, Cat Herder, Comedian, Part-Time Shopkeeper
	Ryan Adzima	@RAdzima
	Ryan is an enterprise technology generalist with a tendency to always end up back in networking.
	Scott D. Lowe	@OtherScottLowe

	Tony Mattke	@Tonhe
	network engineer / geek

The delegates are some of the best and brightest across the networking, server, and storage industries. Which is quite fitting when you consider the sponsors that are coming your way and how the represent the new trend in converged data centers:

In particular, Infinio is an exciting edition to the Tech Field Day series. They will be launching during their presentation slot, so I’m sure they’re going to have a very interesting take on their topic.

Tech Field Day 9 is also a transition point for me personally. For the first time, I’ll be attending the event as both a delegate AND a staff member. Now that I’m a full-time employee of Foskett Services and Gestalt IT I’m going to split my time between listening to the presenters and making sure that everything is running smoothly in the background. It’s going to be a challenge to try and keep up with everything, but I feel that I’m more than capable of making every aspect of this event outstanding.

What’s Field Day Like?

Tech Field Day is not a vacation. This event will involve starting a day early first thing Wednesday morning and running full steam for two and a half days. We get up early and retire late. Wall-to-wall meetings and transportation to and from vendors fill the days. When you consider that most of the time we’re discussing vendors and presentations on the car ride to the next building, there’s very little downtime. We’ve been known to have late night discussions about converged storage networking and automation until well after midnight. If that’s your idea of a “vacation” then Tech Field Day is a paradise. I usually crawl onto a plane late Friday night mentally and physically exhausted with a head full of blog posts and ideas. It’s not unlike the same kind of feeling you get after running a marathon. You don’t know if you could do it again tomorrow, but you can’t wait until the next one.

Tech Field Day – Join In Now!

Everyone at home is as much a participant in Tech Field Day as the delegates on site. At the last event we premiered the ability to watch the streaming video from the presentations on mobile devices. This means that you can tune in from just about anywhere now. There’s no need to stay glued to your computer screen. If you want to tune in to our last presentations of the day from the comfort of your couch with your favorite tablet device then feel free by all means. We’ll also have the videos from the session posted quickly afterwards on Youtube and Vimeo. If you have to run to the store for ice cream or catch that playoff game you can always catch up with what’s going on when you get back. Don’t forget that you can also use Twitter to ask questions and make comments about what you’re seeing and hearing. Some of the best questions I’ve seen came from the home audience. Use the hashtag #TFD9 during the event. Note that I’ll be tagging the majority of my tweets that week with #TFD9, so if the chatter is getting overwhelming you can always mute or filter that tag.

Standard Tech Field Day Sponsor Disclaimer

Tech Field Day is a massive undertaking that involves the coordination of many moving parts. It’s not unlike trying to herd cats with an aircraft carrier. One of the most important pieces is the sponsors. Each of the presenting companies is responsible for paying a portion of the travel and lodging costs for the delegates. This means they have some skin in the game. What this does NOT mean is that they get to have a say in what we do. No Tech Field Day delegate is every forced to write about the event due to sponsor demands. If a delegate chooses to write about anything they see at Tech Field Day, there are no restrictions about what can be said. Sometimes this does lead to negative discussion. That is entirely up to the delegate. Independence means no restrictions. At times, some Tech Field Day sponsors have provided no-cost evaluation equipment to the delegates. This is provided solely at the discretion of the sponsor and is never a requirement. This evaluation equipment is also not a contingency of writing a review, be it positive or negative. The delegates are in this for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

If you’d like to learn more about what makes Tech Field Day so special, please check out the website at http://techfieldday.com. If you want to be a part of Tech Field Day, don’t hesitate to fill out the nomination form to become a delegate. We’re always on the lookout for great people to become a part of the event and we’d love to have you along for the ride.

Glue Peddlers

Posted on June 6, 2013 by networkingnerd

IntegrationGlue

There’s an old adage that says “A chain is only as strong as the weakest link.” While people typically use this in terms on saying that teams are only as strong as their weakest member, I look at it through a different lens. In my former life as a Value Added Reseller (VAR) engineer, I spent a lot of my time working with technologies that needed to be linked together like a chain.

You have probably seen the lamentations of a voice engineer complaining about fax machines. If you haven’t, you should count yourself lucky. Fax machines are the bane of the lives of many telecom folks. They aren’t that difficult when you get right down to it. They’re essentially printers with a 9600 baud modem attached for making phone calls. Indeed, fax machines are probably one of the most robust pieces of technology that I’ve encountered. I’ve seen faxes covered in dust and grime from a decade or more of use still dutifully churning out page after page of low resolution black-and-white print.

Faxes themselves aren’t the issue. The problem is that their technology has been eclipsed to the point where interfacing them in the modern world is often difficult and time consuming. I usually counsel my customers to leave their fax machines plugged directly into an analog landline to avoid issues. For those times where that can’t be done, I have a whole bag of tricks to make it work with a voice over IP (VoIP) system. Adaptors and relays and other such tricks help me figure out how to make this decades-old tech work with a modern PRI or SIP connection. And don’t even get me started on interfacing a fire alarm with an IP phone system.

The best VARs in the world don’t make their money from reselling a pile of hardware to a customer. The profits aren’t found in a bill of materials. Instead, they make money in the glue business. Tying two disparate technologies together via custom programming or knowledge of processes needed to make dissimilar technology work the right way is their real trade. This is their “glue.” I can remember having discussions with people regarding the hardest parts of an implementation. It’s not in setting up a dial plan or configuring a VM cluster with the right IP address. It’s usually in making some old piece of technology work correctly. A fire alarm or a Novell server or an ancient wireless access point can quickly become the focus area of an entire project and consume all your time.

If you really want to differentiate yourself from the pack of “box pushers” out there just reselling equipment you need to concentrate on the point where the glue needs to be the stickiest. That’s where the customer’s knowledge is the weakest. That’s the point that will end up causing the most pain. That’s where the money is waiting for the truly dedicated. VARs have already figured this out. If you want to make yourself valuable to a customer or to a VAR, be the best a gluing these technologies together. Understand how to make old technology work with new tech. There’s always going to be new technology coming out to replace what’s being used currently. And there will always be a customer or two that want to keep using that old technology far past the expiration date. If you are the one that can tie those too things together with a minimum of effort, you’ll find yourself the most popular peddler in the market.

The Arse First Method of Technical Blogging – Review

Posted on June 3, 2013 by networkingnerd

When you tell people that you are a blogger, you tend to get a couple of generic responses. The first is laughter or dismissal. Some people just don’t understand how you can write all the time. The second response if curiosity. Usually, this is expressed as a torrent of questions about how to blog. What do I write about? How much should I write? How often should I post? And on and on. For those of us that have been blogging long enough, it’s almost a wrote recitation of our standards and practices for blogging. Some people have even been smart enough to turn that standard reply into a blog post. For Greg Ferro, it was time to turn that blog post into an e-book:

Cheeky, isn’t it? Weighing in at a svelte 37 pages, this little how-to guide details many of Greg’s secrets for writing blog posts over his career. He talks about tools for screen captures and knowledge archiving. He also discusses hosting options and content creation. To the novice blogger, it’s a step-by-step guide in how to get started in blogging. I would highly recommend picking it up if you aren’t sure how to get started in technical blogging, which is remarkably different than blogging about food or pictures or any other non-technical thing.

The Catch

The funny thing about this book is that, while reading more and more of it, I realized that I violate almost every one of Greg’s recommendations for writing a technical blog. My opening paragraphs are more like story hooks. I don’t use a lot of bullet points. I like putting pictures in my posts. There are many others that I ignore on a pretty regular basis as well. But don’t think that means that I don’t appreciate what Greg is trying to do with his book.

Greg writes like he speaks in real life. He doesn’t mince words. He’s not in love with the sound of his voice. He’s going to give it to you straight when you ask him a question. His blogging style is totally reflective of his speaking style. On the other hand, my blogging style is indicative of my speaking style as well. I like telling stories and relating things back to universal images through metaphors. I tend to expound on subjects and give more details to support my arguments rather than restricting that to a simple bulleted statement. People that read Greg’s blog posts and my blog posts would likely be able to pick out which of us authored a particular post. That’s because we have our own voices.

Greg’s book is a great way to get started with technical blogging. After you get your first couple of posts down, it’s important to think about finding your voice. You may like using lots of pictures or video. You may prefer to keep it short and sweet with the occasional code example. The key is find a style that works for you and stick with it. Once you find a comfortable writing style you’ll find yourself writing more often and about more complex subjects. When you aren’t worried about getting the words down on paper you’re free to dive right into things that are going to take a lot of thought.

The recommended price of this book is $4.99. If that scares you off, you can pick it up for just $2.99. For the price of a candy bar and a 20oz soda, you can learn a little more about blogging and using tools to amplify your writing ability. If nothing else, you can read through it so you know how Greg thinks when he’s writing down information about things. You can purchase The Arse First Method of Technical Blogging at https://leanpub.com/Technical-Blogging-Writing-Arse-First. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

CCIE Loses Its Voice

Posted on May 30, 2013 by networkingnerd

cciev The world we live in is constantly adapting and changing to new communications methods. I can still remember having a party line telephone when I was a kid. I’ve graduated to using landlines, cellular phones, email, instant messaging, text messaging, and even the occasional video call. There are more methods to contact people than I can count on both hands. This change is also being reflected in the workforce as well. People who just a few years ago felt comfortable having a desk phone and simple voice mail are now embracing instant messaging with presence integration and unified voice mail as well as single number reach to their mobile devices. It’s a brave new world that a voice engineer is going to need to understand in depth.

To that end, Cisco has decided to retire the CCIE Voice in favor of an updated track that will be christened the CCIE Collaboration. Note that they aren’t merely changing the blueprint like they have in the past with the CCIE SP or the CCIE R&S. This is like the CCIE Storage being moved aside for the CCIE Data Center. The radical shift in content of the exam should be a tip-off to the candidates that this isn’t going to be the same old voice stuff with a few new bells and whistles.

Name That Tune

The lab equipment and software list (CCO account required) includes a bump to CUCM 9.1 for the call processor, as well as various 9.x versions of Unity Connection, Presence, and CUCME. There’s also a UCS C460, which isn’t too surprising with CUCM being a virtualized product now. The hardware is rounded out with 2921 and 3925 routers as well as a 3750-X switch. The most curious inclusion is the Cisco Jabber Video for Telepresence. That right there is the key to the whole “collaboration” focus on this exam. There is a 9971 phone listed as an item. I can almost guarantee you’re going to have to make a video call from the 9971 to the video soft client in Cisco Jabber. That’s all made possible thanks to Cisco’s integration of video in CUCM in 9.1. This has been their strategy all along.

The CCIE Voice is considered one of the hardest certifications to get, even among the CCIE family. It’s not that there is any one specific task to configure that just wrecks candidates. The real issue is the amount of tasks that must be configured. Especially when you consider that a simple 3-point task to get the remote site dial plan up and running could take a couple of hours of configuration. Add in the integrated troubleshooting section that requires you to find a problem after you’ve already configured it incorrectly and you can see why this monster is such a hard test. One has to wonder what adding video and other advanced topics like presence integration into the lab is going to do to the amount of time the candidate has to configure things. It was already hard to get done in 8 hours. I’m going to guess it’s downright impossible to do it in the CCIE Collaboration. My best guess is that you are going to see versions of the test that are video-centric as well as ones that are voice-centric. There’s going to be a lot of overlap between the two, but you can’t go into the lab thinking you’re guaranteed to get a video lab.

Hitting the Wrong Notes

There also seems to have been a lot of discussion about the retirement of the CCIE Voice track as opposed to creating a CCIE Voice version 4 track with added video. In fact, there are some documents out there related to the CCIE Collaboration that reference a CCIE Voice v4. The majority of discussion seems to be around the CCIE Voice folks getting “grandfathered” into a CCIE Collaboration title. While I realize that the change in the name was mostly driven about the marketing of the greater collaboration story, I still don’t think that there should be any automatic granting of the Collaboration title.

The CCIE Collaboration is a different test. While the blueprint may be 75% the same, there’s still the added video component to take into account (as well as cluster configuration for multiple CUCM servers). People want an upgrade test to let the CCIE Voice become a CCIE Collaboration. They have one already: the CCIE Collaboration lab exam. If the title is that important, you should take that lab exam and pass it to earn your new credential. The fact that there is precedent for this with the migration of the Storage track to Data Center shows that Cisco wants to keep the certifications current and fresh. While Routing & Switching and Security see content refreshes, they are still largely the same at the core. I would argue that the CCIE Collaboration will be a different exam in feel, even if not in blueprint or technology. The focus on IM, presence and video means that there’s going to be an entirely different tone. Cisco wants to be sure that the folks displaying the credential are really certified to work on it according to the test objectives. I can tell you that there was serious consideration around allowing Storage candidates to take some sort of upgrade exam to get to the CCIE Data Center, but it looks like that was ultimately dropped in favor of making everyone go through the curriculum. The retirement of the CCIE Voice doesn’t make you any less of a CCIE. Like it or not, it looks like the only way to earn the CCIE Collaboration is going to be in the trenches.

It Ain’t Over Until…

The sunsetting officially starts on November 20th, 2013. That’s the last day to take the CCIE Voice written. Starting the next day (the 21st) you can only take the Collaboration written exam. Thankfully, you can use either the Voice written or the Collaboration written exam to qualify for either lab. That’s good until February 13, 2014. That’s the last day to take the CCIE Voice lab. Starting the next day (Valentine’s Day 2014), you will only be able to take the Collaboration lab exam. If you want to get an idea of what is going to be tested on the lab exam, check out the document on the Cisco Learning Network (CCO account required).

If you’d like to read more about the changes from professional CCIE trainers, check out Vik Malhi (@vikmalhi) on IPExpert’s blog. You can also read Mark Snow’s (@highspeedsnow) take on things at INE’s blog.

Tom’s Take

Nothing lasts forever, especially in the technology world. New gadgets and methods come out all the time to supplant the old guard. In the world of communications and collaboration, Cisco is trying to blaze a trail towards business video as well as showing the industry that collaboration is more than just a desk phone and a voice mailbox. That vision has seen some bumps along the way but Cisco seems to have finally decided on a course. That means that the CCIE Voice has reached the apex of potential. It is high time for something new and different to come along and push the collaboration agenda to the logical end. Cisco has already created a new CCIE to support their data center ambitions. I’m surprised it took them this long to bring business video and non-voice communications to the forefront. While I am sad to see the CCIE Voice fade away, I’m sure the CCIE Collaboration is going to be a whole new barrel of fun.

The Microsoft Office Tablet

Posted on May 28, 2013 by networkingnerd

OfficeTablet I’ve really tried to stay out of the Tablet Wars. I have a first generation iPad that I barely use any more. My kids have co-opted it from me for watching on-demand TV shows and playing Angry Birds. Since I spend most of my time typing blog posts or doing research, I use my laptop more than anything else. When the Surface RT and Surface Pro escaped from the wilds of Redmond I waited and watched. I wanted to see what people were going to say about these new Microsoft tablets. It’s been about 4 months since the release of the Surface Pro and simliar machines from vendors like Dell and Asus. I’ve been slowly asking questions and collecting information about these devices. And I think I’ve finally come to a realization.

The primary reason people want to buy a Surface tablet is to run Microsoft Office.

Here’s the setup. Everyone that expressed an interest in the Pro version of the Surface (or the Latitude 10 from Dell) was asked a question by me: What is the most compelling feature for the Surface Pro for you? The responses that I got back were overwhelming in their similarity.

1. I want to use Microsoft Office on my tablet.

2. I want to run full Windows apps on my tablet.

I never heard anything about portability, power, user interface, or application support (beyond full Windows apps). I specifically excluded the RT model of the Surface from my questions because of the ARM processor and the reliance of software from the Windows App Store. The RT functions more like Apple/Android tablets in that regard.

This made me curious. The primary goal of Surface users is to be able to run Office? These people have basically told me that the only reason they want to buy a tablet is to use an office suite. One that isn’t currently available anywhere else for mobile devices. One that has been rumored to be released on other platforms down the road. While it may be a logical fallacy, it appears that Microsoft risks invalidating a whole hardware platform because of a single application suite. If they end up releasing Office for iOS/Android, people would flee from the Surface to the other platforms according to the info above. Ergo, the only purpose of the Surface appears to be to run one application. Which I why I’ve started calling it the Microsoft Office Tablet. Then I started wondering about the second most popular answer in my poll.

Making Your Flow Work

As much as I’ve tried not to use the word “workflow” before, I find that it fits in this particular conversation. Your workflow is more than just the applications you utilize. It’s how you use them. My workflow looks totally different from everyone else even though I use simliar applications. I use email and word processing for my own purposes. I write a lot, so a keyboard of some kind is important to my workflow. I don’t do a lot of graphics design, so a pen input tablet isn’t really a big deal to me. The list goes on and on, but you see that my needs are my own and not those of someone else. Workflows may be simliar, but not identical. That’s where the dichotomy comes into play for me.

When people start looking at using a different device for their workflow, they have to make adjustments of some kind. Especially if that device is radically different from one they’ve been using before. Your phone is different from a tablet, and a tablet is different from a laptop. Even a laptop is different from a desktop, but these two are more simliar than most. When the time comes to adjust your workflow to a new device, there are generally two categories of people:

1. People who adjust their workflow to the new device.

2. People who expect the device to conform to their existing workflow.

For users of the Apple and Android tablets, option 1 is pretty much the only option you’ve got. That’s because the workflow you’ve created likely can’t be easily replicated between devices. Desktop apps don’t run on these tablets. When you pick up an iPad or a Galaxy Tab you have to spend time finding apps to replicate what you’ve been doing previously. Note taking apps, web browsing apps, and even more specialized apps like banking or ebook readers are very commonly installed. Your workflow becomes constrained to the device you’re using. Things like on-screen keyboards or lack of USB ports become bullet points in workflow compatibility. On occasion, you find that a new workflow is possible with the device. The prime example I can think of is using the camera on a phone in conjunction with a banking app to deposit checks without needing to take them into the bank. That workflow would have been impossible just a couple of years ago. With the increase in camera phone resolution, high speed data transfer, and secure transmission of sensitive data made possible by device advancements we can now picture this new workflow and easily adapt it because a device made it possible.

The other category is where the majority of Surface Pro users come in. These are the people that think their workflow must work on any device they use. Rather than modify what they’re doing, they want the perfect device to do their stuff. These are the people that use a tablet for about a week and then move on to something different because “it just didn’t feel right.” When they finally do find that magical device that does everything they want, they tend to abandon all other devices and use it exclusively. That is, until they have a new workflow or a substantial modification to their existing workflow. Then they go on the hunt for a new device that’s perfect for this workflow.

So long as your workflow is the immutable object in the equation, you are never going to be happy with any device you pick. My workflows change depending on my device. I browse Twitter and read email from my phone but rarely read books. I read books and do light web surfing from a tablet but almost never create content. I spend a lot of time creating content on my laptop buy hate reading on it. I’ve adjusted my workflows to suit the devices I’m using.

If the single workflow you need to replicate on your table revolves around content creation, I think it’s time to examine exactly what you’re using a tablet for. Is it portability beyond what a laptop can offer? Do you prefer to hunt and peck around a touch screen instead of a keyboard? Are you looking for better battery life or some other function of the difference in hardware? Or are you just wanting to look cool with a tablet in the “post PC world?” That’s the primary reason I don’t use a tablet that much any more. My workflows conform to my phone and my laptop. I don’t find use in a tablet. Some people love them. Some people swear by them. Just make sure you aren’t dropping $800-$1000 on a one-application device.

At the end of the day, work needs to get done. People are going to use whatever device they want to use to get their stuff done. Some want to do stuff and move on. Others want to look awesome doing stuff or want to do their stuff everywhere no matter what. Use what works best for you. Just don’t be surprised if complaining about how this device doesn’t run my favorite data entry program gets a sideways glance from IT.

Disclaimer: I own a first generation iPad. I’ve tested a Dell Latitude 10. I currently use an iPhone 4S. I also use a MacBook Air. I’ve used a Lenovo Thinkpad in the past as my primary workstation. I’m not a hater of Microsoft or a lover of Apple. I’ve found a setup that lets me get my job done.

Cisco Live 2013 Tweetup

Posted on May 23, 2013 by networkingnerd

It’s down to one month until Cisco Live 2013! As usual, this is the time when the breakneck pace of updates starts coming out. Whether it be about discount Disney World tickets from Teren Bryson (@SomeClown) or the comprehensive update from Jeff Fry (@fryguy_pa), you’ve got your bases covered. One of the events that I’m most excited about is the official Cisco Live Tweetup.

Twitter has become a powerful medium in the IT industry. It allows people from all around the world to communicate almost in real time about an increasingly broad list of subjects. Professionals that take advantage of Twitter to build contacts and solve problems find themselves in a very advantageous position in relation to those that “just don’t get it.” When a large group of IT professionals gets together in real life, it’s almost inevitable that they all want to get together and hang out to discuss things face-to-face instead of face-to-screen. That’s the real magic behind a tweetup – putting a living, breathing face to a Twitter handle or odd avatar.

The 2012 Cisco Live Tweetup was a huge success. Many of us got to catch up with old friends, make some new friends, and generally spend time with awesome folks all over the industry. The social corner was the place to watch keynotes, troubleshoot problems and even talk about non-nerdy stuff. After the end of the event, I couldn’t wait to try and top it in 2013. Thanks to some help from the Cisco Live Social Team, I think we’ve got a great chance.

The 2013 Cisco Live Tweetup will be held on Sunday, June 23rd at 5:00 p.m. at the Social Media Hub. It’s on the first floor of the convention center right across from registration. We’ve got some prime real estate this year to check out all the happenings at Cisco Live! That also means there will be curious people that want to check out what this whole “social” thing is about. That means more people tweeting and sharing, which is always a win in my book. Jeff and I will also have a limited supply of the coveted Twitter flags for your Cisco Live name badge. While there may be a printed version on the main badge itself, nothing shows your social media plumage quite like a piece of name badge flair.

The 5:00 p.m. start time was chosen by popular vote in an online poll. I know that there are lots of events that typically run during Sunday, like labs and Techtorials. In particular, there is a Cisco Empowered Women’s Network event that starts at 4:00. I don’t want anyone to feel slighted or left out of all the fun at Cisco Live from the need to leave an event just to run to another one. To that end, I plan on being at the Social Media Hub starting around 2:00 p.m. on Sunday and staying as long as it takes to meet people and welcome them to the Twitter family at Cisco Live. I want everyone to feel like they’ve had an opportunity to meet and greet as many people as possible, especially if they have to leave to attend a reception or are just coming out of an 8-hour brain draining class.

Remember that the fun at Cisco Live doesn’t just end with the Tweetup. We’re planning on having all kinds of fun all week long. I’m working on the plans to get a 5k run going with Amy Lewis (@CommsNinja) and Colin McNamara (@colinmcnamara) for those out there that want to stretch their legs for some great charities. There are also a couple more surprises in store that I can’t wait to see. I’ll drop a few hints once those plans come closer to fruition. I’m really looking forward to seeing all of the people on the Cisco Live 2013 Twitter list as well as meeting some new people. See you there!

More Than I Was, Less Than I Will Become

Posted on May 20, 2013 by networkingnerd

GravatarNN For the last ten years, I’ve been working for the same value added reseller (VAR). It’s been a very fun ride. I started out as a desktop repair technician. It just seemed natural after my work on a national inbound helpdesk. Later, I caught a couple of lucky breaks and started working on Novell servers. That vaulted me into the system administration side of things. Then someone decided that I need to learn about switches and routers and phone systems. That’s how I got to the point where I am today as a network engineer. That’s not all I do, though.

If you’re reading this, you know all about my secret identity. If my day job at the VAR has me acting like Bruce Wayne, then my blog is where I get to be Batman. I write about tech trends and talk about vendors. Sometimes I say nice things. Sometimes I don’t. However, I love what I do. I find myself driven to learn more about the industry for my writing than anything else. Sometimes, my learning complements my day job. Other times the two paths diverge, possibly to never meet up again. It can be tough to reconcile that. What I know is that the involvement I have in the industry thanks to my blog has opened my eyes to a much wider world beyond the walls of my office.

Enter Stephen Foskett. I can still remember the first time he DMed on Twitter and asked if I would be interested in attending a Tech Field Day event. I was beside myself with excitement to say the least. When I got to Tech Field Day 5, I was amazed at the opportunity afforded to me to learn about new technology and then go back and write down what I thought about it. I didn’t have to be nice. I didn’t even have to write if I didn’t want to. I had the freedom to say what I wanted. I loved it. Then a funny thing happened before I could even leave TFD5. Stephen asked if I wanted to come back the next month to help him launch Wireless Field Day. I was overjoyed. You mean I get to come back?

So began my long history with Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day. I’ve been to seven Tech Field Day events since TFD5 in February of 2011. I’ve also been to a couple of roundtables and a meeting or two. I love every aspect of what Stephen is trying to accomplish. At times, I wished there was something more I could do. Thankfully, Stephen was thinking the same thing. When Network Field Day 5 came around in March of this year, I got another life-changing DM a couple of weeks prior:

“We need to talk about your future. Have you considered becoming the Dread Pirate Roberts? I think you’d make an excellent Dread Pirate Roberts.“

Just for the record, Princess Bride references in a job offer are the most awesome kind of job offers. Stephen and I spent two hours on the first night of NFD5 talking about what he had in store. He needed help. I wanted to help. He wanted someone enthusiastic to help him do what he does so that more could be done. I was on board as soon as he said it. I’d always half-jokingly said that if I could do any job in the world, I do Stephen Foskett’s job. He talks to people. He writes great posts. He knows what the vendors want to sell and what the customers want to buy. He has connections with the community that others would kill to have a chance to get. And now he’s giving me a chance to become a part of it.

As of June 1, 2013, I will be taking a position with Stephen Foskett at Gestalt IT.

I’m excited about things all over again. Sure, I won’t be typing CLI commands into a router any more. I won’t be answering customer voice mail password reset emails. What I will be doing is where my passion lies now. I’m going to spend more time writing and talking to vendors. I’m going to help Stephen with Tech Field Day events. I’m going to be a facilitator and an instigator. If Stephen is the Captain, then I hope to be Number One. We’re hoping to take the idea of Tech Field Day and run with it. You’ve already seen some of that plan with the TFD Roundtable events at the major tech conferences this year. I want to help Stephen take this even further.

This also means that I’m going to spend more time at Tech Field Day events. I just won’t be sitting in front of the camera for most of them. I might spend time as a hybrid delegate/staff person on occasion, but I’ll be spending time behind the scenes making everything work like a well-oiled machine. I’ve always tried to help out as much as I can. Now it’s going to be my job.

I won’t stop doing what I’m doing here, though. Part of what brought me to where I am is the blogging and social media activity that got me noticed in the first place. This just means that I’m going to have more time to research and write in between all the planning. I plan on taking full advantage of that. You’ve seen that I’ve been trying to post twice a week so far this year. I’m going to do my best to keep with that schedule. I’m going to have much more time in between phone calls and planning sessions to dig into technologies that I wouldn’t otherwise have had time to look at in my old day job.

It’s going to be a busy life for a while. Between conference season and TFD events, I’m going to be spending a lot of time catching up and getting things ready to go for all the great things that are planned already. Plus, knowing how I am with things, I’m going to be looking for more opportunities to get more things going. Maybe I’ll even get Voice Field Day going. I’m looking forward to the chance to do something amazing with my time. Something the community loves and wants to be a part of.

I recorded an episode of Who Is with Josh O’brien (@joshobrien77) where I discuss a bit about what brought me to making this change as well as some thoughts about the industry and where I fit in. You can find it here at his website.

In closing, I want to say a special thanks to each of you out there reading this right now. You all are the reason why I keep writing and thinking and talking. Without you I would never have imagined that it was possible to do something with this much passion. That would also have never led me to finding out that I could make a career out of it. From the bottom of my heart – thank you for making me believe in myself.

Juniper Networks Warrior – Review

Posted on May 16, 2013 by networkingnerd

Documentation is the driest form of communication there is. Whether it be router release notes or stereo instructions I never seem to be able to find a way to read more than a paragraph before tossing things aside. You’d think by now that someone would come up with a better way to educate without driving someone to drinking.

O’Reilly Media has always done a good job of creating technical content that didn’t make me pass out from boredom. They’ve figured out how to strike a balance between what needs to be said and the more effective and entertaining way to say it. Once I started reading the books with the funny animals on the covers I started learning a lot more about the things I was working on. One book in particular caught my eye – Network Warrior by Gary Donahue. Billed as “everything you need to know that wasn’t on the CCNA,” it is a great introduction to more advanced topics that are encountered in day-to-day network operations like spanning tree or the Catalyst series of switches. Network Warrior is heavily influenced by Cisco equipment. While the concepts are pretty straight forward the bias does lean toward the building on Tasman Drive. Thankfully, O’Reilly enlisted an author to bring the Warrior series to Sunnyvale as well:

Peter Southwick was enlisted to write a Warrior book from the perspective of Juniper engineer. I picked up a copy of this book the last time I was at Juniper’s headquarters and have spent the past few weeks digesting the info inside.

What Worked

Documentation is boring. It’s a dry description of how to do everything. How-to guides are a bit better written, but they still have to cover the basics. I am a much bigger fan of the cookbook, which is a how-to that takes basic building blocks and turns them into a recipe that accomplishes something. That’s what Juniper Networks Warrior is really about. It’s a cookbook with some context. Each of the vignettes tells a story about a specific deployment or project. By providing a back story to everything you get a feel for how real implementations tend to flow back and forth between planning and execution. Also, the solutions provided really do a great job of cutting past the boring rote documentation and into things you’ll use more than once. Couple that with the vignettes being based on something other than technology-focused chapters and it becomes apparent that this is a very holistic view for technology implementation.

What Didn’t Work

There were a couple of things that didn’t work well in the narrative to me. The first was the “tribe” theme. Southwick continually refers to the teams that he worked with in his projects as “tribes.” While I understand that this does fit somewhat with the whole idea behind the Warrior books, it felt a bit out of place. Especially since Donahue didn’t use it in either Network Warrior or Arista Warrior (another entry in the series). I really did try to look past it and not imagine groups of network engineers carrying spears and slings around the data center, but it was mentioned so often in place of “team” or “group” that it became jarring after a while.

The other piece that bothered me a bit was in Chapter 3: Data Center Security Design. The author went out of the way to mention that the solution that his “tribe” came up with was in direct competition with a competing one that utilized Cisco gear. He also mentioned that the Juniper solution was going to displace the Cisco solution to a certain degree. I get that. Vendor displacement happens all the time in the VAR world. What bothered me was the few occasional mentions of a competitor’s gear with words like “forced” or casting something in a negative light simply due to the sticker on the front. I’ve covered that before in my negative marketing post. Why I bring it up here is because it wasn’t present in either Network or Arista Warrior, even though the latter is a vendor-sponsored manual like this one. In particular, an anecdote in the Arista chapter on VRRP mentions that Cisco wanted to shut down the RFC for VRRP due to similarity with HSRP. No negativity, no poking with a sharp stick. Just a statement of fact and the readers are left to draw their own conclusions.

I realize the books of this nature often require input from the technical resources of a vendor. I also realize that sometimes the regard that these books are held in sometimes looks to be a very appealing platform to launch marketing campaigns or to use a factually based volume to mention some opinion-based verbiage. I sincerely hope that future volumes tone down the rhetoric just a bit for the sake of providing a good reference volume. Engineers will keep going back to a book if it gives them a healthy dose of the information they need to do their jobs. They won’t go back nearly as often to a book that spends too much time discussing the pros and cons of a particular vendor’s solution. I’d rather see pages of facts and configs that get the job done.

Review Disclaimer

The copy of Juniper Networks Warrior that I reviewed was provided to me by Juniper Networks. I received it as part of a group of items during Network Field Day 5. At no time did Juniper ask for nor were they promised any consideration in the writing of this review. All of the analysis and conclusions contained herein are mine and mine alone.

Why Facebook’s Open Compute Switches Don’t Matter. To You.

Posted on May 13, 2013 by networkingnerd

Facebook announced at Interop that they are soliciting ideas for building their own top-of-rack (ToR) switch via the Open Compute Project. This sent the tech media into a frenzy. People are talking about the end of the Cisco monopoly on switches. Others claimed that the world would be a much different place now that switches are going to be built by non-vendors and open sourced to everyone. I yawned and went back to my lunch. Why?

BYO Networking Gear

As you browse the article that you’re reading about how Facebook is going to destroy the networking industry, do me a favor and take note of what kind of computer you’re using. Is is a home-built desktop? Is it something ordered from a vendor? Is it a laptop or mobile device that you built? Or bought?

The idea that Facebook is building switches isn’t far fetched to me. They’ve been doing their own servers for a while. That’s because their environment looks wholly different than any other enterprise on the planet, with the exception of maybe Google (who also builds their own stuff). Facebook has some very specialized needs when it comes to servers and to networking. As they mention at conferences, the amount of data rushing into their network on an hourly, let alone daily, basis is mind boggling. Shaving milliseconds off query times or reducing traffic by a few KB per flow translates into massive savings when you consider the scale they are operating at.

To that end, anything they can do to optimize their equipment to meet their needs is going to be a big deal. They’ve got a significant motivation to ensure that the devices doing the heavy lifting for them are doing the best job they can. That means they can invest a significant amount of capital into building their own network devices and still get a good return on the investment. Much like the last time I built my own home desktop. I didn’t find a single machine that met all of my needs and desires. So I decided to cannibalize some parts out of an old machine and just build the rest myself. Sure, it took me about a month to buy all the parts, ship them to my house, and then assemble the whole package together. But in the end I was very happy with the design. In fact, I still use it at home today.

That’s not to say that my design is the best for everyone, or anyone for that matter. The decisions I made in building my own computer were one’s that suited me. In much the same way, Facebook’s ToR switches probably serve very different needs than existing data centers. Are your ToR switches optimized for east-west traffic flow? I don’t see a lot of data at Facebook directed to other internal devices. I think Facebook is really pushing their systems for north-south flow. Data requests coming in from users and going back out to them are more in line with what they’re doing. If that’s the case, Facebook will have a switch optimized for really fast data flows. Only they’ll be flowing in the wrong direction for what most people are using data flows for today. It’s like having a Bugatti Veyron and living in a city with dirt roads.

Facebook admitted that there are things about networking vendors they don’t like. They don’t want to be locked into a proprietary OS like IOS, EOS, or Junos. They want a whitebox solution that will run any OS on the planet efficiently. I think that’s because they don’t want to get locked into a specific hardware supplier either. They want to buy what’s cheapest at the time and build large portions of their network rapidly as needed to embrace new technology and data flows. You can’t get married to a single supplier in that case. If you do, a hiccup in the production line or a delay could cost you thousands, if not millions. Just look at how Apple ensures diversity in the iPhone supply chain to get an idea of what Facebook is trying to do. If Apple were to lose a single part supplier there would be chaos in the supply chain. In order to ensure that everything works like a well-oiled machine, they have multiple companies supplying each outsourced part. I think Facebook is driving for something simliar in their switch design.

One Throat To Choke

The other thing that gives me pause here is support. I’ve long held that one of the reasons why people still buy computers from vendors or run Windows and OS X on machines is because they don’t want the headache of fixing things. A warranty or support contract is a very reassuring thing. Knowing that you can pick up the phone and call someone to get a new power supply or tell you why you’re getting a MAC flap error lets you go to sleep at night. When you roll your own devices, the buck stops with you when you need to support something. Can’t figure out how to get your web server running on Ubuntu? Better head to the support forums. Wondering why your BYOSwitch is dropping frames under load? Hope you’re a Wireshark wizard. Most enterprises don’t care that a support contract costs them money. They want the assurance that things are going to get fixed when they break. When you develop everything yourself, you are putting a tremendous amount of faith into those developers to ensure that bugs are worked out and hardware failures are taken care of. Again, when you consider the scale of what Facebook is doing, the idea of having purpose-build devices makes sense. It also makes sense that having people on staff that can fix those specialized devices is cost effective for you.

Face it. The idea that Facebook is going to destroy the switching market is ludicrous. You’re never going to buy a switch from Facebook. Maybe you want to tinker around with Intel’s DPDK with a lab switch so you can install OpenFlow or something similar. But when it comes time to forklift the data center or populate a new campus building with switches, I can almost guarantee that you’re going to pick up the phone and call Cisco, Arista, Juniper, Brocade, or HP. Why? Because they can build those switches faster than you can. Because even though they are a big captial expenditure (capex), it’s still cheaper in the long run if you don’t have the time to dedicate to building your own stuff. And when something blows up (and something always blows up), you’re going to want a TAC engineer on the phone sharing the heat with you when the CxOs come headhunting in the data center when everything goes down.

Facebook will go on doing their thing their way with their own servers and switches. They’ll do amazing things with data that you never dreamed possible. But just like buying a Sherman tank for city driving, their solution isn’t going to work for most people. Because it’s built by them for them. Just like Google’s server farms and search appliances. Facebook may end up contributing a lot to the Open Compute Project and advancing the overall knowledge and independence of networking hardware. But to think they’re starting a revolution in networking is about as far fetched as thinking that Myspace was going to be the top social network forever.

Coffee As A Service

Posted on May 9, 2013 by networkingnerd

I have a hard time keeping all the cloud terms straight. Everything seems to be available As A Service (aaS). Try as I might to explain them, it just didn’t click for some people. Since cloud terms are so nebulous some times, I decided I need to put everything in a context that people understand. Therefore, I present…Coffee as a Service (CaaS):

Software as a Service (SaaS): Anytime you want coffee, it just appears in front of you. You don’t have to make it or anything. Sometimes it shows up immediately. Other times it shows up an hour or so after you wanted it. You pay a monthly fee, but if you want to have cream or sugar you have to pay a bit more. Some SaaS coffee vendors don’t have those options, so you’re stuck with whatever you get up front.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): You’ve decided that you want to have coffee, but you want a bit more control over it. You sign up for a new service that gives you coffee packages. Dark roast, light roast, and Turkish coffee are all options. You are still at the mercy of the provider for other options like latte or cappuccino. It is still mysteriously delivered to you. Cream and sugar are options in each of the packages for a small fee. Coffee can still show up late, but you have an agreement with the provider that late coffee gets you a small amount off the monthly bill.

Infrastructure as a service (Iaas): You’ve now decided that you want complete control over your coffee delivery. You’ve contacted a new provider that is willing to rent you a coffee machine with all the extra hardware needed to make any kind of coffee you want. You’re going to have to buy your own coffee and creamer and sugar. Once you have it at the coffee machine, they’ll make the coffee to your exact specifications and send it to you. Might still show up late depending on how popular the service is or if some technician accidentally restarts the machine on a Friday night. You get charged either by the cup or by how often the machine is used. Coffee still tastes okay but you have to worry about renting more machines as it becomes more popular. Machine rental rates fluctuate if you use the Spot Machine market.

Private Cloud: Okay, forget about the whole renting thing. Time to go to the coffee warehouse and buy everything yourself. You max out your credit card, but you come home with a coffee machine and a milk steamer. You still provide everything yourself. You find a place to hook everything up with electricity and water supply. You grind the beans yourself. You make your own coffee or you hire a barista to do it for you. The coffee is excellent and on time. Your credit card bill scares the daylights out of you. In three years, you have to upgrade your coffee machine again to support hyper foaming milk.

Hybrid Cloud: You can make the basics with your machine. You still can’t figure out how to make a good cappuccino. All the easy stuff gets made locally by you or your barista. For the really odd stuff, like double shot mocha light frappuccinos you send people to the Starbucks down the road.

Cloudbursting: Your fancy coffee machine is really popular around the office. About once a month, there’s a line that’s 50 people long. Rather than making them wait for their coffee, you pass out Starbucks gift cards for anyone over the 35th person. You send them off to get their coffee. You can justify the gift card cost because you’re only busy that one time a month.

I’m always open for suggestions in the comments below.

The Networking Nerd

Networking With A Side of Snark

Author Archives: networkingnerd

About networkingnerd

Tech Field Day 9

Glue Peddlers

The Arse First Method of Technical Blogging – Review

CCIE Loses Its Voice

The Microsoft Office Tablet

More Than I Was, Less Than I Will Become

Juniper Networks Warrior – Review

Why Facebook’s Open Compute Switches Don’t Matter. To You.

Coffee As A Service

About networkingnerd

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