Spanning Tree is the all-important loop prevention method for Layer 2 topologies and source of ire to network engineers worldwide. Usually IT engineers list the Dunning-Kruger Effect in a negative context, depicting an oblivious junior or an unaware manager, but I like to focus on the opposite end of the curve with …

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Ever wonder what it would be like to have a platform dedicated to Continuous Improvement / Testing / Labbing? Cisco's put a lot of thought into good ways to do that, and Cisco Modeling Labs(CML) is the latest iteration of their solutions to provide this as a service to enterprises and casual users alike. CML is the …

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There are numerous advantages to deploying an internal root CA to an enterprise: Autonomy: Enterprises can control how their certificates are issued, structured, and revoked independently of a third party. Slow or fast replacement cycles are permissible if you control the infrastructure, letting you customize the CA to …

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VMware's NSX Datacenter product is designed for a bit more than single enterprise virtual networking and security. When reviewing platform maximums (NSX-T 3.2 ConfigMax), the listed maximum number of Tier-1 routers is 4,000 logical routers. Achieving that number takes a degree of intentional design, however. When …

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What is the point of all this software-defined infrastructure if you don't use it? In prior examples, it's a fairly straightforward path to SDN when deploying NSX Data Center, allowing a VI admin or network engineer to deploy virtual network resources via a GUI. This isn't the end of an effort, but the start of a …

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Have you ever wondered what happened to all the privately-addressed traffic coming from any home network? Well, if it isn't explicitly blocked by the business, it's routed, and this is not good. Imagine what data leakage can occur when a user mistypes a destination IP - the traffic goes out to the Service Provider, who …

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GitOps GitOps, a term coined in 2017, describes the practice of performing infrastructure operations from a Git repository. In this practice, we easily develop the ability to re-deploy any broken infrastructure (like application managers), but that doesn't really help infrastructure engineers. From the perspective of …

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Idempotence and Declarative Methods - not just buzzwords Idempotence Coined by Benjamin Peirce, this term indicates that a mathematical operation will produce a consistent result, even with repetition. Idempotence is much more complicated subject in mathematics and computer science. IT and DevOps use a simplified …

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**Note: This feature has been deprecated by VMware The Jetstreams Cloud operators now provide two completely different classes of service to customers: Self-Service, VMs, Operating System Templates Generally mature, some private cloud operators are smoothing out CMPs or such, but work as intended from a customer …

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Note: This feature has been deprecated by VMware NSX-T 3.2 has been released, and has a ton of spiffy features. The NSX ALB integration is particularly neat, but while repeatedly (repeatably) breaking the integration to learn more about it, I ran into this error: When deploying NSX ALB appliances from the NSX Manager, …

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