Blog Posts in August 2015

Don’t Optimize the Last 5%

Robin Harris described an interesting problem in his latest blog post: while you can reduce the storage access time from milliseconds to microseconds, the whole software stack riding on top still takes over 100 milliseconds to respond. Sometimes we’re optimizing the wrong part of the stack.

Any resemblance to SDN in enterprises or the magical cost-reduction properties of multi-vendor data center fabrics is obviously purely coincidental.

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Musing on Nerd Knobs

Henk left a wonderful comment on my SDN will not solve real-life enterprise problems blog post. He started with a bit of sarcasm:

SDN will give more control and flexibility over the network to the customer/user/network-admin. They will be able to program their equipment themselves, they will be able to tweak routing algorithms in the central controller. They get APIs to hook into the heart of the intelligence. They get more config-knobs. It's gonna be awesome.

However, he thinks (and I agree) that this vision doesn’t make sense:

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SDN: ONF Is Moving to “Logically Centralized Control Plane”

Open Networking Foundation has this nice and crisp definition of SDN:

[SDN is] The physical separation of the network control plane from the forwarding plane, and where a control plane controls several devices.

Using this definition it was easy to figure out whether certain architecture complies with ONF definition of SDN. It was also easy to point out why it was ridiculous.

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How Long Will that Webinar take?

One of my readers wondered how long my NFV webinar is supposed to take (and I forgot to add that information to my web site), so he sent me this question: “How long is this webinar? An hour? Two hours? If it says "webinar" does that imply a 60 minute duration, so I shouldn't ask?

Short answer: live webinar sessions usually take between 90 minutes and 2 hours depending on the breadth of the topic, however…

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Layer-3-Only Data Center Networks with Cumulus Linux on Software Gone Wild

With the advent of layer-3 leaf-and-spine data center fabrics, it became (almost) possible to build pure layer-3-only data center networks… if only the networking vendors would do the very last step and make every server-to-ToR interface a layer-3 interface. Cumulus decided to do just that.

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How Did You Learn So Much About Networking?

One of my readers sent me a heartfelt email that teleported me 35 years down the memory lane. He wrote:

I only recently stumbled upon your blog and, well, it hurt. It's incredible the amount of topics you are able to talk about extensively and how you can dissect and find interesting stuff in even the most basic concepts.
May I humble ask how on earth can you know all of the things you know, with such attention to detail? Have you been gifted with an excellent memory, magical diet, or is it just magic?

Short answer: hard work and compound interest.

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The Biggest Problem of SDN

A few weeks ago I decided to join the SDN group on LinkedIn and quickly discovered the biggest problem of SDN – many people, who try to authoritatively talk about it, have no idea what they’re talking about. Here’s a gem (coming from a “network architect”) I found in one of the discussions:

The SDN local controller can punt across to remote datacenters using not only IP, but even UDP over MPLS

Do I have to explain how misguided that statement is?

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SDN, SD-WAN and FCoE on Gartner Networking Hype Cycle

Gartner has updated their networking hype cycle. Not surprisingly:

Gartner won’t give you free access to the graph, but you’ll find it in an article published on The Register.

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Can Virtual Routers Compete with Physical Hardware?

One of the participants of the Carrier Ethernet LinkedIn group asked a great question:

When we install a virtual-router of any vendor over an ordinary sever (having general-purpose microprocessor), can it really compete with a physical-router having ASICs, Network Processors…?

Short answer: No … and here’s my longer answer (cross-posted to my blog because not all of my readers participate in that group).

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