Blog Posts in August 2016

Scaling L3-Only Data Center Networks

Andrew wondered how one could scale the L3-only data center networking approach I outlined in this blog post and asked:

When dealing with guests on each host, if each host injects a /32 for each guest, by the time the routes are on the spine, you're potentially well past the 128k route limit. Can you elaborate on how this can scale beyond 128k routes?

Short answer: it won’t.

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Software-Defined Navel Gazing

Software Gone Wild podcast is well into its toddler years and it was time for a teambuilding exercise. Just kidding – we wanted to test new tools and decided to discuss the vacation experiences and podcast ideas while doing that.

On a more serious note: we’re always looking for cool projects, implementations and ideas. Contact us at podcast (-the weird sign-) ipspace.net.

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Networking Is Infrastructure – Get Used to It

Jeff Sicuranza left a great comment to one of my blog posts:

Still basically the same old debate from 25 years ago that experienced Network Architects and Engineers understood during technology changes; "Do you architect your network around an application(s) or do you architect your application(s) around your network"

I would change that to “the same meaningless debate”. Networking is infrastructure; it’s time we grow up and get used to it.

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Sample Ansible Networking Playbooks on Github

I spent the last week creating numerous scenarios using Ansible networking modules for my upcoming Network Automation workshop. The scenarios use Cisco IOS and Nexus OS modules as I used VIRL for network simulation, but you could easily adapt them to other networking devices.

All the scenarios I’m covering in the workshop are available in my Github repository; to get the them explained you’ll have to attend the workshop. Enjoy!

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New Webinar: Docker Networking Fundamentals

After the fantastic Docker 101 webinar by Matt Oswalt a few people approached me saying “that was great, but we’d need something more on Docker networking”, and during one of my frequent chats with Dinesh Dutt he mentioned that he already had the slides covering that topic.

Problem solved… and Dinesh decided to do it as a free webinar (thank you!), so all you have to do is register. Hurry up, there are only 1000 places left ;)

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We Need to Educate Our Peers

Failure to use DNS, IP addresses embedded in the code, ignoring the physical realities (like bandwidth and latency)… the list of mistakes that eventually get dumped into networking engineer’s lap is depressing.

It’s easy to reach the conclusion that the people making those mistakes must be stupid or lazy… but in reality most of them never realized they were causing someone else problems because nobody told them so.

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And this is why you need automation

I stumbled upon a great description of how you can go bankrupt in 45 minutes due to a manual deployment process. The most relevant part of it:

Any time your deployment process relies on humans reading and following instructions you are exposing yourself to risk. Humans make mistakes. The mistakes could be in the instructions, in the interpretation of the instructions, or in the execution of the instructions.

And no, it's not just application deployment. A similar disaster could happen in your network.

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