Network Autobahn

IOS XE 16.x Denali

It is quiet hard to track software release streams and available features sets across the different Cisco switch and router familys. I have been more than one time get confused with the same software release version on different platforms that has different feature sets.  It is not nice when there is a feature missing that you had expected. Cisco has addressed that problem finally with the 16.x Denali release. Cisco has worked on the Denali release for 3 years to bring a unified SW release across multiple platforms. In the backround Cisco has 3 abstraction components the CLI, the unified SW Stack and the ASIC related part of the code. The big benefit here is that you didn´t need a separate
development team for each switch / device family. CLI and unified Software Stack can be developed centralized with one team across different products. That enables faster development for new features and feature parity across different device families. Besides the benefit of exactly the same CLI on all devices that runs Denali Cisco has also added a new WebUI that is completely rebuild and has more features and a better usebility than the previous web interface. Costumers have demanded this for a long time and finally Cisco has responded with Denali.

The Network Autobahn View

Thanks Cisco for releasing Denali. I have been waiting for this a long time. Besides Cisco internally all Cisco customers will benefit from this unified Software release approach. It makes tracking of software releases more easy and also the testing process. Cisco internally benefits also from a unified approach. I suggest that makes the development process faster and more efficient. At the end of the day hopefully the costumers get paid back with more new features that come out across multiple device platforms. I see here a general trend in the IT industry. It is needed to have an abstraction layer that is independent from the underlying hardware platform. Hopefully all new Cisco devices will follow this unified SW approach in the future.

Skyport Sytems has used the NFD11 to show the first time their new innovativ product.
Skyport is a startup company with a very unique product that brings a new layer of security to the table.
Basicly you can verify that a server is not compromised for e.g. by a rootkits. The problem is to verify that a server is not compromised these days. To survive a wipe/installtion process, rootkids are placed in HW componetnts like e.g. the Firmware of HardDisks and SSDs. Even with a fresh OS installation the server would be immediatly compromised again. At the moment it is hard to address this attack vector. Skyport positioned their product as an extra layer of security for the high mission critical appliactions. How does it work ? Skyport has shown a Hardware based NIC that has TPM Chips, CPUs and RAM. So all the hardware and firmware inside of a server can by verified and inspected.
It is also possible to control and manipulate the traffic that goes across the Skyport hardware. Besides Firewall functionsalitys you have with Shield WEB Application a Crypto Creditional Proxy that can act as an encryption break up point so that SSL encrypted data can be inspected here as well.
You also get new Logging capabilities for your Skyport protected servers. Of course you can run a Virtualization Hypervisor on a Skyport protected Server.

Network Autobahn View:
We have to protect a System against attackers in all possible ways. Skyport adds an additional layer of security and addresses an attack vector that is not covered by any other classic security solution that I am aware of.
Will we deploy a Skyport NIC to all our servers ? Maybee not, but for the buissness critical application I see a pretty sharp usecase.

For more informations check out the Video from the NFD11 Skyport presentation:

I have attended to Networking Field Day 11 in San Jose California wich is organized by GestaltIT.
It was a buisy week with a lot of state of the art tech. I had the pleasure to see from a wide range of vendors their products and visions. Some vendors had their first preseation at NFD and other are regular contributer. In my view the Network Field Day event is a win win situation for everybody. The vendors can present their newest innovations to the right audience insteat of an oldschool broadcast approach of merketing.
This is the introducing to a series of blog posts about the presnations that I have seen at NFD11.
I will give you fo all preenations a quick overview and my opinion as well. If that caught your interest check out the TechFiled Youtube Channel
and watch the complete presnation.

Network Field Day 11 Videos

When the year is ending and everybody is thinking about XMAS in a lot of  IT departments  it starts to get hectic. There is some IT budget left and it has to be spended before the year is ending. I have seen this in many businesses and it is especially true for government organisations. So like at home where I have to assemble some Lego Toys for my children on XMAS there are delivered a lot of large packages at the office that have to be unboxed and rolled out into production before the year is ending. So not for all IT folks the end of the year is as relaxed as it should be. On the first weeks of the new Year I had often to do a lot of clean up work to get everything right for that was no time during the installation like monitoring and documentation.

Hopefully you all have finished your 2015 projects in time and stayed at home with your family at XMAS instead of being busy in the office.

Happy New Year 2016.

Cheers
Dominik

I´ve been invited to attend the Gestalt IT´s Network Field Day 11 held in the Silcon
Valley on January 20th – 24th 2016.

For those of you that haven´t heard of the Tech Field Day events so far. The idea behind Network Field Day is to bring together a bunch of delegates that will attend one week of presentations by different top IT vendors. All the presentations will be streamed live and uploaded to youtube after the event. That includes Q&A sessions after the presentations. It helped me a lot to listen to the Tech Field Day presentations before scheduling an appointment with a possible vendor.

I am honored to be part of the Tech Field Day 11  and am looking forward to meet up with the other delegates:
Ethan Banks
Greg Ferro
Ivan Pepelnjak
John Herbert
Jon Langemak
Brandon Carroll
Terry Slattery
Jason Edelman
Matt Oswald
Jordan Martin
Michael McNamara

You can follow Tech Field Day 11 on Twitter @NFD11

The following disclosure also needs to be made – my travel and lodging costs will be covered by Gestalt IT and the sponsors of Tech Field Day11.

NFD11 Presenting Sponsors

Avaya has recently published an end of sales notice for the ERS8000 product line. The ERS8000 was introduced as Passport 8000 in the year 2000. The product is now for nearly 16 years available. I have configured a lot of new technologys the first time on the Passport/ERS8k. For me the 2 most amazing features that have been introduced on this platform the first time was SMLT and SPBm. The SMLT SwitchCluster features wich was introduced in 2001 was the first Multi Chassis Link Aggregation technology. SMLT was in 2001 a real cutting edge technology that was ahaed of most of the compeditors. For example Cisco introduced with VSS their Multi Chassis Link Aggregation technology in 2008 wich is for IT standards ages later. 10 years later the second next generation technology SPBm was introduced. In 2011 the first SPBm pre standard implemenation was showing up on the ERS8800 platform.

So it is time to say goodbye to the Passport/ERS8000. At the end of the day the complete industry is shifting to Linux based switching OS and the old monolithic OS based switches are fading away.

Some of the ERS8k developpers from Avaya have created a Goodbye ODE , wich I have seen recently on a Avaya presenation:

“When we first turned you on SMLT was quiet new
We had some tough times but we made it through
Alone in the rack looking naked and small
Before we knew it ERS modules populated all
Bandwith demands came quick and came swift
When we gave you E modules you just wouldn´t quit
Who would of thought 10Gig to come fast
Your poor little E modules just wouldn´t last
When R modules came so did netflow
You got super mezz cards but had problems below
Slot 10 was tired and couldn´t keep up
So your body was replaced and you were brand new pup
they lauded and loved you and gave you a new name
8800 they said but you were still the same
Ten days before retirement a power supply quit
We knew at the time we had to be quick
After the more than a decade you served us well
Oh the good times we had and stories we tell
Your out of commision but you still stand tall
Your performance and relaibilitywill be remebered by all”

Here is the Link to the EoS Notice:
https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/101015430