Bits in Flight (Page 2)

How Does SD-WAN Improve My Traffic?

How Does SD-WAN Improve My Traffic?

Originally written by Josh Kurtzman for the WAN Dynamics site. Hosting to keep the knowledge alive! Packet Loss, jitter and out of order packets are all problems that we run into when troubleshooting a circuit issue. In most cases, the only answer is to open a ticket with the carrier

Next-Generation Network Automation and Cloud Scale Routing with Arista Networks

Next-Generation Network Automation and Cloud Scale Routing with Arista Networks

Arista Networks [https://www.arista.com] presented at Networking Field Day 26 (#NFD26) [https://techfieldday.com/event/nfd26/] on September 14th, 2021 and I was privileged to have a front row seat as a delegate. What we saw was all of the interesting ways Arista is evolving their product portfolio,

Arista Tips & Tricks: Connecting to Arista switches via SSH Key Based Authentication

Arista Tips & Tricks: Connecting to Arista switches via SSH Key Based Authentication

Originally written by Kevin Giusti for the WAN Dynamics site. Hosting to keep the knowledge alive! Using SSH key based authentication for managing Arista switches can be useful for the purposes of better security, automation and not having to remember passwords. In this blog post, we’ll go through an

Automation and Assurance of the AI Driven Campus with Juniper Networks

Automation and Assurance of the AI Driven Campus with Juniper Networks

I was fortunate enough to attend Networking Field Day 26 [https://techfieldday.com/event/nfd26/] along side a number of amazing delegates September 14th - 16th, 2021. Juniper Networks [https://www.juniper.net/us/en.html] presented to us some updates on their latest offerings including how to ensure good

Higher BGP Local Preference for IX Peering: Good Practice or Bad?

Higher BGP Local Preference for IX Peering: Good Practice or Bad?

So I've been working a lot with the Ohio IX [https://ohioix.net] an Internet Exchange Provider (IXP) based in, you guessed it, Ohio and noticed after maintenance windows, traffic levels tend to change a bit after BGP sessions are reset. This is likely due to the IX

Why is SASE Such a Big Deal?

Why is SASE Such a Big Deal?

Gestalt IT just published a blog post that I wrote recently called "Why is SASE Such a Big Deal?" In it, I detail some of the key aspects of SASE and why it's so important. Head on over via the link below and check it out!

Delegate @ Networking Field Day 26 (NFD26)!

Delegate @ Networking Field Day 26 (NFD26)!

I am super stoked to participate as a delegate in Networking Field Day #26 [https://techfieldday.com/event/nfd26/] which is just about two weeks away, September 14-16! Mark your calendars, it promises to be a great event with presentations from: * Arista Networks [https://www.arista.com] * Cisco [https://www.

Fortinet's Unique Approach to SD-WAN

Fortinet's Unique Approach to SD-WAN

Check out a blog post and interview that was published with Nirav Shah, VP of Prodcuts and Solutions with Fortinet [http://fortinet.com]. Thanks to Nirav and the crew at GestaltIT [https://gestaltit.com/] for having me on! It was really great to talk through all of the interesting things

Can Windows Update Impact Your SD-WAN Network?

Can Windows Update Impact Your SD-WAN Network?

Originally written by Jeff Zimmerman for the WAN Dynamics site. Hosting to keep the knowledge alive! A feature of modern SD-WAN technology is the ability for branch locations to build dynamic tunnels to each other for taking the shortest WAN path to circumvent transiting a central hub. This optimizes VoIP

Do I Need More Than One Palo Alto GlobalProtect VPN Portal?

palo alto networks

Do I Need More Than One Palo Alto GlobalProtect VPN Portal?

Originally written by Mike Sparker for the WAN Dynamics site. Hosting to keep the knowledge alive! With an increased demand for GlobalProtect as an enterprise grade VPN client solution, a common question comes up: Is a secondary portal necessary? In many cases, the short answer is probably not. In this

SD-WAN in a Work from Anywhere World

SD-WAN in a Work from Anywhere World

Connecting remote users into corporate IT resources has never been trivial. With the shift to work from remote already well underway for many before 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed the transition dramatically. The change happened so fast, many organizations struggled to get their remote users connected when working from

Juniper Gets "Misty" at Networking Field Day 24

Juniper Gets "Misty" at Networking Field Day 24

I had the honor of participating as a Networking Field Day 24 (NFD24) delegate In February 2021. First off I must say, this was an incredible experience for me. I’ve been watching NFD recordings for years to learn everything I can about vendor platforms before and even after working

Starlink: First Impressions

Starlink: First Impressions

So my Starlink kit is finally here! A number of folks have asked for first impressions so I’m going to break it down. Long story short, it’s a breeze to setup but operationally, definitely a beta service. Let’s explore. The Unboxing I was first struck how efficiently

Security Discussion on The WAN Manager Podcast

Security Discussion on The WAN Manager Podcast

Had a great discussion with Greg Bryan [https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregscottbryan/], Senior Manager of Enterprise Research @ Telegeography [https://www.telegeography.com] who is a global connectivity analyst firm. Thanks to Greg for having me on! Check it out here: https://blog.telegeography.com/wan-manager-podcast-network-security-jason-gintert You can also find

Starlink Experiment Underway!

Starlink Experiment Underway!

Ohio Starlink beta signups, check your inbox! I signed up for it last spring and have been anxiously anticipating the email inviting me in. Well today is the day and shortly, I’ll be enjoying my internet access from space. I’m super excited to test this out and add

SDN's Promise Lives On

SDN's Promise Lives On

I’m not sure if anyone else remembers the early days of OpenFlow and Software Defined Networking (SDN), but it was going to change networking for good. The idea was being able to embed programmable forwarding and filtering policy directly into your switches. You would then use a controller which

Starlink vs. 5G

Starlink vs. 5G

There has been a lot of interesting developments in the mobile/wireless connectivity world as of late. Despite being told for many years 5G [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G] will change our lives (seriously, for a really long time now [https://5g-ppp.eu/history/]), as it finally comes to

Is your Internet connectivity REALLY redundant?

Is your Internet connectivity REALLY redundant?

The CenturyLink/Level3 internet outage on August 30th, 2020 got a lot of network engineers thinking about internet reachability and the ways things can go wrong. The way this particular failure played out was unique and definitely gave us all a lot to consider in the way of oddball failure

What do YOU want from SD-WAN?

What do YOU want from SD-WAN?

There have been a lot of discussions lately about the maturation of the SD-WAN market. Much of what I’ve read and heard is that SD-WAN has met its initial promise: * Improve performance over the WAN * Make better use of bandwidth across disparate circuits * Give us a central controller for

Ohio Internet Exchange (Ohio IX)

Ohio Internet Exchange (Ohio IX)

In March 2020, I volunteered to become a part of the Ohio Internet Exchange aka Ohio IX Technical Steering Committee. If you haven’t heard of the Ohio IX before it is an Internet exchange (IX), also known as an Internet exchange point (IXP) or peering point. IX/IXPs allow

First (OH)NUG Virtual Event

First (OH)NUG Virtual Event

Due to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we were forced to change the Ohio Networking User Group aka (OH)NUG meeting to be a virtual meeting that we hosted on Zoom July 31st, 2020. Despite this, we carried on (with beer, of course) and for the last time

SD-WAN: A Technology That Changed My Life

SD-WAN: A Technology That Changed My Life

Six years ago, in 2014, I worked at a regional telecommunications service provider that had encountered this technology called “SD-WAN” in our market. I was the head of solutions engineering at the time and it was the first that I had heard of such a thing! We were selling Layer

Fortinet FortiGate HA Pair Mystery

Fortinet FortiGate HA Pair Mystery

Originally written by Kevin Giusti for the WAN Dynamics site. Hosting to keep the knowledge alive! Recently while setting up a new Fortinet FortiGate firewall High Availability (HA) pair, I ran into an issue that I hadn’t encountered before. The goal was to set up an active/standby HA

VXLAN + EVPN in Campus Switching?

VXLAN + EVPN in Campus Switching?

I recently received some Arista 720XP PoE Campus Switches [https://www.arista.com/en/products/720xp-series] a key component of Arista’s Cognitive Campus efforts. While reviewing the datasheet, noticed something I found interesting: VXLAN + EVPN support. For those unfamiliar with VXLAN & EVPN here are some resources to check