BGP ROUTE REFLECTORS BEYOND THE WHITEBOARD
BGP ROUTE REFLECTORS BEYOND THE WHITEBOARD Route Reflector placement looks simple on a whiteboard. Until you run it in production. 𝗜𝗻-𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵, typically on a P router that already handles transit. Or out-of-path, a dedicated virtual appliance doing only route reflection. We lean out-of-path almost every time. 𝗢𝘂𝘁-𝗼𝗳-𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵, the RR is a control plane only node. […]
NETWORK AUTOMATION IN ACTION
FROM WEEKS TO DAYS: NETWORK AUTOMATION IN ACTION Turning up a new site for one of our clients used to take weeks or sometimes months. Now it takes 1-2 days. What they had before was a custom Python script with a ton of IF statements. If device model X, apply config Y. If model A, […]
WHEN OSPF REMINDS YOU TO READ THE RFC
WHEN OSPF REMINDS YOU TO READ THE RFC JNCIE. 17 years of ISP & DC networks. And last week I caught myself reading an RFC line by line, feeling like a fool. When I shut a router down in our lab, OSPF didn’t forget it for up to an hour. The link to that dead router […]
WHY TIER 2 TRANSIT CAN OUTPERFORM TIER 1
WHY TIER 2 TRANSIT CAN OUTPERFORM TIER 1 A partner of ours had been running Tier 1 only transit for years. Few global names, well-known worldwide, spread across multiple countries and continents, standard for Tier 1s. Recently we convinced them to add a Tier 2. After turning it up, most of their traffic had shifted […]
RIPE NCC FEES AND THE FUTURE OF IPV4 HOLDINGS
RIPE NCC FEES AND THE FUTURE OF IPV4 HOLDINGS For years, every RIPE NCC member has paid the same flat annual fee. €1,800 per LIR, whether you hold a single /24 or sit on a /16 you barely route. On 20-22 May, that’s on the table. At the General Meeting in Edinburgh, members vote between […]
PRICING NEEDS TO SUPPORT MULTIPLE SERVICE LEVELS
PRICING NEEDS TO SUPPORT MULTIPLE SERVICE LEVELS Many companies no longer want a single NOC package that tries to cover everything. Their needs are more specific. Some want full 24 by 7 coverage. Others only need support after hours. Some need awareness only monitoring with no intervention. Others want Tier 2 escalation for complex issues. When pricing […]
PACKET LOSS OR TRACEROUTE MISREADING?
PACKET LOSS OR TRACEROUTE MISREADING? 10 days of emails arguing about packet loss in our customer’s network. The evidence they sent us was proof they didn’t understand traceroute. We run the NOC for an operator. A partner network kept insisting that traffic to a destination behind our customer infrastructure was dropping in transit. Errors, drops, […]
ECMP SURPRISES: WHEN DEFAULT BEHAVIOR BECOMES A PRODUCTION PROBLEM
ECMP SURPRISES: WHEN DEFAULT BEHAVIOR BECOMES A PRODUCTION PROBLEM Equal Cost Multi Path routing is widely used in modern IP fabrics and data center designs, where symmetric paths and predictable traffic patterns are expected. In that context, ECMP is both powerful and appropriate. However, problems often appear when devices designed primarily for data center roles are […]
GOOD NETWORK DESIGN IS INVISIBLE. BAD DESIGN IS MEMORABLE.
GOOD NETWORK DESIGN IS INVISIBLE. BAD DESIGN IS MEMORABLE. Most networks work well when everything is calm. Links are up, traffic flows, monitoring is quiet. Problems rarely appear during normal conditions. They appear during change, growth, and failure. In real production environments, small design decisions often determine whether an incident becomes a minor event or a major […]
A DAY INSIDE A NETWORK OPERATIONS CENTER
A DAY INSIDE A NETWORK OPERATIONS CENTER From the outside, a Network Operations Center can look deceptively calm. Screens glow quietly. Alerts flicker. Engineers sit focused, often in silence. Yet beneath that calm surface, there is constant evaluation, correlation, and decision making. A typical day rarely follows a script because networks are living systems. Overnight […]