Peter Welcher

SDN has to be one of the most amazing hype flareup ever. Pour VC capital on and it behaves sort of like marketing kerosene. Is there a networking / management product left that doesn't claim to be doing SDN?

Without going into irrelevant details, someone was recently working with Nexus setup in a lab. As you may know, the N7K requires specifying the FEX type. Or did the last time I tried doing without it, a while back. Why, I don't know, it should be able to figure it out…

This blog revisits Ruckus Wireless, as followup to their presentations for Network Field Day 5 and prior blogs. The trigger for this blog is the arrival of an eval kit from Ruckus, complete with 7982 model AP, ZoneDirector controller model 1100, and cute stuffed black dog with orange Ruckus Wireless collar. The…

I've been stuck with a picture in my head relating to Firewall and Server Load Balancer designs. This blog represents my best effort to transmit this picture to your head, to get it out of my brain. I've also now seen something like this in print. While that dilutes the novelty…

This is the third CCIE R&S prep blog on IPv6, IPv6 Part 3. For prior CCIE R&S prep blogs and the ground rules blog, see the Related Links section at the end. This blog covers things to know about IPv6 multicast. As with the other blogs, I do not attempt…

This is the second CCIE R&S prep blog on IPv6, IPv6 Part 2. On March 1, 2013 I blogged that I intended to start a series of CCIE R&S Written exam prep blogs. That blog contains the "ground rules" and some general advice. The full URL for it is http://netcraftsmen.net/blogs/entry/ccie-ras-written-review-blog-series.html. The first…

Brocade Networks was kind enough to contact me recently and preview some announcements with me. These are fresh Spring Announcements as of 8 AM EST on April 30, 2013. While the bulk of my expertise is Cisco, I'm trying to expand my horizons, particularly in the data center space. So…

On March 1, 2013 I blogged that I intended to start a series of CCIE R&S Written exam prep blogs. This is the first of those, IPv6 Part 1. Just for the fun of it! See my prior blog for the ground rules and some general discussion, at http://netcraftsmen.net/blogs/entry/ccie-ras-written-review-blog-series.htmll. I do recommend…

I’ve been mulling over the SolarWinds presentation at here. A summary follows: SolarWinds provided an update on their products. They talked about the SWIS, which is their API. They then reviewed [...]

I was going to blog on the topical theme of "March Madness" and then was somewhat put off by all the topical / timely Cisco blogs with "March Madness" in their title. I'm not going to let that stop me from following the crowd, however. I have a March Madness…

This blog is about all the varieties of Cisco WLAN right now — the Cisco WLAN Landscape. If you have been paying attention, you will have noticed the Cisco announcements about [...]

Some time after writing the prior blog about Ruckus Wireless, a thought hit me about some commonality in testing WLAN and Network Management products. Which is the subject of this [...]