As is probably obvious from the sidebar, I'm pretty enthusiastic about IPv6 - for quite a few reasons, not least of which is implementing a new Layer 3 protocol after guys like Vint Cerf already did most of the cool stuff. However, I didn't want to simply complete this task - most people complete all of these tasks …

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Let's answer the big question: "What's the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything?" Kidding, it's easier to cover the question: "Why automate?" So let's get started! Here I'm going to start a few easy and quick ways to benefit from automation, with a slight networking …

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I have mentioned in a previous blog post that I'm not using any ACLs on my tunnel broker VM This is usually pretty bad, but again, we can get those protections outside of the VM - I'm using this to prove out how NSX-T can provide utility in this situation. Solution Overview VyOS is a fantastic platform, with a ton of …

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First things first - let's cover some IPv6 basics. What's Different Many aspects of IPv6 is actually much easier than most people would expect - since there's such a large addressing space, entire fields of work with IPv6 go away. Custom CIDR / Subnetting Remember how you had to do binary math, and use your crystal …

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First off, let's cover what's been built so far: To set up an anycast vIP in NSX-T after standing up your base infrastructure (already depicted and configured), all you have to do is stand up a load balanced vIP at multiple sites. NSX-T takes care of the rest. Here's how: Create a new load balancing pool. Create a new …

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Before getting started, let's cover what different IP message types exist in a brief summary, coupled with a "day in the life of a datagram" as it were. Unicast: One source, one well-defined destination. Most network traffic falls into this category. Mayfly perspective: Source device originates packet, and …

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Since most of NSX-T runs in a firewall mode of sorts, it's probably worthwhile to discuss on of the less well-known routing protocol features - Graceful Restart. As published for BGP, IETF RFC 4724 outlines a mechanism for "preserving forwarding traffic during a BGP restart." This definition may be a little …

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Now that the primary infrastructure components for NSX-T are in place, it is now possible to build-out the actual functions that NSX-T is designed to provide. A friendly suggestion, make sure your Fabric is healthy before doing this: NSX-T differs from NSX-V quite a bit here. Irregular topologies between edge routers …

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Since NSX-T 2.5 just came out, it's about time to do a full rebuild and getting started guide. NSX-T differs greatly from NSX-V in that the initial setup is quite a bit more complicated and doesn't have many guardrails or direct paths to initial set-up. We'll be skipping the appliance deployment, because if you have …

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With the previous post, I covered traditional data center networking, and some of the reliability compromises made to accommodate typical workloads. Here I'll be outlining my take as a series of blog posts on the next iteration of data center network design, Spine and Leaf: Lab Diagram What came before Introduction: …

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