Tag Archive - cisco

Office networking

January 31, 2012 in , , , , , , , , with 0 Comments

Lets say one got bored and decide to finally update its office network to something decent. I guess he would do just *that* :

– Get a Microtik RB1200 (10x1gb ports) and connect it to a fixed IP, ethernet upstream provider. (~500$)
– Use 2 ports in 802.3AD link aggregation to an iomega StorCenter IX4-200D (4TB raw, in a raid5 array: ~3TB usable) that can advertise CIFS & AFP. Also support iSCSI, rsync, ftp, time machine, etc. (~700$)
– Use 1 port to connect toward a Cisco E4200 which will advertise a secure-2.4ghz, secure-4ghz and a guest network. Each individually protected by a firewall. (~150$)
– Use 1 port to connect to a Soekris net6501-50 Board which will be a remote connection appliance (sshd) (/onsite presence & monitoring system). (~500).
– Use 2 ports in link aggregation toward a Cisco switch for the users.

There, you have a perfect remote office. It’s able to archive files, do some HTTP proxy, do site-to-site VPNs, on-site firewalls… In fact this is so much of a nice setup – and its a cheap commitment (about ~2k$), that it’s the new setup Labs Phoenix is deploying to all clients sites.

vmware labs

April 28, 2011 in , , , , , , , , , with 1 Comment

I’ve been working intensively with vmWARE products for the last couple of months.

I’ve already wrote about LabsPhoenix’s MYTH cluster entering phase 02 of its development – few months ahead of schedule. It is currently configured as a 3 nodes vSphere Enterprise+ cluster of very modest capacity (Resources: CPU 21GHz, Memory 48GB, Storage 4TB). Next phase is within 60days and will see those resources grow by another 66%. This ‘demo‘ has been so successful that we are already drafting plans for another cluster.

One of LabsPhoenix’s main client also asked me to re-factor its lab environment. Here, we are talking of a 4 nodes vSphere Enterprise cluster, built from scratch, with some very nice capacity (Resources: CPU 95Ghz, Memory 252GB, Storage 2TB).

I’m not throwing those numbers out there to poke anyone, its more of an offer: If anyone got some specific questions about vmWARE deployment, feel free to ping me. I’m often available for a quick chat. My cie, LabsPhoenix, also has some competent sysadmin if the problem get too large / if speed is of the essence.

Sometimes, we get hit by strange errors: Following an upgrade of the Cisco 3750 switches configuration to an higher MTU value (9000bits, to support jumbo frame on the attached iSCSI MSA); The VCENTER process started acting up on the management server. Quick restart of the process worked fined, but nothing in the log shows why the switch’s configuration reload broke that specific service.

Also, changing MTU value in a vmKernel interface is quite easy on vSphere 4.1 – it can even be done through the gui. You might search the option for quite some times though! It is hidden in Home>Inventory>Networking, in the distributed virtual switch configuration (right-click on it, edit setting). If your not using dvSwitch, then, your stuck through CLI commands.

SFLC vs Cisco

May 19, 2009 in , , , , , , with 177 Comments

The SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center, the ‘legal arm’ of the FSF) lawsuit against Cisco Systems (nasdaq:csco) has been settled . The details are not yet available.

Related:
December 11, 2008: SFLC files lawsuit against Cisco Systems on the behalf of FSF. The complain is available as PDF
December 11, 2008: FSF publish a press release.
May 12, 2009: recap of the settlement on PROSKAUER ROSE NewMedia law blog.