Monday, August 3, 2020

VPLS.US 10/08/2012 Juniper Qfabric

Is the qfabric not going so well? I know it was a HUGE box. We basically looked at it and said
it’s viable for maybe 2 companies in the world….

A Juniper spokesperson declined to give specific information about the divisions to be affected by the layoffs, or when they will happen. In an emailed statement, the spokesperson wrote: “As we disclosed on our second quarter 2012 earnings conference call, Juniper is working to align its resources to improve productivity and effectiveness, enabling us to deliver our road-map for innovation and unprecedented value to customers and shareholders. As a result of this important initiative, we are reducing our workforce by approximately 500 people in functions across the company.”

Juniper also declined to address the QFabric rumor directly. “Innovation is the lifeblood of Juniper,” the Juniper spokesperson said. “We’ve consistently achieved the highest overall market growth in Ethernet switching, and customers continue to adopt QFabric. We are focused on delivering innovative solutions in the data center that drive revenue for customers.”

So corrections in the direction. It had to happen. If you only build a product and you build it so large nobody buys it, you cannot afford to continue to make it. I know they were coming out with smaller qfabric boxes and they have already hit the street, but I imagine you had a huge work force basically sitting around twitting their thumbs while the smaller boxes are just a subset of a larger box, probably not a lot to do, plus there wasn’t any revenue coming in while the smaller boxes were being built. A serious strategy error

A Juniper spokesperson declined to give specific information about the divisions to be affected …

Huawei 2012-10-07
Oh man, I’ve spelled Huawei about a hundred different ways. If I miss spell it again, Just look at the title of this post and remember that’s how it’s “supposed” to be spelled. I do it intentionally just because they have done a lot of things in the past to annoy me.


Remember back in the 90s or so when Cisco’s IOS was stolen and just a few months later a brand new Chinese company came out with a box that had an IOS identical to Cisco’s? Well I do that was waway. WhaWhey was summarily sued and if I recall correctly they settled it out of court to the tune of several dollars I’m sure.

Several years ago I asked them in a meeting what they had done, and they basically avoided my question. I’m sure there are a lot of political and other type issues still around that case. They can probably never talk about it.

They told me about two years ago that if they didn’t have the feature in their software that I wanted, they would just assign another couple hundred programers on that task to create it for me. Talk about a mobile work force. Also talking about a huge workforce. I wonder how many programmers they have working for them now? Thousands.

I went over to Beijing two years ago with my wife. We landed at the airport and had a bus ride between the airport and the hotel. I’ve been in some large cities before, but I have never in my life experienced such a mass of humanity. We were literally passing large dorm like structures, mile after mile after mile. It was awesome in magnitude. A funny story. The wife and I got off the buss and were surrounded by taxi cabbies. All trying to grab our bags to drive us to our hotel. We finally picked one who charged us $20.00 None of the others would take our fare after they heard our hotel. After the bus left, we found out why, we were in front of the hotel. The cabbie put our bags into his trunk, drove down to the corner and into the driveway of the hotel That was the Imperial Palace. Yeah, I splurged it was a very nice place and we had the presidential suite. I had to impress my wife :) anyway, went to the great wall of china, and saw the Tiananmen square. And did the other typical tourist things. I have several other really good stories to share about that trip. Although I never made it past the huawei shop. I bet I walked past at least one of their programmers.

They have really shaken things up in the Telecom world. With the US goberment coming out and saying: “DONT USE HUAWEI” or something close to that, and then them responding saying. “YOU STINKING AMERICANS ARE CHINESE BASHING” well I’m paraphrasing of course on both accounts. Could the commie red Chinese put spying software backdoor in their gear? Maybe, Did they? Maybe? Does their gear phone home to give information? Probably does. However here is a thought. I think it was Google that was using GPS to track everyone of their phones. So, not only did Google have information on user and just about everything else imaginable, they also had an exact location of everyone. Wow. And the US government is bitching about a couple packets being sent home to mother china?

Well, what’s next for this saga? I imagine the U.S. Senate will recommend that all Huawei’s be summarily pulled out of any sort of production network. Boiled in oil until dead, burned at the stake and then whatever is left of them to be hung by the neck along the border until the buzzards eat whats left of them.

So who all us using Huiwai? They stood up and said. companies. Dozens of companies, and then mentioned a couple mobile operators. I guess Huawei has the second largest share of Cell phones in the world. Why? I guess it’s because they have a cheap plentiful workforce that’s willing to work for just a few Yuan a day.

So, are you using WaWay? Are you worried about the Chinese spying on your data?

Oh man, I’ve spelled Huawei about a hundred different ways. If I miss spell it again, Just look at the title of this post and remember that’s how it’s “supposed” to be spelled. I do it intentionally just because they have done a lot of things in the …

http://vpls.us/?p=833 Wednesday the WSJ wrote another article about Huawei and it’s dealing with vendors here in the United States. They claimed they are working with IBM, Price waterhouse and cooper and a couple other companies. When the press went to all of those companies. While they didn’t deny that they where working with Huawei, they didn’t admit anything about the relationship.


It’s like the ugly guy at school that nobody wants to dance with. Everybody says thay are a friend of the guy, but nobody will dance with him. Or like the last one in a cake walk. Two people fighting over one chair. It’s kind of funny really. Poor Huawei, nobody wants to dance. Or even admit they talk to you.

A Chinese telecommunications company considered a threat to U.S. national security was linked to an elite Chinese military cyberwarfare group, according to a House committee report made public Monday.

Information, including email messages, supplied to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence reveals that the People’s Liberation Army cyberwarfare unit had sought research and development assistance from Huawei Technologies

Bill Gertz

here is the Full Report

I’ve read through most of the report and all I can say is wow. If I was a birther, I would have wished that the U.S. Government would have spent as much time investigating the propitarity of the candidates as what went into this report. They know almost everything there is to know about Mr. Ren.]]>

VPLS.US 09/30/2012 802.1ag for unix

http://vpls.us/?p=780 Sun, 30 Sep 2012 18:07:58 +0000 timc
http://vpls.us/?p=780

http://www.bortzmeyer.org/ethernet-oam.html

Of course it's in french. But if you translate it...

https://noc.sara.nl/nrg/dot1ag-utils/

bash-4.2# ethping -ieth1 -l7 -c5 00:00:5e:00:01:14
Sending CFM LBM to 00:00:5e:00:01:14
Request timeout for 1878795604
Request timeout for 1878795605
Request timeout for 1878795606
Request timeout for 1878795607
bash-4.2#

and a try with the trace


bash-4.2# ethtrace -i eth1 -l 7 00:09:3d:13:f2:a0
Sending CFM LTM probe to 00:09:3d:13:f2:a0
ttl 1: LTM with id 1925342007
no replies for LTM 1925342007
ttl 2: LTM with id 1925342008
no replies for LTM 1925342008
ttl 3: LTM with id 1925342009
no replies for LTM 1925342009
ttl 4: LTM with id 1925342010
no replies for LTM 1925342010
ttl 5: LTM with id 1925342011
no replies for LTM 1925342011
ttl 6: LTM with id 1925342012
no replies for LTM 1925342012
ttl 7: LTM with id 1925342013
no replies for LTM 1925342013
ttl 8: LTM with id 1925342014
no replies for LTM 1925342014
ttl 9: LTM with id 1925342015
no replies for LTM 1925342015

]]>

780
2012-09-30 11:07:58
2012-09-30 18:07:58
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http://www.bortzmeyer.org/ethernet-oam.html

Of course it's in french. But if you translate it...

https://noc.sara.nl/nrg/dot1ag-utils/

bash-4.2# ethping -ieth1 -l7 -c5 00:00:5e:00:01:14
Sending CFM LBM to 00:00: ...]]>


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http://vpls.us/?p=786 Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:16:20 +0000 timc
http://vpls.us/?p=786

#!/bin/bash
echo "setmac to $1"
numbers=(`echo $1 | tr ':' ' '`)
echo ${numbers[0]}

KEY=669955aa
numbers[0]=c0
numbers[1]=ff
numbers[2]=ee
numbers[3]=c0
numbers[4]=ff
numbers[5]=ee

ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x$KEY offset 0x7e value 0x${numbers[0]}
ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x$KEY offset 0x7f value 0x${numbers[1]}
ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x$KEY offset 0x80 value 0x${numbers[2]}
ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x$KEY offset 0x81 value 0x${numbers[3]}
ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x$KEY offset 0x82 value 0x${numbers[4]}
ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x$KEY offset 0x83 value 0x${numbers[5]}

echo ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x$KEY offset 0x83 value 0x${number[5]}

Had some problems finding the the magic, but after that it was all downhill

eth1: flags=4163  mtu 1500
        inet 10.45.21.205  netmask 255.255.254.0  broadcast 10.45.21.255
        inet6 fe80::c2ff:eeff:fec0:ffee  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20

        ether c0:ff:ee:c0:ff:ee  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 43102  bytes 8804897 (8.3 MiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 15  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 7729  bytes 1102903 (1.0 MiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
        device interrupt 16  

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786
2012-10-02 11:16:20
2012-10-02 18:16:20
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macs
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#!/bin/bash
echo "setmac to $1"
numbers=(`echo $1 | tr ':' ' '`)
echo ${numbers[0]}

KEY=669955aa
numbers[0]=c0
numbers[1]=ff
numbers[2]=ee
numbers[3]=c0
numbers ...]]>


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http://vpls.us/?p=792 Thu, 04 Oct 2012 18:17:52 +0000 timc
http://vpls.us/?p=792


RFC 2544 Applicability Statement: Use on Production Networks Considered Harmful

2544 is to be considered Harmful :) oh wow, so we've been using testing procedures that are to be considered harmful. Yeah, we knew all that :P We just haven't had many other options. The new Y.1564 standard that is out from the ITU-T is going to go a long way towards rectifying a lot of the problems of testing Ethernet in the last mile between the PE and CE. However, what is really a Gem is hidden in the back of that little document. Back in Appendix I. CBS and EBS test methodology. It describes the tests that are included to be preliminary or experimental, and for informational purposes only. I'm not sure why that is, perhaps the tests really aren't applicable to a real world test and probably more geared towards the testing of lab gear? I guess that would be my initial guess as to why they weren't included in the formal document. However for the lab. OH YEAH. This is cool. E.3 basically lets the tester, run tests against the hardware buffers to determine the buffer capacity.

Let me repeat that. E.3 allows a tester to test the buffer capacity of a circuit / interface / hardware / switch, etcetra.... Line item 4 on E.3 says to test EBS.

the transmitter turns off for the smallest amount of time necessary
to ensure that the B-e token bucket is full and has overflowed by an amount
equal to or greater than 2%(EBS). Then the transmitter bursts the largest
number of back-to back (minimum interframe gap) frames that will drawn down
the Be token bucket until the number of tokens is more than or equal to

Being the geek that I am, I was drooling when I read that. I've been burned by so many switch vendors that don't allocate enough buffer space to their small interfaces on a switch and the first time you try to send traffic from the core to the edge interface in that box, it' pukes, or more specifically just starts puking packets out of it's buffers, making customers call in and complain. The customers calling in and complaining is by far the worse.

The only draw back is that I have to ask the vendors if they support ITU-T 1564 SAM Appendix I
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VPLS.US 06/11/2011 Sync-E Synchronous Ethernet

http://vpls.us/?p=776 Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:47:58 +0000 timc
http://vpls.us/?p=776

Extending Ethernet Beyond Best Effort

Hierarchy 1: Cesium Clock. I have a buddy over in the Netherlands that has a cesium Clock in his apartment :)

Hierarchy 2: At the next level of hierarchy is Synchronization Supply Unit (SSU) or Building Integrated Timing Supply (BITS)

Hierarchy 3: SDH / ATM hardware clocks.

Requirements for SyncE are outlined in the timing characteristics of synchronous Ethernet equipment clock (ITU G.8262/Y1362) specifications. These specifications are based on ITU-T G.813 specification for SDH clocks.
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776
2012-07-11 14:47:58
2012-07-11 21:47:58
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Hierarchy 1: Cesium Clock. I have a buddy over in the Netherlands that has a cesium Clock in his apartment :)

Hierarchy 2: At the next level of hierarchy is Synchronization Supply Unit (SSU) or Building Inte ...]]>

VPLS.US 06/26/2011 Active Ethernet Versus PON

http://vpls.us/?p=764 Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:29:08 +0000 timc
http://vpls.us/?p=764

PON: basically a passive splitter 4 way that’s again split with an 8way. Giving you up to 32 ONTs. It’s shared. Kind of like the old 10base2. or 10base5 or arcnet :) Except it’s fiber rather than copper



PON Passive Optical Splitter

Active Ethernet :) well, you’ve been reading about it here for a couple years now. just a series of switches that bring it back to a router at some point. Over fiber it means you are basically limited by the optics you are using to the CE (The Home in the FTTH, or Premises on FTTP).

We ultimately rolled out some PON using Ciena down in Latin America. I didn’t have much to do with that installation, and am certainly glad it wasn’t me who had to make the call for using PON.

As near as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be a serious amount of saved resources by going with PON. You still have to dig trenches… You still have to get entrance facility. As near as I can tell, all you save is power at the break out boxes…. Where PON is passive and doesn’t require power. The Ethernet requires electricity to power it’s repeaters.

Err not repeaters that was Hubs. :) 3 active repeaters between the user and the CE, but that’s copper. Oh, and you also save a bit of fiber, but having been in a company that laid a lot of fiber, I can tell you that the major expense of laying fiber isn’t the cost of the fiber. It’s the cost of getting the fiber into the ground that costs the most money. Putting more in the ground just gives you future expansion capabilities.

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VPLS.US 06/25/2011 using vpls for e-line

http://vpls.us/?p=756 Sat, 25 Jun 2011 01:48:59 +0000 timc
http://vpls.us/?p=756

using vpls for e-line

This is a pretty interesting question.

On the one hand you could use RFC 4447, using LDP to setup Pseudowire connections between two PEs. That’s pretty simple, straight forward, and with minimal amount of resources that get carved up by the PEs terminating the VC Virtual Connection.

Or, on the other hand, you could use 4762 to establish the point to points between the two CEs. Well there are trade offs for the least use of resources.

With RFC 4447:

  • You have to do some sort of migration if they want to go from ELINE to ELAN.
  • You don’t have any sort of MAC learning.
  • All BPDUs are automatically carried across the link.
  • It has the traditional carrier feel of a circuit being tied up.
  • No routing table is configured on the resources.
  • The turnup / build of a 4447 is MUCH simpler, in most cases the configuration is a single line of code.
  • The training / testing / operational aspects are MUCH simpler.

With RFC 4762:

  • No configuration Migration between ELine to ELan
  • Typically most Router Vendors will allow much deeper packet inspection of L2VPN instead of a Pseudowire. For instance I know of one larger router vendor that will allow classification via DSCP/TOS/Prec using 4762 but not with 4447
  • MAC learning can be turned off to make the behavior similar
  • Configuration is MUCH more complex
  • Traversing a Bridge-domain allows an additional touch point for troubleshooting exercises with the customer.
  • Adding additional sites is easy
  • Passing L2 protocols can require additional Configuration

There are trade offs for every scenario. I guess my main concern with using 4762 for building point to point ethernet is the situation where you are building EVPL or a Etree using point to points. Your trunk will have potentially hundreds of end points and building all of those VPLS 4762 tables seems to be a very large chore.

Then the other thing that has to be considered is the impact of the decision as it relates to your metro area. Turning off MAC learning at your PE doesn’t do anything to limit the amount of addresses that you could or will be seeing in your metro rings. Assuming of course that you don’t extend your pseudowires into the metro. That makes the decision of using VPLS in the metro even much more complex.

Personally, I’ve waffled between the different design theories, and have been swayed because of the features and capabilities of the vendors. However the end result to the customer is identical.

What is everybody else doing?
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