Packets DownRange
5 minute read time.Justin Wilson j2sw.com When you configure a BGP session, one of the first questions is what routes you actually want to receive. If you have ever filled out a questionnaire with Hurricane Electric or another transit provider, they ask you what “kind” of routes you want. In this article, I plan to … Read more
4 minutes read time.Many of us ISP veterans are familiar with Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE), also referred to as Triple P O E. PPPoE is showing its age. It showed its age 15 years ago. DHCP was the simple fix for modern networks. It had less overhead and was simple. Now along comes IPoE. … Read more
Indiana, specifically Whitestown, has a new WaWa gas station. They have these bright new gas pumps. Of course, I had to know more about the technology behind them. This is most likely using a highly customized Windows CE iOT core or a linux kernel. I am betting Windows. Security on the PumpsThis security framework is … Read more
During a road trip, I noticed this busy tower along the interstate. Being the tower aware person I am I managed to snap this photo.
It’s time to take a break from all the technical posts and get down to human basics. This is a nice break from the fun, but sometimes dry, technical mumbo jumbo I spout off here. I have worked with enough people over the years to realize that there is no single reason people come to … Read more
A little off the beaten path on this one. We are diving into a big part of a Cellular tower deployment. Many sites now use an Active Antenna Unit, or AAU. The radio and the antenna are built into the same enclosure. An AAU combines the antenna, radio transceivers, power amplifiers, and low-noise amplifiers into … Read more
If you’ve spent any time looking into fiber Internet, you’ve probably run across terms like GPON, XGS-PON, OLT, and ONT. These are all parts of what’s called a Passive Optical Network, or PON. Most residential fiber providers use PON because it lets them connect alot of homes without having to pull a separate fiber from … Read more
A Python script usually spends very little time doing actual Python work. Most of the actual work comes from libraries that know how to connect to network devices and do the work. They interact with APIs. Once you understand what each library does, you can spend less time writing code and more time solving network … Read more
Python has become one of the most valuable tools in a network engineer’s toolbox. You do not need to write thousands of lines of code or become a software developer to get value from it. If you are kind of old school like me, anything other than bash scripting might be new. In this article, … Read more
I am starting a type of blog post, I will start working into the rotation. These will be aimed at quick knowledge you should know along with an action. In our busy lives we don’t have time to read through 3 pages of text to do soemthign that takes less time to do than it … Read more
RFC 10005 defines a BGP extended community that lets a router attach link bandwidth information to a route. Another router can use that value when it spreads traffic across multiple BGP paths. RFC 10005 matters because links are not always of the same capacity. This RFC provides routers with a standard way to carry bandwidth … Read more
We are starting to hear about “Thin” and “Fat” rails in AI fabrics. These are just another way to say a connection from compute into the Fabric. The link either has sufficient capacity (Fat) or insufficient capacity (Thin). A thin rail provides the node with a single path into the fabric. That may be one … Read more