ipSpace.net Design Clinic

In March 2023, we discussed BGP routing between WAN edge firewalls and adjacent routers/switches, network device hardening, and connectivity between on-premises data centers and public clouds.

In February 2023, we spent the whole session discussing the intricacies of IPv6 small site multihoming and zero-trust network architectures (ZTNA).

September 2022 session focused on various aspects of using BGP in the global Internet, from BGP route servers to multihomed customer designs.

We also discussed the viability of using GPON in enterprise campus networks, and the ways one could design a VXLAN-based data center interconnect between two bridged fabrics.

The June 2022 session focused on VXLAN and EVPN: can we use them as a DCI technology, can they replace MPLS/VPN, can we use them to build campus networks, and does it make sense to run them over SD-WAN?

We also discussed data center WAN edge equipment selection, public cloud deployment tools, and typical public cloud deployment gotchas.

In April 2022 we discussed Carrier Ethernet and Content Deliver Network (CDN) basics and revisited application deployment challenges in multi-cloud environments. Ad-hoc topics included DNS and DHCP in data centers, and scale-out DMZ infrastructure in public clouds.

March 2022 session focused on data center leaf-and-spine fabrics. Topics included inter-VRF route leaking, storage integration, migration to a new fabric, ECMP monitoring, and deployment of VXLAN/EVPN in small data centers.

We also continued the WAN encryption discussion with an overview of Data Center Interconnect encryption options.

In January 2022 session we discussed Enterprise WAN design (focusing mostly on routing protocol and transport technology selection), encrypted multi-cloud connectivity, and multi-tenant public cloud networking.

December 2021 session was focused on VRFs -- we started with Multi-VRF designs and continued with "should one run Internet services in a VRF" (and why would we do that). We also tackled the endless dilemma: should servers connected to multiple leaf switches use link aggregation (+ LACP) or individual links?

Topics of November 2021 session included leaf-and-spine fabrics outside of data centers, migrating application stacks into public clouds, and the differences between point-to-point and VLAN interfaces. We also continued the brownfield microsegmentation discussion from the September 2021 session.

The session was focused on subnets and IPv6 (with a whiff of microsegmentation). We discussed the optimal subnet sizes, first steps in IPv6 deployments, IPv6 address plans and prefix delegation, and scale-out data center firewalls.

In September 2021 we discussed microsegmentation (and lack of good solutions) in campus networks, how to provide IP transport to third-party suppliers across an enterprise backbone, and when and where one would use software- or hardware-based overlay virtual networks.

Ad-hoc topics included routing in public clouds, SR-IOV, eBPF, SoNIC and IPv6-only deployments.