Infrastructure Geek, Runner, Father of three... I love Photos and Food, making and experiencing both.. I play Warhammer (FB,40K,Necromunda,Epic,Heroquest) and Pathfinder and love reading new little Indie RPGs... I work with Windows, Linux, VMware, Cisco, and the lower down the application stack, the happier I am. I play with Ruby, and Rails, and BDD with Cucumber. Chef, and Knife and Devops. I also deliver cakes for my Wife's business www.cake-crumbs.co.uk All in all, I need more time....
Anthony Metcalf
Author's posts
Sep 14
All Your SDN Are Belong to Us
One of the frustrations of SDN has always been the fact that if you ask six different people for a definition of SDN, you’ll get ten different answers, at least. This stems in part from the usual IT buzzword symptoms. When a system is used for competitive advantage, each company wants to define its own brand of …
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Aug 27
NSX – The Saga Continues
I’ve written before about the difficulty as a user of getting hold of VMware’s NSX and about other problems with the release, but a small recap is in order. Founded in 2007, Nicira was bought by VMware in 2012 for its SDN platform. This consists of deep integration that combines the open VXLAN standard with vSphere’s vShield-like products …
Aug 04
Pokémon Go!
I woke up one morning last week to find my wife capturing a Squirtle in the corner of the room. Not the real room, of course: just the augmented reality version that exists in Pokémon Go. The idea of augmented reality, of using computers to superimpose extra information relevant to the real world, has existed …
Jul 05
On SDN
Many of these posts talk about network functions virtualization (NFV) rather than software-defined networking (SDN). NFV is a subset of SDN that is more specific, and it is applicable to a higher level of the application stack. Whereas SDN is aimed at the network layers, NFV is aimed at manipulating the data. The idea of …
Jun 22
On Enterprises and Service Providers
“Service provider” and “enterprise” are often seen as opposites in networking circles. (For the purposes of this article, “enterprise” means “business” rather than “large business.”) I’m fortunate to have worked closely with both service providers and enterprises. The contrast is indeed sharp. Service provider networks are the product to be sold; they need to be fast, responsive, …
May 05
NSX Release … and Availability?
VMware just released details about the latest version of NSX—6.2.2. What is interesting about this release is that it is the first that is split into tiers. The release pages are full featured, and although pricing doesn’t appear to be available yet on the website, hopefully this will be a fully public release that doesn’t …
Apr 29
IoT, Bandwidth, and Latency
When we think about network connections, our focus is usually on bandwidth. Bandwidth is the main metric in everyday use, as most connections are within a local site, where latency will be very low. There are a few specific instances in which this is not true and latency is the main target. High-performance computing (HPC) is one, …
Apr 23
Hyperconvergence and OS
In the good old days (rose-tinted spectacles required), there was only one operating system in the stack. It took care of device drivers and file IO. There were many flavours of OS, depending on the period, from UNIX and Windows to OS/2 and MacOS, and many, many others. Over time, the selection of operating systems in the data center reduced …
Apr 14
From Mainframes to Containers
A few days ago, Stevie Chambers tweeted about the evolution from mainframe to container: “Why is it a surprise that VMs will decline as things miniaturise? Mainframes → Intel → VMs → Containers, etc. Normal, I’d say.” By “Intel” here, I’m going to take Stevie to mean “rackmount servers.” I’m also going to assume that by …
Apr 05
David and Goliath
I, like most in the modern IT industry, have spent most of my working life installing, configuring, and maintaining Microsoft products, ranging from Active Directory and Exchange through Terminal Services and MSSQL Server. Most of these products have had extra layers of third-party software on top (Citrix MetaFrame, anyone?) or blended in to make them …