Re: Experiences of different networking vendors
Thank you guys for the replies. Yes, I agree that asking on misc@openbsd.org is probably not the most optimum choice. But my thoughts where that this is a somewhat neutral grounds (Or maybe not.. regarding proprietary vendors.. :) ), and my impression about the openbsd community is that, many are interested in and works with networking. I will follow up on the advice given, seek out forums. And ask specific questions regarding the model, and technology. So far I have only been able to work with Juniper, since we have not received the test equipment from HP yet. It will be exciting to get to work with the HP equipment as well. Thank you Jim for your offer of support. I might send you a mail, if my 3 HP consultants cant give me a good answer.. :P I pictured that the BSD people in where would be more familiar with Juniper since they run a modified FreeBSD in their equipment. Oh well.. I'm off then to do more testing on the stuff they have lent me.. *wonders if etherchannel will work with a ex6200* Cheers, TSLura. On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 10:28 AM, Stuart Henderson s...@spacehopper.orgwrote: This is really the wrong place to be asking. Maybe try the cisco-nsp and juniper-nsp mailing lists and HP ITRC web forums. There are other decent switch vendors too of course - brocade extreme arista etc. Since you are mainly concerned about ACS and 802.1x and this is probably the area where interop problems are more likely, make sure you search for posts about that (or ask direct questions, if your searches are unsuccessful). The key thing is to work out exactly what you want to do and see if your proposed equipment (exact model not just HP or Juniper or Cisco) will support it. Look for real user reports of anything particularly important don't just rely on vendor spec sheets. FWIW I (and several others here) had generally good experiences with the HP-designed switches (I use this wording to avoid including the ex 3com switches which I think are less widely-used around here) but no idea about 802.1x. Their hardware support/warranty and licensing are great, didn't have to use their software support. On 2012-03-22, TS Lura tsl...@gmail.com wrote: Dear OpenBSD community, I have been tasked with figuring out which supplier of networking equipment we should buy for our networking edge. I am working on my own report. But it would be nice to hear about your experiences , since I think there are many in here which are experienced in networking. It's off topic but I hope it's okay to ask in the misc part of openbsd.org. We are using Cisco in the core, and distribution. It's in the edge we are thinking about other vendors. Today we are using Cisco 4500 (Layer 2 and 3) and 2960s (Layer 2) at the edge where high availability is an issue. And 35xx, 37xx (layer 3) in regular networking closets. It's these boxes (with focus on 2960 replacements) we are thinking about replacing with the equivalent from either Juniper or HP. What are your experiences with Cisco, Juniper, and HP in general. (Support, licensing terms, how easy it is to debug / finding information, is it alot of hassle working with multiple suppliers) And more specific about using Cisco, Juniper, and/or HP in a mixed environment. (Does it work, do you have to fiddle allot to get it to work.) Our main concern is about ACS and 802.1x with non-cisco vendors. Any replies will be greeted with gratitude. :) -TSLura.
Experiences of different networking vendors
Dear OpenBSD community, I have been tasked with figuring out which supplier of networking equipment we should buy for our networking edge. I am working on my own report. But it would be nice to hear about your experiences , since I think there are many in here which are experienced in networking. It's off topic but I hope it's okay to ask in the misc part of openbsd.org. We are using Cisco in the core, and distribution. It's in the edge we are thinking about other vendors. Today we are using Cisco 4500 (Layer 2 and 3) and 2960s (Layer 2) at the edge where high availability is an issue. And 35xx, 37xx (layer 3) in regular networking closets. It's these boxes (with focus on 2960 replacements) we are thinking about replacing with the equivalent from either Juniper or HP. What are your experiences with Cisco, Juniper, and HP in general. (Support, licensing terms, how easy it is to debug / finding information, is it alot of hassle working with multiple suppliers) And more specific about using Cisco, Juniper, and/or HP in a mixed environment. (Does it work, do you have to fiddle allot to get it to work.) Our main concern is about ACS and 802.1x with non-cisco vendors. Any replies will be greeted with gratitude. :) -TSLura.
A small research paper - Thoughts about Cisco.
Dear OpenBSD community, I'm doing a small research paper on Cisco and try to find out if they are evil or not in relative to open/free source/standards, and business practice. Eg. locking people to their product line aka the MS way. I'm sending this mail to you guys because I think many of you know allot about networking, and the networking industry. I'm hoping that someone would be kind and share some of their impressions of Cisco with me. My hypothesis is that Cisco is following the best business practice in relation to proprietary and open/free source. To answer this hypothesis I'm trying to find out if Cisco is using their proprietary solution when there is a better open/free alternative. My preliminary thoughts is taken from what I have perceived, that Cisco makes a proprietary solution to give them a edge and uniqueness in the marked which they can harvest capital from. And when that solution has become commonplace they switch over to non-proprietary solutions to become more interoperable and thus stay competitive. First, Is this reasonable observation? Second, Are there any deviations from this trend? If so, why? I'm very grateful for any reply I get. Kind regards, TSLura.
Re: A small research paper - Thoughts about Cisco.
I'm sorry. My intent was not to be inflammatory. My experience with Cisco as a company is limited, so I'm therefor trying to find out more. In that process I maybe asking a controversial question. Which for some is quite obvious. Thanks for the replies so far. .tsl On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 2:33 PM, Pete Vickers p...@systemnet.no wrote: On 11. mars 2010, at 12.13, TS Lura wrote: Dear OpenBSD community, I'm doing a small research paper on Cisco and try to find out if they are evil or not in relative to open/free source/standards, and business practice. Eg. locking people to their product line aka the MS way. I'm sending this mail to you guys because I think many of you know allot about networking, and the networking industry. I'm hoping that someone would be kind and share some of their impressions of Cisco with me. My hypothesis is that Cisco is following the best business practice in relation to proprietary and open/free source. To answer this hypothesis I'm trying to find out if Cisco is using their proprietary solution when there is a better open/free alternative. My preliminary thoughts is taken from what I have perceived, that Cisco makes a proprietary solution to give them a edge and uniqueness in the marked which they can harvest capital from. And when that solution has become commonplace they switch over to non-proprietary solutions to become more interoperable and thus stay competitive. First, Is this reasonable observation? Second, Are there any deviations from this trend? If so, why? I'm very grateful for any reply I get. Kind regards, TSLura. Hi, Lots of flame-bait in there, which at least I am happily ignoring. Couple of interesting points though: 1. Time to market, it's normally 'do it yourself' in private first, then open source later. E.g. Cisco did ISL first until 802.1Q was later established as the standard, and adopted by them. 2. Throughbred solutions, e.g. some (most?) products are a mix match of proprietary open source, e.g. see this link for open source software incorporated into a particular Cisco product: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/fwsm/fwsm40/license/fwsmoslic.html /Pete
Refusal to mention OpenBSD in a MSc Advanced Networking course
Dear OpenBSD community, I'm a student for a MSc Advanced Networking degree. I have a little situation maybe you guys could give me some feedback on. The issue is that my module leader is refusing even to consider mentioning OpenBSD, or any BSD in introductory Linux course where the focus is on network services. DNS, iptables, Apache. It is a introductory course, with limited time. So it's understandable that one has to be level-headed on what's to go in as material in the course. My argument is only to have a reference to OpenBSD, PF, and maybe the jailing of named, when we go through the topics of iptables, and DNS. My professor (the module leader) argue that almost no one is using BSD, and those that does is probably 70+ and so it will soon die off, in a humours tone. In more serious tone, lack of applications. I'm a bit resigned by this attitude, because we are at a master level about networking. We learn about all the technologies surrounding routers, switches, wan, security, etc. As such I think that OpenBSD is really a bean to be counted when we learn about open/free software. So in relation to this, I would argue that OpenBSD is a excellent platform for networking services. I have said so in writing, and verbally only to be brushed off. I feel it's game over, at this point. But maybe you guys have some suggestion about good arguments that might persuade my professor? Cheers, TSLura. PS. This might be the wrong crowd, but I also argue for the documents on the internal web-learning facility to be published in PDF (ISO 32000 standard) (he insist on doc), and that Linux at least once should be mentioned as GNU/Linux.(system-tools/Kernel, to pay tribute). This is also met in the same way as my BSD arguments. Which I find strange, since my professor has developed a bit of stuff for the GNU/Linux platform.
Re: Refusal to mention OpenBSD in a MSc Advanced Networking course
Thank you all for the replies. I might do a lecture on my own, presenting OpenBSD. If I where to do that it, as a subsection, would be cool to give references to other institutions that are using OpenBSD and why they are using it. Why one would use OpenBSD, over eg. GNU/Linux. Now I would site preemptive security, code correctness, it's easy to use; enable daemons through rc.conf, pf, openssh, possibility for zfs in kernel?, good documentation, jailing of daemons. It would also be cool to highlight any specific snazzy functionality. Something that would get (MSc/geeky) people to think. ooh, that's cool particular in relation to networking. eg. I think the scrubbing of packets in PF is kinda cool, pftop, see the interruptcounter for the nic and serial console. :P Maybe something related to cryptography, or general network gear(routers, switches) , or any new cool feature in PF or something that's expensive with Cisco but cheap and good with *BSD. ipsec?, VoIP? cool feature in OpenSSH. .tsl On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 12:57 AM, Corey clinge...@gmail.com wrote: On 02/13/2010 02:06 AM, TS Lura wrote: I feel it's game over, at this point. But maybe you guys have some suggestion about good arguments that might persuade my professor? Cheers, TSLura. You can look at it this way: you will have a leg up on your classmates because you have done enough self-study to be at least aware of BSD, aand OpenBSD in particular. They, on the other hand (well, some of them at least), will equate Unix/Open Source with Linux.
