Category Archives: Network Infrastructure

Featured, Network Infrastructure, SDN, Software Defined Networking

Software Defined Networking: Improved Compliance & Customer Experience

Software Defined Networking Upgrade

Check out the infographic below to learn about how GreenPages recently helped a global billion-dollar banking client provide more flexibility and support business scalability with a software defined networking upgrade. While also meeting strict compliance mandates around micro-segmentation. If you are interested in learning more, check out the full summary here:

Engagement Summary: Software Defined Networking

Learn how we can help you lower cost, reduce risk and increase services efficiency.

If you have any more questions, reach out to us.

Software Defined Networking

By Jake Cryan, Digital Marketing Specialist

Disaster Recovery, DRaaS, Featured, Network Infrastructure

6 Key Questions When Considering a DRaaS Solution

Questions When Considering a DRaaS Solution

I recently sat down with our very own Tim Ferris—Solutions Architect, Yankees fan (don’t hold that against him 🙂 and DRaaS Guru. We talked about some of the common questions customers ask when considering DRaaS and the common themes Tim sees when helping customers plan and implement DRaaS solutions. Check out our conversation below about the key questions when considering a DRaaS solution. 

  1. Does your company really need a DRaaS solution?

There are a variety of reasons why a DRaaS solution isn’t always the best fit for an organization. Depending on the type of business, an offsite disaster recovery strategy might not be a great match if the business is site dependent.  Another factor is the cost consideration. Companies need to make the business determination if disaster recovery is something that’s strategic for the company to invest in vs. putting the cost into purchasing a powerful insurance policy.

  1. How are DRaaS solutions priced?

Traditionally a huge barrier to offsite DR adoption has been price, however, DRaaS makes DR and the supporting infrastructure much more affordable and attractive to companies. DRaaS cloud billing and pricing is still a challenge though because pricing models vary widely across different companies. This can be a huge point of contention and another reason to use a solution provider who can model out true cost comparisons and estimates across various cloud partners.

  1. Is your company ready to embrace a modern DRaaS strategy?

For many traditional IT organizations, the move to DRaaS can be intimidating since you’re moving your DR environment off-site to a third party. You may also be concerned about losing data stewardship and need to understand the differences that living on a shared infrastructure can pose. In addition, there are some applications that require physical dependencies and can’t be handled by virtual DRaaS, so evaluating your application portfolio is crucial. Finally, eliminating most of your capex cost and turning it into a monthly recurring cost can be valuable to many companies.

  1. How simple is it to implement a DRaaS solution?

There’s a lot of marketing hype around this idea that DRaaS solutions are very simple: “Buy our DRaaS solution and we’ll have you up in an hour!” While many providers can technically get the DRaaS framework up quickly, there are a lot of variables that are unique to each company. (See #5) Because DRaaS is not one-size-fits-all, many companies work with IT solution providers (like GreenPages) to help create and implement a DR migration plan and implementation strategy. Compounding the issue is that the DRaaS solution provider market is very crowded so it can be challenging to navigate the options—it’s important to choose based on your company’s specific requirements.

Tweet This: “Because DRaaS is not one-size-fits-all, many companies work with IT solution providers to help create and implement a DR migration plan and implementation strategy.” via @GreenPagesIT

  1. What sorts of barriers or common problems will I encounter?

You must make sure as an organization that you have created a business impact analysis and overarching disaster requirements before someone can come in and implement the technical solution. Another prerequisite is understanding the interdependencies of all your applications so that you aren’t just replicating VMs, but are protecting business solutions and applications critical to the company. While ongoing management isn’t a barrier to DRaaS, the testing can be challenging no matter what DR solution you implement. (See #6).

  1. Can’t I just have a backup solution rather than a DRaaS solution?

Most companies do have a backup solution but not always a practical DR plan. Restoring from backup tape could take from days to weeks to restore. A true DRaaS system would provide you with recovery within minutes to hours. Backup is vitally important, but you may need the combination of backup with DRaaS to restore your systems properly as these systems can complement each other. Another important thing to keep in mind is that many companies do have a DR plan but have never tested it. Without testing, it’s not a plan, it’s just a theory. In addition, you will learn plenty of helpful and interesting information when you test your plan. Most important, you don’t want to learn that your DRaaS plan was faulty on the day you push the DR button due to an actual emergency.

Tweet This: “Most importantly, you don’t want to learn that your DRaaS plan was faulty on the day you push the DR button due to an actual emergency. ” Tim Ferris, @GreenPagesIT

Thanks for checking out our blog post! If you have any more questions about implementing DRaaS or would like to speak to a technologist, please reach out to us or click below.

By Jake Cryan, Digital Marketing Specialist

AWS, Azure, Featured, hybrid migration, Network Infrastructure, Network virtualization

Migrating Your Network to AWS & Azure to Achieve Hyper-Flexibility

What to Consider When Migrating Your Network

Network Consultant, Bobby Mazzotti, discusses how to migrate Layer 2 MPLS Networks to AWS & Azure and by moving away from traditional networks, you can achieve hyper-flexibility in your network. He also discusses what you need to consider first when migrating your network. The Azure vs AWS showdown has been going on for some time now. There’s no easy answer, so always take the time to figure out which is best for you!

Contact your account manager or reach out to us and set up a meeting to discuss your AWS/Azure migration initiatives.

By Jake Cryan, Digital Marketing Specialist

Cisco ACI, Network Infrastructure, Networking, SDN, VMware NSX

VMware NSX and Cisco ACI: NSX Now Supported on ACI (We Were Right!)

In May of 2015, we did a video around VMware NSX vs. Cisco ACI. As part of that video, we made the prediction that VMware NSX and Cisco ACI would not be an either/or discussion in the future (I also did a webinar on the topic that you can download here). At the time, the common question we were getting from clients was if they should be using NSX or ACI. My opinion was that Cisco ACI quite well complimented the feature sets of VMware NSX and that one could really support the other.

Now let’s fast forward to last month (February 2016) to Cisco Live Berlin where an announcement was made that supported just that idea. In  sessions at the conference, they talked about a number of overlay networks in Cisco ACI and specifically mentioned VMware NSX. So what are these use cases? I’m planning on doing a series of videos to explore the topic further. The next video will discuss heavily utilizing Cisco ACI with an overlay of VMware NSX. After that, we’ll look at the opposite – more heavily leveraging the feature sets of NSX on top of the fabric automation feature sets that exist in ACI.

VMware NSX and Cisco ACI: NSX Now Supported on ACI

Watch on GreenPages’ YouTube channel

 

Download Nick’s on-demand webinar, VMware NSX vs. Cisco ACI: When to Use Each, When to Use Both

 

By Nick Phelps, Moonrock Consulting, a GreenPages Alliance Partner

Featured, Network, Network Infrastructure, wireless

6 Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project

Every company needs sound wireless capabilities to operate successfully. But it’s not always as simple as some may think. There’s a lot to consider when designing your wireless infrastructure. The last thing you want is business users not being able to perform their jobs effectively and becoming disgruntled. Below are some tips to avoid common mistakes and to help ensure your wireless infrastructure can support the demanding needs of the business.

 

Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project

 

1. Understand that all Wi-Fi is not created equal

Everyone’s wireless footprint is going to end up slightly different. Don’t let someone try to put you in a predesigned box. With light research you can find the perfect wireless balance to fit your needs whether dense-user offices, high density of low density warehouses or distribution centers, stadiums or amphitheaters, or outdoor areas, etc.

 

2. Pre-design is critical to stay within your budget and not throw money away

The biggest mistake that can be made is not having a clear design before any hardware is purchased. You don’t want to overdesign and overspend, or under design and spend poorly at the last second in an attempt to correct a project. Often the cause for under design is attention to coverage OR capacity and not both. For example, warehouses are likely to be using handhelds to transmit over clear text, so the focus can be on coverage and security. Offices often have many different types of users and workloads shift throughout the day so special attention should be taken to identify density and capacity usage areas such as conference rooms and collaborative workspaces. Stadiums have their own special configuration policy that controls the air and allows users better wireless and cellular connectivity. It is critical to consider the minimum needs and requirements of each specific environment and balance the design to meet your users’ needs. Licensing is another great example when planning for design, traffic, and budget in the same conversation. Controller licensing determines failover path and cost of licenses overall.

 

3. Know your users’ expectations and your management team’s expectations both now and 3-5 years from now

Having to make changes to a project can lead to overspending on implementation costs, project drag out, poor rollout, poor user experience, and expensive add-on situations. By fleshing out all of the expectations and defined them in advance, you can design to meet and exceed the needs of the users, enabling IT to focus on supporting the business and not on supporting the technology. Establish a list of needs and wants first. Much like buying a house, once you’re in the discovery phase and comparing brands or features, it will be quick and easy to step through what you were looking for in the first place.

 

Would you like to read the rest of Dan’s tips? Download his whitepaper, 6 Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project!

 

 

By Dan Allen, Architect

Network, Network Infrastructure, wireless

6 Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project

Every company needs sound wireless capabilities to operate successfully. But it’s not always as simple as some may think. There’s a lot to consider when designing your wireless infrastructure. The last thing you want is business users not being able to perform their jobs effectively and becoming disgruntled. Below are some tips to avoid common mistakes and to help ensure your wireless infrastructure can support the demanding needs of the business.

 

Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project

 

1. Understand that all Wi-Fi is not created equal

Everyone’s wireless footprint is going to end up slightly different. Don’t let someone try to put you in a predesigned box. With light research you can find the perfect wireless balance to fit your needs whether dense-user offices, high density of low density warehouses or distribution centers, stadiums or amphitheaters, or outdoor areas, etc.

 

2. Pre-design is critical to stay within your budget and not throw money away

The biggest mistake that can be made is not having a clear design before any hardware is purchased. You don’t want to overdesign and overspend, or under design and spend poorly at the last second in an attempt to correct a project. Often the cause for under design is attention to coverage OR capacity and not both. For example, warehouses are likely to be using handhelds to transmit over clear text, so the focus can be on coverage and security. Offices often have many different types of users and workloads shift throughout the day so special attention should be taken to identify density and capacity usage areas such as conference rooms and collaborative workspaces. Stadiums have their own special configuration policy that controls the air and allows users better wireless and cellular connectivity. It is critical to consider the minimum needs and requirements of each specific environment and balance the design to meet your users’ needs. Licensing is another great example when planning for design, traffic, and budget in the same conversation. Controller licensing determines failover path and cost of licenses overall.

 

3. Know your users’ expectations and your management team’s expectations both now and 3-5 years from now

Having to make changes to a project can lead to overspending on implementation costs, project drag out, poor rollout, poor user experience, and expensive add-on situations. By fleshing out all of the expectations and defined them in advance, you can design to meet and exceed the needs of the users, enabling IT to focus on supporting the business and not on supporting the technology. Establish a list of needs and wants first. Much like buying a house, once you’re in the discovery phase and comparing brands or features, it will be quick and easy to step through what you were looking for in the first place.

 

Would you like to read the rest of Dan’s tips? Download his whitepaper, 6 Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project!

 

 

By Dan Allen, Architect

Featured, Network Infrastructure, SDN

How to Prepare Your Environment for the Software Defined Networking Era

In preparation for my upcoming webinar, here is another video  I did a few months back around how to prepare your environment for software defined networking. Regardless of which SDN solution you choose, there is a lot of backend work that needs to be done. Before you get into the weeds around specific products, you need to take a step back. To be successful, you’re going to need to have a level of understanding about your applications you’ve never needed before. I will cover this briefly in my webinar, but if you are planning on attending, this is a good one to watch first to help set the stage.

 

 

Register for Nick’s webinar, “VMware NSX vs. Cisco ACI: When to Use Each, When to Use Both.” In the webinar, Nick will cover:

  • The current state of the SDN market
  • VMware NSX & Cisco ACI overview
  • When it makes sense to use each, or even both
  • Next steps to get your environment prepared for SDN initiatives

 

By Nick Phelps, Principal Architect

Network Infrastructure, SDN

How to Prepare Your Environment for the Software Defined Networking Era

In preparation for my upcoming webinar, here is another video  I did a few months back around how to prepare your environment for software defined networking. Regardless of which SDN solution you choose, there is a lot of backend work that needs to be done. Before you get into the weeds around specific products, you need to take a step back. To be successful, you’re going to need to have a level of understanding about your applications you’ve never needed before. I will cover this briefly in my webinar, but if you are planning on attending, this is a good one to watch first to help set the stage.

Register for Nick’s webinar, “VMware NSX vs. Cisco ACI: When to Use Each, When to Use Both.” In the webinar, Nick will cover:

  • The current state of the SDN market
  • VMware NSX & Cisco ACI overview
  • When it makes sense to use each, or even both
  • Next steps to get your environment prepared for SDN initiatives

By Nick Phelps, Principal Architect

Featured, Network Infrastructure, Networking, wireless

The Second Wave of Wireless: MU-MIMO, More Data & Bigger Pipes

There have been some big changes around Wave 2 Wireless Technologies. Most of these were discussed out at Cisco Live, which I was lucky enough to attend. A new technology called MU-MIMO has been introduced. It means multiple user, multiple input, multiple output. MU-MIMO allows us to dynamically allocate space allowing multiple users to do multiple transitions and getting more data and more sessions moving at the same time. We’re also soon going to have 2.3 gigabit/second threshold. We will be moving tons more data through the wireless space! This is going to require bigger pipes to backhaul all of this information. Check out my short video below where I discuss these topics in more detail!

 

 

Are you interested in learning more about the next wave of wireless technologies? Email us at socialmedia@greenpages.com

 

 

By Dan Allen, Architect

Cisco, Cisco ACI, Featured, Network Infrastructure, Networking, Public Cloud, SDN

Part 2: Cisco Live 2015 Recap – AWS Direct Connect, VIRL Facelift & More!

It was another great Cisco Live event this year! My colleague Dan Allen wrote a post summarizing the key takeaways he got out of the event. I wanted to add in some of my own to supplement his. As you probably know, it was John Chambers last Cisco Live event as CEO – which makes it especially cool that I got this picture taken with him!

cisco live

Expanded DevNet Zone

Last year Cisco introduced the DevNet zone which was focused on giving people hands on access to Cisco’s most ground breaking technology that could be construed as science fiction unless they opened their toy box and let people see and touch what they’ve been hiding in it. This year we got to play with Internet of Things development environments, API driven SDN solutions, virtual network simulation toolkits and drone technologies hosted by the co-founder of iRobot. Last year, it was 4 little booths in between two restrooms with giveaways to get people to come in. This year, it consumed a whole section of the convention center with over 20 booths, 6 interactive labs and different exhibits and guest speakers delivering presentations on the future of technology.

Programmability and automation were a part of every session no matter what the topic was

It didn’t matter if you were attending entry-level or advanced breakout sessions, IT management track courses or developer workshops; everything you attended at Cisco Live this year had something to do with automation, programmability, cloud connectivity or application awareness. This was very different from any of the 8 Cisco Live events I’ve attended throughout my career. If you’re a technologist and have any doubt in your mind that this is where the industry is headed, you’d better start learning new skills because, like it or not, our customers and the customers of our customers are, or will soon be, believers and consumers of these technologies and consumption models.

Cisco and Amazon TEAM up to BEEF up AWS Direct Connect

AWS Direct Connect is a part of Amazon’s APN Partner program that consists of ISP’s that provide WAN circuits directly connected to AWS datacenters. That means if you’re a Level3 or AT&T MPLS customer and you have 10 offices and 2 datacenters on that MPLS network, Amazon AWS can now become another site on that private WAN. That’s HUGE! Just look at a small portion of their ISP partner list:

  • AT&T
  • Cinenet
  • Datapipe
  • Equinix, Inc.
  • FiberLight
  • Fiber Internet Center
  • First Communications
  • Global Capacity
  • Global Switch
  • Global Telecom & Technology, Inc. (GTT)
  • Interxion
  • InterCloud
  • Level 3 Communications, Inc.
  • Lightower
  • Masergy
  • Maxis
  • Megaport
  • MTN Business
  • NTT Communications Corporation
  • Sinnet
  • Sohonet
  • Switch SUPERNAP
  • Tata Communications
  • tw telecom
  • Verizon
  • Vocus
  • XO Communications

 

Combine that with a CSR1000v and an ASAv and you have a public cloud that can be managed and utilized exactly like a physical colo that is completely transparent to both your network teams and users.

ASAv in AWS

This little announcement slipped under the radar when it was made a week before Cisco Live but was definitely front and center in the Cisco Solutions Theater in the world of solutions. The ASA1000v has been Cisco’s only answer to a full featured virtual security appliance for the past two years or so. The only problem is that it required the Nexus1000v with which the industry as a whole has been reluctant to embrace (particularly in the public cloud space). Well good news, the ASAv doesn’t require the Nexus 1000v and, therefore, has opened the doors for the likes of Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure to let us make use of an all Cisco Internet and WAN edge within an AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). This means you can manage the edge of your AWS VPC the same way you manage the edge of your datacenters and offices. The ASAv supports everything an ASA supports which will soon include the full FirePower feature set. Have you ever tried building a VPN tunnel to an ASA at a customer’s datacenter from the AWS VPC Customer Gateway? I have – not the best experience. Well, not any more – it’s pretty cool!

ACI was big this year, but not as big as last year

I was expecting more of the same from last year on this one. Just about everywhere you looked last year, you saw something about ACI. This year was a more targeted effort both with the breakout session and in the Cisco Solutions Theater. I’m not saying it didn’t get a lot of attention, just not as much as last year and certainly not more. This shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise for anyone used to Cisco’s marketing and positioning tactics, however. Last year was geared toward awareness of the new technology and this year was more geared toward the application of the technology across very specific use cases and advances in it’s capabilities. The honeymoon is clearly over and everyone was focused on how to live every-day life with ACI being a part of it.

APIC can interact with ASA and other non-Cisco devices

The ACI APIC is slowly getting more and more abilities related to northbound programmatic interaction with other Cisco and non-Cisco appliances. For example, it can now instantiate policies and other configuration elements of ASA, Fortigate, F5 and Radware appliances as part of its policy driven infrastructures.

iWAN almost officially tested and supported on CSR1000v

As of next month, the iWAN suite of technologies will be officially tested and supported on the CSR1000v platform which means all of that functionality will now be available in public cloud environments. More to come on iWAN in another post.

CSR1000v

The CSR1000v (Cloud Services Router) is Cisco’s answer to a virtual router. Until now, it’s been sort of an “Oh ya? We can do that too” sort of project. Now it’s a full-fledged product with a dedicated product team. It’s supported across just about every public cloud provider and in every Cisco Powered Cloud partner (Cirrity, Peak 10, etc.).

Additionally, I managed to get the product team to pull back the covers on the roadmap a bit and reveal what Dynamic Multipoint VPN (DMVPN) will be supported on the CSR1000v soon along with a number of other ISR/ASR features which will make a truly seamless WAN that includes your public cloud resources.

Non-Cisco Cloud News – Azure Virtual Network now supports custom gateways

A big challenge in real adoption of non-Microsoft application workloads in Azure has been the inability to use anything but Azure’s gateway services at the edge of your Azure Virtual Network. Well, Cisco let the cat out of the bag on this one as Cisco CSR’s and ASR’s will soon be supported as gateway devices in Azure VN. For me, this really brings Azure into focus when selecting a public cloud partner.

APIC-EM has more uses than ever

Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller Enterprise Module (rolls right off the tongue right?), or APIC-EM, is Cisco’s answer to an SDN controller. It’s part of Cisco’s ONE software portfolio and has more uses than ever. Don’t confuse the APIC-EM with the ACI APIC, however. The ACI APIC is the controller and central point of interaction for Cisco’s ACI solution and runs on Cisco C-Series servers. The APIC-EM, however, is truly an open source SDN controller that is free and can run as a VM and interact with just about anything that has an API. That’s right.

VIRL got a facelift

Cisco’s Virtual Internet Routing Lab (VIRL) is getting some real attention. It’s an application that was unveiled to Cisco DevNet partners last year that lets you virtually build Cisco networks with VM’s running real IOS and NX-OS code to simulate a design and test it’s functionality. As a partner, this is huge as we can virtually replicate customer environments as a proof of concept or troubleshooting tool. It’s getting more development support within Cisco.

 

A lot of crucial information and updates came out of this event. If you would like to discuss any in more detail, feel free to reach out!

 

By Nick Phelps, Principal Architect