Today is my second day in Dubai. I landed yesterday morning without any hotel reservation at all. Thanks God, I still have my UAE driving license so I can book a rental car online and it has been waiting for me in the airport the moment I arrived. I guess in Dubai having a car is more important then having a hotel room :) I reached Dubai a bit too early, 4 am in the morning, so I spent time to drive around the city and beyond. I even drove a bit too far I almost reached the capital city, then I decided to go back and went to Cisco office directly. We need to do this some time. It's good to remember the old days when I used to drive 180 km/h in Sheik Zayed Road, and to enjoy the sun rise while listening to my favorite radio channel. It’s good for my mojo, and to start a brand new day in Dubai.
My mission during my short visit to Dubai this time is simple: to try to get my working visa. Then it becomes expanded since I must continue with the visa for my family. And then the kid school issue comes up. O yes, I have to find a temporary apartment that I can pay monthly until everything is settled down. I also need to open a bank account otherwise I would not be able to get my first month salary on time. And last but not least, when I was in my country on my way to the airport I received a message from my team that I need to work on some project while I'm in Dubai.
Anyway, it will be interesting to meet old friends and my former customers when I used to work here. It gives kind of funny feeling to come back to Cisco office as employee compare to when I was still working for a partner company. To meet the guys that I used to worship ;) because hey, at that time they were Cisco and I was outsider, so they're always right!
When we move, it's just our trail we left behind. It's just our name and reputation we left behind. The impression in others' memory on how good or bad we are. When we move we leave a story.
Let's see how is my trail that I left in here couple of years ago.
Welcome home, my best friend greet me.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Better Traveler Continuous
The world's economy is still sinking, and I believe we all must take part to be more efficient and help reducing unnecessary expense. Again, I can't cut the number of my travels since nowadays I only travel to deliver onsite work and to meet the customers. But as I mentioned in my previous post I should be able to minimize my expense during any travel using all the 10 Points from the Himawan's Way to a Better (and cheaper) Business Traveler.
Currently I'm counting my expense that I spent in my last trip to Bratislava from Nov 2 to Nov 13 and for total 11 days travel in average I spent 20.41 Euros per day for food, taxi and so on (exclude the hotel and flight fare). It's still higher than the last time which is 18.6 Euros per day. Most probably it's because this time my flight reached only up to Vienna and I must use taxi from Vienna airport to Bratislava. But even thought the taxi from Vienna to Bratislava costs me 90 Euros, the flight fare from Singapore to Vienna via Dubai is much cheaper compared to a flight from Singapore to Bratislava via Munich. The flight via Dubai took longer time due to 4 hours in transit but this is something that I'm willing to take to save about 500 Euros different in flight fare.
Unfortunately I can't use any other hotels other than the one listed in my company's preferred hotels. Otherwise I may really go to the extreme just to cut my expense. Well, I guess we have to start from something first. The amount that we can save today may look small, but it may make the difference eventually. And we should always have this frugality in our mind as part of the culture, and not because it is forced by company policy.
Will try to do better in my next travel.
Currently I'm counting my expense that I spent in my last trip to Bratislava from Nov 2 to Nov 13 and for total 11 days travel in average I spent 20.41 Euros per day for food, taxi and so on (exclude the hotel and flight fare). It's still higher than the last time which is 18.6 Euros per day. Most probably it's because this time my flight reached only up to Vienna and I must use taxi from Vienna airport to Bratislava. But even thought the taxi from Vienna to Bratislava costs me 90 Euros, the flight fare from Singapore to Vienna via Dubai is much cheaper compared to a flight from Singapore to Bratislava via Munich. The flight via Dubai took longer time due to 4 hours in transit but this is something that I'm willing to take to save about 500 Euros different in flight fare.
Unfortunately I can't use any other hotels other than the one listed in my company's preferred hotels. Otherwise I may really go to the extreme just to cut my expense. Well, I guess we have to start from something first. The amount that we can save today may look small, but it may make the difference eventually. And we should always have this frugality in our mind as part of the culture, and not because it is forced by company policy.
Will try to do better in my next travel.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Six Times As Fast Lane
6.4 Terabits per second,
400 Gbps per slot,
Power as you grow,
Reduce your carbon footprint,
99.999% reliability with IOS XR,
Designed to deliver Video content,
6 slots and 10 slots.
Beautifully engineered for whatever may lie ahead.
It's finally released to public. This is not the product to replace the current Cisco 7600 or GSR. More information to come later. For now, please just enjoy the video first.
Welcome to life in the six-times-as fast lane.
400 Gbps per slot,
Power as you grow,
Reduce your carbon footprint,
99.999% reliability with IOS XR,
Designed to deliver Video content,
6 slots and 10 slots.
Beautifully engineered for whatever may lie ahead.
It's finally released to public. This is not the product to replace the current Cisco 7600 or GSR. More information to come later. For now, please just enjoy the video first.
Welcome to life in the six-times-as fast lane.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Bangkok Dangerous
"My job takes me to a lot of places.
It's got its downsides.
I sleep alone. I eat alone.
I'm used to it though.
I'd like to meet someone.
But it's tough when you live out of a suitcase.
I go where I'm told. Do what I'm told.
I shouldn't complain.
The work is steady,
The money's good.
But it's not for everyone.."
Why does it sound very familiar? Anyway, I'm watching the High Definition version of this movie over the Internet on some website that provide hundreds of online movies for free. We are really close to say good bye to regular TV forever. TV is still evil. But on-demand TV is not. And the new platform from Cisco Systems can provide solid infrastructure to support huge demand of bandwidth for that.
Only one day left. Get ready.
It's got its downsides.
I sleep alone. I eat alone.
I'm used to it though.
I'd like to meet someone.
But it's tough when you live out of a suitcase.
I go where I'm told. Do what I'm told.
I shouldn't complain.
The work is steady,
The money's good.
But it's not for everyone.."
Why does it sound very familiar? Anyway, I'm watching the High Definition version of this movie over the Internet on some website that provide hundreds of online movies for free. We are really close to say good bye to regular TV forever. TV is still evil. But on-demand TV is not. And the new platform from Cisco Systems can provide solid infrastructure to support huge demand of bandwidth for that.
Only one day left. Get ready.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
First There Was CRS-1
In about 5 days Cisco will release a new carrier class product that I personally consider revolutionary. I'm not allowed to give any more information here, I can say that I have been following the news internally for quite some time now. And actually we have two new products for this segment, one has been released to a very selected customer without public announcement and the other one that will be announced next week. Don't ask me the reason for that, and even I know it I would not be able to make my comments here.
Why now? Why more products for Carrier or Service Provider? Well, I believe it all started with CRS-1. It took Cisco several years to do the research and when it was released in 2004 CRS really set the new standard for a carrier-class and next-generation routers. It's been several years now and there are so many successful deployment of CRS-1 in the market. CRS is positioned to be a Core router in the network, so the next step is obviously to utilize the technology and new features invented during the research for CRS-1 to develop new products for different segment or different position in the network.
Following are several new characteristics introduced by CRS-1 that may become the basic requirement and standard for any new products designed for carrier and service providers:
Distributed Architecture - we have moved very far from a centralized architecture where a central CPU must do all the work to distributed architecture. In distributed architecture the Route Processor is used just for control plane: to set up routing protocol adjacencies with the neighbor routers, build the routing table, build the forwarding table, then push this forwarding table to the line card. So all packet forwarding or data plane is handled by Line Card. RP should be free from the task to forward packet except in some special cases. Btw, different with most of the previous products, in CRS number of RP can be more than two in a single chassis and that will be useful for some new features will be explained later. And RP functionality is even more reduced because there are dedicated fan controllers to control the cooling system and dedicated alarm module.
High Availability - RP must be redundant and this is not something new actually. Once the primary RP fails the secondary RP should kick in. The different now is: there should not be any packet loss during the process. Since the forwarding table has been pushed to Line Card, during the RP failover the line card should be able to continue forwarding the packet even with only the last state of the table before the failover. But how about the switch fabric? This is the connector between one line card to another, and RP must always communicate with the the fabric and line card. There was a case with the old router that even there is no packet drop during RP failover but when the new RP needs to restore the communication to the fabric it has to drop some of the packets. This is not an issue with CRS. And obviously the fabric itself is redundant.
Modular Line Card = PLIM + MSC - CRS introduce the new type of line card as one line card is formed by two different cards connected via passive midplane. The first is the physical layer called PLIM where we have the physical ports and necessary hardware to do framing, and the second is the intelligent card called MSC that can connect to any different kind of PLIM. MSC is the one who does lookup to forwarding table, apply QoS and Access Control List and so on. Without MSC the PLIM can be considered a dump hardware with physical ports only. Without PLIM, MSC can be considered a smart brain without any arms and legs to interact with outside world. This is a very important concept because now we can start with buying a low speed PLIM and later on we can upgrade to a powerful PLIM without upgrading the MSC. And vice versa, if one day we need to upgrade the capacity of the MSC we don't have to re-patch all the cables that are currently connected to the PLIM.
Non-blocking ports, non-blocking fabric - so the current hardware can provide 40Gbps in a single port. And it has to be a real 40Gbps input and output linerate aka non-blocking at all. This can be achieved in PLIM/MSC because there are different ASIC to handle ingress and egress packet forwarding. This is a very important to know because with different ASIC means anything that can overload the ASIC to process the ingress traffic won't disturb the other ASIC to process egress traffic. And don't forget the fabric. Non-blocking linecard should be supported by non-blocking switch fabric. The fabric in previous products was started with bus technology until cross-bar fabric where the packet must be scheduled and linecard must wait its turn before it can access the switch fabric. Now it's completely different as every line card can access the fabric anytime. Btw, when the packet is sent to the fabric it will be transformed into a cell with a fixed size that is more efficient to be processed by the switch fabric instead of various sizes of regular packets.
Multicast replication - multicast has become a very important aspect in our life especially because of the high demand of IPTV and multicast streaming traffic. Any router should be able to handle multicast traffic, but the question is can the router handle a really huge number of multicast traffic? The replication of multicast packet should be done not only on interface level but as well as inside the switch fabric. So the idea is when the ingress interface receives multicast packet and sends it to the fabric, the fabric must do the replication to ensure the egress linecard where there are subscribers can get the packet. Then the egress linecard may have different ports where the subscribers are connected, so the packet must be replicated again here. And don't forget to have a different queue for unicast and multicast because we don't want one can kill the other. Most of the providers normally run unicast traffic as well as multicast streaming so each should work up to its maximum performance without disturbing the other.
QoS in every aspect - the next generation carrier-class product is built with QoS mindset. If in previous product QoS is only in ingress and egress interface buffer, now there must be mechanism to differentiate the packet in case there is congestion in the switch fabric. Well, it's actually very difficult to congest the switch fabric due to its huge capacity. But the congestion may occur on the queue from the fabric to the egress interface. So even the class of service to differentiate the traffic in fabric may not be extensive as in interface buffer, we should be able to mark high priority packet to ensure it will not get dropped when the fabric queue is full. When there is congestion in fabric queue, there is a back pressure mechanism to inform the ingress interface so ingress interface can slow down sending out traffic to fabric by either buffering or dropping the ingress packets.
Multi chassis - this is a break-through concept where routers can be connected together and work just as a single chassis. It is very useful to increase the capacity of the overall system, more efficient because some resources can be shared, and introduce new concept of router collocation or router hosting with Secure Domain Routers (SDR) technology that will be discussed next. With multi-chassis system there is a chassis designated as switch fabric chassis. So the ingress linecard from each chassis will send the traffic to the first part of the fabric still in the same chassis, then the packet (already cell now) will be sent to the fabric chassis where all the lookup and necessary replication are done, then it will be sent to the destination egress linecard in different chassis or even in the same chassis with the ingress linecard.
Zoning Power System - the previous redundant power supply system where we have two or more power modules to provide 1+1 redundancy is not enough. CRS-1 16-slot introduce a zoning power system where there are two power shelves contain three power modules each and one power shelf is divide into 6 zones. So all the 16 slots for line card are powered as per the zones. Zone 1 may power the first 4 slots, and zone 6 power a different 4 slots. There are 2 zones that powered the RP, Switch Fabric and Fan Controller. With this zoning system in mind, we can plug two connections to the same destination in two different line card in different power zone.
IOS XR for carrier-class router - be ready to deal with IOS XR whether you like it or not! This is the next generation software for new carrier-class router and completely different with IOS. Well, many guys ask me why IOS size is getting bigger and bigger, why IOS has so many different family name, why there are many bugs listed in bug tool and so on. First of all, all software must have bug. If the vendor don't release the bug list because they claim the software has no bug, they lie. And be ready to get surprised and unknown behaviors that we might be able to avoid if we have the list of the previous known bugs. Second, IOS was built long time ago to accommodate any types of customer with different requirement of the features. There was a version of IOS that can run desktop protocol at the same time it has new MPLS features for Service Providers. So if one software tries to have all the features obviously its size becomes really big. And more features mean more chance to hit bugs. When you accumulate all the bugs and put it in the list, even some bugs are only for specific feature that may not be enabled, the list can become really long. Now Cisco has tried to split IOS for different segment completely even for the same hardware platform, for example IOS SR for 7600 is targeted for Service Provider while IOS SX for 6500 is targeted for Enterprise (6500/7600 used to be very similar and can run the same IOS)
Micro kernel, modular and self-healing - the very first different between IOS XR to IOS is IOS XR use micro-kernel and modular while IOS considered as monolithic where one big file handles everything. With XR, micro kernel is the heart of the software then we can add subsystems, software modules and applications on top of it. So Control Plane, Data Plane and Management Plane are completely handled by different subsystems. With this modularity, the terminology of self-healing becomes make sense because if there is a problem in one subsystem it should not affect the others. And each process owns its own protected address space in virtual memory, so issue with a process can be fixed automatically and will not disturb the other processes. The process like OSPF can be restarted without impacting the BGP process. That's what I call true modular software.
In Service Software Upgrade - ISSU becomes a very popular term for many customers. But many people still mistakenly think that ISSU means the real software upgrade without any downtime at all in any circumstances. We need to think like this: even the software has already modular with micro kernel, but same as any other operating system there are some basic processes that are required in order to have the system up and running. So even we can do hitless upgrade without any packet drop for some subsystems because it requires only process restart but for some other subsystems this is not possible to achieve without a full restart. And as far as I know until now there is no router vendor can achieve software upgrade for major version without any restart at all. So ask the vendor more specifically if you have ISSU requirement. And as I have mentioned the architecture is distributed so even the RP is restarted the data plane may still work using the previous state before the RP restart. But how if we need to upgrade the firmware of the linecard itself? I'm not saying the ISSU is not perfect, I'm just saying we just need to see it more specifically and look at the feature for different kind of circumstances and compare it with our own requirements
IOS XR was built for CRS - yes this is true. And when one new software is tested and considered successful, definitely the next step is to re-use it for another hardware platform. So even the GSR can run IOS XR but it's a different software file with the one for CRS because the hardware architecture is different. It's understandable, just as there are Linux for 32-bit and 64-bit with different files. What matters is there is only one IOS XR for Service Provider core network, with the same CLI and no more different type of software families as in IOS. Having said that, it's still IOS XR even the software for CRS and GSR (and the new products to come) is different and sometime the features provided with the same version is slightly different. Btw, for those who already familiar with IOS be ready to be shocked when the first time using the IOS XR CLI. Eveything that we ever wish for to be fixed in IOS has already accommodated by XR. From small thing like using / instead of full subnet mask in IP address, configuration changes won't be applied until it's committed, feature to rollback the config to new features such as admin plane config mode and always-on debug. Try to get one XR machine and see it yourself.
Say goodbye to route-map - Next generation routers need next generation way to control Route Policy. Hence come the Route Policy Language (RPL) to replace route-map in IOS XR. It's actually a new programming language embedded in IOS XR to achieve the purpose of controlling route policy with scalability in mind. Just as any programming language it has the conditional operators like if, if-then, if-else and so on, Booleans and Compound Booleans expression. We can use parameter and variable, we can nest the policy, and the best is we can re-use some policy over and over again by calling it in the function for different kind of other policies. It looks complicated in the beginning but once you start to use it it's difficult to go back to route-map.
Secure Domain Routers, beyond virtual routers - I have seen more and more Service Provider customers use this capability in live network. With SDR we can make partition of a single chassis into several completely different routers. It's not the same with virtual router since each router in SDR has its own RP, line card and its own memory space. Anything happen in one SDR doesn't disturb the other SDR at all. What is shared just the chassis and the switch fabric. For this we need to have RP for the whole chassis called the admin SDR and Distributed RP (DRP) that consumes one slot of line card. Then from the admin plane config mode we can allocate that DRP along with few linecards as part of one SDR. Admin SDR can create and remove the SDR but it doesn't know what is going on inside one SDR. Even the communication from one SDR to another SDR in the same chassis must use external connection. This idea brings new terminology of router collocation since one physical chassis can become several completely different routers to be positioned in different spot in the network. How about router hosting? Those who have the chassis can rent the SDR to the customers just as server hosting. The possibility to invent new way during the implementation of this feature is endless.
Control Plane Policing with Local Packet Transport Services - some types of traffic are still processed by Route Processor. For example the control plane traffic such as routing protocol or network management. RP must also process the packet with destination to RP itself, for example packets destined to loopback IP address or the IP address of the physical interface in the router. And if for some reason someone decides to turn of the CEF switching and want to use packet switching, all packets will pass through the RP for packet forwarding process. This is not recommended but it happens once in life, especially if we have a very skeptical guy in the team. So it is clear that the RP must be protected from all the packets that must be processed by the RP. The first reason obviously to protect the RP from Denial of Service attack when some smart guy can try to send lots of TCP Syn packet destined to RP IP address, for example. And the second is to make sure even the legitimate traffic such as routing protocol and network management must be limited from consuming the whole resources of the RP. This is where the Local Packet Transport Services kick in and it's enabled by default to protect the RP by limiting number of packets can reach the RP.
So it's true, just as in School of Rock "One great rock show can change the world", I guess one great product can change the world too. Make one revolutionary product, and the rest is just history.
Get Ready.
Why now? Why more products for Carrier or Service Provider? Well, I believe it all started with CRS-1. It took Cisco several years to do the research and when it was released in 2004 CRS really set the new standard for a carrier-class and next-generation routers. It's been several years now and there are so many successful deployment of CRS-1 in the market. CRS is positioned to be a Core router in the network, so the next step is obviously to utilize the technology and new features invented during the research for CRS-1 to develop new products for different segment or different position in the network.
Following are several new characteristics introduced by CRS-1 that may become the basic requirement and standard for any new products designed for carrier and service providers:
Distributed Architecture - we have moved very far from a centralized architecture where a central CPU must do all the work to distributed architecture. In distributed architecture the Route Processor is used just for control plane: to set up routing protocol adjacencies with the neighbor routers, build the routing table, build the forwarding table, then push this forwarding table to the line card. So all packet forwarding or data plane is handled by Line Card. RP should be free from the task to forward packet except in some special cases. Btw, different with most of the previous products, in CRS number of RP can be more than two in a single chassis and that will be useful for some new features will be explained later. And RP functionality is even more reduced because there are dedicated fan controllers to control the cooling system and dedicated alarm module.
High Availability - RP must be redundant and this is not something new actually. Once the primary RP fails the secondary RP should kick in. The different now is: there should not be any packet loss during the process. Since the forwarding table has been pushed to Line Card, during the RP failover the line card should be able to continue forwarding the packet even with only the last state of the table before the failover. But how about the switch fabric? This is the connector between one line card to another, and RP must always communicate with the the fabric and line card. There was a case with the old router that even there is no packet drop during RP failover but when the new RP needs to restore the communication to the fabric it has to drop some of the packets. This is not an issue with CRS. And obviously the fabric itself is redundant.
Modular Line Card = PLIM + MSC - CRS introduce the new type of line card as one line card is formed by two different cards connected via passive midplane. The first is the physical layer called PLIM where we have the physical ports and necessary hardware to do framing, and the second is the intelligent card called MSC that can connect to any different kind of PLIM. MSC is the one who does lookup to forwarding table, apply QoS and Access Control List and so on. Without MSC the PLIM can be considered a dump hardware with physical ports only. Without PLIM, MSC can be considered a smart brain without any arms and legs to interact with outside world. This is a very important concept because now we can start with buying a low speed PLIM and later on we can upgrade to a powerful PLIM without upgrading the MSC. And vice versa, if one day we need to upgrade the capacity of the MSC we don't have to re-patch all the cables that are currently connected to the PLIM.
Non-blocking ports, non-blocking fabric - so the current hardware can provide 40Gbps in a single port. And it has to be a real 40Gbps input and output linerate aka non-blocking at all. This can be achieved in PLIM/MSC because there are different ASIC to handle ingress and egress packet forwarding. This is a very important to know because with different ASIC means anything that can overload the ASIC to process the ingress traffic won't disturb the other ASIC to process egress traffic. And don't forget the fabric. Non-blocking linecard should be supported by non-blocking switch fabric. The fabric in previous products was started with bus technology until cross-bar fabric where the packet must be scheduled and linecard must wait its turn before it can access the switch fabric. Now it's completely different as every line card can access the fabric anytime. Btw, when the packet is sent to the fabric it will be transformed into a cell with a fixed size that is more efficient to be processed by the switch fabric instead of various sizes of regular packets.
Multicast replication - multicast has become a very important aspect in our life especially because of the high demand of IPTV and multicast streaming traffic. Any router should be able to handle multicast traffic, but the question is can the router handle a really huge number of multicast traffic? The replication of multicast packet should be done not only on interface level but as well as inside the switch fabric. So the idea is when the ingress interface receives multicast packet and sends it to the fabric, the fabric must do the replication to ensure the egress linecard where there are subscribers can get the packet. Then the egress linecard may have different ports where the subscribers are connected, so the packet must be replicated again here. And don't forget to have a different queue for unicast and multicast because we don't want one can kill the other. Most of the providers normally run unicast traffic as well as multicast streaming so each should work up to its maximum performance without disturbing the other.
QoS in every aspect - the next generation carrier-class product is built with QoS mindset. If in previous product QoS is only in ingress and egress interface buffer, now there must be mechanism to differentiate the packet in case there is congestion in the switch fabric. Well, it's actually very difficult to congest the switch fabric due to its huge capacity. But the congestion may occur on the queue from the fabric to the egress interface. So even the class of service to differentiate the traffic in fabric may not be extensive as in interface buffer, we should be able to mark high priority packet to ensure it will not get dropped when the fabric queue is full. When there is congestion in fabric queue, there is a back pressure mechanism to inform the ingress interface so ingress interface can slow down sending out traffic to fabric by either buffering or dropping the ingress packets.
Multi chassis - this is a break-through concept where routers can be connected together and work just as a single chassis. It is very useful to increase the capacity of the overall system, more efficient because some resources can be shared, and introduce new concept of router collocation or router hosting with Secure Domain Routers (SDR) technology that will be discussed next. With multi-chassis system there is a chassis designated as switch fabric chassis. So the ingress linecard from each chassis will send the traffic to the first part of the fabric still in the same chassis, then the packet (already cell now) will be sent to the fabric chassis where all the lookup and necessary replication are done, then it will be sent to the destination egress linecard in different chassis or even in the same chassis with the ingress linecard.
Zoning Power System - the previous redundant power supply system where we have two or more power modules to provide 1+1 redundancy is not enough. CRS-1 16-slot introduce a zoning power system where there are two power shelves contain three power modules each and one power shelf is divide into 6 zones. So all the 16 slots for line card are powered as per the zones. Zone 1 may power the first 4 slots, and zone 6 power a different 4 slots. There are 2 zones that powered the RP, Switch Fabric and Fan Controller. With this zoning system in mind, we can plug two connections to the same destination in two different line card in different power zone.
IOS XR for carrier-class router - be ready to deal with IOS XR whether you like it or not! This is the next generation software for new carrier-class router and completely different with IOS. Well, many guys ask me why IOS size is getting bigger and bigger, why IOS has so many different family name, why there are many bugs listed in bug tool and so on. First of all, all software must have bug. If the vendor don't release the bug list because they claim the software has no bug, they lie. And be ready to get surprised and unknown behaviors that we might be able to avoid if we have the list of the previous known bugs. Second, IOS was built long time ago to accommodate any types of customer with different requirement of the features. There was a version of IOS that can run desktop protocol at the same time it has new MPLS features for Service Providers. So if one software tries to have all the features obviously its size becomes really big. And more features mean more chance to hit bugs. When you accumulate all the bugs and put it in the list, even some bugs are only for specific feature that may not be enabled, the list can become really long. Now Cisco has tried to split IOS for different segment completely even for the same hardware platform, for example IOS SR for 7600 is targeted for Service Provider while IOS SX for 6500 is targeted for Enterprise (6500/7600 used to be very similar and can run the same IOS)
Micro kernel, modular and self-healing - the very first different between IOS XR to IOS is IOS XR use micro-kernel and modular while IOS considered as monolithic where one big file handles everything. With XR, micro kernel is the heart of the software then we can add subsystems, software modules and applications on top of it. So Control Plane, Data Plane and Management Plane are completely handled by different subsystems. With this modularity, the terminology of self-healing becomes make sense because if there is a problem in one subsystem it should not affect the others. And each process owns its own protected address space in virtual memory, so issue with a process can be fixed automatically and will not disturb the other processes. The process like OSPF can be restarted without impacting the BGP process. That's what I call true modular software.
In Service Software Upgrade - ISSU becomes a very popular term for many customers. But many people still mistakenly think that ISSU means the real software upgrade without any downtime at all in any circumstances. We need to think like this: even the software has already modular with micro kernel, but same as any other operating system there are some basic processes that are required in order to have the system up and running. So even we can do hitless upgrade without any packet drop for some subsystems because it requires only process restart but for some other subsystems this is not possible to achieve without a full restart. And as far as I know until now there is no router vendor can achieve software upgrade for major version without any restart at all. So ask the vendor more specifically if you have ISSU requirement. And as I have mentioned the architecture is distributed so even the RP is restarted the data plane may still work using the previous state before the RP restart. But how if we need to upgrade the firmware of the linecard itself? I'm not saying the ISSU is not perfect, I'm just saying we just need to see it more specifically and look at the feature for different kind of circumstances and compare it with our own requirements
IOS XR was built for CRS - yes this is true. And when one new software is tested and considered successful, definitely the next step is to re-use it for another hardware platform. So even the GSR can run IOS XR but it's a different software file with the one for CRS because the hardware architecture is different. It's understandable, just as there are Linux for 32-bit and 64-bit with different files. What matters is there is only one IOS XR for Service Provider core network, with the same CLI and no more different type of software families as in IOS. Having said that, it's still IOS XR even the software for CRS and GSR (and the new products to come) is different and sometime the features provided with the same version is slightly different. Btw, for those who already familiar with IOS be ready to be shocked when the first time using the IOS XR CLI. Eveything that we ever wish for to be fixed in IOS has already accommodated by XR. From small thing like using / instead of full subnet mask in IP address, configuration changes won't be applied until it's committed, feature to rollback the config to new features such as admin plane config mode and always-on debug. Try to get one XR machine and see it yourself.
Say goodbye to route-map - Next generation routers need next generation way to control Route Policy. Hence come the Route Policy Language (RPL) to replace route-map in IOS XR. It's actually a new programming language embedded in IOS XR to achieve the purpose of controlling route policy with scalability in mind. Just as any programming language it has the conditional operators like if, if-then, if-else and so on, Booleans and Compound Booleans expression. We can use parameter and variable, we can nest the policy, and the best is we can re-use some policy over and over again by calling it in the function for different kind of other policies. It looks complicated in the beginning but once you start to use it it's difficult to go back to route-map.
Secure Domain Routers, beyond virtual routers - I have seen more and more Service Provider customers use this capability in live network. With SDR we can make partition of a single chassis into several completely different routers. It's not the same with virtual router since each router in SDR has its own RP, line card and its own memory space. Anything happen in one SDR doesn't disturb the other SDR at all. What is shared just the chassis and the switch fabric. For this we need to have RP for the whole chassis called the admin SDR and Distributed RP (DRP) that consumes one slot of line card. Then from the admin plane config mode we can allocate that DRP along with few linecards as part of one SDR. Admin SDR can create and remove the SDR but it doesn't know what is going on inside one SDR. Even the communication from one SDR to another SDR in the same chassis must use external connection. This idea brings new terminology of router collocation since one physical chassis can become several completely different routers to be positioned in different spot in the network. How about router hosting? Those who have the chassis can rent the SDR to the customers just as server hosting. The possibility to invent new way during the implementation of this feature is endless.
Control Plane Policing with Local Packet Transport Services - some types of traffic are still processed by Route Processor. For example the control plane traffic such as routing protocol or network management. RP must also process the packet with destination to RP itself, for example packets destined to loopback IP address or the IP address of the physical interface in the router. And if for some reason someone decides to turn of the CEF switching and want to use packet switching, all packets will pass through the RP for packet forwarding process. This is not recommended but it happens once in life, especially if we have a very skeptical guy in the team. So it is clear that the RP must be protected from all the packets that must be processed by the RP. The first reason obviously to protect the RP from Denial of Service attack when some smart guy can try to send lots of TCP Syn packet destined to RP IP address, for example. And the second is to make sure even the legitimate traffic such as routing protocol and network management must be limited from consuming the whole resources of the RP. This is where the Local Packet Transport Services kick in and it's enabled by default to protect the RP by limiting number of packets can reach the RP.
So it's true, just as in School of Rock "One great rock show can change the world", I guess one great product can change the world too. Make one revolutionary product, and the rest is just history.
Get Ready.
Friday, October 10, 2008
A Better Business Traveler
The world's economy is sinking.
Wall street is dead. Global recession.
I have been hearing those words for the past two weeks. The reason was because in the several countries I have been into all the hotels have only CNN or BBC News channel in English, while the other channels are already translated to local language. So it forced me to watch only the news channel before I slept and those words always pop up. Yes I know it is a real thing. It is really bad out there. I know perhaps as the analysts keep saying on TV the worst is yet to come. But this is not a reason why I made a decision recently to try to minimize the expense during my business trip. The nature of my job requires me to travel extensively. I can't control the number of travels so I can't save the environment and contribute in making a greener world by reducing the number of flying with airplane. But obviously I can do something to reduce the travel cost. So when I was on my way to Brussels last month as the beginning of my 4-weeks Eurotrip I made a commitment to myself that during this trip I want to spend as low as possible.
In Cisco Systems we have a culture called frugality. It can be understood in many different ways but in this company it means reassessing everything we do to ensure we place the greatest number of resources in areas that have the greatest profit potential. In another word: don't spend unnecessary on non-productive areas. If we can achieve the same goal with cheaper way, why not to try that path? And I completely agree with it. I get decent pay by the company, I got my annual bonus, and I don't have major financial issue. In summary I'm not in bad situation and if I can cut unnecessary expense as part of the culture and as my contribution to bigger community, even the amount looks small, I decided to do so.
During my trip I invented some ways that I think can cut my travel cost and I have tried my best to always apply them. I even tried to cut some unnecessary expense even those are completely allowed and not against the company policy at all. There are few things that I can't control, for example hotel and flight since I must use company's preferred hotel and airline, but I found that there are many other things that I can do to minimize the expense.
So I have been traveling for about a month. I left my home on Sept 14, and today is Oct 10 I'm in Singapore calculating how much total I spent exclude the flight ticket and hotel. And the result, for 26 days traveling in Europe I spent only 482.72 Euros. It means in average I spent only 18.6 Euros per day for food, transport, visa fee, internet, tips etc. And I was traveling in Europe that is known to be more expensive than Asia. Try to beat that!
I'm really proud with the result. And I like to do this. I like to challenge myself and set my own target. I like to do things in different way everytime. So if I used to be one of the top spenders for travel and expense, this time I tried to be a better business traveler. I can do the same thing as previously I used to do, to spend in regular way since it's allowed and as long as the amount is below the company policy, or I can try to do it differently. And I don't do this to get reward whatsoever. It always gives me a highest satisfaction if I set a goal and I can achieve it or even exceed my own expectation.
So here it is, with proud, I presented the Himawan's Way to a Better (and cheaper) Business Traveler:
1. Book the flight as soon as we know the schedule of the trip. In Cisco if we book 14 days in advance we get special rate. It's more difficult in the projects since customer may change the schedule or confirm the date close to the time but for internal meeting and training the flight must be booked no less than 14 days in advance
2. Get a hotel that is closed to office, so no cost for transport between hotel to office. If we know we will spend most of the time in customer than book a hotel that is closed to their office instead
3. If we work with another team member try to go together to hotel/airport/customer/office to share the taxi cost. If possible use public transport or subway instead of taxi. Try to use shuttle bus from airport to hotel, and from hotel to airport (in some hotel it's free, if it's not at least it will be much cheaper than taxi)
4. Avoid to use Internet in the hotel if it's not free, go to office and finish the work there instead. And this is good since once we come back from the office in the evening we can have social life to explore the city instead of working from the hotel room. But if you are a real geek and can't live without getting hooked to the Internet than book the hotel that provides one for free
5. Avoid to eat in the hotel unless it's included in room charge (i.e. breakfast). Get used to eat food in local restaurant which normally cheaper than foreign food and it's always good to learn new culture or taste local food. Or just try to find McDonald around ;) Bring noodle cup in case we get hungry in the late evening
6. Hotel minibar is evil. Go to grocery to buy water and all snacks for late evening stock. Bring water, soft drink and any available free food from the office. Utilize water cooker provided in the room
7. Avoid to do laundry in the hotel, so bring enough clothes. Or do it yourself in the bath tub, and use ironing tools provided in the room to iron your clothes
8. If you work in project, let the Project Manager or local team to pay for dinner :) Make friends with local colleague in the office to get free ride to customer/hotel or even airport. If you are lucky they may even treat you for dinner or buy you drink
9. Apply for frequent flyer program and hotel membership, and use the advantage to use free business lounge in the airport. So if there is a day between flights, we can sleep in the airport or office. I did this many times in Changi airport I'm afraid if they start checking and ask for some fees next time I sleep over there :) If we stay in the same hotel frequently we may get free stay as rewards from the hotel membership so it can be utilized for a day between flights.
10. Use IP phone to call our family back home. Use hotel fixed line or office phone to join teleconference. Use callback facility in webex to call our IP phone instead of our mobile to avoid roaming charges
Wall street is dead. Global recession.
I have been hearing those words for the past two weeks. The reason was because in the several countries I have been into all the hotels have only CNN or BBC News channel in English, while the other channels are already translated to local language. So it forced me to watch only the news channel before I slept and those words always pop up. Yes I know it is a real thing. It is really bad out there. I know perhaps as the analysts keep saying on TV the worst is yet to come. But this is not a reason why I made a decision recently to try to minimize the expense during my business trip. The nature of my job requires me to travel extensively. I can't control the number of travels so I can't save the environment and contribute in making a greener world by reducing the number of flying with airplane. But obviously I can do something to reduce the travel cost. So when I was on my way to Brussels last month as the beginning of my 4-weeks Eurotrip I made a commitment to myself that during this trip I want to spend as low as possible.
In Cisco Systems we have a culture called frugality. It can be understood in many different ways but in this company it means reassessing everything we do to ensure we place the greatest number of resources in areas that have the greatest profit potential. In another word: don't spend unnecessary on non-productive areas. If we can achieve the same goal with cheaper way, why not to try that path? And I completely agree with it. I get decent pay by the company, I got my annual bonus, and I don't have major financial issue. In summary I'm not in bad situation and if I can cut unnecessary expense as part of the culture and as my contribution to bigger community, even the amount looks small, I decided to do so.
During my trip I invented some ways that I think can cut my travel cost and I have tried my best to always apply them. I even tried to cut some unnecessary expense even those are completely allowed and not against the company policy at all. There are few things that I can't control, for example hotel and flight since I must use company's preferred hotel and airline, but I found that there are many other things that I can do to minimize the expense.
So I have been traveling for about a month. I left my home on Sept 14, and today is Oct 10 I'm in Singapore calculating how much total I spent exclude the flight ticket and hotel. And the result, for 26 days traveling in Europe I spent only 482.72 Euros. It means in average I spent only 18.6 Euros per day for food, transport, visa fee, internet, tips etc. And I was traveling in Europe that is known to be more expensive than Asia. Try to beat that!
I'm really proud with the result. And I like to do this. I like to challenge myself and set my own target. I like to do things in different way everytime. So if I used to be one of the top spenders for travel and expense, this time I tried to be a better business traveler. I can do the same thing as previously I used to do, to spend in regular way since it's allowed and as long as the amount is below the company policy, or I can try to do it differently. And I don't do this to get reward whatsoever. It always gives me a highest satisfaction if I set a goal and I can achieve it or even exceed my own expectation.
So here it is, with proud, I presented the Himawan's Way to a Better (and cheaper) Business Traveler:
1. Book the flight as soon as we know the schedule of the trip. In Cisco if we book 14 days in advance we get special rate. It's more difficult in the projects since customer may change the schedule or confirm the date close to the time but for internal meeting and training the flight must be booked no less than 14 days in advance
2. Get a hotel that is closed to office, so no cost for transport between hotel to office. If we know we will spend most of the time in customer than book a hotel that is closed to their office instead
3. If we work with another team member try to go together to hotel/airport/customer/office to share the taxi cost. If possible use public transport or subway instead of taxi. Try to use shuttle bus from airport to hotel, and from hotel to airport (in some hotel it's free, if it's not at least it will be much cheaper than taxi)
4. Avoid to use Internet in the hotel if it's not free, go to office and finish the work there instead. And this is good since once we come back from the office in the evening we can have social life to explore the city instead of working from the hotel room. But if you are a real geek and can't live without getting hooked to the Internet than book the hotel that provides one for free
5. Avoid to eat in the hotel unless it's included in room charge (i.e. breakfast). Get used to eat food in local restaurant which normally cheaper than foreign food and it's always good to learn new culture or taste local food. Or just try to find McDonald around ;) Bring noodle cup in case we get hungry in the late evening
6. Hotel minibar is evil. Go to grocery to buy water and all snacks for late evening stock. Bring water, soft drink and any available free food from the office. Utilize water cooker provided in the room
7. Avoid to do laundry in the hotel, so bring enough clothes. Or do it yourself in the bath tub, and use ironing tools provided in the room to iron your clothes
8. If you work in project, let the Project Manager or local team to pay for dinner :) Make friends with local colleague in the office to get free ride to customer/hotel or even airport. If you are lucky they may even treat you for dinner or buy you drink
9. Apply for frequent flyer program and hotel membership, and use the advantage to use free business lounge in the airport. So if there is a day between flights, we can sleep in the airport or office. I did this many times in Changi airport I'm afraid if they start checking and ask for some fees next time I sleep over there :) If we stay in the same hotel frequently we may get free stay as rewards from the hotel membership so it can be utilized for a day between flights.
10. Use IP phone to call our family back home. Use hotel fixed line or office phone to join teleconference. Use callback facility in webex to call our IP phone instead of our mobile to avoid roaming charges
Friday, October 03, 2008
Oktoberfest Quotes
I have just arrived in Bratislava. For those who are too lazy to open the google map, it's the capital city of Slovakia, one country in eastern Europe. This afternoon I was still in Munich where I spent 3 days to attend several meetings with my new team and the other WWSP teams who cover the same Europe and Emerging Markets (EUEM) but for different technologies. Finally I had a chance to meet my new boss in person, meet his boss, introduce my self and meet half of my team members, and to learn and understand more about one of the Cisco AS organizations that I joined about a month ago.
So I work for World Wide Service Provider Carrier Ethernet practice team. We focus on solution and technology that involve the products related to end-to-end carrier ethernet network. That means it can be the whole solution or portion of it from core network where CRS-1 is taking the main role, multi-service aggregation network, user facing aggregation, to access layer until the last mile technology such as DSL or Wimax. And we don't only lead the deployment in this technology but we also have to write leading practice documents afterward to share our experience and ensure the knowledge gained can be replicated in other projects within our team, by another team and even a bigger community.
The best moment for me is when I realized that I work for a team who not only responsible to lead carrier ethernet deployment for EUEM area, but we also have global responsibility in our technology focus since there is only one carrier ethernet practice team in the whole Cisco organization. That is actually really cool, well, at least for me. Finally I'm in the spotlight just as what I have always wanted to.
There were lots of meetings and discussion and I heard some guys mentioned about the following quotes that I think they are really good so I put them here:
- During the discussion about mobility
We don't "go" to work anymore, we work
- During the discussion about workload
We are all burned out from work, but the tolerance from each person is the one that makes the difference
- During the discussion about work-life balance
It's not a question of "can you do it?" but "when can you do it?"
- During the discussion about inventing new solution
We don't sell solution to reduce Capex anymore, because there is no Capex! We need to sell solution that can generate revenue
Then there were two quotes that I personally made during the night when I had a chance to go to Oktoberfest:
I can't believe there are so many people get drunk at the same time in the same place and no fight
I'm hungry like hungary
Those two, of course, can be safely ignored :)
"Heid is so a schena Dog - lala lal la la!"
So I work for World Wide Service Provider Carrier Ethernet practice team. We focus on solution and technology that involve the products related to end-to-end carrier ethernet network. That means it can be the whole solution or portion of it from core network where CRS-1 is taking the main role, multi-service aggregation network, user facing aggregation, to access layer until the last mile technology such as DSL or Wimax. And we don't only lead the deployment in this technology but we also have to write leading practice documents afterward to share our experience and ensure the knowledge gained can be replicated in other projects within our team, by another team and even a bigger community.
The best moment for me is when I realized that I work for a team who not only responsible to lead carrier ethernet deployment for EUEM area, but we also have global responsibility in our technology focus since there is only one carrier ethernet practice team in the whole Cisco organization. That is actually really cool, well, at least for me. Finally I'm in the spotlight just as what I have always wanted to.
There were lots of meetings and discussion and I heard some guys mentioned about the following quotes that I think they are really good so I put them here:
- During the discussion about mobility
We don't "go" to work anymore, we work
- During the discussion about workload
We are all burned out from work, but the tolerance from each person is the one that makes the difference
- During the discussion about work-life balance
It's not a question of "can you do it?" but "when can you do it?"
- During the discussion about inventing new solution
We don't sell solution to reduce Capex anymore, because there is no Capex! We need to sell solution that can generate revenue
Then there were two quotes that I personally made during the night when I had a chance to go to Oktoberfest:
I can't believe there are so many people get drunk at the same time in the same place and no fight
I'm hungry like hungary
Those two, of course, can be safely ignored :)
"Heid is so a schena Dog - lala lal la la!"
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