SCHEDULE
August Rule 11 Academy Update
I’ve been working on new material over at Rule 11 Academy. This month’s posts are:
- BGP Route Reflector Lab
- The Clos Fabric (history)
- The Default Free Zone
- Network Addresses
- BGP Policy Entrance Selection (2)
- Interview Rubric Sample
- BGP Policy Entrance Select (1)
- Interviewing Background
This brings us up to a total of 39 lessons. Each lesson should be about 15 minutes, so about 10 hours of material so far. The trial membership will take you through the end of the year. After the first of the year, the trial membership will last 2 months.
Live Training: Build Your Own Networking Lab
This Friday at 1pm ET, Bruce McDougall and I are teaching a live class on using Containerlab to build and automate network labs. From the course description:
This course will guide learners through the tools and techniques to build virtual labs either locally or on common cloud services, so you can become more proficient at understanding, designing, monitoring, and troubleshooting networks. The course begins with obtaining and starting the basic tools required to build and test network labs using open-source and freely available tools. The instructors will build a variety of network topologies, including data center and campus, to help learners understand how to test in different environments.
Rule 11 Academy 060324
New material at Rule 11 Academy this week:
Understanding Intra-AS BGP
Suboptimal BGP Route Reflection Lab
I’ve done a good bit of BGP to this point; I’m probably going to work on link state or some other part of the outline next week. I’m trying to make certain everyone who signs up for the first time gets the first six months for free; the membership plugin is being a bit squirrely, so you might see accounts expired, etc. I’m fixing these as I see them.
Upcoming Training: How the Internet Really Works
The 29th of May, in 7 days, I’m teaching a four-hour webinar/class on Safari Books Online:
This class isn’t just for network engineers, it’s for anyone interested in how the Internet works. You don’t need prior network engineering experience or knowledge to understand the content–so feel free to forward along to anyone you think might be interested, even managers (!) and coders.
New Course: Coding Skills for Network Engineers
This Friday, Marlon Bailey and I will be teaching a new four-hour class on coding skills for network engineers over on Safari Books Online through Pearson. From the course description:
Network engineers are increasingly expected to know how to perform basic coding, like building scripts to gather information and build or maintain an automation system. In larger organizations with full-time coders, network engineers are expected to effectively work with coders, on their own turf, to build and maintain network automation systems. All of these tasks require a basic knowledge of the structure and terminology of programming. There are a lot of courses that show you how to build your first program, or how to perform basic tasks using common programming languages—this course is different. This course will help you build a “mental map” of the software development space, gathering ideas and patterns learned across years into a simple-to-understand format. In this course you will learn data structures, program flow control, and—most importantly—how to structure software for efficiency and maintainability over the long haul.
For anyone who doesn’t know Marlon, you can find his LinkedIn profile here.
Modern Network Troubleshooting
I’ve reformatted and rebuilt my network troubleshooting live training for 2023, and am teaching it on the 26th of January (in three weeks). You can register at Safari Books Online. From the site:
The first way to troubleshoot faster is to not troubleshoot at all, or to build resilient networks. The first section of this class considers the nature of resilience, and how design tradeoffs result in different levels of resilience. The class then moves into a theoretical understanding of failures, how network resilience is measured, and how the Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) relates to human and machine-driven factors. One of these factors is the unintended consequences arising from abstractions, covered in the next section of the class.
The class then moves into troubleshooting proper, examining the half-split formal troubleshooting method and how it can be combined with more intuitive methods. This section also examines how network models can be used to guide the troubleshooting process. The class then covers two examples of troubleshooting reachability problems in a small network, and considers using ChaptGPT and other LLMs in the troubleshooting process. A third, more complex example is then covered in a data center fabric.
A short section on proving causation is included, and then a final example of troubleshooting problems in Internet-level systems.
Upcoming Pearson Class: Modern Network Troubleshooting
On the 26th of January, I’ll be teaching a webinar over at Safari Books Online (subscription service) called Modern Network Troubleshooting. From the blurb:
The first section of this class considers the nature of resilience, and how design tradeoffs result in different levels of resilience. The class then moves into a theoretical understanding of failures, how network resilience is measured, and how the Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) relates to human and machine-driven factors. One of these factors is the unintended consequences arising from abstractions, covered in the next section of the class.
The class then moves into troubleshooting proper, examining the half-split formal troubleshooting method and how it can be combined with more intuitive methods. This section also examines how network models can be used to guide the troubleshooting process. The class then covers two examples of troubleshooting reachability problems in a small network, and considers using ChaptGPT and other LLMs in the troubleshooting process. A third, more complex example is then covered in a data center fabric.