How to

There is a lot of literature available on configuring VXLANs using MP-BGP EVPN but they tend to focus on large multi pod service provider type topologies with lots of moving parts. This post covers a very simple DCI configuration for a two site topology using ingress replication and a collapsed leaf and spine.

I don’t really have much operational experience with NX-OS so was very happy to recently discover that Cisco has a freely downloadable virtual version of the Nexus 9000 software. Though the setup process was fairly straight forward there were a few gotchas so this post will detail the process I used to deploy the NX-OSv 9000 into my home ESXi based lab.

A site I work with uses PRTG for infrastructure monitoring and Zerto as part of the DR strategy. Unfortunately there are no native PRTG sensors available for monitoring Zerto. This custom script can be used to create a sensor that will indicate the existence of any errors and warnings for the Zerto Virtual Appliances, Virtual Protection Groups, and the Virtual Manager.

I like to secure the web interfaces of any network device I use with a valid SSL certificate. It costs nothing, significantly improves security and also helps to curb the bad habit of ignoring SSL error messages from web browsers. This post is a little cheat sheet of common operations that I perform using OpenSSL.

A few years ago I was working on a project where we had to provide a reliable and high quality free to air broadcast signal to 70 TV’s for the Melbourne Cup. It ended up being quite complex with lots of AV and IT integration work being done however the important part of getting the signal to the TV’s reliably was done using MuMuDVB. This post will cover how to install and configure MuMuDVB on a Raspberry Pi 3.

I have worked on a variety of projects where a Raspberry Pi was the perfect hardware platform to host various services. They are very cheap, easy to configure, and there is a vast array of add on hardware available. This post will cover a basic installation of Ubuntu MATE 16.04.2 LTS onto a Raspberry Pi 3.

I like to use Raspberry Pis for a lot of my projects. Something I like to do is disable Bluetooth and WiFi as these are not generally things that I run on a server. There are probably a variety of ways to achieve this but this is how I do it.

I am a big fan of using Linux for various projects. There is a bit of a learning curve if you have only ever worked in the Windows or OS X worlds but Linux skills are definitely worth the time and effort to develop. This post will cover a basic installation of Ubuntu Server 16.04.2 LTS 64-bit.

Though most businesses these days are moving to cloud providers for their email services, there are still quite a lot of on premise installations of Exchange 2016 out there. When it comes time to apply Windows updates, upgrade your Exchange servers to the latest CU or just perform a reboot there is a procedure that you should follow to avoid disrupting client access.