• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Rowell Dionicio

Get Techie With It

  • Home
  • About
  • Newsletter
  • Resources
    • Archives
    • Book List
    • YouTube
  • Learn
    • Wi-Fi 6E
    • CCNP Enterprise Core
    • DevNet Associate
    • PCNSA Certified
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Archives for April 2020

Cisco Cert Exams now ONLINE

April 21, 2020 By Rowell Leave a Comment

The impact COVID19 has had on this world is crazy. Everything stopped in it’s place.

If you were studying for a Cisco certification exam, you had to stop. The testing centers began closing due to social distancing rules in place and fear of contracting COVID19.

Companies such as Cisco began adapting instantly. Many exam candidates had requested Cisco make their exams available to be taken online in the comfort of their own homes.

I don’t blame them.

Cisco listened! Starting April 15, 2020 anyone should be able to take their Cisco certification exams online from home. There are only a few exceptions to the list of exams which appear to be the CCENT, CCDE and other lab exams.

Now’s the time to take advantage of this opportunity. Are you going to use this time to watch more Netflix or are you going to show up and knock out a certification or two? Will you adapt and come out of this situation on top?

Your turn…

Which Cisco exam are you studying for?

Income Report – Q1 2020

April 14, 2020 By Rowell Leave a Comment

We started off with a bang and found ourselves in a pandemic by the end of the first quarter of 2020.

Packet6 started off strong. I worked on strengthening my relationships with existing clients and vendors. It’s easier to earn additional revenue from repeat clients. There is this metric, cost of acquisition, that can eat up your profits if you aren’t being strategic with sales.

I don’t focus a lot of energy acquiring new customers. Meaning I don’t do a lot of cold calls, cold emails, mailers, ad spend, etc. I’ve been lucky to rely on my existing relationships with people by leveraging word of mouth and search engine optimization.

By February 14th, I had made a decision to not participate in any conferences or events for the rest of the year. My schedule had gotten out of hand and days spent traveling and participating in events was taking me away from three things:

  • Family
  • My full-time job (if you didn’t know I have a full-time job with another employer)
  • Paid work (through Packet6)

In January and February 2020 I was able to accomplish a lot of Packet6 work. And it was a lot by side hustle standards. I did outsource some work that I was unable to do but I kept it inside my circle of trusted engineers.

In March there wasn’t much work to be done unless I was doing it remotely. That only included some Wi-Fi design work, light network troubleshooting, and potential sales (which may only come into fruition later in the year.) By March, we retreated to our homes, sheltering in place with no ability to commute to local Bay Area offices or travel to out of state clients. So begins the side hustle turmoil. But I am still saved by my full-time employer.

Income Analysis

The percentages displayed below are for Q1 and in comparison to the previous period (October – December 2019). I’m still thinking about how I could display more detail and numbers in an easy to understand method. A lot of it is me getting out of my uneasiness of sharing so much. So let’s dive in.

My main focus is on professional services involving Wi-Fi and network design, configuration, and troubleshooting. Keeping that in mind..

Services revenue increased by 65.95%. That’s wonderful news to start 2020. Some revenue required me to make phone calls. As the business owner, you have to make those uncomfortable calls to companies who are late to pay their invoices. I still have one client who has yet to pay their invoice.

I was able to spread out my work evenly to avoid overlap or double-booking on my schedule. In the Lessons Learned section I’ll touch upon this briefly.

Hardware revenue increased 232.85%. The increase could be a new budget cycle for companies that are ready to purchase equipment. Meraki resale made up all of the hardware (and licensing) sales. I’ll just mention that keeping track of sales tax can be a pain in the butt in QuickBooks. I know I can have my CPA help here as well. But I’d like to know exactly how I could do it myself prior to outsourcing it altogether (the tracking of tax obligations.)

One new additional thing I should mention is Packet6 is now a Juniper Partner!

Affiliate revenue increased 8.96%. Sounds a lot but it really isn’t. Total affiliate revenue was under $50 😂. Affiliate sales are items that I’ve recommended and people have purchased. This is mostly Amazon affiliates. The items I typically recommend are books and hardware available from Amazon.

Total revenue decreased at -40.78%. The reason for the dip was mainly due to cable and installation services sold in the previous quarter being much higher than Q1 of 2020, which was zero. I often times evaluate whether to take on cable and installation projects. It’s not my expertise but I do partner with a reliable company and I leverage my project manager experience. The service goes well with the reselling of hardware and my professional services. If we remove cable and installation services completely, total revenue was positive.

Expense analysis

Over time I’ve grown to hate expenses. Especially when I’m looking at the numbers as often as I am. Sticking to a company budget is harder than I thought or maybe I just like to spend money. My template has been the budgeting tool within QuickBooks. Maybe it’s time to take another look at it.

Expense dropped by -77.88% and I couldn’t be happier. Just need to keep it up every quarter to create a lasting impact. And again, I need to hold myself accountable to a budget. /That’s where I should begin and end/.

If you recall from my last income report, my expenses had increased by 223%. If this goes overlooked, my profits would vanish. In response to my previous income report, I had canceled some subscription services and decided to spend less.

Important Lessons Learned

Even with the COVID-19 pandemic, I maintain a positive outlook for the year. It’s allowed me to work on projects I have not been able to put attention to. And this is just in a matter of a few weeks being stuck at home.

During this time, my mind has shifted towards maintaining good health and keeping everyone safe, including my clients.

One thing I’m glad I’ve implemented is the Profit First mentality. I highly suggest you read the book if you haven’t already.

Because of this slow down, it’s important for me to maintain contact with my clients. There may be ways to help them. Some are considered essential businesses to the public. A simple call or email with a hello and how are you would be a good start.

A few photos from work and traveling

There is one thing we all could do during this time is learn how to do bookkeeping. I’ve had to clean up a lot of QuickBooks errors due to my lack of understanding it. I know having a good bookkeeper and CPA can help me but I like to take a hands-on approach early on to have a full understanding and then slowly outsource that work to someone else. My expertise is not in finance but I shouldn’t be ignoring it as a business owner.

When it comes to dealing with late payments, it’s best to collect 50% up front before any work starts. Some companies might not like that but as a small business owner.. as in company of one.. it can be difficult waiting to get paid 90+ days. I’m not a big fan of Net 30 or longer. Getting 50% up front can make a difference. It can help you purchase equipment needed for the job, pay independent contractors, and more.

As I’ve kind of mentioned above, having some sort of lifestyle balance is needed. I have a family, full-time job, and a side business. Scheduling can get hectic. But that order is my priority. One thing that I forgot to list there is self-care. That can come in many forms, from exercise to a vacation. Sometimes I indulge in a good video game to relieve stress. And let’s not forget the benefits of a good night’s sleep.

Be better than yesterday

Disaggregated Routing Software

April 10, 2020 By Rowell 6 Comments

Is white box networking still a thing? The idea is grand, replace your [insert your major vendor here] network hardware with a white box switch or router.

The idea has been around for over 6 years now. But I haven’t seen the penetration of white box networking or at least in any of the environments I’ve been in.

But maybe the time has come for Service Providers (SPs) to embrace the concept.

Service Providers (SPs) have been facing increased costs, management, and scaling challenges. Especially now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, where so many people are working from home.

How does an SP work against the clock to easily scale their network?

That’s where DriveNets wants to shine. Founded in 2015 and now with more than 200 employees, DriveNets is set out to revolutionize the service provider networks by disaggregating the network infrastructure from the core to the edge.

We’ve seen disaggregation in the same way in cloud infrastructure, how about the same approach for service providers?

DriveNets’ solution disaggregates the router architecture with a single white box router capable of scaling to a cluster of up to 768 Gbps while logically acting as a single router.

The challenges DriveNets face

Many network engineers are familiar with the traditional network model. An SP will have a large network with a large install base. With that comes the operational complexity of managing that hardware including software updates, configuration changes, and troubleshooting.

The other aspect to this is cost. With features going into a subscription model, hardware and software licensing costs burn a hole in the corporate wallet. This could leave many SPs managing a network of aging hardware.

Heavy Reading conducted a survey and found 46% of Service Providers expect to make a radical change to the IP network architecture in the next three years. The primary reasons are to lower capital expenditures and easily scale to accommodate traffic.

The DriveNets solution is to combat this problem with their Network Cloud. A software-based solution capable of scaling with white boxes and cloud-native software.

DriveNets driving for change

It’s not as simple as disaggregating software and hardware. There must be a way to operate the network simply. By introducing network virtualization, Docker containers, and micro-services this adds a steep learning curve for the traditional network engineer. One that is coming, by the way.

Today we deploy with networks with dedicated hardware with a specific purpose.

The solution is to disaggregate. First at the basic level by disaggregating hardware and software. The hardware is provided by an ODM. Software is packaged by a company such as DriveNets. But they do not only provide the network operating system, they also include a centralized management platform – critical to operating a disaggregated network.

Next, the control-plane and data-plane is disaggregated. Thus, data plane can be designed to scale by adding white box networking hardware as needed to accommodate for traffic.

The control plane can run on X86 servers and scales depending on the amount of resources needed. We utilize the mature virtualization and scaling server architectures.

A new operational model, disaggregated

With a new way of deploying and managing networks, a new disaggregated operational model is used.

The gain in operational efficiency is done through an orchestration system and zero-touch provisioning. Fully automated and integrated by a cloud-native system.

This leads to a lower costs, increased operational efficiencies and hopefully new revenue streams.

It’s a mindset shift, from traditional networking to a disaggregated network. IT staff will need to be trained to understand the automated deployment method, different CLI, troubleshooting, and more. But the underlying network fundamentals are still there.

Under the hood, a different operating system

Just like any other network vendor there is a network operating system. Only this is built for scale in mind. DriveNets wants to scale out routing to hundreds of terabits with the same operating system.

But instead of managing every network device separately, we think in terms of every white box router as one big chassis, a cluster. This is designed to bring simplicity to operations. It’s a single piece of software meaning you don’t have different software versions based on the chassis size. (I know you feel that pain too.)

Will you have to learn all the new cloud-native architectures such as micro-services, containers, automation, orchestration, etc? Not necessarily. There is a level of abstraction. While the CLI is there along with all the benefits of automation and scale, management can be done through the GUI.

Because DriveNets brings a cloud-native operating system to the network, every element is a collection of resources. Micro-services is very much part of the network. Everything is a Docker container.

Note

I’m no micro-services expert but I am learning, through the act of learning network automation. This is the direction networking appears to be heading. Understanding infrastructure as code, containers, and disaggregated services will be increasingly important.

And so we have the controller function also running on a white box, with usually a pair for redundancy. It handles the control and management functions of the cluster.

Starts with the Service Provider, what’s next?

Is this the future of networking? DriveNets offers a compelling argument for disaggregation based on the challenges Service Providers are facing today. They have been able to put this in production successfully.

With organizations trying to decrease their expenditures and attempting to untie their hands from a “vendor lock-in”, the DriveNets solution towards a disaggregated model makes sense.

There’s a lot of underutilized resources on the network. By leveraging scale, operational efficiency, and white boxes, a Service Provider can better plan for increased traffic patterns.

A big concern is the support structure for a disaggregated architecture. How are issues handled between hardware and software since they are handled by different companies. How much QA is done between software and hardware vendors. Will they work together as issues arise?

DriveNets is the first line of support, and that’s great, but how is the relationship between vendors?

Time will only tell if the adoption for a disaggregated network architecture yields the benefits.

Your turn…

Do you see the advantage of disaggregating control-plane and data-plane to leverage white boxes in your network? Comment down below.

Disclaimer: I was a delegate for Networking Field Day 22. Gestalt IT invited me, provided transportation between presenting sponsors, and provided food during the event.

Spectrum Analysis with Ekahau Analyzer

April 9, 2020 By Rowell Leave a Comment

As an IT professional, there are too many tools to select from. It’s easy to get carried away and have some tools that whose purpose may overlap.

There are a handful of spectrum analyzers available for purchase. Some better than others, yes.

But one of those tools, the Ekahau Sidekick, can be multipurpose.

A few ways the Sidekick can be used:

  • Validation site survey
  • Packet Capture
  • Spectrum Analyzer
  • Stores Ekahau project files

I have separate tools that can perform each of those functions. But I hate carrying so many tools in my bag. It hurts my back.

Ekahau Analyzer

As part of the Ekahau Connect subscription, Ekahau released a much needed application called Ekahau Analyzer.

I assume it was born out of the many requests by Wi-Fi experts who did not want to open Ekahau Pro to perform spectrum analysis.

By leveraging the power of the Sidekick, one could connect it via lightning or USB-C to an iPhone or iPad to get high resolution output from the Sidekick.

I can do with one less tool, right? Maybe.

Ekahau Analyzer can validate the health of your Wi-Fi network by comparing it to a Requirement Profile.

Requirement Profiles in Ekahau Analyzer

It’s an easy pass/fail indication. But I didn’t see an option to change the Requirement Profile within Ekahau Analyzer. There isn’t a way to map that information anywhere on a floor plan so you’ll have to note the location manually.

Most importantly, you have a view of both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrum. The measurements are fast and with high resolution.

Spectrum analysis in Ekahau Analyzer

I wasn’t able to see that any interference was detected for me so I’ll have to assume that capability isn’t there yet. As a Wi-Fi professional, you’d have to identify that based on your education and experience.

Is Ekahau Analyzer Worth It?

It’s a good start for Ekahau Analyzer. I can see the application improving. What I’d like added to Ekahau Analyzer is the ability to add notes, zoom into a specific frequency, have export capabilities, and a separate waterfall view.

Your Turn

Would you add Ekahau Analyzer to your toolkit?

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • 6 GHz Frame Captures with EtherScope nXG
  • Manage Cisco Catalyst in the (Meraki) Cloud
  • Q1 2022 Income Report
  • First Look at Ekahau AI Pro – Network Simulator
  • PAN-OS Configuration Management – PCNSA

Categories

  • bschool
  • Certifications
  • Coding
  • DevNet Associate
  • Events
  • Lab
  • Networking
  • Personal
  • Podcasting
  • Professional
  • Reviews
  • Security
  • Short Stories
  • Uncategorized
  • Wireless

Archives

  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • April 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018

Copyright © 2022 · Written by Rowell Dionicio · You're awesome.

 

Loading Comments...