Operator’s Security Toolkit

It is time for a refresh of the SP Security materials used by many over the years. Back in 2002, several people in the emerging “Service Provider Security” field pulled together a list of top practices every Operator should deploy. These “NSP-SEC Top 10” techniques became the foundation of our toolkit that is used daily

Adding IPv6 Requirements to your RFP

[ Originally posted on Linkedin here: IPv6 – Adding Requirements to your RFP. Adding IPv6 Requirements to your RPF is a necessity when all the major Google, Facebook, Linkedin, and other sites are built for “IPv6” first. Meaningful IPv6 requirements in RFPs are a core tool to your dialog with your vendors. This is a Read More

Network Operations Groups (NOGs)

Network Operations Groups (NOGs) have been critical to keeping the Internet Operational and growing. The Internet did not build itself. People build the Internet. And people need to work together to interconnect. NOG meeting are critical for network professionals to meet, teach each other, argue, come to an agreement, and solve really tough problems that

Is “Transparent” Web Caching Dead?

Over the last few months, I’ve been re-exam the value of web caches in a network architecture. Peers have asked me to write up the results. What follows are the results. The are provided to help operators not get pushed by vendors to make costly mistakes. “Web Caching” has been an effective and productive tool Read More

Does the Internet “End” at 500K routes?

No! Of course, the Internet does not end at 500K routes. On August 13, 2014, there was a lot of “news” about instability issues on the Internet that might have been caused by a surge of new Internet routes (see articles like “Internet routers hitting 512K limit, some become unreliable” – http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/08/internet-routers-hitting-512k-limit-some-become-unreliable/). The most accurate write Read More

Net Neutrality- a very American debate

Net Neutrality has been a very hot topic of telecom regulation and policy in the US, unlike in the rest of the world. It has largely to do with the debates over a new telecom bill to be adopted. To many, the new bill removes the age old principle of net neutrality, and therefore the Read More