This morning we had a breakfast with leftover cheese and bread from yesterday. In the morning I went
downstairs to rummage around a little bit, and play with the data I gathered yesterday from the
ixp-xping install on the hypervisors. It’s kind of nice to see high-res per-flow data between all
locations on the network.
Then I spent some time rummaging around IP-Max’s routers in Interxion and NTT, to look for ports that I could offload to the newly installed 48-port switch. I decided to make a canary with some low-risk ports, notably mine, and the IP-Max hypervisors. That would free up five 10Gig router ports at NTT, and three 10Gig ports at Interxion. Not a bad haul, because the last 10Gig blade in both locations is entirely full, and in need of some offloading.
I was just about to bike to the Interxion and NTT datacenters, when Marina reminded me ‘we need to have lunch’. Oh yes, that’s right! I did not feel like eating even more cheese, even though my table-mates were happy to consume moar and moar of it. I made a miso soup with ramen noodles, with some leftover carrots and bellpeppers. It was great! Although (a) it’s still summer so it made me sweat like a pig in summer, and (b) it was a little bit salty [but that is not a problem for my taste!].
Off I went, on my Stromer, to Interxion. A few kilometers in, the torque sensor acted up again, and made the bike jam. It takes rebooting the bicycle (uhm, yes, sorry Grandpa, we reboot bikes nowadays), but then I was underway. The weather was nice, and I had planned to bike to Interxion first, and them from there, via the Zurich OpenAir festival grounds to the NTT datacenter. I’m installing two new 10G channels from IPng to IP-Max, which will terminate on the Aristas.
At Interxion, I make quick work of it. The links come up within minutes, and I notice that I’m running out of 10G ports on my transport switch there. However, I do see three DACs, so I can always sacrifice one of the 40G ports to plug in a 40G-to-4x10G DAC, and reclaim those ports.
Then I bike to NTT via the little creek path I always take. Normally, there’s nothing there but open fields, but this weekend is the first of two Zurich OpenAir, and the stage looks pretty decent. There will be three stages, and I’ve got a VIP pass for next week Saturday, because Nora en Pure will be on at 23:00. Yaay!! Later, I found out that another favorite of mine, Miss Monique is on tomorrow at 23:00; I may take a quick bike ride to at least listen a little bit, because I don’t think spending another CHF 139,- is worth it – the line up isn’t as good as on the 31st. But I digress ..
At NTT, I have a little bit more work to do. I will move in total six ports: two of mine (to Frankfurt and Geneva), two of IP-Max’s hypervisors that run the routeservers in Zurich, and the two links for [Free IX], one to Lugano and one to Geneva. I have my work cut out for me.
The FlySwatter makes me very happy. This, and many other full racks, are often very tricky to feed fibers from the front to the back of the rack. I’ve at times spent 30min yelling, screaming and pulling hairs, trying to get fibers from one side to another. But, Marina accidentally bought the most fantabulous tool: a purple flyswatter on a telescopic pole. Yes, you read it right! I noticed that I can attach precisely an LC/PC pair of connectors on the front, and then extend the swatter through the rack, and it’ll gently push itself against the wall, allowing me to go to the other side of the rack, and retrieve the fiber. It’s the best thing since sliced bread, I swear. I get my two new fibers through in a matter of minutes, not hours. Yaay me!!
All links are up and I bike back home via Dietlikon, where I see a big fairground also! It turns out, the city of Dietlikon turns 900 years old this month, and they organized a weekend full of fun. There are towns in Switzerland that are casually three times as old as the United States (1776). It’s one of the many, many things I truly admire about my country. The festivities are on a fancy [website], which I remind the family at home of later, and we decide to visit tomorrow.
Back home, I complete the logical configuration for the IPng and FreeIX connections, and bring into existence the first Arista-based MPLS circuits, which is remarkably straight forward except I make a typo that makes me spend 45min figuring out why one of them doesn’t work. Oh well :)
I get home and look at my Stromer. It’s gross, and in need of some love. I grab the brush and sponge, and wash it from top to bottom, clean the chain, the gears, the mechanics and what-not: Sergio would be proud! I signal great success, and go inside to find one Marina ready for the rose wine we bought yesterday. We bought it for the shape of the bottle - it’s super fancy!
We drink the bottle in one go - it’s quite alright, and halfway through Marina yeets the Lasagna she made into the oven. We proceed to eat the Lasagna and it is top notch. She made plenty of extras, some of which Quinn will take to work, and some of which I’m sure will find its way into Marina’s belly. Although I’m not a huge fan of Lasagna, I am definitely pleased with the results here. Five stars on yelp.
After dinner we have a Nüsslitorte which Quinn got a while ago. It’s too sweet for my taste, but the curst is kind of nice. I can tell that Quinn likeS it because he taked two pieces. I decide to fire up the candle we got from our neighbors: some tree trunk with a big + sawed into it, and in the middle some firestarter which makes it burn hot, and all the way down the wood to the bottom. It’s a mesmerizing fire, and both JP and I enjoy staring at it.
After the fire dies down, I go downstairs to work on IPng a little bit. Since I rolled out the
[loopback-only OSPF]
last month, the interfaces no longer make much sense, they merely have a name like xe1-0.304 but
no IP addresses. It’s becoming difficult for me figure out what goes where, so I’ve decided to
rename them all with the name of the router they are pointed at. For example, xe1-0.304 on router
defra0 will be named chrma0 because it’s the link to that router. Much easier to work like this!
I spend an hour or so hacking away at all the routers, until I see that the one in Geneva (chplo0)
isn’t correctly wired, and it will need another connection to complete the ring. So I leave it be
and make a mental note to visit Fred and the site at Stack GEN01 which I call chplo0 for
Plan-les-Ouates, where the datacenter is located.
Finally, I grab that bottle of Nardini which I’ve become good friends with. It’s running critically low, but I think it’ll last for one or two more days. I celebrate this wonderful summer day with a glass (or three) of Grappa.
Tomorrow, we go see the Säulirennen, yes you heard right, the running of piglets. Because Switzerland is dope.
Pictures of the Day
