About Cloud Toad

Derick Winkworth is the Chief Network Architect at one of the world's largest financial service providers. Lately his focus has been on end-to-end Data Center virtualization, orchestration/automation, and cloudy stuff. Pepper some security in there too.
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CCIE #15672 (RS, SP)
JNCIE-M #721
Twitter: @cloudtoad
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/derickwinkworth
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Derick's opinions are his own and do not reflect those of the company he works for.

Infineta and Parallelization, Part 1

infineta-pics

1. Opinions are like... In the past 5 years I've participated in three proper evaluations of WAN acceleration products. … [Read more...]

The Sad State of Data Center Networking

The Inconsistent Network

Something about next-generation Data Center networking has been bothering me lately.  For a while now, there has been this … [Read more...]

Virtualizing Network Services, Part 1: the Beginning

An abstract representation of network functions

  The Purpose of the "Network" In this series of articles I intend to walk through a series of diagrams with a … [Read more...]

Pill-Chomping Hackers and Security Whack-a-Mole

Tonight on twitter I saw an argument about how social-security numbers and credit card numbers are benign pieces of … [Read more...]

Network, Interrupted

Dear Cisco and Juniper: Its been a good run, Cisco.  Thank you for the CCIE.  Thank you Juniper for the JNCIE.  I … [Read more...]

Being Good at IT Stuff

I've been meaning to write a brief entry about careers in IT.  After reading Ethan's  CCIE vs  Experience and First Job … [Read more...]

DLSw+ Performance

Just days before 2012 arrives and heralds in the Mayan apocalypse, I thought I'd do something ridiculous.   Like shoot … [Read more...]

SQL*Net (a.k.a Oracle TNS) and Firewalls…

Most vendor’s firewalls have a SQL ALG that handles SQL*Net traffic. They listen on TCP port 1521. SQL*Net is based on … [Read more...]

More Open Flow Symposium Notes…

RF-Componentes-With-RouteFlowServer

1. OpenFlow and standards. "Laws, decrees, edicts, ordinances, writs will shower down upon the poor people like … [Read more...]

Secure Multi-Tenant VMWare, vGW, and VLAN Normalization

smtvmware

Yesterday I did some lab work with an SE from Juniper with their hypervisor-based FW solution, vGW.  As a virtual-networking … [Read more...]

“Virtual-Networking” Is as Meaningless a Term as “Cloud” Now.

With so much virtual-networking stuff going on these days, its worth taking a step back and trying to understand what the … [Read more...]

More OpenFlow Thoughts… Then I’m Done, I Promise.

of-hypothetical

Lets get straight into it.  Below is a diagram depicting a hypothetical (and entirely realistic) OpenFlow network.  I … [Read more...]

Big Switch Network, OpenFlow, and Virtual-Networking

There's been a lot of movement happening lately under the "Virtual Networking" moniker.  I sat down this morning and thought … [Read more...]

Providing DNS/DHCP in a Multi-Tenant Environment

infloblox (1)

In this basic design, we have a multi-tenant/multi-security-zone environment that we wish to provide DNS/DHCP services to.   … [Read more...]

Extending Private Networks Into Your DataCenter

WAN-edge

So you have customers out in the world that have private networks.  Most of them have some kind of private VPN service from … [Read more...]