Net Neutrality

Earlier this week, the FCC, “lead” by Ajit Pai voted to repeal its policy of Net Neutrality.  The policy was put into place in Feb 2015 after the FCC (at the time under the Obama administration) made the decision to classify ISPs as a public utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.  For a lot of people (myself included for a while), this doesn’t make a lot of sense what any of this means so let me try to take a few minutes to explain (at least my understanding of it).

Getting from A to Z Part 2 (Troubleshooting Layer 3)

Troubleshooting

By and large I personally think that most of us are much more comfortable with layer three than any other layer in the OSI model. We deal with it each and every day. We have a number of tools at our disposal which make it very easy for us to see if/when it’s working and just how the data is traveling. To start with though, we have to know just how things are supposed to work.

Getting from A to Z

Troubleshooting

When I entered the Army in July 1999, I came in as 31F (switch operator). Anyone who worked with MSE will remember that it had almost absolutely no data capabilities, but also that it was extremely easy to troubleshoot. Signal flow for MSE was pretty darn easy to understand. If you understood the idea of how the system worked, the signal flow was easy to follow. With the introduction of JNN and IP data networks to tactical communications, logical and physical said “It’s been fun” and headed their separate ways leaving our operators and even ourselves busy scratching our heads wondering how the hell it all worked.

Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)

Show CDP Neighbor

When there is a problem with the network, time matters. We need to be able to quickly move from device to device in order to identify and rectify the problem. In order for this to occur, we have to know where to go to next, and how to get there.

But they didn’t teach me that in WOBC! – Comments in configs

Config Comments

There are a few things that are in WIN-T that are not explained in school. You either find yourself figuring it out or being told by another Warrant. How many of you have noticed that there are configurations available for all your equipment in TXT format? How many of you use them to blow in configurations when replacing gear from your spares? How many of you have read all the comments?

Which Way Do I Go SIPR Edition (Changing Routing)

WIN-T Routing with FDMA

A couple of weeks ago we talked about what affect changes to our network can have when we add HCLOS and other links between nodes. In that article, we talked exclusively about NIPR traffic going across the network and didn’t mention anything about SIPR. So what happens with our SIPR traffic if we install a HCLOS link?

What the hell Happened to the TACLANE?

TACLANE Encrypted Tunnel

A quick story for everyone today. A year or two ago a unit was coming through here on rotation. One of their CPNs was setup very close to the Brigade Main so the Net Tech made the decision to give himself some redundancy in his network and ran a piece of fiber between the two nodes. Life was good until one day he had to stow his dishes and all of a sudden, SIPR stopped working. Why?

Which Way Do I Go? (Effects on Routing When the Network Changes)

WIN-T Routing with HCLOS

As a general rule, all WIN-T nodes route traffic in pretty much the same way using pretty much the same configuration. We all know that at a CPN, both SIPR and NIPR traffic goes out the nodes TDMA link because, well, it has no other way to go. For a JNN, if the traffic is going to one of our subordinate units it goes out our TDMA, and if it is going somewhere else, it likely goes out our FDMA. We understand what it does, but most people have stopped thinking about why it does that. This is fine and dandy until we start making changes to the network.