I finished this short book about Stoicism. As I have been meditating for over a year, I am interested in ways to keep learning and improving my quality/health of mind. I like feeling fit in my body, and my mind.
After watching some short videos about Stoicism, I liked the ideas and felt they can fit in my way of thinking.
Most of the times, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are the most common figures mentioned about Stoicism so I tried something written from them.
I went to the “How To Be Free” as the main source from Epictetus. I learned that he was a Greek born slave from the Roman times who earned his freedom and became a philosopher. Who more entitled to write about freedom that a slave? And I didn’t know that the stoicism had started some centuries earlier, around 300BC in Greece. As well, the “Encheiridion” was actually written by Arrian (I read a book about Alexander The Great and didnt know about his philosophy side) that was one student of Epictetus.
The book centres in what it is under our control and what is not. Things that we control are just inside us, and they are the ones that makes free (and content). As soon as you start to give away that control to outside things, you are doomed to suffering. It can be brutal in some cases. If a love one dies, it is not in your control that event, so you shouldn’t bee affected, just accept that is part of nature. Nature is nature and is not bound to our will. That reminds me too Buddhism too.
I like this philosophical approach, it matches well with me. In the world where we live with so much attention to the outside, it is good to get back to basics. We should be happy/content how we are, if we dont hurt anybody/anything and we life in harmony with nature. Suffering is part of life and we shouldn’t sell our freedom to external factors. Somebody insult you? Somebody has done something bad to you? Things are not going according your wishes? These are timeless sources of suffering and we had people already talking about this and providing guidance for a couple of millenniums. And I think we haven’t learned much apart from taking the wrong approach: take this pill, buy this, be like that person, etc etc
There is so much we can do for ourselves by ourselves. Why schools don’t teach more philosophical thinking? When I was in high school we had a subject about Philosophy that was mandatory to get access to University. But at the end of the day, they prepare you to pass an exam. Not to learn. How important is a good teacher…
I finished reading this book from Paul Krugman. I have really enjoyed it. It is short book and got me hooked. And it is much more easier to read the Keynes book… that was proper hardcore. He explains the crisis we have seen in XIX and XX in a way that you dont need to be economist.
It is really interesting the connections of the economic crisis globally and how complex it is getting everything. It seems the only power that the governments have is print money and play with the interest rates. And it is clear that there is no a perfect system and we will carry on seeing crisis like this. There were some big figures in the economic world that said there will not be more macro economical crisis anymore. And it is funny how the IFM hasn’t followed the practices to improve economies from countries in crisis, they have made things worse.
The baby setting Co-Op is a great example that is used in several parts of the book so explain the type of crisis in that scenario. Really useful.
And seems he is honest, he doesnt have the explanations for all crisis. For example for the Asia crisis of the late 90s, he uses the psychological concept that investors put all countries is Asia in the same basket and treated some countries with stronger economies like weakest one.
And Keynes is mentioned several times. It is clear he was great (although I didnt understand much from his book).
It is clear that things that behave like a bank and they are not bank, they should play by the same rules to protect consumers and avoid crisis like the 2008.
And how important is the confidence. Even well run banks can go down extremely easy when there is a “run on the bank” (people want to take the money out of the bank). It is like a domino effect.
As in Mandelbrot book, it is impossible to foresee the economy long run… And Keynes says that in the long run we are dead.
We have been able to create some nice MPLS labs using GNS3 and Cisco IOS. In my current employer, we use Arista so I wanted to create a lab environment with Arista kit to simulate a MPLS Segment Routing network. Keeping in mind that I try to run everything on my laptop, using GNS3 + Arista is not an option. You need to use the Arista vEOS image in GNS3 and it demands 2GB RAM per device and 1 CPU. In the past, I think I just managed to start two vEOS VMs before my laptop gave up. But Arista offers a version of EOS for containers.
So, what’s the difference between a virtual machine (VM) and a container? Well, searching the internet is going to give you many all answers. In my very simplify way:
VM: needs an hypervisor to simulate hardware. It uses kernel and user space. It has a full OS. So it is like simulation a whole server/pc (imagine a standalone house)
Container: runs in user space. Set of processes that are isolated from the rest of the system. Containers provide a way to virtualize an OS so that multiple workloads can run on a single OS instance (imagine an apartment in a building)
You just need to register in Arista web page to download a cEOS image.
Regarding MPLS Segment Routing (or SPRING for Juniper) it is an evolution of the standard MPLS, that was originally developed to improve the routing performance in core networks: avoid to make a routing look-ups per packet in core devices was very expensive in 80/90s (my very simplify way). MPLS started to being deployed around end 90s and became a defacto technology in all service providers. More info here.
Segment Routing is still based in labels, but adds improvements as it doesnt need a protocol for label exchange (one less thing to worry about). As well, it is based in “source routing” as the sources chooses the path and encodes it in the packet.
There are many sources in the internet that can explain MPLS SR better than me like all these:
So what we need and what we are going to use in this lab:
IPv4 (yeah, I should start working in IPv6…)
IGP: we use ISIS
Label Distribution: ISIS-SR
BGP: using loobacks as best practices and using IGP for building a full-mesh
L3/2VPN: EVPN
All devices are PE
So let’s build the basic IP connectivity for r01:
!
hostname r01
!
interface Ethernet1
no switchport
ip address 10.0.10.1/30
!
interface Ethernet2
no switchport
ip address 10.0.12.1/30
!
interface Loopback1
description CORE Loopback
ip address 10.0.0.1/32
!
ip routing
!
Now let’s build our IGP with ISIS. We are going to use our Lo1 IP as network ID for each router. As well, we will keep it simple and define all routers as ISIS L2. We dont need anything fancy. We just want ISIS to build our iBGP peering. We will enable ISIS in the core interfaces (in this simple lab, all links and loopbacks)
!
router isis CORE
net 49.0000.0001.0010.0000.0000.0001.00 <-- BASED IN Lo1 !!!
is-type level-2
log-adjacency-changes
set-overload-bit on-startup wait-for-bgp timeout 180
!
interface Ethernet1
no switchport
ip address 10.0.10.1/30
isis enable CORE
isis metric 40
isis network point-to-point
!
interface Ethernet2
no switchport
ip address 10.0.12.1/30
isis enable CORE
isis metric 50
isis network point-to-point
!
interface Loopback1
description CORE Loopback
ip address 10.0.0.1/32
isis enable CORE
isis metric 1
!
It is seems there is a bug in the cEOS I am using as “show isis neighbors” fails but the routing is actually correct. Let’s see from r22:
r22#show ip route
VRF: default
Codes: C - connected, S - static, K - kernel,
O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area, E1 - OSPF external type 1,
E2 - OSPF external type 2, N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1,
N2 - OSPF NSSA external type2, B - BGP, B I - iBGP, B E - eBGP,
R - RIP, I L1 - IS-IS level 1, I L2 - IS-IS level 2,
O3 - OSPFv3, A B - BGP Aggregate, A O - OSPF Summary,
NG - Nexthop Group Static Route, V - VXLAN Control Service,
DH - DHCP client installed default route, M - Martian,
DP - Dynamic Policy Route, L - VRF Leaked
Gateway of last resort is not set
I L2 10.0.0.1/32 [115/131] via 10.0.10.9, Ethernet1
I L2 10.0.0.2/32 [115/91] via 10.0.10.9, Ethernet1
I L2 10.0.0.3/32 [115/91] via 10.0.23.1, Ethernet2
I L2 10.0.0.4/32 [115/51] via 10.0.23.1, Ethernet2
I L2 10.0.0.5/32 [115/41] via 10.0.10.9, Ethernet1
C 10.0.0.6/32 is directly connected, Loopback1
I L2 10.0.10.0/30 [115/130] via 10.0.10.9, Ethernet1
I L2 10.0.10.4/30 [115/90] via 10.0.23.1, Ethernet2
C 10.0.10.8/30 is directly connected, Ethernet1
I L2 10.0.12.0/30 [115/140] via 10.0.23.1, Ethernet2
I L2 10.0.13.0/30 [115/90] via 10.0.10.9, Ethernet1
C 10.0.23.0/30 is directly connected, Ethernet2
r22#
r22# show logging
...
Log Buffer:
May 24 16:18:22 r22 SuperServer: %SYS-5-SYSTEM_RESTARTED: System restarted
May 24 16:24:29 r22 ConfigAgent: %SYS-5-CONFIG_E: Enter configuration mode from console by root on vty4 (UnknownIpAddr)
May 24 16:24:29 r22 ConfigAgent: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by root on vty4 (UnknownIpAddr)
May 24 16:24:29 r22 ConfigAgent: %SYS-5-CONFIG_STARTUP: Startup config saved from system:/running-config by root on vty4 (UnknownIpAddr).
May 24 16:24:39 r22 Isis: %ISIS-4-ISIS_ADJCHG: L2 Neighbor State Change for SystemID 0000.0000.0004 on eth2 to UP
May 24 16:24:42 r22 Isis: %ISIS-4-ISIS_ADJCHG: L2 Neighbor State Change for SystemID 0000.0000.0005 on eth1 to UP
May 24 16:26:34 r22 ConfigAgent: %SYS-5-CONFIG_STARTUP: Startup config saved from system:/running-config by root on vty4 (UnknownIpAddr).
r22#
r22#show isis neighbors
% Internal error
% To see the details of this error, run the command 'show error 2'
So once we have configured BGP in all routers, we should see a full mesh between all routers. This is from r22:
r22#show ip bgp summary
BGP summary information for VRF default
Router identifier 10.0.0.6, local AS number 100
Neighbor Status Codes: m - Under maintenance
Description Neighbor V AS MsgRcvd MsgSent InQ OutQ Up/Down State PfxRcd PfxAcc
R01 10.0.0.1 4 100 7 7 0 0 00:00:05 Estab 0 0
R02 10.0.0.2 4 100 7 7 0 0 00:00:05 Estab 0 0
R11 10.0.0.3 4 100 7 7 0 0 00:00:05 Estab 0 0
R12 10.0.0.4 4 100 6 7 0 0 00:00:04 Estab 0 0
R21 10.0.0.5 4 100 6 7 0 0 00:00:04 Estab 0 0
r22#
Now, enable MPLS and SR extension in ISIS:
!
mpls ip
!
mpls label range isis-sr 800000 65536
!
router isis CORE
segment-routing mpls
router-id 10.0.0.1 <-- based on Lo1 in each router
no shutdown
!
interface Loopback1
description CORE Loopback
node-segment ipv4 index 1 <-- this has to be different in each node!!!
!
And you should see 5 ISIS-SR tunnels from each router. From r22:
As you can see above, the labels are based on the base index (800000) defined in the “mpls label range” command and the “node-segment index” defined in the loopback interface. So the label that identifies uniquely r01 is 800000 + 1 = 800001. The label “3” means you are a Penultime-Hop-P router and you remove the label to save a label look-up in the egress router.
Now, let’s configure EVPN for L2/L3VPN deployment in our MPLS network. From r01 should be:
!
service routing protocols model multi-agent --> you will have to reboot
!
router bgp 100
!
address-family evpn
neighbor default encapsulation mpls next-hop-self source-interface Loopback1
neighbor 10.0.0.2 activate
neighbor 10.0.0.3 activate
neighbor 10.0.0.4 activate
neighbor 10.0.0.5 activate
neighbor 10.0.0.6 activate
!
So once this is configured in all routers, we should see again a full mesh of EVPN BGP peers. From r12 this time:
r12#show bgp evpn summary
BGP summary information for VRF default
Router identifier 10.0.0.4, local AS number 100
Neighbor Status Codes: m - Under maintenance
Description Neighbor V AS MsgRcvd MsgSent InQ OutQ Up/Down State PfxRcd PfxAcc
R01 10.0.0.1 4 100 1254 1251 0 0 00:03:27 Estab 1 1
R02 10.0.0.2 4 100 1111 1107 0 0 00:03:27 Estab 1 1
R11 10.0.0.3 4 100 961 962 0 0 00:03:27 Estab 1 1
R21 10.0.0.5 4 100 884 888 0 0 00:03:27 Estab 1 1
R22 10.0.0.6 4 100 814 811 0 0 00:03:27 Estab 1 1
r12#
Now, let’s create a L3VPN with CUST-A vrf. We define it in all routers. For r01 should be:
!
vrf instance CUST-A
rd 100:1
!
interface Loopback2
vrf CUST-A
ip address 192.168.0.1/32 <-- each device has a unique one
!
ip routing vrf CUST-A
!
router bgp 100
!
vrf CUST-A
rd 100:1
route-target import evpn 100:1
route-target export evpn 100:1
network 192.168.0.1/32
Let’s see if the routing works from r12
r12#
r12#show bgp evpn
BGP routing table information for VRF default
Router identifier 10.0.0.4, local AS number 100
Route status codes: s - suppressed, * - valid, > - active, # - not installed, E - ECMP head, e - ECMP
S - Stale, c - Contributing to ECMP, b - backup
% - Pending BGP convergence
Origin codes: i - IGP, e - EGP, ? - incomplete
AS Path Attributes: Or-ID - Originator ID, C-LST - Cluster List, LL Nexthop - Link Local Nexthop
Network Next Hop Metric LocPref Weight Path RD: 100:1 ip-prefix 192.168.0.1/32 10.0.0.1 - 100 0 i RD: 100:1 ip-prefix 192.168.0.2/32 10.0.0.2 - 100 0 i RD: 100:1 ip-prefix 192.168.0.3/32 10.0.0.3 - 100 0 i RD: 100:1 ip-prefix 192.168.0.5/32 10.0.0.5 - 100 0 i RD: 100:1 ip-prefix 192.168.0.6/32 10.0.0.6 - 100 0 i
r12#
r12#show ip route vrf CUST-A
VRF: CUST-A
Codes: C - connected, S - static, K - kernel,
O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area, E1 - OSPF external type 1,
E2 - OSPF external type 2, N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1,
N2 - OSPF NSSA external type2, B - BGP, B I - iBGP, B E - eBGP,
R - RIP, I L1 - IS-IS level 1, I L2 - IS-IS level 2,
O3 - OSPFv3, A B - BGP Aggregate, A O - OSPF Summary,
NG - Nexthop Group Static Route, V - VXLAN Control Service,
DH - DHCP client installed default route, M - Martian,
DP - Dynamic Policy Route, L - VRF Leaked
Gateway of last resort is not set
B I 192.168.0.1/32 [200/0] via 10.0.0.1/32, IS-IS SR tunnel index 5, label 116384
via 10.0.10.5, Ethernet1, label 800001
B I 192.168.0.2/32 [200/0] via 10.0.0.2/32, IS-IS SR tunnel index 2, label 116384
via 10.0.10.5, Ethernet1, label 800002
B I 192.168.0.3/32 [200/0] via 10.0.0.3/32, IS-IS SR tunnel index 3, label 100000
via 10.0.10.5, Ethernet1, label imp-null(3)
C 192.168.0.4/32 is directly connected, Loopback2
B I 192.168.0.5/32 [200/0] via 10.0.0.5/32, IS-IS SR tunnel index 4, label 116384
via 10.0.23.2, Ethernet2, label 800005
B I 192.168.0.6/32 [200/0] via 10.0.0.6/32, IS-IS SR tunnel index 1, label 116384
via 10.0.23.2, Ethernet2, label imp-null(3)
r12#
So, all looks good. EVPN table shows all the prefixes for rd 100:1 and the routing table for CUST-A shows all Lo2 defined in each router.
BTW, I am not able to ping inside the VRF, I think it is something related to the broadcast of ARP:
UPDATE: Arista confirms that cEOS-lab doesn’t support MPLS dataplane. I need to use vEOS (vagrant). So that means I dont think my laptop has enough resources to build this lab in vEOS 🙁
r01#ping vrf CUST-A ip 192.168.0.6 interface loopback 2
PING 192.168.0.6 (192.168.0.6) from 192.168.0.1 lo2: 72(100) bytes of data.
--- 192.168.0.6 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 40ms
r01#
-- from other session in r01 --
r01#bash
bash-4.2# ip netns exec ns-CUST-A tcpdump -i lo2
tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on lo2, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 262144 bytes
^C12:46:03.324918 02:00:00:00:00:00 (oui Unknown) > Broadcast, ethertype ARP (0x0806), length 42: Request who-has 192.168.0.6 tell 192.168.0.1, length 28
12:46:04.348750 02:00:00:00:00:00 (oui Unknown) > Broadcast, ethertype ARP (0x0806), length 42: Request who-has 192.168.0.6 tell 192.168.0.1, length 28
12:46:05.376723 02:00:00:00:00:00 (oui Unknown) > Broadcast, ethertype ARP (0x0806), length 42: Request who-has 192.168.0.6 tell 192.168.0.1, length 28
3 packets captured
3 packets received by filter
0 packets dropped by kernel
bash-4.2#
-- from other session in r22, we dont see anything --
r22#bash
bash-4.2# ip netns exec ns-CUST-A tcpdump -i lo2
tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on lo2, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 262144 bytes
^C
0 packets captured
0 packets received by filter
0 packets dropped by kernel
bash-4.2#
In a irc channel this week, one guy posted a link about visualization latency in a data center switching network .
And it was really good video for understanding how congestion happens inside the switch infrastructure and a very original idea to overcome this problem!
I tried to get a bit more info about the video and ended in the page of that paper:
I am not a researcher but the idea is quite original and it seems you dont need to re-invent the wheel. In the github repo even there is an example in P4. P4 is going to be big, and Barefoot has already commercial solutions about it with their tofino chip. Let’s see what Intel does with it…
Based on a continuation paper, it seems there is no much traction from the big cloud providers, and it surprises me, these guys have the muscle to make this kind of things. I always heard that hardware is very expensive to built and software is not. So there are few player willing to invest in new ideas. Everytime you hear about unicorn companies, nearly all of them are software companies.
And another paper says it needs more tuning/debugging.
I don’t know if it will successful in the future but I think it was interesting watching the video and reading about the concept.
I had a couple of lemon in the fridge so I wanted to used them in a cake. I had a recipe that I wanted to try for some time so this was my chance.
Ingredients:
250g ground almonds
100g fine polenta / cornmeal
50g coarse polenta
1 teaspoon baking powder
250g (good) butter + a bit for greasing
zest and juice of 3 (good) lemons (medium size)
4 free range / organic medium eggs
Process
Preheat oven at 180C. Grease a 20cm round cake tin
Mix the almonds, both kinds of polenta and the baking powder together in a bowl and put aside.
Put the butter, lemon zest and sugar into another bowl and cream together. I used a wooden spoon. Get ready to sweat a bit. Once everything is mixed, start adding an egg at each time, mix well, and add another.
Add the initial bow with the polenta and almond to the mixture. Mix well until everything is combined. Add the lemon juice. Mix well.
Poor everything on the tin and smooth the top. Bake for 50-55 minutes. Check the top is brown.
It is a quick, moist and easy cake. And it is tasty!
This week Job Snijders advertised the latest version of openbsd. I have been always a dreamer of being a hacker (like the movies) and the best guys when I was in Uni were Linux users. I had no idea what Linux/Unix/BSD was at that time. At the end (by the 4th year in Uni) I managed to install Linux in my windows PC without destroying anything. And fortunately, I have been using it since then. Learning more and still fortunately, in the last 6 years, using it everyday at work too.
Still very very far away from being a hacker though 🙂
In this time, I have read a bit about the BSD vs Linux threads about licenses, security, etc. And actually I was always keen to learn a bit. In Motorola, I had to use Solaris (even managed to get a certification!).
So this week, I tried to setup a VM in my debian laptop for using OpenBSD 6.7
I found and followed this link, so all credits for the author.
First I downloaded openbsd 6.7 (install67.iso) from here. There are many mirrors around the world. Prepare the file:
/var/lib/libvirt/images# ls -ltr
total 1386064
-rwxr--r-- 1 libvirt-qemu libvirt-qemu 996671488 Apr 6 2018 debian-VAGRANTSLASH-stretch64_vagrant_box_image_9.1.0.img
-rwxr--r-- 1 libvirt-qemu libvirt-qemu 950796288 Nov 29 23:17 centos-VAGRANTSLASH-7_vagrant_box_image_1905.1.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 ss ss 470118400 May 21 23:23 install67.iso
root@athens:/var/lib/libvirt/images# chown libvirt-qemu.libvirt-qemu install67.iso
/var/lib/libvirt/images# mv install67.iso openbsd67.iso
Something that confused my was that I was installing openbsd6.7 but the os-variant in the command must be obenbsd5.8. Anything else, fails.
In my setup, I have virt-viewer installed so it opened up and finished the installation using that.
I was surprised how quick was everything and didnt find any problem:
Once I logged in, I felt useless 🙂 I used a bit the shell and tested I could ssh from my host pc to the openbsd vm.
So now, I can find a book of openbsd for dummies and get going!
So close virt-viewer and stop the VM:
/var/lib/libvirt/images# virsh
virsh # list
Id Name State
2 openbsd running
virsh #
virsh #
virsh # destroy openbsd
Domain openbsd destroyed
virsh # list
Id Name State
virsh #
virsh # list --all
Id Name State
openbsd shut off
virsh #
Test we can start up again:
# virsh
Welcome to virsh, the virtualisation interactive terminal.
Type: 'help' for help with commands
'quit' to quit
virsh # list --all
Id Name State
openbsd shut off
virsh # start openbsd
Domain openbsd started
virsh # list --all
Id Name State
3 openbsd running
virsh # exit
#
# virt-viewer
I have just finished “Deep Work” from Cal Newport. For a long time I have believed that multitasking is the best thing to be productive but with the years passing by I realised that like a computer, context switching is very expensive on me. You can’t really concentrate in some demanding thing and then try to be on top of small things and interrupted by everybody. I am happy that I am not use social media but still at work I am easily distracted by people demands, emails, etc.
And I am pretty sure that It is not just me. Most people suffer this. And to be honest, I want to improve, I want to make a more meaningful job with my time. And life (like Winifred Gallagher) Cal’s examples (himself and others) are really good. I liked quite a lot the one regarding Daniel Kilov and how to memorize a deck of cards. I think this is a good exercise to execute deep concentration in small chunks of time, that is actually the most probably outcome in (most people) normal day.
You can do it. But you need to work hard for it. The society, working environment and yourself are not going to make it easy.
I think with the lockdown period, it is a good moment to put these techniques in practice.
I need to pay less attention to the emails and slack. I dont have to be the quickest answering something… (that is so good for your ego….) I need to really prioritize my working hours and tasks to focus on with a time frame. I need to make myself accountable, stop blaming somebody else. And communicate, make my peers that I will focus in things I will not answer immediately (if you are my CTO, maybe not 🙂 And as a manager, make my team members better: make them to take more ownership so they can deal with problems by themselves. And schedule times of the day to check emails and/or attend meetings.
One thing I have done, it is to put a pink sticker close to my screen saying “ONE THING AT EACH TIME”. I did this before reading the book as a reminder from a speech at work of a brilliant guy in his last day. And he said he learned that sentence from our CTO. That got burned in my mind. I have used it mainly from troubleshooting. It has been a critical tool that I have applied successfully many times since then. But I can be applied to more things as “Deep Work”
I have remembering my Karate for nearly the last two months. It has been a quite satisfying choice and has brought some good and old feelings.
As I have been adding katas to my set, I wanted to write and find some info in the web about the origin of Karate (and see if it matches my memory) and the main kata stiles I learned in my time. Not sure if it is still the same though.
I think for my black belt exam, apart from performing some katas in front of my teacher, I had to answer some questions about Karate history.
I dont know why, I can still remember bodhidharma, and Indian Buddhist monk, as the person considered for starting martial arts in Asia. Then it spread to southern China and then to Okinawa. There, it developed while some King forbade weapons so people needed other ways for self-defence. And finally, get to Japan after some conquering. Yeah, very short summary. Surely a better version here.
From my time, we had three stiles of “superior” katas: shuri-te, naha-te and tomari-te. I can’t forget the big picture of Gichin Funakoshi (Father of modern karate) in our tatami.
We used to consider naha-te katas the ones with a lot of “breathing” and “slow moves”. Katas with short and quick moves, were tomari-te katas.
And by chance, I was lucky to visit Okinawa (just for a weekend) when I was working in a project in Tokyo. It was a dream come true. Although I was expecting some spirituality there, I was lucky to attend a very important festival and laugh when some towns in the map where actually kata names!
Definitely, it is a very different place compared with Japan main islands.
I have finished reading this book about Kaizen. Many years ago I heard the term Kaizen for the superior productivity in Japan, mainly from Toyota as the world’s number one car producer. Somehow, I bought this used copy to learn about it.
First, I noticed the book was printed in 1986… I realised I rarely read “technical” stuff so “old”.
The first surprise was that it seems the concept of quality control was actually brought by USA to post WWII Japan. The two main people were W E Deming and J M Juran.
It is interesting that Japan was very eager to learn the productivity secrets from USA and at the end, they created their on version.
I like the focus in people. They need to be engaged and feel part of something. At the end of the day, everybody has to push together to get to great results. As well, it seems key the achievement of small changes and not massive ones. They set for long-term goals, mainly for customer satisfaction that is not just the person who buys the product. It is not all about profits. It seems the profits will come as a by-product (reduce cost, increase customer satisfaction, more sells -> more profits). So the vision is product-oriented instead of result-oriented.
The point that “if you dont have problems, how you can improve?!” is so true.
And one slogan to measure how good is your product: “would you buy what you are producing?”
I can see many concepts are already in place in technology. The “Kambam” board, the constant search for small improvements, etc. If you think devops culture is something really modern, doesn’t look like that.
In general, the approach is quite different from the Western world and has been successful. But the book mentions that you need the innovation side for keep improving. So again, as life, you need balance.
And at the end, Kaizen becomes like a way of life. Or it is like I see it.
I am curious how the author would see Kaizen and Japan nowadays.
This year, in my employer, I completed the migration to a MPLS SR Arista core network from a Brocade MPLS LDP one. Our backbone is still pure IPv4 so anything IPv6 is not going to be added. But this week, via an APNIC blog post I read about SRv6. And it looks quite interesting. So I went to the first post to go a bit deeper about what SRv6 is. Based on the statements of the blog, really big networks are already using this technology and quite a lot of support from the open source community too. I missed Arista in that list though.
So I tried to find some “real” proof of this SRv6 is some pcap files to see the format and get a bit better view. I could find at lest a source with some. The examples are not like the ones mentioned in the APNIC blog post but just for taking a look, it is enough:
So I can see inside the IPv6 header, the SRv6 Header as defined in the rfc.
I dont really understand the second IPv6 header (Dst: b::2). From the first IPv6 header, the destination “f1::” has to be the first instruction SID1. I can see how it mentions it contains a SRH (Next Header: 43). And inside the routing header, we can see it is SR type (Type: 4). I assume that Address[0] and Address[1] are SID2 and SID3.
