The big buzzword nowadays in IT is 5G.  Many companies are rushing pell-mell to tell everyone how much better their technologies will work under 5G.  However, a lot of this chatter is smoke and mirrors.  Part of the chatter that is not heard so much is that 5G is a migration, not an epoch-changing event […]

There is a new concept coming through IT Networking.  Software Defined (“SD-WAN”) networks provide a self-configuring self-healing environment.  The design is such that SD-WAN will lead ultimately to Intent Based networks, where the network will add self-learning to the mix where the network will define its own architecture and redefine it as usage changes and […]

Like most new professions, ICT has undergone a process of growing maturity.  At the outset, it was possible to know virtually all things ICT, and experience and a willingness to learn were the major employment criteria.  Certifications in various disciplines became available as the profession split into areas of specialism and they gradually became accepted […]

Simply put, a wireless mesh is a wireless network without the cables.   The concept is not really that new, the military, hospitals and some commercial enterprises have been using similar technologies for many years to create ad-hoc radio networks.  It can include a wireless internet gateway or a gateway to an upstream network, but sometimes […]

Copper-based network cabling has been with us since day one.   The first networks used TV style coax cabling and connectors because it already existed and was known to work. In many cases, manufacturers had already used that style of cabling to connect terminals to mainframes.    Some manufacturers, particularly IBM, developed their own cabling styles, but […]

With smaller networks, the core/distribution/access layer topology is generally sufficient. This three-layer architecture is especially efficient in “North-South” data transfer, that is, traffic that comes into and leaves the Data Centre.   The transmission latency between two internal points of the network is generally not a great concern.  However, in Enterprise and Campus networks with a […]

The worst nightmare of network support are intermittent or transient network cabling faults.  They take up a lot of time to find and correct and are often only a simple cabling error.  Copper ethernet data cabling also deteriorates and old network cabling can produce mysterious errors from time to time. Here are five tips to […]

The world of IT cabling has changed dramatically over the years from the early vendor specific cabling methods to today’s Structured Cabling environments.  It used to be only copper, then came various varieties of fibre optic cables, and WiFi, wireless and laser and free-space optical connectivity among others.  Even copper as a structured cabling component […]

The network world is constantly changing.  Hardware developments bring developments in software, which in turn bring further advances in hardware and so-on.  Similarly, the complexity of networks has increased.  The core, distribution, access layers model is giving way to Spine and Leaf, and Software Defined Network Access (“SDNA”) is redefining the way we configure and […]

In two years or so, we can expect 400Gb fibre broadband speeds in the data centre and we hear that terabyte speeds have been achieved in lab tests. An apparently entirely unconnected statistic is that there will be over 6Billion new smartphone users worldwide in the next four years. Think about it though, more smartphone […]