With the very first GPNOG (Gauteng Network Operators Group), committee members managed to secure the beautiful Balaliaka Hotel in Sandton as the venue, as a generally central location for most Network Engineers to get to.  The event was held from 6pm on the 9^th May and was sponsored by Rocking Connect, and drinks where sponsored by Workonline Communications.

This was the very first GPNOG and had a reasonably good turnout.  The idea around the regional NOG’s is to give engineers the opportunity to network with colleagues and other network engineers that we often speak to or hear of, but never really get to meet with.  It also offers an ideal opportunity to discuss common network issues, see what other networks are doing, freshen up on skills, and discover new network applications.  Most of all, build a technical community that engineers can reach out to and discuss common problems / challenges specific to the region.

Edrich de Lange started off the evening with a short intro, with Donald Jolley from Mitsol talking of “How others see me” within the networking arena, with some of the key notes to take away from this chat is the importance of hosting a looking-glass, allowing your equipment to respond to ICMP, consider hosting a RIPE atlas probe or NLNOG ring probe (https://ring.nlnog.net) and most importantly, having valid up to date contact information, available on the web (like on peeringdb or your website etc).   

The next talk was given by Marco de Freitas from three6five on Next Generation Networks (NGN), which will help with the likes of increased bandwidth demands, consolidation onto multiservice core and continuous growth.  Touching on transport technologies such as segment routing )SR) and seamless MPLS, with benefits like cost reduction, performance, operational simplification and TE control.

The last talk of the evening was presented by Peter Peele from WOL around “Deriving value from infrastructure automation” and how WOL have managed to get to the level of automation that they are at, using Ansible, python, YAML playbooks, NAPALM and using SSH for a method of transport for both their Cisco and Arista equipment.  Key points here being “Single source of Truth” for inventory and where data feeds into other business systems, for example ticketing and support.  This branches out to many benefits of standardized config across the network, ease of expansion etc, however with automation has its own challenges, which Peter pointed out.  Initially everything is a problem, but it’s important to start somewhere like with common nodes and use a incremental approach.  Some tips and pointers Peter did mention, was to standardize on the tools and resources that engineers all use.  Something as simple as using the same text editor makes all the difference in saving time and working on issues. 

All in all, the first GPNOG was a huge success with a few drinks had afterwards, thanks to Workonline, with engineers all having a few light discussions, and the evening ending off at around 21:30.  Thanks to Rocking Connect and Workonline being the first sponsors of this event and we’d very much like to have network engineers from many more companies join, next time around.  A big appeal as to what engineers would like to have discussed in future at the GPNOGs, of which an Intro to Python and possibly a discussion on virtual route reflectors, was mentioned.

The 6^th KZNNOG was by far the most looked forward to meeting for me for KZN. Well known speakers from all over the country coming to the sunny port of Durban to share their knowledge and have drinks with the locals. KNNOG6 was the first multi day event the ZANOG has had, starting on the 4^th of April and ending on the following day. We had a whole host of sponsors for the event that covered everything from the lanyards around our necks to the food in our stomachs.

The first day we had a full house with visitors from other regions and countries. Live streaming the event was a great idea and allowed people to join online who could not make it to the venue.  The hottest topic of the morning must have been the panel discussion about network performance testing (Speedtest.net) The afternoon we got our hands really dirty with RPKI and how it really works. The social was a hit and good food was enjoyed by all. Day two was just as exciting, but with a smaller crowd. Network automation is a thing! Together with how you monitor your network and what it actually means for you. The final hours lasted longer than expected. Conversations kept going and connections were made.

The two day event was a great success and we had achieved our objectives. We had a good turnout and great speakers. KZNNOG6 will be remembered by all those who attended. Much excitement was left in everyone for the next events.  Speakers approached us to share their insights and skills.

The first WCNOG was finally held after about 6 months worth of planning. We were hosted at the Hyde hotel in Seapoint. As always we were very thankful to our sponsors, Rocking Connect and Netsale for Covering the costs of the event, as well as Rocking connect for dealing with all the event logistics.

Once everyone arrived (We quickly learnt why CPT is called slaapstad 🙂 ) Nishal Goburdhan started the evening off with a discussion on the recent DNS exploits that occurred affecting some large organisations and did a quick tutorial on DNSSEC. This drew the crowds interest as many people had admitted that they do not sign their domains at the moment. Some providers left the event committing to at the very least, sign their own internal domains.

This was followed by an interesting talks about open stack networking, and some uses and issues had with it and some of the providers providing hardware out in the field.

As always, the most important part of the event was the socialising and networking that happened after the talks were had. We look forward to seeing people at the next event in October!

There are still some space left, so please register at

https://events.inx.net.za/event/4/

Hi All

The call for presentations for KZNNOG-6 has been published – we are looking forward to receiving your presentations and welcoming you to KZNNOG-6 in Durban, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa in April 2019

Thanks!

KZNNOG Organising committee

—

KwaZulu Natal Network Operators Group

4th – 5th April 2019, Durban, South Africa

https://events.inx.net.za/event/4/

CALL FOR PRESENTATION

===============

The KZNNOG Programme Committee is now seeking contributions for

Presentations for the KZNNOG-6 Conference.

We are looking for presenters who would:

– Participate in the technical conference sessions as a speaker;

– chair panel discussion sessions of relevant topics;

Please submit on-line at:

https://events.inx.net.za/event/4/abstracts/

OR email your interest to info@kznnog.co.za

We are happy to announce the 5th KZNNOG (KwaZulu Natal Network Operators
Group) meeting.
Sponsorship continues to allow this event to be free of charge. Thank you to
Cool Ideas for being the primary sponsor of KZNNOG-5

The end of the year is fast approaching and the social schedules for end of
year functions are getting busy so we decided to do the final KZNNOG event
of the year a little earlier than originally intended

Talks this event promise to be interesting as they have a general focus on
the Future of Networking with talks on newer technologies like DPDK and 400G

We will be having the usual evening talks at 18h00 followed by drinks,
snacks and social networking.

Prior to the talks there will be a ROA Signing session please ensure that
you have made contact with us by the Monday if you wish to partake. We will
assist in sorting out the Afrinic credentials etc.

Registrations are now open so please RSVP as spaces are limited

RSVP and details of the event can be found here
https://events.inx.net.za/event/3/

Looking forward to seeing you there

KZNNOG Organising team
info[at]kznnog.co.za

We are happy to announce the 4^th KZNNOG (KwaZulu Natal Network Operators Group) meeting. Sponsorship continues to allow this event to be free of charge. Thank you to Mitsol for being the primary sponsor of KZNNOG-4

 

We will be having the usual evening talks followed by drinks, snacks and social networking

There will be an INX sponsored lunch and training session in the afternoon prior to the talks focusing on IPv6. We will cover the basics of IPv6, discuss some teething issues and show a practical implementation of an IPv6 network over PPPOE.

Please note that there is a separate RSVP for that talks and training.

 

Details of the event.

Date : Thursday, 30 August 2018
Time : 18h00
Cost : Free
Venue : Point Yacht Club (PYC)
RSVP required: please follow link to register https://events.inx.net.za/event/2/

To RSVP for the training please register here https://events.inx.net.za/event/1/

Full Agenda

• 12h00 – 13h30 | Lunch
• 13h30 – 15h00 | Training
• 15h00 – 15h30 | Tea
• 15h30 – 17h00 | Training

 

Afternoon training Topics

 

• Introduction to IPv6
• IPv6 Addressing and Planning
• DHCPv6
• IPv6 Routing

 

Talks start at 18h00

Speaker	Topic
Andrew Classen	SD-WAN is cool
Warrick Boyd	Mikrotik Exploits
Donald Jolley	Video killed my internet connection

 

Drinks, snacks and social networking after talks

See you there

KZNNOG Organising team

Hi all!

So the next KZN NOG meetup will be 1830 on Thursday 31 May at PYC, the
same venue as previous KZN NOGs

Our confirmed speakers are :
Ashley Jones – “All TLS, All The Time Using Apache and Let’s Encrypt
to set up a secure web server”
Brett Johnson – “Intent Driven Software Defined Network Automation
Robert Jooste – a 15 minute IPv6 tutorial

This will be followed by our normal beers/drinks and snacks and networking.
This has thus far KZN NOG has been sponsored By Seacom and DFA. The
3rd KZNNOG  will be sponsored by Thusa Connect.

Please RSVP to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kznnog-may-2018-tickets-45471508506

Over and above this, we also will have some proper training courses
sponsored by INXZA.

This will be the on the 30th and 31st of May.

Nishal, who most of us are familiar with, will be doing a two day
workshop on BGP Peering Techniques. More details to follow

Hope to see you all there!

Kind regards

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon as a group of around 50 geeks (and some not so geeks) emerged out of their caves and headed down to Point Yacht Club in Durban for the Second KZN Network Operators Group meeting.

Catching the last of the afternoon rays they all started to gather, sipping on a drink overlooking the Durban harbour.

We were ushered into the presentation room to get the presentations going as we didn’t want to keep the first presenter from Cloudflare in the UK waiting.

The first presentation was by Marty Strong via video feed from Clouldflare sharing the wonderful news that they were about to turn-up their node in Durban. One of the main take away points of his presentation was that Content Providers want to get as close to their customers eyeballs as possible.

One of the key factors to this success was being present and connected to local internet exchanges and having bilateral peering sessions setup with as many of the ISPs as possible over that IX.

This feed nicely into the second presentation by Donald Jolley on Peering and Path selection. Donald explained the metrics of BGP and how traffic and beers flows according to configured metrics.

Then Edrich de Lange continued the theme by presenting a tool “AS-Stats” that shows where your traffic is following and maybe one needs to change their peering and paths to make these traffic flows better.

The next presentation on Spectre and Meltdown by Nino Cloete, while not quite on the networking theme it is very relevant to the networking space as Nino explained how this bug, some would call a feature, could be exploited and affect many devices out in the field.

The last presenter Nishal Goburdhan came down from JHB to join us and talk on RPKI and the vital importance of route filtering and ways to build route filters that we can trust.

Between all the presentations there where short breaks where everyone could social network, meet new people and catch up with people they had not seen for a while and share war stories.

The growing number of attendees I think shows that people find events like this valuable. It is events like this that help bring together and build the industry.

Thanks to sponsors link Dark Fibre Africa for sponsoring this event makes it possible to continue to have them. A huge thanks to Edd for all the hard work in organising the event and securing the great venue, thank you Point Yacht Club for letting us talk geek.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the next one!