Knowledge

New data center and WAN architecture. How to choose?

Cisco ACI or VMware NSX? What to automate? How to integrate private and public clouds? We helped an international bank choose the next-gen data center and WAN infrastructure.

IT infrastructure audit boosts productivity and improves user experience

NIL’s data center, LAN, WAN, compute, storage, and virtualization audit helps medical research corporation eliminate IT errors that were harming productivity.

How to improve grid reliability, compliance, and cost efficiency?

Learn how Cisco Substation Automation solution enables utilities to manage, control, and automate remote grid assets more efficiently by combining business and utility functions, and simplifying grid operations.

Digitalization of water and waste management

Author: Bojan Radulović

Learn how a small municipality in Slovenia embraced IoT and deployed the LORA network, smart sensors and an analytical platform in order to improve water usage utilization and garbage collection.

How to defend against DDoS attacks?

Author: Srečko Milanič

DDoS attacks are relatively inexpensive and easy to execute, so every organization is a potential target. How to respond against a DDoS and mitigate the threat?

Critical WPA2 vulnerability: you must update your devices and Wi-Fi infrastructure

Author: Stojan Rančić, Urban Jurca

Hackers can exploit the KRACK attack to intercept encrypted wireless traffic and thereby steal your sensitive information, such as passwords, credit card numbers, personal information, and professional secrets, if those travel through the wireless network unencrypted.

7 tips to boost your Wi-Fi network

Author: Maja Podbevšek

Learn how to set up a reliable, secure, and fast wireless network in your organization that won't cause any headaches for you, your employees, or your guests.

Cisco Certification Paths 2017 (PDF Map)

Internationally recognized Cisco career certifications have been around for more than 20 years and are still one of the most in-demand, relevant and top-paying IT-certifications in the industry. Download the certifications map PDF and see all available Cisco certification paths in 2017, recommended courses and required exams on one page.

The training for successful enterprise Wi-Fi management

The CWNA training is vendor-independent, practical, and covers broader wireless concepts, while it also provides the wireless administration skills that we can directly use on our equipment in our production environment.

Management and Orchestration in Complex and Dynamic Network Environment

Author: New Item

Learn how standardization can contribute to a successful service orchestration in the SDN environment and what can be achieved by proper system design.

Let it only be me who is (pen)testing my home network (Part II)

Author: Matevž Mesojednik

I the previous series, I illustrated a few specific weaknesses of badly reputed networking protocol, namely UPnP. But why not evaluate home router’s security posture from the inside and see how well it performs. See where this lead me.

Implementing NSX – real-life journey from idea to practice

Author: New Item

Data Center infrastructure should allow IT administrators and operations teams to meet their management and support nirvana by vaporizing the spells and curses related to the environment. SDDC is a platform that promises catching that unicorn by enabling true flexible and scalable infrastructure. 

Is Your Network Ready for 10 Billion Connections?

Author: New Item

Learn how to provide horizontal scalability and performance enhancements in your network that will enable the management of more than a million multivendor network devices.

Let it only be me who is (pen)testing my home network (Part I)

Author: Matevž Mesojednik

I got challenged the other day, having been given an opportunity to demonstrate some real-world hacks as part of the FRI student's Garage. The desired topic was cyber-attack surface within SOHO environments. 

Dude, where's my (cloud) firewall?

Author: Jan Bervar

Using the public cloud securely requires some rethinking of your security architecture. Cloud security is not about the trust you have in a cloud provider, but rather about building appropriate security controls.

"HoeflerText" isn't installed. Really?

Author: Matej Vidič

One of the new types of ransomware that we've been running into recently impressed me with its distribution approach and ability to avoid detection. Why was it so successful?

What is IT Security All About?

Author: Robert Turnšek

In the world of IT, security is one of its pillars. Today, saying that your company or business is totally secure is a luxury no one can afford. Security always was and will be a constant battle between you and the bad guys.

‘I want that course!’ … Sure, but do you NEED it?

Author: Marjan Bradeško

What NIL always tries to propose is at least a short discussion between our instructor and the customer’s contact. This approach typically results in a shorter training duration, greater customer satisfaction and – last but not least – optimal pricing.

The Suspicious Seven: A Network Visibility Checklist

What to do when your network is already compromised? This checklist outlines seven of the most common types of network blind spots and suspicious activities that every security team needs to be able to see. If you can’t detect these activities, you are giving threats a place to hide on your network. 

Cloud Application Security

Author: Jan Češčut

Learn how to allow secure cloud app usage that doesn't threaten your system security or your productivity. Watch a practical demo of how to discover cloud applications used in your environment, how to control their usage, and protect your organization.

Beyond certifications … the EXTRAS you provide!

Author: Marjan Bradeško

Recently I have seen numerous discussions in various blogs and forums, particularly in those related to Cisco Systems Career Certifications. Heated discussions about why, what, how – even if?

Operations Management Suite - Automation and Security

Author: Robert Turnšek

See how to streamline IT operations and respond faster to security threats from a single portal with Microsoft OMS. Through practical demo Robert showed how to enable automation and deploy threat detection and prevention mechanism.

Collaboration with this kind of engineer is easy. Even at 3AM.

Within its NIL Assist service, NIL provides Generali zavarovalnica d.d. with technical support in its IT-infrastructure management and problem solving. Marko Kariž is a dedicated engineer and the first to contact when a technical problem arises.

When Sniffer Meets Analytics and Big Data

Author: Robert Turnšek

When IT infrastructures evolve into complex systems full of legacy equipment and services, troubleshooting often turns into arcane magic or a game of whack-a-mole. If you haven't thought about network sniffing and reporting tools, it's high time you do.

Operations Management Suite - Workloads Insight

Author: Robert Turnšek

Learn how easily manage your on-premises and cloud infrastructure from a single portal with Microsoft Operations Management Suite (OMS). On practical scenarios you will learn how to gain insight across workloads.

So You Want To Become A Cloud Provider?

Author: Robert Turnšek

What’s not to love about the pay-as-you-go model of cloud computing? Your service price is distributed over a longer period of time, and your customers “repurchase” every month, rather than use a solution they purchased once for years. There are also a few downsides.

CCIE candidate, grab that cable!

Author: Marjan Bradeško

A few days ago a friend of mine who had read my previous blog on CCIE asked me to explain how it all looked like 21 years ago when I passed my lab exam. Well...

Azure Data Center Extension - Network

Author: Robert Turnšek

Learn how to set up the Azure environment to act like a natural extension of your data center, where you can run and manage your services just like you do on‑premise.

Azure Backup & Recovery (Part 2)

Author: Jan Češčut

Even if your backups are flawless, recovery downtime is where revenue is lost. The time to full recovery of the IT system is crucial. To help you minimize your recovery time and its impact on your business, our expert Jan Češčut explained when it makes sense to use cloud as your recovery service, and how to set up a recovery-ready cloud environment with Azure.

Azure Backup & Recovery (Part 1)

Author: Robert Markič

Learn to take advantage of Microsoft Azure to deploy an affordable and scalable disaster recovery system and minimize the business impact of system disruptions. The first webinar focuses on backup and demonstrates the benefits and limitations of recovery-ready cloud backup.

We All Work in Marketing

Author: Robert Turnšek

No matter what position you occupy in the company, most of the time you are part of some marketing process, even if you don’t realize it. I hear you – a technical guy explaining marketing?! Right. At least I will try to put some things into a different perspective.

Azure Network and Compute

Author: Robert Turnšek

Learn how you can use Azure as a flexible on-demand source of IT-resources and when this makes sense.

Software-Defined Data Center – the VMware Way

Author: Robert Turnšek

A software-defined data center relies heavily on virtualization technology. And VMware is one of the pioneers when it comes to virtualization as it helped reshape the whole data center industry a decade ago. Now the company is at it again – aiming for the cloud(s).

Azure Rights Management

Author: Jan Češčut

How can you ensure, that your documents are only read by the persons they were intended for? Watch the video and learn how to use Azure Rights Management Services (RMS) to protect your organization from intentional or accidental data leaks.

To CCIE or not to CCIE?

Author: Marjan Bradeško

A puzzled question? Grammatically wrong. What I mean is: "To pursue a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert [CCIE] certification or not?" Or let`s rephrase and generalize the question: "To become a certified individual or not?" We face such questions quite often. I have been asking this question myself - and been asked by my students, colleagues - multiple times.

Software-Defined Data Center – the Microsoft Way

Author: Robert Turnšek

Let's dive into Microsoft’s SDDC solution, which is very promising. Microsoft Windows Server 2016 tries its best to become a one-stop shop for the data center environment. Let’s see what tricks it has up its sleeve.

Azure Active Directory (Part 2)

Author: Jan Češčut

Learn how you can simplify your Azure administration and user management!

Azure Active Directory (Part 1)

Author: Robert Turnšek

In this webinar you will learn the basics of Azure Active Directory: overview of the functionalities and innovations, synchronizing on-premise AD and single sign-on - ADFS.

Why Software-Defined Data Center is Your Best Bet

Author: Robert Turnšek

Building data centers used to be a challenging job. It still is, to an extent, but the software-defined mantra that has taken over the IT industry simplifies a lot of challenges. And simple is (still) profitable, right?

Are you grabbing digitalization by the (t)horns

Author: New Item

If you mention digital transformation to IT guys, you can see the discomfort in their faces. Every transformation—including digital—will reveal potential shortcomings related to knowledge, implementation and even technology. Let’s not forget, even ego’s might get hurt.

Costs in IT: Part 3

Author: Robert Turnšek

Let's have a look at the operating expenditure (OPEX) view of IT solutions or costs that incur during the lifetime of an IT solution/ecosystem. Be warned – there are a lot of them that you haven't thought of at all.

Start on time

Author: Marjan Bradeško

For perhaps the hundredth time, I logged in on time to some Internet-based synchronous event. I should have been synchronized with the presenter. But, unfortunately, the presenter was not synchronized with me.

The Soft, Warm Underbelly of the Cloud

Author: Jan Bervar

Cloud automation is a complex collection of software, prone to cascading failures, and exposed to an untrusted population of users. How can it be exploited, what are the consequences, and how can we control the risks involved?

StorSimple – Provisioning a new volume

Author: Jan Češčut

Learn how to provision a new volume in StorSimple physical appliance. We take you through Password Management with Azure Active Directory, Azure Multi-Factor Authentication, and more.

Costs in IT: Part 2

Author: Robert Turnšek

Let's look at the investment part of IT (or CAPEX). What do we have to invest in the long term in order to own the IT environment we are building? The investment (cost) part of the equation in IT is pretty straightforward – we need hardware and software. Or is it?

StorSimple Manager Portal

Author: Jan Češčut

In the video, we looked into some of the StorSimple functions and how to configure them using the StorSimple Manager Portal (StorSimple device configuration and maintenance).

Costs in IT: Part 1

Author: Robert Turnšek

I am often being asked why IT costs so much. The answer can be simple or complex (as just about anything). Since I know most people want quick explanations and solutions, I can do you all a favour – IT is being presumed as costly because of people who work in it.

OPTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR ENTERPRISES & SERVICE PROVIDERS

Optical network become more important in later years as bandwidth has rapidly increased and fibers cannot be added with the same pace. Optical solutions based on Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) have been in use for enterprises and service providers (SP) to conduct different technologies with different speeds and variety of distances.

Should Government IT Be Any Different? Not Really.

Author: Robert Turnšek

Since Slovenians are always first to point towards their political leaders and government itself when they want things to change, the smart way of bringing changes to the nation should be the IT way.

Security is not the Issue, Trust is

Author: Robert Turnšek

Data centers of global IT cloud providers are built to last and can and will withstand just about anything – hardware, software and security wise. The only notable issue remaining with them is therefore trust related.

How can my network benefit from SDN?

With the flood of solutions and products that are promoted under the name Software Defined Networks one will inevitably ask the question “What’s in it for me? How can my network benefit from SDN?” And the answer, as is mostly the case, is: “It depends.” SDN is different things to different people and different organizations.

Are data stored by cloud providers really safe? No doubt—they are!

Author: Robert Turnšek

While individuals seem to, virtually blindly, entrust cloud services (and their providers) with their data (and much more), companies are very reluctant to store enterprise data on “someone else’s server”. But is this reluctance justified? Absolutely not.

DPI Solutions for Service Providers

Deep packet inspection (DPI) solutions are designed for carrier-grade stateful application inspection and session based classification of per subscriber IP traffic. The DPI functionality allows service providers to develop new differentiated services and increase their subscriber base by providing a portfolio of customer-tailored services.

Lessons learned from Volkswagen scandal

Author: New Item

I'm pretty sure we've all read about the Volkswagen scandal and how »resourceful« they were at using a software to make their cars with diesel engine perform way better than they really do, on a emission test. So why should you care about AFA storage »test drive«?

Separating the “wires” from “logic”

Author: Robert Turnšek

The idea of software-defined network (SDN) stems from the desire to increase practicality in managing IT resources, since IT specialists wanted to separate the management, control and data aspects of the network. How it works in real life? We compered three solutions.

The threads of IoT

Author: Marko Tišler

In its conception, a memex is a device, “mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility” that provides “enlarged intimate supplement to one's memory”. Do you recognize this description in any of the new technologies? Do you use it?

Breaking Myths: SDN and NFV

Author: New Item

IT administrators are setting their hearts on maximizing programmability and automating routine tasks. This also applies to the network, but in reality it’s difficult to achieve. What we do know is that different organizations need different network functionalities.

Clouds are not technological challenges

Author: Robert Turnšek

Migrating to the cloud is not related to technology but to company processes. Many IT companies are trying to present the cloud only as a technology, but this leaves them without the appropriate end result. Don't make the same mistake.

Do you trust your IT infrastructure?

Author: New Item

IT specialists are facing a dilemma—should they keep on building their own infrastructure or simply opt for a renting model and work on integrating the infrastructure into their business operations. Moreover every vendor claims it can help. But is this the case?

Mobility is here. Are you on board?

Author: Dejan Miletić

Nowadays people don't want to be constrained by the place and time of their work. Modern enterprise mobility is becoming the primary way of work in numerous organizations, so it should be approached in a serious and comprehensive manner.

UMTS & LTE Packet Core in SP Mobility

LTE, as a successor to UMTS, increases the capacity and speed together with many packet core network improvements. The challenge of interworking and seamless migration between the two technologies in the packet core area is a challenge that awaits many mobile service providers (SP's).

On our way into large global public clouds

Author: Robert Turnšek

From public cloud perspective, the giant from Redmond has finally realized that it is not alone in this world and has decided to support other systems, platforms, databases, devices and programming languages. For the good of us all.

Data in business environments: a blessing and a curse

Author: Robert Turnšek

Many Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and their superiors are asking themselves—how to wisely approach the problem of storage space shortage (and associated costs) and prepare ourselves for future storage challenges. Here I have a few answers.

Even more engaging conference for visitors and partners

Using NIL’s solution Storesense Expo, Microsoft will be able to further optimize the arrangement of exhibitor stands and conference events and as a result provide sponsors, visitors, and partners with firm arguments for being part of the conference.

Service Provider Network Management

Service provider network today tries to adapt to latest business and residential services. As result networks expand with number of devices as well as in number of features to support demanding services. Managing such networks requires highly educated personnel and right tools to manage running services.

The place to go if you are preparing for CCIE R&S

Matija Sarić attended Cisco CCIE 360 Learning Program for the CCIE Routing and Switching exam. He attended the CIERS-1 course and was later studying by himself under the mentorship of NIL's instructor Rober Lesar.

IP Next-Generation Network (NGN)

The idea behind the IP Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) is to provide IP transport for all services and applications, regardless of user access type, thus enabling the addition of new services and applications without any changes in the transport network.

IPV6 for Service Providers

Due to IPv4 address scarcity and increasing growth in the segment of connected devices the need for new address allocation has increased the requirement for service providers (SP) to offer IPv6 connectivity to subscribers. As the content available over IPv6 is increasingly growing a SP needs to upgrade its existing infrastructure to support the protocol.

The case for broadband Wi-Fi

This year we are celebrating 15 years of Wi-Fi technologies. In terms of technology, Wi-Fi is still pretty young and will probably see a lot more innovation in the coming years although it has experienced significant growth since the inception of IEEE 802.11n in 2007.

Engineering expertise represented NIL in the best possible light

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center from Los Angeles, USA, was redesigning their network infrastructure. NIL assisted them with upgrading their optical DWDM network and with migration of legacy firewalls to Cisco ASA 5585.

Lower Opex and improved online store performance

Big Bang’s online store has become one of their most important sales channels and in order to keep up with the increasing website traffic and to ensure an excellent user experience, they decided to migrate the e-store into NIL’s Flex IT public cloud.

Overlay Virtual Networking

Author: Ivan Pepelnjak

Ivan explained the benefits and drawbacks of overlay virtual networks as compared to traditional VLAN-based solutions. The second half of the session focused on architectural and scalability aspects of individual solutions from major virtualization vendors and emerging startups.

Clouds, Overlay, SDN

Author: Ivan Pepelnjak

Ivan Pepelnjak illustrates the typical pitfalls you might encounter during cloud infrastructure planning and design as well as potential solutions to address them.

Fantastic CCIE Data Center Training

NIL’s CCIE Data Center Preparation Workshop is a fantastic course! With our instructor’s help, we practiced designing/troubleshooting with all of the most relevant and expansive CCIE Data Center technologies.

Smooth connectivity for journalists and staff

NIL was responsible for design, deployment of wired and wireless networks, and we also monitored and managed the whole network infrastructure. Result? No network downtime through the entire tournament and at all the venues.

Clear TLT advantages: Better focus, accuracy and efficiency

NIL held a CIERS-1 training class, part of the Cisco CCIE 360 Learning Program for Routing and Switching. It was the first time we conducted this demanding training via our Technology-Led Training (TLT) solution, linking classrooms in Ljubljana, Slovenia and Johannesburg, South Africa

Better and safer patient care

There is a correlation between waiting in emergency departments and complications in later hospital care, therefore MEU management decided to implement an electronic whiteboard (EW) to speed up and improve patient care.

Virtual firewalls – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Author: Ivan Pepelnjak

Ivan Pepelnjak explains the virtual firewalls taxonomy, describes the major architectural options, and illustrates typical use cases with products from few established virtual firewall vendors (Cisco, VMware, Juniper, Vyatta/Brocade) and startups (LineRate Systems, Midokura).

Thanks to NIL team for the unique network design solution!

We deployed a rare VRRP configuration and a unique network design on two Cisco 2921 routers.

Commitment and Efficiency Deliver Great Results

The project consisted of migration from Cisco 7600 Series routers to new Cisco ASR 9000 Series routers to prepare the Orange’s network for new technologies and an increasing number of users, with a second goal of improving network reliability.

Integrated security solutions provider moves to the cloud

After a full financial ROI, comparing 200 Office in the Cloud units vs. 200 traditional PCs, NIL/Vodacom Office in the Cloud came out tops with 20 % lower operational costs per desktop.

OpenFlow and SDN: Hype, Useful Tools or Panacea?

Author: Ivan Pepelnjak

Ivan described the basics of OpenFlow, its advantages and pitfalls, and the potential real-life use cases including a brief overview of some existing deployments.

NIL’s cloud meets bank’s strict IT standards

The impact of the Flip IT solution on Bank Nizwa’s business goes beyond cost savings and technological optimization. Cloud services have freed internal IT resources, enabling them to move their focus from administrative to more strategic roles, increasing value creation.

The best price/performance private cloud

To keep up with clients’ expectations, Datalab needed a high-performance IT infrastructure that exceeded its existing environment’s capabilities, with more powerful RAID controllers, better write-cache functionality, improved data security and increased storage capacity. They decided for NIL’s private cloud because it provided the best price/performance ratio.

NIL - A partner that always goes the extra mile

MTN South Africa had a critical TelePresence video project that needed to be delivered at very short notice across six sites within South Africa, and consequently Cisco needed a strong partner to ensure that the customer’s high expectations were met – and on time.

More IT resources and simplified administration

The solution made more than just the administrators happy. Working conditions have significantly improved, especially for developers. They have more available resources, upgrades are faster and smoother, and the same goes for installations. The team can really focus on its main tasks now, and thus is much more efficient.

A brilliant ACE LB Implementation

This project involved load- balancing the Sybase relay servers residing in the DMZ. In conjunction with Stojan Rančić, who designed the solution, Samo Jerman set up the deployment documentation and Marius Snyman performed the migration and implementation.

Data Center Fabrics: beyond the hype and marketecture

Author: Ivan Pepelnjak

Every networking vendor is talking about Data Center fabric these days, usually offering a proprietary architecture that works well only with the devices from the same vendor.

Cloud computing networking: under the hood

Author: Ivan Pepelnjak

This lecture describes the networking requirements of various cloud services and designs you can use to build a data center networks that support them.

First step in enterprise's IPv6

NIL provided the necessary expertise to bring Amway's technical teams up to speed on the current challenges and best practices surrounding IPv6, assisting them in laying out a roadmap for implementation and IPv4 to IPv6 transition.

Ultimate choice for an external evaluation of network design

As the company was making changes in their network, they asked NIL’s Ivan Pepelnjak to work with them as an external consultant. The collaboration is described by MWEB’s Network Architect, Ian Castleman.

Increased competitive advantage of the hosted environment

Virtual hosting enables Vodacom to provide secure and reliable data, information and application storage on Virtual Machines (VMs). To increase its product’s competitive advantage, Vodacom decided to add features and new functionality, enriching monitoring capabilities and giving customers detailed insight into their virtual environment status.

Smooth work processes in the shops means greater customer satisfaction

Product quality and diverse offerings are important contributors to customer satisfaction, but reliable and smooth work processes in the shops also have an enormous impact. Spar relies on NIL Monitor to maintain the stability of their IT infrastructure.

Less unwanted traffic and a more secure local network

To reduce the potential negative influence of users on the network and decrease unwanted traffic, Krka introduced multiple layers of security mechanisms at the edge of the network.

Internet bandwidth: Do you get what you pay for?

Author: New Item

Suppose that workers at your remote offices are experiencing slow and unresponsive network applications. When narrowing the scope of possible causes, you really have only a few options. You can run ping tests all day long to find the cause of the high latency. But how can you test bandwidth availability?

NIL HyperCenter at the largest ministry in Slovenia

Integrity, high performance, scalability and easier management were the main reasons for selecting NIL'S private cloud, and these characteristics have been confirmed many times over by IT professionals and satisfied users at the MIA.

Use Your Routers as Traffic Generators

Author: New Item

I came across a very interesting but undocumented command that turns a router into a traffic generator. But please keep in mind that such activity heavily utilizes even a modern router’s CPUs, and its use should be avoided in production networks unless you’re performing stress tests.

Increased sales and 40% lower telephone costs

By implementing the new contact center, MKZ reduced its costs of communication, shortened the response time of operators and improved its market success. Customers are now actively addressed, and the center provides useful information for preparing successful sales actions.

Improved investment planning and IT changes

Constant monitoring of more than 100 location links significantly simplifies the IT administration and helps prevent errors. Additionally, monthly reports have helped Mladinska knjiga in choosing the best service providers, as well as with investment planning.