Writing
Field notes from enterprise networking: migrations, identity, automation, and the decisions behind them.
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We retired VSS. The redundancy model stayed.
Retiring an end-of-life VSS core meant new hardware and a new virtual-chassis technology. The BGP redundancy model built on top of it didn't have to change.
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Building network automation that outlives its author
A platform where engineers run automation as a shell command, not a git workflow, NetBox stays the single source of truth, and no secrets touch the repo.
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The migration workbook: how I make risky network changes boring
About 900 Meraki access points migrated to sixteen Catalyst 9800 controllers (now roughly 1,000 after density-driven additions), 190 WLANs across four regional datacenters, and a quiet AAA migration to a parallel-built ISE 3.x environment. The method: audit first, pre-stage everything, cut over with the radios.
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How I moved 45,000 endpoints to 802.1X with a flat help desk queue
Starting a Cisco ISE initiative from scratch, the architecture decisions that carried it from a 4-node cluster to 14 nodes across five global datacenters, and the monitor-first rollout that grew into 60K+ endpoints behind 802.1X.