About me
I am a results-driven Network Engineer with several years of expertise in designing and deploying LAN and WAN infrastructure. Routing and switching protocols are my passion. Currently, my focus is on network monitoring and automation. I have hands-on mentality and I am always ready to tackle the datacenter by myself.
The main focus of my services is related to network engineering. I have working experience at multiple global acting internet service providers (ISP). My key knowledge is in Cisco and Juniper environments. Additionally, I also have practical experience with Arista and Nokia.
I currently hold the Cisco CCNP Enterprise and Service Provider certifications and am working on an equivalent on the Juniper platform.
Services
Network Engineering
Design
You need a new reliable and efficient network solution or your existing infrastructure needs an overhaul?
Let’s figure out your requirements and create a high-level-design and/or low-level-design for your new network architecture.
Monitoring
How saturated are your networking devices and links? Are they are running as desired? Is your network scalable to meet future needs?
By using Prometheus and Grafana we will set up a state-of-the-art monitoring environment for your infrastructure.
PoC
Are you ready to take your infrastructure to the next level? Modern technologies like Segment Routing or EVPN/VXLAN allow us to build more flexible and reliable networks than ever before.
Let us set up a proof-of-concept to check if these approaches fulfill your business and technical needs.
TSHOOT
I will offer you a fresh pair of eyes to remediate your network issues and provide an in-depth root-cause-analysis.
This can be an analysis of .pcap-files, simulation of issues in a safe lab environment or just following the IP packets hop-by-hop to identify the spot where things start to come apart.
Training
Are you or your team planning to take the certification as Cisco CCNA or CCNP? Or you are interested in an upcoming networking technology.
For most of my topics I offer 1-2 day workshops and trainings.
Datacenter Operations
Planning & Coordination
I will support you in deploying your devices into independent datacenters like Equinix or Digital Realty.
In particular this means
- defining the rack layout with consideration of power consumption and heat emission
- mounting and cabling the devices in your rack
- setting up the required connections to your connectivity providers
- bringing the devices into service
Last but not least, we will migrate your existing hardware with the lowest impact to your customers.
On-Site Remote Hands
In addition to arranging your datacenter operations remotely, I also offer physical on-site remote hands by myself.
This might come in handy for you, if you are not able to send your own team on-site and your tasks are too complex to be done by the data center staff.
Currently based in: Vienna, Austria
Available for on-site services in: Central Europe
Project History
January 2022 – June 2023
This role is primarily about deploying new international points of presence (PoPs) to enhance the global footprint of the largest internet exchange point (IXP). The environment is primary based on Nokia and Juniper devices. Activities in the scope of the project have been performed on-site or by coordinating local staff. A regular rollout includes a variety of tasks:
- Developing a site specific design
- Creating the rack layout, defining ports, allocating interconnections
- Designing the OOB network
- Identifying and acquiring the hardware based on the site particularities
- Provisioning the colocation space
- Organizing datacenter access
- Outlaying the cross-connects / pre-cabling / ODFs
- Reviewing and documenting the local DC assistance procedures
- Configuration of production and management networking devices
- IP design
- OSPF, LDP, MPLS routing
- Out-of-band management access
- The deployment of DWDM optical systems on metro interconnects
- Integration of network devices into automation tools
- Customer service provisioning process
- Configuration backup
- Monitoring
- Traffic flow analysis
- Peering Service
- Testing of network and service reliability
- Finalizing the buildup
- Integration of new routers into global EVPN/MPLS backbone
- Scheduling and executing the customer migration over to the new switching platform
- Documenting the newly deployed installation in Netbox and Confluence
- Handover to network operations team
October 2021 – March 2022
This project was about setting up a redundant multisite datacenter in Germany covering 60 server racks at each location. The assignment of the network architecture team was to design the datacenter LAN based on Cisco EVPN/VXLAN technology as well as an out-of-band and a DMZ network using traditional Cisco Nexus networking. Performed tasks in scope of the high and low level design have been:
- Creating the routing concept for EVPN/VXLAN including complex WAN connections
- Aligning the proposed solution with the professional services teams of the hardware vendors (Cisco, Dell, Microsoft, Checkpoint, Genua)
- Coordinating with other architects about connecting the services of their sub-projects (VMWare, Hyperview, Citrix, Storage)
- Elaborating the rack-layout for networking equipment
- Planning the structured inter- and intrasite-cabling
- Creating configuration templates for Cisco Nexus devices implementing a vPC/STP design
- Designing the security infrastructure of the DMZ by implementing a P-A-P architecture using Checkpoint and Genua firewalls
- Developing a procedure for the service migration
April 2021 – May 2021
Development of a network automation, called “BGP watcher”, which performs network checks in case of a BGP session towards a customer, peering partner or upstream provider went down unexpectedly. The python tool connects to the effected Juniper network devices using PyEZ, collects information about the current network / system status and sends the information (incl. an estimated root cause) towards the company’s network operations team as well as to the effected BGP neighbor. The system is designed to run in a docker environment exposing a Flask webhook receiver and is triggered by a monitoring system.
August 2020 – March 2021
A Juniper-based network and rack design has been re-designed to eliminate existing flaws, provide new services and enhanced resilience. The actual tasks in this project have been:
- Requirements analysis
- Identification of current design flaws and provide corrections for them
- Adapting the design to the latest best-practices
- Design and Implementation
- Enhanced monitoring metrics
- Increased fault tolerance
- Increased bandwidth
- Definition of port allocations and interface descriptions
- Validation
- In-Depth test of newly implemented features
- Implementation of regression tests for existing functionality
- Documentation & Training
- How to deploy a new site using the network blueprint?
- How to upgrade an existing site to the new version?
February 2020 – December 2020
This project was about upgrading server and network hardware in 16 data centers worldwide. Included countries have been Brazil, Canada, USA, Argentina, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and India. The goal was to replace any existing legacy infrastructure with a standardized network design. The original idea was to perform all hardware changes on-site by myself. However, the Corona pandemic and its travel restrictions required to adapt the plan after several on-site upgrades and complete the remaining sites by coordinating local datacenter remote hands staff. A typical site hardware upgrade looked like:
- Analysis of the current network situation
- Creating a migration plan to move hardware, services and network traffic with the lowest customer impact
- Configuration of the hardware which is going to be deployed
- Datacenter preparation
- Installation of racks and power supply
- Setting up cross-connects to connectivity providers
- Datacenter Operations
- Installing hardware devices and cabling them
- Setting up network connectivity with providers and internet exchanges
- Testing the installation
- Performing the migration of legacy hardware (often between multiple datacenters in the same city)
- Network Operations
- Moving the network routing from the old to the new network infrastructure in a nightly maintenance window
- Handover of the upgraded site to the network operations team
September 2017 – March 2018
A data center infrastructure (deployed on six domestic sites) needed to be adapted to replace its Cisco Catalyst switches since their end-of-life date was on the horizon. The project evolved to a complete overhaul of the infrastructure and resulted in rolling out Cisco Nexus 5672UP switches on all sites. The tasks included:
- Requirement Analysis
- How many devices and network interface are and will be in the network?
- How much copper- and fiber connections are required?
- Which connections could be migrated to fiber in the scope of this project?
- How much traffic is to be expected and how does this effect the uplink capacity as well as redundancy?
- What local irregularities need to be addressed for each site?
- Evaluation of applicable hardware platforms
- VLAN redesign
- Development of new configuration templates for the Cisco Nexus family
- Creating a validation plan to test the entire service platform considering the new switching hardware, including failover and load tests for all devices and links
- Coordination of the hardware qualification with the company’s validation department
- Project management for the actual hardware replacement
- Documentation of the solution
April 2017 – September 2017
A service platform had been deployed with inband-management in place. However, this needed to be moved to out-of-band management using the company’s management network due to security regulations. The hardware (console server, switches and firewalls) to be used, were already set by the company network architecture. The main focus of the project was to analyze the network and services for traffic, which needs to be rerouted via the DCN. This included:
- Traffic analysis via .pcap-Files and Wireshark
- Consulting the representatives for all provisioning-, analysis- and monitoring systems of the company and collecting their requirements
- Definition of firewall rules and VPN connections
- Coordination of project realization
October 2016 – March 2017
Two dedicated, active DNS service platforms of an ISP had to be merged into the same hardware infrastructure. However, due to strict regulations, the traffic must be completely separated. I have created a routing & switching design as well as a migration proposal for the network part of this project, including different VLANs, VRFs and even a dedicated uplink towards the providers’ backbone network for both services. In addition, I have coordinated the realization of the migration.
Skills
Protocols & Tools
Vendors
- Cisco
- Juniper
- Nokia
- Arista
- Mikrotik
- Infinera
- Opengear
- Fortigate
- Checkpoint
Networking
- RIP, OSPF, IS-IS, EIGRP, (MP)-BGP
- MPLS, VRF, L3VPN, L2VPN, QoS, Segment Routing
- EVPN, VXLAN
- STP, MST
- DNS, DHCP
- HSRP, VRRP, GLBP, PBR
Monitoring
- PRTG, Observium, Prometheus, Grafana, Zabbix
Automation
- Python, Java, C/C++, Ansible, Docker, GitLab
Cloud
- AWS, Azure, GCP
Hardware
Routers
- Cisco 2610, 2811, 2821
- Cisco ASR 9010
- Cisco IOS XRv (virtual ASR 9k)
- Juniper vMX
- Juniper MX80, MX204, MX480, MX960, MX10003, SRX1500
- Nokia 7750 SR-Series, Nokia 7210 SAS
- Mikrotik CHR
- Quagga
Switches
- Cisco Catalyst 2900,2950,2960, 3550, 3560, 3750X, 3850, 4948
- Cisco NX-OSv (virtual Nexus Switch)
- Cisco Nexus 5672UP, 9348-GC-FXP, 93180YC-FX, C9364C-GX
- Juniper QFX5100, QFX5110, EX2200, EX2300, EX3400, EX4300
Optical Transport
Infinera CloudXpress 1200F
Out-of-Band
- Opengear CM7100 Console Server
- Lantronix EMG8500-Series, SLC8000-Series
- Avocent ACS-Series
Firewalls
- Fortigate 50E, 100EF, 1500D
- Checkpoint 16200
- Genugate L
Servers
- Dell PowerEdge R430, R610, R620, R630, R640
Interested?
Get in Contact
Have you found anything that would benefit your company?
Let’s get in contact via e-mail.
info@fabricebendfeldt.com
You have no suitable project at the moment, but you want to stay in contact? Add me on social media or save my contact details.
Links List
Address List
-
Wimbergergasse 14-16
1070 Vienna
Austria - +43 677 64597465
- info@fabricebendfeldt.com