Routing & Switching
Mesh vs Wired Access Points: The Home Network Decision TreeNew!!
A practical decision tree for choosing mesh Wi-Fi, wired access points, MoCA backhaul, and PoE APs in a real home network.
The Cisco Catalyst Smart Switch Story: C9350, C9550, Silicon One, and the AI-Ready Campus
Cisco’s Smart Switch story is bigger than one SKU. It connects C9350 access, C9550 aggregation and core, Silicon One, IOS XE, telemetry, security, post-quantum readiness, and AI-era campus design.
Ubiquiti Site Magic Routing: A No-Nonsense Beginner Guide to Routes, Route Injection, and Software-Defined Wide Area Network Fabric Design
Site Magic is one of those UniFi features that feels easy until the first routing problem shows up. The tunnel says it is connected. Both sites look healthy. You can see the remote gateway. Then the actual server, printer, backup target, or management page still does not work. That is when the uncomfortable truth appears: […]
Campus Segmentation Design: From VLANs to Unified Fabric
Campus segmentation should evolve from VLAN sprawl toward a hierarchy of VRFs, virtual networks, SGTs, and group-based policy that operations teams can actually manage.
Designing an AI-Ready Campus Network After Cisco Live 2026
An AI-ready campus network needs segmentation, telemetry, resilient wired and wireless design, cloud access, identity integration, and a change workflow that can support agentic operations.
Cisco C9550 Smart Switches and the AI-Ready Campus Core
The Cisco C9550 Series points campus core and aggregation design toward higher uplink density, stronger telemetry, hardware-rooted trust, Live Protect, and post-quantum readiness.
Homelab VLAN Design: Simple Network Segmentation That Works
A practical VLAN design guide for homelabs, covering trust zones, VLAN IDs, trunks, access ports, firewall rules, mDNS, and rollback planning.
Designing Networks With DoD IL5 in Mind: Campus, Data Center, IT, and OT Security
A network is not "Department of Defense (DoD) Impact Level 5 (IL5) compliant" by itself. A network can, however, be designed to support a mission system categorized at IL5 or pursuing a DoD IL5 authorization. That distinction matters. IL5 is about the mission system, the authorization boundary, the data being protected, the controls that are […]
Ubiquiti Site Magic: Practical UniFi SD-WAN for Multi-Site Networks
Ubiquiti Site Magic turns UniFi gateways into a managed SD-WAN fabric for branch offices, shops, labs, and home-office links. Here is when to use it, how to design the topology, what to secure, and where its limits still matter.
Catalyst Campus Fabric: eBGP, EVPN, VXLAN, and the Path to Macro and Microsegmentation
A design-focused look at Catalyst campus fabric, eBGP/EVPN/VXLAN, VRF macrosegmentation, TrustSec SGT microsegmentation, and how campus fabrics mature toward zero-trust segmentation.