Keeping it Simple Stupid – Network Design Principle Simplicity – ZNDP 079

ZNDP 079: Keeping it Simple Stupid (KISS) - Network Design Principle Simplicity

Zig Zsiga: In this podcast episode, I am going to help you. Today’s show is all about Network Design Principle Simplicity AKA KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid). I want to make sure you’re setting yourself up for success here with all of your Network Design Decisions. So Stick around. Here we go!

Zig Zsiga: Welcome back My Friends, Nerds, Geeks, and Ziglets out there. We have another episode of the Zigbits Network Design Podcast (ZNDP), where Zigabytes are faster than Gigabytes. We strive to provide real-world context around technology!

Zig Zsiga: What's up everybody? I hope everyone is doing great. Zig Zsiga here and welcome to episode ## of the Zigbits Network Design Podcast. My Name is Zig Zsiga, I’m here to help you with Network Engineering, Network Design, and Network Architecture. And one topic that we have to cover is our Network Design Principles, and today we are highlighting Simplicity, how it changes our design mindsets, and our design decisions.

Zig Zsiga:We have covered a number of Network Design Principles so far:
Network Design Principle Reliability in ZNDP #63

Network Design Principle Resiliency in ZNDP #64

The Top 5 Network Design Principles with my fellow CCDE and great friend Daren Fulwell in ZNDP #67

The Shift in Availability Network Design Principle Availability in ZNDP #69

Zig Zsiga: Probably one of the hardest tasks we have as a network designer is to manage the complexity level of the design we are proposing. You have to keep things simple (KISS). When comparing different design options that provide the same capability, going with the simpler option is the way to go.

Zig Zsiga: One of the questions that I ask myself at this stage is, can the network design I’m proposing be managed by the team at hand? For example, I have a design that meets the customers needs. It is highly available, secure, redundant, and cost effective. Within this design there are multiple CCIE level design elements but the customer doesn’t have any CCIE skilled professionals on staff. How can the customer manage this design? How can the customer troubleshoot this design when there is a problem?

Zig Zsiga: This is an issue!

Zig Zsiga: You as a designer need to assess the team that will be owning this design and managing it day to day. They need to understand what is being done within the environment and why. The why here is actually more important than the how or what.

Zig Zsiga: Recently, I was working on a customer issue where the customer needed to route between different VRFs. My team and I, all CCIE skilled professions I might add, went into our lab and started designing a route leaking strategy for this customer. After a few days, we had a decent solution to present to the customer that was scalable, efficient, and effective. We were pretty proud of it, but we didn’t realize the complexity level of the design.

Zig Zsiga: The customer didn’t have any CCIE skilled professionals on staff. They had 1 or 2 CCNP skilled resources on staff with the rest of the team being CCNA level professionals.

Zig Zsiga: As a Network Designer, we cannot design a solution that is unmanageable by the staff that's there.

Zig Zsiga: There are situations where there is no other choice but to leverage a more complex design. In this situation, if the local team does not have the skill sets to manage the design, you have to push back on the business. Here is where you have to be that trusted advisor, and tactfully explain to the business that they need higher-level skilled professionals to manage and maintain the environment.

Zig Zsiga: When you do this, you need to show the business why they need a complex solution in their terminology, not in technical terms. You need to show them the impact and the why.

Zig Zsiga: Obfuscating complexity is still a complex solution. Leveraging other technology to hide the complexity of an environment does not make it a simple solution. It might make it a manageable solution but it's still a complex solution. I would even say it's more complex. We not only have to understand the original complex environment, we also have to understand the technology being leveraged that is hiding that complex environment.

Zig Zsiga: Leveraging a GRE tunnel to form a routing adjacency over a complex OSPF multi-area design is a perfect example. Here we are hiding the “underlay” complex network by forming an “overlay” tunnel that we can then create a routing adjacency on top of. The original network is still complex and just because the GRE tunnel makes it seem less complex does not mean it is.

Zig Zsiga: Don’t fall into this trap as a Network Designer.

Zig Zsiga: Hey Friends, nerds, Geeks, and Ziglets that's going to close out today's episode of the Zigbits Network Design Podcast where we discussed the Network Design Principle Simplicity. Keep in mind that Simplicity, Keep it simple stupid, and managing the overall complexity of our Designs is one of our Network Design Principles that we all should know. We'll have all the links and all the things mentioned on our show notes page.

Zig Zsiga: Today was fun, I hope you enjoyed it.

Zig Zsiga: I think a lot of us never learn Network Design elements until later in our careers, and my goal is to fix that. You can check out my other free podcast episodes and YouTube videos that do just that!.

Zig Zsiga: If you haven't’ heard yet, I am creating a Network Design course! Yep I am doing this, its a real thing and I am super excited about it! This course is vendor and certification agnostic Network Design Course. My goal is to literally make you the best Network Designer you can be no matter where you are in your career today, be it just starting out or a 30 year seasoned network engineer. If you want to hear weekly status updates on where we are with this course, join the email list. I send out a quick email every Friday highlighting what I did that week and what I plan to do the next week. If you interested in knowing more, here is that sign up link!

Zig Zsiga:If you have any questions, comments, or just want to say hi, You can find Zigbits on all of the socials, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. You can also find me on twitter @Zig_Zsiga. You can also email me at zig@zigbits.tech.

Don’t forget to #AttackYourGoals #AttackTheDay #AttackYourLife #MakeProgress on the things you care about!

As always I appreciate and thank you for listening!

Bye for now!