October 2015 Summaries

This company has launched its 11th datacenter in Toronto, Canada, and is now automating the process of building new networks. They use a technology called Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) to deploy switches with minimal human intervention. The ZTP server uses DHCP to configure each switch, and the MAC address of each device is used to identify it. The company has automated this process using Python scripts and Jinja2 templating software, which creates configuration templates for each device and uploads them to the ZTP server. This allows the network to be built quickly and efficiently, with a significant reduction in time and effort required compared to manual deployment methods.

Floating IPs, now renamed as Reserved IPs, are a highly available infrastructure feature that allows developers to associate an IP address with a different Droplet in the same datacenter. This enables customers to set up standby Droplets, ready to receive production traffic at minimal downtime. Floating IPs can be used for failover situations and also for application upgrades, making it easier to spin up new Droplets, run upgrades on them, and then switch traffic flow. The feature is free to use, but there's a charge for unassigned, reserved IP addresses due to IPv4 address shortages. With the addition of Floating IPs, customers can enjoy high availability, automatic failover, and smooth upgrades, making it easier to build reliable production environments.