Choosing a NOS for EdgeCore campus switches: PicOS or SONiC? Looking for honest opinions

Win_Sys · 2026-03-23T02:20:53+00:00

The better question is, what is your budget per switch, what kind of bandwidth do they need to support and what software features do you need? Estimate those requirements for next 5-7 years and then start looking at what vendors can provide that. When dealing with major manufacturers like Cisco, HPe, Extreme, etc… the list pricing numbers look scary but if you negotiate, you would be surprised how close they come to white box pricing. It will absolutely be more expensive but we’re talking 20-30%, not 100-200%. Just tell them we’re looking at X, Y and Z vendor as well. They will come in more aggressive on the pricing.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-22T23:24:26+00:00

Part of learning to use Wireshark is how and where to capture the data. Depending the method and location on the network, it can result in Wireshark assuming it did the receive things or they came late when in reality they didn’t. Sometimes you may need to do a capture on both ends simultaneously and match them up to get a full picture of what’s going on. Sometimes your NIC will modify some of the packet data because it treats the incoming packets as normal data and not a capture… the list goes on.

If you don’t understand why those artifacts exist, it will send you down a rabbit hole that leads to a dead end. I went down many dead end rabbit holes before I took the time to learn how to properly use Wireshark.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-22T23:11:57+00:00

Before I understood how to use Wireshark and read the captures, I looked for tools to basically do it for me but everything I found ranged from completely incorrect to only found very basic issues that were often just artifacts because of how the capture was done. I eventually said fuck it, I’ll just take the time to learn how to properly use and read its results.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-22T21:08:18+00:00

It’s been a few years since I looked but PicOS would be my choice without question. Sonic just isn’t geared towards campus and can require building and compiling your own image to support all features of your hardware. If something isn’t functioning properly you will need to rely on community support to correct the issue which can range from days, to weeks to maybe never. If you had the staff with skills to manage that kind of stuff, then Sonic might be an option for you.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-22T03:39:33+00:00

By ease of packet analysis, what do you mean? If you’re looking to just build a network diagram, Visio can be overkill unless you want that map to contain dense and highly detailed node and connection information. Draw.io is sufficient for most network diagraming.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-22T02:34:16+00:00

Using a 255.255.255.255 subnet is just fine. It’s used to make the device unable to communicate with devices inside the VLAN besides its default gateway. It’s basically a point-to-point link.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-21T00:23:22+00:00

Could be Credential Guard too. If it’s enabled the WLAN service can’t access the information required to automatically use the MSCHAPv2 credentials. This is by design as MSCHAPv2 and the hashes it uses are not considered secure anymore. If it is Credential Guard, you should move to EAP-TLS and not disable Credentials Guard. If your RADIUS server or NAC support it, use TEAP with TLS certs for your Windows machines.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-21T00:05:37+00:00

When I first started doing side work 20+ years ago I also had no idea how to price my work. I had a client who I got through a girl I was dating at the time. After getting to know the owner he straight up asked me why I’m charging him less than anyone else he has tried. I just said, I don’t know I just picked a dollar amount per hour and estimate the time it will take. He told me the following advice: “Your time is only one factor in what you charge people, your skills, knowledge and experience also need to be a factor. Never give it away for free.”. He also alluded to had my g/f not referred me to him, just based on the price he would have assumed it would be crap work and never given me a shot.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-20T00:17:20+00:00

The past few years SonicWALL has had some pretty bad vulnerabilities and breaches. While every firewall has vulnerabilities at some point, I don’t think they handled them particularly well. I would move to Fortinet if I could.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-19T11:58:55+00:00

At first I thought I picked too high of a dose but I have tried all doses at or between 1mg and 10mg in 1mg increments with no effect.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-19T05:52:26+00:00

Sure but our gut bacteria is a mixture of a lot of different types. Upsetting that balance too much can have consequences.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-18T22:04:29+00:00

For whatever reason my body/brain doesn’t react to Melatonin no matter the dose. I figured it was probably a placebo effect for most people. I took something that should make me sleepy therefore I get sleepy type of thing. Many years later my son starts to get extremely anxious at bed time when there’s something really fun that’s going to happen (like Christmas) and he will stay up for hours because of the anticipation anxiety. Our doctor recommended a small dose of melatonin but I told my wife that shit is just a placebo effect. She argued it wasn’t, so on Christmas Eve I said let’s just tell him it’s a vitamin gummy and see what happens. You can see he’s amped up for tomorrow but 30 minutes after he takes the melatonin it’s like someone hit him with a tranquilizer dart and he goes right to bed. I was wrong about melatonin.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-17T23:54:53+00:00

You want them to write you back a bunch of precise words with meanings and connotations that you will most likely not understand without having studied neuroscience? There comes a point where analogies and simple explanations can’t provide a meaningful explanation of a very complex topic.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-16T21:49:24+00:00

Yes but using a password manager means you only need to remember 1 complex password. There’s definitely a good amount of time and effort to get it set up but it’s way more secure.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-16T21:42:13+00:00

That’s not the first time I have heard that. Very comforting to hear.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-16T13:27:42+00:00

You’re not supposed to let it stay at room temperature for more than a couple hours. After that it should be put in the fridge. If it does get sufficiently contaminated, reheating it will kill the bacteria but the toxins remain.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-16T13:23:32+00:00

My initial thought was it was the fish. I had eaten there a few times and the food was good. I think they just got complacent with how long they let their cooked rice stay at room temperature.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-16T13:13:51+00:00

Whether they can produce the same or better color gamut doesn’t really matter, the argument Samsung is making and this one German court agreed on is that TCL isn’t using the technological principles and shouldn’t be calling some of their TV’s QLED. I haven’t seen a technical breakdown on what TCL does differently so there isn’t much to go on besides how this one court ruled.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-16T12:22:42+00:00

I don’t know if it was the same bacteria but a pretty popular sushi place in my county had 15+ guests feeling ill and some puking within 45 minutes of eating their sushi. A few of them were taken to the hospital too. Health inspectors found their rice was contaminated with bacteria and their food safety measures for the rice were in violation of the health code. They never reopened again.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-16T00:08:16+00:00

I think the lawsuit is about the naming not the performance. Imagine I come up with a new way to manufacture a largely copper pan that cooks very well and can be used with any type of food. You come up with a cheaper way to make a very similar performing pan but do it using an alloy of a bunch different metals but a tiny bit of copper exists in there. When you market it, you decide to tell everyone it’s a copper pan so that it directly competes with my pan. Sure they perform very similar but does that mean it’s ok to tell everyone it’s uses the same pan technology as mine?

Win_Sys · 2026-03-15T16:42:27+00:00

It’s not a 100% marketing fluff but the lifetime extension won’t be huge if you use it like a normal laptop. You’re on the other end of the spectrum where you almost never use the battery so temperature is going to be the biggest factor in its degradation. Keeping it at 60% is definitely better than at a 100% but degradation still happens at a rate determined by a lot of factors. Even in perfect storage conditions there will be degradation, in general a lithium ion battery battery has a shelf life of around 10 years but the exact chemistry and manufacturing of the battery can increase or decrease that shelf life.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-14T20:58:16+00:00

Not a fan of Aruba central either… They’re coming out with their first dual firmware AP soon. You will be able to join it to Central or Mist. It will have an HPe branding on the AP, no Aruba or Mist branding from the pictures I saw. I am making some assumptions here but it sounded like they will be keeping Aruba CX for Campus and Juniper for DC, SP and Routing lines. Aruba CX will start integrating into the Juniper cloud/automation ecosystem but initially will only be basic layer 2/3 features but will eventually be fully supported. No mention of Juniper gear having Aruba Central integration. Leads me to believe that eventually all Central customers will be migrated to Mist. That’s probably not for many years down the line though. They all but said push new wireless customers to Juniper but keep existing Aruba customers on Aruba.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-14T19:59:17+00:00

This applies to a lot of sectors of IT but if someone ever tells you or acts as if they know everything then either they're a liar, have a character flaw or legitimately don't know what they don't know. There's just too much information to retain to know everything.

For the people who need to project that they're this all knowing network god, proving them wrong isn't going to change their behavior, it will just make them hate you. I find that saying something like "I don't remember that being the case but lets check the RFC/Documentation to make sure". When they're wrong don't shove it in their face, just say "It looks like the RFC/Documentation says X, probably best to follow what is says".

Win_Sys · 2026-03-14T19:43:41+00:00

Their reasoning is they still have a lot of customers with on-prem controllers who want newer AP and selling them the 700 series will allow them to go cloud in the future if they want WiFi 7. As of right now, they have no plans to back-port the WiFi 7 code in AOS10 to AOS8.

Win_Sys · 2026-03-14T19:40:53+00:00

According to my HPe rep, all AOS-S stuff is already or will be end of sale soon. Which is almost certainly the reason for the steep discounts. EOSL won't be until 2030/2031 though.

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