On Jul 31, 2014, at 8:23 PM, Colton Conor <colton.co...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Is a firewall needed in the core?

No, quite the opposite:

<https://app.box.com/s/a3oqqlgwe15j8svojvzl>

> How would you build a access network from the ground up if you had the 
> resources and time to do so?

I'd hire folks who have experience from both and architectural and operational 
perspectives, and who have the necessary local knowledge.  Most of the question 
you're asking (except the one about iatrogenic stateful firewalls) are 
situationally-specific, and aren't really going to be answerable in detail via 
a mailing-list, no matter the depth and breadth of expertise of many of those 
participating in said email list.

For example, you've asked nothing specifically about recursive or authoritative 
DNS infrastructure, although they're both key (you did mention DNS generically, 
which is good, but that's overly broad).  Nothing about availability and 
resiliency and telemetry visibility and network hardening.  Nothing about 
access policies, mitigation systems, quarantine systems, etc.  Nothing about 
upstream transit requirements, nothing about peering goals and imperatives.  
Nothing about redundancy at any level/in any area/for any function.  And so 
forth.

I'm not criticizing you; I'm just trying to make the point that instead of 
concentrating on vendors and technologies and hardware and software, it's 
better to concentrate on *people* who have the requisite experience and 
expertise, and go from there.  There are lots of specializations and 
subspecializations, and it's important to have folks who have broad experience 
spanning multiple areas, as well as others who know *everything* in a given 
area.

While you can get some categorical advice, you can't really crowdsource the 
architecture, design, deployment, and operations of your network.

;>

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Roland Dobbins <rdobb...@arbor.net> // <http://www.arbornetworks.com>

                   Equo ne credite, Teucri.

                          -- Laocoön

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