Network Service Engine – Part 1

This is the initial diagram for one of my Network Service Engines. These are small boxes that I use to handle some important network functions that I need to have provided by hardware devices rather than virtual machines. These will be configured to provide DNS Server Services, DNS Resolver Services, NTP (Network Time Protocol) Services, DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Services), Certificate Server Services, and possibly other items as we work to discover the best way to construct, provision, and maintain the lab.

This configuration is for one of the basic building blocks of a lab – I will have two of these working together to provide some redundant services for my main lab, and an an isolated instance of a third to work with my Linux workstation lab.

All of the IP addresses depicted are RFC-1918 private addresses that are non-routable on the Internet. Caution: You should always check to make sure that whatever you are doing on your own network will not conflict with your Internet Service Provider (or whomever manages your network) before using an IP range.