Network Optimization
A Hidden Trick to Increase Your Instagram Followers
Instagram’s recommendation algorithm serves over 500 million accounts daily, yet the infrastructure underpinning that delivery remains poorly understood by most network engineers. The platform processes petabytes of video traffic through a global CDN fabric that few IT professionals have reason to map — until something breaks. When a marketing team complains about Reels stalling at...
Input and Output Streams
Most network engineers have been trained to think about output the wrong way. Throughput graphs show green, link utilization sits at 40%, and yet users file tickets about sluggish applications. The gap between what the network delivers and what applications actually receive is not a metric problem—it is a fundamental misunderstanding of what output means...
Troubleshooting Spanning-Tree Protocol: A Practical Workflow
Spanning tree topology is usually planned as part of the network design — root bridge placement, priority values, and which links should end up blocked. But actual switches on actual cabling don’t always match that plan, especially after months or years of undocumented changes. Troubleshooting STP starts with a simple question: does the network’s actual...
PVST+: Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Explained
Classic STP runs one spanning tree for the entire switched network, no matter how many VLANs exist. That means every VLAN shares the same root bridge and the same blocked links — one uplink ends up carrying nothing while every other uplink carries everything, regardless of which VLANs actually need which paths. PVST+ (Per-VLAN Spanning...