Matt Conran

Author Archives: Matt Conran

IDG Contributor Network: Named data networking: Stateful forwarding plane for datagram delivery

The Internet was designed to connect things easily, but a lot has changed since its inception. Users now expect the internet to find the “what” (i.e., the content), but the current communication model is still focused on the “where.”The Internet has evolved to be dominated by content distribution and retrieval. As a matter of fact, networking protocols still focus on the connection between hosts that surfaces many challenges.The most obvious solution is to replace the “where” with the “what” and this is what Named Data Networking (NDN) proposes. NDN uses named content as opposed to host identifiers as its abstraction.How the traditional IP works To deliver packets from a source to a destination, IP needs to accomplish two phases of operation. The first phase is the routing plane also known as the control plane. This phase enables the routers to share routing updates and select the best path to construct the forwarding information table (FIB). The second phase is the forwarding plane also known as the data plane. This is the phase where forwarding to the next hop is executed upon FIB examination.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Named data networking: Stateful forwarding plane for datagram delivery

The Internet was designed to connect things easily, but a lot has changed since its inception. Users now expect the internet to find the “what” (i.e., the content), but the current communication model is still focused on the “where.”The Internet has evolved to be dominated by content distribution and retrieval. As a matter of fact, networking protocols still focus on the connection between hosts that surfaces many challenges.The most obvious solution is to replace the “where” with the “what” and this is what Named Data Networking (NDN) proposes. NDN uses named content as opposed to host identifiers as its abstraction.How the traditional IP works To deliver packets from a source to a destination, IP needs to accomplish two phases of operation. The first phase is the routing plane also known as the control plane. This phase enables the routers to share routing updates and select the best path to construct the forwarding information table (FIB). The second phase is the forwarding plane also known as the data plane. This is the phase where forwarding to the next hop is executed upon FIB examination.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Named data networking: names the data instead of data locations

Today, connectivity to the Internet is easy; you simply get an Ethernet driver and hook up the TCP/IP protocol stack. Then dissimilar network types in remote locations can communicate with each other. However, before the introduction of the TCP/IP model, networks were manually connected but with the TCP/IP stack, the networks can connect themselves up, nice and easy. This eventually caused the Internet to explode, followed by the World Wide Web.So far, TCP/IP has been a great success. It’s good at moving data and is both robust and scalable. It enables any node to talk to any other node by using a point-to-point communication channel with IP addresses as identifiers for the source and destination. Ideally, a network ships the data bits. You can either name the locations to ship the bits to or name the bits themselves. Today’s TCP/IP protocol architecture picked the first option. Let’s discuss the section option later in the article.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Named data networking: names the data instead of data locations

Today, connectivity to the Internet is easy; you simply get an Ethernet driver and hook up the TCP/IP protocol stack. Then dissimilar network types in remote locations can communicate with each other. However, before the introduction of the TCP/IP model, networks were manually connected but with the TCP/IP stack, the networks can connect themselves up, nice and easy. This eventually caused the Internet to explode, followed by the World Wide Web.So far, TCP/IP has been a great success. It’s good at moving data and is both robust and scalable. It enables any node to talk to any other node by using a point-to-point communication channel with IP addresses as identifiers for the source and destination. Ideally, a network ships the data bits. You can either name the locations to ship the bits to or name the bits themselves. Today’s TCP/IP protocol architecture picked the first option. Let’s discuss the section option later in the article.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: The role of open source in networking

Technology is always evolving. However, in recent time, two significant changes have emerged in the world of networking. Firstly, the networking is moving to software that can run on commodity off-the-shelf hardware. Secondly, we are witnessing the introduction and use of many open source technologies, removing the barrier of entry for new product innovation and rapid market access.Networking is the last bastion within IT to adopt the open source. Consequently, this has badly hit the networking industry in terms of slow speed of innovation and high costs. Every other element of IT has seen radical technology and cost model changes over the past 10 years. However, IP networking has not changed much since the mid-’90s.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: The role of open source in networking

Technology is always evolving. However, in recent time, two significant changes have emerged in the world of networking. Firstly, the networking is moving to software that can run on commodity off-the-shelf hardware. Secondly, we are witnessing the introduction and use of many open source technologies, removing the barrier of entry for new product innovation and rapid market access.Networking is the last bastion within IT to adopt the open source. Consequently, this has badly hit the networking industry in terms of slow speed of innovation and high costs. Every other element of IT has seen radical technology and cost model changes over the past 10 years. However, IP networking has not changed much since the mid-’90s.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: The cloud-based provider: Not your grandfather’s MNS

Today, the wide area network (WAN) is a vital enterprise resource. Its uptime, often targeting availability of 99.999%, is essential to maintain the productivity of employees and partners and also for maintaining the business’s competitive edge.Historically, enterprises had two options for WAN management models — do it yourself (DIY) and a managed network service (MNS). Under the DIY model, the IT networking and security teams build the WAN by integrating multiple components including MPLS service providers, internet service providers (ISPs), edge routers, WAN optimizers and firewalls.The components are responsible for keeping that infrastructure current and optimized. They configure and adjust the network for changes, troubleshoot outages and ensure that the network is secure. Since this is not a trivial task, therefore many organizations have switched to an MNS. The enterprises outsource the buildout, configuration and on-going management often to a regional telco.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: The cloud-based provider: Not your grandfather’s MNS

Today, the wide area network (WAN) is a vital enterprise resource. Its uptime, often targeting availability of 99.999%, is essential to maintain the productivity of employees and partners and also for maintaining the business’s competitive edge.Historically, enterprises had two options for WAN management models — do it yourself (DIY) and a managed network service (MNS). Under the DIY model, the IT networking and security teams build the WAN by integrating multiple components including MPLS service providers, internet service providers (ISPs), edge routers, WAN optimizers and firewalls.The components are responsible for keeping that infrastructure current and optimized. They configure and adjust the network for changes, troubleshoot outages and ensure that the network is secure. Since this is not a trivial task, therefore many organizations have switched to an MNS. The enterprises outsource the buildout, configuration and on-going management often to a regional telco.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Zero trust: The transition from legacy to cloud-native

Enterprises operating in the traditional monolithic environment may have strict organizational structures. As a result, the requirement for security may restrain them from transitioning to a hybrid or cloud-native application deployment model.In spite of the obvious difficulties, the majority of enterprises want to take advantage of cloud-native capabilities. Today, most entities are considering or evaluating cloud-native to enhance their customer’s experience. In some cases, it is the ability to draw richer customer market analytics or to provide operational excellence.Cloud-native is a key strategic agenda that allows customers to take advantage of many new capabilities and frameworks. It enables organizations to build and evolve going forward to gain an edge over their competitors.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Zero trust: The transition from legacy to cloud-native

Enterprises operating in the traditional monolithic environment may have strict organizational structures. As a result, the requirement for security may restrain them from transitioning to a hybrid or cloud-native application deployment model.In spite of the obvious difficulties, the majority of enterprises want to take advantage of cloud-native capabilities. Today, most entities are considering or evaluating cloud-native to enhance their customer’s experience. In some cases, it is the ability to draw richer customer market analytics or to provide operational excellence.Cloud-native is a key strategic agenda that allows customers to take advantage of many new capabilities and frameworks. It enables organizations to build and evolve going forward to gain an edge over their competitors.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Can TLS 1.3 and DNSSEC make your network blind?

Domain name system (DNS) over transport layer security (TLS) adds an extra layer of encryption, but in what way does it impact your IP network traffic? The additional layer of encryption indicates controlling what’s happening over the network is likely to become challenging.Most noticeably it will prevent ISPs and enterprises from monitoring the user’s site activity and will also have negative implications for both; the wide area network (WAN) optimization and SD-WAN vendors.During a recent call with Sorell Slaymaker, we rolled back in time and discussed how we got here, to a world that will soon be fully encrypted. We started with SSL1.0, which was the original version of HTTPS as opposed to the non-secure HTTP. As an aftermath of evolution, it had many security vulnerabilities. Consequently, we then evolved from SSL 1.1 to TLS 1.2. To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Can TLS 1.3 and DNSSEC make your network blind?

Domain name system (DNS) over transport layer security (TLS) adds an extra layer of encryption, but in what way does it impact your IP network traffic? The additional layer of encryption indicates controlling what’s happening over the network is likely to become challenging.Most noticeably it will prevent ISPs and enterprises from monitoring the user’s site activity and will also have negative implications for both; the wide area network (WAN) optimization and SD-WAN vendors.During a recent call with Sorell Slaymaker, we rolled back in time and discussed how we got here, to a world that will soon be fully encrypted. We started with SSL1.0, which was the original version of HTTPS as opposed to the non-secure HTTP. As an aftermath of evolution, it had many security vulnerabilities. Consequently, we then evolved from SSL 1.1 to TLS 1.2. To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Getting smarter about managing the SD-WAN last-mile

Delivering global SD-WAN is very different from delivering local networks. Local networks offer complete control to the end-to-end design, enabling low-latency and predictable connections. There might still be blackouts and brownouts but you’re in control and can troubleshoot accordingly with appropriate visibility.With global SD-WANs, though, managing the middle-mile/backbone performance and managing the last-mile are, well shall we say, more challenging. Most SD-WAN vendors don’t have control over these two segments, which affects application performance and service agility.In particular, an issue that SD-WAN appliance vendors often overlook is the management of the last-mile. With multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), the provider assumes the responsibility, but this is no longer the case with SD-WAN. Getting the last-mile right is challenging for many global SD-WANs.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Getting smarter about managing the SD-WAN last-mile

Delivering global SD-WAN is very different from delivering local networks. Local networks offer complete control to the end-to-end design, enabling low-latency and predictable connections. There might still be blackouts and brownouts but you’re in control and can troubleshoot accordingly with appropriate visibility.With global SD-WANs, though, managing the middle-mile/backbone performance and managing the last-mile are, well shall we say, more challenging. Most SD-WAN vendors don’t have control over these two segments, which affects application performance and service agility.In particular, an issue that SD-WAN appliance vendors often overlook is the management of the last-mile. With multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), the provider assumes the responsibility, but this is no longer the case with SD-WAN. Getting the last-mile right is challenging for many global SD-WANs.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Zero-trust security adds necessary ingredients

Today's threat landscape consists of skilled, organized and well-funded bad actors. They have many goals including exfiltrating sensitive data for political or economic motives. To combat these multiple threats, the cybersecurity market is required to expand at an even greater rate.The IT leaders must evolve their security framework if they want to stay ahead of the cyber threats. The evolution in security we are witnessing has a tilt towards the Zero-Trust model and the software-defined perimeter (SDP), also called a “Black Cloud”. The principle of its design is based on the need-to-know model.The Zero-Trust model says that anyone attempting to access a resource must be authenticated and be authorized first. Users cannot connect to anything since unauthorized resources are invisible, left in the dark. For additional protection, the Zero-Trust model can be combined with machine learning (ML) to discover the risky user behavior. Besides, it can be applied for conditional access.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Zero-trust security adds necessary ingredients

Today's threat landscape consists of skilled, organized and well-funded bad actors. They have many goals including exfiltrating sensitive data for political or economic motives. To combat these multiple threats, the cybersecurity market is required to expand at an even greater rate.The IT leaders must evolve their security framework if they want to stay ahead of the cyber threats. The evolution in security we are witnessing has a tilt towards the Zero-Trust model and the software-defined perimeter (SDP), also called a “Black Cloud”. The principle of its design is based on the need-to-know model.The Zero-Trust model says that anyone attempting to access a resource must be authenticated and be authorized first. Users cannot connect to anything since unauthorized resources are invisible, left in the dark. For additional protection, the Zero-Trust model can be combined with machine learning (ML) to discover the risky user behavior. Besides, it can be applied for conditional access.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: The future of cloud interconnects

There are three types of applications; applications that manage the business, applications that run the business and miscellaneous apps.A security breach or performance related issue for an application that runs the business would undoubtedly impact the top-line revenue. For example, an issue in a hotel booking system would directly affect the top-line revenue as opposed to an outage in Office 365.It is a general assumption that cloud deployments would suffer from business-impacting performance issues due to the network. The objective is to have applications within 25ms (one-way) of the users who use them. However, too many network architectures backhaul the traffic to traverse from a private to the public internetwork.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: The future of cloud interconnects

There are three types of applications; applications that manage the business, applications that run the business and miscellaneous apps.A security breach or performance related issue for an application that runs the business would undoubtedly impact the top-line revenue. For example, an issue in a hotel booking system would directly affect the top-line revenue as opposed to an outage in Office 365.It is a general assumption that cloud deployments would suffer from business-impacting performance issues due to the network. The objective is to have applications within 25ms (one-way) of the users who use them. However, too many network architectures backhaul the traffic to traverse from a private to the public internetwork.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Self-healing SD-WAN removes the drama of high-availability planning

My humble beginnings Back in the early 2000s, I was the sole network engineer at a startup. By morning, my role included managing four floors and 22 European locations packed with different vendors and servers between three companies. In the evenings, I administered the largest enterprise streaming networking in Europe with a group of highly skilled staff.Since we were an early startup, combined roles were the norm. I’m sure that most of you who joined as young engineers in such situations could understand how I felt back then. However, it was a good experience, so I battled through it. To keep my evening’s stress-free and without any IT calls, I had to design in as much high-availability (HA) as I possibly could. After all, all the interesting technological learning was in the second part of my day working with content delivery mechanisms and complex routing.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Self-healing SD-WAN removes the drama of high-availability planning

My humble beginnings Back in the early 2000s, I was the sole network engineer at a startup. By morning, my role included managing four floors and 22 European locations packed with different vendors and servers between three companies. In the evenings, I administered the largest enterprise streaming networking in Europe with a group of highly skilled staff.Since we were an early startup, combined roles were the norm. I’m sure that most of you who joined as young engineers in such situations could understand how I felt back then. However, it was a good experience, so I battled through it. To keep my evening’s stress-free and without any IT calls, I had to design in as much high-availability (HA) as I possibly could. After all, all the interesting technological learning was in the second part of my day working with content delivery mechanisms and complex routing.To read this article in full, please click here