Cisco has introduced an open-source project that it says could go a long way toward reducing the manual work involved in optimizing performance of Kubernetes-applications across SD-WANs.Cisco said it launched the Cloud-Native SD-WAN (CN-WAN) project to show how Kubernetes applications can be automatically mapped to SD-WAN with the result that the applications perform better over the WAN.More about SD-WAN: How to buy SD-WAN technology: Key questions to consider when selecting a supplier • How to pick an off-site data-backup method • SD-Branch: What it is and why you’ll need it • What are the options for security SD-WAN?
“In many cases, enterprises deploy an SD-WAN to connect a Kubernetes cluster with users or workloads that consume cloud-native applications. In a typical enterprise, NetOps teams leverage their network expertise to program SD-WAN policies to optimize general connectivity to the Kubernetes hosted applications, with the goal to reduce latency, reduce packet loss, etc.” wrote John Apostolopoulos, vice president and CTO of Cisco’s intent-based networking group in a group blog.To read this article in full, please click here
Pluribus Networks has rolled out new software and analytics packages that take aim at customers looking to build and manage software-defined data-center fabrics.The packages include a new release of the company’s core network operating system, Netvisor One, and the accompanying Unum management software as well as a new version of its Insight Analytics platform. They're all designed to simplify the operations of large-scale traditional and distributed edge data centers, the company said.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
Netvisor ONE is a virtualized NOS that provides Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking, distributed fabric intelligence. It virtualizes switch hardware and implements what the company calls an Adaptive Cloud Fabric. Adaptive Cloud Fabric operates without a controller and can be deployed across a single data center, or targeted to specific racks, pods, server farms or hyper-converged infrastructures, the company said. To read this article in full, please click here
Pluribus Networks has rolled out new software and analytics packages that take aim at customers looking to build and manage software-defined data-center fabrics.The packages include a new release of the company’s core network operating system, Netvisor One, and the accompanying Unum management software as well as a new version of its Insight Analytics platform. They're all designed to simplify the operations of large-scale traditional and distributed edge data centers, the company said.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
Netvisor ONE is a virtualized NOS that provides Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking, distributed fabric intelligence. It virtualizes switch hardware and implements what the company calls an Adaptive Cloud Fabric. Adaptive Cloud Fabric operates without a controller and can be deployed across a single data center, or targeted to specific racks, pods, server farms or hyper-converged infrastructures, the company said. To read this article in full, please click here
Aiming to help customers support modern data-center networking technologies, Apstra has enriched its Intent-Based Networking software to include better operational features but also adds more connectivity for its third party support of Juniper and open source SONiC environments.The company’s core Apstra Operating System (AOS) was built from the ground up to support IBS in that once running it keeps a real-time repository of configuration, telemetry and validation information to constantly ensure the network is doing what the customer wants it to do.To read this article in full, please click here
Aiming to help customers support modern data-center networking technologies, Apstra has enriched its Intent-Based Networking software to include better operational features but also adds more connectivity for its third party support of Juniper and open source SONiC environments.The company’s core Apstra Operating System (AOS) was built from the ground up to support IBN in that once running it keeps a real-time repository of configuration, telemetry and validation information to constantly ensure the network is doing what the customer wants it to do.To read this article in full, please click here
VMware this week bolstered the on-premise and service-monitoring capabilities of its core cloud-management software with improved automation, Kubernetes and troubleshooting features.The features come in a new release of VMware’s vRealize Suite which is the company’s wide-ranging package of tools for helping customers manage virtual infrastructure and applications. Its features include artificial intelligence, machine learning, and DevOps tools such as Infrastructure as Code to provision, orchestrate, optimize and govern hybrid-cloud environments.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
“The overarching idea of vRealize is to help customers centrally control and govern cloud resources whether they be private, hybrid or SAAS and mitigate the risk of those rapidly growing virtual workloads,” said Ken Lee senior director of product marketing for VMware. To read this article in full, please click here
AWS has announced the availability of a new service that lets customers tap into and experiment with quantum computing simulators and access quantum hardware from D-Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti.The managed service, Amazon Braket, offers customers a development environment where they can explore and build quantum algorithms, test them on quantum circuit simulators, and run them on different quantum hardware technologies, AWS said in a statement about the service. The Braket service includes Jupyter notebooks that come pre-installed with the Amazon Braket SDK and example tutorials.To read this article in full, please click here
Taking aim at helping enterprise customers support tons of remote workers, Juniper this week extended its family of Wi-Fi 6 wireless access points.The access points feature integration with the Juniper Mist Wi-Fi Assurance cloud service to help customers with automated WLAN configuration, anomaly detection, performance and service-level metrics to ultimately make wireless networks more predictable and reliable.
Learn about 5G and Wi-Fi 6To read this article in full, please click here
As Ethernet-based networks continue to evolve, two industry groups recently announced plans to take it to yet another level – this time extending the technology to operational and wireless time-sensitive communication applications.This week the Ethernet Alliance said it was pushing an effort to bring faster, simpler communications to the operational technology (OT) networks typically found in building and industrial automation environments. The Ethernet Alliance includes a variety of communications players including Broadcom, Cisco, Dell, Juniper, Intel as well as university and industry members.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
A recently standardized IEEE specification, 802.3cg, which defines the use of Single-Pair Ethernet (SPE) in many circumstances rather than a wide range of fieldbus cables, including RS‑485 twisted-pair, RG‑6 coaxial, and instrumentation cables is behind the group’s strategy. To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has issued a number of critical security advisories for its data center manager and SD-WAN offering customers should deal with now.On the data center side, the most critical – with a threat score of 9.8 out of 10 – involves a vulnerability in the REST API of Cisco Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) could let an unauthenticated, remote attacker bypass authentication and execute arbitrary actions with administrative privileges on an affected device.Cisco DCNM lets customers see and control network connectivity through a single web-based management console for the company’s Nexus, Multilayer Director Switch, and Unified Computing System products.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has issued a number of critical security advisories for its data center manager and SD-WAN offering customers should deal with now.On the data center side, the most critical – with a threat score of 9.8 out of 10 – involves a vulnerability in the REST API of Cisco Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) could let an unauthenticated, remote attacker bypass authentication and execute arbitrary actions with administrative privileges on an affected device.Cisco DCNM lets customers see and control network connectivity through a single web-based management console for the company’s Nexus, Multilayer Director Switch, and Unified Computing System products.To read this article in full, please click here
In a disconcerting event for IT security professionals, counterfeit versions of Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series switches were discovered on an unnamed business network, and the fake gear was found to be designed to circumvent typical authentication procedures, according to a report from F-Secure.F-Secure says its investigators found that while the counterfeit Cisco 2960-X units did not have any backdoor-like features, they did employ various measures to fool security controls. For example, one of the units exploited what F-Secure believes to be a previously undiscovered software vulnerability to undermine secure boot processes that provide protection against firmware tampering. To read this article in full, please click here
Mainframe users looking to bring legacy applications into the public or private cloud world have a new option: LzLabs, a mainframe software migration vendor.Founded in 2011 and based in Switzerland, LzLabs this week said it's setting up shop in North America to help mainframe users move legacy applications – think COBOL – into the more modern and flexible cloud application environment.Read also: How to plan a software-defined data-center network
At the heart of LzLabs' service is its Software Defined Mainframe (SDM), an open-source, Eclipse-based system that's designed to let legacy applications, particularly those without typically available source code, such as COBOL, run in the cloud without recompilation.To read this article in full, please click here
The conga line around secure-access service edge (SASE), continues to grow with Juniper this week becoming the latest to join the dance.Just as other big networking players with extensive security portfolios including Cisco and VMware have recently done, Juniper says it will build off its offerings to address the SASE blueprint.
Read about edge networking
How edge networking and IoT will reshape data centers
Edge computing best practices
How edge computing can help secure the IoT
As defined by Gartner in 2019, SASE features a wide variety of components that Juniper summarized and includes:To read this article in full, please click here
The conga line around secure-access service edge (SASE), continues to grow with Juniper this week becoming the latest to join the dance.Just as other big networking players with extensive security portfolios including Cisco and VMware have recently done, Juniper says it will build off its offerings to address the SASE blueprint.
Read about edge networking
How edge networking and IoT will reshape data centers
Edge computing best practices
How edge computing can help secure the IoT
As defined by Gartner in 2019, SASE features a wide variety of components that Juniper summarized and includes:To read this article in full, please click here
While the previously hot SD-WAN market has slowed and IT budgets overall are under pressure, the COVID-19 pandemic has created demand for other network capabilities such as improved network-management and collaboration tools, according to IDC.The virus has caused recessionary economy that has forced enterprises across the globe to rapidly and dramatically shift their operations, according to Rohit Mehra, vice president, Network Infrastructure at IDC. “The reality of that is we have seen two years of IT digital transformation in two months,” Mehra told the online audience of an IDC webinar about the impact of the pandemic on enterprise networking.To read this article in full, please click here
About a year and a half ago, some Texas employees of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) were leaving work early to work at home over the enterprise VNP because it gave them better application performance and less congestion than the office network.That’s also when the agency started moving toward a cloud-first environment and away from its legacy hub-and-spoke WAN.More about SD-WAN: How to buy SD-WAN technology: Key questions to consider when selecting a supplier • How to pick an off-site data-backup method • SD-Branch: What it is and why you’ll need it • What are the options for security SD-WAN?To read this article in full, please click here
Palo Alto Networks has released next-generation firewall (NGFW) software that integrates machine learning to help protect enterprise traffic to and from hybrid clouds, IoT devices and the growing numbers of remote workers.The machine learning is built into the latest version of Palo Alto's firewall operating system – PAN 10.0 – to prevent real-time signatureless attacks and to quickly identify new devices – in particular IoT products – with behavior-based identification.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has added features to is flagship network control platform, DNA Center, that introduce new analytics and problem-solving capabilities for enterprise network customers.DNA Center is the heart of Cisco’s Intent Based Networking initiative and is the core-networking control platform that features myriad services from analytics, network management and automation capabilities to assurance setting, fabric provisioning and policy-based segmentation for enterprise networks. The company extended DNA Center’s AI Endpoint Analytics application by adding the ability to analyze the data gathered from Cisco packages such as its Identity Services Engine, Software Defined Application Visibility and Control, wireless LAN controllers or third part third-party components.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has unleashed an extensive new round of security warnings – three of them “critical” – mostly for users of its iOS XE software and industrial router family.In total, Cisco issued 23 Security Advisories that describe 25 exposures in its IOS and IOS XE systems. Network pros react to new Cisco certification curriculum
Beyond the three critical advisories, 20 have a “High” impact rating. Cisco said that one vulnerability affects Cisco IOS, IOS XE, IOS XR, and NX-OS Software. Five vulnerabilities affect both Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software. Six vulnerabilities affect Cisco IOS Software and 10 affect Cisco IOS XE Software. Three vulnerabilities affect the Cisco IOx application environment.To read this article in full, please click here
Michael Cooney