QOTW: Labor and Morality

The post QOTW: Labor and Morality appeared first on 'net work.

HL: Inside Cisco IOS Software Architecture

The post HL: Inside Cisco IOS Software Architecture appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: Omnipath

Omni-Path, known internally by the generic code name “Storm Lake,” is a vital ingredient in Intel’s Scalable Systems Framework, which was announced earlier this year as a collection of hardware and systems software components to build parallel systems for running simulation and modeling workloads and increasingly other kinds of data analytics jobs that benefit from running on clusters with low latency and high bandwidth interconnects. via nextplatform

The post Worth Reading: Omnipath appeared first on 'net work.

Life Rafts

The post Life Rafts appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Listening: Datanauts 15

The post Worth Listening: Datanauts 15 appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: The 10x Rule

How can you determine whether a new technology is worth the costs and risks and costs of adoption? Start by calculating them. One guideline is the 10X rule: if you can expect a return of 10 times your investment, then it’s worth it. via netcraftsmen

The post Worth Reading: The 10x Rule appeared first on 'net work.

Reaction: Innovation and the Internet

Industries mature, of course. That they do so shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who’s watched the world for very long. The question is — do they mature in a way that places a few players at the “top,” leaving the rest to innovate along the edges? Or do they leave broad swaths of open space in which many players can compete and innovate? Through most of human history, the answer has been the first: industries, in the modern age, tend to ossify into a form where a few small players control most of the market, leaving the smaller players to innovate along the edges. When the major impetus in building a new company is to “get bought,” and the most common way for larger companies to innovate is by buying smaller companies (or doing “spin ins”), then you’ve reached a general point of stability that isn’t likely to change much.

Is the networking industry entering this “innovation free zone?” Or will the networking industry always be a market with more churn, and more innovation? There are signs in both directions.

For instance, there’s the idea that once technology reaches a certain level of capability, there’s just no reason for Continue reading

Highlight: Get out of the way

The post Highlight: Get out of the way appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: IPv6 Performance

Every so often I hear the claim that some service or other does not support IPv6 not because of some technical issue, or some cost or business issue, but simply because the service operator is of the view that IPv6 offers an inferior level service as compared to IPv4, and by offering the service over IPv6 they would be exposing their clients to an inferior level of performance of the service. via potaroo.net

The post Worth Reading: IPv6 Performance appeared first on 'net work.

Security ‘net: Google, Watson, and other thoughts

Encryption, security, and privacy are at the top of our list, it seems. The question is — who really cares about your privacy? Is Google a champion of freedom, or a threat to national sovereignty?

Google is unique in its leadership, plans, and global marketpower to accelerate the majority of all global Web traffic “going dark,” i.e. encrypted by default. Google’s “going dark” leadership seriously threatens to neuter sovereign nations’ law-enforcement and intelligence capabilities to investigate and prevent terrorism and crime going forward.

Or has Google just figured out that encryption is the best way to funnel all the world’s information through their servers so it can be properly indexed and used to its maximum commercial value?

But the truth about where the giants of tech stand on user privacy is another matter entirely. No organizations on earth have exploited users more than Google (GOOGL) and Facebook (FB) have in their zealous quest to boost ad revenues by providing users’ personal data – demographics, searches, email and location, among others – to an ever-growing list of digital advertisers.

Russ’ take: The truth is probably out there someplace, but I doubt it’s as clean cut as either of these articles Continue reading

Change of Venue: LinkedIn

I’m changing roles from Principal Engineer at Ericsson to the Architecture Team at LinkedIn. New adventure! But don’t worry, ‘net Work is staying open for thoughts about life as a network engineer.

The post Change of Venue: LinkedIn appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: Net Neutrality

The counterargument might be that we can’t let ISPs charge whatever they want because they have a monopoly. But that monopoly, insofar as it exists and isn’t simply an artifact of the huge capital costs that necessarily limit the number of competitors in the market, is a government creation. via dcj

The post Worth Reading: Net Neutrality appeared first on 'net work.

Assuming the worst is not the best assumption

It was too bad to be true, but I should have known that assuming the worst was not the best assumption. I was driving the “other” car, the Saab, on the way back from the METNAV shop around eight in the morning. Since the shop was located in the middle of the three runways, this meant I had to drive across the 18 taxiway, along the white lines painted between the C-141’s, C-130’s, KC-10’s, F-4’s, and sometimes other odds and ends, and then past the Tower, off the flightline, and onto the “surface streets.” As I was coming off a call at around three in the morning, I wasn’t in uniform. For some reason, I hadn’t driven my normal car — a white Jeep — so the folks in the Tower certainly wouldn’t recognize me.

So when the SP flipped his lights on and pulled in behind me, I was worried. Just as the lights came on, I remembered something really important: I had forgotten to put my sticker on the car. You see, to drive on the flightline, you had to have a sticker on your car. There were various colors for the different areas you could gain Continue reading

Another Year of Thankfulness

By the time you read this, I’ll be down at Oak Island on the North Carolina Coast, where my wife will be getting the turkey ready, and making a white chocolate cheesecake. No, I won’t tell you the address, but I will tell you this.

I’m thankful for this year.

I’m thankful for my family. For my wife and kids who put up with me and my insane schedule.

I’m thankful for my friends (I would list them all, but I’d probably forget someone, which would hurt feelings; it just doesn’t seem right to hurt anyone’s feelings today). Across the years, I’ve been taught so much about networking and engineering in the last 20+ years, from working on RADAR systems to large scale data centers. I’ve been given so many opportunities to write and speak, and been shown how to be just a better person.

I’m thankful that God has opened a door into a top notch PhD program, the support structure every PhD student needs to succeed, and two great mentors (more than anyone could ask for).

I know it’s not Thanksgiving in every country in the world. But there’s never a bad day to give thanks for what Continue reading

Worth Reading: Vendorspeak

Network vendors’ sales teams are a special bunch, and they say some interesting things. I’ve heard some real zingers thru the years, and sat down to write the Top-10, but couldn’t stop at ten. So here are the Top 25 things that network vendor sales teams often say, and what they really mean… via gartner

The post Worth Reading: Vendorspeak appeared first on 'net work.

Yokohama

The post Yokohama appeared first on 'net work.

QOTW: The specialist

The post QOTW: The specialist appeared first on 'net work.

Reaction: Personal Integrity

There is, on a daily basis, a choice you must make as a geek, as someone who is involved in technology — particularly in the world of computer networking. The choice we always face, every one of us, is whether to champion a particular product or service, or to champion solving the problem at hand. Between doing what’s best for a vendor — or even harder, what’s best for our career — or doing what’s best for our customer (whoever that customer might be). In other words, what to do with our personal integrity.

I know it’s hard, when you’re working for a vendor, not to just throw yourself into a product to the point of seeing it as the hammer that solves every problem, whether a nail or not. I know it’s hard, when you work for a smaller company, or in what feels like a “side alley” of our little industry (what Ethan calls a “mud puddle”) not to try to throw yourself at being famous, or warping the direction of the company so you can learn something new. I once worked on an account where I’d been asking to come in and help them switch from EIGRP Continue reading

Worth Reading: God-like powers

In short, the intersection of the real world and the virtual one is constant, powerful and dangerous. Equipped with the latest in phones smarter than we are, we have all become the media. But we lack the common sense to sort through what we’ve learned. We’re going to uncover every flaw of one another – probably with accompanying video. Let’s just hope we learn to forgive … and forget. via townhall

The post Worth Reading: God-like powers appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading Roundup: Security and Privacy

“If I haven’t done anything wrong, then I don’t have anything to hide.” This is one of those bits of nonsense that never seems to lose it’s power regardless of how many times it’s been proven wrong in history. Privacy is one of the most important freedoms we enjoy — the privacy to try, the privacy to work things out among friends, and even the privacy to fail.

So what does the ‘net say about privacy this week?

One of the most disturbing things is the growing tendency to engineer people for greater efficiency. This trend started more than a hundred years ago — remember this?

But there is something fundamentally dehumanizing about people like machines out of whom you can squeeze infinite amounts of bandwidth — but it seems to be something we’re pushing towards almost as fast as we can, in both the corporate world and in government.

Digging into personal information in order to manipulate the environment for greater profit and productivity just seems a bit slimy. And I used the word manipulate (and slimy) on purpose. fistful of talent

Many countries are in the throes of a debate about the amount of surveillance a government Continue reading