QOTW: Knowledge

Knowledge depends on the direction given to our passions and on our moral habits. To calm our passions is to awaken in ourselves the sense of the universal; to correct ourselves is to bring out the sense of the true.
Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life

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

Defining SDN Down

If a WAN product that uses software to control the flow of traffic is an SD-WAN, and a data center than uses software to build a virtual topology is an SD-DC, and a storage product that uses software to emulate traditional hardware storage products is SD storage, and a network where the control plane has been pulled into some sort of controller an SDN, aren’t my profile on LinkedIn, and my twitter username @rtggeek software defined people (SDP)? A related question — if there are already IoT vendors, and the IoT already has a market, can we declare the hype cycle dead and move on with our lives? Or is hype too useful to marketing folks to let it go that easily? One thing we do poorly in the networking world is define things. We’re rather sloppy about the language we use — and it shows.

Back on topic, but still to the point — maybe it’s time to rethink the way we use the phrase software defined. Does SD mean one thing emulating another? Does SD mean centralized control? Does SD mean software controlled? Does SD mean separating the control plane from the data plane? Does SD mean OpenFlow?

Continue reading

Worth Reading: Thoughts on the Open Internet

I’m sure we’ve all heard about “the Open Internet.” The expression builds upon a rich pedigree of term “open” in various contexts. For example, “open government” is the governing doctrine which holds that citizens have the right to access the documents and proceedings of the government to allow for effective public oversight, a concept that appears to be able to trace its antecedents back to the age of enlightenment in 17th century Europe.

I would normally place worth reading items in the right column, Geoff has written a six part series about the open Internet that’s worth reading. I’ve put links to each piece here.

Thoughts on the Open Internet – Part 1: What Is “Open Internet”
Thoughts on the Open Internet – Part 2: The Where and How of “Internet Fragmentation”
Thoughts on the Open Internet – Part 3: Local Filtering and Blocking
Thoughts on the Open Internet – Part 4: Locality and Interdependence
Thoughts on the Open Internet – Part 5: Security
Thoughts on the Open Internet – Part 6: Final Thoughts

The post Worth Reading: Thoughts on the Open Internet appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: Open Switch Software

Facebook, NTT and Big Switch plan on Friday to demonstrate a combination of open source software that can be used to run a working networking switch — a step forward in creating open source alternatives to proprietary networking hardware and software. —via Light Reading

The post Worth Reading: Open Switch Software appeared first on 'net work.

HL: The Degree or the Certification?

The post HL: The Degree or the Certification? appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: Digital Content and the Fate of Businesses

There are two key differences between buying media in a physical format versus a digital one. First, there’s the technical aspect: Maintaining long-term access to a file requires a hard copy of it—that means, for example, downloading a film, not just streaming from a third party’s server. The second distinction is a bit more complicated, and it has to do with how the law has shaped digital rights in the past 15 years. It helps to think about the experience of a person giving up CDs and using iTunes for music purchases instead. —via the atlantic

Continue reading

Worth Reading: The Future of Network Management

Is good performance and stress reporting something you look for before purchase? I sure don’t think they’re part of the vendor marketing! Until they are, good luck getting good reporting! —via netcraftsmen

The post Worth Reading: The Future of Network Management appeared first on 'net work.

HL: Cisco Express Forwarding

…this book will provide the insight required to understand how CEF truly works inside Cisco’s routers and switches. This book can promote you to the elite; it is the last piece of the puzzle that will tell exactly how packets are moved inside a router.

The post HL: Cisco Express Forwarding appeared first on 'net work.

Bouy

The post Bouy appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: Hybrid Infrastructure

Although industry experts anticipate a 44 percent annual growth in cloud-based workloads over the next several years, the reality is that despite rapid cloud adoption, many businesses will continue to have a significant part of their daily operations tied to physical infrastructure and its processes for many years to come. The Cloud is for everyone, but not for everything. — via the data center journal

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

Rule 11 is your friend

It’s common enough in the networking industry — particularly right now — to bemoan the rate of change. In fact, when I worked in the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC), we had a phrase that described how we felt about the amount of information and the rate of change: sipping through the firehose. This phrase has become ubiquitous in the networking world to describe the feeling we all feel of being left out, left behind, and just plain not able to keep up.

It’s not much better today, either. SDNs threaten to overturn the way we build control planes, white boxes threaten to upend the way we view vendor relationships, virtualization threatens to radically alter the way we think about the relationship between services and the network, and cloud computing promises just to make the entire swatch of network engineers redundant. It’s enough to make a reasonable engineer ask some rather hard questions, like whether it’s better to flip burgers or move into management (because the world always needs more managers). Some of this is healthy change, of course — we need to spend more time thinking about why we’re doing what we’re doing, and the competition of the cloud Continue reading

Worth Reading: Eggs and Baskets

In another time, people would have cautioned strongly against relying on a single supplier for your critical IT needs. On the web, that’s thrown out the window. —via the register

The post Worth Reading: Eggs and Baskets appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: Outsourcing Security

That is not to say, however, that outsourcing has no downsides. In the area of IT security, in particular, the potential threat of data mishandling and breaches have tempered many companies’ willingness to invest all-out in outsourcing IT security. That fear is legitimate, but it’s not something that can’t be dealt with. -via infosec buddy

Continue reading

Greenland

The post Greenland appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: Revisiting Internet Governance

The realpoltik is that in addition to all of its other aspects — such as its social and economic elements — the internet has become a weapon in the arsenal of the military and security forces. Of course, we all knew that this was the case but the abovementioned affairs brought this out into the open, and I think even the most militant opponents of internet governance were shocked by the extent to which these agencies were already using the internet and the other technologies it facilitates, such as data-gathering and data analytics. -via circleid

The post Worth Reading: Revisiting Internet Governance appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: Fake Reviews

More than half of the adults in Britain, around 25 million people, use online review websites such as Amazon, Tripadvisor, Expedia and Checkatrade to find the best deals. But their impressions are “distorted” by the growth of a “clandestine” market for fake reviews… via connecting

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

Worth Reading: DPRIVE

DNS privacy will be getting more attention over the coming years, as attacks as well as defenses move from the application to the network layer. It’s good to see efforts like DPRIVE looking ahead… via circleid

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

Memorize — or Think?

I have several friends with either photographic, or near photographic, memories. For instance, I work with someone (on the philosophical side of my life) who is just astounding in this respect. If you walk into his office and ask about some concept you’ve just run across, no matter how esoteric, he can give you a rundown of every major book in the field covering the topic, important articles from several journals, and even book chapters that are germane and important. I’ve actually had him point me to the text of a footnote when I asked about a specific concept.

It seems, to me, that the networking industry often focuses on this sort of thing. Quick, can you name the types of line cards available for the Plutobarb CNX1000, how many of each you can put in the chassis, what the backplane speed is, and what the command is to configure OSPF type 3 filters on Tuesdays between three and four o’clock? When we hit this sort of question, and can’t answer it, people look at us like we’re silly or something.

Right?

I know, because I’ve been there. I’ve had people ask me the strangest questions in interviews, such as Continue reading

QOTW: Playing with the animal withing

You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal [or] play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth.
Dag Hammarskjöld

The post QOTW: Playing with the animal withing appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: You can’t replace biometrics

Some security researchers refer to authentication systems based on fingerprints – such as unlocking an iPhone by using the home button’s fingerprint reader – as a type of active biometrics, as opposed to passive biometrics, which might look at the location or MAC address of a PC that is attempting to log into a banking application. And when active-biometrics data gets stolen, there’s little that victims can do to prevent the data from being abused. via bankinfo security

The post Worth Reading: You can’t replace biometrics appeared first on 'net work.