Take a Network Break! Aruba Networks rolls out a new SD-WAN platform plus a grand strategy for branch management, Cisco acquires July Systems for its wireless location services technology, and AT&T sells dozens of data centers for $1.1 billion.

But AT&T may take that cash and pour it into the acquisition of a digital ad exchange company, Deutsche Telecom announces big layoffs in its T-Systems unit, and Australian telco Telstra splits off its legacy infrastructure unit into a standalone business.

A Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendor lifts the curtain on why WAFs get bought but rarely used, HPE pledges $4 billion for edge computing, and Intel bids a terse goodbye to its CEO.

Coffee Talk: Mellanox

Stay tuned after the news for a sponsored conversation with Mellanox, where Greg and guests dive into data center fabrics using VXLAN and EVPN. For more information, head over to Mellanox.com/packetpushers. And check out these links:

Performance Report by The Tolly Group – Mellanox

Controllerless VXLAN With BGP EVPN – Mellanox (PDF)

Is it Time to Upgrade to VXLAN – Mellanox blog

VXLAN Eye on Mellanox – Mellanox via YouTube

Sponsor: Packet Pushers Ignition

The Packet Pushers have launched a brand new Continue reading

In this episode, the Packet Pushers dive into optical networking. Optical networking tends to be a specialized area of networking. It’s much less about packets and paths and more about physical properties of fiber optic cables, signal propagation, and remote operations.

In recent times, optical companies have been moving into Data Center Interconnect (DCI) and selling direct to enterprises using dark fiber as well as offering DCI services via infrastructure suppliers.

Joining us today to offer their expertise on optical are Scott Wilkinson, Senior Director, Portfolio Marketing at ECI Telecom; and Andrew Schmitt, founder of Cignal AI.

We discuss the basics of silicon photonics and how it impacts optical networking, particularly for DCI. We also examine the open optical movement being driven by the Facebook-backed Telecom Infrastructure Project.

Show Links:

Cignal AI Newsletter sign-up – Cignal AI

IP and Optical integration white paper – ECI Telecom (PDF)

ONF s ODTN Project Brings Disaggregation and Open Source to Optical Networking – Open Networking.org

Infinera – Following the Open Road(map) – YouTube

Download an overview of latest news from last big optical conference – OFC2018

Pulse-amplitude modulation – Wikipedia

Quadrature amplitude modulation – Wikipedia

Facebook Voyager, an initiative of Continue reading

AWS security issues show up in tech news fairly often. Today, we talk with someone who wrote about AWS services other than S3 that were found exposed to the public. Could that be some of your services?

Could be. The numbers are pretty impressive. Stay tuned, and find out how to determine whether or not your EBS snapshots, RDS snapshots, AMIs, or ElasticSearch clusters are accidentally public.

Our guest is Scott Piper, an AWS security consultant for Summit Route. You can follow him on Twitter at @0xdabbad00.

We start by exploring the types of AWS resources that can be unintentionally exposed to the public Internet, how to find them, and how to lock them down.

Then we talk about general practices such as vulnerability scanning, how to minimize human error when configuring AWS services, and drill into options such as CloudMapper and Security Monkey, open-source tools to help administrators find and control AWS resources.

Show Links:

Scott Piper on Twitter

Scott Piper’s blog – Duo.com

Scott Piper on GitHub – GitHub

Beyond S3: Exposed Resources on AWS – Duo.com

flAWS Challenge

CloudMapper – GitHub

CloudTracker – GitHub

Netflix Security Monkey – GitHub

Datanauts 086: AWS Identity & Access Continue reading

Take a Network Break! Cisco Live US 2018 took place last week, so we spend a some time covering show news, overall impressions, and a touch of tea-leaf reading.

In non-Cisco news, VMware has a new lower-cost pricing tier to encourage customers to try VMware on AWS, LiveAction acquires packet capture/network monitoring vendor Savvius for an undisclosed amount, and orchestration vendor Gluware can now upgrade OSs for seven different vendors.

Metaswitch joins the OpenSwitch project, ONAP announces the Beijing release of its network automation package, and Comcast has deactivated its “congestion management system” (aka throttling).

Speaking of Comcast, the ISP has made a $65 billion bid for 21st Century Fox. In other provider news, AT&T gets the greenlight to merge with Time Warner. And last but not least, Cisco has joined an investment round in the startup Avi Networks, which makes software load balancers and service meshes.

Get links to all these stories after our sponsor messages.

Sponsor: ThousandEyes

ThousandEyes gives you performance visibility from every user to every app over any network, both internal and external, so you can smoothly migrate to the cloud, transform your WAN, troubleshoot faster and deliver exceptional user experiences. Sign up for a free Continue reading

You are a problem…maybe the biggest problem of all. No? The crashing router code is the biggest problem? The leaking memory in the switch?

The app needs layer 2 stretched between data centers–what problem could be worse than that?

Today on the show, we re here to argue that, no…it s you. And me. And everyone else you work with.

With us today to defend the idea that technology problems are really people problems is Eyvonne Sharp, network architect and co-founder of The Network Collective.

We talk about how people and processes can contribute more to a problem than a technology. We also talk about three different organizational culture types (Pathological, Bureaucratic, and Generative), how to evaluate your own organization, and Eyvonne recommends a few books on team building and culture development.

Show Links:

Eyvonne Sharp on Twitter

The Network Collective

Using the Westrum typology to measure culture – Andy Kelk

Forget about broad-based pay hikes, executives say – Axios

The Undoing Project – Michael Lewis

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable – Patrick M. Lencioni

Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World – General Stanley McChrystal

Today on the Datanauts podcast, we review the state of Ethernet fabrics in 2018.

Between 2010 and 2012, before SDN became the new marketing hotness, it seemed like vendors were churning out Ethernet fabric products for the data center. Everyone had at least one fabric, and some had two or three.

As time has marched on, many of those Ethernet fabrics have dropped off the map. To catch us up and review what Ethernet fabric means today is Stefan Fouant. Stefan is the Chief Architect at Copper River Technologies, a Juniper Ambassador, a quadruple JNCIE, and author of the book Day One: Junos Fusion Data Center Up and Running.

We look at the status of Ethernet fabric protocols such as TRILL and SPB. We also dig into BGP EVPN, the latest hot fabric.

We also discuss the characteristics of a fabric, look at reasons why a fabric might make sense in your data center, and explore inter-fabric connectivity.

Show Links:

Day One: Junos Fusion Data Center Up and Running – Stefan Fouant

Shortest Path First – Stefan Fouant’s blog

Stefan Fouant on Twitter

Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL) – IETF

Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) – Wikipedia

BGP MPLS-Based Continue reading