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Category Archives for "Networking"

Migration Strategy: Moving From MPLS/LDP to Segment Routing

MPLS core networks that use Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) are common in SP core networks and have served us well. So, the thought of pulling the guts out of the core is pretty daunting and invites the question why you would want to perform open-heart surgery on such critical infrastructure.   This article attempts to explain the benefits that would accrue from such a move and gives a high-level view of a migration strategy.

Why Do I Need Segment Routing?

  • Simplicity:   LDP was invented as a label distribution protocol for MPLS because nobody wanted to go back to the standards bodies to re-invent OSPF or IS-IS so that they could carry labels.  A pragmatic decision, but one that results in networks having to run two protocols.  Two protocols means twice the complexity.  
    Segment Routing simplifies things by allowing you to turn off LDP.  Instead it carries label (or Segment ID) information in extensions to the IGP.  This then leaves you with only IS-IS or OSPF to troubleshoot.  As Da Vinci reportedly said, ‘simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’. 

  • Scale:  LDP scales, but for fast convergence RSVP-TE is often used to tunnel LDP across a core. RSVP requires core routers to Continue reading

IPv6 Buzz 022: Critical Security Differences Between IPv4 And IPv6

There are a few critical security differences between IPv4 and IPv6, including host addressing and extension headers. In today's IPv6 Buzz episode, we examine these differences, and other v6 security issues, with guest Eric Vyncke, a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco and co-author of the book "IPv6 Security."

The post IPv6 Buzz 022: Critical Security Differences Between IPv4 And IPv6 appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Cisco directs high priority patches for IP phone security exposures

Cisco this week advised customers using its 7800 and 8800 series IP phones they should patch a variety of high-priority vulnerabilities that could lead to denial of service and other security problems.The company issued five security advisories, four for the 8800 and one for both the 8800 and 7800 series of IP phones. The 8800 is a high-end business desktop device that features high-definition video and mobile device integration. The 7800 is more of a general business IP phone.  Learn about 5g networks: How enterprises can prep for 5G networks 5G vs 4G: How speed, latency and apps support differ Private 5G networks are coming 5G and 6G wireless have security issues How millimeter-wave wireless could help support 5G and IoT The security advisories include:To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco directs high priority patches for IP phone security exposures

Cisco this week advised customers using its 7800 and 8800 series IP phones they should patch a variety of high-priority vulnerabilities that could lead to denial of service and other security problems.The company issued five security advisories, four for the 8800 and one for both the 8800 and 7800 series of IP phones. The 8800 is a high-end business desktop device that features high-definition video and mobile device integration. The 7800 is more of a general business IP phone.  Learn about 5g networks: How enterprises can prep for 5G networks 5G vs 4G: How speed, latency and apps support differ Private 5G networks are coming 5G and 6G wireless have security issues How millimeter-wave wireless could help support 5G and IoT The security advisories include:To read this article in full, please click here

Writing an API at the Edge with Workers and Cloud Firestore

We’re super stoked about bringing you Workers.dev, and we’re even more stoked at every opportunity we have to dogfood Workers. Using what we create keeps us tuned in to the developer experience, which takes a good deal of guesswork out of drawing our roadmaps.

Our goal with Workers.dev is to provide a way to deploy JavaScript code to our network of 165 data centers without requiring developers to register a domain with Cloudflare first. While we gear up for general availability, we wanted to provide users an opportunity to reserve their favorite subdomain in a fair and consistent way, so we built a system to allow visitors to reserve a subdomain where their Workers will live once Workers.dev is released. This is the story of how we wrote the system backing that submission process.

Requirements

Of course, we always want to use the best tool for the job, so designing the Workers that would back Workers.dev started with an inventory of constraints and user experience expectations:

Constraints

  1. We want to limit reservations to one per email address. It’s no fun if someone writes a bot to claim every good Workers subdomain in ten seconds; they Continue reading

Buzzword bingo: NetDevOps edition

Looking at the marketing landscape for IT, you could be forgiven for thinking that the current strategy was to dynamite a word factory and use the resulting debris as marketing content. DevSecOps. NetDevOps. Ops, ops, spam, eggs, spam, and DevSpamOps.

The naming trend lends itself easily to parody, but it began as shorthand for an attempt to solve real IT problems. And its iterations have more in common than a resemblance to alphabet salad. What lies beneath the buzzwords? And do you need to care?

Countless companies have jumped on the NetDevOps bandwagon, all with their own way of doing things; and most are utterly incompatible with everyone else. Some may have already abandoned the NetDevOps craze, believing it to be nothing but marketing hype wrapped around a YAML parser and some scripts. Others might have found a system that works for them and swear by it, using nothing else for provisioning.

Regardless of views, a system that allows for rapid provisioning and re-provisioning of applications, containers, virtual machines, and network infrastructure is paramount.

Ministry of Silly Names: A History

The modern era of namesmashing started with DevOps. This made a sort of sense because, before this, IT had Continue reading

The Blogging Mirror

Writing isn’t always the easiest thing in the world to do. Coming up with topics is hard, but so too is making those topics into a blog post. I find myself getting briefings on a variety of subjects all the time, especially when it comes to networking. But translating those briefings into blog posts isn’t always straight forward. When I find myself stuck and ready to throw in the towel I find it easy to think about things backwards.

A World Of Pure Imagination

When people plan blog posts, they often think about things in a top-down manner. They come up with a catchy title, then an amusing anecdote to open the post. Then they hit the main idea, find a couple of supporting arguments, and then finally they write a conclusion that ties it all together. Sound like a winning formula?

Except when it isn’t. How about when the title doesn’t reflect the content of the post? Or the anecdote or lead in doesn’t quite fit with the overall tone? How about when the blog starts meandering away from the main idea halfway through with a totally separate argument? Or when the conclusion is actually the place where the Continue reading

Nvidia launches new hardware and software for on-prem and cloud providers

Nvidia used its GPU Technology Conference in San Jose to introduce new blade servers for on-premises use and announce new cloud AI acceleration.The RTX Blade Server packs up to 40 Turing-generation GPUs into an 8U enclosure, and multiple enclosures can be combined into a "pod" with up to 1,280 GPUs working as a single system and using Mellanox technology as the storage and networking interconnect. Which likely explains why Nvidia is paying close to $7 billion for Mellanox.Instead of AI, where Nvidia has become a leader, the RTX Blade Server is positioned for 3D rendering, ray tracing and cloud gaming. The company said this setup will enable the rendering of realistic-looking 3D images in real time for VR and AR.To read this article in full, please click here

Nvidia launches new hardware and software for on-prem and cloud providers

Nvidia used its GPU Technology Conference in San Jose to introduce new blade servers for on-premises use and announce new cloud AI acceleration.The RTX Blade Server packs up to 40 Turing-generation GPUs into an 8U enclosure, and multiple enclosures can be combined into a "pod" with up to 1,280 GPUs working as a single system and using Mellanox technology as the storage and networking interconnect. Which likely explains why Nvidia is paying close to $7 billion for Mellanox.Instead of AI, where Nvidia has become a leader, the RTX Blade Server is positioned for 3D rendering, ray tracing and cloud gaming. The company said this setup will enable the rendering of realistic-looking 3D images in real time for VR and AR.To read this article in full, please click here

Creating Automation Source-of-Truth from Device Configurations

Remember the previous blog post in this sequence in which I explained the need for single source-of-truth used in your network automation solution? No? Please read it first ;)

Ready for the next step? Assuming your sole source-of-truth is the actual device configuration, is there a magic mechanism we can use to transform it into something we could use in network automation?

TL&DR: No.

Read more ...

Quantum computing will break your encryption in a few years

Modern public-key encryption is currently good enough to meet enterprise requirements, according to experts. Most cyberattacks target different parts of the security stack these days – unwary users in particular. Yet this stalwart building block of present-day computing is about to be eroded by the advent of quantum computing within the next decade, according to experts.“About 99% of online encryption is vulnerable to quantum computers,” said Mark Jackson, scientific lead for Cambridge Quantum Computing, at the Inside Quantum Technology conference in Boston on Wednesday.[ Now read: What is quantum computing (and why enterprises should care) ] Quantum computers – those that use the principles of quantum entanglement and superposition to represent information, instead of electrical bits – are capable of performing certain types of calculation orders of magnitude more quickly than classical, electronic computers. They’re more or less fringe technology in 2019, but their development has accelerated in recent years, and experts at the IQT conference say that a spike in deployment could occur as soon as 2024.To read this article in full, please click here

Quantum computing will break your encryption in a few years

Modern public-key encryption is currently good enough to meet enterprise requirements, according to experts. Most cyberattacks target different parts of the security stack these days – unwary users in particular. Yet this stalwart building block of present-day computing is about to be eroded by the advent of quantum computing within the next decade, according to experts.“About 99% of online encryption is vulnerable to quantum computers,” said Mark Jackson, scientific lead for Cambridge Quantum Computing, at the Inside Quantum Technology conference in Boston on Wednesday.[ Now read: What is quantum computing (and why enterprises should care) ] Quantum computers – those that use the principles of quantum entanglement and superposition to represent information, instead of electrical bits – are capable of performing certain types of calculation orders of magnitude more quickly than classical, electronic computers. They’re more or less fringe technology in 2019, but their development has accelerated in recent years, and experts at the IQT conference say that a spike in deployment could occur as soon as 2024.To read this article in full, please click here

Data center fiber to jump to 800 gigabits in 2019

The upper limits on fiber capacity haven't been reached just yet. Two announcements made around an optical-fiber conference and trade show in San Diego recently indicate continued progress in squeezing more data into fiber.In the first announcement, researchers say they’ve obtained 26.2 terabits per second over the roughly 4,000 mile-long trans-Atlantic MAREA cable, in an experiment; and in the second, networking company Ciena says it will start deliveries of an 800 gigabit-per-second, single wavelength light throughput system in Q3 2019.High-speed laser MAREA, translated as “tide” in Spanish, is the Telefónica-operated cable running between Virginia Beach, Va., and Bilbao in Spain. The fiber cable, initiated a year ago, is designed to handle 160 terabits of data per second through its eight 20-terabit pairs. Each one of those pairs is thus big enough to carry 4 million high-definition videos at the same time, network-provider Infinera explains in an Optical Fiber Conference and Exhibition published press release.To read this article in full, please click here

Data center fiber to jump to 800 gigabits in 2019

The upper limits on fiber capacity haven't been reached just yet. Two announcements made around an optical-fiber conference and trade show in San Diego recently indicate continued progress in squeezing more data into fiber.In the first announcement, researchers say they’ve obtained 26.2 terabits per second over the roughly 4,000 mile-long trans-Atlantic MAREA cable, in an experiment; and in the second, networking company Ciena says it will start deliveries of an 800 gigabit-per-second, single wavelength light throughput system in Q3 2019.High-speed laser MAREA, translated as “tide” in Spanish, is the Telefónica-operated cable running between Virginia Beach, Va., and Bilbao in Spain. The fiber cable, initiated a year ago, is designed to handle 160 terabits of data per second through its eight 20-terabit pairs. Each one of those pairs is thus big enough to carry 4 million high-definition videos at the same time, network-provider Infinera explains in an Optical Fiber Conference and Exhibition published press release.To read this article in full, please click here

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