The Magic of the CCIE
I stumbled across a great Reddit thread this week: Is the CCIE as impossible as it seems? There are a lot of great replies on that thread about people passing and the “good old days” of Banyan Vines, Appletalk, and more. It’s also a fascinating look into how the rest of the networking industry sees exams like the CCIE and JNCIE. Because those of us that have the numbers seem to be magicians to some.
Sleight of CLI Hand
Have you ever seen the cups and balls magic trick? Here’s an excellent example of it from the recently departed Ricky Jay:
Impressive, right? It’s amazing to behold a master craftsman at work. Every time I watch that video I’m amazed. I know he’s doing sleight of hand. But I can’t catch it. Now, watch this same video but with annotations turned on. SPOILER ALERT – The annotations will tell you EXACTLY where the tricks are done:
Is it more impressive now that you know how the tricks are done? Check out this demonstration from Penn and Teller that shows you exactly how they do the tricks as well:
Okay, so it’s a little less mystifying now that you’ve Continue reading
Worth Reading: Back to Basics
I’m not the only one ranting about the need to get a firm grasp on fundamentals before doing the sexy stuff. Found an old blog post by Joel Spolsky (of the Law of Leaky Abstractions fame) on the exact same topic from programming perspective.
If you ever had to deal with a programming language, it’s definitely worth reading… but some of the details might make your head explode. You’ve been warned ;)
Introducing Immutable infrastructure
An immutable infrastructure prevents common issues like configuration drift. It can bring more consistency and reliability in your infrastructure and a simpler, more predictable deployment process.
Cloudflare Apps Fund 2.0
Today we are launching the second iteration of the Cloudflare App Developer Fund.
This is an investment fund started in partnership with Venrock, Pelion Venture Partners, and New Enterprise Associates. We created the fund to provide developers with resources so that they can build apps using the Cloudflare network and our serverless product, Workers, which enables developers to create applications without configuring or maintaining infrastructure. The goal is to fuel a new economy that grows into a thriving ecosystem so that developers’ serverless innovations can enjoy commercial success.
Cloudflare Apps with Workers allows developers to package Workers, delivering new worker-powered experiences to Cloudflare customers, all within a few clicks via Cloudflare Apps.
Our CTO, John Graham-Cumming talks about it in a recently recorded video:
In short, Cloudflare is looking for apps that will advance our mission to help build a better Internet: one that is safe, fast and reliable. We are seeking out apps that have a clear vision, delight customers by the ease of use and align with our vision. Having already seen multiple use cases around custom application security, data loss prevention, and bot mitigation, we can’t wait to see what else you come up Continue reading
ZTE Led Q3 Surge in Optical Transport Revenues, Dell’Oro Report Says
Huawei continues to dominate the worldwide market, with Ciena tops in North America.
Cumulus content roundup: November
We’re at it again with the Cumulus content roundup- November edition. As always, we’ve kept busy this month with lots of great resources and news for you to read. From EVPN Underlay Routing Protocol to the benefits of Layer 3, we’ve rounded it all up right here, so settle in and stay a while!
From Cumulus Networks:
Choosing an EVPN Underlay Routing Protocol: We take a look at the options in routing protocols that could use as an underlay with the objective of understanding what might make them a fit or not for deployment in an EVPN network.
The Benefits of Flexible Multi-Cloud and Multi-Region Networking: Here we explore some of the reasons multi-cloud is fantastic for enterprises when they consider security, flexibility, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.
Cumulus Linux Automation with Standard Linux Tooling: This blog focuses on the different options available for modern automation, & how the Cumulus Linux approach provides the greatest amount of flexibility.
Cumulus Networks Open-Ended NCLU Net Example Command: NCLU is the always helpful Network Command Line Utility and supports both inspection and modification of Cumulus Networks configuration data.
Layer 3 can do it better. I’m convinced. You should be too.: Are you bringing the best solution Continue reading
BiB 062: Globally Scalable Microsegmentation With Illumio
Illumio is a security company focused on preventing breaches from spreading through an organization using microsegmentation. In this briefing, Illumio discussed their Policy Compute Engine Supercluster. The PCE Supercluster is, as the name implies, a cluster of Policy Compute Engines that spans regions or even the globe. Illumio cited several scenarios driving this available architecture of their central controller.
The post BiB 062: Globally Scalable Microsegmentation With Illumio appeared first on Packet Pushers.
Logs from the Edge
With Cloudflare Workers, our JavaScript environment at the edge, it is possible to send traffic logs to arbitrary locations. In this post we are going to discuss an example Worker implementation on how to achieve this. So if you are building or maintaining your own traffic logging/analytics environment, read on.
To build the underlying script we are going to leverage sub requests. Sub requests, which can be spawned from the initial HTTP/S request, can be used to aggregate and compose a response from several back end services, or, like in the example discussed here, to post data to a specific endpoint. Sub requests can be made asynchronously and after the initial request has been fully served to avoid adding unnecessary latency to the main request.
The Worker Code
In this example we assume an Elastic stack has been set up at elk.example.com and has been configured to receive via HTTP/S PUT requests a number of fields for each log line. The full script that we are going to look at can be found below:
addEventListener('fetch', event => {
event.respondWith(fetchAndLog(event));
})
async function fetchAndLog(event) {
const response = await fetch(event.request);
event.waitUntil(logToElk(event.request, response));
return response;
Continue readingQualcomm Launches $100M Fund for AI, Invests in First Startup
Qualcomm will use the fund to invest in startups building AI for autonomous cars, robotics, and machine learning platforms.
StackPath EdgeEngine Uses Serverless to Strip Edge Deployment Complexity
Developers only need to upload their own code, which is then automatically deployed to the edge in an isolated runtime environment.
Juniper Buys Composable Infrastructure Firm HTBASE
The deal will bring storage to Contrail’s multicloud product as well as expand Juniper’s edge computing portfolio.