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The Internet Society’s Hot Topics at IETF 103

The 103rd meeting of the IETF starts tomorrow in Bangkok which is the first time that an IETF meeting has been held in the city.

The Internet Society’s Internet Technology Team is as always highlighting the latest IPv6, DNSSEC, Securing BGP, TLS, and IoT related developments, and we’ll also be covering DNS Privacy and NTP Security from now on. This is discussed in detail in our Rough Guide to IETF 103, but we’ll also be bringing you daily previews of what’s happening each day as the week progresses.

Below are the sessions that we’ll be covering in the coming week. Note this post was written in advance so please check the official IETF 103 agenda for any updates, room changes, or final details.

Monday, 5 November 2018

Tuesday, 6 November 2018

Large-scale network simulations in Kubernetes, Part 1 – Building a CNI plugin

Building virtualised network topologies has been one of the best ways to learn new technologies and to test new designs before implementing them on a production network. There are plenty of tools that can help build arbitrary network topologies, some with an interactive GUI (e.g. GNS3 or EVE-NG/Unetlab) and some “headless”, with text-based configuration files (e.g. vrnetlab or topology-converter). All of these tools work by spinning up multiple instances of virtual devices and interconnecting them according to a user-defined topology.

Problem statement

Most of these tools were primarily designed to work on a single host. This may work well for a relatively small topology but may become a problem as the number of virtual devices grows. Let’s take Juniper vMX as an example. From the official hardware requirements page, the smallest vMX instance will require:

  • 2 VMs - one for control and one for data plane
  • 2 vCPUs - one for each of the VMs
  • 8 GB of RAM - 2GB for VCP and 6GB for VFP

This does not include the resources consumed by the underlying hypervisor, which can easily eat up another vCPU + 2GB of RAM. It’s easy to imagine how quickly Continue reading

7 Guiding Principles for Leading Data Center Networks

Whether you’re starting out on a fresh playing field or diving into a mud pool of decades-old complexity, designing and deploying a new or modernized data center is a rewarding endeavor; not just for the engineers and architects, but also for the businesses that reap the benefits of agility, scalability, and performance that come along with it.

And the first step on that road is to talk. The initial conversations with thought leaders, business strategists, and technical architects are the most pivotal in the discovery phase of any large project. It is at this phase that the box is forming, and questions must be asked outside of it to shape its dimensions. To transform the network, you must be prepared to ask challenging questions that drive conversations around open networking, automation, modularity, scalability, segmentation and re-usability. Before vendor selection, it is essential to compile a list of business and technical requirements founded upon a set of guiding principles.

Here are seven to keep in your pocket:
1. The network architecture should use standards-based protocols and services
2. The network should be serviceable without downtime
3. The network architecture should promote automation
4. The network should be consumable
5. Physical boundaries Continue reading

What to expect from Wi-Fi 6 in 2019

Wi-Fi 6 – aka 802.11ax – will begin to make its way into new installations in 2019, bringing with it a host of technological upgrades aimed at simplifying wireless-network problems.The first and most notable feature of the standard is that it’s designed to operate in today’s increasingly congested radio environments. It supports multi-user, multiple-input, multiple-output (MU-MIMO) technology, meaning that a given access point can handle traffic from up to eight users at the same time and at the same speed. Previous-generation APs still divide their attention and bandwidth among simultaneous users.[ Also see Wi-Fi 6 is coming to a router near you. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] Better still is orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), a technology borrowed from the licensed, carrier-driven half of the wireless world. What this does is subdivide each of the available independent channels available on a given AP by a further factor of four, meaning even less slowdown for APs servicing up to a couple dozen clients at the same time.To read this article in full, please click here

SDXcentral: Get Smart about Network Architecture

I recently sat with Kireeti Kompella and Gavin Cato to talk about current and future changes in network architecture over at SDXcentral.

Enterprise network architectures are being reshaped using tenets popularized by the major cloud properties. How will the emergence of cloud, edge cloud, and multicloud shape networks? We explore this evolution and look at the ways that real-time streaming telemetry, machine learning, and artificial intelligence affect how networks are designed and operated. In this video, you’ll hear from Gavin Cato, SVP, Development Engineering for Networking at Dell EMC, Kireeti Kompella, CTO & SVP, Engineering at Juniper Networks and Russ White, Infrastructure Architect at LinkedIn.

Internet Freedom Declines Again, with ‘Polarized Echo Chambers’ Aiding Censorship Efforts

The amount of freedom on the global Internet has declined for the eighth straight year, with a group of countries moving toward “digital authoritarianism,” according to a new report from Freedom House.

A number of factors, including the spread of false rumors and hateful propaganda online, have contributed to an Internet that “can push citizens into polarized echo chambers that pull at the social fabric of the country,” said the report, released Thursday. These rifts often give aid to antidemocratic forces, including government efforts to censor the Internet, Freedom House said.

During 2018, authoritarians used claims of fake news and of data breaches and other scandals as an excuse to move closer to a Chinese model of Internet censorship, said the report, cosponsored by the Internet Society.

“China is exporting its model of digital authoritarianism throughout the world, posing a serious threat to the future of free and open Internet,” said Sanja Kelly, director for Internet Freedom at Freedom House. “In order to counter it, democratic governments need to showcase that there is a better way to manage the Internet, and that cybersecurity and disinformation can be successfully addressed without infringing on human rights.”

Thirty-six countries sent representatives Continue reading

Future Thinking: Natali Helberger on the Impact of Consolidation on Media Diversity

Last year, the Internet Society unveiled the 2017 Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future. The interactive report identifies the drivers affecting tomorrow’s Internet and their impact on Media & Society, Digital Divides, and Personal Rights & Freedoms. We interviewed Natali Helberger to hear her perspective on the forces shaping the Internet’s future.

Natali Helberger is a professor of Information Law at the University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Law. She researches how the role of information users is changing under the influence of information technology, and the regulation of converging information and communications markets. Focus points of her research are the interface between technology and information law, user rights and the changing role of the user in information law and policy. Natali has conducted research for the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and national governments and is a regular speaker at national and international conferences. Among others, she is member of an Expert Committee of the Council of Europe on AI and Human Rights, and one of the leaders of the Dutch VSNU Citizenship & Democracy research agenda.

The Internet Society: You recently wrote a chapter for Damian Tambini and Martin Moore’s book Digital Continue reading

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