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Category Archives for "Networking"

Simple, Efficient, and Modern: VMware NSX introduces new HTML5 UI

Along with the advancements in context-aware micro-segmentation and network virtualization, we are also continually raising the bar on making VMware NSX simple to deploy, manage, and operationalize at scale – and that, of course, involves a responsive and easy-to-use HTML-based UI to access VMware NSX functionality.

With VMware NSX for vSphere 6.4.1, you can now access all NSX installation and security functionality through a responsive HTML-based vSphere Client, including Distributed Firewall, Service Composer, Application Rule Manager, and more. This modern interface does not have any dependencies on browser plugins (e.g. Adobe Flash), has a more minimalistic look-and-feel, and loads so much faster! Beyond the immediate aesthetic improvements, here’s a quick look at some of the key enhancements to how we’re simplifying the NSX user experience.

 

NSX Firewall – Better Visibility and Efficient Rule Management

 

Given how feature-rich the NSX Firewall page is, our usability designers focused extra attention on streamlining the day-to-day tasks of creating, managing and troubleshooting firewall rules.

For starters, at the top of the Firewall page, we’ve introduced a new Status Bar and elevated table-level actions (like Publish and Save) to their own dedicated Toolbar. Now, at a glance, you can immediately Continue reading

Datanauts 136: ChatOps Using PoshBot With Brandon Olin

On this episode of Datanauts, we chat with Brandon Olin, the creator of PoshBot, a PowerShell based chatbot for ops teams. What does PoshBot do? How was PoshBot built? How do chatbots impact Brandon’s delivery model?

ChatBots?

Bots have been around for a long time. They re really handy, too, often being able to answer simple questions by submitting a special command that has some sort of prefix or identifier associated with them. Especially if you re on Twitch and want to know how long your favorite streamer has been online.

Maybe that isn t the most helpful thing in the world, but what if we changed the narrative to be all about operations and how talking to a bot (with your peers watching) could actually up-level your day-to-day enjoyment of IT?

That’s our conversation today.

What is PoshBot?

PoshBot is a chat bot written in PowerShell. It makes extensive use of classes introduced in PowerShell 5.0. PowerShell modules are loaded into PoshBot and instantly become available as bot commands. PoshBot currently supports connecting to Slack to provide you with awesome ChatOps goodness.

For More Information About PoshBot

IDG Contributor Network: Houston, we have a networking problem

We’ve covered networking on our home planet. But what happens when we send signals where no man has gone before?Space networking is two-way communication between base stations on Earth, and unmanned space probes, planetary rovers, orbital satellites or manned spacecraft. These radio signals bring back messages, images and scientific discoveries. Someday they’ll be used to communicate between colonies on Earth and the moon or Mars.Of course, we can’t just “call” Mars. Networking in outer space is vastly different from what we experience on Earth.Communications travel at the speed of light. This means that it can take 20 minutes or more for a radio signal to reach a Martian planetary rover. It’s like going back to dial-up.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Houston, we have a networking problem

We’ve covered networking on our home planet. But what happens when we send signals where no man has gone before?Space networking is two-way communication between base stations on Earth, and unmanned space probes, planetary rovers, orbital satellites or manned spacecraft. These radio signals bring back messages, images and scientific discoveries. Someday they’ll be used to communicate between colonies on Earth and the moon or Mars.Of course, we can’t just “call” Mars. Networking in outer space is vastly different from what we experience on Earth.Communications travel at the speed of light. This means that it can take 20 minutes or more for a radio signal to reach a Martian planetary rover. It’s like going back to dial-up.To read this article in full, please click here

Extending the Power of NSX to Bare-metal Workloads

Authors – Sridhar Subramanian and Geoff Wilmington

 

VMware NSX Data Center was built with the goal of consistent networking and security services independent of changing application frameworks or physical infrastructure. In the last couple of years, NSX Data Center has focused on delivering network and security abstractions for applications on any compute platform. In our journey, we have handled VM’s, containers, cloud, and now we are also looking to help our customers with scenarios where they need a unified experience for bare-metal workloads.  The goal being to maintain a consistent security experience regardless of location or platform the workload is running on.

This experience means being able to take any workload, add it to an NSX Data Center Security Group and through the NSX Data Center Distributed Firewall have a consistent policy applied regardless of location and workload type.  This consistent approach leverages the NSX DFW capabilities with stateful firewalling for the workloads.  This is accomplished outside of using native OS capabilities like IP Tables or Windows Firewall so security admins only need to understand how to apply security through NSX DFW, and not have to understand the myriad of native OS approaches and complexity.  By centralizing Continue reading

To Tackle the VPNFilter Botnet, It’s Going to Take Help from You and Me

If you’ve been reading the news lately, you might have seen headlines like “FBI to America: Reboot Your Routers, Right Now” or “F.B.I.’s Urgent Request: Reboot Your Router to Stop Russia-Linked Malware”. These headlines can be pretty alarming, and you may find yourself thinking, “things must be pretty bad if the FBI is putting out such an urgent warning.”

Cyber threats are not uncommon, but the good news is that the security community is working around the clock to tackle these threats as early and quickly as possible. Most of the time we do not see all this hard work, nor are we often asked to play a large part in taking down a botnet. But this time, by rebooting our routers, we can help the law enforcement and information security communities to identify infected routers so they can be cleaned up, moving us closer to a permanent fix for a particular kind of malware – VPNFilter.

Here is what happened …

From Discovery to Takedown

On 23 May, 2018, researchers at Cisco’s Talos publicly shared their findings about a large botnet of infected networking devices (home routers) they called “VPNFilter” because of concerns that the Continue reading

BrandPost: How to Future-proof Your Storage Investments

The emergence of data-heavy applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) has upped the enterprise storage ante. Combined with the data in apps used daily to run the business, the limits of storage are being stretched.Yet having to continually procure storage capacity doesn’t make sense; forward-looking CIOs and IT decision makers must future-proof their investments. Here’s what to consider. Performance Digital business will constantly evolve, meaning organizations will need to deploy applications and services as business needs change or new objectives emerge.To read this article in full, please click here

Connecting the Unconnected: The Land of Zero Connect

As we move to a more digitally-connected world, the need for Internet access has never been greater. In many parts of the world, the Internet has firmly established itself as a core part of everyday life – and this holds true for everyone from kids to adults to senior citizens. Yet, there remain communities and places around the world that are still offline. In some instances, these are probably the hardest locations to connect. And there are many reasons for this – geography and terrain could be one reason, commercial viability of service provision is another, as is affordability – the capacity of the community to pay for devices and Internet connectivity.

In 2010, the Internet Society Asia-Pacific Bureau launched the award-winning Wireless for Communities Programme. This was a pioneering effort that placed the local community front and centre, with its catchphrase – “for the community, with the community, by the community”.

The focus of the programme is to provide Internet access and connectivity to underserved and unserved rural areas in a holistic manner that leads to socioeconomic empowerment. A key component involves developing communities’ capacity to build and operate the wireless network, and at the same time, empowering them Continue reading

Episode 28 – For the Love of NAT

When it comes to NAT, network engineers love it, they hate it, or the love to hate it. In this episode, Tom Hollingsworth and Nick Buraglio join us to talk about NAT, why it exists, and its continued role in networking.

 


 

We would like to thank Core BTS for sponsoring this episode of Network Collective. Core BTS focuses on partnering with your company to deliver technical solutions that enhance and drive your business. If you’re looking for a partner to help your technology teams take the next step, you can reach out to Core BTS by emailing them here.


Nick Buraglio
Guest
Tom Hollingsworth
Guest

Jordan Martin
Co-Host
Eyvonne Sharp
Co-Host


Outro Music:
Danger Storm Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The post Episode 28 – For the Love of NAT appeared first on Network Collective.

Blockchain, service-centric networking key to IoT success

Connecting and securing the Internet of Things (IoT) should be achieved with a combination of service-centric networking (SCN) along with blockchain, researchers say. `A multi-university, multiple-discipline group led by Zhongxing Ming, a visiting scholar at Princeton University, say IoT’s adoption will face an uphill battle due in part to bottlenecks between potentially billions of devices, along with the mobile nature of much of it.The scientists, who call their IoT architecture Blockcloud, presented their ideas at GENESIS C.A.T., an innovation-in-blockchain technology event recently in Tokyo.To read this article in full, please click here

Don’t Miss Keith Bogart’s Live Webinar! Deciphering Spanning-Tree Technologies

Tune in Tomorrow, May 31st, at 10 am PDT/ 1 pm EDT for a FREE live webinar with expert instructor Keith Bogart (CCIE #4923).

 


About This Webinar:

Understanding the logic of 802.1d and how it builds a loop-free “tree” is critical to passing any Cisco certification exam. Presented by INE instructor Keith Bogart (CCIE #4923), this session will take you through that logic so that, given any bridged/switched layer-2 network, you can predict what tree will be formed. Ask questions live with an experienced industry expert!