Internet Native Applications

I grew up with DOS and Windows 3.1. I remember applications being fast - instant feedback or close to it. Today, native applications like Outlook or Apple Mail still feel fast - click compose and the window is there instantly and it feels snappy. Internet applications do not.

My first Internet experience was paying $30 for a prepaid card with 10 hour access over a 14.4k modem. First, it was bulletin boards and later IRC and the WWW. From my small seaside town in Australia, the Internet was a window into the wider world, but it was slooooooow. In a way, it didn’t matter. The world of opportunities the Internet opened up, from information to music, to socializing and ecommerce, who cared if it was slow? The utility of the Internet and Internet applications meant I would use them regardless of the experience.

Performance improved from the 90s, but in 2008 when I switched from Outlook downloading my Yahoo! email over IMAP to Gmail in the browser, it wasn’t because it was faster - it wasn’t - it was because features like search, backed up mail, and unlimited storage were too good to resist. The cloud computing power Continue reading

Worth Reading: Practice Hours

Often times musicians have “sacred” practice hours. They don’t do it for an artist, band, or for anyone other than themselves. It’s their time to sit down and focus on a technique, song that they want to learn, or whatever their heart desires. —Stephanie Winn Provence @Free Code Camp

Foundries.io Tightens Edge, IoT Integration to Boost Security

The firm sees constant and long-term updates as key to maintaining edge and IoT security.

Integrating redirection.io with Cloudflare Workers

The following is a guest post by Xavier Lacot, a developer at redirection.io and founder at JoliCode. He works primarily on Web and mobile projects as a consultant, trainer and technical expert.

What is redirection.io

Redirection.io is a Web traffic redirection manager. It provides a collection of tools for website administrators, SEO agencies, and developers, which help analyze HTTP errors, setup HTTP redirections, customize HTTP responses, and monitor the traffic efficiently.

The main part of a traditional redirection.io setup is the proxy, a software component which parses every request to check if a redirection or another response override is required. This "proxy" can be of several types - we provide libraries in several languages - but this setup can be simplified for Cloudflare clients by taking advantage of Cloudflare Workers.

Here come Cloudflare Workers

Earlier this year, Cloudflare unveiled its Workers product, a smart way of running code on the edge of Cloudflare locations. This computing feature is particularly interesting, as it allows performing several traffic operations without requiring any change on your own platform, code, or infrastructure: just enable Workers, write some code, and let Cloudflare handle the magic ✨

In practical terms, Workers Continue reading

DHCP defined and how it works

The ability to network devices quickly and easily is critical in a hyper-connected world, and although it has been around for decades, DHCP remains an essential method to ensure that devices are able to join networks and are configured correctly. DHCP greatly reduces the errors that are made when IP addresses are assigned manually, and can stretch IP addresses by limiting how long a device can keep an individual IP address. [ Now read 20 hot jobs ambitious IT pros should shoot for. ] DHCP definition DHCP stands for dynamic host configuration protocol and is a network protocol used on IP networks where a DHCP server automatically assigns an IP address and other information to each host on the network so they can communicate efficiently with other endpoints.To read this article in full, please click here

DHCP defined and how it works

The ability to network devices quickly and easily is critical in a hyper-connected world, and although it has been around for decades, DHCP remains an essential method to ensure that devices are able to join networks and are configured correctly. DHCP greatly reduces the errors that are made when IP addresses are assigned manually, and can stretch IP addresses by limiting how long a device can keep an individual IP address. [ Now read 20 hot jobs ambitious IT pros should shoot for. ] DHCP definition DHCP stands for dynamic host configuration protocol and is a network protocol used on IP networks where a DHCP server automatically assigns an IP address and other information to each host on the network so they can communicate efficiently with other endpoints.To read this article in full, please click here

Keysight Provides NTT DoCoMo With 5G Network Emulation for 5G NR Devices

Keysight and NTT DoCoMo have been collaborating on 5G research since 2015 when the two companies worked on mmWave channel measurement.

Arista Taps VMware, Zscaler to Create Consistent Cloud Security

VMware’s software will bring common security policy enforcement to virtual and physical workloads. Zscaler brings its north-south traffic security.

History of Networking: Ross Callon on MPLS

North America Will Be First With 5G, IHS 5G Survey Says

Lower latency, high capacity, and lower cost per bit are the three big draws for operators to deploy 5G.

Microsoft Foils Russian Security Threat, Seizes Fake Political Websites

Microsoft said it has used this approach 12 times in two years to shut down 84 fake websites associated with the state-sponsored hacking group called Fancy Bear.

What’s New in VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.4.2

With this latest release, VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.4.2 continues to improve overall efficiency of the network, enhance security with Context-Aware Micro-Segmentation, and deliver operational enhancements to the NSX platform. Here are just a few highlights of what’s new.

Multicast Routing Support

With VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.4.2, NSX Logical Routers now have the capability of routing IPv4 multicast traffic.

The location of the Virtual Machine multicast receivers (identified by their hypervisor, Logical Switch and Virtual NIC) is discovered thanks to IGMP snooping within the NSX domain. The Edge Service Gateway (ESG) runs PIM sparse mode with physical routers and coordinates with the Distributed Logical Router (DLR) in order to provide both ways multicast connectivity from Virtual Machines to the outside world.

For added multicast replication performance in the VXLAN Overlay, NSX leverages Layer 2 multicast in an underlying physical infrastructure running IGMP snooping. 

Context-Aware Micro-Segmentation

New Layer 7 Application Context

VMware has been taking security to the next level with Context-Aware Micro-Segmentation, better securing application using the full context of the application. This latest release includes the following new Layer 7 Application Context:

• EPIC – Epic EMR Continue reading

Akraino Edge Stack Project Hits Execution Stage

The Linux Foundation-hosted project is opening up its seed code that initially was contributed by AT&T.

Worth Reading: Active-Active Data Centers

Any enterprise running a high-availability application must answer the following fundamental question: How do we create a resilient application architecture when the underlying communications infrastructure may be unreliable? —Terry Slattery @Netcraftsmen

SANOG 32 – Another Success Story for MANRS

The SANOG 32 meeting was held on 2-10 August 2018 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which marked fifteen amazing years of collaboration between network operators in the South Asia region. The Internet Society is proud to support the SANOG fellowship programme that provides opportunities for network engineers from countries in the region to attend, as well as organising the Network Security workshop during the event.

SANOG 32 also saw another MANRS milestone reached when the ISP Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Internet Society. ISPAB is a membership-based, not-for-profit organization that provides a forum for Bangladeshi ISPs to discuss technology, policy, regulatory and commercial issues and find collective solutions.

In accordance with the MoU, both ISPAB and ISOC will work together to promote and support MANRS, to encourage network operators in Bangladesh to join the initiative. There are currently only two MANRS participants in the country, so being able to increase engagement with the networking community is a welcome development.

Dr Philip Smith (NSRC and Chair of SANOG Programme Committee) also provided a MANRS update during the conference session.

The Network Security workshop attracted 40 participants and was lead by MANRS founding member Matsuzaki Yoshinobu (IIJ) and Continue reading

Dell EMC Touts ‘Kinetic’ Composable Infrastructure in VMworld Ramp Up

Composable infrastructure — Dell EMC calls it “kinetic infrastructure” — treats networking, storage, and compute as fluid resource pools that can be composed and recomposed on the fly.

IDG Contributor Network: Don’t let yourself be erased from the business needs narrative

A CIO of a retail chain recently issued an edict that all requirements for networking must be stated as business needs, including all RFIs, RFQs and internal proposals. No networking protocols, features or terms are now permitted. At first glance this seems like a relatively simple instruction, but the IT staff struggled to articulate business needs and map them to network capabilities. The CIO is imposing a discipline of asking “why” three times to try to understand and separate the inertia of past choices from what their business needs today. I believe the CIO is wise in trying to connect the business needs to network capabilities.Speaking the language of the industry Networking professionals are being left out of the narrative. We are deemed a necessary evil rather than a partner in producing products and services. We are the people that slow things down, make things harder and budget for things people do not understand nor value. Becoming part of the narrative requires that each networking professional understand and anticipate their business’s needs. In fact, I would argue that the public cloud, bring your own device and shadow IT are the result of networking not being part of the narrative. Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Don’t let yourself be erased from the business needs narrative

A CIO of a retail chain recently issued an edict that all requirements for networking must be stated as business needs, including all RFIs, RFQs and internal proposals. No networking protocols, features or terms are now permitted. At first glance this seems like a relatively simple instruction, but the IT staff struggled to articulate business needs and map them to network capabilities. The CIO is imposing a discipline of asking “why” three times to try to understand and separate the inertia of past choices from what their business needs today. I believe the CIO is wise in trying to connect the business needs to network capabilities.Speaking the language of the industry Networking professionals are being left out of the narrative. We are deemed a necessary evil rather than a partner in producing products and services. We are the people that slow things down, make things harder and budget for things people do not understand nor value. Becoming part of the narrative requires that each networking professional understand and anticipate their business’s needs. In fact, I would argue that the public cloud, bring your own device and shadow IT are the result of networking not being part of the narrative. Continue reading

Rethinking Security in Cloud Networking

Every CXO worries about security because the perimeter is changing; in fact, there are no walls for protection. The lines between cloud, workloads, applications, enterprise networks and hosts are blurring and the challenges are getting exponentially greater. The true security architect must rapidly address the reality of a more holistic network-wide security strategy. It must be one that goes beyond the cyber threat of the day to address the risk, scale and mitigation of persistent security issues. The state of cyber security needs urgent resolution because:

Rethinking Security in Cloud Networking

Every CXO worries about security because the perimeter is changing; in fact, there are no walls for protection. The lines between cloud, workloads, applications, enterprise networks and hosts are blurring and the challenges are getting exponentially greater. The true security architect must rapidly address the reality of a more holistic network-wide security strategy. It must be one that goes beyond the cyber threat of the day to address the risk, scale and mitigation of persistent security issues. The state of cyber security needs urgent resolution because: