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5 Network automation tips and tricks for NetOps

Despite what some people say, automation is not for the lazy. This opinion probably comes from the fact that the whole point of automation is to reduce repetitive tasks and make your life easier. Indeed automation can do just that, as well as giving you back hours each week for other tasks.

But getting your automation off the ground to begin with can be a challenge. It’s not as if you just decide, “Hey, we’re going to automate our network now!” and then you follow a foolproof, well-defined process to implement network automation across the board. You have to make many decisions that require long discussions, and necessitate ambitious and careful thinking about how you’re going to automate.

Just as with anything else in the IT world, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions, and no “best practices” that apply to every situation. But there are some common principles and crucial decision points that do apply to all automation endeavors.

In this post, I’ll give you five network automation tips and tricks to get clarity around your automation decisions and reduce any friction that may be inhibiting (further) adoption of network automation.

1. Choose whether you want flexibility or simplicity

Automating Continue reading

Sovereignty Is More Than a Designation, It Is a Responsibility

The Internet can provide access to healthcare, education, and economic opportunity, but many indigenous communities face challenges to Internet access and inclusion. Brian Tagaban, Director of Government Policy at Sacred Wind Communications and former executive director of the Navajo Nation Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, is at RightsCon this week – the world’s leading conference on human rights in the digital age – to discuss the digital divide in indigenous communities in North America. He’s there as an Internet Society fellow and joined by other fellows Bill Murdoch, an IT specialist at the Manitoba First Nation School System and the First Nations Health & Social Secretariat of Manitoba, and Madeleine Redfern, the mayor of Iqaluit in Nunavut, Canada.

We spoke to Tagaban at the first Indigenous Connectivity Summit. The event was the start of a critical conversation about how indigenous communities can connect themselves to the Internet on their own terms. He detailed the time, diligence, and effort required to build a regulatory framework, and hoped that other Summit participants could “see how things are possible, celebrate success stories, share those success stories so that they can be built upon, and gain exposure to the political circumstances, social circumstances, geographic Continue reading

Cisco CEO trumpets Catalyst 9K advances, software business success

Industry bellwether Cisco revealed some important financial numbers this week – its revenues were $12.5 billion, up 4 percent for the third quarter year-over-year, with product revenue up 5 percent.But one of the of the more interesting tidbits is that the company said it was selling some 40 Catalyst 9000 systems a day in and has installed 2,700 of the big boxes this quarter bring the total to 5,800 since its introduction in 2017. The Catalyst 9000 is key to a number of Cisco’s future initiatives – one of the most important being its drive to build out its Network Intuitive plans for intent-based networking.[ Related: Getting grounded in intent-based networking] | The other is that the way its software is sold – via a variety of subscription/feature levels is a key component of its overall strategy to become a more software-oriented company.To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco CEO trumpets Catalyst 9K advances, software business success

Industry bellwether Cisco revealed some important financial numbers this week – its revenues were $12.5 billion, up 4 percent for the third quarter year-over-year, with product revenue up 5 percent.But one of the of the more interesting tidbits is that the company said it was selling some 40 Catalyst 9000 systems a day in and has installed 2,700 of the big boxes this quarter bring the total to 5,800 since its introduction in 2017. The Catalyst 9000 is key to a number of Cisco’s future initiatives – one of the most important being its drive to build out its Network Intuitive plans for intent-based networking.[ Related: Getting grounded in intent-based networking] | The other is that the way its software is sold – via a variety of subscription/feature levels is a key component of its overall strategy to become a more software-oriented company.To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco CEO trumpets Catalyst 9K advances, software business success

Industry bellwether Cisco revealed some important financial numbers this week – its revenues were $12.5 billion, up 4 percent for the third quarter year-over-year, with product revenue up 5 percent.But one of the of the more interesting tidbits is that the company said it was selling some 40 Catalyst 9000 systems a day in and has installed 2,700 of the big boxes this quarter bring the total to 5,800 since its introduction in 2017. The Catalyst 9000 is key to a number of Cisco’s future initiatives – one of the most important being its drive to build out its Network Intuitive plans for intent-based networking.[ Related: Getting grounded in intent-based networking] | The other is that the way its software is sold – via a variety of subscription/feature levels is a key component of its overall strategy to become a more software-oriented company.To read this article in full, please click here

Magnetic smart fabrics will store data in clothes

High-density data could one day be stored in fabric patches embedded in people’s clothing, say scientists at the University of Washington. Importantly, it wouldn’t require electricity, so the smart-fabric could be washed or ironed just like regular clothing. That could make it more convenient than other forms of memory.Off-the-shelf conductive thread, which the scientists say they recently discovered can be magnetized, is being used in trials. The data is read using a simple magnometer. The conductive thread is used commercially now in gloves for operating touch screens, for example.“You can think of the fabric as a hard disk,” said Shyam Gollakota, associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, announcing the breakthrough on the school’s website at the end of last year. “You’re actually doing this data storage on the clothes you’re wearing.”To read this article in full, please click here

RIPE 76 Sees Strong Focus on Routing Security

The RIPE 76 meeting is happening this week in Marseille, France, held at the fantastic location of the Palais du Pharo overlooking Marseille’s Old Port. And it’s also another record attendance with over 850 people registered.

The first couple of days have primarily been devoted to plenary sessions, and there’s been a big focus on routing security. Erik Bais (A2B Internet) kicked off the discussion with a presentation on ‘Why are we still seeing DDoS traffic?‘, which highlighted that DDoS attacks are still originating from the same networks. Looking at the list of the worst offenders, there’s even one amongst the regular RIPE attendees, and he called for networks to clean up their acts. This was also a good opportunity to highlight the MANRS initiative, which of course includes measures to mitigate amplification attacks, and encourages networks to make good routing practices the norm.

Alexander Azimov (Qrator Labs) reinforced this message by outlining the current problems with BGP, including the ongoing route leaks and hijacks affecting the Internet. There are currently only moral obligations to not use other providers’ address space or to support anti-spoofing policies, yet major providers (including Tier 1 providers) continue to both originate Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Rationale in irrationality – The coming of cloud bust?

Any technology, product, or service can become so popular that it develops a trendiness, in which case it becomes difficult to determine if the tool actually has its perceived value or is causing overzealousness in the market. Cloud computing has the huge visibility that could allow it to become an overvalued product, which could allow industry analysts to think it will expand more rapidly than it actually will. This article explores the current industry growth rate projections for the cloud and signs that these growth rates could begin to slow in the years ahead.The numbers: how fast is cloud growing? For many reasons, businesses are turning toward the cloud. One key one is that a greater understanding has developed that the security of cloud is preferable to the security of on-premise architecture.To read this article in full, please click here

Survey: Mainstream adoption of SDN, SD-WAN finally arrives

In 2018, for the first time cloud and software-defined data-center concerns have become the primary focus of enterprise network teams, bumping server virtualization from the top spot, according to an Enterprise management Associates (EMA) report based on a survey of 251 North American and European enterprise network managersThis is the first shift in their priorities for in more than a decade. Since 2008, EMA has been asking network managers to identify the broad IT initiatives that drive their priorities. Server virtualization has dominated their responses year after year. Cloud and software-defined data center (SDDC) architectures have always been secondary or tertiary drivers.To read this article in full, please click here

Survey: Mainstream adoption of SDN, SD-WAN finally arrives

In 2018, for the first time cloud and software-defined data-center concerns have become the primary focus of enterprise network teams, bumping server virtualization from the top spot, according to an Enterprise management Associates (EMA) report based on a survey of 251 North American and European enterprise network managersThis is the first shift in their priorities for in more than a decade. Since 2008, EMA has been asking network managers to identify the broad IT initiatives that drive their priorities. Server virtualization has dominated their responses year after year. Cloud and software-defined data center (SDDC) architectures have always been secondary or tertiary drivers.To read this article in full, please click here

Get Familiar with Leaf-and-Spine Fabrics

An attendee of my Building Next-Generation Data Center online course asked me what the best learning path might be for a total (data center) beginner that has to design and install a small leaf-and-spine fabric in a near future.

This blog post was written for ipSpace.net subscribers who want to get the most out of ipSpace.net content. If you’re only interested in free stuff, you might feel it’s a waste of your time. You’ve been warned ;)

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