BGP in EVPN-Based Data Center Fabrics – Take 2

My BGP in EVPN-Based Data Center Fabrics blog post generated numerous comments from engineers disagreeing with my views on using IBGP-over-EBGP.

As usual, there were three kinds of comments:

MPLS 101 – Dynamic routing with BGP

In our last post we talked about how to make the MPLS control plane more dynamic by getting rid of static LSPs and adding in LDP to help advertise and distribute LSPs to all MPLS speaking routers.  However – even once got LDP up and running, we still had to tell the routers to use a given LSP.  In the last post, we accomplished this by adding recursive static routes in the inet.0 table to force the routers to recurse to the inet.3 table where the MPLS LSPs lived.  In this post, we’re going to tackle getting rid of the static routes and focus on replacing it with a dynamic routing protocol – BGP.

So to start off with, let’s get our lab back to a place where we can start.  To do that, we’re going to load the following configuration on each router show in the following lab topology…

interfaces {
    ge-0/0/0 {
        enable;
        unit 0 {
            family inet {
                address 10.2.2.0/31;
            }
        }
    }
    ge-0/0/1 {
        enable;
        unit 0 {
            family inet {
                address 10.1.1.0/31;
            }
            family mpls;
        }
    }
    lo0 {
        unit 0 {
            family  Continue reading

BrandPost: Businesses report cost savings with advanced network solution

Extreme networks recently released our brand-new report: Quantifying the Value of the New Extreme Networks Solution (an Enterprise Strategy Group Economic Value Validation report). We set out to show IT organizations like yours the costs and benefits of deploying Extreme Networks compared with alternative network vendors, and trust us, the results are pretty mind-blowing.“Extreme Networks convinced us that for a reasonable price you can get a technologically advanced and reliable solution that can be managed through a unified management console.” - Extreme CustomerTo read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: What’s behind IoT’s growth?

We asked CIOs and IT managers from all industries around the world to find out how they are embracing the Internet of Things. They told us about their plans, concerns, benefits, and the issues they've encountered.The vast majority have already implemented or are planning to implement IoT projects. Building-related projects involving smart lighting and energy management are the most common, followed by video surveillance and data collection projects.On the concerns and drawbacks side, device security, an issue addressed by ExtremeControl, swamps all other challenges. Data privacy, fear of rogue control and hijacking, service interruptions, and data integrity are all issues that CIOs face when implementing IoT.To read this article in full, please click here

Fedora 28 Beta is ready for you to test

Fedora 28 has just been released in its Beta version. That means that it isn’t likely to be completely free of bugs and that you have a chance to participate in ensuring that it’s ready to go public on May 1st.This news won’t be particularly surprising to the more enthusiastic Fedora users. Fedora’s release cycle is a fairly regular after all. Every 6 months, more or less, a new Fedora release is published. Many Fedora users have come to expect to see them around May Day and Halloween each year. Yet, while not surprising, the news is still exciting because of a number of new and enhanced features.So, what do you have to look forward to in this Beta release or the planned May release?To read this article in full, please click here

Fedora 28 beta is ready for you to test

Fedora 28 has just been released in its beta version. That means it isn’t likely to be completely free of bugs and that you have a chance to participate in ensuring that it’s ready to go public on May 1.This news won’t be particularly surprising to the more enthusiastic Fedora users. Fedora’s release cycle is a fairly regular after all. Every six months, more or less, a new Fedora release is published. Many Fedora users have come to expect to see them around May Day and Halloween each year. Yet, while not surprising, the news is still exciting because of a number of new and enhanced features.Also read: Review: Free Linux Fedora server offers upgrades as they become available – no wait | Sign up: Subscribe to receive daily Network World updates New features in Fedora 28 beta So, what do you have to look forward to in this beta release or the planned May release?To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: How digital transformation affects IT goals, staff

Every day, vendors are trying to sell you on digital transformation, but are they truly helping you transform? Most are simply looking for a sales pitch to move you to their latest and greatest products. They’re plying you with stories of operational savings and productivity numbers.However, they’re missing the key to a successful digital business: the experience. Be it customer, user, or administrator experience, the human interaction with technology is the difference between successful digital transformation and simply being on the cutting edge of technology.At Extreme, our tagline is Connect Beyond the Network. We understand the importance of the experience. Yes, we’ll offer you scalability, security, simplicity and all the other buzzwords touted throughout the industry; however, what we really offer are experience-driven outcomes.To read this article in full, please click here

Some Things I Learned About VeloCloud SD-WAN

Some things about VeloCloud I learned at #NFD17

Intel Offloads Wind River to Investment Firm TPG

The deal ends Intel’s near decade of ownership of Wind River. The embedded software firm will keep its existing management team when it's independent.

CEO Succession at Internet Society – Friday Deadline for Open Call for Candidates

As I informed our community in my last note, we launched the Open Call for CEO Candidates on Friday, 9 March 2018.

The deadline for applications is 23:59 UTC on Friday, 6 April 2018

This means that potential candidates interested in applying still have a few more days to do so. Candidates can apply for the position by visiting the Perrett Laver (our search firm for this process) web site using the following link:

https://candidates.perrettlaver.com/vacancies/726/ceo/

While the Candidate Pack (information about the CEO position) has been available for download on the link above during the whole open call, we have received input from our community asking us to make the Candidate Pack available also on a regular URL outside the search firm’s portal. Accordingly, for your convenience, we have now made it available on the following link as well:

https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Internet-Society-CEO-Succession.pdf

Please, distribute this call to potential candidates who may be interested so that they can apply before the upcoming deadline.

The ongoing open call for candidates will result in a long list of candidates. Taking the long list as a starting point, the whole board (at this point the search committee has already done Continue reading

Worth Reading: Connectivity as a consumer service

Having Comcast et al provide Internet connectivity is like having your barber do surgery because he knows how to use a knife. I was reminded of this when my Comcast connection failed. —Bob Frankston @CircleID

BrandPost: A Prefabricated Data Center Upgrade Enables SMB Digital Transformation

The concept of digital transformation is rather simple, but the process to actually transform the organization is quite complex and far-reaching. Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are not exempt from this transformation and must meet many of the same challenges that far larger enterprises face. The reality is that SMBs need the same level of IT capabilities and services as their large competitors.One of the most elemental changes impacting the IT environment is the need to ensure that the physical infrastructure supporting servers, storage, and network equipment is up to the job of enabling digital transformation. A digital business is truly reliant on its systems, and any outages, downtime, or service interruptions have major consequences on both the business and the business’s customers. Given that substantial downtime is caused by power, wiring, or cooling problems that impact key hardware systems, investing in digital systems that have circa 2005 physical infrastructure supporting them is a losing proposition.To read this article in full, please click here

AT&T Makes Big Whitebox Bet

Bunch of announcements from ATT are harbingers ?

Istio Keeps Digging Toward 1.0 GA Release

The platform is increasingly popping up in conversations tied to the orchestration and management of containers in a production environment.

Data Center Report Finds Cost Is Not the Big Driver for New Technology

A big driver for using next-generation technologies was improved capabilities to configure, troubleshoot, and measure data center networks.

On the ‘net: GPU’s and Composable Systems

Advances in computing often come from odd angles; routing and switching came out of the need to connect multiple proprietary systems in some way, locally and over long distances (hence the long standard emphasis on open standards and interoperability in the network engineering world). Another interesting development of this type is the boom in Graphic Processing Units (GPUs). @GestaltIT

Mosaic NetworX Shortens Its SD-WAN Sales Process With Connected2Fiber

Mosaic NetworX integrated Connected2Fiber’s connected world platform with its Salesforce instance to more effectively design and sell its SD-WAN service.

Juniper Networks’ Security Strategy: Unify Everything, Keep it Open

Juniper Networks security team wants to unify threat detection, automated enforcement, and mitigation in a unified platform and integrate with other technology vendors to support non-Juniper gear.

Extend your security view from the data center to the edge

How great would it be to have a dashboard with a holistic view of threats, malicious server activity, vulnerabilities, sensitive data access levels and a daily scan of resources across all of your applications and services? Now you can.

Cloudflare is thrilled to announce its integration with Cloud Security Command Center (Cloud SCC) for Google Cloud Platform: A security and data risk platform helping enterprises gather data, identify threats, and act on them before they result in business damage or loss.

The advantage of the Cloud SCC solution is that it surfaces insights from both the Google Cloud Platform, as well as Cloudflare’s edge, in a unified dashboard.

What Cloudflare data is visible within the Cloud SCC dashboard?

Through Cloudflare’s API endpoints, data is pushed to Google’s Cloud SCC dashboard and domain name information mapped to the appropriate Google Cloud asset. Cloudflare’s branded card in the Cloud SCC dashboard is automatically populated with a summary of top theat origins, top types of threats, and latest Web Application Firewall (WAF) events.

To view a full list of Cloudflare events, click on the Cloudflare card in Cloud SCC and it will take you to a “Cloudflare Findings” page. From there, you can Continue reading

Red Hat Rides Containers, Kubernetes, Hybrid Cloud Into the Future

OpenShift, OpenStack, and Ansible were key drivers for 2018 results, with the impending acquisition of CoreOS set to bolster its container and Kubernetes position moving forward.