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Category Archives for "Networking"

Install and run the Cloonix network emulator on Packet.net

This tutorial shows how to set up the Cloonix network emulator on a Packet.net server. It builds on top of my previous post about how to set up a virtualization server on Packet.net. Now, I focus on a specific case: setting up the Cloonix network emulator on the virtualization server. You should read my previous post before reading this one.

Running Cloonix on a remote server enables users to work with more complex network emulation scenarios than would be possible on a standard laptop computer. For example. Cloonix recently added a feature which allows users to run Cisco router images in a Cloonix network emulation scenario. Cisco router images require a large amount of computer resources so I cannot run more than a few on my personal laptop computer. If I use a remote Packet server, I could run dozens of Cisco images in a network emulation scenario if I wanted to.

In this post, I will set up a Cloonix network emulation server on Packet.net so it can be started, stopped, and restarted relatively quickly.

Table of Contents

  1. Cloonix v37 overview
  2. Packet.net overview
  3. Tutorial summary
  4. Start a server and attach storage
  5. Load Files onto Block Continue reading

McAllen, Texas: Cloudflare opens 119th Data Center just north of the Mexico border

McAllen, Texas: Cloudflare opens 119th Data Center just north of the Mexico border

McAllen, Texas: Cloudflare opens 119th Data Center just north of the Mexico border

Five key facts to know about McAllen, Texas

  • McAllen, Texas is on the southern tip of the Rio Grande Valley
  • The city is named after John McAllen, who provided land in 1904 to bring the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway railway into the area
  • McAllen, Texas is named the City of Palms
  • The border between Mexico and the USA is less than nine miles away from the data center
  • McAllen, Texas is where Cloudflare has placed its 119th data center

Second datacenter in Texas; first on the border with Mexico

While McAllen is close to the Mexican border, its importance goes well beyond that simple fact. The city is halfway between Dallas, Texas (where Cloudflare has an existing datacenter) and Mexico City, the center and capital of Mexico. This means that any Cloudflare traffic delivered into Mexico is better served from McAllen. Removing 500 miles from the latency equation is a good thing. 500 miles equates to around 12 milliseconds of round-trip latency and when a connection operates (as all connections should), as a secure connection, then there can be many round trip communications before the first page starts showing up. Improving latency is key, even if we have Continue reading

Building a World Free of Barriers: Vashkar Bhattacharjee’s Story

We recently shared Part One and Part Two of Vashkar Bhattacharjee’s story. Vashkar is the National Consultant, Accessibility, A2i, Prime Minister’s Office of Bangladesh, and the Program Manager, Young Power in Social Action (YPSA). Here is Part Three.

Our research at Young People in Social Action (YPSA), Bangladesh revealed that developing multimedia talking books would not be enough to ensure proper learning among students. For that to happen, the students required access to rich vocabulary libraries for proper understanding of language. (We have been supported by a2i program’s Service Innovation Fund to develop Bangladesh’s first accessible dictionaries in English and Bangla available in both online and offline modes.)

People are amazed to see persons with visual impairment using computers and smartphones. This has been made easy thanks to the open-source screen-reading software that can convert text to speech. People with visual impairment can also use the standard QWERTY keyboard just like everybody else as it has become second nature. Among the 50 people working at YPSA, 32 have a disability. ICTs have helped them overcome physical barriers.

In the role of a2i’s national consultant for disability, I am working on making different websites accessible for all following W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Continue reading

VeloCloud and Aryaka in a two-horse race for SD-WAN leadership

Research firm IHS Markit recently released its Data Center Network Equipment market tracker report for Q4 2017 by analyst Cliff Grossner, which includes Software-Defined WANs (SD-WAN). I don’t normally comment on other industry research, but I have tremendous respect for Grossner, and his quantitative numbers are among the best. So, I felt a deep dive into his findings on the SD-WAN market was worth the effort.Also read: Why 2018 will be the year of the WAN It’s important to note that Grossner’s numbers include SD-WAN appliance and control management software revenue and not services, so his numbers will be smaller than other firms, such as IDC, which has the market pegged somewhere in the billion-dollar range. Neither is better than the other, per se; they’re just different.To read this article in full, please click here

VeloCloud and Aryaka in a two-horse race for SD-WAN leadership

Research firm IHS Markit recently released its Data Center Network Equipment market tracker report for Q4 2017 by analyst Cliff Grossner, which includes Software-Defined WANs (SD-WAN). I don’t normally comment on other industry research, but I have tremendous respect for Grossner, and his quantitative numbers are among the best. So, I felt a deep dive into his findings on the SD-WAN market was worth the effort.Also read: Why 2018 will be the year of the WAN It’s important to note that Grossner’s numbers include SD-WAN appliance and control management software revenue and not services, so his numbers will be smaller than other firms, such as IDC, which has the market pegged somewhere in the billion-dollar range. Neither is better than the other, per se; they’re just different.To read this article in full, please click here

A Christmas Support Story

Warning: Non-Technical Post

As it’s the festive period and this time of the year is for caring and sharing, here’s a short story from many years ago. This might make some chuckle, but some of these times were not pleasant and I can assure you, they were very real!

Like most IT related people, I started in support. The job paid peanuts, it was shift work and I had much to learn. Being quite eager to please, many mistakes were made and in these cases seniors were supposed to help the younglings (like me). For some companies, a functioning support network just isn’t there and low rank power struggles leave you fighting fires a la solo.

Within the first three months of the job, I experienced two major backhaul fibre outages, a group of people stealing our generator power cables and the air conditioning system failed to the point of meltdown. We also had a total power outage which took 40 hours or so of non-stop work to get everything back online and healthy.

These kinds of experiences make or break you. The phones do not stop ringing (at least when the power is on) and customers rightfully do not Continue reading

Net Neutrality and the FCC’s December 14 Vote

Net neutrality is defined differently in different circles. For the Internet Society, it means that an Internet service provider should not block, filter, throttle a users’ Internet usage, or give preferential treatment to one end user or content provider over another. Fundamentally, everyone should be able to access the content and services they choose without corporate or government interference. We believe this will ensure the Internet remains an engine for innovation, free expression, and economic growth. In some jurisdictions, this may require policy, regulatory, and technical measures.

On December 14, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is likely to vote to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order, which classified broadband providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. Under FCC Chairman Pai’s proposal, the FCC would yield authority over broadband providers to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Since the announcement of that vote, many American Internet users have been anxious that their Internet service provider may undo their commitments to provide open access to the Internet for their customers. They are right to be anxious. We are already seeing signs that ISPs may change their net neutrality commitments in light of the upcoming ruling.

American users have Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Network analytics will change everything

The way we manage and monitor networks is morphing. Passive, reactive tools are being replaced by more proactive network analytics systems that give the entire network team a single source of truth about network behavior and a much deeper understanding of where infrastructure issues are hiding and what to do about them.Before IT was forever changed by the arrival of mobile devices, virtualization and cloud apps, fixing network problems was relatively simple because users plugged into the network from one location to access local applications and resources.But with the proliferation of diverse wireless clients – a range of hardware using different versions of different operating systems (the permutations can quickly scale into the thousands) – and the use of applications and services that are often not under IT’s control, getting to the heart of individual user and systemic client network problems has become the new nightmare.To read this article in full, please click here