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Category Archives for "Networking"

2018 Predictions: a new year for the Net

Happy New Year! I was thinking back on the last year, reflecting on all of the changes in the IT industry, and in true nerd fashion, I opened a bottle of wine in search of the most poignant change that I expect to see in 2018. In the end, I ended up with two predictions linked to a common theme: the repeal of net neutrality.

First, I predict that we’ll start seeing effects of that legislation early in 2018, likely by the summer time. The anti net neutrality sponsors won’t be able to help themselves; they’ve got to institutionalize changes before the winds can blow in a different direction. I predict the first signs to emerge will be Internet access plans that distinguish based on access to content. These won’t be subtle plans — they’ll look a lot like your TV subscription in the flavor of something like “basic browsing” that will cost less than your current rate and a more expensive “streaming media” package that gives you access to content outside of that offered by your service provider.

The second is that we’ll see an emergence of one or more access/service providers that use this as a land grab Continue reading

Linux resolutions for 2018

It’s always a good idea to start a new year with renewed intentions to be even better users and administrators of our Linux systems. For auld lang syne (for the sake of old times), let's touch on some of the ways we might improve our system practices in 2018.1: Automate more of the boring stuff There are several good reasons to turn tedious tasks into scripts. The first is to make them less annoying. The second is to make them less error-prone. And the last is to make them easier to turn over to new team members who haven't been around long enough to be bored. Add a small dose of meaningful comments to your scripts and you have a better chance of passing on some of your wisdom about how things should be done.To read this article in full, please click here

VMware Cloud on AWS with NSX: Connecting SDDCs Across Different AWS Regions

I prior shared this post on the LinkedIN publishing platform and my personal blog at HumairAhmed.com. In my prior blog post, I discussed how with VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC on AWS) customers get the best of both worlds for their move to a Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) – the leading compute, storage, and network virtualization stack for enterprises deployed on dedicated, elastic, bare-metal, and highly available AWS infrastructure. Another benefit of VMC on AWS, and the focus of this post, is that you can easily have a global footprint by deploying multiple VMC SDDCs in different regions. Continue reading

How “expensive” is crypto anyway?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the title of this post attracts some Bitcoin aficionados, but if you are such, I want to disappoint you. For me crypto means cryptography, not cybermoney, and the price we pay for it is measured in CPU cycles, not USD.

If you got to this second paragraph you probably heard that TLS today is very cheap to deploy. Considerable effort was put to optimize the cryptography stacks of OpenSSL and BoringSSL, as well as the hardware that runs them. However, aside for the occasional benchmark, that can tell us how many GB/s a given algorithm can encrypt, or how many signatures a certain elliptic curve can generate, I did not find much information about the cost of crypto in real world TLS deployments.

CC BY-SA 2.0 image by Michele M. F.

As Cloudflare is the largest provider of TLS on the planet, one would think we perform a lot of cryptography related tasks, and one would be absolutely correct. More than half of our external traffic is now TLS, as well as all of our internal traffic. Being in that position means that crypto performance is critical to our success, and as it Continue reading

How “expensive” is crypto anyway?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the title of this post attracts some Bitcoin aficionados, but if you are such, I want to disappoint you. For me crypto means cryptography, not cybermoney, and the price we pay for it is measured in CPU cycles, not USD.

If you got to this second paragraph you probably heard that TLS today is very cheap to deploy. Considerable effort was put to optimize the cryptography stacks of OpenSSL and BoringSSL, as well as the hardware that runs them. However, aside for the occasional benchmark, that can tell us how many GB/s a given algorithm can encrypt, or how many signatures a certain elliptic curve can generate, I did not find much information about the cost of crypto in real world TLS deployments.

CC BY-SA 2.0 image by Michele M. F.

As Cloudflare is the largest provider of TLS on the planet, one would think we perform a lot of cryptography related tasks, and one would be absolutely correct. More than half of our external traffic is now TLS, as well as all of our internal traffic. Being in that position means that crypto performance is critical to our success, and as it Continue reading

From Zero to One Hundred in the Arctic Slope

In November 2017, the Internet Society hosted the inaugural Indigenous Connectivity Summit in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The event brought together community network operators, Internet service providers, community members, researchers, policy makers, and Indigenous leadership. One of the participants shared her story.

“‘Mom, did you have YouTube?’” Patuk Glenn, recalls her six year old son asking. Glenn, who lives in Utqiaġvik – a city in Alaska north of the Arctic Circle – laughs as she remembers one of his first words: “loading,” thanks to the sluggish Internet speeds on the Arctic Slope. But things are changing, and soon. Fiber optic cable is going live in Glenn’s community and she has travelled to the Indigenous Connectivity Summit looking for lessons from other Indigenous communities. “We’re going from zero to one hundred overnight,” says Glenn. “How can we best prepare our people?”

It’s not just a question of digital literacy. Glenn’s looking for information on cybersecurity and entrepreneurship – as high-speed Internet opens avenues for economic development and for community members to share their own content with the rest of the world. Like many summit participants, Glenn sees connectivity as a pathway to enable education: not only unlocking online courses, but Continue reading

Twinax – Cheap, Cheerful and Annoyingly Chubby

What’s not to love about twinax? Formerly the exclusive domain of IBM systems, twinax has seen itself reborn in the last few years in the form of the Direct Attach Cable (DAC) used to connect systems at speeds of 10Gbps and 40Gbps (by way of bundling four twinax pairs in a single cable).

Twinax

Direct Attach Cables

Before diving into the pros and cons of DAC, it’s important to understand the different varieties that are available. A DAC is a cable which has SFP+ format connectors hard-wired on each end; plug each end into an SFP+ socket and, vendor support notwithstanding, the link should come up. A direct attach cable is frequently and erroneously referred to as a “DAC cable”, so if the words “PIN number” give you the jitters, working anywhere with DACs is likely to drive you to drink.

Passive Copper DAC (Twinax)

The most common kind of DAC is the passive DAC. The SFP+ connector on a passive DAC, give or take some electrical protection circuitry, is pretty much a direct connection from the copper in the twinax to the copper contacts which connect to the host device:

Passive Copper DAC

Sending a 10G signal over a single copper pair requires Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: 4 advantages of using a Bluetooth mesh network

Companies everywhere are waking up and starting to realize that implementing a mesh network is the best choice for them if they want to remain relevant well into the future. While various technologies are being employed across the nation to achieve this goal, it remains inarguable that Bluetooth is the best option for most companies aiming to leverage a mesh network for success in the marketplace.So why should you choose to employ a Bluetooth-based strategy, and what specific advantages will you gain from it that others who shun it will miss out on? Check out these boons that you’ll soon be enjoying if you rely on a Bluetooth mesh network, and your company will be clamoring to adopt it in no time.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: 4 advantages of using a Bluetooth mesh network

Companies everywhere are waking up and starting to realize that implementing a mesh network is the best choice for them if they want to remain relevant well into the future. While various technologies are being employed across the nation to achieve this goal, it remains inarguable that Bluetooth is the best option for most companies aiming to leverage a mesh network for success in the marketplace.So why should you choose to employ a Bluetooth-based strategy, and what specific advantages will you gain from it that others who shun it will miss out on? Check out these boons that you’ll soon be enjoying if you rely on a Bluetooth mesh network, and your company will be clamoring to adopt it in no time.To read this article in full, please click here

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