Archive

Category Archives for "Networking"

AI heading back to the trough

I like Gartner’s concept of the technology hype cycle. It assumes that expectations of new technologies quickly ramp to an inflated peak, drop into a trough of disillusionment, then gradually ascend a slope of enlightenment until they plateau. Of course, not all technologies complete the cycle or transition through the stages at the same pace.Artificial intelligence (AI) has arguably been in the trough for 60 years. I am thinking of Kubrick’s HAL and Roddenberry’s “computer” that naturally interact with humans. That’s a long trough, and despite popular opinion, the end is nowhere in sight.+ Also on Network World: Using artificial intelligence to teach computers to see + There’s so much excitement and specialized research taking place that AI has fragmented into several camps such as heuristic programming for game-playing AI, natural language processing for conversational AI, and machine learning for statistical problems. The hype is building again, and just about every major tech company and countless startups are racing toward another inflated peak and subsequent trough.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Who Controls The Internet?

The title of the paper Who controls the Internet? Analyzing global threats using property traversal graphs is enough to ensnare any Internet researcher. The control plane for a number of attacks, as the paper points out, is the DNS due to the role it plays in mapping names to resources. MX records in the DNS control the flow of mail, CNAME records are used to implement content delivery networks (CDN) services, and TXT records are used to confirm access to and control over a namespace when implementing third party services. This post will cover an interesting case where control is exercised first via the DNS and then using BGP.

Below the DNS, in the depths of internet plumbing, is the lizard brain of internet routing, which is governed by the border gateway protocol (BGP). A common term to describe BGP routing is “hot potato” routing. BGP conversations occur between autonomous systems, ASes, which are identified by their autonomous system number ASN. The ASN represents a system of networks and the policy associated with their routing. ASes are issued regionally by Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), which receive blocks of AS numbers to hand out from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority Continue reading

33% off iRobot Roomba 652 Robotic Vacuum Cleaner – Prime Day Deal Alert

This is a Prime Day deal good for today only, and reserved for Amazon Prime members (or those with a free trial: sign up here). The Roomba 652 Vacuuming Robot provides a thorough clean at the push of a button. Preset Roomba to clean when it’s convenient for you, so you can keep up with everyday mess. The Roomba 652 is discounted a 33%, so you save a whopping $125 if you buy it today. If you've always wanted a robot to clean your house, see this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

35% off Bose SoundLink Mini Bluetooth Speaker II – Prime Day Deal Alert

Amazon Prime members save a generous 35% ($70) on the highly rated Bose SoundLink Mini Bluetooth Speaker II. This is a Prime Day deal, so good for today only until they run out of stock. The SoundLink Mini Bluetooth speaker II delivers full sound with dramatically deeper lows than you’d expect from a speaker that fits in the palm of your hand. And because it’s wireless and ultra-compact, it’s easy to take anywhere. The built-in speakerphone lets you take calls out loud with clear sound. And voice prompts make Bluetooth pairing easy. Plays unplugged for hours and can be charged from most USB power sources. Head over to Amazon and take advantage of this Prime Day deal. If you're not a Prime member, you can sign up for a free trial here to unlock the deals. To see our picks for today's best Prime Day deals, read our guide (on our sister site PCWorld.com) to the best deals: "Amazon Prime Day 2017: We pick the best electronics, PC, and mobile deals"To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IPv6 Link-Local Addresses and VLAN Interfaces

One of my readers sent me an email that’s easiest paraphrased into: “Why can’t I have a different IPv6 link-local address (LLA) on every access port connected to a VLAN interface?

There’s probably nothing stopping someone from implementing such an approach, but it would go against the usual understanding of how bridging and routing interact in L2+L3 switches.

Read more ...

Interface basics on the Juniper MX

I’ve been spending more time on the MX recently and I thought it would be worthwhile to document some of the basics around interface configuration.  If you’re like me, and come from more of a Cisco background, some of configuration options when working with the MX weren’t as intuitive.  In this post, I want to walk through the bare bone basic of configuring interfaces on a MX router.

Basic L3 interface

ge-0/0/0 {
    unit 0 {
        family inet {
            address 10.20.20.16/24;
        }
    }
}

The most basic interface configuration possible is a simple routed interface. You’ll note that the interface address is configured under a unit. To understand what a unit is you need to understand some basic terminology that Juniper uses. Juniper describes a physical interface as an IFD (Interface Device). In our example above the IFD would be the physical interface ge-0/0/0. We can then layer one or more IFL (Interface Logical) on top of the IFD. In our example the IFL would be the unit configuration, in this case ge-0/0/0.0. Depending on the configuration of the IFD you may be able to provision additional units. These additional units (Logical interfaces (IFLs)) Continue reading