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Category Archives for "Networking"

How Wi-Fi could get a boost from Li-Fi

Wi-Fi has had an enormous impact on mobile computing use, enabling employees to access corporate networks from anywhere and turning coffee shops into offices for independent workers. It also has its shortcomings, which is where a new standard, Li-Fi, could one day fill in the gaps, assuming it can make it to market.The trouble with Wi-Fi? It doesn’t travel far, especially through walls. It is notoriously insecure and easy to spoof by hackers. And even with the bandwidth increases over the years, an access point can be overwhelmed rather easily when too many people try to access it at the same time.+Related: Does MU-MIMO really expand Wi-Fi system capacity?+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Building Intent Based Networking System


I've been unhappy with my creation-to-consumption ratio lately, which is the amount of time spent creating compared to amount of time spent consuming. Yes I spend time creating design documents, business proposals, system architecture, slides for both technical and non-technical content, product requirement documents, blog posts, and occasionally write simple codes, but much of my free time is spent consuming for Netflix, newspapers, Twitter, televised sports, Facebook, blogs, Medium, TV series, online courses and others.

You may say we need consumption as an input prior to creating. And I agree, consuming is fine if it is part of learning or research in order to create something. But creation must come first. So if I commit to create something, let's say a system design or even this blog post, I must start by starting the work first and whenever I feel some information is needed to add or validate the work only then I will consume new inputs to mix with the old ones and fuel creativity.

Tonight I'm sitting in front of my macbook, in an attempt to increase my creation-to-consumption ratio, by writing about building Intent-Based Networking System (IBNS). Let's start with problem definition.


The end customer is a Continue reading

iSCSI ESX Datastore

Due to close scare in my lab I decided to switch the datastore from a single onboard hdd to iSCSI. I use a WD MyCloud EX2 Ultra but there are a lot of more advanced NAS out there with a whole host of extra features. The WD is rather basic but is sufficient for my needs of partitioning it into a backup drive and an iSCSI drive. Since moving onto this I haven’t noticed any real performance degradation in my lab, its run over 1 Gig port.

Preview: Networking Field Day Exclusive with Aruba (HPE) – The 8400 core switch

 

aruba-game-has-changed

Back to Silicon Valley!

As a network type, it’s hard not to be excited when heading to a Networking Field Day event. I joined then NFD club by attending NFD14 and have been hooked ever since.

Not only is it an honor and a privilege to be invited to an NFD event, the personal relationships that are forged in the larger TFD community are some of the most valuable I’ve ever had in my career.

This go around we’ll be visiting Aruba (A Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company) in Santa Clara to deep dive on the newest addition to the Aruba product line – the 8400 core switch.

A new face in campus town – the Aruba 8400

It’s been a while since anything exciting happened in the world of campus networking. It’s a steady segment for most vendors but nothing disruptive has really happened in the last few years.

And that’s not incredibly surprising. For better or worse, as long as campus networks aren’t broken in most enterprises, they are often neglected in favor of the data center and cloudy pursuits.

Aruba is touting the 8400 to increase automation and visibility in the campus core – both are areas Continue reading

Preview: Networking Field Day Exclusive with Aruba (HPE) – The 8400 core switch

 

aruba-game-has-changed

Back to Silicon Valley!

As a network type, it’s hard not to be excited when heading to a Networking Field Day event. I joined then NFD club by attending NFD14 and have been hooked ever since.

Not only is it an honor and a privilege to be invited to an NFD event, the personal relationships that are forged in the larger TFD community are some of the most valuable I’ve ever had in my career.

This go around we’ll be visiting Aruba (A Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company) in Santa Clara to deep dive on the newest addition to the Aruba product line – the 8400 core switch.

A new face in campus town – the Aruba 8400

It’s been a while since anything exciting happened in the world of campus networking. It’s a steady segment for most vendors but nothing disruptive has really happened in the last few years.

And that’s not incredibly surprising. For better or worse, as long as campus networks aren’t broken in most enterprises, they are often neglected in favor of the data center and cloudy pursuits.

Aruba is touting the 8400 to increase automation and visibility in the campus core – both are areas Continue reading

Tough times strike Lenovo’s data center business

Lenovo has done a bang-up job in taking over IBM’s old PC business and turning it into a rousing success. Or at least as much of a success as can be had in an era of declining PC sales. Its luck with the server business? Not so much.Lenovo picked up IBM’s x86 server business in 2014 after some grumbling and consternation from the government. It seemed the government and military had quite an installed base of IBM servers and wasn’t keen on the Chinese taking ownership of them. But the deal went through after some assurances. Looks like that was the least of their problems. According to Gartner, in the first quarter of 2017, Lenovo sales fell 16 percent and its market share dropped to just 5.8 percent. Lenovo was fifth, behind HPE, Dell EMC, IBM (which is only selling Power-based RISC systems and mainframes) and Cisco. In fact, Lenovo had been ahead of Cisco in terms of units sold. When you fall behind Cisco in servers, a business Cisco didn’t even enter until a decade ago, you have a problem. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tough times strike Lenovo’s data center business

Lenovo has done a bang-up job in taking over IBM’s old PC business and turning it into a rousing success. Or at least as much of a success as can be had in an era of declining PC sales. Its luck with the server business? Not so much.Lenovo picked up IBM’s x86 server business in 2014 after some grumbling and consternation from the government. It seemed the government and military had quite an installed base of IBM servers and wasn’t keen on the Chinese taking ownership of them. But the deal went through after some assurances. Looks like that was the least of their problems. According to Gartner, in the first quarter of 2017, Lenovo sales fell 16 percent and its market share dropped to just 5.8 percent. Lenovo was fifth, behind HPE, Dell EMC, IBM (which is only selling Power-based RISC systems and mainframes) and Cisco. In fact, Lenovo had been ahead of Cisco in terms of units sold. When you fall behind Cisco in servers, a business Cisco didn’t even enter until a decade ago, you have a problem. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tough times strike Lenovo’s data center business

Lenovo has done a bang-up job in taking over IBM’s old PC business and turning it into a rousing success. Or at least as much of a success as can be had in an era of declining PC sales. Its luck with the server business? Not so much.Lenovo picked up IBM’s x86 server business in 2014 after some grumbling and consternation from the government. It seemed the government and military had quite an installed base of IBM servers and wasn’t keen on the Chinese taking ownership of them. But the deal went through after some assurances. Looks like that was the least of their problems. According to Gartner, in the first quarter of 2017, Lenovo sales fell 16 percent and its market share dropped to just 5.8 percent. Lenovo was fifth, behind HPE, Dell EMC, IBM (which is only selling Power-based RISC systems and mainframes) and Cisco. In fact, Lenovo had been ahead of Cisco in terms of units sold. When you fall behind Cisco in servers, a business Cisco didn’t even enter until a decade ago, you have a problem. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Are you and your network ready for change?

When I began this blog in October of last year, my goal was to help readers understand both the magnitude of the digital transformation currently underway and its implications for companies and IT professionals in every industry. In particular, I focused on the role of the network in enabling digital business and best practices for transforming the network from a cost center to a growth driver.This is a subject near and dear to my heart because the networking industry has been my home for many years, and it has seen a lot of change. Come this fall, it’s likely so see a bit more. Last November, my company, Brocade, announced that it is being acquired by Broadcom Ltd., and in the next few months, that transaction is expected to be completed. I’m a perfect example of the fact that you can never fully predict how things will change; you can only know things will change. So I want to wrap up this blog series with a look back at some of the most important things you need to consider today to make sure you’re ready for whatever changes digital transformation may send in your direction.To read this Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Are you and your network ready for change?

When I began this blog in October of last year, my goal was to help readers understand both the magnitude of the digital transformation currently underway and its implications for companies and IT professionals in every industry. In particular, I focused on the role of the network in enabling digital business and best practices for transforming the network from a cost center to a growth driver.This is a subject near and dear to my heart because the networking industry has been my home for many years, and it has seen a lot of change. Come this fall, it’s likely so see a bit more. Last November, my company, Brocade, announced that it is being acquired by Broadcom Ltd., and in the next few months, that transaction is expected to be completed. I’m a perfect example of the fact that you can never fully predict how things will change; you can only know things will change. So I want to wrap up this blog series with a look back at some of the most important things you need to consider today to make sure you’re ready for whatever changes digital transformation may send in your direction.To read this Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Are you and your network ready for change?

When I began this blog in October of last year, my goal was to help readers understand both the magnitude of the digital transformation currently underway and its implications for companies and IT professionals in every industry. In particular, I focused on the role of the network in enabling digital business and best practices for transforming the network from a cost center to a growth driver.This is a subject near and dear to my heart because the networking industry has been my home for many years, and it has seen a lot of change. Come this fall, it’s likely so see a bit more. Last November, my company, Brocade, announced that it is being acquired by Broadcom Ltd., and in the next few months, that transaction is expected to be completed. I’m a perfect example of the fact that you can never fully predict how things will change; you can only know things will change. So I want to wrap up this blog series with a look back at some of the most important things you need to consider today to make sure you’re ready for whatever changes digital transformation may send in your direction.To read this Continue reading

How the hospitality industry will profit from the IoT

Connecting the world changes everything. That’s what businesses and consumers are learning as they embrace the Internet of Things (IoT) for everything from household garage door openers to smart-city applications that solve traffic congestion and reduce crime.But IoT is more significant than just adding connectivity to existing products or services. In fact, it is about changing the way products and services deliver value. In the process, products are becoming services, and services are becoming more intelligent.+ Also on Network World: IoT devices or humans? The hospitality industry is not immune to this evolution, and, in fact, it is well positioned to benefit from IoT. That’s because the industry is poised to improve the customer experience while simultaneously reducing costs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Home Automation Setup with Apple #HomeKit

As many of you know, I’ve been diving into the home automation pond for awhile now. I’ve been asked to blog out my current home setup and this is an attempt to do that. There’s MUCH too much to be put into a single post, which is why I started a new blog for this subject over at www.homekitgeek.com as well as doing some video reviews of different HomeKit accessories. Work in process, but I’ll do the short version here.

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Apple HomeKit

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I chose to use the Apple homeKit framework as the base for my home automation journey for a few reason. The biggest one is that I already owned a couple of Apple TV (gen4) devices which fit the home automation hub role. These devices are a homeKit hub and are the always-on/always-present devices that are used to perform orchestration/automation actions when I’m home or away. These also tie directly into Apple’s iCloud which allows me remote access to my homeKit gear without having to VPN into my home network.

 

Home Setup Room-By-Room

There’s a lot to talk about here, but I thought I would just do a quick description of what’s going on room-by-room Continue reading

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