Top network monitoring software and visibility tools

Networking performance monitoring and diagnostics (NPMD) software, whether running as an independent appliance or embedded in networking equipment, can help stave off productivity issues for internal corporate users as well as those interacting with the network from the outside.But with ever-increasing traffic on corporate networks, users attempting to optimize connections to the cloud and new Internet of Things devices bombarding the network, enterprises and network performance monitoring vendors face growing challenges.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: 7 must-have network tools +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Oracle Cloud Push Takes on Enterprise Monetization Efforts

Its cloud monetization platform targets customer lifecycle support.

Facebook CSO Lobbies for InfoSec Compassion, Diversity at Black Hat

Stamos said public cloud security research likely hindered uptake.

A New Hippocratic Oath: “First, do no harm… to me or my healthcare data”

IDG Contributor Network: Why companies are building application-specific edge delivery networks

There’s a trend emerging among many Internet-based companies that I find intriguing: they are creating their own edge delivery networks. Why? So that they can service their applications via these networks to enable greater resilience and performance for their users.Rather than the standard, garden-variety content delivery networks (CDNs), these edge delivery networks are tailored specifically for the applications they’ve been built to service. In some cases, this means the edge networks leverage highly specific connectivity to regional internet service providers or between application facilities; in other cases, it means placing specialized hardware tuned to specific needs of the application in delivery facilities around the world. And most importantly, these networks are operating application-specific software and configurations that are customized beyond what’s possible in general-purpose, shared networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Why companies are building application-specific edge delivery networks

There’s a trend emerging among many Internet-based companies that I find intriguing: they are creating their own edge delivery networks. Why? So that they can service their applications via these networks to enable greater resilience and performance for their users.Rather than the standard, garden-variety content delivery networks (CDNs), these edge delivery networks are tailored specifically for the applications they’ve been built to service. In some cases, this means the edge networks leverage highly specific connectivity to regional internet service providers or between application facilities; in other cases, it means placing specialized hardware tuned to specific needs of the application in delivery facilities around the world. And most importantly, these networks are operating application-specific software and configurations that are customized beyond what’s possible in general-purpose, shared networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mist uses AI to improve wireless network performance

A couple of months ago I was having dinner with a fairly well-known Silicon Valley executive who predicted that success for an IT vendor is based on two things: having lots of data and a robust artificial intelligence (AI) engine to discover new insights.If that is true, then Mist Systems seems to be in a strong position, as the company’s solutions were designed to use AI to solve some of the bigger challenges in Wi-Fi today.This week the wireless network company announced several new access points, as well as use cases, for its solution. Specifics are as follows:Introduction of client service-level expectations (SLE) In telecommunications, the concept of a service-level agreement (SLA) is a threshold that service providers are contracted to meet. The SLE from Mist is similar, although more proactive than a carrier’s SLA. With Mist, administrators can use data to set, monitor and enforce things that impact performance pre and post connection. Examples of this are time to connect, failed connection attempts, roaming, coverage, capacity and AP uptime. The SLEs can be monitored in real time and watched over time to provide up-to-the minute insight as to the health of Wi-Fi.To read this article Continue reading

True random numbers are here — what that means for data centers

For many decades, the term “random numbers” meant “pseudo-random numbers” to anyone who thought much about the issue and understood that computers simply were not equipped to produce anything that was truly random.Manufacturers did what they could, grabbing some signals from the likes of mouse movement, keyboard activity, system interrupts, and packet collisions just to get a modest sampling of random data to improve the security of their cryptographic processes.And the bad guys worked at breaking the encryption.We used longer keys and better algorithms.And the bad guys kept at it. And life went on.But something recently changed all that. No, not yesterday or last week. But it was only back in November of last year that something called the Entropy Engine won an Oscar of Innovation award for collaborators Los Alamos National Laboratory and Whitewood Security. This Entropy Engine is capable of delivering as much as 350 Mbps of true random numbers—sufficient to feed an entire data center with enough random data to dramatically improve all cryptographic processes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

True random numbers are here — what that means for data centers

For many decades, the term “random numbers” meant “pseudo-random numbers” to anyone who thought much about the issue and understood that computers simply were not equipped to produce anything that was truly random.Manufacturers did what they could, grabbing some signals from the likes of mouse movement, keyboard activity, system interrupts, and packet collisions just to get a modest sampling of random data to improve the security of their cryptographic processes.And the bad guys worked at breaking the encryption.We used longer keys and better algorithms.And the bad guys kept at it. And life went on.But something recently changed all that. No, not yesterday or last week. But it was only back in November of last year that something called the Entropy Engine won an Oscar of Innovation award for collaborators Los Alamos National Laboratory and Whitewood Security. This Entropy Engine is capable of delivering as much as 350 Mbps of true random numbers—sufficient to feed an entire data center with enough random data to dramatically improve all cryptographic processes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

True random numbers are here — what that means for data centers

For many decades, the term “random numbers” meant “pseudo-random numbers” to anyone who thought much about the issue and understood that computers simply were not equipped to produce anything that was truly random.Manufacturers did what they could, grabbing some signals from the likes of mouse movement, keyboard activity, system interrupts, and packet collisions just to get a modest sampling of random data to improve the security of their cryptographic processes.And the bad guys worked at breaking the encryption.We used longer keys and better algorithms.And the bad guys kept at it. And life went on.But something recently changed all that. No, not yesterday or last week. But it was only back in November of last year that something called the Entropy Engine won an Oscar of Innovation award for collaborators Los Alamos National Laboratory and Whitewood Security. This Entropy Engine is capable of delivering as much as 350 Mbps of true random numbers—sufficient to feed an entire data center with enough random data to dramatically improve all cryptographic processes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

True random numbers are here — what that means for data centers

For many decades, the term “random numbers” meant “pseudo-random numbers” to anyone who thought much about the issue and understood that computers simply were not equipped to produce anything that was truly random.Manufacturers did what they could, grabbing some signals from the likes of mouse movement, keyboard activity, system interrupts, and packet collisions just to get a modest sampling of random data to improve the security of their cryptographic processes.And the bad guys worked at breaking the encryption.We used longer keys and better algorithms.And the bad guys kept at it. And life went on.But something recently changed all that. No, not yesterday or last week. But it was only back in November of last year that something called the Entropy Engine won an Oscar of Innovation award for collaborators Los Alamos National Laboratory and Whitewood Security. This Entropy Engine is capable of delivering as much as 350 Mbps of true random numbers—sufficient to feed an entire data center with enough random data to dramatically improve all cryptographic processes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network Automation with Netmiko

802.11ax WiFi Faces Technical Challenges

MPLS Scenario: Manually Configuring a BGP Router ID per VRF

Today I am going to talk about the configuration part of the BGP router id per VRF. In my example we took two different VRFs name NB and ttlbits and defined that VRF configurations.

The IP addresses are used here is for the demo purposes only and has no relevance with any of the enterprise network. These configurations are the demo configurations and will help you out for the configuration on your live network.

Below are the steps to configure the BGP router id per VRF. These steps are

• Defining VRF_ttlbits on the router
• Defining VRF_NB on the router
• Configuring Loopback with the IP address
• Configuring Ethernet interfaces with VRF
• Configuring VPNv4 and IPv4 address family

Fig 1.1- Basic Sample MPLS network topology

Below is the basic configuration of defining the VRF

Defining VRF ttlbits on the router

!

ip vrf vrf_ttlbits

 rd 45000:1

 route-target export 50000:50

 route-target import 40000:1

!

Defining VRF NB on the router

!

ip vrf vrf_NB

 rd 65500:1

 route-target export 65500:1

 route-target import 65500:1

!

Configuring Loopback with the IP address

!

interface Loopback0

 ip address 10.10.10.1 255.255.255.255

!

Configuring Ethernet interfaces with the IP address

interface Ethernet0/0

 ip vrf forwarding vrf_ttlbits

 ip address Continue reading

New in Ansible for Networking Engineers

I’ve added two new case studies to Ansible for Networking Engineers online course:

Create network diagrams from LLDP information playbook focuses on creating a single summary report based on information from numerous devices (and the report just happens to be network diagram in DOT format).

Route where you can , switch where you must – Is it true ?

Route where you can , switch where you must. If you are from networking background most probably you heard this many times. But is it true or like anything else, does it depend on the situation and other parameters ?   Yes, you are right, it depends.   When you hear a quote , at […]

The post Route where you can , switch where you must – Is it true ? appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

Bringing behavioral game theory to security defenses

Kelly Shortridge and CSO senior writer Fahmida Y Rashid talk about using behavioral game theory to take advantage of hackers’ mistakes and manipulate the data they think they're receiving. People generally make decisions by either thinking ahead to figure out how people may act in a given situation, or by learning over time by observing what people are doing. Since attackers learn over time by collecting feedback, obfuscating what they get can really mess up what the attackers are able to learn.

Safeguarding power grids and other critical infrastructure from data leaks

CSO senior writer Steve Ragan talks with cybersecurity experts Krypt3ia and Kodor about how the pair seek out passwords, schematics and other sensitive documents on SCADA control system architectures that shouldn't be available online, passing along tips to federal authorities to combat real-world threats.

Bringing behavioral game theory to security defenses

Kelly Shortridge and CSO senior writer Fahmida Y Rashid talk about using behavioral game theory to take advantage of hackers’ mistakes and manipulate the data they think they're receiving. People generally make decisions by either thinking ahead to figure out how people may act in a given situation, or by learning over time by observing what people are doing. Since attackers learn over time by collecting feedback, obfuscating what they get can really mess up what the attackers are able to learn.

Safeguarding power grids and other critical infrastructure from data leaks

CSO senior writer Steve Ragan talks with cybersecurity experts Krypt3ia and Kodor about how the pair seek out passwords, schematics and other sensitive documents on SCADA control system architectures that shouldn't be available online, passing along tips to federal authorities to combat real-world threats.