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Category Archives for "Networking"

IDG Contributor Network: Tech in banks: Innovating within a sometimes lethargic industry

I was at a conference recently and came across Dawie Olivier, CIO of Westpac Bank and Australasian-operating bank. That it took a trip to Texas to discover someone who lives in the same country as me was an ironic reflection on why industry conferences are still useful events.Notwithstanding the weirdness that we’d never met previously, I was interested to hear of Olivier’s experiences within three different banks in different geographies. After the event, I caught up with him (and thanks must go out to Chef’s awesome PR company for arranging the conversation) to get deeper insight into how banks operate and what it means to innovate within their traditionally constrained environments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

OSPF to IS-IS Migration

There are many reasons of OSPF to IS-IS migration, specifically for the Service Provider networks. Some of these reasons are shared later in the case study. OSPF to IS-IS migration can be done in three ways. In this article I will share, ‘  ship in the night approach ‘ which relies on having both routing […]

The post OSPF to IS-IS Migration appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

Certificate policy violations force reform at StartCom and WoSign

The top management of StartCom and WoSign will be replaced and the two certificate authorities will undergo audits after browser vendors discovered that they mis-issued many digital certificates, violating industry rules. The investigation launched by Mozilla led to the discovery of 13 instances where China-based WoSign and its subsidiary StartCom issued certificates with various types of problems. Evidence was also found that both CAs issued certificates signed with the SHA-1 algorithm after Jan. 1 in violation of industry rules and intentionally backdated them to avoid being caught. As a result, Mozilla said that it has lost faith in the ability of WoSign and StartCom to correctly carry out the functions of a CA and announced that it will stop trusting new certificates from the two companies. Apple followed suit and announced its own ban for future WoSign and StartCom certificates last week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Certificate policy violations force reform at StartCom and WoSign

The top management of StartCom and WoSign will be replaced and the two certificate authorities will undergo audits after browser vendors discovered that they mis-issued many digital certificates, violating industry rules. The investigation launched by Mozilla led to the discovery of 13 instances where China-based WoSign and its subsidiary StartCom issued certificates with various types of problems. Evidence was also found that both CAs issued certificates signed with the SHA-1 algorithm after Jan. 1 in violation of industry rules and intentionally backdated them to avoid being caught. As a result, Mozilla said that it has lost faith in the ability of WoSign and StartCom to correctly carry out the functions of a CA and announced that it will stop trusting new certificates from the two companies. Apple followed suit and announced its own ban for future WoSign and StartCom certificates last week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Collecting Docker Swarm service metrics

This article demonstrates how to address the challenge of monitoring dynamic Docker Swarm deployments and track service performance metrics using existing on-premises and cloud monitoring tools like Ganglia, Graphite, InfluxDB, Grafana, SignalFX, Librato, etc.

In this example, Docker Swarm is used to deploy a simple web service on a four node cluster:
docker service create --replicas 2 -p 80:80 --name apache httpd:2.4
Next, the following script tests the agility of monitoring systems by constantly changing the number of replicas in the service:
#!/bin/bash
while true
do
docker service scale apache=$(( ( RANDOM % 20 ) + 1 ))
sleep 30
done
The above test is easy to set up and is a quick way to stress test monitoring systems and reveal accuracy and performance problems when they are confronted with container workloads.

Many approaches to gathering and recording metrics were developed for static environments and have a great deal of difficulty tracking rapidly changing container-based service pools without missing information, leaking resources, and slowing down. For example, each new container in Docker Swarm has unique name, e.g. apache.16.17w67u9157wlri7trd854x6q0. Monitoring solutions that record container names, or even worse, index data by container name, will suffer from bloated Continue reading

Doxing, trolling and ‘grossly offensive’ communications are now illegal in the UK

To observe Hate Crime Awareness Week, the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is cracking down on internet bullies and trolls. Actions like posting humiliating photoshopped images of people on social media platforms, creating derogatory hashtags and doxing can get cyber bullies prosecuted.CPS published new social media guidelines to help prosecutors determine which online actions are illegal. The guidelines take aim at doxing, inciting virtual mobbing – encouraging others to participate in online harassment – and fake social media profiles used for online abuse to name but a few.Retweeting something the CPS considers “grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false” can also land a person in legal hot water. Yet Alison Saunders, CPS director of public prosecutions, stressed to the BCC that prosecutors can’t use the guidelines to “stifle free speech.” People in the UK better check out what actions are now illegal since saying you didn’t know it was illegal just won’t cut it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Doxing, trolling and ‘grossly offensive’ communications are now illegal in the UK

To observe Hate Crime Awareness Week, the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is cracking down on internet bullies and trolls. Actions like posting humiliating photoshopped images of people on social media platforms, creating derogatory hashtags and doxing can get cyber bullies prosecuted.CPS published new social media guidelines to help prosecutors determine which online actions are illegal. The guidelines take aim at doxing, inciting virtual mobbing – encouraging others to participate in online harassment – and fake social media profiles used for online abuse to name but a few.Retweeting something the CPS considers “grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false” can also land a person in legal hot water. Yet Alison Saunders, CPS director of public prosecutions, stressed to the BCC that prosecutors can’t use the guidelines to “stifle free speech.” People in the UK better check out what actions are now illegal since saying you didn’t know it was illegal just won’t cut it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: When medical alarm standards fail patients and health professionals

Healthcare facilities are heavily regulated environments. From electronic health records to how fire doors in a hospital need to be installed, many different organizations and government agencies regulate the healthcare industry.Medical alarms are one aspect of healthcare that is heavily standardized. The IV pump will “ding” if a tube becomes kinked. And because of movies with melodramatic scenes in the hospital, most people are aware of the heartbeat in the background beeping over the actors’ voices.What patients, healthcare providers and family members may not realize is all alarms are required to meet an international standard. The international standard for medical electrical equipment (IEC 60601-1-8) from the International Standards Organization (ISO) specifies performance and alarm categories and sound specifications. All manufacturers design and build to the standard for their individual devices. The standard was created to help make the alarms discernible from other sounds in the hospital, but the device manufacturer will not know which alarm is most important, so a healthcare professional needs to be able to hear all of the alarms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Upskilling staff through disruptive times

These days, more than ever before, the terms “game changer” and “disruptive” are thrown around with abandon. Everyone is fighting to be known as the Uber of X. But whenever a game changes, the need to learn new rules arises. And when something is disruptive, the routines we’ve picked up over the years are thrown off kilter. The need to teach a new way of doing things becomes vital. It’s one thing to go through the implementation of a new system, infrastructure or standard. It’s another thing entirely to get everyone used to a whole new system. It is a case of “adapt or die.” + Also on Network World: The IT skills gap is a reality, but doesn’t have to be +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What IT admins love/hate about 8 top network monitoring tools

Network monitoring systems typically look for slow, overloaded, failing or crashed servers, routers, switches and network connections – and alert network administrators to the problem. According to the IT Central Station user community, the most important criteria to consider when choosing network monitoring software are scalability, flexibility and multi-tenancy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

What IT admins love/hate about 8 top network monitoring tools

Network monitoring systems typically look for slow, overloaded, failing or crashed servers, routers, switches and network connections – and alert network administrators to the problem. According to the IT Central Station user community, the most important criteria to consider when choosing network monitoring software are scalability, flexibility and multi-tenancy.Eight of the top-ranked network monitoring software products are CA Unified Infrastructure Management, SevOne, Microsoft SCOM, FortiSIEM (AccelOps), ScienceLogic, NetScout TruView, Opsview Enterprise and Nagios, according to online reviews by enterprise users in the IT Central Station community.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)