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Category Archives for "Networking"

Cloudflare is joining the AS112 project to help the Internet deal with misdirected DNS queries

Cloudflare is joining the AS112 project to help the Internet deal with misdirected DNS queries
Cloudflare is joining the AS112 project to help the Internet deal with misdirected DNS queries

Today, we’re excited to announce that Cloudflare is participating in the AS112 project, becoming an operator of this community-operated, loosely-coordinated anycast deployment of DNS servers that primarily answer reverse DNS lookup queries that are misdirected and create significant, unwanted load on the Internet.

With the addition of Cloudflare global network, we can make huge improvements to the stability, reliability and performance of this distributed public service.

What is AS112 project

The AS112 project is a community effort to run an important network service intended to handle reverse DNS lookup queries for private-only use addresses that should never appear in the public DNS system. In the seven days leading up to publication of this blog post, for example, Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 resolver received more than 98 billion of these queries -- all of which have no useful answer in the Domain Name System.

Some history is useful for context. Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are essential to network communication. Many networks make use of IPv4 addresses that are reserved for private use, and devices in the network are able to connect to the Internet with the use of network address translation (NAT), a process that maps one or more Continue reading

How to choose a network service provider

Searching for the best provider for SD-WAN, SASE, MPLS, content delivery network (CDN), 5G or any other network service can be a difficult, frustrating, and tedious process.There are so many providers, so many options, so much confusion and possibilities for future regret. What's the best way to move forward?To read this article in full, please click here

Happy Holidays and All the Best in 2023!

Two hundred forty blog posts and sixteen webinar sessions later, it’s time for yet another “year gone by” blog post – I’m shutting down my virtual office and will disappear until mid-January. I’ll read my email should someone experience an urgent support problem but won’t reply to 90% of the other stuff coming in.

I hope you’ll find a few days to disconnect from the crazy pace of the networking world, forget all the marketing shenanigans you encountered in 2022, and focus on your loved ones. I would also like to wish you all the best in 2023!

Finally, I couldn’t resist posting a few teasers of what’s coming in early 20231:

Interacting with JSON data using JMESPath

Interacting with JSON data using JMESPath

Have you ever found yourself drowning in a sea of JSON data, desperately trying to extract just the right information? I know I have. In my recent Python project, I encountered this exact scenario all too often. I'd be faced with massive JSON files, and extracting the specific data I needed became a headache, involving endless nested loops and conditional statements.

That's when I stumbled upon JMESPath, a lifesaver in the world of data extraction. JMESPath provides a simple and powerful way to query and manipulate JSON data. It's like having a magic wand that lets you effortlessly pluck out exactly what you need from even the most complex JSON structures.

In this post, I'll walk you through an example of how JMESPath came to my rescue and revolutionized the way I work with JSON data. So buckle up, because once you see what JMESPath can do, you'll wonder how you ever managed without it. Let's dive in!

What is JMESPath?

JMESPath, a query language for JSON serves as your trusty companion in the realm of JSON data manipulation. With JMESPath, you can effortlessly filter, extract, and transform information from JSON datasets, making it an invaluable tool for anyone who Continue reading

Arista expands high-end data center switch family to offer network speed, density and performance options

Arista Networks has a new high-end data-center switch as well as several smaller ones designed to provide more configuration and upgrade choices to fit the specific needs of individual organizations.“Different customer use cases and application deployments within a single organization have differing requirements. Each deployment needs a right-sized solution—few applications need 400G of bandwidth per server today, but many organizations need to do the groundwork for the move away from 10/25G,” wrote Martin Hull, vice president of Cloud Titans and Platform Product Management with Arista in a blog about the new systems.To read this article in full, please click here

Arista adds to its data-center switches

Arista Networks has a new high-end data-center switch as well as several smaller ones designed to provide more configuration and upgrade choices to fit the specific needs of individual organizations.“Different customer use cases and application deployments within a single organization have differing requirements. Each deployment needs a right-sized solution—few applications need 400G of bandwidth per server today, but many organizations need to do the groundwork for the move away from 10/25G,” wrote Martin Hull, vice president of Cloud Titans and Platform Product Management with Arista in a blog about the new systems.To read this article in full, please click here

Coming Soon: Ask Me Anything!?

Well, maybe not *anything*, but almost anything is fair game. I’m delighted to share with you that, starting January 2023, I’m hosting a new “Ask JJX” column right here in the Packet Pushers community! This new column lets us interact in new and exciting ways, and truly have a conversation about the topics that matter […]

The post Coming Soon: Ask Me Anything!? appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Cloudflare achieves FedRAMP authorization to secure more of the public sector

Cloudflare achieves FedRAMP authorization to secure more of the public sector

This post is also available in Deutsch, Français and Español.

Cloudflare achieves FedRAMP authorization to secure more of the public sector

We are excited to announce our public sector suite of services, Cloudflare for Government, has achieved FedRAMP Moderate Authorization. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (“FedRAMP”) is a US-government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. FedRAMP Moderate Authorization demonstrates Cloudflare’s continued commitment to customer trust, and Cloudflare for Government’s ability to secure and protect US public sector organizations.

Key differentiators

We believe public sector customers deserve the same experience as any other customer — so rather than building a separate platform, we leveraged our existing platform for Cloudflare for Government. Cloudflare’s platform protects and accelerates any Internet application without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. It’s also one of the largest and fastest global networks on the planet.

One of the things that distinguishes Cloudflare for Government from other FedRAMP cloud providers is the number of data centers we have in scope, with each able to run our full stack of FedRAMP Authorized services locally, with a single control plane on our private backbone. Networking and security services can only improve the Continue reading

Independent report shows: moving to Cloudflare can cut your carbon footprint

Independent report shows: moving to Cloudflare can cut your carbon footprint

This post is also available in 简体中文, Français and Español.

Independent report shows: moving to Cloudflare can cut your carbon footprint

In July 2021, Cloudflare described that although we did not start out with the goal to reduce the Internet's environmental impact, that has changed. Our mission is to help build a better Internet, and clearly a better Internet must be sustainable.

As we continue to hunt for efficiencies in every component of our network hardware, every piece of software we write, and every Internet protocol we support, we also want to understand in terms of Internet architecture how moving network security, performance, and reliability functions like those offered by Cloudflare from on-premise solutions to the cloud affects sustainability.

To that end, earlier this year we commissioned a study from the consulting firm Analysys Mason to evaluate the relative carbon efficiency of network functions like firewalls, WAF, SD-WAN, DDoS protection, content servers, and others that are provided through Cloudflare against similar on-premise solutions.

Although the full report will not be available until next year, we are pleased to share that according to initial findings:

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall (WAF) "generates up to around 90% less carbon than on-premises appliances at low-medium traffic demand."

Needless to say, we Continue reading

A more sustainable end-of-life for your legacy hardware appliances with Cloudflare and Iron Mountain

A more sustainable end-of-life for your legacy hardware appliances with Cloudflare and Iron Mountain
A more sustainable end-of-life for your legacy hardware appliances with Cloudflare and Iron Mountain

Today, as part of Cloudflare’s Impact Week, we’re excited to announce an opportunity for Cloudflare customers to make it easier to decommission and dispose of their used hardware appliances sustainably. We’re partnering with Iron Mountain to offer preferred pricing and discounts for Cloudflare customers that recycle or remarket legacy hardware through its service.

Replacing legacy hardware with Cloudflare’s network

Cloudflare’s products enable customers to replace legacy hardware appliances with our global network. Connecting to our network enables access to firewall (including WAF and Network Firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems, etc), DDoS mitigation, VPN replacement, WAN optimization, and other networking and security functions that were traditionally delivered in physical hardware. These are served from our network and delivered as a service. This creates a myriad of benefits for customers including stronger security, better performance, lower operational overhead, and none of the headaches of traditional hardware like capacity planning, maintenance, or upgrade cycles. It’s also better for the Earth: our multi-tenant SaaS approach means more efficiency and a lower carbon footprint to deliver those functions.

But what happens with all that hardware you no longer need to maintain after switching to Cloudflare?

A more sustainable end-of-life for your legacy hardware appliances with Cloudflare and Iron Mountain

The life of a hardware box

The life of a hardware Continue reading