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Category Archives for "Networking"

Ethernet Roadmap 2016 – Ethernet Alliance

The IEEE 802.3 committee isn’t very good at getting standards work completed so there is a pre-standards body called the Ethernet Alliance. Its like a “pre-meeting meeting” (yes, we have all had those) for Ethernet standards where vendors thrash out most of the obvious stuff so that the committee has less work to consider and, theoretically, should […]

The post Ethernet Roadmap 2016 – Ethernet Alliance appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Ethernet Roadmap 2016 – Ethernet Alliance

The IEEE 802.3 committee isn’t very good at getting standards work completed so there is a pre-standards body called the Ethernet Alliance. Its like a “pre-meeting meeting” (yes, we have all had those) for Ethernet standards where vendors thrash out most of the obvious stuff so that the committee has less work to consider and, theoretically, should […]

The post Ethernet Roadmap 2016 – Ethernet Alliance appeared first on Packet Pushers.

White House IT overhaul an antique roadshow

The New York Times yesterday had an account of an ongoing effort to modernize the IT infrastructure and end-user equipment relied upon by those whose workplace address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In a sense, the story was rather alarming, as it turns out the White House was in sore need of just about new everything.There were a couple of networking nuggets worth noting in the story.First was the matter of old cabling … lots and lots of the stuff. One of his first tasks was trying to map the miles of Ethernet cables and phone wires inside the walls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The team of technicians eventually discovered and removed 13,000 pounds of abandoned cables that no longer served any purpose.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

It takes two to ChaCha (Poly)

Not long ago we introduced support for TLS cipher suites based on the ChaCha20-Poly1305 AEAD, for all our customers. Back then those cipher suites were only supported by the Chrome browser and Google's websites, but were in the process of standardization. We introduced these cipher suites to give end users on mobile devices the best possible performance and security.

CC BY-ND 2.0 image by Edwin Lee

Today the standardization process is all but complete and implementations of the most recent specification of the cipher suites have begun to surface. Firefox and OpenSSL have both implemented the new cipher suites for upcoming versions, and Chrome updated its implementation as well.

We, as pioneers of ChaCha20-Poly1305 adoption on the web, also updated our open sourced patch for OpenSSL. It implements both the older "draft" version, to keep supporting millions of users of the existing versions of Chrome, and the newer "RFC" version that supports the upcoming browsers from day one.

In this blog entry I review the history of ChaCha20-Poly1305, its standardization process, as well as its importance for the future of the web. I will also take a peek at its performance, compared to the other standard AEAD.

What Continue reading

So, you want to be a security pro? Read this first

Of all the high-demand areas in IT, security stands out at the top. According to DICE, the number of security jobs skyrocketed by more than 40% from 2014 to 2015, to 50,000 openings, compared with 16.8% growth the year before. “Security jobs are growing at a far more rapid pace than other areas of technology, which are also growing rapidly,” says Bob Melk, president at DICE. Meanwhile, in a 2015 survey by ISC2, 62% of respondents said they lacked adequate security staff, and 45% cannot find qualified candidates. In five years, the organization says, the shortfall in the global information security workforce will reach 1.5 million.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

New products of the week 4.4.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.kiteworks (Microsoft Office 365 Enhancements)Key features: Accellion’s content platform, kiteworks, now extends Microsoft Office Online to content stored on-premise and in the cloud without having to duplicate files. These capabilities are largely enabled by Accellion’s ongoing collaboration with Microsoft and reflect a common interest in making enterprise employees productive and more secure. Features include full text search for documents (folder, name and contents), real-time collaboration editing / co-authoring for Office Online documents stored across the cloud and on-premise systems, and office online integration with access to files stored on SharePoint, Documentum, OpenText, Microsoft OneDrive, Box, Dropbox and other content systems. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 4.4.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.kiteworks (Microsoft Office 365 Enhancements)Key features: Accellion’s content platform, kiteworks, now extends Microsoft Office Online to content stored on-premise and in the cloud without having to duplicate files. These capabilities are largely enabled by Accellion’s ongoing collaboration with Microsoft and reflect a common interest in making enterprise employees productive and more secure. Features include full text search for documents (folder, name and contents), real-time collaboration editing / co-authoring for Office Online documents stored across the cloud and on-premise systems, and office online integration with access to files stored on SharePoint, Documentum, OpenText, Microsoft OneDrive, Box, Dropbox and other content systems. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Most notable 2016 college commencement speakers from tech and science

Techiest speakersMaybe Bradley University in Illinois has the right idea in announcing it will not have any outside commencement speakers, in an effort to move things along. But at least those schools that have chosen technology-related speakers might teach new grads a thing or two before they head off into the wider world. Here’s a look at some of the techiest commencement speakers:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FBI will help US agencies with tools to unlock encrypted devices

The FBI has promised to help local law enforcement authorities crack encrypted devices, in a letter that refers to the federal agency’s success in accessing the data on an iPhone 5c running iOS 9 that was used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists.The agency did not, however, explicitly promise investigators that it would deploy the same tool, said to have been developed by an outside organization, on other iPhones.The FBI had earlier demanded in court that Apple should assist it in its attempts to crack by brute force the passcode of the iPhone used by the terrorist, without triggering an auto-erase feature that could be activated after 10 unsuccessful tries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Technology Short Take #64

Welcome to Technology Short Take #64. Normally, I try to publish Short Takes on Friday, but this past Friday was April Fools’ Day. Given the propensity for “real” information to get lost among all the pranks, I decided to push this article back to today. Unlike most of what is published around April Fools’ Day, hopefully everything here is helpful, informative, and useful!

Networking

Internet Exchange (IX) Metrics

IX Metrics has been released on GitHub, https://github.com/sflow-rt/ix-metrics. The application provides real-time monitoring of traffic between members in an Internet Exchange (IX).

Close monitoring of exchange traffic is critical to operations:
  1. Ensure that there is sufficient capacity to accommodate new and existing members.
  2. Ensure that all traffic sources are accounted for and that there are no unauthorized connections.
  3. Ensure that only allowed traffic types are present.
  4. Ensure that non-unicast traffic is strictly controlled.
  5. Ensure that packet size policies are controlled to avoid loss due to MTU mismatches.
IX Metrics imports information about exchange members using the IX Member List JSON Schema. The member information is used to create traffic analytics and traffic is checked against the schema to identify errors, for example, if a member is using a MAC address that isn't listed.

The measurements from the exchange infrastructure are useful to members since it allows them to easily see how much traffic they are exchanging with other members through their peering relationships. This information is easy to collect using the exchange infrastructure, but much harder for members to determine independently.

The sFlow standard has long been a popular method of monitoring exchanges for a number of reasons:
  1. sFlow Continue reading

CCIE – Cisco Learning Network Sale on CCIE Training for the CCIE RS Lab

Are you preparing for the CCIE RS lab? Cisco 360 is the official training program for the CCIE. There are other training vendors out there which are also high quality, like INE and Narbik, Cisco 360 has an advantage in that they can leverage the real platform of the lab though. If you want to assess how ready you are you can take an assessment lab at Cisco 360. You will also have the opportunity to get more comfortable with the lab platform that is used in the lab. You will also have the opportunity to practice the TS and DIAG section to make sure you are comfortable with those sections of the lab when the big day comes.

CLN will have a sale during April and May which means that you can save between 10-20% on these products to help you prepare for the CCIE RS lab. For the CCIE there are currently three products on sale.

The first product is a bundle and it’s a starter and advanced mini bundle for 1599$ and contains the following.

  • Core and Advanced Workbooks with 25 Expert-level labs for hands-on practice. Labs 01–20 have troubleshooting and configuration sections each, labs 21–25 include Continue reading

GCP, and Regaining Trust

Google is telling us they’re serious about the cloud. They’re hiring the right people, spending the big bucks, and even (gasp!) talking to customers! (Oh how that must stick in their craw). They have great technology, they’ve proved it out at scale, and the price is right.

There’s just one nagging doubt in the back of our minds. Is Google serious about this? Are they going to turn around one day and say “GCP is too hard to maintain, we’re dropping it. Besides, self-driving Segways are the future.”

Fool me once…

Because they have form in this. I present Exhibit A, Google Reader. Yes, that old saw. Yes, yes I am still bitter. No, I won’t let it go.

I used Google Reader daily. I loved it. It came from a pre-Twitter, pre-Facebook time. A time when we used to have to visit a list of sites to keep up with things. We’d have to remember to check our friend’s travel blog every few weeks, just in case there was a new post. Sure, we used Slashdot as an aggregator, but everyone knows that’s been dead/dying since Rob Malda sold out to the man. (Has Netcraft has Continue reading

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