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Category Archives for "Networking"

Using Calico to create a Kubernetes cluster mesh for multi-cluster environments

Kubernetes has come of age with more organizations adopting a microservices architecture at scale. But scale brings a whole slew of new challenges, especially with Kubernetes, which is designed to operate as a single cluster. However, the usage of Kubernetes, especially at leading-edge organizations operating at scale, has crossed the single-cluster threshold. Organizations are building and deploying services across multiple clusters for high availability, disaster recovery, application isolation, compliance, latency concerns, staged migration, and multi-tenancy reasons.

Regardless of the reasons to deploy multiple clusters, platform and application teams must address networking, security, and observability issues related to microservices deployed across multi-clusters, sometimes spanning hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Calico, the most widely adopted container networking and security solution (according to a recently published container adoption report by Datadog), provides an operationally simple solution to solve the networking, security, and observability challenges of running multi-cluster Kubernetes environments.

Security, observability, and networking requirements for multiple Kubernetes clusters

In simple terms, creating a multi-cluster Kubernetes environment requires stitching multiple Kubernetes clusters together to provide a common set of services. To create a single logical environment spanning multiple clusters, the key requirements are:

  • Enabling inter-cluster communication – Communication across pods located in different clusters is Continue reading

BrandPost: Unlocking Higher Education: AI Improves Student Experience, Institutional Excellence

Over the past two years, institutions of higher education (IHEs) have undergone a tremendous amount of change. The future is more uncertain than ever. To prepare for the future, today’s institutional leaders must navigate the complexities of hybrid-first learning and operations to create flexible, high-quality digital experiences.Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a leading focus of IT investment for higher education leaders with the aim of enhancing the student experience, improving the financial health of their organization, and driving institutional excellence. But without a network capable of meeting these expectations and IT staff equipped to manage this complex IT landscape, institutions risk delivering a poor end-user experience.To read this article in full, please click here

Network Automation: a Service Provider Perspective

Antti Ristimäki left an interesting comment on Network Automation Considered Harmful blog post detailing why it’s suboptimal to run manually-configured modern service provider network.


I really don’t see how a network any larger and more complex than a small and simple enterprise or campus network can be developed and engineered in a consistent manner without full automation. At least routing intensive networks might have very complex configurations related to e.g. routing policies and it would be next to impossible to configure them manually, at least without errors and in a consistent way.

Network Automation: a Service Provider Perspective

Antti Ristimäki left an interesting comment on Network Automation Considered Harmful blog post detailing why it’s suboptimal to run manually-configured modern service provider network.


I really don’t see how a network any larger and more complex than a small and simple enterprise or campus network can be developed and engineered in a consistent manner without full automation. At least routing intensive networks might have very complex configurations related to e.g. routing policies and it would be next to impossible to configure them manually, at least without errors and in a consistent way.

Network Automation with CUE – Advanced workflows

What I’ve covered in the previous blog post about CUE and Ansible were isolated use cases, disconnected islands in the sea of network automation. The idea behind that was to simplify the introduction of CUE into existing network automation workflows. However, this does not mean CUE is limited to those use cases and, in fact, CUE is most powerful when it’s used end-to-end — both to generate device configurations and to orchestrate interactions with external systems. In this post, I’m going to demonstrate how to use CUE for advanced network automation workflows involving fetching information from an external device inventory management system, using it to build complex hierarchical configuration values and, finally, generating and pushing intended configurations to remote network devices.

CUE vs CUE scripting

CUE was designed to be a simple, scalable and robust configuration language. This is why it includes type checking, schema and constraints validation as first-class constructs. There are some design decisions, like the lack of inheritance or value overrides, that may take new users by surprise, however over time it becomes clear that they make the language simpler and more readable. One of the most interesting features of CUE, though, is that all code Continue reading

Using the zip and zipcloak commands on Linux

Both the Linux zip and zipcloak commands can create encrypted zip files, but they have some important and interesting differences. Here’s what you need to know about how they work and what you should understand when using them.zip The zip command provides an easy way to take a group of files and squeeze their content into a single smaller file. To join a group of files into a single file—often done to make copying them to other systems considerably easier—use a command like the one shown below. The first argument is the name to be used for the zip file and is followed by the list of files to be included.To read this article in full, please click here

Using the zip and zipcloak commands on Linux

Both the Linux zip and zipcloak commands can create encrypted zip files, but they have some important and interesting differences. Here’s what you need to know about how they work and what you should understand when using them.zip The zip command provides an easy way to take a group of files and squeeze their content into a single smaller file. To join a group of files into a single file—often done to make copying them to other systems considerably easier—use a command like the one shown below. The first argument is the name to be used for the zip file and is followed by the list of files to be included.To read this article in full, please click here

Reference Architecture and Easy Deployment Design Guides – NSX 3.2 Update

We are excited to announce an updated version of the NSX Reference Design and the NSX Easy Adoption Design guide based on the generally available NSX-T release 3.2. NSX-T 3.2 is part of the recently released VCF 4.5 software bundle, making it a very popular release among our customers.

To support you in your network and security virtualization journey, we introduced the NSX-T reference architecture design guide on the NSX-T 2.0 release, showing how you should design your data centers with NSX-T. Over time we introduced additional design guides such as the NSX-T Multi-Location Design Guide (Federation + Multisite), the Easy Adoption Design guide, and the NSX-T Data Center and EUC Design Guide for more specific use cases.

These latest updates cover the new features included in the 3.2 versions and the design and implementation guidelines we developed working tightly with our customers on their NSX projects.

The NSX Reference Design guide version 3.2

This document is the most essential document for any NSX practitioner. Whether you are just starting with NSX or have already successfully implemented NSX in your environment, the NSX Reference Design guide provides a clear and detailed description Continue reading

Why I Joined Rafay

Recently I made the decision to join Rafay Systems. I had been in Enterprise IT for over two decades (all in networking), and most recently at multicloud networking pioneer Aviatrix Systems. So what made me want to join Rafay? In a nutshell – application modernization. Although Multicloud Networking has grown to the point where Gartner … Continue reading Why I Joined Rafay

UK competition agency launches inquiry into Broadcom’s $61B VMware buy

The UK’s Competition and Market’s Authority (CMA) has announced it is investigating Broadcom’s proposed acquisition of VMware to determine whether the deal would raise problems for competition.Semiconductor manufacturer and infrastructure software giant Broadcom first announced its intention to acquire VMware in May, in a deal worth $61 billion in stock and cash. However, not everyone is happy with the proposed deal, with senior analyst for Forrester, Tracy Woo, noting back in September that Broadcom had a poor track record when it came to previous acquisitions.To read this article in full, please click here

Tech Bytes: Boosting WAN Speeds While Cutting Costs With VMware SD-WAN (Sponsored)

On today’s Tech Bytes podcast, sponsored by VMware, we explore a real-world SD-WAN deployment. A customer in the automotive industry needed a better way to share large CAD files among global sites, and its MPLS network wasn’t cutting it. The company also wanted to lower WAN costs while improving performance of business apps. We talk with Coevolve, a VMware partner, on how Coevolve helped the automotive company deploy and operate a global SD-WAN from VMware that increased bandwidth by a factor of 10 and cut costs by as much as 40 percent.

The post Tech Bytes: Boosting WAN Speeds While Cutting Costs With VMware SD-WAN (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Tech Bytes: Boosting WAN Speeds While Cutting Costs With VMware SD-WAN (Sponsored)

On today’s Tech Bytes podcast, sponsored by VMware, we explore a real-world SD-WAN deployment. A customer in the automotive industry needed a better way to share large CAD files among global sites, and its MPLS network wasn’t cutting it. The company also wanted to lower WAN costs while improving performance of business apps. We talk with Coevolve, a VMware partner, on how Coevolve helped the automotive company deploy and operate a global SD-WAN from VMware that increased bandwidth by a factor of 10 and cut costs by as much as 40 percent.

Network Break 408: Arista Launches Network Automation Pipeline; Palo Alto Targets Software Supply Chain Security

Take a Network Break! This week we cover a new continuous integration pipeline from Arista Networks to support network automation, Cisco's intention to open a new silicon design center in Spain, and Apple spending $450 million to support emergency text messaging using satellites. We also discuss Palo Alto Networks spending $195 million for Cider Security, financial results, and more.

The post Network Break 408: Arista Launches Network Automation Pipeline; Palo Alto Targets Software Supply Chain Security appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Network Break 408: Arista Launches Network Automation Pipeline; Palo Alto Targets Software Supply Chain Security

Take a Network Break! This week we cover a new continuous integration pipeline from Arista Networks to support network automation, Cisco's intention to open a new silicon design center in Spain, and Apple spending $450 million to support emergency text messaging using satellites. We also discuss Palo Alto Networks spending $195 million for Cider Security, financial results, and more.

BrandPost: Taking the Pulse of Data Center Automation

By: Arun Gandhi, Senior Manager of Product Marketing at Juniper NetworksWhen you’re trying to convince companies to modernize, it can seem like you’re shouting into the void. Sure, they understand that what you’re advocating is important, but knowing you should do something and actually doing it are two different things.This has been the story around data center network automation for the last several years.We all know that data centers have become more complex and critical to most businesses. So, finding a way to enable more agile and efficient operations should be on every company’s to-do list. Yet, even with organizations that could benefit most from automation — communication service providers (CSPs) and enterprises managing large, distributed data centers — actual implementation has been slow. Fortunately, we seem to be turning a corner.To read this article in full, please click here

Mastering Active Directory groups can streamline management, pave way for automation

On the surface, Active Directory groups are a simple and straightforward way to manage identities (users and/or computers) and assign permissions. Users or computers are added as group members, and the group is referenced in access control lists (ACL) on file shares, mailboxes, applications, or other corporate resources. But experienced admins know that this simplicity quickly goes out the window as environments scale. As group memberships grow, management of memberships becomes increasingly complex.Over the years, Microsoft and others have developed best practices for managing groups and permissions in an Active Directory environment. These strategies are something of a lost art, but there’s value to be gained by leveraging these layers of sophistication.To read this article in full, please click here