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Category Archives for "Networking"

Running OSPF over Unnumbered Ethernet Interfaces

Remember the unnumbered IP interfaces saga? Let’s conclude it with the final challenge: can we run link-state routing protocols (OSPF or IS-IS) over unnumbered interfaces?

Quick answer: Sure, just use IPv6.

Cheater! IPv6 doesn’t count. There are no unnumbered interfaces in IPv6 – every interface has at least a link-local address (LLA). Even more, routing protocols are designed to run over LLA addresses, including some EBGP implementations, allowing you to build an LLA-only network (see RFC 7404 for details).

OK, what about IPv4?

TL&DR: It works, but…

2022 Goals

2022 Goals In 2021, the pandemic managed to get to me. It seemed like alot of curve balls came my way. But, myself and my family came out the other end healthy and in relatively good spirits. 2022 is going to be a bit of a do-over in terms of my goals for the year. Without further...continue reading

F5 BIG-IP DNS Express

As part of a POC I deployed a pair of HA F5 LTM/GTM at home to use for all things DNS based. It is an indulgent over the top DNS solution for a 1 bed flat, but hey-ho we are in a pandemic….. This guide does not go through the HA F5 or GTM (still cant stop calling it that) configuration, it is focussed around using ZoneRunner for DNS (bind) with these zones transferred into DNS express and serviced by a listener.

Monitoring a Multi-Inverter SolarEdge System

Monitoring a Multi-Inverter SolarEdge System

A friend of mine recently had a solar panel system installed on his acreage. Besides being interesting because of the renewable/green aspect of the project, the system itself—from SolarEdge—is actually highly digital.

  • A mobile app is used for commissioning the system.
  • SolarEdge operates a cloud service which collects telemetry from the system and reports various performance metrics in a user-friendly dashboard.
  • The inverters can connect to the IP network and provide a means to collect telemetry from them directly.

The last point interested me the most because any time a device exposes its data or a control connection, it means there’s an opportunity to integrate it with other software. In this case, I wanted to create my own dashboard to display (near) real-time performance data for the system.

Whereas other blogs and articles on this topic describe how to monitor a single inverter system, this post will describe how I built a performance dashboard for a multi-inverter system.

Read the rest of this post.

Carriers Are Scaling Backbones With Merchant Silicon & Disaggregated, Distributed Networking

This post originally appeared on the Packet Pushers’ Ignition site on August 20, 2021. For both individuals and businesses, the past 18-months have vastly increased their reliance on the Internet to access cloud services, online retail and entertainment venues and each other via high-definition video conferences. In the period from just before the initial SARS-CoV-2 […]

The post Carriers Are Scaling Backbones With Merchant Silicon & Disaggregated, Distributed Networking appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Enhanced Networking – 2 – Verifying ENA

Previous Post – https://r2079.wordpress.com/2021/12/28/enhanced-networking-1-sriov-aws/

As Discussed in Part-1 SRIOV (Enhanced Networking on EC2) can be enabled in two ways, the first in the series is by far the simplest one, Enabling it with using ENA (Elastic Network Adapter).

Great, would that work for any instance – The answer is NO!, below are the specifications, to make summarize any Instance other than C4, D2, M4 instances smaller than m4.16xlarge, or T2 from current generation Instances.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/enhanced-networking-ena.html

How do I Check:

The Latest Ubuntu / Amazon Linux AMI include the module required for Enhanced networking with ENA installed and enabled for support, if you happen to use the old AMI’s the procedure listed in the above webpage will help

Testing:

I spin up a T3.large instance and below is how it looks like

You also have the option to verify it in a Cloud shell

How do you know if AMI supports it?

Finally on the interface itself

The next post will be similar but would cover an Intel specific Network Adapter.

-Rakesh

Make Sure You Juggle The Right Way in IT

When my eldest son was just a baby, he had toys that looked like little baseballs. Long story short, I decided to teach myself to juggle with them. I’d always wanted to learn and thought to myself “How hard can it be?” Well, the answer was harder than I thought and it took me more time that I realized to finally get the hang of it.

One of the things that I needed to learn is that adding in one more ball to track while I’m trying to manage the ones that I had wasn’t as simple as it sounded. You would think that adding in a fourth ball should only be about 25% harder than the three you had been working with before. Or, you might even believe the statistical fallacy that you’re only going to fail about a quarter of the time and be successful the rest. The truth is that adding in one more object makes your entire performance subpar until you learn to adjust for it.

Clogging Up the Pipe

I mention this example because the most obvious application for the juggling metaphor is in Quality of Service (QoS). If you’ve ever read any of Continue reading

How VMware Protects Organizations with Simply Stronger Security [INFOGRAPHIC]

Every 11 seconds, a new organization falls victim to ransomware. That means by the time you’re done reading these two sentences, your organization could very well become another statistic. In the war against ransomware, there are two cohorts: those who are armed for war and those who will suffer digital casualties. With threats becoming increasingly more agile, it’s up to you to protect your organization’s past, present, and future. 

The Numbers Don’t Lie 

Cybercrime has become a bigger entity than any of us could’ve ever imagined. With over 4,000 attacks every day and $20 billion in damages in 2021 alone, ransomware has become the big business we’ve all feared. Imposing numbers like these make it seem nearly impossible to protect against ransomware – but there is a solution that will strengthen your armor.  

Protection Served with Simplicity 

We know that shopping for new digital armor can be daunting. But the threat is real, and VMware is not in the business of smoke and mirror solutions. We are, however, in the business of helping enterprises scale out – simply, securely, swiftly. To that end, the VMware Distributed Firewall is a foundational step for many customers strengthening their multi-cloud environments. Enforcing east-west advanced threat protection at each workload, our distributed firewall solution can scale to 20TB+ while coming in at one-third of the cost of other solutions in the industry. Providing support to over 30,000 customers, VMware Security Solutions have consistently been able to stop attackers in Continue reading

Cloudflare Innovation Weeks 2021

Cloudflare Innovation Weeks 2021
Cloudflare Innovation Weeks 2021

One of the things that makes Cloudflare unique is our Innovation Weeks. Rather than having one large conference annually, we have multiple Innovation Weeks throughout the year to highlight new product announcements, beta products opening up to general availability, and share how our customers are using Cloudflare to help build a better Internet.

Internally, these weeks generate a lot of energy and excitement as well, as they provide an opportunity for teams from across Cloudflare to work together on product delivery and celebrate company-wide successes. In 2021, we had seven Cloudflare Innovation Weeks. As we start planning our 2022 Innovation Weeks, we are reflecting back on the highlights from each of these weeks.

Cloudflare Innovation Weeks 2021

Security Week March 21-26, 2021

Patrick Donahue

Security Week kicked off Cloudflare’s 2021 Innovation Weeks with a series of foundational security announcements. The Internet wasn’t built with security in mind, but the products and partnerships announced this week continued Cloudflare’s core mission of helping build a better Internet—one that companies of all sizes can plug into and be protected by default from the types of attacks that have historically resulted in loss of data, computing resources, and customer confidence.

At the start of the week, we took Continue reading

Miniflare 2.0: fully-local development and testing for Workers

Miniflare 2.0: fully-local development and testing for Workers
Miniflare 2.0: fully-local development and testing for Workers

In July 2021, I launched Miniflare 1.0, a fun, full-featured, fully-local simulator for Workers, on the Cloudflare Workers Discord server. What began as a pull request to the cloudflare-worker-local project has now become an official Cloudflare project and a core part of the Workers ecosystem, being integrated into wrangler 2.0. Today, I'm thrilled to announce the release of the next major version: a more modular, lightweight, and accurate Miniflare 2.0. 🔥

Background: Why Miniflare was created

Miniflare 2.0: fully-local development and testing for Workers

At the end of 2020, I started to build my first Workers app. Initially I used the then recently released wrangler dev, but found it was taking a few seconds before changes were reflected. While this was still impressive considering it was running on the Workers runtime, I was using Vite to develop the frontend, so I knew a significantly faster developer experience was possible.

I then found cloudflare-worker-local and cloudworker, which were local Workers simulators, but didn’t have support for newer features like Workers Sites. I wanted a magical simulator that would just work ✨ in existing projects, focusing on the developer experience, and — by the reception of Miniflare 1.0 — I wasn't the only one.

Continue reading

How To Deal With Social Anxiety When Networking?

We all have social anxiety to a certain extent. However, it is entirely normal, and you shouldn’t feel alone. That is because the fear of adverse reactions from people is evolutionary.

In most cases, anxiety can prevent you from enjoying an event. Not only that, but it can prevent you from attending altogether. As a business owner or an artist, networking is essential.

Hence, if you are looking for ways to control your anxiety, you no longer have to. Here is everything you need to know on how to deal with social anxiety when networking.

Tips For Dealing With Social Anxiety When Networking

Here are the top tips that will help you overcome social anxiety while networking:

  1. Change In Mindset

It is no secret that mindset can have a significant impact on your life. Your perception of anxiety can help you deal with it. One way to have a positive attitude is by being mindful.

Your nerves will calm once you start to accept your social anxiety. By avoiding the things that caused it will not help you. Instead, the fear will grow gradually and have greater power over your decisions.

However, by being mindful and having self-compassion, you can Continue reading

Cloud-Native Networks Are Here To Stay: Get Certified To Succeed

The following post is by DriveNets. We thank DriveNets for being a sponsor. At service providers and network operators, demand for new and talented staff is on the rise, but with the ongoing move to software-based approaches and the cloudification of networks, the types of skills they are now seeking is changing. So in line […]

The post Cloud-Native Networks Are Here To Stay: Get Certified To Succeed appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Feedback: Cisco ACI Deep Dive

In 2021, we completed one of the longest ipSpace.net webinars: Cisco ACI Deep Dive (almost 13 hours of content1). One of the participants found it extremely useful:

I really like the technical detail of the webinar and the way it is composed. Mario also does a good job in explaining all the complexity in a clear way without oversimplifying. All the sessions help to build up an understanding on the inner workings of the ACI solution, because they deliver technical details in depth piece by piece.

I also liked his take on the value of this webinar:

I’m always amazed on how much other (offical) training vendors under deliver in their courses that cost thousands of dollars, compared to the real expert level stuff you’ve got here.

Hope you’ll like the webinar as much as he did – you can get it with Standard or Expert ipSpace.net Subscription.