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Category Archives for "Networking"

Meet The New WPA3 Wi-Fi Security Suite

WPA3, the latest Wi-Fi security suite, is finally making its way into products around the world. Here’s what you need to know for using it at home and in enterprise networks. What Is WPA? Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is the suite of standards that define security for both WPA-Personal (passphrase) and WPA-Enterprise (802.1X) based wireless […]

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10 most powerful Wi-Fi vendors

The global Wi-Fi market is expected to grow by 65% to reach $25.2 billion by 2026.  As wireless installations expand, so does the complexity of deploying and managing the technology. In response, network professionals are demanding smarter, more automated networks that reduce complexity, while providing actionable intelligence for quick problem resolution.IDC says that growth in the Enterprise Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) market is being driven by the introduction of 802.11ax or Wi-Fi 6 which delivers faster speeds and increased reliability over Wi-Fi 5. Wi-Fi 6 currently makes up more than 60% of current WLAN sales, while Wi-Fi 6E products, designed specifically for dense environments like stadiums and offices, are also shipping. And Wi-Fi 7, which promises even faster speeds and better performance, is on the horizon.To read this article in full, please click here

Alibaba, Microsoft launch Arm-based cloud instances

While the on-premises server business remains firmly in the grip of the x86 world, cloud service providers are giving Arm-based servers a much more welcoming embrace. Both Chinese cloud giant Alibaba and Microsoft Azure have recently launched new instances with Arm processors.Alibaba Cloud unveiled its Yitian 710 processor design for use in its data centers back in October 2021. The company also announced the development of its proprietary servers, called Panjiu, promising optimized computing performance and energy efficiency.Yitian 710 is built on a 5nm manufacturing process and has 128 Arm cores, each with a top clock speed of 3.2GHz. It’s built on the Armv9 architecture and includes eight DDR5 memory channels per CPU and 96-lane PCIe 5.0. Alibaba claims the Yitian 710 achieved a SPECint2017 that beat the current state-of-the-art Arm server processor by 20% in performance and 50% in energy efficiency.To read this article in full, please click here

Alibaba, Microsoft launch Arm-based cloud instances

While the on-premises server business remains firmly in the grip of the x86 world, cloud service providers are giving Arm-based servers a much more welcoming embrace. Both Chinese cloud giant Alibaba and Microsoft Azure have recently launched new instances with Arm processors.Alibaba Cloud unveiled its Yitian 710 processor design for use in its data centers back in October 2021. The company also announced the development of its proprietary servers, called Panjiu, promising optimized computing performance and energy efficiency.Yitian 710 is built on a 5nm manufacturing process and has 128 Arm cores, each with a top clock speed of 3.2GHz. It’s built on the Armv9 architecture and includes eight DDR5 memory channels per CPU and 96-lane PCIe 5.0. Alibaba claims the Yitian 710 achieved a SPECint2017 that beat the current state-of-the-art Arm server processor by 20% in performance and 50% in energy efficiency.To read this article in full, please click here

netsim-tools Release 1.2.1: More MPLS and VRFs, Dell OS10, Cumulus 5.0 on Containerlab

I already mentioned the netsim-tools Easter Egg, here are the other cool features shipping in release 1.2.1:

To upgrade netsim-tools, use pip3 install --upgrade netsim-tools; if you’re starting from scratch, read the installation instructions.

New in netlab: More MPLS and VRFs, Dell OS10, Cumulus 5.0 on Containerlab

I already mentioned the netsim-tools Easter Egg, here are the other cool features shipping in release 1.2.1:

In release 1.3, we renamed netsim-tools to netlab.

Basing network security on IP addressing: Would it be worth it?

Why is it that over 90% of enterprises tell me that they expect to spend more on security over the next three years, and almost 60% say they expect to spend less on networking? We obviously think that network technology is getting more efficient, more competitive. Why isn’t that the case for security? The short answer is that enterprises have been chasing acronyms and not solutions.Acronym-chasing comes about because by nature, security is hard to plan for. The average network expert finds out there’s an issue because some higher-up reads or hears about a breach. Maybe they do a quick search, and they find out that what they really need is SASE. Or maybe they need SSE, which we’re told is SASE without SD-WAN. In any event, what happens is that there’s pressure to add this new thing on, and that creates another layer of protection...maybe.  Complication and cost? Surely.To read this article in full, please click here

IP addressing could support effective network security, but would it be worth it?

Why is it that over 90% of enterprises tell me that they expect to spend more on security over the next three years, and almost 60% say they expect to spend less on networking? We obviously think that network technology is getting more efficient, more competitive. Why isn’t that the case for security? The short answer is that enterprises have been chasing acronyms and not solutions.Acronym-chasing comes about because by nature, security is hard to plan for. The average network expert finds out there’s an issue because some higher-up reads or hears about a breach. Maybe they do a quick search, and they find out that what they really need is SASE. Or maybe they need SSE, which we’re told is SASE without SD-WAN. In any event, what happens is that there’s pressure to add this new thing on, and that creates another layer of protection...maybe.  Complication and cost? Surely.To read this article in full, please click here

Basing network security on IP addressing: Would it be worth it?

Why is it that over 90% of enterprises tell me that they expect to spend more on security over the next three years, and almost 60% say they expect to spend less on networking? We obviously think that network technology is getting more efficient, more competitive. Why isn’t that the case for security? The short answer is that enterprises have been chasing acronyms and not solutions.Acronym-chasing comes about because by nature, security is hard to plan for. The average network expert finds out there’s an issue because some higher-up reads or hears about a breach. Maybe they do a quick search, and they find out that what they really need is SASE. Or maybe they need SSE, which we’re told is SASE without SD-WAN. In any event, what happens is that there’s pressure to add this new thing on, and that creates another layer of protection...maybe.  Complication and cost? Surely.To read this article in full, please click here

IP addressing could support effective network security, but would it be worth it?

Why is it that over 90% of enterprises tell me that they expect to spend more on security over the next three years, and almost 60% say they expect to spend less on networking? We obviously think that network technology is getting more efficient, more competitive. Why isn’t that the case for security? The short answer is that enterprises have been chasing acronyms and not solutions.Acronym-chasing comes about because by nature, security is hard to plan for. The average network expert finds out there’s an issue because some higher-up reads or hears about a breach. Maybe they do a quick search, and they find out that what they really need is SASE. Or maybe they need SSE, which we’re told is SASE without SD-WAN. In any event, what happens is that there’s pressure to add this new thing on, and that creates another layer of protection...maybe.  Complication and cost? Surely.To read this article in full, please click here

EVPN-VXLAN Explainer 1 – Static VXLAN

EVPN-VXLAN Explainer 1 - Static VXLAN

In this series of blog posts I'm going to break down how to configure Aruba AOS-CX switches for VXLAN and EVPN, plus explain how to read the EVPN table and various 'show' commands.
In this first post I will look at VXLAN, its configuration and operation.

A note about EVPN-VXLAN

VXLAN: encapsulation type of 8 bytes, works at the data plane, concerned with the forwarding of packets.
Ethernet VPN (EVPN): Extension to BGP, works that the control plane, concerned with learning and advertising MAC/IP addresses.

Static VXLAN - Start Here

VXLAN configuration is one of the basic building blocks of a EVPN-VXLAN network, it is worth familiarising yourself with static VXLAN configuration, even if you are never going to use it.

Example Network

Figure 1 below shows a network comprised of three Aruba 6300 switches acting as VTEPs, with two customer VLANs, VLAN10 and VLAN 20, that are bound with VNI 1010 and VNI 1020 respectively across the VXLAN network.

EVPN-VXLAN Explainer 1 - Static VXLAN

VXLAN Configuration

Component parts of the configuration:

  1. Customer-side VLAN - carries the traffic to be encapsulated.
  2. An IP network between VTEPs (the underlay network)- there must be bi-directional connectivity between an IP address designated on the VTEP. Continue reading

Why Asking for Help is Not a Sign of Weakness

Asking for help can be difficult. It can be hard to admit that we need assistance, and sometimes pride gets in the way of our better judgment. We may worry that asking for help will make us seem weak or incompetent. However, this could not be further from the truth. Asking for help is actually a sign of strength. It shows that we are willing to admit when we need assistance and that we are not afraid to ask for support.

Why is it hard to ask for help?

There can be many reasons why it is hard to ask for help. We may worry that we will seem weak or incompetent. We may also feel like we need to be able to handle everything on our own. However, it is important to remember that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It takes a lot of strength and courage to reach out for assistance, and there are many people who are willing to support us through whatever challenge we may be facing.

Situations where it’s perfectly acceptable – and even necessary – to ask for help

There is nothing wrong with asking for help. In fact, it Continue reading

US Tax Day 2022. How leaving it to the last day impacts tax sites

US Tax Day 2022. How leaving it to the last day impacts tax sites
“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
— Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789
US Tax Day 2022. How leaving it to the last day impacts tax sites

The famous expression highlighting that only “death and taxes” seem certain in life (something that goes back to the beginning of civilization and to Ancient Egypt) is on people’s minds during the month of April in the United States. This past Monday, April 18, 2022, was Tax Day. So, were US citizens procrastinators, leaving their federal (and state) tax returns to the last day? Traffic to tax-related official federal and state websites seems to show it: there was a spike of more than 470% on April 18.

Just for reference, we can see on Cloudflare Radar that Internet traffic in the US, from our perspective, wasn’t significantly impacted on Monday, April 18, although there was a clear peak, higher than in the previous 14 days, that night at 22:00 EST (that’s 02:00 UTC on April 19). So, traffic (that includes DNS and HTTP requests from our standpoint) was 18% higher compared to the same time on the previous Continue reading

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