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Category Archives for "Networking"

Worth Reading: Internet of Trash

I love the recent Internet of Trash article by Geoff Huston, in particular this bit:

“Move fast and break things” is not a tenable paradigm for this industry today, if it ever was. In the light of our experience with the outcomes of an industry that became fixated on pumping out minimally viable product, it’s a paradigm that heads towards what we would conventionally label as criminal negligence.

Of course it’s not just the Internet-of-Trash. Whole IT is filled with examples of startups and “venerable” companies doing the same thing and boasting about their disruptiveness. Now go and read the whole article ;)

Worth Reading: Advice(s) for Engineering Managers

Just in case you were recently promoted to be a team leader or a manager: read these somewhat-tongue-in-cheek advices:

Need more career advice? How about The Six Year Rule by Bryan Sullins… or you could go and reread my certifications-related blog posts.

Worth Reading: Advice(s) for Engineering Managers

Just in case you were recently promoted to be a team leader or a manager: read these somewhat-tongue-in-cheek advices:

Need more career advice? How about The Six Year Rule by Bryan Sullins… or you could go and reread my certifications-related blog posts.

Building your own SD-WAN with Envoy and Wireguard

When using a personal VPN at home, one of the biggest problems I’ve faced was the inability to access public streaming services. I don’t care about watching Netflix from another country, I just want to be able to use my local internet connection for this kind of traffic while still encrypting everything else. This problem is commonly known in network engineering as “local internet breakout” and is often implemented at remote branch/edge sites to save costs of transporting SaaS traffic (e.g. Office365) over the VPN infrastructure. These “local breakout” solutions often rely on explicit enumeration of all public IP subnets, which is a bit cumbersome, or require “intelligent” (i.e. expensive) DPI functionality. However, it is absolutely possible to build something like this for personal use and this post will demonstrate how to do that.

Solution Overview

The problem scope consists of two relatively independent areas:

  • Traffic routing - how to forward traffic to different outgoing interfaces based on the target domain.

  • VPN management - how to connect to the best VPN gateway and make sure that connection stays healthy.

Each of one these problem areas is addressed by a separate set of components.

VPN management is solved Continue reading

Automate Leaf and Spine Deployment – Part3

The 3rd post in the ‘Automate Leaf and Spine Deployment’ series goes the through the variables from which the core fabric declaration is made and how this transposes into a dynamic inventory. This uses only the base and fabric roles to create the fabric ready for the service sub-roles (tenant, interface and route) to be deployed on top of the fabric at a later stage.

Announcing the Candidate Slates for the 2021 Board of Trustees Elections

As Chair of the Internet Society Nominations Committee, I am pleased to announce the slates of candidates for the 2021 Board of Trustees elections. The candidates for each slate are listed below in alphabetical order by last name.

Chapters Election (one seat available)

  • Leiska Evanson
  • Luis Martinez
  • Rao Naveed Bin Rais
  • Muhammad Shabbir
  • Niels ten Oever

Organization Members Election (two seats available)

  • Paul Ebersman
  • Robert Pepper
  • Wei Wang
  • Heather West

Additional nominations for election to the Board of Trustees may be made by petition by the nominee, and filed with the Chair of the Nominations Committee using the online form available at the Petitions page: https://www.internetsociety.org/board-of-trustees/elections/2021/petitions/

The deadline for receipt of petition requests is 15:00 UTC on Friday, 26 February 2021. The deadline for petition signatures is Friday, 5 March 2021 at 15:00 UTC. The names of any successful petitioners will be placed on the ballot.

The final candidate slate will be announced on Monday, 8 March, and voting will open on Friday, 9 April.

Learn more about the candidates and the elections, including the petition process at: https://www.internetsociety.org/board-of-trustees/elections/

The Committee thanks all of the nominees who expressed interest and willingness to serve on the Internet Continue reading

Heavy Networking 561: Modeling Your Network For Intent-Based Assurance With IP Fabric (Sponsored)

In today's podcast, sponsored by IP Fabric, we dive into the IP Fabric Network Assurance platform. This platform gathers network configuration and state, and then builds a network model using a graph database. The result is a "digital twin" of the network that engineers and security teams can use for troubleshooting, to plan and verify changes, for network and security analysis, and to enable closed-loop automation. Our guests from IP Fabric are Pavel Bykov, CEO; and Daren Fulwell, Network Automation Evangelist.

The post Heavy Networking 561: Modeling Your Network For Intent-Based Assurance With IP Fabric (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Heavy Networking 561: Modeling Your Network For Intent-Based Assurance With IP Fabric (Sponsored)

In today's podcast, sponsored by IP Fabric, we dive into the IP Fabric Network Assurance platform. This platform gathers network configuration and state, and then builds a network model using a graph database. The result is a "digital twin" of the network that engineers and security teams can use for troubleshooting, to plan and verify changes, for network and security analysis, and to enable closed-loop automation. Our guests from IP Fabric are Pavel Bykov, CEO; and Daren Fulwell, Network Automation Evangelist.

Solutions In Search of a Problem

During a few recent chats with my friends in the industry, I’ve heard a common refrain coming up about technologies or products being offered for sale. Typically these are advanced ideas given form that are then positioned as products for sale in the market. Overwhelmingly the feedback comes down to one phrase:

This is a solution in search of a problem.

We’ve probably said this a number of times about a protocol or a piece of hardware. Something that seems to be built to solve a problem we don’t have and couldn’t conceive of. But why does this seem to happen? And what can we do to fix this kind of mentality?

Forward Looking Failures

If I told you today that I was creating software that would revolutionize the way your autonomous car delivers music to the occupants on their VR headsets you’d probably think I was crazy, right? Every one of the technologies I mentioned in the statement is a future thing that we expect may be big down the road. We love the idea of autonomous vehicles and VR headsets and such.

Now, let’s change the statement. I’m working on a new algorithm for HD-DVD players to produce Continue reading

Keeping Pakistan’s Internet Exchange Points Running

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) are a vital element of Internet infrastructure. They can be found at physical and neutral locations where different IP networks meet to exchange local traffic via a switch. Implementing an IXP within a country helps bring faster, more affordable, and better performing Internet to people.

Frustrated by poor quality of service and high-cost connectivity, local Internet stakeholders started off the process of setting up an IXP in Pakistan. With the adoption of the 2015 telecoms policy, there was a new drive to foster interconnection and keep local traffic within the country.

Led by the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA), the telecom regulator, the government-initiated consultations on how to set up an IXP.  To develop an informed opinion about IXPs, PTA reached out to the Internet Society, the Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC), the local Internet community, and civil society.

The consultations led to the formation of an IXP board; comprised of all stakeholders. The new board decided to establish IXPs at Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore. The IXP board first set up an IXP in Pakistan at a neutral venue, the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC), Islamabad in 2016. HEC was ideal because it provided a Continue reading

Juniper targets WAN automation with new software suite

Juniper has unwrapped a suite of automation software it says will help users ensure their wide area network and cloud-connected services are running properly and cost-effectively.The company’s Paragon Automation suite promises to help eliminate manual tasks and workflow processes to make sure WAN operations are working as expected and, if not, quickly fix problems.Top metrics for multicloud management The suite, which is aimed at large enterprises and service operators, includes an amalgamation of technology from Juniper’s existing NorthStar controller and Healthbot network-diagnostics packages combined with other organically developed features in combination with software it got with its recent Netrounds acquisition.To read this article in full, please click here

AMD builds momentum in server market

The server market is fairly slow to change in all things, and that includes its processor platforms. But lately it's clear AMD's comeback is getting very real.Left for dead four years ago, AMD already has won over the gamers. Its Ryzen series of processors are the go-to choice for system builders on YouTube, whose specialty is building a high-end gaming rig in 15 minutes. But the server market is also taking note.The latest sign came from Mercury Research, which follows the semiconductor market, in particular CPU sales. For the fourth quarter of 2020, Intel held 92.9% market share to AMD's 7.1%, but Intel was down from 95.5% one year earlier in Q4 2019 and AMD was way up from 4.5%. For the server market, that's some rapid growth.To read this article in full, please click here

AMD builds momentum in server market

The server market is fairly slow to change in all things, and that includes its processor platforms. But lately it's clear AMD's comeback is getting very real.Left for dead four years ago, AMD already has won over the gamers. Its Ryzen series of processors are the go-to choice for system builders on YouTube, whose specialty is building a high-end gaming rig in 15 minutes. But the server market is also taking note.The latest sign came from Mercury Research, which follows the semiconductor market, in particular CPU sales. For the fourth quarter of 2020, Intel held 92.9% market share to AMD's 7.1%, but Intel was down from 95.5% one year earlier in Q4 2019 and AMD was way up from 4.5%. For the server market, that's some rapid growth.To read this article in full, please click here