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Category Archives for "Networking"

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

Weekend Reads 021221

Security experts have learned many lessons from 2016 about how cyber warfare not only impacts elections but also has the potential to disrupt everything from energy and education to government services and military operations


For a long time, the ifconfig command was the default method for configuring a network interface. It served Linux users well, but networking is complex, and the commands to configure it must be robust.


SMTP TLS Reporting (TLS-RPT) is a standard that enables reporting issues in TLS connectivity experienced by applications that send emails and detect misconfigurations. It enables the reporting of email delivery issues that take place when an email isn’t encrypted with TLS.


The security of critical infrastructure components requires the governance and support of private sector organizations across various infrastructure sectors. Adopting, implementing, and integrating security practices across federal and private entities is necessary to achieve critical infrastructure cyber resiliency.


Is your system 100% ready to face the severest cyber-attack and mitigate the risk of a possible data breach? If you are unsure about your cyber-safety structure, then it’s time to upgrade it.


Network security firm SonicWall is investigating a coordinated attack in which attackers allegedly exploited vulnerabilities in the company’s products to 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

What Should A Consultant Charge Clients? – Video

In this Day Two Cloud podcast clip, we discuss consulting and MONEY. To hear the entire episode, go here. Hosts Ned Bellavance and Ethan Banks are joined by Michael Jenkins, Sr. Systems Reliability Engineer at Managed Kaos; and Anthony Nocentino, Enterprise Architect at Centino Systems and Pluralsight author. If you like engineering discussions like this, […]

The post What Should A Consultant Charge Clients? – Video appeared first on Packet Pushers.

The Hedge #70: FR Routing Update

FR Routing is a widely used and supported open source routing stack. In this episode of the Hedge, Alistair Woodman, Quentin Young, Donald Sharp, Tom Ammon, and Russ White discuss recent updates, additions to the CI/CD system, the release process, and operating system support. If you’re looking for a good open source, containerized routing stack for everything from route servers to DC fabrics and labbing to production, you should check out FR Routing.

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Best Practices for Securely Setting up a Kubernetes Cluster

David Bisson David Bisson is an information security writer and security junkie. He's a contributing editor to IBM's Security Intelligence, Tripwire's The State of Security Blog, and a contributing writer to Bora. He also regularly produces written content for Zix and a number of other companies in the digital security space. Organizations are increasingly looking to containers to fuel their digital transformations. In 2020, documentation: Load balancing. Organizations turn to Kubernetes to make Continue reading

HPE intros SSD replacements for 10K RPM HDD server drives

There was once a time when hard drives that spun at 10,000 and 15,000 RPMs were considered fast storage. Then came the SSD and blew that all away. But there are some old servers out there still using them, and they could use a more modern approach.HPE has announced an SSD replacement option for SATA-connected disk drives in its Apollo, ProLiant and Synergy servers called Very Read-Optimized (VRO). These 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SSDs use SATA interfaces and are plug-in replacements for the drives in the servers.HPE claimed in a Community Experts blog post this week that the drives will deliver better TCO than 10,000 RPM HDDs, although really, that's not a hard claim to make. Based on HPE's own testing, you can get 70,000 read IOPS on an HPE SATA VRO SSD compared to 400 IOPS on the fastest HPE 10K HDD. It's not even close. HPE argues that the upgrade pays for itself. It says the SSDs are up to three times more energy efficient than the 10K drives.To read this article in full, please click here

Repost: On the Importance of Line-Rate Switching of Small Packets

I made a flippant remark in a blog comment…

While it’s academically stimulating to think about forwarding small packets (and applicable to large-scale VoIP networks), most environments don’t have to deal with those. Looks like it’s such a non-issue that I couldn’t find recent data; in the good old days ~50% of the packets were 1500 byte long.

… and Minh Ha (by now a regular contributor to my blog) quickly set me straight with a lengthy comment that’s too good to be hidden somewhere at the bottom of a page. Here it is (slightly edited). Also, you might want to read other comments to the original blog post for context.

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