Keynote Hate – Celebrity Edition

We all know by now that I’m not a huge fan of keynotes. While I’ve pulled back in recent years from the all out snark during industry keynotes, it’s nice to see that friends like Justin Warren (@JPWarren) and Corey Quinn (@QuinnyPig) have stepped up their game. Instead, I try to pull nuggets of importance from a speech designed to rally investors instead of the users. However, there is one thing I really have to stand my ground against.

Celebrity Keynotes.

We’ve seen these a hundred times at dozens of events. After the cheers and adulation of the CEO giving a big speech and again after the technical stuff happens with the CTO or product teams, it’s time to talk about…nothing.

Celebrity keynotes break down into two distinct categories. The first is when your celebrity is actually well-spoken and can write a speech that enthralls the audience. This means they get the stage to talk about whatever they want, like their accomplishments in their career or the charity work their pushing this week. I don’t mind these as much because they feel like a real talk that I might want to attend. Generally the celebrity talking Continue reading

Comcast Deploys Open Source Trellis in ‘Multiple Markets’

Lessons Learned – Asking For Help – Kevin Myers

The post Lessons Learned – Asking For Help – Kevin Myers appeared first on Network Collective.

A Letter from Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn

To our potential shareholders:

Cloudflare launched on September 27, 2010. Many great startups pivot over time. We have not. We had a plan and have been purposeful in executing it since our earliest days. While we are still in its early innings, that plan remains clear: we are helping to build a better Internet. Understanding the path we’ve taken to date will help you understand how we plan to operate going forward, and to determine whether Cloudflare is the right investment for you.

Cloudflare was formed to take advantage of a paradigm shift: the world was moving from on-premise hardware and software that you buy to services in the cloud that you rent. Paradigm shifts in technology always create significant opportunities, and we built Cloudflare to take advantage of the opportunities that arose as the world shifted to the cloud.

As we watched packaged software turn into SaaS applications, and physical servers migrate to instances in the public cloud, it was clear that it was only a matter of time before the same happened to network appliances. Firewalls, network optimizers, load balancers, and the myriad of other hardware appliances that Continue reading

How 6G will work: Terahertz-to-fiber conversion

Upcoming 6G wireless, superseding 5G and arriving possibly by 2030, is envisaged to function at hundreds of gigabits per second. Slowly, the technical advances needed are being made.A hole in the tech development thus far has been at the interface between terahertz spectrum and hard, optical transmission lines. How does one connect terahertz (THz), which is basically through-the-air spectrum found between microwave and infrared, to the transmission lines that will be needed for the longer-distance data sends? The curvature of the Earth, for one thing, limits line of sight, so hard-wiring is necessary for distances. Short distances, too, can be impeded by environmental obstructions: blocking by objects, even rain or fog, becomes more apparent the higher in spectrum one goes, as wavelengths get shorter.To read this article in full, please click here

Video: Beyond Two Nodes

In the introductory videos of How Networks Really Work webinar I described the mandatory elements of any networking solution and additional challenges you have to solve when you can’t pull a cable between the adjacent nodes.

It’s time for the next bit of complexity: what if we have more than two nodes connected to the same network segment? Welcome to the world of multi-access networks and data link control.

You need free ipSpace.net subscription to watch the videos in Overview of Networking Challenges section, or a paid ipSpace.net subscriptions to watch the rest of the webinar.

ClearOS Gateway on GNS3

In a previous tutorial we have successfully installed ClearOS on QEMU VM in a gateway mode. At the end of the tutorial we have installed several apps from ClearOS marketplace. These apps enhance gateway functionality, however  we have not tested  them yet. Therefore, this tutorial goes further and we are going to test some services offered by ClearOS apps. In order to do it, we will connect ClearOS QEMU appliance into a GNS3 topology.

Our ClearOS QEMU instance is configured with two guest network cards (Picture 1). The first guest interface ens3 has assigned the LAN role and it is configured with the IP address 192.168.1.254/24. This is the IP address a web server is listening on, the port 81. The entire ClearOS management will be done via web browser using the url https://192.168.1.254:81.

Picture 1 - Network Interfaces Configuration During ClearOS Installation

The second guest interface ens4 has assigned External role and its IP address is assigned from DHCP server. DHCP server is running on SOHO router with the IP address 172.17.100.1/16 (Picture 2).

Picture 2 - Network Topology

GNS3 itself connects the second guest interface ens4 of ClearOS gateway Continue reading

BrandPost: Top 3 Misconceptions About SD-WAN

There’s little question that software-defined wide-area networks (SD-WANs) have taken off, as companies look for increased network resiliency and control. But there’s still significant confusion about SD-WAN, including some benefits that are more myth than reality.In this post, we’ll explore three common misconceptions that surround SD-WAN, starting with what is probably the most important one.Misconception #1: SD-WAN will replace services such as MPLS SD-WAN doesn’t necessary replace any existing network service, be it MPLS, broadband Internet, or anything else. In fact, it requires some kind of network service to work at all.To read this article in full, please click here

IBM Injects Cloud Innovation Into Its z15 Mainframe

IBM z15 mainframe, amps-up cloud, security features

IBM has rolled out a new generation of mainframes – the z15 – that not only bolsters the speed and power of the Big Iron but promises to integrate hybrid cloud, data privacy and security controls for modern workloads.On the hardware side, the z15 mainframe systems ramp up performance and efficiency. For example IBM claims 14 percent more performance per core, 25 percent more system capacity, 25percent more memory, and 20 percent more I/O connectivity than the previous iteration, the z14 system. [ Check out What is hybrid cloud computing and learn what you need to know about multi-cloud. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] IBM also says the system can save customers 50 percent of costs over operating x86-based servers and use 40 percent less power than a comparable x86 server farm. And the z15 has the capacity to handle scalable environments such as supporting 2.4 million Docker containers on a single system.To read this article in full, please click here

IBM z15 mainframe, amps-up cloud, security features

IBM has rolled out a new generation of mainframes – the z15 – that not only bolsters the speed and power of the Big Iron but promises to integrate hybrid cloud, data privacy and security controls for modern workloads.On the hardware side, the z15 mainframe systems ramp up performance and efficiency. For example IBM claims 14 percent more performance per core, 25 percent more system capacity, 25percent more memory, and 20 percent more I/O connectivity than the previous iteration, the z14 system. [ Check out What is hybrid cloud computing and learn what you need to know about multi-cloud. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] IBM also says the system can save customers 50 percent of costs over operating x86-based servers and use 40 percent less power than a comparable x86 server farm. And the z15 has the capacity to handle scalable environments such as supporting 2.4 million Docker containers on a single system.To read this article in full, please click here

AT&T, DT, and Telefónica Trumpet Cost-Saving CO Pod

Operators Strike Realistic Edge Computing Balance

NEC Adds Infovista SD-WAN to Its Smart Enterprise Suite

Cisco Live 2019 – Recap

Umm, yeah I know that Cisco Live was like two months ago (ok three now) and I am finally getting …

Continue reading →

The post Cisco Live 2019 – Recap appeared first on Fryguy's Blog.

Cisco Live 2019 – Recap

Umm, yeah I know that Cisco Live was like two months ago (ok three now) and I am finally getting …

Continue reading →

The post Cisco Live 2019 – Recap appeared first on Fryguy's Blog.

Announcing Joseph Hall as SVP for a Strong Internet

I’m excited to announce that Joseph Lorenzo Hall will join us as our Senior Vice President for a Strong Internet. He will start in October and be based in our Reston, VA, office.

Many of you may know Joe from his work at the Center for Democracy and Technology, where he has been Chief Technologist for about six years. He has a unique ability to put together policy and technical issues, particularly but not only with respect to security. He’s the Vice-Chair of the Board of the California Voter Foundation and a Board member of the Verified Voting Foundation. He went to school at UC Berkeley and received his PhD in Information Systems from there in 2008. A former astrophysicist, he has been working on a monograph about sand clocks, which you may know by the term “hourglass”. I am not kidding even a little when I say you should ask about it, because you will be fascinated. He brings additional strength to our already great group of people who work to make the Internet stronger.

The post Announcing Joseph Hall as SVP for a Strong Internet appeared first on Internet Society.

IDG Contributor Network: A Virtual WAN: Moving closer to the enterprise

Microsoft has introduced a new virtual WAN as a competitive differentiator and is getting enough tracking that AWS and Google may follow. At present, Microsoft is the only company to offer a virtual WAN of this kind. This made me curious to discover the highs and lows of this technology. So I sat down with Sorell Slaymaker, Principal Consulting Analyst at TechVision Research to discuss. The following is a summary of our discussion.But before we proceed, let’s gain some understanding of the cloud connectivity.Cloud connectivity has evolved over time. When the cloud was introduced about a decade ago, let’s say, if you were an enterprise, you would connect to what's known as a cloud service provider (CSP). However, over the last 10 years, many providers like Equinix have started to offer carrier-neutral collocations. Now, there is the opportunity to meet a variety of cloud companies in a carrier-neutral colocation. On the other hand, there are certain limitations as well as cloud connectivity.To read this article in full, please click here

Disaster Recovery Test Faking: Another Use Case for Stretched VLANs

The March 2019 Packet Pushers Virtual Design Clinic had to deal with an interesting question:

Our server team is nervous about full-scale DR testing. So they have asked us to stretch L2 between sites. Is this a good idea?

The design clinic participants were a bit more diplomatic (watch the video) than my TL&DR answer which would be: **** NO!

Let’s step back and try to understand what’s really going on:

SD-WAN Named Most Disruptive Network Tech of 2019