Worth Reading: The blame pipeline
The post Worth Reading: The blame pipeline appeared first on 'net work.
How the Internet Really Works
Way back in April of 2014, I started a series over on Packet Pushers called “How the Internet Really Works.” This is a long series, but well worth reading if you want to try and get a handle around how the different companies and organizations that make up the ecosystem of the ‘net actually do what they do.
Overview
DNS Lookups
The Business Side of DNS (1)
The Business Side of DNS (2)
Reverse Lookups and Whois
DNS Security
Provider Peering Types
Provider Peering and Revenue Streams (1)
Provider Peering and Revenue Streams (2)
Standards Bodies
IETF Organizational Structure
The IETF Draft Process
Reality at the Mic (Inside the IETF, Part 1)
Reality at the Mic (Inside the IETF, Part 2)
Reality at the Mic (Inside the IETF, Part 3)
Internet Exchange Points
That Big Number Database in the Sky (IANA)
NOG World (Network Operator Groups)
The Internet Society
The slides that go with this set of posts are available on slideshare, as well. This set is in Ericsson format, but I have older sets in “vendor neutral” formatting, and even cisco formatting (imagine that!).
The post How the Internet Continue reading
Worth Reading: How we ended up with microservices
The post Worth Reading: How we ended up with microservices appeared first on 'net work.
Information wants to be protected: Security as a mindset
I was teaching a class last week and mentioned something about privacy to the students. One of them shot back, “you’re paranoid.” And again, at a meeting with some folks about missionaries, and how best to protect them when trouble comes to their door, I was again declared paranoid. In fact, I’ve been told I’m paranoid after presentations by complete strangers who were sitting in the audience.
Okay, so I’m paranoid. I admit it.
But what is there to be paranoid about? We’ve supposedly gotten to the point where no-one cares about privacy, where encryption is pointless because everyone can see everything anyway, and all the rest. Everyone except me, that is—I’ve not “gotten over it,” nor do I think I ever will. In fact, I don’t think any engineer should “get over it,” in terms of privacy and security. Even if you think it’s not a big deal in your own life, engineers should learn to treat other people’s information with the utmost care.
In moving from the person to the digital representation of the person, we often forget it’s someone’s life we’re actually playing with. I think it’s time for engineers to take security—and privacy—personally. It’s time Continue reading
Worth Reading: Open Source Medicine
The post Worth Reading: Open Source Medicine appeared first on 'net work.
QOTW: Outsourcing Memory
The post QOTW: Outsourcing Memory appeared first on 'net work.
Evaluating my own books…
This is a bit of a slow week in the US, and I’ve been deeply imbibing philosophy and theology this weekend (getting ready for the first two PhD classes), so I’m going to do something a little different this week. A lot of folks email me asking about which of my books are worth buying, or asking me if they should buy this or that specific book I’ve written across the years. So, herewith, an honest appraisal of my own books.
This book is based on single question—what have we learned from working on failed networks from the perspective of TAC and Escalation in terms of good network design? It’s hard to believe, but this was (AFAIK) the second book published by Cisco Press, in 1999 (that’s 16 years, 10 books, and two degrees ago!). While I have a fond place in my heart for this book, all the material here is generally updated and improved in Optimal Routing Design, below.
This started life as the EIGRP white paper, written based on a thorough reading of the EIGRP code base as it existing in 2000, along with many hours spent with GDB, Continue reading
Worth Reading: Big Changes in Storage Networking
The post Worth Reading: Big Changes in Storage Networking appeared first on 'net work.
Worth Reading: Globally Distributed Applicaitons
The post Worth Reading: Globally Distributed Applicaitons appeared first on 'net work.
QOTW: Humility
Yet it remains true that general progress needs peace and co-operation, and that it is greatly hindered by pettiness of mind. In face of others’ superiority, there is only one honorable attitude: to be glad of it, and then it becomes our own joy, our own good fortune.
Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life
The post QOTW: Humility appeared first on 'net work.
Worth Reading: IWAN at Networking by Fish
The post Worth Reading: IWAN at Networking by Fish appeared first on 'net work.
Micromanaging networks considered harmful: on (k)nerd knobs
Nerd Knobs (or as we used to call them in TAC, knerd knobs) are the bane of the support engineer’s life. Well, that and crashes. And customer who call in with a decoded stack trace. Or don’t know where to put the floppy disc that came with the router into the router. But, anyway…
What is it with nerd knobs? Ivan has a great piece up this week on the topic. I think this is the closest he gets to what I think of as the real root cause for nerd knobs —
Greg has a response to Ivan up; again, I think he gets close to the problem with these thoughts —
A somewhat orthogonal article caught my eye, Continue reading
