Research: Lessons from Evolve or Die
Google runs what is probably one of the largest networks in the world. Because of this, network engineers often have two sorts of reactions to anything Google publishes, or does. The first is “my network is not that big, nor that complicated, so I don’t really care what Google is doing.” This is the “you are not a hyperscaler” (YANAH) reaction. The second, and probably more common, reaction is: whatever Google is doing must be good, so I should do the same thing. A healthier reaction to both of these is to examine these papers, and the work done by other hyperscalers, to find the common techniques they are applying to large scale networks, and then see where they might be turned into, or support, common network design principles. This is the task before us today in looking at a paper published in 2016 by Google called Evolve or Die: High Availablility Design Principles Drawn from Google’s Network Infrastructure.
The first part of this paper discusses the basic Google architecture, including a rough layout of the kinds of modules they deploy, the module generations, and the interconnectivity between those modules. This is useful background information for understanding the remainder Continue reading
Off the Cuff: Microsoft Purchases Github
Last week, Eyvonne, Donald, Alistair, and I sat and talked about the recent purchase of Github by Microsoft. Will this be the end of git as a widely used open source repository, or will we all look back in five years and think “move along, nothing to see here?”
Weekend Reads 061518: A 51% attack materializes
We have also discovered a new stage 3 module that injects malicious content into web traffic as it passes through a network device. At the time of our initial posting, we did not have all of the information regarding the suspected stage 3 modules. The new module allows the actor to deliver exploits to endpoints via a man-in-the-middle capability (e.g. they can intercept network traffic and inject malicious code into it without the user’s knowledge). With this new finding, we can confirm that the threat goes beyond what the actor could do on the network device itself, and extends the threat into the networks that a compromised network Continue reading
History of Networking: The History of Email (part 1)
In this episode of the History of Networking, we sit with Steve Crocker to discuss the history of email. This was a long session, so we split it up into two episodes; the next episode should be published next week.
Short Take: Practical Career Advice
One problem I’ve heard in the past is that much of the career advice given in the networking world is not practical. In this short take, I take this problem on, explaining why it might be more practical than it initially seems.