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Cisco assesses the top enterprise SD-WAN technology drivers

Cisco this week celebrated the second anniversary of its purchase of SD-WAN vendor Viptela and reiterated its expectation that 2019 will see the technology change enterprise networks in major ways.In a blog outlining trends in the SD-WAN world, Anand Oswal, Cisco senior vice president, engineering, in the company’s Enterprise Networking Business described how SD-WAN technology has changed the network for one of its customers,  test and measurement systems vendor National Instruments. To read this article in full, please click here

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How to enable serverless computing in Kubernetes

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New Memory Technologies Poised for High Volume Production

The growing imbalance between computational performance and data access performance has spurred the development of a number of new random access memory (RAM) technologies. …

New Memory Technologies Poised for High Volume Production was written by Michael Feldman at .

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Extend CI/CD with CR for Continuous App Resilience

This is a guest post written by Govind Rangasamy, CEO and Founder, Appranix.

The radical shift towards DevOps and the continuous everything movement have changed how organizations develop and deploy software. As the consolidation and standardization of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) processes and tools occur in the enterprise, a standardized DevOps model helps organizations deliver faster software functionality at a large scale. However, newer cyber threats, evolving regulatory requirements, and the need to protect brand reputation are putting tremendous pressure on IT leaders to effectively protect their customer and business-critical data.

Conceptually, DevOps pipeline approach makes a lot of sense, however, in practice, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and Ops teams optimize systems for service reliability and robustness at the cost of delivering new features. The need for software reliability inherently decreases Continuous Delivery (CD) throughput. This conundrum is the biggest challenge for any organization adopting DevOps practices at a large scale today. By integrating and extending CI/CD with Continuous Resilience (CR) to provide protection against multitudes of software reliability disruptions, DevOps teams can confidently deploy new software and not affect resiliency of the systems. In other words, Continuous Resilience is the radical new enabler that gives confidence for Continue reading

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Cohesity Adds Security Capabilities With CyberScan

“Before us, backup data was just an expensive insurance policy. We are the first ones to make...

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Asia-Pacific ICT Ministers Focus on Co-Creating the Future of the Internet

Last month, ICT ministers across Asia-Pacific got together in Singapore to decide on the direction of ICT development in the region. At the end of the three-day gathering, leaders adopted the Singapore Statement of the Asia-Pacific ICT Ministers on Co-creating a Connected Digital Future in the Asia-Pacific, a set of high-level policy guidelines that will set the tone for activities of the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) in the next five years. 
The Singapore Statement is significant in that it fortifies the principles that underpin a conducive environment for the digital economy to thrive:

• It reinforces support for the multistakeholder approach, with states highlighting their own efforts to make ICT policy processes more inclusive during the meeting.
• It renews its commitment to foster digital communities through collaborative projects to connect unserved and underserved areas.
• It makes explicit references to interoperability and the free and secure flow of information online, putting equal weight on protecting users’ privacy.

It is particularly encouraging to see that amidst the race to capitalize on the vast amounts of data collected from us and our online activities, ICT Ministers opted to focus on trust –  built on accountability, transparency, and ethics – as a fundamental pillar in the Continue reading

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Kubernetes Operators with Ansible Deep Dive: Part 2

In part 1 of this series, we looked at operators overall, and what they do in OpenShift/Kubernetes. We peeked at the Operator SDK, and why you'd want to use an Ansible Operator rather than other kinds of operators provided by the SDK. We also explored how Ansible Operators are structured and the relevant files created by the Operator SDK when building Kubernetes Operators with Ansible.

In this the second part of this deep dive series, we'll:

1. Take a look at creating an OpenShift Project and deploying a Galera Operator
2. Next we’ll check the MySQL cluster, then setup and test a Galera cluster
3. Then we’ll test scaling down, disaster recovery, and demonstrate cleaning up

Creating the project and deploying the operator

We start by creating a new project in OpenShift, which we'll simply call test:

$ oc new-project test --display-name="Testing Ansible Operator"
Now using project "test" on server "https://ec2-xx-yy-zz-1.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com:8443".

We won't delve too much into this role, however the basic operation is:

1. Use set_fact to generate variables using the k8s lookup plugin or other variables defined in defaults/main.yml.
2. Determine if any corrective action needs to be taken based on the above variables. For example, one Continue reading

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Cisco TRex on Ubuntu Server 18.04

TRex is stateful and stateless traffic generator that is designed to benchmark platforms using realistic application traffic. It can generate L3-7 traffic and scale up to 20Gbps. TRex implements the both client and server side. The tutorial provides exact steps that you can follow to install TRex on Ubuntu Server 18.04. Hope you find it useful.

1. Preparing Qemu Ubuntu Server VM for TRex Installation

I assume that you have installed Ubuntu Server 18.0.4 on Qemu disk. Start Qemu Ubuntu Server VM.

$ /usr/local/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 -m 4G -enable-kvm Ubuntu18.04-server-TRex2.vmdk -serial telnet:localhost:2222,server,nowait

Assign IP address from the internal Qemu DHCP server to the guest NIC of Ubuntu Server VM.

$ sudo dhclient

IP address is 10.0.2.15/25 and the default gateway is 10.0.2.2. Now you can connect to the Ubuntu Server issuing telnet from the host.

$ telnet localhost 2222

Copy my script trex-vm.sh from the host to Ubuntu Server Qemu VM. The script installs packages required by TRex. It also redirects VM machine output to serial port and configures old-style Ethernet interfaces naming.

$ scp -rv [email protected]:/home/brezular/trx-vm.sh .

Assign execute privileges to the script and run the Continue reading

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Juniper Pushes Security Into MX Routers, Updates Containerized Firewall

The vendor first started talking about Connected Security earlier this year. It involves a layered...

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Cisco simplifies Kubernetes container deployment with Microsoft Azure collaboration

Cisco seeks to enhance container deployment with a service to let enterprise customers run containerized applications across both Cisco-based on-premises environments and in the Microsoft Azure cloud.Customers can now further simplify deploying and managing Kubernetes clusters on-premises and in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) with one tool, using common identify and control policies, reducing manual tasks and ultimately time-to-market for their application environments, wrote Cisco’s Kip Compton, senior vice president of the company’s Cloud Platform and Solutions group in a blog about the work. To read this article in full, please click here

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Attend Future:NET 2019 – a Premier Networking Event

What is Future:NET?

Is it a thinktank? A forum? An incubator?

4 years ago VMware launched Future:NET with a simple idea of bringing together some of the brightest minds in networking together for an open and honest conversation about the future direction of networking.

While other networking conferences have been reduced to vendor showcases, Future:NET has banned product pitches in exchange for open debates that foster intellectual conversation among professionals across the industry.

Why Attend Future:NET 2019?

Come join us at Future:NET 2019, a premier networking technology event, where we are bringing together everyone from enterprises, startups, and academics to debate and challenge the status quo. Wizards may predict the future, but you should plan to come and play a key role with interactive sessions and network with your peers.

This year we are continuing the tradition of open conversation on technology shifts, the organizational challenges they bring and asking the question “are we really making things simple?”. Topics range from the emergence of XaaS, integrated operation models (SOCs vs NOCs), and the effect of 5G, LISP, and v6 on networking. Join experts from Microsoft, AWS, Stanford, and more as they drive deep technical discussions on the future of the Continue reading

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VMware Cloud on AWS: NSX Networking and Security eBook

Check out my latest book co-authored with my colleagues Gilles Chekroun (@twgilles) and Nico Vibert (@nic972) on VMware NSX networking and security in VMware Cloud on AWS. Thank you Tom Gillis (@_tomgillis), Senior Vice President/General Manager, Networking and Security Business Unit for writing the foreword and providing some great insight.

Download the eBook for Free

I’ve been very fortunate to have the opportunity to publish my second VMware Press book. My first book was VMware NSX Multi-site Solutions and Cross-vCenter NSX Design: Day 1 Guide. This book was focused very much on NSX on prem and across multiple sites. In my latest book with Gilles and Nico, the focus was on NSX networking and security in the cloud and cloud/hybrid cloud solutions.

You can download the free ebook here:

• VMware Press – VMware Cloud on AWS: NSX Networking and Security.

In this book you’ll learn how VMware Cloud on AWS with NSX networking and security provides a robust cloud/hybrid cloud solution. With VMware Cloud on AWS extending or moving to the cloud is no longer a daunting task. In this book, we discuss use cases and solutions while also providing a detailed walkthrough of Continue reading

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Connecting ASA to Umbrella SIG with PBR

This article explores the specific configuration of Cisco ASA when using it to establish a tunnel for Umbrella SIG. The first question many may have is, “What exactly is SIG?” The answer to that is quite simple–SIG is an acronym for Secure Internet Gateway and in the Umbrella implementation it is basically a cloud-delivered firewall. In other words, the common Cisco Umbrella Dashboard can apply a policy to traffic delivered through the service by a tunneled connection to an on-premises network device. Also, in other words, Umbrella isn’t just for DNS.

The first thing to note is that this is very much a simple, stateful, cloud firewall for outbound traffic. Policy can be applied to one or more tunnels and a tunnel represents a connection back to a device. So this is a way that a network administrator can apply and maintain outbound policy across a large distributed network with very little ongoing effort in terms of changes. The current iteration of Umbrella SIG is outbound only. If the requirements include public-facing services, there is still a need for doing that in a traditional way using traditional mechanism (NAT, ACL, etc) alongside this configuration.

I started Continue reading

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5 Things to Try with Docker Desktop WSL 2 Tech Preview

We are pleased to announce the availability of our Technical Preview of Docker Desktop for WSL 2! 

As a refresher, this preview makes use of the new Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) version that Microsoft recently made available on Windows insider fast ring. It has allowed us to provide improvements to file system sharing, boot time and access to some new features for Docker Desktop users. 

To do this we have changed quite a bit about how we interact with the operating system compared to Docker Desktop on Windows today: 

To learn more about the full feature set have a look at our previous blog:   Get Ready for Tech Preview of Docker Desktop for WSL 2  and  Docker WSL 2 – The Future of Docker Desktop for Windows.

Want to give it a go?

1. Get setup on a Windows machine on the latest Windows Insider build. The first step for this is heading over to the Microsoft and getting set up as a Windows Insider: https://insider.windows.com/en-gb/getting-started/ 


2. You’ll need to install the latest release branch (at least build version 18932) and you will then want to enable the WSL 2 feature in Windows: https://docs.microsoft. Continue reading

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Why I’m Helping Cloudflare Grow in Australia & New Zealand (A/NZ)

I’ve recently joined Cloudflare as Head of Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ). This is an important time for the company as we continue to grow our presence locally to address the demand in A/NZ, recruit local talent, and build on the successes we’ve had in our other offices around the globe. In this new role, I’m eager to grow our brand recognition in A/NZ and optimise our reach to customers by building up my team and channel presence.

A little about me

I’m a Melburnian born and bred (most livable city in the world!) with more than 20 years of experience in our market. From guiding strategy and architecture of the region’s largest resources company, BHP, to building and running teams and channels, and helping customers solve the technical challenges of their time, I have been in, or led, businesses in the A/NZ Enterprise market, with a focus on network and security for the last six years.

Why Cloudflare?

I joined Cloudflare because I strongly believe in its mission to help build a better Internet, and believe this mission, paired with its massive global network, will enable the company to continue to deliver incredibly innovative solutions to customers of Continue reading

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VMware’s Bitfusion acquisition could be a game-changer for GPU computing

In a low-key move that went under the radar of a lot of us, last week VMware snapped up a startup called Bitfusion, which makes virtualization software for accelerated computing. It improves performance of virtual machines by offloading processing to accelerator chips, such as GPUs, FPGAs, or other custom ASICs.Bitfusion provides sharing of GPU resources among isolated GPU compute workloads, allowing workloads to be shared across the customer’s network. This way workloads are not tied to one physical server but shared as a pool of resources, and if multiple GPUs are brought to bear, performance naturally increases.“In many ways, Bitfusion offers for hardware acceleration what VMware offered to the compute landscape several years ago. Bitfusion also aligns well with VMware’s ‘Any Cloud, Any App, Any Device’ vision with its ability to work across AI frameworks, clouds, networks, and formats such as virtual machines and containers,” said Krish Prasad, senior vice president and general manager of the Cloud Platform Business Unit at VMware, in a blog post announcing the deal.To read this article in full, please click here

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Rome Is The Fulcrum Of AMD’s Datacenter Pivot

The good news about having a diverse product line, as chip maker AMD increasingly does, is that the company operates like a multi-cylinder engine and that not all of the lines need to be firing full bore for the business to accelerate down its roadmap. …

Rome Is The Fulcrum Of AMD’s Datacenter Pivot was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at .

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The latest large-scale data breach: Capital One | TECH(feed)

Just a few days after Equifax settled with the FTC over its 2017 data breach, Capital One announced it was the target of a March attack. Identifying information and bank account numbers are among some of the data breached in the attack that affects 100 million people. A software engineer is behind the attack and is awaiting a hearing. In this episode of TECH(feed), Juliet discusses the consequences of the attack and how to find out if you've been affected.

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Write Maintainable Integration Tests with Docker

Testcontainer is an open source community focused on making integration tests easier across many languages. Gianluca Arbezzano is a Docker Captain, SRE at Influx Data and the maintainer of the Golang implementation of Testcontainer that uses the Docker API to expose a test-friendly library that you can use in your test cases. 

The popularity of microservices and the use of third-party services for non-business critical features has drastically increased the number of integrations that make up the modern application. These days, it is commonplace to use MySQL, Redis as a key value store, MongoDB, Postgress, and InfluxDB – and that is all just for the database – let alone the multiple services that make up other parts of the application.

All of these integration points require different layers of testing. Unit tests increase how fast you write code because you can mock all of your dependencies, set the expectation for your function and iterate until you get the desired transformation. But, we need more. We need to make sure that the integration with Redis, MongoDB or a microservice works as expected, not just that the mock works as we wrote it. Both are Continue reading

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Google Targets AWS, Azure With Cloud Migration Tools

The new and updated cloud migration and networking tools are tied to its Kubernetes-based Anthos...

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