Introducing Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

We are excited to introduce Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, a new offering that combines the simple and powerful Ansible solutions with new capabilities for cross-team collaboration, governance and analytics, resulting in a platform for building and operating automation at scale. 

Over the past several years, we’ve listened closely to the community, customers and partners and their needs. We’ve also looked carefully at how the market is changing and where we see automation headed. One of the most common requests we’ve heard from customers is the need to bring together separate teams using automation. Today’s organizations are often automating different areas of their business (such as on-premises IT vs. cloud services vs. networks) each with their own set of Ansible Playbooks and little collaboration between the different domains. While this may still get the task accomplished, it can be a barrier to realizing the full value of automation. 

We’ve also found that even within a single organization, teams are often at different stages of automation maturity. Organizations are often recreating the wheel - automating processes that have already been done.

Organizations need a solution they can use across teams and domains, and a solution they can Continue reading

Inside the Web Browser’s Performance API

Building a beautiful, feature-rich website is easier than ever before. Not long ago, you’d have to fire up a text editor and hand-craft a lot of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Today, you can use WYSIWYG tools and third-party libraries that make development much simpler. The flip side of this is that it can be hard to see everything that’s going into your website — and the performance can suffer.

The good news is that modern web browsers expose lots of performance data that can help you understand how your web page performs. With the launch of Browser Insights today, we can analyze the performance from the perspective of the web browser and what the end user actually experiences. In this post, we’ll dive into how we think about performance and utilize the timing APIs in the web browser.

How web browsers measure performance

In the old days, the only way for a developer to profile performance was to intercept requests and measure the time from the beginning of the page load until the end of the load event.

Today, we can use Web APIs that are supported by modern browsers. This is part of the web standard called the Performance Continue reading

Introducing Browser Insights

Speed matters. We know that when your website or app gets faster, users have a better experience and you get more conversions and more revenue. At Cloudflare, we spend our days obsessing about speed and building new features to squeeze out as much performance as possible.

But to improve speed, you first need to measure it. That’s why we’re launching Browser Insights: a new tool that measures the performance of your website from the perspective of your users. Browser Insights lets you dive in to understand where, when, and why web pages are slow. And you can enable it today, for free, with one click.

Why did we build Browser Insights?

Let’s say you run an e-commerce site, and you want to make your conversion rates better. You’ve noticed that there’s a lot of traffic from visitors in Peru, but they have worse conversion than users in North America. Maybe you theorize that it takes a long time to load your checkout page, which causes customers to drop off before checking out. How would you verify that this is happening?

There are a few ways you could do this: you could check your server logs to look at timing Continue reading

BrandPost: How a business-driven SD-WAN can deliver a multiplier effect on your cloud investments

I just left another CIO meeting with a Fortune 100 prospect who was wondering, “why Silver Peak versus the 800-pound gorilla in the networking space that offers several different ‘SD-WAN’ offerings?” The challenge she faced wasn’t about whether it was the best solution or not - Silver Peak cruised through the technical evaluation, easily winning the technical recommendation. What she really wanted to know is if she should trust the future of her next Wide Area Network (WAN) to a private company.This is a challenge we at Silver Peak face in seemingly every account we earn. The technical part isn’t the hard part, as we consistently win product evaluations and bakeoffs. What we have to prove is that it’s actually less risky to choose Silver Peak as the platform to build their next generation WAN on when compared to trying to stretch a Cisco router-centric model. To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco ACI – API Calls vs JSON POST

API Calls method The fancy way of configuring Cisco ACI Fabric is by using Python script for generating API calls. Those API calls are then used to configure Cisco ACI by pushing those calls to APIC controller using POSTMAN (or similar tool). Configuration changes done this way are those that you are doing often and without much chance of making mistakes. You write a Python script and that script will take your configuration variables and generate API call that will configure the system quickly and correctly every time. The thing is that you need to take the API call example

The post Cisco ACI – API Calls vs JSON POST appeared first on How Does Internet Work.

What do I run at home?

I have decided to do a little series on “What I run at home” with regards to networking, labs, and …

Continue reading →

The post What do I run at home? appeared first on Fryguy's Blog.

vlog. Episode 6. Closed-loop automation [LIVE]

Hello my friend,

This vlog episode I’m alone. Eh… But I have an opportunity to share with you the talk I’ve delivered an the NetLdn #6 event two weeks ago. Now you have an opportunity to watch this talk as well!

In this episode you will see the high-level description of the Data Centre Fabric Project I’ve been doing this year with the focus on the closed-loop automation using open-source tools. Additionally, you will see LIVE DEMO of the closed-loop automation as an extension to ZTP, where the full data centre fabric running Cumulus switches will be provisioned from zero to full operational state.

If you’ve recently read about Mellanox/Cumulus, the same approach perfectly fits this pair.

But it is not only about Cumulus. Any network supplier we’ve discussed (Arista, Nokia, Cisco and much more) can be provisioned in such a way, and you can find the sample templates in the GitHub repo.

Support us

Support new interop and automation articles at karneliuk.com
EUR
I want to support with:
9.99 EUR4.99 EUR24.99 EUR49.99 EUR99.99 EUR199.99 EUR

Continue reading

On the Usability of OSI Layered Networking Model

Two weeks ago I replied to a battle-scar reaction to 7-layer OSI model, this time I’ll address a much more nuanced view from Russ White. Please read his article first (as always, it’s well worth reading) and when you come back we’ll focus on this claim:

The OSI Model does not accurately describe networks.

Like with any tool in your toolbox, you can view the 7-layer OSI model in a number of ways. In the case of OSI model, it can be used:

On the Usability of OSI Layered Networking Model

Two weeks ago I replied to a battle-scar reaction to 7-layer OSI model, this time I’ll address a much more nuanced view from Russ White. Please read his article first (as always, it’s well worth reading) and when you come back we’ll focus on this claim:

The OSI Model does not accurately describe networks.

Like with any tool in your toolbox, you can view the 7-layer OSI model in a number of ways. In the case of OSI model, it can be used:

BrandPost: Take the Intelligent Route with Consumption-Based Storage

Data is at the center of everything we do today. It’s a massive resource that you can use to fuel innovation, steer the business with greater insights, and rev up people to do their best work. But data overload, unpredictable workload demands, and growing maintenance and security requirements can stall important initiatives when storage systems lack the performance, scale, agility, and e­fficiency to keep up.But there’s good news. The agility and economics of HPE storage combined with HPE GreenLake let you run IT like a finely tuned engine: Improve economics with no up-front payment and 100% economic storage utilization Reduce risk of running out of capacity or wasting money by overprovisioning Accelerate value with on-demand storage solutions aligned to your workload needs Ensure control over performance, security, and compliance. Click here to view the complete infographic. To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: How HPE Metering Technology Delivers a Better Way to Consume IT

HPE GreenLake is a true pay-as-you-go, consumption-based approach to hybrid IT. It’s different from anything else on the market, so it’s not surprising that customers tend to have lots of questions. Here are some that I hear quite often:Do I have to purchase the infrastructure?No. HPE GreenLake is an “as-a-service” model, so we own and manage the equipment for you at your site, and we provide a buffer of capacity right-sized to your business. Then we measure how much you use, and we charge based on that usage.What if I run out of capacity?To read this article in full, please click here

How HPE Metering Technology Delivers a Better Way to Consume IT

HPE GreenLake is a true pay-as-you-go, consumption-based approach to hybrid IT. It’s different from anything else on the market, so it’s not surprising that customers tend to have lots of questions. Here are some that I hear quite often:Do I have to purchase the infrastructure?No. HPE GreenLake is an “as-a-service” model, so we own and manage the equipment for you at your site, and we provide a buffer of capacity right-sized to your business. Then we measure how much you use, and we charge based on that usage.What if I run out of capacity?To read this article in full, please click here

Take the Intelligent Route with Consumption-Based Storage

Data is at the center of everything we do today. It’s a massive resource that you can use to fuel innovation, steer the business with greater insights, and rev up people to do their best work. But data overload, unpredictable workload demands, and growing maintenance and security requirements can stall important initiatives when storage systems lack the performance, scale, agility, and e­fficiency to keep up.But there’s good news. The agility and economics of HPE storage combined with HPE GreenLake let you run IT like a finely tuned engine: Improve economics with no up-front payment and 100% economic storage utilization Reduce risk of running out of capacity or wasting money by overprovisioning Accelerate value with on-demand storage solutions aligned to your workload needs Ensure control over performance, security, and compliance. Click here to view the complete infographic. To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: More Elbow-Room for Innovation: Reducing the Ops Load with HPE Adaptive Management Services

We’re hearing a lot these days about how CIOs are becoming more strategic partners with executive management – how IT is moving closer to the core of the business and earning a seat at the table in strategy discussions. I’m a bit skeptical that it’s happening on anything like a broad scale. It’s certainly true that there’s an awareness that IT is “mission critical,” that you absolutely cannot afford to have the network go down even for a second, or a security slip-up that results in losing hundreds of thousands of credit card records. Those are hugely important discussions, but they’re not seen as directly related to business outcomes.Many in the C-Suite still see at least a percentage of IT expenditures as almost like a tax on the business. When IT leaders get into investment conversations, their colleagues are often about as excited as the rest of us are when it’s time to pay our personal income tax bill.To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: Optimizing your Hybrid Cloud Environment: Key Considerations for Workload Placement, Cost Control, and Cloud Management

 This video is hosted by Owen Rogers of 451 Research and discusses key considerations for workload placement, cost control, and management of hybrid cloud environments. It is based on research conducted for HPE GreenLake Hybrid Cloud. Click here to watch the video. To read this article in full, please click here

The Week in Internet News: IoT Devices Could Put Privacy at Risk, Study Says

A real privacy headache: Internet of Things devices potentially expose consumer information to other parties, according to a recent study featured on Vice.com. Many IoT devices collect and share a wealth of information including the IP address, usage habits, and location data. That data is then often shared with “a laundry list” of third parties.

Encryption objections: ISP trade groups are objecting to a plan by Google to a new encryption regime for domain name lookups in its Chrome browser and Android operating system, Broadcasting and Cable reports. The plan would give Google too much power, the groups have told U.S. lawmakers.

Moving to the country: Microsoft and Nextlink Internet have unveiled a plan to bring broadband to millions of people living in the rural U.S., WindowsCenteral.com says. The Microsoft Airband Initiative’s goal is to extend broadband access to more than 3 million unserved U.S. residents by mid-2022, with more areas covered by 2024.

The FBI wants in: The U.S. FBI tried to get the operators of encrypted phone carrier Phantom Secure to create a backdoor, as a way to spy on the Sinaloa drug cartel, Vice.com reports. The company was accused Continue reading

IBM’s journey to tens of thousands of production Kubernetes clusters

IBM Cloud has made a massive shift to Kubernetes. From an initial plan for a hosted Kubernetes public cloud offering it has snowballed to tens of thousands of production Kubernetes clusters running across more than 60 data centers around the globe, hosting 90% of the PaaS and SaaS services offered by IBM Cloud.

I spoke with Dan Berg, IBM Distinguished Engineer, to find out more about their journey, what triggered such a significant shift, and what they learned along the way.

So take me back to the beginning – how did this thing get started?

It must have been 3 years ago.  At that time, IBM had been building customer-facing services in the cloud for several years implemented as traditional VM or Cloud Foundry workloads. One of the services we offered was a container as a service (CaaS) platform that was built under the covers using Docker and OpenStack.  With this platform, we were the first in the industry to provide a true CaaS experience, but in some ways it was ahead of its time, and people weren’t ready to embrace a pure container as a service platform.

To this day we are still seeing double digit Continue reading

Stateless’ Software-Defined Interconnect Battles NFV, SD-WAN

Next-Generation Reference Design Guide for NSX-T

The NSX-T 2.5 release marks a cornerstone in NSX-T as announced at VMworld 2019 by SVP Umesh Mahajan. 2019 has been a year of phenomenal growth for VMware’s NSX-T with its wide adoption by enterprises across several verticals.  In 2019, we introduced two ground-breaking releases NSX-T 2.4 and NSX-T 2.5. With these two releases, we are fully embarking on enterprise ready system becoming the de-facto enterprise software-defined networking (SDN) platform of choice.  

To support our customers in their network and security virtualization journey, we introduced the NSX-T design guide on the NSX-T 2.0 release and provided design guidance on how customers should design their data centers with NSX-T. 

Today, we are excited to announce the next version of the NSX-T design guide based on generally available NSX-T release 2.5. It is the foundation overhaul to design guidance and leading best practices. There have been numerous L2-L7 features additions and platform enhancements since NSX-T release 2.0. This design guide covers functional aspects of these enhancements and provides design guidance for them.  

What readers can expect in the new NSX-T Design Guide:

• Packet walks
• Detailed explanation of Continue reading

NeoPhotonics Points Lasers, AWG Multiplexers at Data Centers