BrandPost: Three Support Trends to Fuel Business Advantage

Who hasn’t had an infuriating support experience as a customer? We’ve all been there. Waiting on the phone. Repeating details. Being passed like a hot potato from one agent to the next. Has no one in the universe ever had or dealt with our same issue before? It can be frustrating, to say the least. And we’re shell-shocked the next time we need to reach out for customer support.There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, though. Before we get there, let’s first consider why this is happening. If we look at the support landscape, we can see that it’s changing: The technology we use is changing. Think about how technology has changed over the last few years. Ten years ago, we didn’t have iPads. Now we have universal connectivity. And behind simple interfaces, underlying technologies are increasingly complex. The people we support are changing. ​End users are more mobile. People can work from anywhere, and they take their digital lives with them. ​And with nearly unlimited – and searchable – data, people are consuming information in a variety of ways. Customer expectations are changing. The more immediate and available our technology becomes, the more Continue reading

Datanauts 167: Patch Now Or Later? The Delicate Art Of Vulnerability Management

Security expert Zoë Rose beams aboard the Datanauts podcast to discuss the intricacies of vulnerability management, including how to asses risks, when and what to patch, the importance of input from multiple stakeholders, compensating controls, and more.

The post Datanauts 167: Patch Now Or Later? The Delicate Art Of Vulnerability Management appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Creating VyOS ISO Image

There are several ways to get an VyOS ISO image. Firstly, you can buy subscription, so you will have an access to LTS VyOS ISO images. The LTS images are also available for VyOS contributors or evangelists with perpetual 1-year access. The third option involves building ISO image itself. Building involves cloning VyOS repository with git, taking care of required dependencies and finally compiling from sources. Either you need Debian as a base and manage dependencies manually or you can compile using the docker method and Debian is not needed.

Using the Dockerfile you create your own Docker container that is used to build a VyOS ISO image or other required VyOS packages. The Dockerfile contains some of the most used packages needed to build a VyOS ISO, a qemu image, and several of the submodules.

1. Install Docker CE

We are going to install Docker CE on Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (bionic).

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common git
$ curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo apt-key fingerprint 0EBFCD88

$ sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic stable"
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install docker-ce
Continue reading

Announcing an Executive Director for the Internet Society Foundation

Photo of Sarah Armstrong

Last year we established the Internet Society Foundation, with a plan to make clearer the Internet Society’s grant-making activities, and distinguish them from Internet Society programmes. We announced that we would develop the Foundation over the course of the following year.

Since then, we have introduced the Internet Society Foundation’s new website and opened up the process for applications from ISOC Chapters and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for the Beyond the Net Grants Programme, which is now housed within the Foundation. This now includes the full range of Beyond the Net Small, Medium, and Large Grants.

In parallel with moving the Beyond the Net Programme, we have been searching for a leader for the Foundation. I am pleased to announce our selection. 

Sarah Armstrong starts in her new role as the Foundation’s Executive Director today, July 1. She brings a wealth of experience to us, having built a career in non-profit, humanitarian, and international development work over many years.

Please join me in extending a warm Internet Society welcome to Sarah. I am sure she will play a key role in ensuring that our financial support for others’ activities is focused and effective. I look forward to a Continue reading

Tempered Networks simplifies secure network connectivity and microsegmentation

The TCP/IP protocol is the foundation of the internet and pretty much every single network out there. The protocol was designed 45 years ago and was originally only created for connectivity. There’s nothing in the protocol for security, mobility, or trusted authentication.The fundamental problem with TCP/IP is that the IP address within the protocol represents both the device location and the device identity on a network. This dual functionality of the address lacks the basic mechanisms for security and mobility of devices on a network.This is one of the reasons networks are so complicated today. To connect to things on a network or over the internet, you need VPNs, firewalls, routers, cell modems, etc. and you have all the configurations that come with ACLs, VLANs, certificates, and so on. The nightmare grows exponentially when you factor in internet of things (IoT) device connectivity and security. It’s all unsustainable at scale.To read this article in full, please click here

Tempered Networks simplifies secure network connectivity and microsegmentation

The TCP/IP protocol is the foundation of the internet and pretty much every single network out there. The protocol was designed 45 years ago and was originally only created for connectivity. There’s nothing in the protocol for security, mobility, or trusted authentication.The fundamental problem with TCP/IP is that the IP address within the protocol represents both the device location and the device identity on a network. This dual functionality of the address lacks the basic mechanisms for security and mobility of devices on a network.This is one of the reasons networks are so complicated today. To connect to things on a network or over the internet, you need VPNs, firewalls, routers, cell modems, etc. and you have all the configurations that come with ACLs, VLANs, certificates, and so on. The nightmare grows exponentially when you factor in internet of things (IoT) device connectivity and security. It’s all unsustainable at scale.To read this article in full, please click here

The convoy phenomenon

The convoy phenomenon Blasgen et al., IBM Research Report 1977 (revised 1979)

Today we’re jumping from HotOS topics of 2019, to hot topics of 1977! With thanks to Pat Helland for the recommendation, and with Jim Gray as one of the authors, we have a combination that’s very hard to ignore :).

Here’s the set-up as relayed to me by Pat (with permission):

At work, I am part of a good sized team working on a large system implementation. One of the very senior engineers with 25+ years experience mentioned a problem with the system. It seems that under test load, it would behave beautifully until the performance just fell to the floor. The system just crawled forever and never seemed to get out of this state. Work was getting done but at a pathetic rate. I said: “You have a convoy.” His response was; “Huh?”. I forwarded him the paper on “The Convoy Phenomenon”…

I have to confess I hadn’t heard of the convoy phenomenon either! Before we go on, take a moment to think of possible causes for the system behaviour described above. Lots of things can cause a performance cliff, but the interesting thing Continue reading

Response to “Certifications Are Not A Big Deal. Stop Being a Princess About It.”

In a post which now appears to have been deleted, Greg Ferro got right to the point in his article Response: Certifications Are Not A Big Deal. Stop Being a Princess About It.. The majority of this response was written while Greg’s post was still active, but I had to come back and inject more context after I spotted on June 30, 2019 that the post had become unavailable.

To save you digging in the WayBackMachine, the history to Greg’s post as I understand it is that Greg made some comments in Episode 238 of the Packet Pushers’ Network Break suggesting that vendor certifications were trivial. A listener evidently gave some strong feed back disagreeing with this, and so in Episode 239 of the Packet Pushers’ Network Break Greg responded to that feedback, and reiterated his position about certification study, specifically framed around Cisco’s CCNP. Greg made some reasonable points; that the certification programs from the vendors are not designed to teach fundamentals in the same way that, say, a computer science degree might do, and that the aim is really to make money for the vendor, and reduce their tech support costs, and as such the vendor certification education Continue reading

Third Time’s a Charm (A brief history of a gay marriage)

Third Time’s a Charm (A brief history of a gay marriage)

Happy Pride from Proudflare, Cloudflare’s LGBTQIA+ employee resource group. We wanted to share some stories from our members this month which highlight both the struggles behind the LGBTQIA+ rights movement and its successes. This first story is from Lesley.

The moment that crystalised the memory of that day…crystal blue afternoon, bright-coloured autumn leaves, borrowed tables, crockery and cutlery, flowers arranged by a cousin, cake baked by a neighbour, music mixed by a friend... our priest/rabbi a close gay friend with neither  yarmulke nor collar. The venue, a backyard kitty-corner at the home my wife grew up in. Love and good wishes in abundance from a community that supports us and our union. And in the middle of all that, my wife… turning to me and smiling, grass stains on the bottom of her long cream wedding dress after abandoning her heels and dancing barefoot in the grass. As usual, a microphone in hand, bringing life and laughter to all with her charismatic quips.

This was the fall of 2002 and same-sex marriage was legal in 0 of the 50 United States.

Third Time’s a Charm (A brief history of a gay marriage)
Our first marriage Continue reading

Third Time’s a Charm (A brief history of a gay marriage)

Third Time’s a Charm (A brief history of a gay marriage)

Happy Pride from Proudflare, Cloudflare’s LGBTQIA+ employee resource group. We wanted to share some stories from our members this month which highlight both the struggles behind the LGBTQIA+ rights movement and its successes. This first story is from Lesley.

The moment that crystalised the memory of that day…crystal blue afternoon, bright-coloured autumn leaves, borrowed tables, crockery and cutlery, flowers arranged by a cousin, cake baked by a neighbour, music mixed by a friend... our priest/rabbi a close gay friend with neither  yarmulke nor collar. The venue, a backyard kitty-corner at the home my wife grew up in. Love and good wishes in abundance from a community that supports us and our union. And in the middle of all that, my wife… turning to me and smiling, grass stains on the bottom of her long cream wedding dress after abandoning her heels and dancing barefoot in the grass. As usual, a microphone in hand, bringing life and laughter to all with her charismatic quips.

This was the fall of 2002 and same-sex marriage was legal in 0 of the 50 United States.

Third Time’s a Charm (A brief history of a gay marriage)
Our first marriage Continue reading
1 … 1,148 1,149 1,150 1,151 1,152 … 3,793