IT Burnout – The Task List

Sadly, this picture above is me. I used to think I had one of the best memories in the world. It turns out my memory is well-suited for bar trivia and routing protocol esoterics. My memory doesn’t appear so adept at remembering other little things that are of more important, such as remembering to buy a gift for a birthday or following up on an email that I sent last week.

Human brains are great at processing information. But some of the ones that are best at processing it are horrible at recalling it. I think of it not unlike a three-tiered storage array. The fast access tasks are in the fastest storage tier where they are needed. The longer term but less important info goes into the near-line tier where it can be recalled when needed. And in my case, the bandwidth to that tier is slow and unreliable.

Exciting Things!

One of my solutions to this problem is getting better with task management. As bad as my memory is, it’s also not well suited to writing things down to remember them. The irony is almost too delicious to ignore. I need to write things down so I don’t Continue reading

Not So Private Thoughts at IETF 105

At IETF 105, held in Montreal at the end of July, the Technical Plenary part of the meeting had two speakers on the topic of privacy in today's Internet, Associate Professor Arvind Narayanan of Princeton University and Professor Stephen Bellovin of Colombia University. They were both quite disturbing talks in their distinct ways, and I'd like to share my impressions of these two presentations and then consider what privacy means for me in today's Internet.

Stuff The Internet Says On Scalability For July 26th, 2019

Wake up! It's HighScalability time—once again:

 

 The Apollo 11 guidance computer repeatedly crashed on descent. On earth computer scientists had just 13 hours to debug the problem. They did. It was CPU overload because of a wrong setting. Some things never change! 

 

Do you like this sort of Stuff? I'd greatly appreciate your support on Patreon. I wrote Explain the Cloud Like I'm 10 for people who need to understand the cloud. And who doesn't these days? On Amazon it has 52 mostly 5 star reviews (120 on Goodreads). They'll learn a lot and hold you in even greater awe.

 

Number Stuff:

Don't miss all that the Internet has to say on Scalability, click below and become eventually consistent with all scalability knowledge (which means this post has many more items to read so please keep on reading)...

Verizon launches interconnect service through Equinix

Just days after AT&T hooked up with IBM and Microsoft for cloud service connectivity, Verizon announced a software-defined interconnect (SDI) service to help the carrier's customers connect Equinix colocation data centers.These two companies have a history. In 2017, Equinix acquired 29 Verizon data centers in the U.S and Latin America for $3.6 billion. So like AT&T, Verizon left data centers to the experts and focused on building connections to them. [ Read also: How to plan a software-defined data center network ] As more enterprises move workloads into colocation facilities run by providers like Equinix, fast, secure connections between the enterprise and the colocation become a must. Verizon's SDI service is designed to provide fast, reliable connectivity between customer and the colocation data center.To read this article in full, please click here

Verizon launches interconnect service through Equinix

Just days after AT&T hooked up with IBM and Microsoft for cloud service connectivity, Verizon announced a software-defined interconnect (SDI) service to help the carrier's customers connect Equinix colocation data centers.These two companies have a history. In 2017, Equinix acquired 29 Verizon data centers in the U.S and Latin America for $3.6 billion. So like AT&T, Verizon left data centers to the experts and focused on building connections to them. [ Read also: How to plan a software-defined data center network ] As more enterprises move workloads into colocation facilities run by providers like Equinix, fast, secure connections between the enterprise and the colocation become a must. Verizon's SDI service is designed to provide fast, reliable connectivity between customer and the colocation data center.To read this article in full, please click here

Accelerate Application Delivery with Application Templates in Docker Desktop Enterprise


The Application Templates interface.
Docker Enterprise 3.0, now generally available, includes several new features that make it simpler and faster for developers to build and deliver modern applications in the world of Docker containers and Kubernetes. One such feature is the new Application Templates interface that is included with Docker Desktop Enterprise.
Application Templates enable developers to build modern applications using a library of predefined and organization-approved application and service templates, without requiring prior knowledge of Docker commands. By providing re-usable “scaffolding” for developing modern container-based applications, Application Templates accelerate developer onboarding and improve productivity.
The Application Templates themselves include many of the discrete components required for developing a new application, including the Dockerfile, custom base images, common compose service YAML, and application parameters (external ports and upstream image versions). They can even include boilerplate code and code editor configs.
With Application Templates, development leads, application architects, and security and operations teams can customize and share application and service templates that align to corporate standards. As a developer, you know you’re starting from pre-approved templates that  eliminate time-consuming configuration steps and error-prone manual setup. Instead, you have the freedom to customize and experiment so you can focus on Continue reading

Software Engineers and Network Automation

I was saying “you’ll get the best network automation (or SDN) results if you pair network engineers with software engineers” for ages, but there’s always someone else saying it more eloquently, in this case Jeremy Schulman in his recent blog post.

Jeremy will talk about ChatOps in Autumn 2019 Building Network Automation Solutions online course, but of course you’re more than welcome to ask him other questions as well.

African Peering and Interconnection Forum 2019 Fellows Announced

The 10th African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF-10) has selected twenty fellows to participate in the meeting next month.

The fellows are drawn from various fields such as interconnection, content, infrastructure, and policy. They represent Kenya, Lesotho, Somalia, Nigeria, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Egypt, Uganda, South Africa, Republic of the Congo (Congo), Ethiopian Cameroon, Benin, and Gambia.

Among the chosen fellows are six women sponsored by the Women in Tech partners. The women are drawn from Kenya, South Africa, Gambia, and Congo.

Representing DR Congo in this year’s AfPIF forum is Eric Nsilu Moanda. Eric works as a Senior Core Data Network Architect for Vodacom DR Congo. He has held the position at the Vodafone Group subsidiary for 12 years now, designing all IP Integration Solutions for the company.

“I look forward to learning how to produce attractive local content in Africa, for Africans, obtaining a fresh technical and marketing perspective, and gaining awareness in the evolution of continental interconnection projects,” Eric said.

In the past, Eric has peered on integrating Vodacom to KINIX (Kinshasa Exchange point) and he also worked on the Internet update link for the CDN of Kinix via Continue reading

Report: Smart-city IoT isn’t smart enough yet

Security arrangements for smart-city IoT technology around the world are in an alarming state of disrepair, according to a report from Forrester Research that argues serious changes are needed in order to avoid widespread compromises.Much of what’s wrong has to do with a lack of understanding on the part of the people in charge of those systems and a failure to follow well-known security best practices, like centralized management, network visibility and limiting attack-surfaces. More on IoT: What is the IoT? How the internet of things works What is edge computing and how it’s changing the network Most powerful Internet of Things companies 10 Hot IoT startups to watch The 6 ways to make money in IoT What is digital twin technology? [and why it matters] Blockchain, service-centric networking key to IoT success Getting grounded in IoT networking and security Building IoT-ready networks must become a priority What is the Industrial IoT? [And why the stakes are so high] Those all pose stiff challenges, according to “Making Smart Cities Safe And Secure,” the Forrester report by Merritt Maxim and Salvatore Schiano. The attack surface for a smart city is, by default, enormous, given the volume of Internet-connected hardware involved. Continue reading

Kernel of Truth season 2 episode 11: Network monitoring

Subscribe to Kernel of Truth on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Cast Box and Sticher!

Click here for our previous episode.

Don’t let your switch be the one who called wolf! Network monitoring is a hot topic here at Cumulus Networks and to talk about it more, host Brian O’Sullivan is joined by two new guests to the podcast Justin Betz and Faye Ly. They sit down to chat about the evolution of monitoring, the challenges in achieving robust monitoring and visibility, and what does it even mean to have “good network monitoring and visibility?” Listen, learn and hopefully enjoy!

Guest Bios

Brian O’Sullivan: Brian currently heads Product Management for Cumulus Linux. For 15 or so years he’s held software Product Management positions at Juniper Networks as well as other smaller companies. Once he saw the change that was happening in the networking space, he decided to join Cumulus Networks to be a part of the open networking innovation. When not working, Brian is a voracious reader and has held a variety of jobs, including bartending in three countries and working as an extra in a German soap opera. You can find him on Twitter at @bosullivan00.

Faye Continue reading

BrandPost: Part 3: Assessing Your WAN Strategy: Resiliency and Security at Branch Locations

In part 1 of this 3-part series on how to conduct a wide-area network assessment and determine necessary updates, we looked at foundational issues including current challenges and objectives. Part 2 examined considerations around applications and bandwidth. In this third and final installment we’ll look at two issues that are critical for any organization: resiliency and security.To read this article in full, please click here

IoT’s role in expanding drone use

As faithful readers of TechWatch (love you, Mom) may know, the rollout of many companies’ ambitious drone delivery services has not gone as quickly as promised. Despite recent signs of progress in Australia and the United States—not to mention clever ideas for burger deliveries to cars stuck in traffic—drone delivery remains a long way from becoming a viable option in the vast majority of use cases. And the problem affects many areas of drone usage, not just the heavily hyped drone delivery applications.To read this article in full, please click here

Storage management a weak area for most enterprises

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Companies are racing to a new technological paradigm but are using yesterday’s tech to do it.I know. Shocking.A survey of more than 300 storage professionals by storage vendor NGD Systems found only 11% of the companies they talked to would give themselves an “A” grade for their compute and storage capabilities.Why? The chief reason given is that while enterprises are rapidly deploying technologies for edge networks, real-time analytics, machine learning, and internet of things (IoT) projects, they are still using legacy storage solutions that are not designed for such data-intensive workloads. More than half — 54% — said their processing of edge applications is a bottleneck, and they want faster and more intelligent storage solutions.To read this article in full, please click here

Storage management a weak area for most enterprises

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Companies are racing to a new technological paradigm but are using yesterday’s tech to do it.I know. Shocking.A survey of more than 300 storage professionals by storage vendor NGD Systems found only 11% of the companies they talked to would give themselves an “A” grade for their compute and storage capabilities.Why? The chief reason given is that while enterprises are rapidly deploying technologies for edge networks, real-time analytics, machine learning, and internet of things (IoT) projects, they are still using legacy storage solutions that are not designed for such data-intensive workloads. More than half — 54% — said their processing of edge applications is a bottleneck, and they want faster and more intelligent storage solutions.To read this article in full, please click here

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