Kubernetes Operators with Ansible Deep Dive: Part 1

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This deep dive series assumes the reader has access to a Kubernetes test environment. A tool like minikube is an acceptable platform for the purposes of this article. If you are an existing Red Hat customer, another option is spinning up an OpenShift cluster through cloud.redhat.com. This SaaS portal makes trying OpenShift a turnkey operation.

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

  1. Take a look at operators overall, and what they do in OpenShift/Kubernetes.
  2. Take a quick look at the Operator SDK, and why you'd want to use an Ansible operator rather than other kinds of operators provided by the SDK.
  3. And finally, how Ansible Operators are structured and the relevant files created by the Operator SDK.

What Are Operators?

For those who may not be very familiar with Kubernetes, it is, in its most simplistic description - a resource manager. Users specify how much of a given resource they want and Kubernetes manages those resources to achieve the state the user specified. These resources can be pods (which contain one or more containers), persistent volumes, or even custom resources defined by users.

This makes Kubernetes useful for managing resources that don't contain any state (like Continue reading

Reports: As the IoT grows, so do its threats to DNS

The internet of things is shaping up to be a more significant threat to the Domain Name System through larger IoT botnets, unintentional adverse effects of IoT-software updates and the continuing development of bot-herding software.The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and IBM’s X-Force security researchers have recently issued reports outlining the interplay between DNS and IoT that includes warnings about the pressure IoT botnets will put on the availability of DNS systems.More about DNS: DNS in the cloud: Why and why not DNS over HTTPS seeks to make internet use more private How to protect your infrastructure from DNS cache poisoning ICANN housecleaning revokes old DNS security key ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) wrote in a report that “a significant number of IoT devices will likely be IP enabled and will use the DNS to locate the remote services they require to perform their functions. As a result, the DNS will continue to play the same crucial role for the IoT that it has for traditional applications that enable human users to interact with services and content,” ICANN stated. “The  role of  the  DNS  might  become  even  more  crucial  from  a  security  and  stability Continue reading

Day Two Cloud 014: Turning A “Get Us Into Cloud” Order Into Operational Reality

On today's Day Two Cloud we dive into the challenges of adopting and operationalizing a cloud deployment with guest Mark Gossa. We discuss how to incorporate DevOps principles and automation tools into the organization, examine tool options such as Terraform, and chat about going serverless.

The post Day Two Cloud 014: Turning A “Get Us Into Cloud” Order Into Operational Reality appeared first on Packet Pushers.

How BMW’s new annual fee for Apple CarPlay could define the IoT

Apple calls CarPlay “the ultimate co-pilot.” BMW calls it the “smart and fast way to conveniently use your iPhone features while in your car. ... You can control your iPhone and use apps with the touchscreen display, the iDrive Controller or voice commands.”However you describe it, though, Apple’s CarPlay system suddenly finds itself in the center of what could be a defining conversation about the future of the internet of things (IoT).You see, the German luxury carmaker’s plans to charge $80 a year to access CarPlay have suddenly become the talk of the internet, from tech blogs to car sites. The hue and cry makes CarPlay the perfect illustration of the promise—and the pitfalls—of the IoT.To read this article in full, please click here

Hackathon at Africa Internet Summit 2019: Network Programmability, Network Time, IPv6, IPWAVE, and Measurement

The Internet Society and AFRINIC collaborated to organize the 3rd Hackathon@AIS in Kampala, Uganda, which took place alongside the 2019 Africa Internet Summit. The event attracted more than one hundred participants who took part in five different tracks at the event. The event has grown from three tracks and 39 participants in 2017 and three tracks with 75 participants in 2018, to five tracks with 100 participants this year. Cisco DevNet has been helping organize the event since the first edition, and this year, they sponsored t-shirts for the Hackathon.

Objectives
The goals of the Hackathon@AIS and other open standards promotion activities in the African region are to identify, encourage, and expose engineers from Africa to open Internet Standards development, so that they can contribute to the work at organizations such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

Format
The event ran for two days, organized as follows:

  • Day 1, June 19th, Morning
    • Opening session covering the goals of the meeting and the overall structure
    • Registration formalities of participants – using information gathered during the registration process earlier in the year, participants were added into corresponding tracks with each track having its own meeting room and facilitators
    • Room and lab Continue reading

Introducing the new Docker Technology Partner Program

We’re pleased to announce the launch of the Docker Technology Partner (DTP) program as a strong foundation for the ongoing collaboration with our ecosystem partners. Together through the new program, Docker and our partners will accelerate providing our enterprise customers with proven collaborative solutions. 
Our industry-leading container platform has proceeded to become central to continuous, high-velocity innovation for more than 750 enterprises around the world. As such, we recognized the need to enhance our partner program to make it easier for customers to identify key partners from the ecosystem that will provide them with the most value. The DTP program is designed to ensure that Docker customers across a variety of company sizes and industries have access to our massive ecosystem of partners and are able to integrate Docker containers with other chosen technologies.  This program provides clear insight into our formal partnerships, as well as the depth of joint product integration. 
Our partners also receive due recognition for their hard work in ensuring compatibility and support with Docker Enterprise. As always, we truly do appreciate the continued support of our partners, and are proud to showcase their accomplishments in integrating and validating with the Docker platform. Continue reading

Heavy Networking 461: Key Concepts Of Intent-Based Networking

On today’s Heavy Networking, we peer behind the curtain of Intent-Based Networking (IBN) with guest Phil Gervasi, who wrote a pair of white papers for the Packet Pushers' Ignition membership site. We discuss core concepts of IBN, including network abstraction, continuous validation, and automated remediation.

The post Heavy Networking 461: Key Concepts Of Intent-Based Networking appeared first on Packet Pushers.

IBM expands its storage management software to support competitor products

Most companies like to keep their specialty software to themselves, but IBM is making a move to expand its Spectrum Discover metadata management software to support competitive storage products.Spectrum Discover is modern metadata management software that provides data insight for petabyte-scale unstructured storage. It was designed for IBM Cloud Object Storage and IBM Spectrum Scale, a clustered file system, to rapidly ingest, consolidate and index metadata for billions of files and objects.Its metadata layer enables storage administrators, data stewards and data scientists to efficiently manage, classify, and gain insights from massive amounts of unstructured data while helping to mitigate risk and accelerate large-scale analytics.To read this article in full, please click here

IBM expands its storage management software to support competitor products

Most companies like to keep their specialty software to themselves, but IBM is making a move to expand its Spectrum Discover metadata management software to support competitive storage products.Spectrum Discover is modern metadata management software that provides data insight for petabyte-scale unstructured storage. It was designed for IBM Cloud Object Storage and IBM Spectrum Scale, a clustered file system, to rapidly ingest, consolidate and index metadata for billions of files and objects.Its metadata layer enables storage administrators, data stewards and data scientists to efficiently manage, classify, and gain insights from massive amounts of unstructured data while helping to mitigate risk and accelerate large-scale analytics.To read this article in full, please click here

Data centers may soon recycle heat into electricity

Waste heat is the scurge of computing. In fact, much of the cost of powering a computer is from creating unwanted heat. That’s because the inefficiencies in electronic circuits, caused by resistance in the materials, generates that heat. The processors, without computing anything, are essentially converting expensively produced electrical energy into waste energy.   It’s a fundamental problem, and one that hasn’t been going away. But what if you could convert the unwanted heat back into electricity—recycle the heat back into its original energy form? The data center heat, instead of simply disgorging into the atmosphere to be gotten rid of with dubious eco-effects, could actually run more machines. Plus, your cooling costs would be taken care of—there’s nothing to cool because you’ve already grabbed the hot air.To read this article in full, please click here

Data centers may soon recycle heat into electricity

Waste heat is the scurge of computing. In fact, much of the cost of powering a computer is from creating unwanted heat. That’s because the inefficiencies in electronic circuits, caused by resistance in the materials, generates that heat. The processors, without computing anything, are essentially converting expensively produced electrical energy into waste energy.   It’s a fundamental problem, and one that hasn’t been going away. But what if you could convert the unwanted heat back into electricity—recycle the heat back into its original energy form? The data center heat, instead of simply disgorging into the atmosphere to be gotten rid of with dubious eco-effects, could actually run more machines. Plus, your cooling costs would be taken care of—there’s nothing to cool because you’ve already grabbed the hot air.To read this article in full, please click here

When it comes to the IoT, Wi-Fi has the best security

When it comes to connecting internet of things (IoT) devices, there is a wide variety of networks to choose from, each with its own set of capabilities, advantages and disadvantages, and ideal use cases. Good ol’ Wi-Fi is often seen as a default networking choice, available in many places, but of limited range and not particularly suited for IoT implementations.According to Aerohive Networks, however, Wi-Fi is “evolving to help IT address security complexities and challenges associated with IoT devices.” Aerohive sells cloud-managed networking solutions and was acquired recently by software-defined networking company Extreme Networks for some $272 million. And Aerohive's director of product marketing, Mathew Edwards, told me via email that Wi-Fi brings a number of security advantages compared to other IoT networking choices.To read this article in full, please click here

When it comes to the IoT, Wi-Fi has the best security

When it comes to connecting internet of things (IoT) devices, there is a wide variety of networks to choose from, each with its own set of capabilities, advantages and disadvantages, and ideal use cases. Good ol’ Wi-Fi is often seen as a default networking choice, available in many places, but of limited range and not particularly suited for IoT implementations.According to Aerohive Networks, however, Wi-Fi is “evolving to help IT address security complexities and challenges associated with IoT devices.” Aerohive sells cloud-managed networking solutions and was acquired recently by software-defined networking company Extreme Networks for some $272 million. And Aerohive's director of product marketing, Mathew Edwards, told me via email that Wi-Fi brings a number of security advantages compared to other IoT networking choices.To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: Part 2: Before Making WAN Changes, Consider Your Bandwidth and Application Requirements

In part 1 of this 3-part series on how to conduct a wide-area network assessment and prepare for WAN updates, we looked at foundational issues such as current challenges and objectives. In this installment, we’ll examine considerations around applications and bandwidth.As with part 1, my source for information was Mike Lawson, Manager of SD-WAN/NFV Solutions Architecture for CenturyLink. Lawson is in the trenches with network architects and customers every day; as such, he understands the issues that lead companies to upgrade WAN services to newer technologies such as software-defined WAN (SD-WAN).To read this article in full, please click here

Thoughts on Restructuring the Ansible Project

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Ansible became popular largely because we adopted some key principles early, and stuck to them.

The first key principle was simplicity: simple to install, simple to use, simple to find documentation and examples, simple to write playbooks, and simple to make contributions.

The second key principle was modularity: Ansible functionality could be easily extended by writing modules, and anyone could write a module and contribute it back to Ansible.

The third key principle was “batteries included”: all of the modules for Ansible would be built-in, so you wouldn’t have to figure out where to get them. They’d just be there.

We’ve come a long way by following these principles, and we intend to stick to them.

Recently though, we’ve been reevaluating how we might better structure Ansible to support these principles. We now find ourselves dealing with problems of scale that are becoming more challenging to solve. Jan-Piet Mens, who has continued to be a close friend to Ansible since our very earliest days, recently described those problems quite succinctly from his perspective as a long-time contributor -- and I think his analysis of the problems we face is quite accurate. Simply, we’ve become victims of our own success.

Success Continue reading

The Future of Ansible Content Delivery

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Everyday, I’m in awe of what Ansible has grown to be. The incredible growth of the community and viral adoption of the technology has resulted in a content management challenge for the project.

I don’t want to echo a lot of what’s been said by our dear friend Jan-Piet Mens or our incredible Community team, but give me a moment to take a shot at it.

Our main challenge is rooted in the ability to scale. The volume of pull requests and issues we see day to day severely outweigh the ability of the Ansible community to keep up with that rate of change.

As a result, we are embarking on a journey. This journey is one that we know that the community, both our content creators and content consumers, will be interested in hearing about.

This New World Order (tongue in cheek), as we’ve been calling it, is a model that will allow for us to empower the community of contributors of Ansible content (read: modules, plugins, and roles) to provide their content at their own pace.

To do this, we have made some changes to how Ansible leverages content that is not “shipped” with it. In short, Continue reading

There’s finally a communication app tailormade for on-the-go teams. Try it free.

One of the hardest things for employers to do is keep up with the needs of an increasingly mobile workforce. More than ever, teams are using multiple devices to do their work on the go — and for workforces that are dispersed, it can be difficult to get on the same page for key objectives and initiatives. That’s where Eko comes in: this performance-boosting platform is built for mobile workforces, combining communications, process management, task management, e-learning and HR functionalities into one easy-to-use app. Ideal for remote teams, retail and hospitality, this app streamlines everything frontline staff needs to be successful into one helpful tool. To read this article in full, please click here

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