A Primer for Home NAS Storage Speed Units and Abbreviations

One of the most common mistakes/confusion I see with regard to storage is how speed is measured.

In tech, there’s some cultural conventions to which units speeds are discussed in.

  • In the networking world, we measure bits per second
  • In the storage and server world, we measure speed in bytes per second

Of course they both say the same thing, just in different units. You could measure bytes per second in the networking world and bits per second in the server/storage world, but it’s not the “native” method and could add to confusion.

For NAS, we have a bit of a conundrum in that we’re talking about both worlds. So it’s important to communicate effectively which method you’re using to measure speed: bits of bytes.

Generally speaking, if you want to talk about Bytes, you capitalize the B. If you want to talk about bits, the b is lower case. I.e. 100 MB/s (100 Megabytes per second) and 100 Mbit or Mb (100 Megabit per second).

This is important, because there a 8 bits in a byte, the difference in speed is pretty stark depending on if you’re talking about bits per second or bytes per Continue reading

Moving a Prototype Network to Production

Network Engineers create and operate prototype networks all the time. Prototype networks are used to validate designs, test features or changes, troubleshoot use-case scenarios, and often just for learning. Typically, pre-prod testing environments are set up in such a way that device host names, attributes, configurations, IP assignments, software versions, and topologies are mostly inconsistent with production environments. This inconsistency is counter-intuitive, considering that accurate design validations should closely match reality to avoid any mistakes when deploying in production.

Cumulus Linux can run as a virtual appliance, allowing network engineers to build to-scale virtual networks for activities like modeling changes and performing validations, while opening the door for similar DevOps methodologies application developers have operated with for years: validated testing before deploying in production for continuous integration.

Enter Cumulus VX

Cumulus VX (Virtual Experience) is a Cumulus Linux virtual appliance. You can test drive Cumulus Linux on a laptop, while those fluent with Cumulus Linux can prototype large networks and develop software integrations before deploying into production environments.

Cumulus VX is a platform — just like Cumulus Linux on a real switch — and therefore is designed to perform just like an actual switch running Cumulus Linux. Every feature you Continue reading

What is a firewall? How they work and how they fit into enterprise security

Firewalls been around for three decades, but they’ve evolved drastically to include features that used to be sold as separate appliances and to pull in externally gathered data to make smarter decisions about what network traffic to allow and what traffic to block.Now just one indespensible element in an ecosystem of network defenses, the latest versions are known as enterprise firewalls or next-generation firewalls (NGFW) to indicate who should use them and that they are continually adding functionality.What is a firewall? A firewall is a network device that monitors packets going in and out of networks and blocks or allows them according to rules that have been set up to define what traffic is permissible and what traffic isn’t.To read this article in full, please click here

What is a firewall? How they work and how they fit into enterprise security

Firewalls been around for three decades, but they’ve evolved drastically to include features that used to be sold as separate appliances and to pull in externally gathered data to make smarter decisions about what network traffic to allow and what traffic to block.Now just one indespensible element in an ecosystem of network defenses, the latest versions are known as enterprise firewalls or next-generation firewalls (NGFW) to indicate who should use them and that they are continually adding functionality.What is a firewall? A firewall is a network device that monitors packets going in and out of networks and blocks or allows them according to rules that have been set up to define what traffic is permissible and what traffic isn’t.To read this article in full, please click here

What is a firewall? How they work and how they fit into enterprise security

Firewalls been around for three decades, but they’ve evolved drastically to include features that used to be sold as separate appliances and to pull in externally gathered data to make smarter decisions about what network traffic to allow and what traffic to block.Now just one indespensible element in an ecosystem of network defenses, the latest versions are known as enterprise firewalls or next-generation firewalls (NGFW) to indicate who should use them and that they are continually adding functionality.What is a firewall? A firewall is a network device that monitors packets going in and out of networks and blocks or allows them according to rules that have been set up to define what traffic is permissible and what traffic isn’t.To read this article in full, please click here

What is a firewall? How they work and how they fit into enterprise security

Firewalls been around for three decades, but they’ve evolved drastically to include features that used to be sold as separate appliances and to pull in externally gathered data to make smarter decisions about what network traffic to allow and what traffic to block.Now just one indespensible element in an ecosystem of network defenses, the latest versions are known as enterprise firewalls or next-generation firewalls (NGFW) to indicate who should use them and that they are continually adding functionality.What is a firewall? A firewall is a network device that monitors packets going in and out of networks and blocks or allows them according to rules that have been set up to define what traffic is permissible and what traffic isn’t.To read this article in full, please click here

Webinar: “How to Make Your Mark: Ansible Community Contributions”

Ansible-Blog-Community-Webinar

On Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 9:30 AM EST, we will be hosting a webinar, How to Make Your Mark: Ansible Community Contributions. This webinar is tailored for everyone in the Ansible community. Whether you're a brand new member of the Ansible community or a full-fledged Red Hat Ansible Tower customer, contributing to the Ansible projects is a way to put features and fixes into the tools you use daily.

Join John "gundalow" Barker (Principal Software Engineer, Ansible Community) and Alicia Cozine (Technical Writer, Ansible Documentation) as they discuss and demonstrate contribution how-to’s and best practices. They will also quell some common myths about contributing to Ansible and dive into the Ansible development workflow.

There are no prerequisites for attending this webinar. You don’t need to know git, understand GitHub, nor write Python. There will also be a Q&A session during the webinar. If you have questions about how or where to get started after the webinar, please ask them! One of the best parts about being a community is continually improving the way we work. If you have suggestions for documentation, process, etc. but don’t know the best place to ask, this webinar will help.

Ansible Contributor Experience Working Group Continue reading

How SD-WAN can improve your security strategy

Data breaches and security threats are a top concern among IT leaders, yet it’s harder than ever to hire skilled security professionals. That has organizations looking for ways to more easily improve their security strategy. One option is to implement a software-defined WAN (SD-WAN).I recently talked with Hamza Seqqat, director of solutions architecture at Apcela, to get his take on how SD-WAN affects security strategy. Seqqat helps enterprise organizations redefine their wide-area networks to accommodate the growing use of cloud-based applications and services. In our discussion, he outlined four areas where SD-WAN offers new security benefits.To read this article in full, please click here

How SD-WAN can improve your security strategy

Data breaches and security threats are a top concern among IT leaders, yet it’s harder than ever to hire skilled security professionals. That has organizations looking for ways to more easily improve their security strategy. One option is to implement a software-defined WAN (SD-WAN).I recently talked with Hamza Seqqat, director of solutions architecture at Apcela, to get his take on how SD-WAN affects security strategy. Seqqat helps enterprise organizations redefine their wide-area networks to accommodate the growing use of cloud-based applications and services. In our discussion, he outlined four areas where SD-WAN offers new security benefits.To read this article in full, please click here

How SD-WAN can improve your security strategy

Data breaches and security threats are a top concern among IT leaders, yet it’s harder than ever to hire skilled security professionals. That has organizations looking for ways to more easily improve their security strategy. One option is to implement a software-defined WAN (SD-WAN).I recently talked with Hamza Seqqat, director of solutions architecture at Apcela, to get his take on how SD-WAN affects security strategy. Seqqat helps enterprise organizations redefine their wide-area networks to accommodate the growing use of cloud-based applications and services. In our discussion, he outlined four areas where SD-WAN offers new security benefits.To read this article in full, please click here

How SD-WAN can improve your security strategy

Data breaches and security threats are a top concern among IT leaders, yet it’s harder than ever to hire skilled security professionals. That has organizations looking for ways to more easily improve their security strategy. One option is to implement a software-defined WAN (SD-WAN).I recently talked with Hamza Seqqat, director of solutions architecture at Apcela, to get his take on how SD-WAN affects security strategy. Seqqat helps enterprise organizations redefine their wide-area networks to accommodate the growing use of cloud-based applications and services. In our discussion, he outlined four areas where SD-WAN offers new security benefits.To read this article in full, please click here