The Magic of the CCIE

I stumbled across a great Reddit thread this week: Is the CCIE as impossible as it seems? There are a lot of great replies on that thread about people passing and the “good old days” of Banyan Vines, Appletalk, and more. It’s also a fascinating look into how the rest of the networking industry sees exams like the CCIE and JNCIE. Because those of us that have the numbers seem to be magicians to some.

Sleight of CLI Hand

Have you ever seen the cups and balls magic trick? Here’s an excellent example of it from the recently departed Ricky Jay:

Impressive, right? It’s amazing to behold a master craftsman at work. Every time I watch that video I’m amazed. I know he’s doing sleight of hand. But I can’t catch it. Now, watch this same video but with annotations turned on. SPOILER ALERT – The annotations will tell you EXACTLY where the tricks are done:

Is it more impressive now that you know how the tricks are done? Check out this demonstration from Penn and Teller that shows you exactly how they do the tricks as well:

Okay, so it’s a little less mystifying now that you’ve Continue reading

AWS, Red Hat move to shore up hybrid cloud environments

Two more signs it’s a hybrid cloud world: This week, Red Hat, in the process of being bought by IBM, acquired a startup that specializes in managing storage across multi-cloud environments. And Amazon launched a raft of hybrid storage services, as well as a service that allows customers to run Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud in your own data center.[ Read also: AWS does hybrid cloud with on-prem hardware, VMware help ] Red Hat acquires data storage startup NooBaa IBM is not expected to close the planned $34 billion purchase of Red Hat until the second half of 2019, so in the meantime, Red Hat continues on its way, grabbing cloud startups it sees as strategic. This week, it announced its acquisition of NooBaa, which specializes in managing data storage services across hybrid and multi-cloud deployments.To read this article in full, please click here

AWS, Red Hat move to shore up hybrid cloud environments

Two more signs it’s a hybrid cloud world: This week, Red Hat, in the process of being bought by IBM, acquired a startup that specializes in managing storage across multi-cloud environments. And Amazon launched a raft of hybrid storage services, as well as a service that allows customers to run Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud in your own data center.[ Read also: AWS does hybrid cloud with on-prem hardware, VMware help ] Red Hat acquires data storage startup NooBaa IBM is not expected to close the planned $34 billion purchase of Red Hat until the second half of 2019, so in the meantime, Red Hat continues on its way, grabbing cloud startups it sees as strategic. This week, it announced its acquisition of NooBaa, which specializes in managing data storage services across hybrid and multi-cloud deployments.To read this article in full, please click here

Worth Reading: Back to Basics

I’m not the only one ranting about the need to get a firm grasp on fundamentals before doing the sexy stuff. Found an old blog post by Joel Spolsky (of the Law of Leaky Abstractions fame) on the exact same topic from programming perspective.

If you ever had to deal with a programming language, it’s definitely worth reading… but some of the details might make your head explode. You’ve been warned ;)

Technology Short Take 107

Welcome to Technology Short Take #107! In response to my request for feedback in the last Technology Short Take, a few readers responded in favor of a more regular publication schedule even if that means the articles are shorter in length. Thus, this Tech Short Take may be a bit shorter than usual, but hopefully you’ll still find something useful.

Networking

• Matt Oswalt shares some details on how NRE Labs implements “curriculum-as-code.”

Servers/Hardware

• Christian Kellner provides a brief reminder that not all USB-C ports are Thunderbolt ports, and updates everyone on the status of bolt (Linux utility for working with Thunderbolt ports and peripherals).

Security

• Troy Hunt has a good article on security measures other than just passwords, explaining some of the differences between multi-factor authentication and multi-step authentication (for example). Highly recommended reading.

Cloud Computing/Cloud Management

• Another post from Matt Oswalt, also related to the NRE Labs post I mentioned above, discusses troubleshooting NGINX Ingress rewrites in Kubernetes.
• Arush Salil reviews using ingress on Kubernetes with cert-manager.
• Michael Hausenblas has an informative article with information on Kubernetes RBAC defaults.
• This post is a couple months old (a lifetime in the cloud-native world): the AWS Service Operator enables Continue reading

10 of the coolest and wackiest tech stories of 2018

It’s not necessarily easy to pick the coolest and wackiest tech stories of the year, especially when you have so much to choose from. Rather than trying to be all- inclusive as we have done in the past, see (here and here and here) we have tried to more “exclusive.” Have fun!To read this article in full, please click here

10 of the coolest and wackiest tech stories of 2018

It’s not necessarily easy to pick the coolest and wackiest tech stories of the year, especially when you have so much to choose from. Rather than trying to be all- inclusive as we have done in the past, see (here and here and here) we have tried to more “exclusive.”  Have fun!To read this article in full, please click here

Introducing Immutable infrastructure

10 of the coolest and wackiest tech stories of 2018

It’s not necessarily easy to pick the coolest and wackiest tech stories of the year, especially when you have so much to choose from. Rather than trying to be all- inclusive as we have done in the past, see (here and here and here) we have tried to more “exclusive.”  Have fun!To read this article in full, please click here

The accuracy and overhead of flow sampling. To use or not to use flow sampling?

The post The accuracy and overhead of flow sampling. To use or not to use flow sampling? appeared first on Noction.

Cloudflare Apps Fund 2.0

Today we are launching the second iteration of the Cloudflare App Developer Fund.

This is an investment fund started in partnership with Venrock, Pelion Venture Partners, and New Enterprise Associates. We created the fund to provide developers with resources so that they can build apps using the Cloudflare network and our serverless product, Workers, which enables developers to create applications without configuring or maintaining infrastructure. The goal is to fuel a new economy that grows into a thriving ecosystem so that developers’ serverless innovations can enjoy commercial success.  

Cloudflare Apps with Workers allows developers to package Workers, delivering new worker-powered experiences to Cloudflare customers, all within a few clicks via Cloudflare Apps.

Our CTO, John Graham-Cumming talks about it in a recently recorded video:

In short, Cloudflare is looking for apps that will advance our mission to help build a better Internet: one that is safe, fast and reliable.   We are seeking out apps that have a clear vision, delight customers by the ease of use and align with our vision. Having already seen multiple use cases around custom application security, data loss prevention, and bot mitigation, we can’t wait to see what else you come up Continue reading

LEMNA: explaining deep learning based security applications

LEMNA: explaining deep learning based security applications Guo et al., CCS’18

Understanding why a deep learning model produces the outputs it does is an important part of gaining trust in the model, and in some situations being able to explain decisions is a strong requirement. Today’s paper shows that by carefully considering the architectural features of a given model, it’s possible to co-design an explanatory model. The idea is applied to deep learning models in the security domain (to detect the start of functions within binaries, and to detect malware) where for reasons we’ll look at next, the assumptions made by black-box explainers such as LIME don’t apply.

Like LIME, LEMNA approximates a local area of a complex deep learning decision boundary using a simple interpretable model. Unlike LIME, LEMNA can handle non-linear local boundaries, and feature dependencies (e.g., for a sequences fed into RNNs, which explicitly model dependencies in sequential data).

Why explainability matters

While intrigued by the high accuracy, security practitioners are concerned about the lack of transparency of deep learning models, and thus hesitate to widely adopt deep learning classifiers in security and safety-critical areas.

Explanations that are understandable by security analysts can help Continue reading

Atos Rejiggers Sequana Supercomputers, Adds AMD Rome CPUs

The Sequana line of supercomputers from the Bull division of Atos offers some of the highest compute density available in the HPC realm. …

Atos Rejiggers Sequana Supercomputers, Adds AMD Rome CPUs was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at .

ZTE Led Q3 Surge in Optical Transport Revenues, Dell’Oro Report Says

Huawei continues to dominate the worldwide market, with Ciena tops in North America.

AWS does hybrid cloud with on-prem hardware, VMware help

Amazon Web Services took square aim at the data center this week by tying in VMware technology and rolling out two new services and on-remise hardware  to help customers build and support hybrid clouds.The new service, called Outposts, lets users choose between on premises servers and storage, which they can order in quarter, half, and full rack units.  Outposts can be upgraded with the latest hardware and next-generation instances to run all native AWS and VMware applications, AWS stated. A second version VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts lets customers use the a VMware control plane and APIs to run the hybrid environment.To read this article in full, please click here

Cumulus content roundup: November

We’re at it again with the Cumulus content roundup- November edition. As always, we’ve kept busy this month with lots of great resources and news for you to read. From EVPN Underlay Routing Protocol to the benefits of Layer 3, we’ve rounded it all up right here, so settle in and stay a while!

From Cumulus Networks:

Choosing an EVPN Underlay Routing Protocol: We take a look at the options in routing protocols that could use as an underlay with the objective of understanding what might make them a fit or not for deployment in an EVPN network.

The Benefits of Flexible Multi-Cloud and Multi-Region Networking: Here we explore some of the reasons multi-cloud is fantastic for enterprises when they consider security, flexibility, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.

Cumulus Linux Automation with Standard Linux Tooling: This blog focuses on the different options available for modern automation, & how the Cumulus Linux approach provides the greatest amount of flexibility.

Cumulus Networks Open-Ended NCLU Net Example Command: NCLU is the always helpful Network Command Line Utility and supports both inspection and modification of Cumulus Networks configuration data.

Layer 3 can do it better. I’m convinced. You should be too.: Are you bringing the best solution Continue reading

BiB 062: Globally Scalable Microsegmentation With Illumio

Illumio is a security company focused on preventing breaches from spreading through an organization using microsegmentation. In this briefing, Illumio discussed their Policy Compute Engine Supercluster. The PCE Supercluster is, as the name implies, a cluster of Policy Compute Engines that spans regions or even the globe. Illumio cited several scenarios driving this available architecture of their central controller.

The post BiB 062: Globally Scalable Microsegmentation With Illumio appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Re-Architecting Storage Around HPC’s Mixed Workloads Problem

As we well know by now, workloads at supercomputing sites large and small are changing with the introduction of machine learning and more complex applications that require both large and small files. …

Re-Architecting Storage Around HPC’s Mixed Workloads Problem was written by Nicole Hemsoth at .

BrandPost: Top Ten Reasons to Think Outside the Router – No. 7: Exorbitant Router Support and Maintenance Costs

With homage to the iconic David Letterman Top Ten List segment from his former Late Show, Silver Peak is counting down the Top Ten Reasons to Think Outside the Router. Click for the #8, #9 and #10 reasons to retire traditional branch routers.To read this article in full, please click here

Docker at DEVIntersection 2018

Docker will be at DEVIntersection 2018 in Las Vegas the first week in December. DEVIntersection now in its fifth year, brings Microsoft leaders, engineers and industry experts together to educate, network, and share their expertise with developers. This year DEVIntersection will have a Developer, SQL Server and AI/Azure tracks integrated into a single event. Docker be featured at DEVIntersection via the following sessions:

Modernizing .NET Applications with Docker on Azure

Derrick Miller, a Docker Senior Solutions Engineer, will deliver a session focused on using containers as a modernization path for traditional applications, including how to select Windows Server 2008 applications for containerization, implementation tips, and common gotchas.

Depend on Docker – Get It Done with Docker on Azure

Alex Iankoulski, a Docker Captain, will highlight how how Baker Hughes, a GE Company, uses Docker to transform software development and delivery. Be inspired by the story of software professionals and scientists who were enabled by Docker to use a common language and work together to create a sophisticated platform for the Oil & Gas Industry. Attendees will see practical examples of how Docker is deployed on Azure.

Docker for Web Developers

Dan Wahlin, a Microsoft MVP and Docker Captain, Continue reading