Lagging In AI? Don’t Worry, It’s Still Early
Without splitting a lot of hairs on definitions, it is safe to say that machine learning in its myriad forms is absolutely shaking up data processing. The techniques for training neural networks to chew through mountains of labeled data and make inferences against new data are set to transform every aspect of computation and automation. There is a mad dash to do something, as there always is at the beginning of every technology hype cycle.
Enterprises need to breathe. The hyperscalers are perfecting these technologies, which are changing fast, and by the time things settle out and the software …
Lagging In AI? Don’t Worry, It’s Still Early was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
Celebrating ECMP in Linux — part one
ECMP in Linux: A brief history
Equal Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routes are a big component of all the super-trendy data center network designs that are en vogue right now. Clos networks and the ECMP that underpins those designs are the best tools we have today to deliver high bandwidth, highly fault-tolerant networks. Clos networks are rich with multiple equal cost paths to get from Server A to Server B.
2 Paths from Host to ToR * 8 Paths from ToR to Leaf * 16 Paths from Leaf to Spine * 8 Paths from Spine to Leaf * 2 Paths from Leaf to ToR
= 4096 Possible Unique Paths between Server A and Server B
FYI: The above is an actual customer network. Names have been changed to protect the innocent and colors have been added because a rainbow of links is more fun!
Cumulus has been working to improve the behavior of ECMP routes in the Linux kernel over the last several kernel releases. Now, with kernel v4.17, we have achieved the milestone we set out to attain. As of Linux kernel v4.17, Linux hosts can now leverage the “5-Tuple” style hashing used inside traditional network devices for Continue reading
Virtual Instruments Integrates With Cisco SAN Telemetry, AppDynamics
The performance management company released a new version of its platform that integrates with Cisco’s new SAN telemetry streaming and AppDynamics.
Connecting to a Windows Host
Welcome to the first installment of our Windows-specific Getting Started series!
Would you like to automate some of your Windows hosts with Red Hat Ansible Tower, but don’t know how to set everything up? Are you worried that Red Hat Ansible Engine won’t be able to communicate with your Windows servers without installing a bunch of extra software? Do you want to easily automate everyone’s best friend, Clippy? 
Image source: aguyiknow.com.au
We can’t help with the last thing, but if you said yes to the other two questions, you've come to the right place. In this post, we’ll walk you through all the steps you need to take in order to set up and connect to your Windows hosts with Ansible Engine.
Why Automate Windows Hosts?
A few of the many things you can do for your Windows hosts with Ansible Engine include:
- Starting, stopping and managing services
- Pushing and executing custom PowerShell scripts
- Managing packages with the Chocolatey package manager
In addition to connecting to and automating Windows hosts using local or domain users, you’ll also be able to use runas to execute actions as the Administrator (the Windows alternative to Linux’s sudo or su), so Continue reading
Interested in Virtualization? Check Out Our Newest Addition to the INE Library: Virtualization – Introduction to Hypervisor (KVM)
Virtualization is a key skillset for any Linux Administrator or Engineer. Not all workloads are useful in the cloud, and companies are quickly realizing this in terms of increasing cloud bills. You can bring those workloads in house, but what about licensing? KVM is a favorite of home labs because of the low cost of entry (free). KVM is also a favorite of shops that know how powerful open source is. Gain a greater understanding of how any virtualization platform works by utilizing common linux tools to manage and orchestrate your virtual machines. KVM forms the basis for upstream virtualization projects like oVirt and RHEV as well. Learn how to setup a virtualized environment only armed with an install usb from your favorite linux distribution.
Any workload can be run on a KVM virtual machine platform. Docker/Kubernetes? No problem. Databases, front end web services, workloads requiring dedicated hardware such as GPU’s or HBA’s, KVM can run any of these workloads with near bare metal performance.
What You’ll Learn:
- Setting up the hypervisor machine
- Installing your first virtual machine
- managing network storage memory and cpu resources
- Virtual machine snapshots
Virtual machine cloning
You can watch this course on our streaming Continue reading
Making The Case For Fully Converged Arm Servers
There has been a lot of research and development devoted to bringing the Arm architecture to servers and storage in the datacenter, and a lot of that has focused on making beefier and usually custom Arm cores that look more like an X86 core than they do the kind of compute element we find in our smartphones and tablets. The other way to bring Arm to the datacenter is to use more modest processing elements and to gang a lot of them up together, cramming a lot more cores in a rack and making up the performance in volume.
This …
Making The Case For Fully Converged Arm Servers was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
Physics Be Damned! Nokia, DoCoMo Test 5G in 90 GHz mmWave Band
The tests could break new ground in terms of supporting 5G use cases using very high mmWave spectrum bands.
Verizon Shifts Focus From 5G Fixed Wireless Trials to Commercial Launch
The operator said it is on track to launch 5G in a handful of markets later this year but is still cagey about the details. Launch cities remain a mystery.
On the Web: Openfabric at IPspace
I was over at ipspace to talk to Ivan and several other folks about openfabric. This is one of those situations where… Well, the algorithm openfabric uses to calculate fabric location has changed slightly in the last week. Welcome to the world of networking technology. 
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- For heads of IT/Engineering responsible for building an analytics infrastructure, Etleap is an ETL solution for creating perfect data Continue reading
Fun, Games, and Cryptojacking at RSA Conference
Cyber warfare and cryptomining dominated RSA Conference keynotes and talks with technologists, who advocated a back-to-basics approach to network security.