Accelerated Data Plane Performance Using Enhanced Data Path in NUMA Architecture

Authors: Jambi Ganbar (Sr. Technical Solutions Manager, NFV), Jubin Thomas (NSX Information Experience team)

Overview

Some workloads demand accelerated and predictable networking performance.  Our Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) customers and some of our financial, media, and high-performance computing (HPC) customers deploy these workloads. These workloads process a lot of network traffic. Network traffic in the virtual domain relies heavily on CPU cycles and the number of CPU cores available on the host.  These CPU resources are used by the workload to perform its task and by the hypervisor layer to deliver network traffic to and from the application.

In this blog, we discuss the configuration required to achieve accelerated data plane performance in modern multiple NUMA architecture hosts. This blog accompanies a new white paper we just released on the subject.  The white paper can be found here.

With the introduction of NSX-T version 2.2, we added a new mode of operations in the NSX-controlled virtual distributed switch. We refer to this switch as N-VDS.  This new mode is called Enhanced Data Path and is often indicated as N-VDS (E).  N-VDS (E) is one of the core building blocks in achieving accelerated data plane Continue reading

Lagos, Nigeria – Cloudflare’s 155th city

At just shy of 200 million, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa (Ethiopia is second and Egypt is third). That’s a lot of people to communicate with the world - and communicate they all do!

According to a published report earlier this year, 84% of the Nigerian population own a mobile device (193 million population and 162 million mobile subscriptions). Again, that’s #1 for any country in Africa. But why so connected? Maybe because Nigeria (and Lagos specifically) is always on the move!

Lagos, as those that know the city say, never sleeps, it’s filled with color from the food to fashion to even the diverse people going about their business. The vibrancy of the city is like a hard slap to the face, no matter what you have been told, your first time here will still knock you out. In Lagos, anything is possible, from the sadness of poverty to the clearly visible upper class, the city sucks you in like a surfers dream wave. Visitor come into Lagos and leave feeling like they’ve been through a unique experience. The traffic is mind blowing and the same goes for the work pace.

Lagos, a city always on Continue reading

AWS ABCs — Network Building Blocks

Given that my technical background is largely in the networking space (exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C (CIE)), one of the first things I tried to wrap my head around when being introduced to AWS is how networking works in the AWS cloud.

What I attempted to do was build a mental model by relating cloud networking constructs such as Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), subnets, and routing tables to on-prem, physical networking constructs. This worked pretty well but I did get tripped up at times because some of these constructs don't map exactly one-for-one.

This post will explain the mental model I used while also calling attention to the elements or behaviors that don't map exactly between on-prem and AWS.

IBM-Red Hat deal: What the companies say

IBM announced yesterday that it is buying Red Hat for $34 billion, making it IBM's largest deal to date and the third largest in the history in the US tech industry.After announcing the plan to close the deal sometime in the second half of next year, executives from the two companies held a joint conference call fleshing out the details. Here's what they had to say.According to Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President of Hybrid Cloud at IBM, this move represents a "game changer" that will redefine the cloud market. Krishna was joined by Paul Cormier, Executive Vice President and President of Products and Technologies at Red Hat.To read this article in full, please click here

The IBM-Red Hat deal: What it means for enterprises

IBM has made a bold move to blast its way into the enterprise multicloud world by saying it would buy open source software pioneer Red Hat in a $34 billion stock acquisition.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

The IBM-Red Hat deal: What it means for enterprises

IBM has made a bold move to blast its way into the enterprise multicloud world by saying it would buy open source software pioneer Red Hat in a $34 billion stock acquisition.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

Inaugural 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure and VMware NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud

Congratulations to the VMware NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud team for its recognition as a Leader in the first Gartner Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure! The report is the first Magic Quadrant that includes evaluation of SD-WAN vendors and to be named a leader with the position furthest on Completeness of Vision is quite an honor.

VeloCloud, now part of VMware, began with the idea to remedy branch networking issues because the networks of yesterday were optimized to haul traffic back to the datacenter, not to the cloud where applications of today are housed. SD-WAN has solved for this issue amongst a plethora of others, becoming a technology disruptor in a way that nothing else has been in decades.

SD-WAN has, in a very short period of time, transitioned from a networking “nice-to-have” to a necessary component of the network infrastructure.  We’re excited to have Gartner recognize another key component of our rapidly growing networking portfolio and integral product in the VMware Virtual Cloud Network vision to provide the connectivity across cloud, data center, branches, end user, and applications regardless of where they will be used.

To download the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant on WAN Edge Infrastructure, click here.

Follow VMware NSX Continue reading

Understanding mass data fragmentation

The digital transformation era is upon us, and it’s changing the business landscape faster than ever.I’ve seen numerous studies that show that digital companies are more profitable and have more share in their respective markets. Businesses that master being digital will be able to sustain market leadership, and those that can’t will struggle to survive; many will go away.This is why digital transformation is now a top initiative for every business and IT leader. A recent ZK Research study found that a whopping 89% of organizations now have at least one digital initiative under way, showing the level of interest across all industry verticals.To read this article in full, please click here

Understanding mass data fragmentation

The digital transformation era is upon us, and it’s changing the business landscape faster than ever. I’ve seen numerous studies that show that digital companies are more profitable and have more share in their respective markets. Businesses that master being digital will be able to sustain market leadership, and those that can’t will struggle to survive; many will go away. This is why digital transformation is now a top initiative for every business and IT leader. A recent ZK Research study found that a whopping 89% of organizations now have at least one digital initiative under way, showing the level of interest across all industry verticals.Digital success lies in the quality of data The path to becoming a digital company requires more than a CIO snapping his fingers and declaring their organization digital. Success lies in being able to find the key insights from the massive amounts of data that businesses have today. This requires machine learning–driven analytics, and there has been a significant amount of media focus on that topic. The other half of the equation is data. Machine learning alone doesn’t do anything. It needs to analyze data, and as the old axiom goes, good data leads Continue reading

Tech Bytes: SwyMed And Silver Peak Partner On Telemedicine Backpack (Sponsored)

The Packet Pushers' Tech Bytes is a short, sponsored interview. Our sponsor is Silver Peak, and today's guest is swyMed, which makes a telemedicine backpack so first responders can videoconference with doctors and nurses from anywhere in the field. Silver Peak's SD-WAN mini-appliance helps enable connectivity and ensure a persistent, high-quality connection.

The post Tech Bytes: SwyMed And Silver Peak Partner On Telemedicine Backpack (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Microsoft Offers to Move Employees Averse to JEDI Bid

Employees recently posted a blog protesting the company's plans to bid on the $10 billion, 10-year contract to provide cloud services for all branches of the military.

Ericsson Collaborates With Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel in India

The work is part of a wider drive to develop 5G in India, boosted by the Centre of Excellence and Innovation Lab for 5G at the Indian Institute of Technology, which Ericsson established in Delhi in July.

Worth Reading: Twisted Light

new development in fibre optics could make internet speeds up to 100 times faster – by detecting light that has been twisted into a spiral. —Naaman Zhou @The Guardian

Ossification and Fragmentation: The Once and Future ‘net

Mostafa Ammar, out of Georgia Tech (not my alma mater, but many of my engineering family are alumni there), recently posted an interesting paper titled The Service-Infrastructure Cycle, Ossification, and the Fragmentation of the Internet. I have argued elsewhere that we are seeing the fragmentation of the global Internet into multiple smaller pieces, primarily based on the centralization of content hosting combined with the rational economic decisions of the large-scale hosting services. The paper in hand takes a slightly different path to reach the same conclusion.

 
The author begins by noting networks are designed to provide a set of services. Each design paradigm not only supports the services it was designed for, but also allows for some headroom, which allows users to deploy new, unanticipated services. Over time, as newer services are deployed, the requirements on the network Continue reading

Spousetivities at DockerCon EU 18

DockerCon EU 18 is set to kick off in early December (December 3-5, to be precise!) in Barcelona, Spain. Thanks to Docker’s commitment to attendee families—something for which I have and will continue to commend them—DockerCon will offer both childcare (as they have in years past) and spouse/partner activities via Spousetivities. Let me just say: Spousetivities in Barcelona rocks. Crystal lines up a great set of activities that really cannot be beat.

Here’s some details on what’s available in Barcelona for DockerCon EU 18:

• On Monday, December 3, there will be a private tour of Costa Brava and Girona. Girona is an extremely well-preserved medieval walled city dating back to the first century! If you’re a fan of history, this is one not to miss. The tour will, of course, include an amazing lunch in a traditional local restaurant.
• Tuesday, December 4, participants will do a combined Barcelona city tour along with a visit to the famous La Sagrada Familia. The city tour will include stops to sample a wide variety of tapas in local venues. You’ll also get to visit La Sagrada Familia, which is a definite must-see if you’ve never visited before.
• Wrapping up the events on Continue reading

IBM Gobbles Up Red Hat for $34B in Hybrid Cloud, Container Push

Red Hat will maintain its independence to work with other public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

Accedian Launches Analytics Platform to Provide Front-End View of Its Data

Previously, the performance monitoring company had no way to take the test data it was creating and analyze it to detect anomalies and predict network issues.

Nominations Now Open for 2019 Internet Society Board of Trustees Election

The Internet Society Nominations Committee is now inviting nominations for candidates to serve on the Internet Society Board of Trustees.

In 2019, Internet Society Chapters and the IETF will each select one Trustee, and our Organization Members will select two Trustees. Following an orientation program, all new Trustees will begin 3-year terms commencing with the Internet Society Annual General Meeting in July.

The Board of Trustees provides strategic direction, inspiration, and oversight to advance the Internet Society’s mission of preserving the open, globally-connected, trustworthy and secure Internet for everyone.

If you or someone you know is interested in serving on the Board, please see the official Call for Nominations, additional information, and links to online nomination forms at:
http://www.internetsociety.org/trustees

The nominations period closes at 15:00 UTC on Friday, 14 December 2018.

The post Nominations Now Open for 2019 Internet Society Board of Trustees Election appeared first on Internet Society.

Bringing Researchers to the Frontier of FPGA Development

There are two key barriers to fully exploring the emerging use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) at the scale found in data centers: capital investment for private equipment, and gaining full, unfettered access to shared equipment. …

Bringing Researchers to the Frontier of FPGA Development was written by Nicole Hemsoth at .

Plenipot 2018 – What’s Up for the Internet?

Two weeks ago, the Editorial Board of the New York Times published a piece predicting that the Internet is heading for a breakup.

Based on the comments made by Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt during a private event the Times set out to paint a picture of a world with three Internets.

The timing is understandable. We’re in a world where things like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation is met with an equal measure of acceptance, annoyance, and confusion around the world.

And, just last week, my colleague Konstantinos Komaitis warned about what could happen as decision-makers are imposing rules that spill over onto the Internet, hamper innovation, deter investment in their own countries, and risk creating new digital divides.

These events set the stage for the Plenipotentiary meeting of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

And, in today’s climate, there are many who believe the Internet could be failing us.

So, we need to speak loudly about the fact that the Internet is not failing.

So far, I think the Internet has been a force for good.

The Internet allows us to do things like expand our access to education, build businesses, and grow our economy.

The Internet Continue reading