Linux kernel 4.18: Better security, leaner code

The recent release of Linux kernel 4.18 followed closely by the releases of 4.18.1, 4.18.2, 4.18.3, 4.18.4, and 4.18.5 brings some important changes to the Linux landscape along with a boatload of tweaks, fixes, and improvements.While many of the more significant changes might knock the socks off developers who have been aiming at these advancements for quite some time, the bulk of them are likely to go unnoticed by the broad expanse of Linux users. Here we take a look at some of the things this new kernel brings to our systems that might just make your something-to-get-a-little-excited-about list.[ Also read: Invaluable tips and tricks for troubleshooting Linux ] Code Cleanup For one thing, the 4.18 kernel has brought about the surprising removal of nearly 100,000 lines of outdated code. That's a lot of code! Does this mean that any of your favorite features may have been ripped out? That is not very likely. This code cleanup does means that a lot of code deadwood has been carefully expunged from the kernel along with one significant chunk. As a result, the new kernel should take up less memory, Continue reading

Are Containers Replacing Virtual Machines?

With 20,000 partners and attendees converging at VMworld in Las Vegas this week, we often get asked if containers are replacing virtual machines (VMs). Many of our Docker Enterprise customers do run their containers on virtualized infrastructure while others run it on bare metal. Docker provides IT and operators choice on where to run their applications – in a virtual machine, on bare metal, or in the cloud. In this blog we’ll provide a few thoughts on the relationship between VMs and containers.

Containers versus Virtual Machines

Point #1: Containers Are More Agile than VMs

At this stage of container maturity, there is very little doubt that containers give both developers and operators more agility. Containers deploy quickly, deliver immutable infrastructure and solve the age-old “works on my machine” problem. They also replace the traditional patching process, allowing organizations to respond to issues faster and making applications easier to maintain.

Point #2: Containers Enable Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Adoption

Once containerized, applications can be deployed on any infrastructure – on virtual machines, on bare metal, and on various public clouds running different hypervisors. Many organizations start with running containers on their virtualized infrastructure and find it easier to then migrate to Continue reading

Traditional Leaf-and-Spine Fabric Versus Cisco ACI

One of my subscribers wondered whether it would make sense to build a traditional leaf-and-spine fabric or go for Cisco ACI. He started his email with:

One option is a "standalone" Spine/Leaf VXLAN-with EVPN deployment based on Nexus equipment. This approach could probably be accompanied by some kind of automation like Ansible to ease operation/maintenance of the network.

This is what I would do these days if the customer feels comfortable investing at least the minimum amount of work into an automation solution. Having simpler technology + well-understood automation solution is (in my biased opinion) better than having a complex black box.

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STTR: A system for tracking all vehicles all the time at the edge of the network

STTR: A system for tracking all vehicles all the time at the edge of the network Xu et al., DEBS’18

With apologies for only bringing you two paper write-ups this week: we moved house, which turns out to be not at all conducive to quiet study of research papers!

Today’s smart camera surveillance systems are largely alert based, which gives two main modes of operation: either you know in advance the vehicles of interest so that you can detect them in real time, or you have to trawl through lots of camera footage post-facto (expensive and time-consuming). STTR is a system designed to track all of the vehicles all of the time, and store their trajectories for ever. I certainly have mixed feelings about the kinds of state surveillance and privacy invasions that enables (it’s trivial to link back to individuals given trajectories over time), but here we’ll just focus on the technology. Since the system is design with pluggable detection and matching algorithms, then given some calculations around volume it ought to be possible to use it to track objects other than vehicles. People for example?

Assuming the availability of suitable detection and matching (figuring out if Continue reading

Debunking Trump’s claim of Google’s SOTU bias

Today, Trump posted this video proving Google promoted all of Obama "State of the Union" (SotU) speeches but none of his own. In this post, I debunk this claim. The short answer is this: it's not Google's fault but Trump's for not having a sophisticated social media team.


The evidence still exists at the Internet Archive (aka. "Wayback Machine") that archives copies of websites. That was probably how that Trump video was created, by using that website. We can indeed see that for Obama's SotU speeches, Google promoted them, such as this example of his January 12, 2016 speech:


And indeed, if we check for Trump's January 30, 2018 speech, there's no such promotion on Google's homepage:
But wait a minute, Google claims they did promote it, and there's even a screenshot on Reddit proving Google is telling the truth. Doesn't this disprove Trump?

No, it actually doesn't, at least not yet. It's comparing two different things. In the Obama example, Google promoted hours ahead of time that there was an upcoming event. In the Trump example, they didn't do that. Only once the event went Continue reading

8 “Fake News” Items that Tried to Hold Back Open Networking

The parallels between the efforts of the various open networking communities to modernize the networking industry and a Saturday afternoon pee-wee soccer scrum are far too close for comfort.  Both are characterized by loads of noisy, colorful – and mostly circular – movement – eventually followed by exhausted players staring at a ball that seems to be sitting pretty much right where it started.

At least that’s the way it’s been playing out for all the intrepid IT stewards running large enterprise networks — until now.  After years of enduring legacy-vendor-driven “fake news” stories paired with whispered misdirection designed to hold back the disaggregated white box open networking movement as a whole, truth has – finally — won out. 

Multiple Fortune 100 companies are now deploying open white box switches running Pica8’s PICOS® network operating system in their campus and branch office networks, mostly replacing aging Cisco and Juniper architectures.  (A parallel, in a sense, to the on-going white box tsunami in the data center.) Enterprise IT teams now realize that the access edge for campus networks is fully in play for long-overdue upgrades and replacements by more modern, simpler, more flexible, and vastly more Continue reading

We’ve Added Two New Amazon Web Services Courses to Our Video Library!

 

Interested in AWS? You’re in luck, this week we added not one, but TWO Amazon Courses to our streaming library!

AWS Certified Solution Architect – Professional



Instructor: Ankush Kilam

Duration: 5hrs 25min

This course provides you with advanced technical skills needed to pass the AWS CSA Pro exam. With the AWS CSA Pro certification under your belt, you will join an exclusive club of certified professionals who are in high demand by employers worldwide. The training course is made up of 5-20 minute videos. The video lessons keep-it-simple and explain things clearly and succinctly. Together I’ll walk you through each of the major domains of Amazon Web Services, step by step.


AWS Certified Developer – Associate



Instructor: Robert Kulagowski

Duration: 7hrs 7min

This course will help you study for the AWS Certified Developer – Associate exam. Through a combination of lectures, quizzes and practical exercises, you’ll get the information necessary to earn your certification. You will learn CloudFormation, Cloudfront, DynamoDB, EBS, EC2, Elastic Beanstalk, IAM, S3, SNS, SQS, SWF and more

You Can watch both of these courses by logging into your INE Members Account

Keep Your Cisco Network Skills Up-To-Date With This Certification Training Bundle

Companies are slowly migrating toward controller-based architectures, so as a network IT professional, it pays well to keep your skills relevant as new technology is adopted. For network engineers and technicians with at least a year of networking experience under their belts, earning a Cisco Certified Network Professional certification may help achieve this. This Complete Cisco Network Certification Training Bundle features guides to help you ace your next certification exam for $59.To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: Beyond the Firewall – Different Rules for East-West Traffic

Network firewalls were created to block unauthorized content and code from the network while ensuring the unimpeded flow of data packets vital to the operations of the enterprise. But they were designed to intercept external incursion, not prevent security issues inside the network.“As server virtualization has increased in popularity, the amount of traffic moving laterally across the data center (East-West) has dwarfed traditional client-server traffic, which moves in and out (North-South),” industry analyst Zeus Kerravala writes in Network World. “This is playing havoc with data center managers as they attempt to meet the demands of this era of IT.”To read this article in full, please click here

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