BGP Labs: Multivendor External Routers

Here’s a quick update on the BGP Labs project status: now that netlab release 1.6.4 is out, I could remove the dependency on using Cumulus Linux as the external BGP router.

You can use any device that is supported by bgp.session and bgp.policy plugins as the external BGP router. You could use Arista EOS, Aruba AOS-CX, Cisco IOSv, Cisco IOS-XE, Cumulus Linux or FRR as external BGP routers with netlab release 1.6.4, and I’m positive Jeroen van Bemmel will add Nokia SR Linux to that list.

If you’re not ready for a netlab upgrade, you can keep using Cumulus Linux as external BGP routers (I’ll explain the behind-the-scenes magic in another blog post, I’m at the Deep Conference this week).

For more details, read the updated BGP Labs Software Installation and Lab Setup guide.

BGP Labs: Multivendor External Routers

A quick update BGP Labs project status update: now that netlab release 1.6.4 is out I could remove the dependency on using Cumulus Linux as the external BGP router.

You can use any device that is supported by bgp.session and bgp.policy plugins as the external BGP router. You could use Arista EOS, Aruba AOS-CX, Cisco IOSv, Cisco IOS-XE, Cumulus Linux or FRR as external BGP routers with netlab release 1.6.4, and I’m positive Jeroen van Bemmel will add Nokia SR Linux to that list.

If you’re not ready for a netlab upgrade, you can keep using Cumulus Linux as external BGP routers (I’ll explain the behind-the-scenes magic in another blog post, I’m at the Deep Conference this week).

For more details read the updated BGP Labs Software Installation and Lab Setup guide.

BrandPost: Best practices for application visibility, performance monitoring and security management using Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN

By: Alex Amaya, Senior Technical Marketing Manager at HPE Aruba Networking. AAruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN is a powerful solution that enables organizations to build resilient and efficient wide-area networks. Application visibility, real-time performance monitoring and security monitoring are critical aspects of managing an SD-WAN infrastructure effectively. This blog explores application visibility, performance monitoring, and security management best practices for achieving these objectives using Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN.To read this article in full, please click here

Notes from NANOG 89: BGP Error Handling

Distributed routing protocols rely on each active router processing routing updates in an identical manner. Given that there are so many implementation of the BGP routing protocol then the role of a clear standard specification is critical. This extends to the handling of error conditions. What happens when some implementations handle errors in a different manner to all the others?

Accelerate AWS Access with Arista

AWS Cloud WAN Tunnel-less Connect and Arista CloudEOS integrate to accelerate cloud onramp

As cloud and multicloud adoption continue to evolve, public cloud providers like AWS continue to introduce more and more tools for enterprise IT to choose from. For example, customers can deploy a virtual router in a Transit VPC and BGP peer with AWS Cloud WAN to interconnect on-premises networks and AWS VPCs. However, GRE or IPsec tunnels are often required for the BGP peering, adding up the network complexity and increasing operational costs.

Versa extends SASE platform to the LAN edge

Versa Networks has bumped up its secure access service edge (SASE) software with a variety of features, including AI to help customers better manage LAN resources at the edge of their networks.The company announced Versa SD-LAN, a software package that the company says will let customers integrate security, switching, routing, network and AI management services on approved white box Ethernet switches and access points.“Versa Secure SD-LAN is built as an extension of Versa’s Unified SASE platform, so it shares the same management console, policy repository, and data lake as our Versa Secure SD-WAN, cloud, and data center products,” according to Kevin Sheu, vice president of product marketing with Versa.  To read this article in full, please click here

Versa extends SASE platform to the LAN edge

Versa Networks has bumped up its secure access service edge (SASE) software with a variety of features, including AI to help customers better manage LAN resources at the edge of their networks.The company announced Versa SD-LAN, a software package that the company says will let customers integrate security, switching, routing, network and AI management services on approved white box Ethernet switches and access points.“Versa Secure SD-LAN is built as an extension of Versa’s Unified SASE platform, so it shares the same management console, policy repository, and data lake as our Versa Secure SD-WAN, cloud, and data center products,” according to Kevin Sheu, vice president of product marketing with Versa.  To read this article in full, please click here

You Don’t Have To Wait For Ultra Ethernet To Goose AI Performance

It is always interesting to us when technologies developed in one sector of the IT market get adapted and cross-pollinate in interesting ways to solve problems in another sector of the IT market.

The post You Don’t Have To Wait For Ultra Ethernet To Goose AI Performance first appeared on The Next Platform.

You Don’t Have To Wait For Ultra Ethernet To Goose AI Performance was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Can enterprises trust the internet?

Dependency and trust have a complicated relationship, and that’s especially true with regard to enterprise views on networks. If you ask enterprise executives what network service has been the most transformational for their business, almost 100% will say “the internet.” If you ask them what network service has created the most problems for them, you get almost exactly the same response. The internet, they tell me, is insecure (87%), unreliable (81%), and lacks service quality (77%). And yet its loss would create “a major business disruption,” according to 97% of those users. Do you sense contradiction here? Well, we’re just getting started with that question.To read this article in full, please click here

Dell updates PowerMax OS with security, energy-efficiency features

Dell Technologies has issued a significant update to its PowerMax operating system, which runs its high-density storage for mission-critical workloads.The PowerMaxOS 10.1 update is aimed at organizations that want to improve energy efficiency to cut operating costs and lower the environmental impact of their storage infrastructure. Gains in performance, efficiency and cybersecurity are also part of the upgrade.On the energy-efficiency front, new features include real-time power and environmental monitoring and alerting based on usage. Power for all components in a rack is monitored for voltage, current, and frequency, for example, along with temperature and humidity of the rack.To read this article in full, please click here

Dell updates PowerMax OS with security, energy-efficiency features

Dell Technologies has issued a significant update to its PowerMax operating system, which runs its high-density storage for mission-critical workloads.The PowerMaxOS 10.1 update is aimed at organizations that want to improve energy efficiency to cut operating costs and lower the environmental impact of their storage infrastructure. Gains in performance, efficiency and cybersecurity are also part of the upgrade.On the energy-efficiency front, new features include real-time power and environmental monitoring and alerting based on usage. Power for all components in a rack is monitored for voltage, current, and frequency, for example, along with temperature and humidity of the rack.To read this article in full, please click here

Aruba extends policy enforcement across campus networks, WANs

Aruba Networks is aiming to give customers greater application visibility and the ability to control security policy enforcement across their campus and wide area networks.The network subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise is enhancing NetConductor, a cloud-based service that let enterprises centrally manage the security of distributed networks, simplify policy provisioning, and automate the orchestration of network configurations in wired, wireless, and WAN infrastructures.NetConductor works by delivering a network overlay based on Ethernet VPN (EVPN) and virtual extensible LAN (VXLAN) across a customer’s wired and wireless networks, with the aim of bringing a unified and simplified view of the network and allowing the networking and security management teams to collaborate to solve problems, according to Larry Lunetta, vice president of wireless local area network and security solutions marketing at Aruba.To read this article in full, please click here

Device42 adds cloud dependency mapping to IT discovery product

Device42 this week delivered hybrid cloud discovery capabilities for its IT inventory and asset management product, enabling IT managers to gain near real-time visibility into how cloud assets are communicating with other components and how they support business services across on-premises and cloud infrastructure.“[Customers] will have near real-time visibility across their entire hybrid IT footprint, regardless of the nature or the location of any IT asset, whether on-prem or in the cloud. This is big news for our industry that continues to rely on outdated spreadsheets to track things,” says Raj Jalan, CEO, Device42. “With cloud services and containers, the complexity and the growth are so massive that there isn’t clarity on the dependencies across the cloud, data centers, and on-premises.”To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: Reimagining the IT Experience with radical simplicity

Today’s enterprise networks are more challenging to manage than ever before. IT must support a complex mix of cloud-based and on-premises technologies, an explosion of third-party applications delivered in multiple ways, and new hybrid work models that must deliver the same seamless experience no matter where users happen to be.While IT professionals overwhelmingly value simplicity, they continue to struggle with ever-increasing levels of complexity. Disjointed systems, technology silos, fragmentation, lack of visibility, security threats, and time-consuming integrations—these and other factors get in the way of delivering consistent, unified experiences. Not surprisingly, they’re looking for a way to dramatically simplify their day-to-day operations.To read this article in full, please click here

Cache Rules go GA: precision control over every part of your cache

Cache Rules go GA: precision control over every part of your cache

One year ago we introduced Cache Rules, a new way to customize cache settings on Cloudflare. Cache Rules provide greater flexibility for how users cache content, offering precise controls, a user-friendly API, and seamless Terraform integrations. Since it was released in late September 2022, over 100,000 websites have used Cache Rules to fine-tune their cache settings.

Today, we're thrilled to announce that Cache Rules, along with several other Rules products, are generally available (GA). But that’s not all — we're also introducing new configuration options for Cache Rules that provide even more options to customize how you cache on Cloudflare. These include functionality to define what resources are eligible for Cache Reserve, what timeout values should be respected when receiving data from your origin server, which custom ports we should use when we cache content, and whether we should bypass Cloudflare’s cache in the absence of a cache-control header.

Cache Rules give users full control and the ability to tailor their content delivery strategy for almost any use case, without needing to write code. As Cache Rules go GA, we are incredibly excited to see how fast customers can achieve their perfect cache strategy.

History of Customizing Cache Continue reading

netlab 1.6.4: Support for Multi-Lab Projects; More BGP Goodies

Features in netlab release 1.6.4 were driven primarily by the needs of my BGP labs project:

Numerous platforms already support the new BGP nerd knobs:

netlab 1.6.4: Support for Multi-Lab Projects; More BGP Goodies

Features in netlab release 1.6.4 were driven primarily by the needs of my BGP labs project:

Numerous platforms already support the new BGP nerd knobs: