Network Break 187: China Tech Tariffs; FBI Advises Router Reboot

Take a Network Break! The Trump administration proposes sanctions on a portion of Chinese tech imports, the FBI advises router reboots to help thwart the VPNFilter malware, and Huawei completes a 200Gbps backbone network in Spain.

CenturyLink becomes certified on Cisco Meraki to compete with resellers, OpenStack matures, and network engineers decry an ITU proposal to speed IPv6 deployments in emerging countries.

Apstra extends its network orchestration coverage, Cisco wrestles with how to sell cloud, VMware posts a positive financial quarter, and AT&T tests an all-weather communications drone called a Flying COW.

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White House announces tariffs, investment restrictions on China over intellectual property abuse – Axios

Donald Trump to hit US$50 billion of Chinese imports with 25 per cent tariffs and restrict investment in US hi-tech industries – South China Morning Post

Sen. Warner warns against ZTE deal – Axios

Huawei and Orange Spain finalize the construction of 200 Gbps Backbone Network – Huawei Press Center

Foreign Cyber Actors Target Home and Office Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: To accelerate cloud application performance, start by mapping your apps

In the eternal words of Yogi Berra, “If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else.” So how does this sage advice apply to the new world of application performance and hybrid IT?As the pace of application migration to the cloud continues to accelerate, enterprise networking teams have turned to hybrid and SD-WANs as practical solutions to open up more localized internet access and direct routing to the cloud. So the theory goes that by deploying broadband and internet connections at the edge of the network, users can bypass the MPLS bottlenecks and avoid transiting the centralized data center internet egress points.So with the proliferation of hybrid and SD-WAN deployments, which according to most analysts is well past the tipping point and going mainstream, why is it that enterprise IT teams are still struggling with cloud application performance? User frustration with the performance of applications like Office 365, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, and others is only growing, rather than waning.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: To accelerate cloud application performance, start by mapping your apps

In the eternal words of Yogi Berra, “If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else.” So how does this sage advice apply to the new world of application performance and hybrid IT?As the pace of application migration to the cloud continues to accelerate, enterprise networking teams have turned to hybrid and SD-WANs as practical solutions to open up more localized internet access and direct routing to the cloud. So the theory goes that by deploying broadband and internet connections at the edge of the network, users can bypass the MPLS bottlenecks and avoid transiting the centralized data center internet egress points.So with the proliferation of hybrid and SD-WAN deployments, which according to most analysts is well past the tipping point and going mainstream, why is it that enterprise IT teams are still struggling with cloud application performance? User frustration with the performance of applications like Office 365, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, and others is only growing, rather than waning.To read this article in full, please click here

Great Hopes and some concerns at the African Internet Summit (AIS)

Earlier this month, the African Internet community gathered in Dakar, Senegal for the Africa Internet Summit (AIS). The event highlighted some of the great hopes, as well as some of the concerns, that the African Internet community has for the future.

I had the personal honor of speaking at the Opening of the AFNOG meeting where I talked about what the Internet has brought to Africa and the promise that it still holds. I highlighted how Africa has experienced tremendous growth in Internet access and usage over the past few years, and how enormous development opportunities have been opened up for its young population. Believing that we need to put people at the center of our decision-making and build an Internet where everyone’s voice counts, I encouraged the Internet community in Africa to continue to embrace diversity, inclusion, and equality in order to shape an Internet that best serves the billions of people who use it every day, now and into the future.

In many ways, AIS is a showcase for the progress that is being made in creating an Internet for everyone. Key groups are making sure that their voices are being heard.

For example, at a Women in Continue reading

This Week in Internet News: AI Diagnoses Skin Cancer Better than Doctors

AI plays doctor: Artificial intelligence can detect skin cancer better than dermatologists, according to a new international study. Flesh-and-blood dermatologists in the study accurately detected 86.6 percent of skin cancers from images, compared to 95 percent for a deep learning convolutional neural network, reports Agence France Presse. Still, there’s no substitute for a thorough clinical examination, the researchers said in a Mirror.co.uk story.

AI can teach, too: Many schools in China are now testing AI as a way to grade homework, reports the South China Morning Post. AI is being used to grade essays, and it recommends improvements in writing style and structure.

AI vs. Internet trolls: AI can even predict when an Internet fight is about to break out, says Bigthink.com. Apparently, one way to predict an online fight is about to happen is when a commenter begins to let the accusations fly by using the word “you.”

Hackers target routers: It’s those Russian hackers again, and they’re after your router. The Russian Sofancy group is among the foreign cyber actors who “have compromised hundreds of thousands of home and office routers and other networked devices,” the FBI warned. One way to limit the attack Continue reading

Cato Networks adds threat hunting to its Network as a Service

Enterprises that have grown comfortable with Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (IaaS) are increasingly accepting of Network as a Service (NaaS). NaaS is a rapidly growing market. According to Market Research Future, NaaS is expected to become a US $126 billion market by 2022, sustaining an annual growth rate of 28.4 percent.One of the key benefits of cloud-based networking is increased security for applications and data. Given that the traditional perimeter of on-premise networks has been decimated by mobile and cloud computing, NaaS builds a new perimeter in the cloud. Now it’s possible to unify all traffic – from data centers, branch locations, mobile users, and cloud platforms – in the cloud. This means an enterprise can set all its security policies in one place, and it can push traffic through cloud-based security functions such as next-generation firewall, secure web gateway, advanced threat protection, and so on.To read this article in full, please click here

Cato Networks adds threat hunting to its Network as a Service

Enterprises that have grown comfortable with Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (IaaS) are increasingly accepting of Network as a Service (NaaS). NaaS is a rapidly growing market. According to Market Research Future, NaaS is expected to become a US $126 billion market by 2022, sustaining an annual growth rate of 28.4 percent.One of the key benefits of cloud-based networking is increased security for applications and data. Given that the traditional perimeter of on-premise networks has been decimated by mobile and cloud computing, NaaS builds a new perimeter in the cloud. Now it’s possible to unify all traffic – from data centers, branch locations, mobile users, and cloud platforms – in the cloud. This means an enterprise can set all its security policies in one place, and it can push traffic through cloud-based security functions such as next-generation firewall, secure web gateway, advanced threat protection, and so on.To read this article in full, please click here

REVIEW: 6 enterprise-scale IoT platforms

There's little need to tell anyone in IT that the Internet of Things (IoT) is a big deal and that it's growing insanely fast; BI Intelligence estimates that there will be some 23.3 billion IoT devices by 2019. As IoT support becomes more of an enterprise concern, there are four key issues about enterprise IoT (EIoT) deployments to consider: The sheer number of enterprise IoT endpoint devices – There will be 1 billion by 2019. The frequency of data generated IoT devices – IDC estimates that by 2025, an average connected person anywhere in the world will interact with connected devices nearly 4,800 times per day or one interaction every 18 seconds. The incredible volume of IoT data – Of the 163 zettabytes (that's 1021bytes) of data that will be created in 2025, IDC estimates that 60% will be from IoT endpoints and half of that (roughly 49 zettabytes) will be stored in enterprise data centers. The challenges of maintaining security for your device constellation – IDC estimates that by 2025, 45% of the stored enterprise data will be sensitive enough to require being secured but will not be. [ For more on IoT see tips for securing IoT Continue reading

Securing with NSX – Beyond the DevSecOps Paradigm

There are two digital explosions simultaneously happening in enterprises across all verticals. Enterprises are moving at a breakneck speed on every aspect of their business. From managing their supply-chain, making purchasing decisions, targeted marketing campaign to users, creating apps to connect with users and making it easier for users to consume their products.

The good news is technology is keeping pace and is a step ahead in helping the business achieve their goals. These business imperatives are forcing software iterations to be faster and be more efficient. This is leading to newer innovative models around people/processes/tools that we collectively call Continuous Integration(CI)/Continuous Development (CD). Teams leading the charge on CI/CD models are working in a “DevOps” model. 

The second explosion is related to the first explosion. As complex software become easy-to-use and be ubiquitous, sophisticated tools can be used to attack enterprises. Managing Security is getting harder. Last decade – there was a belief – I am not going to be attacked. Fast forward today – enterprises expect to be attacked and breached. This is not just a baseless impression. Forrester’s 2018 survey shows that 66% of survey respondents have faced a major security incident. 

 

 ”It’s kind Continue reading

Is EBGP Really Better than OSPF in Leaf-and-Spine Fabrics?

Using EBGP instead of an IGP (OSPF or IS-IS) in leaf-and-spine data center fabrics is becoming a best practice (read: thing to do when you have no clue what you’re doing).

The usual argument defending this design choice is “BGP scales better than OSPF or IS-IS”. That’s usually true (see also: Internet), and so far, EBGP is the only reasonable choice in very large leaf-and-spine fabrics… but does it really scale better than a link-state IGP in smaller fabrics?

Read more ...

Hyperledger fabric: a distributed operating system for permissioned blockchains

Hyperledger fabric: a distributed operating system for permissioned blockchains Androulaki et al., EuroSys’18

(If you don’t have ACM Digital Library access, the paper can be accessed either by following the link above directly from The Morning Paper blog site).

This very well written paper outlines the design of HyperLedger Fabric and the rationales for many of the key design decisions. It’s a great introduction and overview. Fabric is a permissioned blockchain system with the following key features:

  • A modular design allows many components to be pluggable, including the consensus algorithm
  • Instead of the order-execute architecture used by virtually all existing blockchain systems, Fabric uses an execute-order-validate paradigm which enables a combination of passive and active replication. (We’ll be getting into this in much more detail shortly).
  • Smart contracts can be written in any language.

…in popular deployment configurations, Fabric achieves throughput of more than 3500 tps, achieving finality with latency of a few hundred ms and scaling well to over 100 peers.

Examples of use cases powered by Fabric include foreign exchange netting in which a blockchain is used to resolve trades that aren’t settling; enterprise asset management tracking hardware assets as they move from manufacturing to Continue reading

SINOG 5: IPv6, DNS Privacy and IoT Security

There will be significant Internet Society involvement at SINOG 5 next week, which is being co-organised by our colleague Jan Žorž, supported by ISOC, and will feature talks on NAT64Check and the Online Trust Alliance. SINOG is the Slovenian Network Operators Group, and the meeting is held on 7-8 June 2018 at the Biotehniška Fakulteta in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

It’s well worth coming for the keynote alone, which will be given by Ron Broersma (DREN) – one of the earliest Internet pioneers who operated Node #3 of ARPANET. He’ll be talking about IPv6, the Cloud, and a bit of Internet history, and as he was involved in the NCP-to-TCP/IP migration back in 1983, there are perhaps some lessons to be learned in migrating from IPv4-to-IPv6.

Following-on from this will be how IPv6 was implemented at IBM from Andy Mindnich (IBM), a discussion on the issues of CGN and IPv6 from a law enforcement perspective from Sara Marcolla (Europol), some of which we touched upon in a previous blog, and then an update on version 2 of the NAT64Check portal from Sander Steffann. NAT64Check is a tool allowing you to enter the URL of a particular website and run tests over IPv4, IPv6 and NAT64, and Continue reading

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