Network Automation with Brigade on Software Gone Wild

David Barroso was sick-and-tired of using ZX Spectrum of Network Automation and decided to create an alternative with similar functionality but a proper programming language instead of YAML dictionaries masquerading as one. The result: Brigade, an interesting network automation tool we discussed in Episode 90 of Software Gone Wild.

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Notes:

Performance analysis of cloud applications

Performance analysis of cloud applications Ardelean et al., NSDI’18

Today’s choice gives us an insight into how Google measure and analyse the performance of large user-facing services such as Gmail (from which most of the data in the paper is taken). It’s a paper in two halves. The first part of the paper demonstrates through an analysis of traffic and load patterns why the only real way to analyse production performance is using live production systems. The second part of the paper shares two techniques that Google use for doing so: coordinated bursty tracing and vertical context injection.

(Un)predictable load

Let’s start out just by consider Gmail requests explicitly generated by users (called ‘user visible requests,’ or UVRs, in the paper). These are requests generated by mail clients due to clicking on messages, sending messages, and background syncing (e.g., IMAP).

You can see a clear diurnal cycle here, with the highest QPS when both North America and Europe are active in the early morning, and lower QPS at weekends. (All charts are rescaled using some unknown factor, to protect Google information).

Request response sizes vary by about 20% over time. Two contributing factors are bulk mail senders, Continue reading

Cisco embraces Kubernetes, pushing container software into mainstream

Cisco this week took big steps toward helping customers deploy, monitor and manage on-premises and public-cloud production-ready Kubernetes-based container applications.Kubernetes, originally designed by Google, is an open-source-based system for developing and orchestrating containerized applications. Containers can be deployed across multiple server hosts and Kubernetes orchestration lets customers build application services that span multiple containers, schedule those containers across a cluster, scale those containers and manage the container health. [ Check out What is hybrid cloud computing and learn what you need to know about multi-cloud. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] Because the technology is still relatively new, Cisco says organizations are still challenged to efficiently and confidently utilize Kubernetes as they modernize legacy applications and develop new cloud applications.To read this article in full, please click here

NetQ + Kubernetes: bringing container visibility with the leading container orchestrator

Businesses today have to get applications to market faster than ever, but with the same or less budget. Because of this requirement, modern data centers are evolving to support a change in application delivery. In order to get applications to market faster and increase revenue, applications that were once built as one monolithic entity are becoming segmented and deployed separately, communicating amongst themselves. The pieces of applications, sometimes referred to as microservices, are often deployed as containers. This results in much faster deployment and a quicker update cycle. However, the network teams operating the infrastructure supporting the applications often have no visibility into how their networks are being utilized, and thus are making design, operations and troubleshooting decisions blindly. Now, Cumulus NetQ provides this visibility from container deployments all the way to the spine switches and beyond — accelerating operations and providing the crucial information to efficiently design and operate the networks running containers.

Understanding the challenges of container management

Traditionally, the new application design and deployment method using containers makes operating and managing the infrastructure to support them very challenging. The containers often have to talk with each other within or across data centers or to the outside world. An Continue reading

What are Docker Captains looking forward to at DockerCon

With less than 6 weeks until DockerCon 2018, we can barely contain our excitement! From their favorite tips and tricks for using Docker in production or levering Docker for Machine Learning, Docker Captains come together at DockerCon to share their knowledge and collaborate with the broader community. We’ve asked Docker Captains to share what they are most looking forward to at DockerCon. Here are some of their responses.  

DockerCon

 

“I’m looking forward to meeting the many other Docker enthusiasts and champions and listening to other cool things that Docker makes possible” – Kinnary Jangla, Pinterest

“ In 2015, I attended DockerCon for the first time. I was sitting in a chair and listening to the amazing stories and ideas presented by speakers at the conference, which set off a chain of events that led to today. I feel privileged, and am really looking forward to being on stage and sharing our transformational journey to inspire the people who would sit in that chair. I am also looking forward to hearing the keynotes and the exciting new announcements that I am sure are being lined up for the big event.” – Alexandre Iankoulski, Baker Hughes

“Learning about the Continue reading

Encryption Is Key to Safety of Journalists

At a time when we notice increasing and alarming threats to media freedom around the world, World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) is more pertinent today than ever before. We therefore can’t afford to celebrate this important day without both considering the damage done to the free press over the past year and intensifying our efforts to protect journalists and the future of journalism around the world.

To ensure that we can continue to celebrate the media’s vital role in democracies in the future, we must tackle the increasing number of Internet shutdowns around the world and find better ways to secure the safety of journalists.

Let’s start with the latter. The surveillance of journalists, in particular, has profound implications for democratic institutions, including freedom of the press. It threatens journalists’ ability to confidently and confidentially work with sources and to unlock information about controversial issues. It therefore hinders their ability to play their roles as watchdogs in democratic or undemocratic, developed or developing societies alike. But reports indicate that more and more journalists are at risk of facing state or societal surveillance.

Encryption offers a vital and relatively simple defense for such intrusions. Building on last year’s Continue reading

Call for Contributions to Northern Public Affairs: Internet Connectivity in Indigenous and Northern Communities

Northern Public Affairs, in collaboration with the Internet Society, is pleased to release a call for contributions to the Fall 2018 special issue of NPA Magazine focusing on emerging developments in community networks among Indigenous peoples in North America.

Internet connectivity for Indigenous Peoples in Canada and the United States has long been difficult to implement due to many environmental and socioeconomic factors such as remoteness of communities, difficulty gaining first mile access, reliable networks, slow speeds, expensive equipment, and high data costs. Community networks are communications infrastructure deployed and operated by local people, offering Indigenous communities a way to access the Internet to meet their own needs. For many, affordable, high-quality Internet access means community sustainability. Community networks encourage policymakers and regulators to examine new ways and means to fill local digital divides, like supporting local content in the appropriate language(s).

In this special edition issue of NPA Magazine the goal is to assemble diverse voices to explore the impact of access in the areas of education, healthcare, digital literacy, cultural/language promotion and preservation, as well as any negative impacts. We will seek existing Indigenous Community Networks and developing ones, highlighting successful and promising initiatives bringing Internet connectivity Continue reading

Custom Page Selection for Cloudflare Apps

Custom Page Selection for Cloudflare Apps

In July 2016, Cloudflare integrated with Eager - an apps platform. During this integration, several decisions were made to ensure an optimal experience installing apps. We wanted to make sure site owners on Cloudflare could customize and install an app with the minimal number of clicks possible. Customizability often adds complexity and clicks for the user. We’ve been tinkering to find the right balance of user control and simplicity since.

When installing an app, a site owner must select where - what URLs on their site - they want what apps installed. Our original plan for selecting the URLs an app would be installed on took a few twists and turns. Our end decision was to utilize our Always Online crawler to pre-populate a tree of the user’s site. Always Online is a feature that crawls Cloudflare sites and serves pages from our cache if the site goes down.

The benefits to this original setup are:
1. Only valid pages appear
An app only allows installations on html pages. For example, since injecting Javascript into a JPEG image isn’t possible, we would prevent the installer from trying it by not showing that path. Preventing the user from that type of Continue reading

Cisco to MikroTik – MPLS

About the Cisco to MikroTik series

One of the hardest things to do quickly in network engineering, is learn a new syntax for a NOS. Especially if you have a tight deadline and need to stand up equipment you’ve never worked with before. The command structure for RouterOS can be cumbersome if you are used to the Cisco CLI.

If you’ve been in networking for a while, you probably started with learning the Cisco CLI. Therefore, it is helpful to compare the commands if you want to implement a network with a MikroTik and Cisco routers.

This is the third post in a series that creates a Rosetta stone between IOS and RouterOS. We plan to tackle  other command comparisons like VLANs, QoS and basic operations to make it easier for network engineers trained in Cisco IOS to successfully implement Mikrotik / RouterOS devices.

Click here for the first article in this series – “Cisco to MikroTik BGP command translation”
Click here for the second article in this series – “Cisco to MikroTik OSPF command translation”

While many commands have almost the exact same information, others are as close as possible. Since there isn’t always an exact match, sometimes you may have to run Continue reading

Cisco to MikroTik – MPLS

About the Cisco to MikroTik series

One of the hardest things to do quickly in network engineering, is learn a new syntax for a NOS. Especially if you have a tight deadline and need to stand up equipment you’ve never worked with before. The command structure for RouterOS can be cumbersome if you are used to the Cisco CLI.

If you’ve been in networking for a while, you probably started with learning the Cisco CLI. Therefore, it is helpful to compare the commands if you want to implement a network with a MikroTik and Cisco routers.

This is the third post in a series that creates a Rosetta stone between IOS and RouterOS. We plan to tackle  other command comparisons like VLANs, QoS and basic operations to make it easier for network engineers trained in Cisco IOS to successfully implement Mikrotik / RouterOS devices.

Click here for the first article in this series – “Cisco to MikroTik BGP command translation”
Click here for the second article in this series – “Cisco to MikroTik OSPF command translation”

While many commands have almost the exact same information, others are as close as possible. Since there isn’t always an exact match, sometimes you may have to run Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Get a better angle on your network monitoring with application management

With any new network monitoring and management software, the first step is to assess your existing inventory. Do this by allowing the software to discover all your devices. Your new software may alert you to things you didn’t know you had. Network monitoring and management tooling may be smart enough to propose ways to improve your system: it might suggest new configurations or highlight bottlenecks. Your last step is to let the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) traps flow and inform you about day-to-day network usage.One blessing of the OSI model is that it has enabled innovation at the individual layers. These layers are abstracted from one another, which prevents accidentally injecting dependencies into other layers. The curse of the OSI model is that it has socially separated the people who work at the individual layers from one another—someone working at one layer may never think of someone else working at a different layer. It’s a recurring problem in network monitoring and management, in general.To read this article in full, please click here

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