Technology Short Take 99

Welcome to Technology Short Take 99! What follows below is a collection of various links and articles about (mostly) data center-related technologies. Hopefully something I’ve included will be useful. Here goes!

Networking

• David Gee makes the connection between coffee and network automation. No, really. It’s worth reading.
• Matt Oswalt, one of the co-authors of our recently-released network automation book from O’Reilly, recently tackled the topic of running Kubernetes with Tungsten Fabric (formerly known as OpenContrail). A network engineer using AWS and CloudFormation? Yep, get used to it folks—it’s where the industry is headed.
• Vince Power provides a high-level overview of some of the key principles underlying Kubernetes networking.

Servers/Hardware

Sorry, I don’t have anything for you. Feel free to send me links you’d like me to consider for inclusion in the next Tech Short Take!

Security

• Mike Foley talks about new support for Virtualization Based Security (VBS) and Credential Guard in vSphere 6.7.
• Chris Short examines some of the security-related aspects of the adoption of containers.
• The Kubernetes community reflects on fixing the subpath volume vulnerability in Kubernetes.
• Michael Ducy of Sysdig outlines a configuration combining Sysdig Falco, NATS, and Kubeless for “active Kubernetes security.” While the post Continue reading

CCNA Routing and Switching Vs. CCNAX

10 competitors Cisco just can’t kill off

10 competitors Cisco just can't kill offImage by IDG / jesadaphorn, Getty ImagesCreating a short list of key Cisco competitors is no easy task as the company now competes in multiple markets.  In this case we tried to pick companies that have been around awhile or firms that have developed key technologies that directly impacted the networking giant. Cisco is now pushing heavily into software and security, a move that will open it up to myriad new competitors as well. Take a look.To read this article in full, please click here

10 competitors Cisco just can’t kill off

10 competitors Cisco just can't kill offImage by IDG / jesadaphorn, Getty ImagesCreating a short list of key Cisco competitors is no easy task as the company now competes in multiple markets.  In this case we tried to pick companies that have been around awhile or firms that have developed key technologies that directly impacted the networking giant. Cisco is now pushing heavily into software and security, a move that will open it up to myriad new competitors as well. Take a look.To read this article in full, please click here

10 competitors Cisco just can’t kill off

10 competitors Cisco just can't kill offImage by IDG / jesadaphorn, Getty ImagesCreating a short list of key Cisco competitors is no easy task as the company now competes in multiple markets.  In this case we tried to pick companies that have been around awhile or firms that have developed key technologies that directly impacted the networking giant. Cisco is now pushing heavily into software and security, a move that will open it up to myriad new competitors as well. Take a look.To read this article in full, please click here

10 competitors Cisco just can’t kill off

10 competitors Cisco just can't kill offImage by IDG / jesadaphorn, Getty ImagesCreating a short list of key Cisco competitors is no easy task as the company now competes in multiple markets.  In this case we tried to pick companies that have been around awhile or firms that have developed key technologies that directly impacted the networking giant. Cisco is now pushing heavily into software and security, a move that will open it up to myriad new competitors as well. Take a look.To read this article in full, please click here

RIPE 76 dans le Midi

The RIPE 76 meeting starts next week in Marseille, which surprisingly is only the second RIPE meeting to have ever been held in France. RIPEs are always a key event for the Internet Society, with one of our colleagues, Jan Žorž, being a member of the RIPE Programme Committee, and another, Salam Yamout, being a member of the RIPE NCC Board. Andrei Robachevsky will be presenting during the Connect Working Group, and I’ll be there reporting on the highlights of the meeting, as well as staffing the MANRS stand on Thursday, so please come and say hello!

The Internet Society is also sponsoring the new RIPE on-site childcare service, whilst on Thursday we’ll be raising awareness of the MANRS initiative by organising a lunch for MANRS advocates, as well as having a stand in the exhibition area with goodies such as MANRS t-shirts and stickers.

The RIPE meeting is back to its usual Monday morning start after Dubai, and there’s three tutorials to choose from on Event-driven Network Automation and Orchestration using Salt (Mircea Ulinic), SRv6 Network Programming (Pablo Camarillo Garvia, Cisco), or IPv6 Security (Alvaro Vives, RIPE NCC).

The opening plenary commences at 14.00 CEST/UTC+2, and after the Continue reading

Video: Use Network Device REST API with PowerShell

More and more network devices support REST API as the configuration method. While it’s not as convenient as having a dedicated cmdlet, it’s possible to call REST API methods (and configure or monitor network devices) directly from a PowerShell script, as Mitja Robas demonstrated during the PowerShell for Networking Engineers webinar.

You’ll need at least free ipSpace.net subscription to watch the video.

Inaudible voice commands: the long-range attack and defense

Inaudible voice commands: the long-range attack and defense Roy et al., NSDI’18

Although you can’t hear them, I’m sure you heard about the inaudible ultrasound attacks on always-on voice-based systems such as Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Siri. This short video shows a ‘DolphinAttack’ in action:

To remain inaudible, the attack only works from close range (about 5ft). And it can work at up to about 10ft when partially audible. Things would get a whole lot more interesting if we could conduct inaudible attacks over a longer range. For example, getting all phones in a crowded area to start dialling your premium number, or targeting every device in an open plan office, or parking your car on the road and controlling all voice-enabled devices in the area. “Alexa, open my garage door…”. In today’s paper, Roy et al. show us how to significantly extend the range of inaudible voice command attacks. Their experiments are limited by the power of their amplifier, but succeed at up to 25ft (7.6m). Fortunately, the authors also demonstrate how we can construct software-only defences against the attacks.

We test our attack prototype with 984 commands to Amazon Echo and 200 commands to smartphones Continue reading

PQ 149: WPA3 And Wireless Security Improvements

The post PQ 149: WPA3 And Wireless Security Improvements appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Protego Scores $2M in Seed Funds to Target Serverless Security

A recent report found 21 percent of open source serverless projects contained at least one critical vulnerability or misconfiguration.

Worth Reading: Why DDoS Won’t Die

Most every organization has been affected by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in some way: whether they were hit directly in a traffic-flooding attack, or if they suffered the fallout from one of their partners or suppliers getting victimized. —Kelly Jackson Higgins @Dark Reading

Welcome New Docker Captains

Today, we are excited to announce our new Docker Captains! Docker Captains are technology experts and leaders in their communities who are passionate about sharing their Docker knowledge with others. Individuals are awarded the distinction of Docker Captain because of their technical expertise, content and technical contributions to the community  and outstanding engagement with Docker’s users.

The New Captains Class

Follow the Captains

Follow all of the Captains on twitter. Also check out the Captains GitHub repo to see what projects they have been working on.

Learn more about each Captain

Docker Captains are eager to bring their technical expertise to new audiences both offline and online around the world – don’t hesitate to reach out to them via the social links on their Captain profile pages. You can filter the captains by location, expertise, and more.

Alex Iankoulski

Alex has 20+ years of experience in the software industry. He is currently a Principal Software Architect for Data Science and Analytics at Baker Hughes, a GE Company where he focuses on enabling deep learning scientists and analytics experts to bring algorithms and new modeling techniques from prototype to production using containers. He believes that good tools get out of Continue reading

Tearing Apart Google’s TPU 3.0 AI Coprocessor

Google did its best to impress this week at its annual IO conference. While Google rolled out a bunch of benchmarks that were run on its current Cloud TPU instances, based on TPUv2 chips, the company divulged a few skimpy details about its next generation TPU chip and its systems architecture. The company changed from version notation (TPUv2) to revision notation (TPU 3.0) with the update, but ironically the detail we have assembled shows that the step from TPUv2 to what we will call TPUv3 probably isn’t that big; it should probably be called TPU v2r5 or something like that. …

Tearing Apart Google’s TPU 3.0 AI Coprocessor was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

IDG Contributor Network: IPSec – A swiss army knife of kludges

When I started my journey in the technology sector back in the early 2000’s, the world of networking comprised of simple structures. I remember configuring several standard branch sites that would connect to a central headquarters. There was only a handful of remote warriors who were assigned, and usually just a few high-ranking officials.As the dependence on networking increased, so did the complexity of network designs. The standard single site became dual based with redundant connectivity to different providers, advanced failover techniques, and high availability designs became the norm. The number of remote workers increased and eventually, security holes began to open in my network design.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: IPSec – A swiss army knife of kludges

When I started my journey in the technology sector back in the early 2000’s, the world of networking comprised of simple structures. I remember configuring several standard branch sites that would connect to a central headquarters. There was only a handful of remote warriors who were assigned, and usually just a few high-ranking officials.As the dependence on networking increased, so did the complexity of network designs. The standard single site became dual based with redundant connectivity to different providers, advanced failover techniques, and high availability designs became the norm. The number of remote workers increased and eventually, security holes began to open in my network design.To read this article in full, please click here

What Qualcomm’s Exit From Arm Server Chips Means

Broadcom may not have wanted to be in the Arm server chip business any more, but its machinations since it was acquired by Avago Technology two years ago have certainly sent ripples through that nascent market. It did it in the wake of buying Broadcom, and now it looks like it is doing it again with Qualcomm.

Before it shelled out a stunning $37 billion to buy Broadcom, best known for its datacenter switch ASICs but also an Arm server chip wannabe at the time, Avago was a conglomerate that made chips for optical networking, server networking, and storage controllers …

What Qualcomm’s Exit From Arm Server Chips Means was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

ZTE Ban May Spell Trouble for Chinese Operators and 5G

Many Chinese service providers are reliant upon ZTE’s optical gear for their transport networks and backhaul. And switching to another vendor is not that easy.

Istio and Envoy: Hot Topics Among Enterprise IT and Cloud Execs

With service-mesh technologies, such as Envoy and Istio, web services can effectively talk to each other and become building blocks to create applications.

Investors Purge Infinera Stock on Price War Concerns, Ignore Q1 Results

One analyst said Ciena was the source of the current price war in the optical networking space.