The Rise of Edge Compute: The Video

At the end of March, Kenton Varda, tech lead and architect for Cloudflare Workers, traveled to London and led a talk about the Rise of Edge Compute where he laid out our vision for the future of the Internet as a platform.

Several of those who were unable to attend on-site asked for us to produce a recording. Well, we've completed the audio edits, so here it is!

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How to manage access in a web-scale data center

One of the consistent questions that arises during the web-scale transition is the impact of managed access to networking infrastructure. How do we take traditional management techniques and adapt them to the new operational paradigm of web-scale networking, where automation drives the majority of changes and the infrastructure is treated as a holistic entity rather than node-by-node?

Local privileges

In the most basic way, we can migrate existing workflows to the new paradigm. Though inefficient, the old way of doing things still works with the new web-scale paradigm. The easiest way to do this is to restrict access to your switches using local privileges. In Linux, users are controlled using the adduser command, and the permissions for that user are controlled using the chmod commands.

A list of all users is stored in the /etc/passwd folder of Linux:

 cumulus@leaf02:~$ cat /etc/passwd
 root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
 daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/usr/sbin/nologin
 bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
 sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/usr/sbin/nologin
 sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
 games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/usr/sbin/nologin
 man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/usr/sbin/nologin
 lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/usr/sbin/nologin
 mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/usr/sbin/nologin
 news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/usr/sbin/nologin
 uucp:x:10:10:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/usr/sbin/nologin
 proxy:x:13:13:proxy:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
 www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/usr/sbin/nologin
 backup:x:34:34:backup:/var/backups:/usr/sbin/nologin
 list:x:38:38:Mailing List Manager:/var/list:/usr/sbin/nologin
 irc:x:39:39:ircd:/var/run/ircd:/usr/sbin/nologin
 gnats:x:41:41:Gnats Bug-Reporting System (admin):/var/lib/gnats:/usr/sbin/nologin
 nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
 systemd-timesync:x:100:103:systemd Time Synchronization,,,:/run/systemd:/bin/false
 systemd-network:x:101:104:systemd Network Management,,,:/run/systemd/netif:/bin/false
 systemd-resolve:x:102:105:systemd Resolver,,,:/run/systemd/resolve:/bin/false
 systemd-bus-proxy:x:103:106:systemd Bus Proxy,,,:/run/systemd:/bin/false
 frr:x:104:109:Frr routing suite,,,:/var/run/frr/:/bin/false
 ntp:x:105:110::/home/ntp:/bin/false
 uuidd:x:106:111::/run/uuidd:/bin/false
 messagebus:x:107:112::/var/run/dbus:/bin/false
 sshd:x:108:65534::/var/run/sshd:/usr/sbin/nologin
 snmp:x:109:114::/var/lib/snmp:/usr/sbin/nologin
 dnsmasq:x:110:65534:dnsmasq,,,:/var/lib/misc:/bin/false
 _lldpd:x:111:115::/var/run/lldpd:/bin/false
 cumulus:x:1000:1000:cumulus,,,:/home/cumulus:/bin/bash

Users can be added and deleted using the adduser and deluser commands:

 cumulus@leaf02:~$ sudo  Continue reading

ONUG Members Aren’t Very Interested in OpenStack, But They Are Interested in Multi-Cloud

While OpenStack is widely used by service providers, ONUG's enterprise members are dealing with a different ecosystem with different issues, such as thousands of applications.

Arista applies cloud principles to campus networks

Arista Networks has arguably been the most disruptive data center network vendor in the past 10 years. The company built a product specifically designed for the rise of software-defined networking (SDN) and made “spline” a household word, assuming you live in a house full of network engineers. If you don’t eat, live, and breathe networking and you’re not familiar with a spline, it’s a single-tier network optimized for the era of cloud computing.The rise of east-west traffic gave birth to the concept of a two-tier leaf-spine network, but Arista further simplified that down into a single tier. By collapsing the leaf and spine into a single tier, Arista is able to scale its network out rapidly simply by adding more switches to the spline — making it theoretically infinitely scalable. Arista took this model and applied it to data center interconnect, routing, and other use cases related to data centers.To read this article in full, please click here

Arista applies cloud principles to campus networks

Arista Networks has arguably been the most disruptive data center network vendor in the past 10 years. The company built a product specifically designed for the rise of software-defined networking (SDN) and made “spline” a household word, assuming you live in a house full of network engineers. If you don’t eat, live, and breathe networking and you’re not familiar with a spline, it’s a single-tier network optimized for the era of cloud computing.The rise of east-west traffic gave birth to the concept of a two-tier leaf-spine network, but Arista further simplified that down into a single tier. By collapsing the leaf and spine into a single tier, Arista is able to scale its network out rapidly simply by adding more switches to the spline — making it theoretically infinitely scalable. Arista took this model and applied it to data center interconnect, routing, and other use cases related to data centers.To read this article in full, please click here

Worth Reading: Cisco to MicroTik

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. —Kevin Myers @Stubarea51

Are two spaces better than one? | Butterick’s Practical Typography

I’m interested in fonts. The two space remains bunk.

Simon Wardley – Strategy by Mapping,Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones

Change the way you think about strategy and why mapping works ?

The Internet Society and African Union Commission Launch Personal Data Protections Guidelines for Africa

The Internet Society and the African Union Commission (AUC) today launched the Personal Data Protection Guidelines for Africa (“the Guidelines”) at the Africa Internet Summit in Dakar, Senegal. Grounded on principles of privacy, trust and responsible use, the Guidelines introduced another step in securing the African Internet infrastructure and emphasized the notion that good data protection strengthens trust in online services and contributes to sustainable growth of the digital economy. This timely development follows a recent massive privacy breach at Facebook and the much talked about Cambridge Analytica saga which mishandled the data of millions of Facebook users, including many on the African continent.

Speaking at the launch event, the Director for Africa Regional Bureau, Dawit Bekele, applauded Senegal for becoming the first country in Africa to show leadership and commitment towards building a solid information society. “Africa – indeed like the rest of the world – considers personal data protection as key in securing the Internet infrastructure and Senegal has shown us the way by being the first African country to ratify the Malabo Convention.”

The African digital economy is continuing to grow, with the potential to reach $300 billion or 10% of GDP of the African economy Continue reading

Intel and Packet Give Open Source, Commercial Software Projects Free Infrastructure Access

Developing software on Optane hardware reduces transaction costs for latency-sensitive workloads and increases scale per server.

TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU: Manage Windows like Linux with Ansible

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is the movie "10 Things I Hate About You". If you're not familiar with it, it's a 90's teenybopper flick that's loosely based on Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew". In the movie, our hero Patrick is surreptitiously paid to woo the man-hating Kat so that slimy Joey will be allowed to date her younger sister Bianca. Kat initially can't stand Patrick and his numerous bad habits, but by the end of the story has fallen for him. She reads him a poem that starts off describing ten things she hates about him, but wraps it up declaring her love for him instead.

I love Windows, but I know many Linux admins can't stand it, and avoid working with it at any cost. While working on a talk to espouse the use of Ansible to manage Windows in the same way as Linux, I imagined a Linux admin discovering the power of Ansible's features and common language to see the beauty in an automated Windows setup. It inspired me to write my own version of Kat's poem:

I hate that you're not SSH, and the shell that you call "Power",
I hate Continue reading

Apcela Launches Network Telemetry and Monitoring Agent

The agent AppMon's sensors are pervasively deployed in a host environment to generate precise granular performance measurement, impairment detection, and anomaly detection.

Barefoot Networks Sees Programmable Switching Potential for 5G

By making switching smarter, operators can lower latency and increase bandwidth.

BrandPost: The Adaptive Network Vision – An Executive Q&A

The networking industry is being disrupted. There is an explosion in network demand, driven by ultra-mobile users who want the ability to access the cloud and consume high-definition content, video, and applications when and where they choose. This network disruption will only continue in the future with the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G—both of which require billions of devices to interact with machines, users, and the cloud to drive consumer and business interactions.As a result, network providers must prepare for an industry transformation that will create new opportunities. We sat down with Ciena’s Rebecca Prudhomme, VP of Portfolio Marketing, to address what network providers need to do to seize these opportunities. To read this article in full, please click here

Microsoft Touts 10x Increase in Kubernetes Usage on Azure Cloud

The latest round of Azure Kubernetes Service updates include the new name and general availability in the coming weeks.

Supply Chain Management Is Critical for Carrier Neutral SD-WAN

The SD-WAN supply chain becomes critically important, as it includes the planning and management of all application delivery infrastructure involved in sourcing, procurement, deployment, and logistics.

RIPE NCC: The Future of BGP Security

I was recently invited to a webinar for the RIPE NCC about the future of BGP security. The entire series is well worth watching; I was in the final session, which was a panel discussion on where we are now, and where we might go to make BGP security better.

Integrating Kubernetes with Docker Enterprise Edition 2.0 – Top 10 Questions from the Docker Virtual Event

At our recent virtual event, we shared our excitement around Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) 2.0 – the most complete enterprise-ready container platform in the market. We shared how this release enables organizations like Liberty Mutual and Franklin American Mortgage Company, both presenters at DockerCon 2018, to efficiently scale their container environment across many teams while delivering choice and flexibility. We demonstrated some of the new advanced capabilities around access controls with secure application zones and building a consistent software supply chain across regions, and highlighted how easy and interchangeable it is to leverage both Swarm and Kubernetes orchestration in the same environment.

If you missed the live event, don’t worry! You can still catch the recording on-demand here.

We got great questions throughout the event and will address the most common ones in our blog over the next few days.

Choice of Orchestration – Swarm and Kubernetes

One of the highlights of this release is the integration of Kubernetes, making Docker EE the only platform that runs both Swarm and Kubernetes simultaneously on the same cluster – so developers do not need to make an orchestration choice. Operations teams have the flexibility to choose orchestrators interchangeably.

Q: Is Continue reading

Blending An Elixir Of Quantum And AI For Better Healthcare

Chocolate and peanut butter, tea and scones, gin and tonic, they’re all great combinations, and today we now have a new binary mixture — Quantum and AI. Do they actually mix well together? Quadrant, a new spin out from D-Wave Systems, certainly seems to think so.

D-Wave has been in the quantum computing business since 1999, raising in excess of $200 million from Goldman Sachs, Bezos Expeditions and others, they now list folks such as Google, NASA, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Volkswagen as examples of their signature customers. Quadrant is basically the new AI play from the …

Blending An Elixir Of Quantum And AI For Better Healthcare was written by James Cuff at The Next Platform.

Composable Infrastructure: A Skeptic’s View