Enable self-healing applications with Ansible and Dynatrace

Ansible_and_Dynatrace

The size, complexity and high rate of change in today’s IT environments can be overwhelming. Enabling the performance and availability of these modern microservice environments is a constant challenge for IT organizations. 

One trend contributing to this rate of change is the adoption of IT automation for provisioning, configuration management and ongoing operations. For this blog, we want to highlight the repeatable and consistent outcomes allowed by IT automation, and explore what is possible when Ansible automation is extended to the application monitoring platform Dynatrace.

Thanks to Jürgen Etzlstorfer for giving us an overview of the Ansible and Dynatrace integration.

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Monitoring Today

Considering the size, complexity and high rate of change in today's IT environments, traditional methods of monitoring application performance and availability are often necessary and commonplace in most operations teams. Application performance monitoring (APM) platforms are used to detect bottlenecks and problems that can impact the experience of your customers.

Monitoring alone, however, isn’t always enough to help keep your applications running at peak performance. When issues are detected, APM platforms are designed to alert the operator of the problem and its root-cause. The Ops team can then agree on a corrective action, and implement this Continue reading

Is Networking Complex/Hard ?

Its not complicated (natch). Its distributed. And we don’t have visibility to know. Distributed Systems What makes networking hard ? A network is a distributed system where state must be shared between devices that are unreliably connected. Its a fallacy that a network will ever be reliable or predictable. Skills Network technologies and their fundamentals […]

Building Bigger, Faster GPU Clusters Using NVSwitches

Nvidia launched its second-generation DGX system in March. In order to build the 2 petaflops half-precision DGX-2, Nvidia had to first design and build a new NVLink 2.0 switch chip, named NVSwitch. While Nvidia is only shipping NVSwitch as an integral component of its DGX-2 systems today, Nvidia has not precluded selling NVSwitch chips to data center equipment manufacturers.

This article will answer many of the questions we asked in our first look at the NVSwitch chip, using DGX-2 as an example architecture.

Nvidia’s NVSwitch is a two-billion transistor non-blocking switch design incorporating 18 complete NVLink 2.0 ports …

Building Bigger, Faster GPU Clusters Using NVSwitches was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Software opens up new career opportunities for network professionals

The topic of network engineer re-skilling has been front and center for the past few years. Some network professionals have embraced the concept and are leading the network industry in a whole new direction. Others, though, are more resistant and show about as much enthusiasm for this new world as my wife does when I ask her to watch a Star Trek marathon with me.Network professionals need to become software-fluent Part of the resistance to re-skilling is that change is scary and often hard. Many network engineers have been working a certain way for years, possibly decades, and now they are asking, "Do I need to throw those skills away and learn new ones?" To those people, I say an emphatic YES! It’s absolutely critical to learn new skills today, or you could find yourself quickly looking for a job.To read this article in full, please click here

Software opens up new career opportunities for network professionals

The topic of network engineer re-skilling has been front and center for the past few years. Some network professionals have embraced the concept and are leading the network industry in a whole new direction. Others, though, are more resistant and show about as much enthusiasm for this new world as my wife does when I ask her to watch a Star Trek marathon with me.Network professionals need to become software-fluent Part of the resistance to re-skilling is that change is scary and often hard. Many network engineers have been working a certain way for years, possibly decades, and now they are asking, "Do I need to throw those skills away and learn new ones?" To those people, I say an emphatic YES! It’s absolutely critical to learn new skills today, or you could find yourself quickly looking for a job.To read this article in full, please click here

Security Research is Critical to Protect the Open Internet

On, April 10, 2018 I joined over fifty like-minded individuals signing a letter emphasizing the importance of security research. The letter renounces a number of recent lawsuits, such as Keeper v. Goodlin and River City Media v. Kromtech, against security researchers and journalists and highlights the importance of the work they are doing to defend against a rapidly increasing number of security threats.

Security research, sometimes called white-hat hacking, is a practice by ethical hackers whereby they legally find flaws in information systems and report them to the creators of those systems. The ability to find and report these vulnerabilities before other bad actors can manipulate them has become increasingly important, especially in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT).

As we discussed at Enhancing IoT Security in Ottawa, Canada this week, Internet-connected devices offer great promise, but they can also create a host of security issues. It is crucial that we continue to encourage individuals to seek out and correct flaws in these devices as their application and use grows.

As Olaf Kolkman, Chief Internet Technology Officer at the Internet Society, wrote recently, security researchers are helping to make the Internet more secure. Collaboration between those Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: 5G to become the catalyst for innovation in IoT

5G represents a fundamental shift in communication network architectures. It promises to accelerate future revenue generation through innovative services facilitated via 5G-enabled devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and Internet-of-Things (IoT). 5G deployments are envisioned as a complex amalgamation of next-generation technological enhancements to telecommunication networks, which will help 5G become the catalyst for next-generation IoT services.Examples of such innovations include: 1) advanced modulation schemes for wireless access, 2) network slicing capabilities, 3) automated network application lifecycle management, 4) software-defined networking and network function virtualization, and 5) support for cloud-optimized distributed network applications.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: 5G to become the catalyst for innovation in IoT

5G represents a fundamental shift in communication network architectures. It promises to accelerate future revenue generation through innovative services facilitated via 5G-enabled devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and Internet-of-Things (IoT). 5G deployments are envisioned as a complex amalgamation of next-generation technological enhancements to telecommunication networks, which will help 5G become the catalyst for next-generation IoT services.Examples of such innovations include: 1) advanced modulation schemes for wireless access, 2) network slicing capabilities, 3) automated network application lifecycle management, 4) software-defined networking and network function virtualization, and 5) support for cloud-optimized distributed network applications.To read this article in full, please click here

Network World’s searchable glossary of wireless terms

This is a glossary of terminology frequently used in describing and discussing wireless technology – from amplifier to wireless network topology  that will come in handy when trying to understand articles about wireless devices and networks.It is designed to enable those familiar with networking but not necessarily with radio and wireless technologies to quickly cut through the clutter and understand the meaning of these terms.[ Check out our hands-on wireless-product reviews: 5 top hardware-based Wi-Fi test tools and Mojo wireless intrusion prevention system. ] The entries are arranged in alphabetical order except for this initial entry, radio, which is meant to set the stage for all the rest.To read this article in full, please click here

What is hybrid cloud really, and what’s the best strategy?

Ask a group of IT leaders to define what a hybrid cloud is, and their answers are likely to be as diverse as the companies they work for. Once a black-and-white definition describing organizations with a mix of apps that reside in both the public cloud and in enterprise data centers, a hybrid cloud has now become much more complicated as the number of apps used in the enterprise grows and their integration requirements mount.  The average company uses more than 1,400 cloud services, according to Skyhigh Networks, often because lines of business are being pressured to innovate, leaving little time to develop a strategy for the most efficient and cost-effective way to run them.To read this article in full, please click here

Understanding Virtual Private Networks [and why VPNs are important to SD-WAN]

Internet-based virtual private networks rose to popularity in the 1990s by providing cost-effective connections securely across an insecure internet, and along the way VPNs have provided the impetus for today’s SD-WAN technology.VPN definition The definition of a virtual private network (VPN) is creating a secure network over network transport that is less secure, such as the internet. [ Click here to find out more about SD-WAN and why you’ll use it one day and learn about WANs and where they’re headed. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] VPNs are used to connect two or more nodes in a network and are most commonly used to connect individual users’ machines to sites or to connect sites to sites.  It’s possible to connect users to each other, but the use case for that is very limited so such deployments are rare. To read this article in full, please click here

What is hybrid cloud really, and what’s the best strategy?

Ask a group of IT leaders to define what a hybrid cloud is, and their answers are likely to be as diverse as the companies they work for. Once a black-and-white definition describing organizations with a mix of apps that reside in both the public cloud and in enterprise data centers, a hybrid cloud has now become much more complicated as the number of apps used in the enterprise grows and their integration requirements mount.  The average company uses more than 1,400 cloud services, according to Skyhigh Networks, often because lines of business are being pressured to innovate, leaving little time to develop a strategy for the most efficient and cost-effective way to run them.To read this article in full, please click here

Network World’s searchable glossary of wireless terms

This is a glossary of terminology frequently used in describing and discussing wireless technology – from amplifier to wireless network topology  that will come in handy when trying to understand articles about wireless devices and networks.It is designed to enable those familiar with networking but not necessarily with radio and wireless technologies to quickly cut through the clutter and understand the meaning of these terms.[ Check out our hands-on wireless-product reviews: 5 top hardware-based Wi-Fi test tools and Mojo wireless intrusion prevention system. ] The entries are arranged in alphabetical order except for this initial entry, radio, which is meant to set the stage for all the rest.To read this article in full, please click here

Understanding Virtual Private Networks [and why VPNs are important to SD-WAN]

Internet-based virtual private networks rose to popularity in the 1990s by providing cost-effective connections securely across an insecure internet, and along the way VPNs have provided the impetus for today’s SD-WAN technology.VPN definition The definition of a virtual private network (VPN) is creating a secure network over network transport that is less secure, such as the internet. [ Click here to find out more about SD-WAN and why you’ll use it one day and learn about WANs and where they’re headed. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] VPNs are used to connect two or more nodes in a network and are most commonly used to connect individual users’ machines to sites or to connect sites to sites.  It’s possible to connect users to each other, but the use case for that is very limited so such deployments are rare. To read this article in full, please click here

Video: Automatic Diagramming with PowerNSX

Here's a trick question: how often do your Visio diagrams match what's really implemented in your network?

Wouldn't it be great to be able to create or modify them on-the-fly based on what's really configured in the network? That's exactly what Anthony Burke demonstrated in the PowerNSX part of PowerShell for Networking Engineers webinar (source code).

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

Watch the video

Review: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

As part of the transition into my new role at Heptio (see here for more information), I had to select a new corporate laptop. Given that my last attempt at running Linux full-time was thwarted due primarily to work-specific collaboration issues that would no longer apply (see here), and given that other members of my team (the Field Engineering team) are also running Linux full-time, I thought I’d give it another go. Accordingly, I’ve started working on a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (5th generation). Here are my thoughts on this laptop.

This is now my second non-Apple laptop in the last year. My previous non-Apple laptop, a Dell Latitude E7370, was a pretty decent laptop (see my review). As good as the E7370 was, though, the X1 Carbon is better.

The X1 Carbon features a dual-core i7 7500U CPU, which (subjectively, anyway) outperforms the mobile CPU in the E7370. This makes the X1 Carbon feel quite snappy and responsive. CPU performance was an issue for me with the Dell—it didn’t take much to tax that mobile CPU. I haven’t seen that issue so far with the X1 Carbon. Coupled with 16GB of RAM, the X1 Carbon is no Continue reading

NetDevOpEd: Open source principles give the workplace soul

If you’ve been tuning into Cumulus content lately, you probably know all about our initiative to bring S.O.U.L (Simple, Open, Untethered Linux) into networking — and for the uninitiated, feel free to check out our S.O.U.L page to learn all about the movement! It’s clear that our company and technology have S.O.U.L, but what does that look like in the office? Anyone who’s spent time at our office, in our bootcamps, with our people, etc. can feel that Cumulus Networks has “soul,” and this time we’re not talking about the acronym. We’ve got a passion, substance, life and feeling that pulses throughout our space like a funky bass line.

How do I know this? Well, I work at Cumulus, but it’s more than that. My former employers (before I started working at Cumulus Networks) are pretty varied, ranging from a restaurant to a university, but all of those jobs had one thing in common — they had no soul. To these Pink Floyd-ian businesses, employees were just cogs in the machine meant to forfeit passion for profit. Each day I dragged myself out of bed, drudged Continue reading

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