Mellanox, Ixia and Cumulus: Part 1

When I saw that Mellanox was presenting at Networking Field Day 17, I was definitely curious. When I found out that I would in fact be watching a joint presentation by Mellanox, Cumulus Networks and Ixia, it is fair to consider my interest piqued. Why would these three companies present together?

Cumulus/Mellanox/Ixia Logos

It turns out that these three companies present quite a compelling story, both individually–as you would probably expect–but also when used in combination. This post looks at the role of Mellanox Ethernet switches in an Ethernet fabric.

Mellanox

To me, Mellanox has been one of those ‘behind the scenes’ companies whose hardware is all over the place but whose name, in Ethernet circles at least, is less well known. Storage and compute engineers on the other hand are likely more familiar with the Mellanox name, especially in the context of Infiniband switches and network interface cards (NICs). In 2016 Mellanox acquired EZchip, allowing the development of some very capable Ethernet switches and an expansion of the company’s portfolio; to paraphrase Amit Katz (VP, WW Ethernet Switch), Mellanox connects PCI-Express interfaces together by building NICs, cables and switches.

At the Networking Field Day event in February 2018, Continue reading

Deep Learning In R: Documentation Drives Algorithms

Hard to believe, but the R programming language has been with us since 1993.

A quarter century has now passed since the authors Gentleman and Ihaka originally conceived the R platform as an implementation of the S programming language.

Continuous global software development has taken the original concepts originally inspired by John Chambers’ Scheme in 1975 to now include parallel computing, bioinformatics, social science and more recently complex AI and deep learning methods. Layers have been built on top of layers and today’s R looks nothing like 1990’s R.

So where are we at, especially with the emerging opportunities …

Deep Learning In R: Documentation Drives Algorithms was written by James Cuff at The Next Platform.

The future of enterprise IoT

Whether you were aware or not, Monday, April 9, 2018, is World IoT Day:"IoTday is an open invitation to the Internet of Things community to participate in an event, host a hackathon, or just share a beer/coffee with a friend or fellow collaborator focused around the IoT and its implications."Now, IoT Day may not top your list of favorite holidays, but it seemed like a good time to take a moment and assess the future of the Internet of Things. In that light, I traded emails with some technical experts from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) on the future of IoT in the enterprise. Their responses were illuminating.To read this article in full, please click here

The Week in Internet News: AI Can Give Workers a Creative Boost, But Many Aren’t Ready

Mixed messages on AI: Artificial intelligence promises to make workers more creative in many fields, according to a story in Inc. AI is already writing scripts and music and designing websites, the story notes. Many workers aren’t quite ready for this assistance, however. About 60 percent of workers in the Washington, D.C., area say their jobs are not preparing them for collaboration with machine intelligence, a story in Washington Business Journal says.

AI inspects your roof: If you’re a homeowner, you know it’s expensive to replace your roof. A startup seeks to take some of the guesswork out of roof replacement decisions by using AI to examine the condition of a house’s roof, according to Forbes.com. The service could be particularly useful for people looking to buy a new home without a spending more money to repair the roof.

Blockchain and AI team up: Here’s a story combining two of our favorite topics: Blockchain and AI. Blockchain could help make AI smarter by ensuring the privacy and security of the data that it collects, according to a story in VentureBeat. Small retailers could get customers to tell them their preferences by using Blockchain technologies to build personalized Continue reading

Intent-Based Networking: 7 Things to Know

The hot trend aims to revolutionize networking. Here's a look at basic IBN concepts and how the technology promises to help your business.

Intent-Based Networking: 7 Things to Know

The hot trend aims to revolutionize networking. Here's a look at basic IBN concepts and how the technology promises to help your business.

Overclock puts your idle servers to work for other people

Putting unused CPUs to work is nothing new. In the modern era, it started in 1999 when the SETI Institute launched SETI@Home, a screensaver that also examined slices of radio signals gathered by a giant telescope for signs of intergalactic life. Nineteen years later, and ET still hasn’t phoned us.But the concept grew to dozens of science and math-related projects. I took part in the World Community Grid run by IBM for years, letting my idle PC look for potential cures for AIDS and Ebola.To read this article in full, please click here

Overclock puts your idle servers to work for other people

Five servers that exist thanks to the Open Compute Project

Five servers that exist thanks to the Open Compute ProjectImage by IDG News ServiceThe Open Compute Project began life when Facebook asked the question, “What if we could design our own servers, rather than having to take what vendors offer?”The answer was a series of designs for servers that would be cheaper to build and operate. Facebook decided that it stood a better chance of finding a manufacturer for its designs if others wanted to buy them too, so with the support of Intel and Rackspace, it opened up its designs and invited others to build and build on them too.To read this article in full, please click here

Five servers that exist thanks to the Open Compute Project

Container Security through Segregation

One of my readers sent me a container security question after reading the Application Container Security Guide from NIST:

We are considering segregating dev/test/prod environments with bare-metal hardware. I did not find something in the standard concerning this. What should a financial institution do in your opinion?

I am no security expert and know just enough about containers to be dangerous, but there’s a rule that usually works well: use common sense and identify similar scenarios that have already been solved.

Most Important Skills in Networking

It’s easy to get blinded these days by all the talk about cloud, SDN and automation leading both new and existing people in networking to make decisions in their career which may not be the best ones long term. I’ve had the pleasure of interacting and working together with a lot of prominent people in the industry. Based on this I have identified some skills that all of these people have to some degree and that I believe to be crucial to succeeding in the IT industry.

Ability to write – Many of the successful people in the industry like Ivan Pepelnjak, Russ White, Nick Russo and so on have either authored books, write blogs or both. The ability to put your thoughts down into writing is critical. For someone like me that is working in network design, it is probably the most important skill, not only to write technical documents but to interact with customers, colleagues, managers and so on. It doesn’t matter if you are a technical savant if you can’t put a brief document together describing why and how a certain technology should be implemented.

Ability to speak – A lot of people in IT are a Continue reading

Poweron and Poweroff Esxi instance from CLI using a Python script

Hi,

I have to agree that to start a esxi node i was depending heavily on a windows VM and then was using a VSphere client to connect to a Esxi 5.5.

In a typical day all of my VM’s are hosted on Esxi and am not any advanced user of esxi by any stretch of Imagination.

It came down to a point where i had to manually click close to 8 VMS in order to boot up and all this was sort of irriatating for me, so i wrote a very basic script which can do this for me. Most of the experienced VM admins have been doing this for very long, for someone like me or anyone who is new to Esxi this is going to help.

Here is the code for the script, all you need to do is to copy to your lab esxi, obviously if any one using production esxi they already know how to manage this.

https://github.com/yukthr/auts/tree/master/vmware_scripts

Requirement – I have 5 Vm-machines and i would like to start them via script and also power them off.

First things, list the Vm-instances

Now that we have it, let explore the Continue reading

Worth Reading: Automation: Easy Button vs Sentient Voodoo Magic Button

I’m always telling network engineers attending my network automation workshops and online courses that there’s no magic bullet or 3-steps-to- success.

You cannot automate a process until you can describe it with enough details so that someone who has absolutely no clue what should be done can execute it.

David Gee published a long (and somewhat ranty) version of that statement. Enjoy!

Link Propagation 113

Welcome to Link Propagation, a Packet Pushers newsletter. Link Propagation is included in your free membership. Each week we scour the InterWebs to find the most relevant practitioner blog posts, tech news, and product announcements. We drink from the fire hose so you can sip from a coffee cup. Blogs Getting started with Jenkins for […]

Open Compute Iron Is All About Acceleration

The Open Compute Project (OCP) held its 9th annual US Summit recently, with 3,441 registered attendees this year. While that might seem small for a top-tier high tech event, there were also 80 exhibitors representing most of the cloud datacenter supply chain, plus a host of outstanding technical sessions. We are always on the hunt for new iron, and not surprisingly the most important gear we saw at OCP this year was related to compute acceleration.

Here is how that new iron we saw breaks down across the major trends in acceleration.

The first interesting thing we saw was a …

Open Compute Iron Is All About Acceleration was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Selfie

Two Korean women in traditional dress taking a selfie

Show 384: The Packet Pushers Unleashed

On today’s show Greg and Ethan talk about a few things that have been on their minds, including updates on the forthcoming Packet Pushers subscription site and a post-mortem of the recent Virtual Design Clinic.

They also hash out some tech conversations, including Cloudflare’s new DNS resolver, peak open networking, a review of the Aruba Atmosphere wireless conference, and more nerdy topics.

Sponsor: ThousandEyes

ThousandEyes gives you visibility, insights, and actionable intelligence into user experience from every user to every application over any network, so you transform your WAN, troubleshoot faster and deliver exceptional user experiences in the cloud and on premises. Try ThousandEyes for free at thousandeyes.com/packetpushers and grab a fun t-shirt!

Sponsor: Cumulus Networks

The Cumulus Linux network OS is simple, open, untethered Linux that can run on more than 70 hardware platforms and help you transition from your legacy infrastructure. Cumulus Networks is Web-scale networking for the digital age. Go to cumulusnetworks.com to find out more.

Show Links:

Introducing DNS Resolver, 1.1.1.1 (not a joke) – Cloudflare

Announcing 1.1.1.1: the fastest, privacy-first consumer DNS service – Cloudflare

jedisct1/dnsblast: A simple and stupid load testing tool for DNS resolvers – Continue reading

Now Open: DockerCon US Diversity Scholarship!

DockerCon Scholarship

DockerCon is a hub for the IT industry , bringing together members from all parts of our growing ecosystem and global community. By actively promoting inclusivity, our goal is to make DockerCon a safe place for everyone to learn, belong and collaborate. With the support of Docker and our DockerCon scholarship sponsor, the Open Container Initiative (OCI), we are excited to announce the launch of this year’s DockerCon Diversity Scholarship Program to provide members of the Docker community, who are traditionally underrepresented, a financial scholarship to attend DockerCon US 2018. This year, we are increasing the number of scholarships we are granting to ensure attending DockerCon is an option for all.