IBM tweaks its z14 mainframe to make it a better physical fit for the data center

IBM is widening its mainframe range with some narrower models – ZR1 and Rockhopper II – that are skinny enough to fit in a standard 19-inch rack, which will answer criticisms of potential customers that the hulking z14 introduced in July 2017 too big to fit in their data centers (see photo above).In addition to new, smaller, packaging for its z14 hardware, IBM is also introducing Secure Service Container technology. This makes use of the z14's encryption accelerator and other security capabilities to protect containerized applications from unwanted interference.[ Check out REVIEW: VMware’s vSAN 6.6 and hear IDC’s top 10 data center predictions . | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] When IBM introduced the z14 last July, with an accelerator to make encrypting information standard practice in the data center, there was one problem: The mainframe's two-door cabinet was far too deep and too wide to fit in standard data center aisles.To read this article in full, please click here

Measuring ATR

One of the more pressing and persistent problems today is the treatment of fragmented packets. We are seeing a very large number of end-to-end paths that no longer support the transmission of fragmented IP datagrams. What can the DNS do to mitigate this issue?

Mythology about security…

Ed Felton tweeted a few days ago: “Often hear that the reason today’s Internet is not more secure is that the early designers failed to imagine that security could ever matter. That is a myth.”

This is indeed a myth.  Much of the current morass can be laid at the feet of the United States government, due to its export regulations around cryptography.

I will testify against the myth.  Bob Scheifler and I started the X Window System in 1984 at MIT, which is a network transparent window system: that is, applications can reside on computers anywhere in the network and use the X display server. As keyboard events may be transmitted over the network, it was clear to us from the get-go that it was a security issue. It is in use to this day on Linux systems all over the world (remote X11 access is no longer allowed: the ssh protocol is used to tunnel the X protocol securely for remote use). By sometime in 1985 or 1986 we were distributing X under the MIT License, which was developed originally for use of the MIT X Window System distribution (I’d have to go dig Continue reading

Privacy-Protecting Portable Router: Adding DNS-Over-TLS support to OpenWRT (LEDE) with Unbound

Privacy-Protecting Portable Router: Adding DNS-Over-TLS support to OpenWRT (LEDE) with Unbound

If you want to skip ahead to instructions, scroll to the next section. But I, like a TLS handshake, am very verbose so please enjoy this opener.

Imagine this scenario - I'm at a restaurant and need to have a private phone conversation but unfortunately my phone's battery is drained. To get around this problem, I borrow my friend's phone and dial the number - to protect my privacy I walk outside. When I'm done with the call, I come back inside and return the phone.

Whilst the phone itself doesn't store the coversation I've had, it does have a log of the recently dialed number, if the friend from whom I borrowed the phone wanted to, they could easily see who I actually called - even if they don't specifically know the topic of conversation.

Sometimes, the data about who you've spoken to can tell an aweful lot about the conversation - if someone was to call an emotional support hotline or a debt collector, you could probably infer a lot about the conversation from the caller ID.

When we browse the internet, we use encryption to try and protect the conversations we have. When you connect to a Continue reading

BrandPost: Network Fabrics: 5 Common Misconceptions Dispelled

What’s old is new again. This statement rings true as the industry rallies behind fabric networking again. Fabrics are not a new technology; they’ve been around since 2011/2012. However, we’ve seen increased uptake for fabrics outside of the traditional data center and into the enterprise campus. As the use cases and the technology continue to evolve, this blog clarifies some common misconceptions you may have about fabric technology.1. They are only for the data center Not anymore. Going back 5-6 years, network fabrics were originally designed to solve how to stretch L2 VLANs across subnets for VM migrations and mobility. We now see far more use cases for network fabrics that extend to the enterprise campus portion of the network. Examples include network automation, zero-touch provisioning, simplified network segmentation, and even high-performance multicast without the use of any complex PIM protocols.To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: Campus networks: Practical tips for the digital age

Recently, we released our new analyst report: Rethinking Campus Networks of the Future. It examines trends that are impacting campus networks and includes a few practical solutions for bringing enhanced automation, security and visibility into the campus network overall. We’ll report on the specifics in this blog.To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: Internet Routing: Requirements for the Data Center & Campus

In a recent blog, we discussed connectivity options for enterprise data centers building hybrid clouds. One of the options was to connect cloud providers directly over the internet, which has the advantage of being able to use an existing internet connection. It’s the easiest option and you can connect to any number of cloud service providers. Following that article, we wrote about scaling the modern data center, covering interface density and other requirements for data center solutions, whether housed on enterprise premises or in colocation facilities. Here, we’ll focus on internet connectivity and some of the requirements, including scale.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Network performance monitoring market poised for explosive growth

A recent Gartner report on network performance monitoring and diagnostics (NPMD) estimated the market to a whopping $2.1 billion and growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.9 percent, with more growth in sight. Wow. So what will drive this growth and why?New approaches to harvesting network data using sophisticated big data analytics techniques combined with cloud computing and machine learning technologies is the answer. This perfect confluence of technologies is poised to redefine the conventional infrastructure management market.Central to this shift is the use of analytics technologies and strategies to extract new insights and value from data produced by and collected from the network to drive business value.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Network performance monitoring market poised for explosive growth

A recent Gartner report on network performance monitoring and diagnostics (NPMD) estimated the market to a whopping $2.1 billion and growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.9 percent, with more growth in sight. Wow. So what will drive this growth and why?New approaches to harvesting network data using sophisticated big data analytics techniques combined with cloud computing and machine learning technologies is the answer. This perfect confluence of technologies is poised to redefine the conventional infrastructure management market.Central to this shift is the use of analytics technologies and strategies to extract new insights and value from data produced by and collected from the network to drive business value.To read this article in full, please click here

The EIGRP SIA Incident: Positive Feedback Failure in the Wild

Reading a paper to build a research post from (yes, I’ll write about the paper in question in a later post!) jogged my memory about an old case that perfectly illustrated the concept of a positive feedback loop leading to a failure. We describe positive feedback loops in Computer Networking Problems and Solutions, and in Navigating Network Complexity, but clear cut examples are hard to find in the wild. Feedback loops almost always contribute to, rather than independently cause, failures.

Many years ago, in a network far away, I was called into a case because EIGRP was failing to converge. The immediate cause was neighbor flaps, in turn caused by Stuck-In-Active (SIA) events. To resolve the situation, someone in the past had set the SIA timers really high, as in around 30 minutes or so. This is a really bad idea. The SIA timer, in EIGRP, is essentially the amount of time you are willing to allow your network to go unconverged in some specific corner cases before the protocol “does something about it.” An SIA event always represents a situation where “someone didn’t answer my query, which means I cannot stay within the state machine, so I Continue reading

Bidders Off And Running After $1.8 Billion DOE Exascale Super Deals

Supercomputer makers have been on their exascale marks, and they have been getting ready, and now the US Department of Energy has just said “Go!”

The requests for proposal have been opened up for two more exascale systems, with a budget ranging from $800 million to $1.2 billion for a pair of machines to be installed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a possible sweetener of anywhere from $400 million to $600 million that, provided funding can be found, allows Argonne National Laboratory to also buy yet another exascale machine.

Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Livermore …

Bidders Off And Running After $1.8 Billion DOE Exascale Super Deals was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

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