Cohesity SD-Storage Automates Data Backup in Public Clouds
The software integrates with public cloud APIs so that backups scale automatically as cloud workloads are added or deleted.
VLAN Troubleshooting Commands
Save time by using these four commands to quickly track down and resolve VLAN-related problems.
SNIA Releases Data Protection Guidance for Storage Pros
Storage Networking Industry Association white paper provides recommendations for handling issues such as data retention, retention, and archiving.
Podcast: Automation, Intent-Based Systems and Everything Else
A while ago Greg Ferro invited me for another fireside chat on Packet Pushers podcast. Hope you’ll enjoy our discussion.
Espresso: brewing Java for more non-volatility with non-volatile memory
Espresso: brewing Java for more non-volatility with non-volatile memory Wu et al., ASPLOS’18
What happens when you introduce non-volatile memory (NVM) to the world of Java? In theory, with a heap backed by NVM, we should get persistence for free? It’s not quite that straightforward of course, but Espresso gets you pretty close. There are a few things to consider, for example:
- we probably don’t want all of our objects backed by persistent memory, as it still has higher latency than DRAM
- we don’t want to make intrusive changes to existing code, and ideally would be able to continue using JPA (but why go through an expensive ORM mapping if we’re not targeting a relational store?)
- we need to ensure any persistent data structures remain consistent after a crash
Espresso adds a new type of heap, a persistent Java heap (PJH) backed by NVM, and a persistent Java object (PJO) programming abstraction which is backwards compatible with JPA. PJO gives a 3.24x speedup even over JPA backed by H2.
JPA, PCJ, and NVM
JPA is the standard Java Persistence API. Java classes are decorated with persistence annotations describing their mapping to an underlying relational database. It’s an Continue reading
HPE Denies It’s Partnering with Huawei, Taps Crisis Public Relations
HPE says that Huawei's claim that is is partnering with HPE is not true. This is just the latest public relations problem for Huawei in the U.S.
Comment la commutation « White Box » canalise Trader Joe’s
L’année 2018 est une année phénoménale pour être dans le secteur de la mise en réseau désagrégé. Il n’y a jamais eu un meilleur moment d’y être – non seulement pour les vendeurs, mais aussi pour les chefs d’entreprise eux-mêmes. Le marché pour l’innovation du réseau s’est enfin precisé après une longue balade à travers le désert qui compose la piété du SDN académique, et le hardware sur lequel fonctionne l ‘infrastructure réseau désagrégé basé sur le Linux est maintenant de calibre mondiale – les mêmes ASICs et le même hardware qu’utilisent les vendeurs actuels, et probablement les mêmes câbles électriques, si l’on digne regarder d’assez près.
Alors où entre Trader Joe’s – un supermarché américain très performant – dans cette équation ? En quatre mots: la proposition de valeur. Alors que les vendeurs de l’OS réseau « white box » comme Pica8 n’ont pas délibérément cherché à émuler les valeurs de l’entreprise Trader Joe’s, il s’avère que c’est plus ou moins ce que nous avons fait. La configuration de nos valeurs est curieusement similaire.
Meilleure qualité au moindre coût? Oui.
Service et réactivité comme buts principaux? Encore oui.
Utiliser les mêmes produits que nos plus grands compétiteurs, mais sans noms de marque? Continue reading
Comment la commutation « White Box » canalise Trader Joe’s
L’année 2018 est une année phénoménale pour être dans le secteur de la mise en réseau désagrégé. Il n’y a jamais eu un meilleur moment d’y être – non seulement pour les vendeurs, mais aussi pour les chefs d’entreprise eux-mêmes. Le marché pour l’innovation du réseau s’est enfin precisé après une longue balade à travers le désert qui compose la piété du SDN académique, et le hardware sur lequel fonctionne l ‘infrastructure réseau désagrégé basé sur le Linux est maintenant de calibre mondiale – les mêmes ASICs et le même hardware qu’utilisent les vendeurs actuels, et probablement les mêmes câbles électriques, si l’on digne regarder d’assez près.
Alors où entre Trader Joe’s – un supermarché américain très performant – dans cette équation ? En quatre mots: la proposition de valeur. Alors que les vendeurs de l’OS réseau « white box » comme Pica8 n’ont pas délibérément cherché à émuler les valeurs de l’entreprise Trader Joe’s, il s’avère que c’est plus ou moins ce que nous avons fait. La configuration de nos valeurs est curieusement similaire.
Meilleure qualité au moindre coût? Oui.
Service et réactivité comme buts principaux? Encore oui.
Utiliser les mêmes produits que nos plus grands compétiteurs, mais sans noms de marque? Continue reading
BGP leaks and cryptocurrencies
Over the few last hours, a dozen news stories have broken about how an attacker attempted (and perhaps managed) to steal cryptocurrencies using a BGP leak.
CC BY 2.0 image by elhombredenegro
What is BGP?
The Internet is composed of routes. For our DNS resolver 1.1.1.1 , we tell the world that all the IPs in the range 1.1.1.0 to 1.1.1.255 can be accessed at any Cloudflare PoP.
For the people who do not have a direct link to our routers, they receive the route via transit providers, who will deliver packets to those addresses as they are connected to Cloudflare and the rest of the Internet.
This is the normal way the Internet operates.
There are authorities (Regional Internet Registries, or RIRs) in charge of distributing IP addresses in order to avoid people using the same address space. Those are IANA, RIPE, ARIN, LACNIC, APNIC and AFRINIC.
What is a BGP leak?
The broad definition of a BGP leak would be IP space that is announced by somebody not allowed by the owner of the Continue reading
Lagging In AI? Don’t Worry, It’s Still Early
Without splitting a lot of hairs on definitions, it is safe to say that machine learning in its myriad forms is absolutely shaking up data processing. The techniques for training neural networks to chew through mountains of labeled data and make inferences against new data are set to transform every aspect of computation and automation. There is a mad dash to do something, as there always is at the beginning of every technology hype cycle.
Enterprises need to breathe. The hyperscalers are perfecting these technologies, which are changing fast, and by the time things settle out and the software …
Lagging In AI? Don’t Worry, It’s Still Early was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
Celebrating ECMP in Linux — part one
ECMP in Linux: A brief history
Equal Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routes are a big component of all the super-trendy data center network designs that are en vogue right now. Clos networks and the ECMP that underpins those designs are the best tools we have today to deliver high bandwidth, highly fault-tolerant networks. Clos networks are rich with multiple equal cost paths to get from Server A to Server B.
2 Paths from Host to ToR * 8 Paths from ToR to Leaf * 16 Paths from Leaf to Spine * 8 Paths from Spine to Leaf * 2 Paths from Leaf to ToR
= 4096 Possible Unique Paths between Server A and Server B
FYI: The above is an actual customer network. Names have been changed to protect the innocent and colors have been added because a rainbow of links is more fun!
Cumulus has been working to improve the behavior of ECMP routes in the Linux kernel over the last several kernel releases. Now, with kernel v4.17, we have achieved the milestone we set out to attain. As of Linux kernel v4.17, Linux hosts can now leverage the “5-Tuple” style hashing used inside traditional network devices for Continue reading
Virtual Instruments Integrates With Cisco SAN Telemetry, AppDynamics
The performance management company released a new version of its platform that integrates with Cisco’s new SAN telemetry streaming and AppDynamics.
Connecting to a Windows Host
Welcome to the first installment of our Windows-specific Getting Started series!
Would you like to automate some of your Windows hosts with Red Hat Ansible Tower, but don’t know how to set everything up? Are you worried that Red Hat Ansible Engine won’t be able to communicate with your Windows servers without installing a bunch of extra software? Do you want to easily automate everyone’s best friend, Clippy? 
Image source: aguyiknow.com.au
We can’t help with the last thing, but if you said yes to the other two questions, you've come to the right place. In this post, we’ll walk you through all the steps you need to take in order to set up and connect to your Windows hosts with Ansible Engine.
Why Automate Windows Hosts?
A few of the many things you can do for your Windows hosts with Ansible Engine include:
- Starting, stopping and managing services
- Pushing and executing custom PowerShell scripts
- Managing packages with the Chocolatey package manager
In addition to connecting to and automating Windows hosts using local or domain users, you’ll also be able to use runas to execute actions as the Administrator (the Windows alternative to Linux’s sudo or su), so Continue reading