Networking Field Day 17 (NFD17) Redux

As I write this it’s Friday afternoon in Silicon Valley, Networking Field Day 17 (NFD17) is over, and I am truly exhausted after a week of presentations covering topics like Ethernet switch hardware, testing/simulation and network operating system (Mellanox, Ixia, Cumulus), Field Area Networks (Cisco), visibility and automation (Juniper AppFormix), distributed network monitoring (Thousand Eyes) and much more.

I will be posting in the coming weeks about some of the individual presentations, but while I dry off from the information firehose I thought I’d briefly summarize some of my personal highlights from the week.

Networking Field Day Logo

Themes

One recurring theme throughout the week was automation. Cisco for example, spoke about the capabilities for Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) in IOS XR. Juniper presented the OpenContrail platform which, impressively, appears to have a new and very positive sense of direction after (in my opinion) floating around somewhat aimlessly for a while. Extreme Networks spoke about Workflow Composer, and its ability to integrate with tools like Splunk to auto-remediate detected issues. VMware demonstrated the impressive capabilities of NSX to configure distributed firewalling and microsegmentation down to the container level, while VeloCloud from VMware demonstrated another facet of automation, that of the software defined WAN.

Another Continue reading

Weekend Reads 012618: Mostly Security and Legal Stuff

Before we begin, its worth mentioning that yes, yesssssssssssssssssssss, I did not have enough protection around my Gmail account. I’ve used Google Authenticator before, for my personal account and for various work emails, but I stopped using it at a certain point out of convenience. —Cody Brow @Medium

This report assesses the impact disclosure of data breaches has on the total returns and volatility of the affected companies’ stock, with a focus on the results relative to the performance of the firms’ peer industries, as represented through selected indices rather than the market as a whole. financial performance is considered over a range of dates from 3 days post-breach through 6 months post-breach, in order to provide a longer-term perspective on the impact of the breach announcement. —Russell Lange & Eric W. Burger @Journal of Information Privacy and Security

If it were not for the insatiable bandwidth needs of the twenty major hyperscalers and cloud builders, it is safe to say that the innovation necessary to get Ethernet switching and routing up to 200 Gb/sec or 400 Gb/sec might not have been done at the fast pace that the industry as been able to pull off. —Timothy Prickett Morgan @The Continue reading

Watch the “State of the Net 2018” Live on Monday, January 29

Internet governance, blockchain, algorithms, free speech, net neutrality, IoT, cybersecurity, fragmentation … and so much more!  On Monday, January 29, 2018, the State of the Net 2018 conference will be streaming live out of the Newseum in Washington DC. You can watch starting at 9:00am US EST (UTC-5) Monday morning at:

http://www.stateofthenet.org/live/

The SOTN 2018 agenda is packed with many of the leading voices in US Internet policy, including Senators, Representatives, and even an FCC Commissioner. Global organizations and corporations will be represented, too, among the many speakers.

At 11:00am EST, our own Sally Shipman Wentworth, VP of Global Policy Development, will participate in a panel, Internet Governance: Are We In A Post Multi-Stakeholder World?, along with Larry Strickling. Larry is perhaps best known recently for the IANA transition work but has been working with us on efforts to expand the use of the multistakeholder model for Internet governance. Others panelists will be Dr. Jovan Kurbalija from our partner the DiploFoundation; Steve DelBianco of NetChoice; and the Hon. Robert Strayer of the US State Department. The session will be moderated by Shane Tews from the Internet Education Foundation. The abstract is:

It will have been Continue reading

Intel promises silicon-based fixes for Meltdown and Spectre this year

With the software fixes for the Spectre and Meltdown chip vulnerabilities slowing servers down by unacceptable amounts, a hardware fix is clearly what is needed, and Intel’s boss says one is coming this year.Intel CEO Brian Krzanich told analysts during the company's Q4 2017 earnings call earlier this week that "silicon-based" fixes for Spectre and Meltdown would arrive by the end of 2018. Intel has several launches set for this year and he did not specify which."We're working to incorporate silicon-based changed to future products that will directly address the Spectre and Meltdown threats in hardware. And those products will begin appearing later this year," were his exact words.To read this article in full, please click here

Intel promises silicon-based fixes for Meltdown and Spectre this year

With the software fixes for the Spectre and Meltdown chip vulnerabilities slowing servers down by unacceptable amounts, a hardware fix is clearly what is needed, and Intel’s boss says one is coming this year.Intel CEO Brian Krzanich told analysts during the company's Q4 2017 earnings call earlier this week that "silicon-based" fixes for Spectre and Meltdown would arrive by the end of 2018. Intel has several launches set for this year and he did not specify which."We're working to incorporate silicon-based changed to future products that will directly address the Spectre and Meltdown threats in hardware. And those products will begin appearing later this year," were his exact words.To read this article in full, please click here

Intranet DDoS attacks

As on a Darkling Plain: Network Survival in an Age of Pervasive DDoS talk by Steinthor Bjarnason at the recent NANOG 71 conference. The talk discusses the threat that the proliferation of network connected devices in enterprises create when they are used to launch denial of service attacks. Last year's Mirai attacks are described, demonstrating the threat posed by mixed mode attacks where a compromised host is used to infect large numbers devices on the corporate network.
The first slide from the talk shows a denial attack launched against an external target, launched from infected video surveillance cameras scattered throughout the the enterprise network. The large volume of traffic fills up external WAN link and overwhelms stateful firewalls.
The second slide shows an attack targeting critical internal services that can have been identified by reconnaissance from the compromised devices. In addition, scanning activity associated with reconnaissance for additional devices can itself overload internal resources and cause outages.

In both cases, most of the critical activity occurs behind the corporate firewall, making it extremely challenging to detect and mitigate these threats.

The talk discusses a number of techniques that service providers use to secure their networks that enterprises will need to adopt Continue reading

Free 5-Part Webcast Series on NSX

 

Mark your calendars now for this free VMware NSX: Things You Need to Know webcast series presented by VMware Education Services. Each 60-minute session is delivered by VMware Certified Instructors and offered at 3 different times so you can choose what works for your schedule.

  • Feb 1: Simplify Network Provisioning with Logical Routing and Switching using VMware NSX
  • Feb 22: Automate Your Network Services Deployments with VMware NSX and vRealize Automation
  • Mar 8: Design Multi-Layered Security in the Software-Defined Datacenter using VMware vSphere 6.5 and VMware NSX 6.4
  • Mar 29: Advanced VMware NSX: Demystifying the VTEP, MAC, and ARP Tables
  • Apr 19: That Firewall Did What? Advanced Troubleshooting for the VMware NSX Distributed Firewall

RSVP for one or all five here. (See below for more info.)

Feb 1:
Simplify Network Provisioning with Logical Routing and Switching using VMware NSX
Did you know it’s possible to extend LANs beyond their previous boundaries and optimize routing in the data center? Or decouple virtual networkoperations from your physical environment to literally eliminate potential network disruptions for future deployments? Join us to learn how VMware NSX can make these a reality. We’ll also cover the networking components of NSX to Continue reading

Intel’s Glass House Is Definitely More Than Half Full

An unexpected jump in enterprise spending coupled with the ongoing heavy spending by hyperscalers, cloud builders, and communications companies revamping their networks of gear coupled with the ramp of the “Skylake” Xeon SP processors launched last July gave Intel the best overall quarter in its history, gauged by revenues and profits, and the best one also that its Data Center Group has ever posted.

Many are wondering if this boom can last. Intel’s top brass are not among them, but they do concede that the fourth quarter of 2017 was an unusually good one. It is hard to see if …

Intel’s Glass House Is Definitely More Than Half Full was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

What is MU-MIMO and why you need it in your wireless routers

The only thing techies love more than creating acronyms is the chance to create even longer ones. Such is the case with wireless acronym MIMO (multiple input, multiple output), which got some additional letters with the release of MU-MIMO a few years ago and is on the verge of becoming more popular with the release of the forthcoming 802.11ax wireless standard.MU-MIMO stands for multi-user, multiple input, multiple output, and is wireless technology supported by routers and endpoint devices. MU-MIMO is the next evolution from single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO), which is generally referred to as MIMO. MIMO technology was created to help increase the number of antennas on a wireless router that are used for both receiving and transmitting, improving capacity for wireless connections.To read this article in full, please click here

Startup Builds GPU Native Custom Neural Network Framework

It is estimated that each day over a million malicious files are created and kicked to every corner of the web.

While there are plenty of options for security against these potential attacks, the methods for doing so at the pace, scope, and complexity of modern nasty files has left traditional detection in the dust—even those that are based on heuristics or machine learning versus signature-based.

With those traditional methods falling short of what large enterprises need for multi-device and system security the answer (to everything in IT in 2018 it seems) is to look to deep learning. But this …

Startup Builds GPU Native Custom Neural Network Framework was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

Stuff The Internet Says On Scalability For January 26th, 2018

Hey, it's HighScalability time: 

 

10,000 marvelous classic movie posters documenting a period in US history even Black Mirror could not imagine. 

 

If you like this sort of Stuff then please support me on Patreon. And I'd appreciate your recommending my new book—Explain the Cloud Like I'm 10—to anyone who needs to understand the cloud (who doesn't?). I think they'll like it. Now with twice the brightness and new chapters on Netflix and Cloud Computing.

 

  • $172 billion: amount Hackers stole in 2017; $100B: Netflix's value; 400G: ethernet; 2005: resurrection of a NASA satellite; 800: kilograms of oil equivalent needed per capita per year;

  • Quotable Quotes:
    • Edgar D. Mitchell: You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
    • Laura Gilmore: It wasn’t by accident that I ended up Continue reading

When IoT met blockchain

At first glance, they may not seem like they have anything to do with each other. But when technology trends as hot as the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain are involved, you can bet that lots of smart, ambitious people are working overtime to find ways to leverage both at the same time.Read also: AI and IoT: Like peanut butter and chocolate? The biggest connection, naturally, revolves around security issues. Many companies and pundits see blockchain as a powerful way to bring scalable, decentralized security and trust to IoT devices, applications and platforms, which are similarly distributed and decentralized.To read this article in full, please click here

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