IDG Contributor Network: Multicloud mania: what to know

When enterprises started moving workloads and applications to the public cloud, it made sense to adapt existing networking technologies to the new domain. But while compute and storage have successfully become ‘cloud-like,’ networking hasn't.Cloud networking solutions being offered by companies including Aviatrix, Cisco, and Juniper Network are all vying to help organizations solve networking challenges when transforming their infrastructure to public cloud. But as cloud implementations become more complex, it’s becoming clear that cloud connectivity solutions based on virtualized datacenter networking technologies lack the agility and elasticity required to   build and scale in the public cloud.To read this article in full, please click here

OpenSwitch

OpenSwitch is a Linux Foundation project providing an open source white box control plane running on a standard Linux distribution. The diagram above shows the OpenSwitch architecture.

This article describes how to enable industry standard sFlow telemetry using the open source Host sFlow agent. The Host sFlow agent uses Control Plane Services (CPS) to configure sFlow instrumentation in the hardware and gather metrics. CPS in turn uses the Open Compute Project (OCP) Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) as a vendor independent method of configuring the hardware. Hardware support for sFlow is a standard feature supported by Network Processing Unit (NPU) vendors (Barefoot, Broadcom, Cavium, Innovium, Intel, Marvell, Mellanox, etc.) and vendor neutral sFlow configuration is part of the SAI.

Installing and configuring Host sFlow agent

Installing the software is simple. Log into the switch and type the following commands:
wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/sflow/host-sflow/releases/download/v2.0.17-1/hsflowd-opx_2.0.17-1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i hsflowd-opx_2.0.17-1_amd64.deb
The sFlow agent requires very little configuration, automatically monitoring all switch ports using the following default settings:

Link SpeedSampling RatePolling Continue reading

What is the Industrial IoT? And why the stakes are so high

Everyone’s heard of the IoT – smart thermostats, Internet-connected refrigerators, connected lightbulbs – but there’s a subset called industrial IoT that has a much more significant day-to-day impact on businesses, safety and even lives.The term IIoT refers to the Industrial Internet of Things. In broad strokes, it’s the application of instrumentation and connected sensors and other devices to machinery and vehicles in the transport, energy and industrial sectors.What that means in practice varies widely. One IIoT system could be as simple as a connected rat trap that texts home to say that it’s been activated, while another might be as complicated as a fully automated mass production line that tracks maintenance, productivity and even ordering and shipping information across a huge, multi-layered network.To read this article in full, please click here

Live Training at Safari Books: How the Internet Really Works

I will be teaching my first live training course at Safari Books Online on the 9th of March, starting at noon ET: How the Internet Really Works. It’s hard to describe the level and background for this training, as it will be all over the place; this is a bit of an experiment in this realm. The course description is—

This live training will provide an overview of the systems, providers, and standards bodies important to the operation of the global Internet, including the Domain Name System (DNS), the routing and transport systems, standards bodies, and registrars. For DNS, the process of a query will be considered in some detail, who pays for each server used in the resolution process, and tools engineers can use to interact DNS. For routing and transport, the role of each kind of provider will be considered, along with how they make money to cover their costs, and how engineers can interact with the global routing table (the Default Free Zone, of DFZ). Finally, registrars and standards bodies will be considered, including their organizational structure, how they generate revenue, and how to find their standards.

You can find more information here.

Is ACI Coming For The CLI?

I’m soon to depart from Cisco Live Barcelona. It’s been a long week of fun presentations. While I’m going to avoid using the words intent and context in this post, there is one thing I saw repeatedly that grabbed my attention. ACI is eating Cisco’s world. And it’s coming for something else very soon.

Devourer Of Interfaces

Application-Centric Infrastructure has been out for a while and it’s meeting with relative success in the data center. It’s going up against VMware NSX and winning in a fair number of deals. For every person that I talk to that can’t stand it I hear from someone gushing about it. ACI is making headway as the tip of the spear when it comes to Cisco’s software-based networking architecture.

Don’t believe me? Check out some of the sessions from Cisco Live this year. Especially the Software-Defined Access and DNA Assurance ones. You’re going to hear context and intent a lot, as those are the key words for this new strategy. You know what else you’re going to hear a lot?

Contract. Endpoint Group (EPG). Policy.

If you’re familiar with ACI, you know what those words mean. You see the parallels between the data center Continue reading

Stuff The Internet Says On Scalability For February 2nd, 2018

Hey, it's HighScalability time: 

 

Are silcon device designers also artists? Of course. (DAC Silicon/Technology Art Show)

 

If you like this sort of Stuff then please support me on Patreon. And I'd appreciate if you would recommend 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 learn a lot, even if they're already familiar with the basics.

OpenMP Has More in Store for GPU Supercomputing

Just before the large-scale GPU accelerated Titan supercomputer came online in 2012, the first use cases of the OpenACC parallel programming model showed efficient, high performance interfacing with GPUs on big HPC systems.

At the time, OpenACC and CUDA were the only higher-level tools for the job. However, OpenMP, which has had twenty-plus years to develop roots in HPC, was starting to see the opportunities for GPUs in HPC at about the same time of OpenACC was forming. As legend has it, OpenACC itself was developed based on early GPU work done in an OpenMP accelerator subcommittee, generating some bad …

OpenMP Has More in Store for GPU Supercomputing was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

This History Of Networking, from The Network Collective

I mentioned The Network Collective previously when I responded to the very first episode of the videocast/podcast (what TWiT would call a netcast). Since then the three founders and co-hosts (Jordan, Eyvonne and Phil) have published an impressive 20 community roundtable episodes and have somehow also found time to launch a History of Networking series co-hosted by Russ White (yes, that Russ White).

The Network Collective

History Of Networking

I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to computer history, and I love reading books that give the inside story about the birth of the personal computer, the story of Silicon Valley, the rise and fall of technology companies and so on. However, the history of networking is nowhere near as well covered, which is a real shame. Thankfully, The Network Collective are filling that gap handsomely with a list of guests so far that blows my mind. For example:

Paul Vixie

Paul Vixie on the History of Networking

If you’ve ever heard of Vixie cron, BIND DNS, DNSSEC, the Internet Software Consortium (ISC), you’ve found things Mr Vixie has had his hands all over. It’s fascinating to hear him talking about the history of DNS adoption, and his role in maintaining BIND in a nascent Continue reading

How we made our page-load optimisations even faster

In 2017 we made two of our web optimisation products - Mirage and Rocket Loader - even faster! Combined, these products speed up around 1.2 billion web-pages a week. The products are both around 5 years old, so there was a big opportunity to update them for the brave new world of highly-tuned browsers, HTTP2 and modern Javascript tooling. We measured a performance boost that, very roughly, will save visitors to sites on our network between 50-700ms. Visitors that see content faster have much higher engagement and lower bounce rates, as shown by studies like Google’s. This really adds up, representing a further saving of 380 years of loading time each year and a staggering 1.03 petabytes of data transfer!

dimon-blr-309444

Cycling image Photo by Dimon Blr on Unsplash.

What Mirage and Rocket Loader do

Mirage and Rocket Loader both optimise the loading of a web page by reducing and deferring the number of assets the browser needs to request for it to complete HTML parsing and rendering on screen.

Mirage

OVN and Red Hat Virtualization: Provisioning OVN

Hi folks, in this final post on RHV and OVN I’m going to show you how to utilize everything we’ve learned and installed up to this point. We’ve installed the packages, now it’s just a matter of deploying some virtual machines and attaching them to the new OVN provided SDN. As before my colleague, Tony James walks us through the process. Let’s get started.

Like any other integration in Red Hat Virtualization, we access OVN by way of the External Provider feature. In short, the External Provider allows RHV to take advantage of resources managed by external sources, in this case SDN.

Let’s post the video first, the walk through follows:

Add an External Network Provider

The External Provider dialog is launched from the “tree” menu on the far left of the dashboard. We give the network a name and because the OVN controller was deployed on the RHV-M host, the external provider simply points at the local host and port 9696. The external provider type is “External Network Provider”, and the “Read Only” box is unchecked.

Add a Network

Under the “Network” tab, click “New” and enter a name for the new SDN. Check the “Create on external provider” Continue reading

Get 3 Years of NordVPN Service for Just $2.75 Per Month

NordVPN promises a private and fast path through the public internet, with no logs and unmetered access for 6 simultaneous devices. They are currently running a promotion, but you'll have to use this link to find it. Its typical price has been discounted to $99 for 3 years of service. That's a good deal at just $2.75 per month.  See the $2.75/month NordVPN holiday deal here. To read this article in full, please click here

Get 3 Years of NordVPN Service for Just $2.75 Per Month

NordVPN promises a private and fast path through the public internet, with no logs and unmetered access for 6 simultaneous devices. They are currently running a promotion, but you'll have to use this link to find it. Its typical price has been discounted to $99 for 3 years of service. That's a good deal at just $2.75 per month.  See the $2.75/month NordVPN holiday deal here. To read this article in full, please click here

1 … 1,773 1,774 1,775 1,776 1,777 … 3,877