The Super Secret Cloudflare Master Plan, or why we acquired Neumob

We announced today that Cloudflare has acquired Neumob. Neumob’s team built exceptional technology to speed up mobile apps, reduce errors on challenging mobile networks, and increase conversions. Cloudflare will integrate the Neumob technology with our global network to give Neumob truly global reach.

It’s tempting to think of the Neumob acquisition as a point product added to the Cloudflare portfolio. But it actually represents a key part of a long term “Super Secret Cloudflare Master Plan”.

CC BY 2.0 image by Neil Rickards

Over the last few years Cloudflare has been building a large network of data centers across the world to help fulfill our mission of helping to build a better Internet. These data centers all run an identical software stack that implements Cloudflare’s cache, DNS, DDoS, WAF, load balancing, rate limiting, etc.

We’re now at 118 data centers in 58 countries and are continuing to expand with a goal of being as close to end users as possible worldwide.

The data centers are tied together by secure connections which are optimized using our Argo smart routing capability. Our Quicksilver technology enables us to update and modify the settings and software running across this vast network in seconds.

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IDG Contributor Network: How patchable software can secure the IoT

As the Internet of Things continues to grow, delving further into every corner of our markets and societies, the ability to secure it from malevolent attackers and massive data-breaches will become more vital towards its survival. Today’s IoT security landscape is a confused mess, with vulnerabilities running rampant and paltry little being done to make it more secure. So how can IoT experts and tech enthusiast alike contribute to a safer IoT?The answer lies in patchable software. By embracing more industry standards and fostering the greater implementation of patchable software, IoT enthusiast can ensure that this much-beloved connectivity phenomenon lives on to serve us for years to come.To read this article in full, please click here

Integrating Docker EE Into Société Générale’s Existing Enterprise IT Systems

Société Générale is a 153-year old French multinational bank that believes technology and innovation are key to enriching the customer experience and advancing economic development. A few years ago, the bank started a project to define their next generation application platform that would help them get 80% of their applications running in the cloud by 2020. Société Générale chose Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker EE) to be the foundation of their application platform and began working with it 15 months ago. This year at DockerCon Europe, Stephan Dechoux, DevOps architect, and Thomas Boussardon, Middleware Specialist, shared their journey over this time integrating Docker Enterprise Edition [Docker EE] into Société Générale IT systems.

You can watch their breakout session here:

A New Platform For Today and Tomorrow

Société Générale has a diverse application portfolio that includes many different types of applications, including legacy monolithic apps, SOA, distributed apps and REST APIs. The bank is also a global organization with teams and data centers around the world. A primary goal  was to deliver a new application platform to improve time-to-market and lower costs, while accelerating innovation. Initially Société Générale considered off-the-shelf PaaS solutions, but realized that these were better suited for greenfield applications Continue reading

Deploy360 at IETF 100, Day 3: SIDR, TLS & Crypto

This week is IETF 100 in Singapore, and we’re bringing you daily blog posts highlighting some of the topics that Deploy360 is interested in. After the focus on IPv6 & IoT during the first couple of days, we’re switching tack today with a focus on routing and crypto matters.

We’re having to wait until after lunch, but then there’s a choice of UTA, SIDROPS or ROLL at 13.30 SGT/UTC+8.

UTA will be focusing on resolving the final IESG comments on the use of TLS for email submission and access which outlines current recommendations for using TLS to provide confidentiality of email traffic between a mail user agent and a mail access server. Next up for discussion are the open issues on a draft related to Strict Transport Security (STS) for mail (SMTP) transfer agents and mail user agents, before consideration of  a draft on an option to require TLS for SMTP.

NOTE: If you are unable to attend IETF 100 in person, there are multiple ways to participate remotely.

Over in SIDROPS, there will be a review of the status of BGP Origin Validation deployment in RENATA: the Columbia National Research and Education Network. This represents the first wide-scale deployment Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: The benefits of multi-cloud computing

Its application might be a tough concept to grasp, but the idea of multi-cloud computing is a simple one. It’s the choice of a business to distribute its assets, redundancies, software, applications and anything it deems worthy not on one cloud-hosting environment, but rather across several. At its surface, this concept might seem to be rubbing against the grain a bit. For security purposes alone, having all your company’s proverbial eggs in one basket appears the best way to keep your information from suffering leakage. Plus, many cloud-hosting companies will offer perks and discounts when your company use their services in totality.   However, the model of using multiple cloud services to house your business’s functions and features has an impressive list of advantages that can provide security, flexibility, cost-effectiveness and more to increase your business’s efficiency and ensure it stays up and running 24 hours a day. To read this article in full, please click here

Nifty and Nerdy: 10 Holiday Gifts for IT Pros

Your online freedoms are under threat – 2017 Freedom on the Net Report

As more people get online everyday, Internet Freedom is facing a global decline for the 7th year in a row.

Today, Freedom House released their 2017 Freedom on the Net report, one of the most comprehensive assessments of countries’ performance regarding online freedoms. The Internet Society is one of the supporters of this report. We think it brings solid and needed evidence-based data in an area that fundamentally impacts user trust.

Looking across 65 countries, the report highlights several worrying trends, including:

• manipulation of social media in democratic processes
• restrictions of virtual private networks (VPNs)
• censoring of mobile connectivity
• attacks against netizens and online journalists

Elections prove to be particular tension points for online freedoms (see also Freedom House’s new Internet Freedom Election Monitor). Beyond the reported trend towards more sophisticated government attempts to control online discussions, the other side of the coin is an increase in restrictions to Internet access, whether through shutting down networks entirely, or blocking specific communication platforms and services.

These Internet shutdowns are at the risk of becoming the new normal. In addition to their impact on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, shutdowns generate severe economic costs, affecting entire economies [1] and Continue reading

Another Reason to Run Linux on Your Data Center Switches

Arista’s OpenFlow implementation doesn’t support TLS encryption. Usually that’s not a big deal, as there aren’t that many customers using OpenFlow anyway, and those that do hopefully do it over a well-protected management network.

However, lack of OpenFlow TLS encryption might become an RFP showstopper… not because the customer would really need it but because the customer is in CYA mode (we don’t know what this feature is or why we’d use it, but it might be handy in a decade, so we must have it now) or because someone wants to eliminate certain vendors based on some obscure missing feature.

Cloud Managed Wireless Solution : Cisco Meraki MR52

Cloud Managed Wireless Systems : Cisco Meraki MR52

Today I am going to talk about the Cisco Meraki solution which is totally a cloud based managed system and the product name is Cisco Meraki MR52. It is based on the next generation wireless systems that can be deployed in various departments like Education systems, Manufacturing units, Offices, Enterprise networks and so on. The way Cisco Meraki works is totally a next generation revolution where all management can be done via cloud and you just need to deploy the hardware in your network to work.

What is the purpose to deploy and how much time it takes to configure Cisco Meraki MR52 ?
Well if you have the requirement to have the wireless network with various SSIDs you should go with the site surveys and on the basis of it you should go with the suitable model of the wireless WLCs. If I talk about the Cisco Meraki cloud managed MR52, It is simple to deploy and self configured via cloud. So you need not to require any resource for the configuration of the Meraki MR52 at the remote sites.

Fig 1.1- Cisco Meraki MR25 Wireless Systems

What is the throughput of the Cisco Meraki MR52 ?
Well Cisco Meraki Continue reading

Ex-Googlers Launch LightStep, Extending APM Beyond Applications

The company's first product monitors whatever matters most to an enterprise.

Juniper Builds Turn-Key Telco Cloud with Contrail, Red Hat OpenStack

It migrated Contrail Cloud from Ubuntu OpenStack.

Nokia Adds Analytics, Automation to Security Management Software

Nokia says smartphone infections accounted for 72 percent of all mobile network infections in the first three months of 2017.

The TOP500 is Dead, Long Live The TOP500

Twice a year, the TOP500 project publishes a list of the 500 most powerful computer systems, aka supercomputers. The TOP500 list is widely considered to be HPC-related, and many analyze the list statistics to understand the HPC market and technology trends. As the rules of the list do not preclude non-HPC systems to be submitted and listed, various OEMs have regularly submitted non-HPC platforms to the list in order to improve their apparent market position in the HPC arena. Thus, the task of analyzing the list for HPC markets and trends has grown more complicated.

In 2007, I published an …

The TOP500 is Dead, Long Live The TOP500 was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Dell EMC Wants to Take AI Mainstream

One of the challenges vendors are trying address when it comes to artificial intelligence is expanding the technology and its elements of machine learning and deep learning beyond the realm of hyoerscalers and some HPC centers and into the enterprise, where businesses can leverage them for such workloads as simulations, modeling, and analytics.

For the past several years, system makers have been trying to crack the code that will make it easier for mainstream enterprises to adopt and deploy traditional HPC technologies, and now they want to dovetail those efforts with the expanding AI opportunity. The difference with enterprises is …

Dell EMC Wants to Take AI Mainstream was written by Jeffrey Burt at The Next Platform.

Manage user performance, not the network, with machine learning-based tools

Over the past decade, network management tools have evolved from being fault based to performance based. This has become a critical element in running infrastructure because faults don’t matter as much.That might seem like a strange thing to say, but consider the fact that critical infrastructure such as switches, routers, Wi-Fi access points and servers are deployed in a way to protect against outages. Infrastructure is built so redundantly today that any hardware device can go down and its likely no one will notice.Also on Network World: 7 must-have network tools A bigger problem is managing user performance. Often users calling about a certain application not working well, but when the engineer looks at the dashboard, everything is green. Performance problems are much harder to diagnose and can kill employee productivity. To read this article in full, please click here

Manage user performance, not the network, with machine learning-based tools

Over the past decade, network management tools have evolved from being fault based to performance based. This has become a critical element in running infrastructure because faults don’t matter as much.That might seem like a strange thing to say, but consider the fact that critical infrastructure such as switches, routers, Wi-Fi access points and servers are deployed in a way to protect against outages. Infrastructure is built so redundantly today that any hardware device can go down and its likely no one will notice.Also on Network World: 7 must-have network tools A bigger problem is managing user performance. Often users calling about a certain application not working well, but when the engineer looks at the dashboard, everything is green. Performance problems are much harder to diagnose and can kill employee productivity. To read this article in full, please click here

Real-time WiFi heat map

Worth Reading: Fog and Open Source

Edge computing, like public cloud at scale, requires a convenient, powerful cloud software stack that can be deployed in a unified, efficient and sustainable way. Open source is leading the way. — Mark Collier @ opensource.com

Next-Generation Assurance in NFV Networks

Download the Huawei White Paper,  In the digital era, communications service providers (CSPs) are undergoing a technological evolution, and network virtualization is playing a key role—in particular, network functions virtualization (NFV).  NFV offers reduced time to market, agility, innovation, an open ecosystem to avoid vendor lock-in, and future CAPEX and OPEX reduction. However, operational transformation... Read more →