Cisco Stretches ACI Network Fabrics, Eases Management

For disaster recovery, political, and organizational reasons, enterprises like to have multiple datacenters, and now they are going hybrid with public cloud capacity adding in the mix. Having networks scattered across the globe brings operational challenges, from being able to easily migrate and manage workloads across the multiple sites and increased complexity around networks, security to adopting emerging datacenter technologies like containers.

As the world becomes more cloud-centric, organizations are looking for ways to gain greater visibility and scalability across their environments, automate as many processes as possible and manage all these sites as a single entity.

Cisco Systems

Cisco Stretches ACI Network Fabrics, Eases Management was written by Jeffrey Burt at The Next Platform.

Videos series: Modernizing Java Apps for IT Pros

Today we start releasing a new video series in Docker’s Modernize Traditional Apps (MTA) program, aimed at IT Pros who manage, maintain and deploy Java apps. The video series shows you how to move a Java EE 7 application written to run on Wildfly 3, move it to a Windows Docker container and deploy it to a scalable, highly-available environment in the cloud – without any changes to the app.

These are the first 4 of a 5 part video series in Docker’s Modernize Traditional Apps (MTA) program, aimed at Java IT Pros. The video series shows you how to move a Java EE app on JBoss Wildfly to a Docker container and deploy it to a scalable, highly-available environment in the cloud – without any changes to the app.

Modernizing Java Apps

Part 1 introduces the series, explaining what is meant by “traditional” apps and the problems they present. Traditional apps are built to run on a server, rather than on a modern application platform. They have common traits, like being complex to manage and difficult to deploy. A portfolio of traditional applications tends to under-utilize its infrastructure, and over-utilize the humans who manage it. Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) fixes that, giving Continue reading

[Video] Building a Pure Layer-3 Data Center with Cumulus Linux

One of the design scenarios we covered in Leaf-and-Spine Fabric Architectures webinar is a pure layer-3 data center, and in the “how do I do this” part of that section Dinesh Dutt talked about the details you need to know to get this idea implemented on Cumulus Linux.

We covered a half-dozen design scenarios in that webinar; for an even wider picture check out the new Designing and Building Data Center Fabrics online course.

Cisco Catalysts Supervisor Engines,Interfaces and Modules- Cisco 6500 and Cisco 6800

Today I will talk about the Line cards in the Chassis and explain you where to use which line card and how we design the network with the user count. People asked me so many questions on the line card part and they are always confuse about the use of the line cards in the chassis. The article is based on the Cisco devices where we are using the line cards to accommodate the users in the network at the access layer and to have the smooth traffic flow.

Below image shows the two different Chassis in VSS format where we connect the chassis back to back with the SUP engines. The SUP can be 2T or 6T depends upon the requirement and the design of the campus or enterprise network.

Fig 1.1- VSS using SUP Engines


Let's talk about one by one in details, First I will talk about the Supervisor Engines 6T and 2T. I will not talk about the previous SUP engines as they are going or they are already at the verge of end of sale/support.

SUPERVISOR ENGINES

C6800-SUP6T : This is a Supervisor Engine SUP6T with with 8 ports 10GbE, 2 ports 40GbE and Continue reading

New Policy Brief published on Community Networks and Access to Spectrum

Yesterday we published a new policy brief: Spectrum Approaches for Community Networks

Access to affordable and available spectrum is critical for Community Networks. Policy makers can play a key role in ensuring adequate access to spectrum. The policy brief examines the various ways that Community Networks can gain access to spectrum, including:

  • the use of unlicensed spectrum,
  • sharing licensed spectrum, and
  • innovative licensing.

Network operators also play a key role in helping Community Networks. The policy brief outlines recommendations for operators which include:

  • access to backhaul infrastructure at fair rates,
  • equipment and training partnerships, and
  • the sharing of infrastructure as well as spectrum.

Please read our press release for more information about this new paper.  Also visit our World Telecommunications Development Conference (WTDC) 2017 page for more about what our team is doing there in Buenos Aires this week.

The post New Policy Brief published on Community Networks and Access to Spectrum appeared first on Internet Society.

Network Engineer Persona: Part Three

Part three! Let’s get straight to business and carry on where we left off from part two.

Key Skill One

Thinking about automation in an agnostic way is your first footstep. Automation is about data flowing through building blocks that do things and decision points, allow you when to do things.

Removing CLI and replacing it with an abstraction layer isn’t much of a win. For instance, I regularly talk about the process of creating a VLAN and applying it to an Ethernet switch-port on a tagged interface. This somewhat simple ‘workflow’ creates more conversational friction than imagine-able. Let’s work through it.

Task: Create a VLAN
This task requires domain-specific parameters to a VLAN. These are: ‘VLAN_Number’ and ‘VLAN_Description’.

Task: Apply VLAN to Switchport
This task requires domain-specific parameters to a switchport. These are: ‘Port_Name’ and ‘VLAN_Number’.

Note how the inputs flow through the actions within the workflow?

The green arrows descending illustrate the ‘success transition path’ for each action component.

So, what about these questions?
1. Is the VLAN in use?

We can be more specific here, but it adds complications to the answer. Version two is: “Is the VLAN in use in the network zone that the device Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Designing a content delivery strategy

Technologies like content delivery networks, cloud compute and storage, container schedulers, load balancers, web application firewalls, DDoS mitigation services and many more make up the building blocks that serve the online applications of organizations today. But the entry point to every one of those applications is an often-ignored bit of infrastructure: DNS. As the internet has mushroomed in size and traffic, DNS has adapted to become a critical factor in application delivery. Organizations that rely on content delivery networks (CDNs) can work with their DNS provider(s) to create a CDN strategy that best serves them and their customers.CDN: the what and the why A CDN’s job is what it sounds like: deliver content such as images, video, html files and javascript from a network of distributed systems to end-users. CDNs have been around for about as long as Managed DNS companies. Akamai is usually considered the first serious CDN player, and the company rose to prominence during the first dot-com boom. Generally, CDNs deliver content over HTTP or HTTPS, the web protocols, although there are occasionally use cases like video delivery where other protocols come into play.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Designing a content delivery strategy

Technologies like content delivery networks, cloud compute and storage, container schedulers, load balancers, web application firewalls, DDoS mitigation services and many more make up the building blocks that serve the online applications of organizations today. But the entry point to every one of those applications is an often-ignored bit of infrastructure: DNS. As the internet has mushroomed in size and traffic, DNS has adapted to become a critical factor in application delivery. Organizations that rely on content delivery networks (CDNs) can work with their DNS provider(s) to create a CDN strategy that best serves them and their customers.CDN: the what and the why A CDN’s job is what it sounds like: deliver content such as images, video, html files and javascript from a network of distributed systems to end-users. CDNs have been around for about as long as Managed DNS companies. Akamai is usually considered the first serious CDN player, and the company rose to prominence during the first dot-com boom. Generally, CDNs deliver content over HTTP or HTTPS, the web protocols, although there are occasionally use cases like video delivery where other protocols come into play.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please Continue reading

More Accurate IT Acronyms

IT is flooded with acronyms. It takes a third of our working life to figure out what they all mean. Protocols aren’t any easier to figure out if it’s just a string of three or four letters that look vaguely like a word. Which, by the way, you should never pronounce.

But what if the acronyms of our favorite protocols didn’t describe what the designers wanted but instead described what they actually do?

  • Sporadic Network Mangling Protocol

  • Obscurity Sends Packets Flying

  • Expensive Invention Gets Routers Puzzled

  • Vexing Router Firmware

  • Really Intensive Protocol

  • Someone Doesn’t Worry About Networking

  • Somewhat Quixotic Language

  • Blame It oN DNS

  • Cisco’s Universal Call Misdirector

  • Some Mail’s Thrown Places

  • Mangles Packets, Looks Silly

  • Amazingly Convoluted Lists

  • ImProperly SECured

  • May Push Lingering Sanity To Expire

Are there any other ones you can think of? Leave it in the comments.