Cloudflare Apps Platform Update: November Edition

Hello Everyone!

My name is Teffen and I’m a developer on the Apps platform. This is the November edition of our newsletter showcasing the latest platform improvements in payment tools, DNS powered apps, customer comments, and more!

Since our last newsletter, dozens of developers like you have reached out with ideas for new kinds of apps that weren’t yet possible. These are some of my favorite conversations because they help us find out which features should be prioritized. With your guidance, we’ve spent this month meticulously converting our supply of Halloween candy into those ideas. Let’s dive in and see what’s new!

? Paid App Product Enhancements

We’ve made it easier to upsell premium features with product specific options. Customers can try out exclusive features before making a purchase, on any site, even without Cloudflare account! Here’s an example of Lead Box using product specific radio buttons:

Previewing premium features in Lead Box

In this example, a customer can choose to see the newsletter option after choosing the "Pro" plan. Developers can now update the Live Preview in response to this choice. We’ve added new "_product" keyword for this event. Here’s a snippet on how Lead Box handles a customer Continue reading

AWS re:Invent 2017 Keynote with Andy Jassy

This is a liveblog of the re:Invent 2017 keynote with Andy Jassy, taking place on Wednesday at the Venetian. As fully expected given the long queues and massive crowds, even arriving an hour early to the keynote isn’t soon enough; there’s already a huge crowd gathered to make it into the venue. Fortunately, I did make it in and scored a reasonable seat from which to write this liveblog.

The pre-keynote time is filled with catchy dance music arranged by a live DJ (same live DJ as last year, if I’m not mistaken). There’s already been quite a few announcements made this year even before today’s keynote: Amazon Sumerian (AR/VR service), new regions and availability zones (AZs), and new bare metal instances, just to name a few of the big ones. There’s been a great deal of speculation regarding what will be announced in today’s keynote, but there’s no doubt there will be a ton of announcements around service enhancements and new services. Rumors are flying about a managed Kubernetes offering; we shall see.

Promptly at 8am, the keynote starts with a brief video, and Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS, takes the stage. Jassy welcomes attendees to the sixth annual Continue reading

BGP as a Better IGP? When and Where?

A while ago I helped a large enterprise redesign their data center fabric. They did a wonderful job optimizing their infrastructure, so all they really needed were two switches in each location.

Some vendors couldn’t fathom that. One of them proposed to build a “future-proof” (and twice as expensive) leaf-and-spine fabric with two leaves and two spines. On top of that they proposed to use EBGP as the only routing protocol because draft-lapukhov-bgp-routing-large-dc – a clear case of missing the customer needs.

Read more ...

Celebrating 6 Years

How Does Internet Work - We know what is networking

Last month I celebrated 6 years of writing my blog. This project reached yesterday his most visited day in history with more than 1500 visitors and more than 31K all together in November. Nice to finally see someone actually reading my rumblings. It was and still is hard work of editing old posts making them better and finding new interesting stuff to write about. Blog is about computer network technologies, you know, the stuff that makes thing get to you and appear on your device’s screens so you can stare at it all the time ? Some other interesting trivia:

Celebrating 6 Years

Come Visit Us at AWS re:Invent!

We’ll be at AWS re:INVENT in Las Vegas all week (Nov 27 – Dec 1, 2017)!

Come say hi to the NSX Team at the VMware booth (#900 right as you walk in the main entrance) in the Expo Hall at the Venetian Hotel.  Stop by our booth to…

  • Check out a quick demo on VMware NSX Cloud
  • Attend a 30-minute in-booth session about VMware NSX Cloud (Thursday, Nov 30 at 11:30am)
  • Grab some swag
  • Play one of our booth games and win a prize – Apple iPhone 8, AWS Credits, Amazon Echo, T-Shirts, and more!
VMware Booth at AWS re:Invent

As always, continue the conversation with us on Twitter @vmwarensx or use the hashtag #RunNSX or #NSXMindset‏. We hope to see you at the show!

The post Come Visit Us at AWS re:Invent! appeared first on Network Virtualization.

The Ecosystem Expands For AMD Epyc Servers

The “Naples” Epyc server processors do not exactly present a new architecture from a new processor maker, but given the difficulties that AMD had at the tail end of the Opteron line a decade ago and its long dormancy in the server space, it is almost like AMD had to start back at the beginning to gain the trust of potential server buyers.

Luckily for AMD, and its Arm server competitors Qualcomm and Cavium, there is intense pressure from all aspects of high-end computing – internal applications and external ones at hyperscalers and some cloud builders as well as enterprises …

The Ecosystem Expands For AMD Epyc Servers was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

IDG Contributor Network: How to help your files speak S3

Among the many clouds in the storage sky, Amazon Web Services is the dominant leader by far. The annual AWS re:Invent trade show is taking place in Las Vegas this week, and given how many enterprises have some data in the AWS cloud, the event is expected to sell out.It’s no secret that the cloud is one of today’s top storage industry disruptors, significantly reshaping enterprise IT architectures and investments. Cloud object storage has a well-earned reputation for cutting costs since enterprises can avoid both upfront capital and costly operational expenditures by storing data off-premises. However, the challenges of getting data to the cloud means many enterprises are only getting started on adoption. There is much more growth ahead, as the cloud’s elastic scaling can also deliver agility, but so far, most enterprises are relegating cloud storage for archival.To read this article in full, please click here

Worth Reading: Quad9

In a joint project, IBM Security along with Packet Clearing House (PCH) and The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) today launched a free service designed to give consumers and businesses added online privacy and security protection. The new DNS service is called Quad9 in reference to the IP address 9.9.9.9 offered for the service. The group says the service is aimed at protecting users from accessing malicious websites known to steal personal information, infect users with ransomware and malware, or conduct fraudulent activity. —CircleIDIn a joint project, IBM Security along with Packet Clearing House (PCH) and The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) today launched a free service designed to give consumers and businesses added online privacy and security protection. The new DNS service is called Quad9 in reference to the IP address 9.9.9.9 offered for the service. The group says the service is aimed at protecting users from accessing malicious websites known to steal personal information, infect users with ransomware and malware, or conduct fraudulent activity. —CircleID

NetDevOpEd: The right tool for the right job

I’ve been traveling to northern Europe these past few months to meet with various customers, deliver onsite trainings and speak at meetups. I’ve noticed some common themes that crop up no matter with whom I speak. IT professionals are exhausted by the complexity required to manage and maintain their infrastructure. Somehow, networking and server interconnectivity has become this unmanageable complex mess over the past 20 years. And I don’t blame them. As networking has layered on more and more solutions, it becomes hard to separate out the complexity from the deployment.

Normally when I have these conversations, I start at the most basic levels. I focus on two topics that create the most grief for the vast majority of networks:

  1. Layer 1 cabling issues
  2. Typos and misconfigurations

The reason I start there is because resolving these two issues in the data center would eradicate over 90% of all issues that cause late maintenance windows and urgent midnight troubleshooting calls.

At Cumulus Networks, we resolve these issues by rethinking what it means to configure a network device. The most effective solution to both of these issues is simplification of configuration. Because we focus on integration and solution first, we are able Continue reading

Terminology Tuesday Presents: Blockchain

Think of Blockchain as primarily two things.  1) A peer-to-peer technology 2) A way of keeping a public record.

The technological backing of Blockchain is the ability to have many (many) computers host the same information.  Snippets of code (known as blocks) are duplicated and maintained in so many different places rendering fraud impossible.  The fact that each of these blocks is timestamped and unique makes it increasingly challenging to outsmart.  If you’re interested in learning more about the technological specifics there are a number of great resources online including this presentation by Binh Nguyen, IBM’s Blockchain Fabric Chief Architect.

Today, Blockchain is most commonly thought of in connection to Bitcoin as it describes the technology and process that we’ve all come to know as being so secure.  Bitcoin’s past affiliations with illegalities of all sorts have given a bad name to Blockchain but there are many benefits to secure transactions all with a public record as our purchases and currency become increasingly digital.

Want to learn more?  Check out these sources:

 

Terminology Tuesday is a new blog series.  What would you like Continue reading

Three tips for developing a digital strategy

Paul Whimpenny is Senior Officer for Digital Strategy at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), an agency that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Its goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. It has more than 194 member states and works in over 130 countries worldwide.Our organization, like many others has been both inspired and slightly terrified at the same time by the emergence of new digital markets. From AirBnB to Spotify, we see how whole industries can be changed almost in the blink of an eye, sometimes triggering a rapid decline of more traditional industries.To read this article in full, please click here

Three tips for developing a digital strategy

Paul Whimpenny is Senior Officer for Digital Strategy at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), an agency that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Its goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. It has more than 194 member states and works in over 130 countries worldwide.Our organization, like many others has been both inspired and slightly terrified at the same time by the emergence of new digital markets. From AirBnB to Spotify, we see how whole industries can be changed almost in the blink of an eye, sometimes triggering a rapid decline of more traditional industries.To read this article in full, please click here

Linux for the Industry 4.0 era: New distro for factory automation

NXP Semiconductors, a world leader in secure connectivity solutions, just announced a Linux distribution that is intended to support factory automation. It's called Open Industrial Linux (OpenIL), and it's promising true industrial-grade security based on trusted computing, hardened software, cryptographic operations and end-to-end security.The fact that factory managers and industrial equipment manufacturers are turning to Linux is not surprising considering its operational stability, professional approach to system security, and its obvious low cost of ownership. The importance of the security and reliability of manufacturing security to the well being of any industrial nation is clear from the focus that DHS places on this sector.To read this article in full, please click here

Liveblog: Deep Dive on Amazon Elastic File System

This is a liveblog of the AWS re:Invent 2017 session titled “Deep Dive on Amazon Elastic File System (EFS).” The presenters are Edward Naim and Darryl Osborne, both with AWS. This is my last session of day 2 of re:Invent; thus far, most of my time has been spent in hands-on workshops with only a few breakout sessions today. EFS is a topic I’ve watched, but haven’t had time to really dig into, so I’m looking forward to this session.

Naim kicks off the session with looking at the four phases users go through when they are choosing/adopting a storage solution:

  1. Choosing the right storage solution
  2. Testing and optimizing
  3. Ingest (loading data)
  4. Running it (operating it in production)

Starting with Phase 1, Naim outlines the three main things that people think about. The first item is storage type. The second is features and performance, and the third item is economics (how much does it cost). Diving into each of these items in a bit more detail, Naim talks about file storage, block storage, and object storage, and the characteristics of each of these approaches. Having covered these approaches, Naim returns to file storage (naturally) and talks about why file Continue reading

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