Partnerships to Connect the World

Today the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union Houlin Zhao opened the World Communication Development Conference (WTDC) with a critical message: Partnerships make things happen.

The Internet Society is at the WTDC this week, and our ask is clear. We’re urging the 100+ Ministers attending to implement policies on infrastructure and digital skills that enable connectivity for thousands of communities around the world.

But turning that ambition into action won’t happen if we do not work together.

Today we are pleased to announce that the Internet Society and Argentina’s National Communications Agency (ENACOM) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate in supporting community networks in Argentina.

It’s an exciting moment for everyone who believes that the Internet brings limitless opportunities for good.

If you believe that closing the digital divide is critical, community networks are something everyone can support. These are networks built in communities, by communities, and through partnerships with a variety of stakeholders.  They are a compliment to traditional models for access and are something you can promote, donate to, or even build yourself.

The agreement stands as an excellent example to other governments on how working together can help bring connectivity to some of the world’s Continue reading

Worth Reading: The Madness of Speed Tests

We know how to X-ray a network, and the results are rather revealing. If you use the right metrics, you can also model the performance limits of any application from the measurements you take. Even a speed test! So you don’t need to snap the wings off your broadband service every time you use it after all. —Martin Geddes @ CircleID

The post Worth Reading: The Madness of Speed Tests appeared first on rule 11 reader.

IDG Contributor Network: How the Internet of Things can help protect both our safety and right to free speech

Is it acceptable for someone to run over peaceful protesters? When new regulations being proposed say it is, perhaps it’s time for technologists to see how they can help.Given recent tragedies, how can peaceful protesters be protected? How can technology help protect lives? Could a portable, IoT system help safeguard freedom of speech?Background The First Amendment is clear. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network Break 156: The InfoSec Follies; Nokia Wins Big SDN Deal

55% off High Speed USB Integrated Electrical Wall Outlet – Deal Alert

This easy to install wall outlet features two high speed USB charging ports for smartphones, tablets and other USB devices, and a child-safe tamper-resistant power receptacle. Currently discounted 55% off its list price to just $15.29. See this deal on Amazon. Bundles of 2, 5 and 10 outlets are also discounted as well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

My Lexicon: Nexii

Nexii (noun, pl.; pronounced nex-eye)

Usage

“I have built a leaf/spine fabric using Nexii.”

Explanation

Nexii is the plural of Nexus, obviously. To talk about “Cisco Nexuses” is ugly. Referring to “Cisco Nexus switches” is syllabically inefficient. Nexii is the perfect blend between inappropriate Latin noun pluralization and verbal optimization.

“We need to upgrade the software on our Nexii.”

You’ll thank me later.

If you liked this post, please do click through to the source at My Lexicon: Nexii and give me a share/like. Thank you!

Solutions needed! It’s time to close the digital gender divide

By Raquel Gatto and Joyce Dogniez

If you could sneak peek a future in 10 years in which the Internet is everywhere, would it still be the same access for men and women, boys and girls?

The latest Internet Society report focused on the future of the Internet Society shows that new digital divides are emerging. One of them is a gender divide.  Today 250 million fewer women than men use the Internet. If we don’t act now to close this gap, we will lose out on a digital future that includes everyone.

Closing the digital divide and bridging the gender gap is a promise the world made to itself in 2015 when world leaders ratified the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

This week more than 100 Ministers and 1,500 delegates are attending the World Telecommunications Development Conference, a 10-day meeting dedicated finding new solutions on how Information and Communication Technologies can advance development.

We’re here to send a message that to shape a digital future that benefits all of humanity, we need new thinking, new approaches and new tools for this rapidly changing world around us.

We need your help.

If you’re at the World Telecommunications Development Conference Continue reading

10 Hyperconvergence Vendors Setting the Pace

ForeScout, CrowdStrike Join Forces to Battle Endpoint and Network Security Threats

The companies also plan to build a joint security product.

Basics of Multicast Addresses ( 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255)

Today I am going to talk about basics of Multicast from the beginning. Before starting the concept of multicast you need to know about the unicast and the broadcast type of networks.

Unicast: Unicast is the traffic from from the single user to the single destination.
Broadcast: Broadcast is the traffic flow from the single user to everyone in the network.
Multicast: Multicast is the traffic flow from the single user to the specific group of the destinations in the network.

Fig 1.1- Multicast Vs Unicast

IP Multicast

IP multicast works as follows :

• Multicast groups are identified by IP addresses in the range 224.0.0.0 - 239.255.255.255 (class D address) 
• Every host (more precisely: interface) can join and leave a multicast group dynamically : no access control 
• Every IP datagram sent to a multicast group is transmitted to all members of the group
  
• IP multicast service is unreachable
• IP multicast only supports UDP as higher Layer which means there is no multicast TCP.
• All D class addresses are Multicast addresses. The addresses range are shown above from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255
• These addresses are dynamically Continue reading

DNS- Domain Name Server

Today I am going to talk about the DNS server. I knew some of the you already knew about the DNS. DNS stands for Domain Name Server and is a service to translate hostname into IP address. DNS is a distributed database implemented in a hierarchy of name servers and DNS is an application level protocol for message exchange between clients and servers.

Now question is Why we required DNS service ?

• It is easier to remember a host name than it is to remember an IP address. 
• A name has more meaning to a user than a 4 byte number. 
• Applications such as FTP, HTTP, email, etc., all require the user to input a destination 
• The user generally enters a host name 
• The application takes the host name supplied by the user and forwards it to DNS for translation to an IP address 

Fig 1.1- DNS

How DNS- Domain Name Server Works ?

• DNS works by exchanging messages between client and server machines. 
• A client application will pass the destination host name to the DNS process (in Unix referred to as the get host by name() routine to get the IP address. 
• The application then sits Continue reading

DHCP Message Types

Today I am going to talk about the DHCP message types and the meaning of all the requests sent by server and client in DHCP process. The messages are shown below

Messages Types

• DHCPDISCOVER 
• DHCPOFFER 
• DHCPREQUEST 
• DHCPDECLINE 
• DHCPACK 
• DHCPNAK 
• DHCPRELEASE 
• DHCPINFORM 

Fig 1.1- Sample DHCP request

Fig1.2 - Sample DHCP Response

DHCPDISCOVER: Broadcast by a client to find available DHCP servers. 

DHCPOFFER: Response from a server to a DHCPDISCOVER and offering IP address and other parameters. 

DHCPREQUEST: Message from a client to servers that does one of the following: 

• Requests the parameters offered by one of the servers and declines all other offers. 
• Verifies a previously allocated address after a system or network change (a reboot for example). 
• Requests the extension of a lease on a particular address. 

DHCPACK: Acknowledgement from server to client with parameters, including IP address. 

DHCPNACK: Negative acknowledgement from server to client, indicating that the client's lease has expired or that a requested IP address is incorrect. 

DHCPDECLINE: Message from client to server indicating that the offered address is already in use. 

DHCPRELEASE: Message from client to server canceling Continue reading

IP CLOS – EBGP – Multipath Multiple-as

Hi,

We have seen how iBGP was used to do the IP Clos with a RR Setup, how about eBGP.

Configurations / EVE Topology – https://github.com/r2079/JDC

Two simple rules

• All spines have connections to all leaves – eBGP
• No leaf or No spine devices have interconnected BGP.

Here is the topology.

The picture says 1000 words here – How the physical links are connected that’s how the bgp flows.

Lets see the BGP Status on R1 and R2

Since the hurdles of multipath has been explained. The use ADD-Path is not required here, instead since the update comes from Different AS numbers (R4 and R5) giving out the same update, we have to use another knob called MULTIPLEAS. This has to be on all Spine and leaf devices so that proper Load Balancing can be done along with EXPORTLB policy in the forwarding table.

Lets see one of the routers

Verification from R6

Regards

Rakesh

Routing Protocols: a Perfect Example of RFC 1925 Rule 5

In case you’re not familiar with RFC 1925, its Rule 5 states:

It is always possible to agglutinate multiple separate problems into a single complex interdependent solution. In most cases this is a bad idea.

Most routing protocols are a perfect demonstration of this rule.

Lanner, 128 Technology Team Up on White Box for SD-WAN, VNF

It combines Lanner’s uCPE appliances and 128 Technology’s routing software.

8 Use Cases for Modernizing and Automating Workflows

Managing an organization’s many tools and business processes is becoming increasingly complicated as technology expands. Whether your teams are performing their weekly system reboot, or looking to configure instances to a desired state, it’s no secret that automation is critical to increase speed, efficiency, productivity, and accuracy. Listed below are several instances¹ where automation can help across your enterprise.

• Weekly system reboot: There’s nothing worse than doing the same thing for 8 hours a day! Eliminate repetitive, manual processes with automation.

• Enforce security guidelines: Rules are rules. It’s best to automate in an effort to achieve strict security standards.

• Monitor configuration drift: Use check mode with Ansible tasks to enforce desired settings and see if your configuration has drifted.

• Disaster recovery: Disaster recovery can involve a wide range of components. Act across different variables of the technology stack to identify problems and eliminate cross team dependencies.

• Command blaster: Remarkably easy to write, you can run commands across your environment for any number of servers.

• Database binary patching: Several databases use outdated binary sets. Patch the binaries in accordance with the release of the latest patch.

• Instance provisioning: Use modules for several cloud providers to create new instances and tailor Continue reading

Network Automation Engineer Persona: Part One

This is the first post of a series on the persona between “network engineer” and “developer”. This role does not exist in myth, but it is a natural evolutionary step forwards. This position inherits skills from both ends of the scale, but in itself is an emerging role in organisations globally.

Why describe personas? They are important because:

1. They provide a roadmap for a career
2. They provide a set of skill requirements to master for a role matching the persona
3. They provide a set of tool consumption and usage hints
4. They provide a viewing glass to defining thought processes

Some of the challenges both vendors and network technology consumers are facing today are related to the set of evolving personas in our field, therefore it’s crucial to understand them properly. Remember when you wanted to be a network engineer? You became the persona and worked your way through a set of learnings. Your thoughts and habits changed, along with your recognition and self awareness.

Evolution of Roles

Every industry evolves and some industries disappear. The need to move packets about on the Internet hasn’t evolved out of existence just yet; our current highly generalized reality is: Continue reading

Examining network connections on Linux systems

There are a lot of commands available on Linux for looking at network settings and connections. In today's post, we're going to run through some very handy commands and see how they work.One very useful command is the ifquery command. This command should give you a quick list of network interfaces. However, you might only see something like this -- showing only the loopback interface: $ ifquery --list lo If this is the case, your /etc/network/interfaces file doesn't include information on network interfaces except for the loopback interface. You can add lines like the last two in the example below -- assuming DHCP is used to assign addresses -- if you'd like it to be more useful.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IT spending increases for software-defined storage, on-demand services

Two new spending reports paint a rosy picture for some IT vendors, but it isn’t looking so great for the traditional players.At Gartner’s Symposium & ITxpo last week, the firm released a report stating the global IT market is expected to reach $3.7 trillion next year, a 4.3 percent increase over the $3.5 billion expected for this year.Spending on traditional data center hardware and systems is expected to stay flat, continuing a trend we’ve seen for a while now as businesses ramp up spending on three on-demand services: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and communication as a service (CaaS).Also on Network World: Report confirms on-premises data center spending declined "The IT buying landscape is changing: Digital business transformation is an effort to create connected, platforms and new industry revenue streams," analyst John-David Lovelock wrote in the report. "Organizations that are not creating new digital business models or new ways to engage constituents or customers are falling behind. Those vendors that do not move more quickly than their clients will be left behind." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IT spending increases for software-defined storage, on-demand services

Two new spending reports paint a rosy picture for some IT vendors, but it isn’t looking so great for the traditional players.At Gartner’s Symposium & ITxpo last week, the firm released a report stating the global IT market is expected to reach $3.7 trillion next year, a 4.3 percent increase over the $3.5 billion expected for this year.Spending on traditional data center hardware and systems is expected to stay flat, continuing a trend we’ve seen for a while now as businesses ramp up spending on three on-demand services: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and communication as a service (CaaS).Also on Network World: Report confirms on-premises data center spending declined "The IT buying landscape is changing: Digital business transformation is an effort to create connected, platforms and new industry revenue streams," analyst John-David Lovelock wrote in the report. "Organizations that are not creating new digital business models or new ways to engage constituents or customers are falling behind. Those vendors that do not move more quickly than their clients will be left behind." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here