BrandPost: SD-WAN Benefits: More Than Eliminating MPLS

Most of the discussion to date on the benefit of SD-WANs has focused on how an SD-WAN enables a network organization to reduce or eliminate its spend on expensive MPLS circuits.That is clearly an important benefit. However, as many early adopters of SD-WANs can attest to, SD-WANs have other important benefits.I am going to use this blog to summarize an interview I recently had with an IT professional who is in the midst of rolling out an SD-WAN solution. As described below, the benefits of the new solution include better performance, better visibility and the reduced cost and complexity that comes from removing Cisco routers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A New API Binding: cloudflare-php

A New API Binding: cloudflare-php

A New API Binding: cloudflare-php

Back in May last year, one of my colleagues blogged about the introduction of our Python binding for the Cloudflare API and drew reference to our other bindings in Go and Node. Today we are complimenting this range by introducing a new official binding, this time in PHP.

This binding is available via Packagist as cloudflare/sdk, you can install it using Composer simply by running composer require cloudflare/sdk. We have documented various use-cases in our "Cloudflare PHP API Binding" KB article to help you get started.

Alternatively should you wish to help contribute, or just give us a star on GitHub, feel free to browse to the cloudflare-php source code.

A New API Binding: cloudflare-php

PHP is a controversial language, and there is no doubt there are elements of bad design within the language (as is the case with many other languages). However, love it or hate it, PHP is a language of high adoption; as of September 2017 W3Techs report that PHP is used by 82.8% of all the websites whose server-side programming language is known. In creating this binding the question clearly wasn't on the merits of PHP, but whether we wanted to help drive improvements to the developer experience for Continue reading

Announcing our new how-to video series!

Class is in session! This week, we are excited to announce that the new networking how-to video series is live on the Cumulus Networks website. Join our highly-qualified instructors as they school you on everything you need to know about web-scale networking. No backpack or homework required — learn everything you need from the comfort of your couch.

So, what’s on the syllabus for web-scale 101? Our goals this semester are to make open networking accessible to everyone, to teach the basics and beyond of Linux, and to demonstrate exactly what you gain from leaving behind traditional networking. Are you confused by configurations? Or have you ever wondered what APT stands for? Our instructors will answer all of your questions. After watching these how-to video tutorials, you’ll be a web-scale scholar!

These video tutorials cover topics such as:

  • Configuring trunks and access ports
  • How Linux networking differs from traditional networking
  • Automating your data center
  • …And much more!

What’s the difference between configuring IP addresses with Juniper or Cumulus Linux? We’ll let you decide that for yourself. Head over to our how-to video page and begin your educational journey. No need to worry about tuition — this priceless educational experience is Continue reading

Connecting Indigenous Communities

Internet access is often a challenge associated with developing countries. But while many of us in North America have the privilege of access at our fingertips, it’s still a huge barrier to success for many rural and remote Indigenous communities in Canada and the United States.

According to the 2016 Broadband Progress Report, 10% of Americans lack access to broadband. The contrast is even more striking when you look at Internet access in rural areas, with 39% lacking access to broadband of 25/4Mbps, compared to 4% in urban areas.

Many Canadian rural and remote communities face similar access issues. In December 2016, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) set targets for Internet service providers (ISPs) to offer customers in all parts of the country broadband at 50/10Mbps with the option of unlimited data. CRTC estimates two million households, or roughly 18% of Canadians, don’t have access to those speeds or data.

Let those figures sink in for a minute. Today in 2017, millions of people in North America still don’t have access to broadband Internet.

It’s an even harder to pill to swallow when you realize how disproportionately and gravely it affects indigenous communities, many of which are Continue reading

Worth Reading: Distrusting Symantic Certificates

At the end of July, the Chrome team and the PKI community converged upon a plan to reduce, and ultimately remove, trust in Symantec’s infrastructure in order to uphold users’ security and privacy when browsing the web. This plan, arrived at after significant debate on the blink-dev forum, would allow reasonable time for a transition to new, independently-operated Managed Partner Infrastructure while Symantec modernizes and redesigns its infrastructure to adhere to industry standards. This post reiterates this plan and includes a timeline detailing when site operators may need to obtain new certificates. —Devon O’Brien, Ryan Sleevi, Andrew Whalley @ Google Security

The post Worth Reading: Distrusting Symantic Certificates appeared first on rule 11 reader.

Azure Stack Finally Takes Microsoft Public Cloud Private

Microsoft announced Azure Stack at its Ignite event in September 2016 and soft-launched Azure Stack at its Inspire event in July, when it announced that the private cloud solution was available for customer orders. The first wave of Microsoft’s Azure Stack system partners – Dell EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Lenovo – plan to ship their certified solutions to customers in September. We will be surprised if Microsoft does not announce first customer shipments with those vendors at Microsoft’s Ignite event in late September.

Azure Stack with compete with other hybrid private cloud frameworks, such as OpenStack, Cloud Foundry, HPE’s …

Azure Stack Finally Takes Microsoft Public Cloud Private was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Stuff The Internet Says On Scalability For September 22nd, 2017

Hey, it's HighScalability time: 

 

Ever feel like howling at the universe? (Greg Rakozy)

 

If you like this sort of Stuff then please support me on Patreon.

 

  • 10 billion: API calls made every second in Google datacenters; $767,758,000,000: collected by Apple on iPhones sold to the end of June; 20: watts of power consumed by human brain, autonomous vehicles peak at 3000 watts; 59%: drop in leads using AMP; 27%: success rate of AIs guessing passwords; 2.8 kilometers: distance devices running on almost zero power can xmit using backscatter; 96: age at which Lotfi Zadeh, inventor of Fuzzy Logic, passed away; 35%: store time series data in a RDBMS; $1.1 billion: Google's spend on self-driving tech;  $5.1 billion: Slack valuation; 15%: bugs reduced by strong typing; ~1 ft: new smartphone GPS accuracy; 

  • Quotable Quotes:
    • Napoleon: [Sir Hudson Lowe] was a man wanting in education and judgment. He was a stupid man, he knew nothing at all of the world, and like all men who knew nothing of the world, he was suspicious and jealous.
    • Rich Werner: Data center operations, to me, is 362 Continue reading

Worth Reading: BlueBorne

Bluetooth is ubiquitous, commonly connecting accessories like headsets and keyboards, but is also used throughout the brave new Internet of Things (IoT) world. An attacker exploiting these BlueBorne vulnerabilities can mount a man-in-the-middle attack, or even take control of a device without the user even noticing it. The vulnerabilities were discovered by a security company called Armis earlier this year. Researchers reached out to the companies responsible for vulnerable implementations that lead to the coordinated disclosure (and patches) on September 12. —Andrei Robachevsky @ The Internet Society

The post Worth Reading: BlueBorne appeared first on rule 11 reader.

A Day in the Life of a Docker Admin

About two months ago, we celebrated SysAdmin Day and kicked off our learning series for IT professionals. So far we’ve gone through the basics of containers and how containers are delivering value back to the company through cost savings. Now we begin the next stage of the journey by introducing how to deploy and operate containerized applications.

For the next few weeks, we are going to relate typical IT administrative tasks that many of you are familiar with to the tasks of a Docker admin. In the end, containerized applications are still applications and it is still primarily the responsibility of IT to secure and manage them. That is the same regardless of if the application runs in a container or not.

In this “A Day in the LIfe of a Docker Admin” series, we will discuss how common IT tasks translate to the world of Docker, such as:

  • Managing .NET apps and migrating them off Windows Server 2008
  • How networking with containers work and how to build an agile and secure network for containers
  • How to achieve a secure and compliant application environment for any industry
  • Integrating Docker with monitoring and logging tools

As a first step, let’s make Continue reading

FAQ: What is NB-IoT?

NB-IoT, that must stand for “no big IoT,” like “no big deal?”Awful. Why don’t you leave the jokes to me?Fine, fine. So what is NB-IoT, really?First of all, it’s narrow-band IoT, and it’s a communication standard designed to let IoT devices operate via carrier networks, either within an existing GSM carrier wave, in an unused “guard band” between LTE channels, or independently.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Aruba rolls out security fabric designed for IoT and the digital era + Survey: Enterprise IoT faces skills shortage, security challengesTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Network simulation or emulation?

As a network engineer, an improperly configured application can cost a whole lot of time and money down the line. The best way to try and prevent these unfortunate accidents is by conducting thorough and efficient testing on a routine basis. Whether designing a network, migrating to the cloud, or adding a new device to the rack, every step within the application  deployment life cycle should be validated with accurate testing.Regarding network testing, the terms emulation and simulation are often used interchangeably. In most cases, either term will generally get the point across, but there’s a big difference between a network emulator and network simulator, both practically and semantically. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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