CYA! Cover Your Assets (By Securing Them) (Thwack)

Still using local accounts for device access? Don’t know what a Term Process is? You need to CYA!

On the Solarwinds Thwack Geek Speak blog I looked at a variety of security (and related) features which should be configured on all devices. Please do take a trip to Thwack and check out my post, “CYA! Cover Your Assets (By Securing Them)“.

CYA! Cover Your Assets (By Securing Them)

 

Please see my Disclosures page for more information about my role as a Solarwinds Ambassador.

If you liked this post, please do click through to the source at CYA! Cover Your Assets (By Securing Them) (Thwack) and give me a share/like. Thank you!

REVIEW: Users assess network virtualization software from VMware and Micro Focus

Network virtualization is a process of abstraction that separates the network from its underlying physical hardware, allowing for the customization of network infrastructures through aggregation and provisioning measures. Among the potential benefits of network virtualization are faster provisioning of networks, easier management of networks, and more efficient use of resources.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

REVIEW: Users assess network virtualization software from VMware and Micro Focus

Network virtualization is a process of abstraction that separates the network from its underlying physical hardware, allowing for the customization of network infrastructures through aggregation and provisioning measures. Among the potential benefits of network virtualization are faster provisioning of networks, easier management of networks, and more efficient use of resources.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

What is convergence in different field of networking ?

What is convergence ?   This term has different meaning for different networking groups. In this post, I will explain the two most common usage. This kind of knowledge definitely will differentiate you from the others ?   If you are a layer 3 person, I mean if you are familiar with routing, most probably […]

The post What is convergence in different field of networking ? appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

Introducing High Performance Virtual Machines

Bringing high performance virtual machines to oVirt!

Introducing a new VM type in oVirt 4.2.0 Alpha. A newly added checkbox in the all-new Administration Portal delivers the highest possible virtual machine performance, very close to bare metal.

What does it do?

Some of the magic includes:

  • Enable Pass-Through Host CPU
  • Enable IO Threads, Num Of IO Threads = 1
  • Set the IO and Emulator threads pinning topology

For the full feature set, see the very detailed High Performance VM feature page

Count me in! How do I set it up?

Simple. Go to the Administration Portal and from the vertical menu select Compute > Virtual machines. Click the New VM tab to open up the New Virtual Machine dialog box. In the General tab next to the Optimized for field, click the drop down menu and select High Performance. Click OK. Depending on your current configurations, a smart pop-up may open with a list of additional recommended manual configurations, specific to your setup. To address these recommended changes, click Cancel.

New Virtual Machine dialog box with the High Performance VM type highlighted

Few IT departments engage in future planning

It’s an old cliché: If you fail to plan, you better plan to fail. That seems to apply to a new study by CompTIA that finds only 34 percent of businesses surveyed plan their IT infrastructure beyond one year.The reasons are legitimate: the disruption brought about by the migration to cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT) deployments. Both are seriously disruptive and can make long-term planning a challenge. To stay flexible to changes as they undergo a digital transformation, businesses are reticent to plan beyond one year out. + Also on Network World: Cost optimization gains ground in IT infrastructure decisions + The report, titled "Planning a Modern IT Architecture," also found some of the usual problems dogging IT shops. Four in 10 companies said they lacked the budget for heavy investment in new architecture, and one-third said they don’t have the knowledge on emerging technologies and new trends to formulate an integration plan. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Few IT departments engage in future planning

It’s an old cliché: If you fail to plan, you better plan to fail. That seems to apply to a new study by CompTIA that finds only 34 percent of businesses surveyed plan their IT infrastructure beyond one year.The reasons are legitimate: the disruption brought about by the migration to cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT) deployments. Both are seriously disruptive and can make long-term planning a challenge. To stay flexible to changes as they undergo a digital transformation, businesses are reticent to plan beyond one year out. + Also on Network World: Cost optimization gains ground in IT infrastructure decisions + The report, titled "Planning a Modern IT Architecture," also found some of the usual problems dogging IT shops. Four in 10 companies said they lacked the budget for heavy investment in new architecture, and one-third said they don’t have the knowledge on emerging technologies and new trends to formulate an integration plan. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Enterprise Network on GNS3 – Part 2 – Access Layer

This is the second from the series of the articles that discuss a complete configuration of the enterprise network. Our enterprise campus network consists of the core, distribution and access layer. This network infrastructure design is called a three-tier network model. Each layer has specific function. The access layer provides access for end users to the network . They are two access switches located inside the access layer. The access switches OpenSwitch-Acc-I and OpenSwitch-Acc-II are OpenSwitch Qemu appliances installed on VMware VMDK disks. The switches run OpenSwitch network OS version 0.4.0 and they have assigned 1024 MB memory by GNS3. More details about building OpenSwitch appliance prior to version 2.0 can be found here.

The ports Ethernet 3 a and 4 on both switches are configured as access ports and they connect PC1 and PC4 to the campus network. The ports Ethernet 1 and Ethernet 2 are uplinks that connect access switches to the distribution switches. They are configured as trunk ports, carrying traffic from multiple VLANs. Thanks to redundant uplink connection, the access switches remain connected to the upper layer, even in case of the failure one of the distribution switches.

Picture 1 - Access Switches Connected Continue reading

What is last mile and first mile ?

What is last mile and first mile ? This is an important telecommunication term which is used in all broadband communication methods. In this post, I will explain the term, differences and some detail about this term.   In fact, last mile and the first mile is the same thing.   The link between the […]

The post What is last mile and first mile ? appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

Upcoming Webinars and Events

Here’s the list of webinars and events planned for October and November 2017:

Hint: you get access to all live webinar sessions, and 170 hours of downloadable videos with ipSpace.net subscription.

Microcell through a mobile hotspot

I accidentally acquired a tree farm 20 minutes outside of town. For utilities, it gets electricity and basic phone. It doesn't get water, sewer, cable, or DSL (i.e. no Internet). Also, it doesn't really get cell phone service. While you can get SMS messages up there, you usually can't get a call connected, or hold a conversation if it does.

We have found a solution -- an evil solution. We connect an AT&T "Microcell", which provides home cell phone service through your Internet connection, to an AT&T Mobile Hotspot, which provides an Internet connection through your cell phone service.


Now, you may be laughing at this, because it's a circular connection. It's like trying to make a sailboat go by blowing on the sails, or lifting up a barrel to lighten the load in the boat.

But it actually works.

Since we get some, but not enough, cellular signal, we setup a mast 20 feet high with a directional antenna pointed to the cell tower 7.5 miles to the southwest, connected to a signal amplifier. It's still an imperfect solution, as we are still getting terrain distortions in the signal, but it provides a good Continue reading

Ruby Quick Reference

Best Practices Ruby Style Guide Rails Testing Best Practices Comment Variable String Stings are mutable in Ruby HERE Doc HERE are used for multi-line strings Symbol Symbols are similar to strings except they are immutable Integer Boolean Array Hash # New syntax - Ruby >= 1.9 For Loop #...continue reading

Ansible AWX Part 1

Ansible AWX is the upstream open source project to Ansible Tower. This is the first part of a series on Ansible AWX. In this part we will install Ansible AWX. Code versions used for this post Centos 7 - minimal 1705.02 (vagrant box) Python - 2.7.13 Ansible - 2.4.0 docker - 1.12.6 ...

Why Cisco Catalyst 9K is so special ?

Well today I am going to talk about the new Switches which Cisco introduces in July 2017. These are very much powerful switches and going to replace Cisco 3850 and Cisco 4500 Switches with more innovation and high qualities.

I already wrote two articles on Cisco catalyst 9K series switches and articles are below

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Switch
Cisco Catalyst 9400 Switch

Now the question is Why Cisco Catalyst 9K is so special ?
Cisco Catalyst 9K is a next Generation platform switches introduces to support DNA infrastructure which Cisco just came up this year. Cisco comes up with the innovation and below are the support features set up in Cisco Catalyst 9K Switches.

  • IOT devices convergence : CoAP / IoT Device profiling, Perpetual PoE, IEEE 1588 / AVB and Emerging Standards: MUD
  • Mobility Device Features : Fabric Enabled Wireless, Embedded WLC, Distributed Wireless Scale, Unified Control & Policy with Wired & Wireless Guest
  • Security : Encrypted Traffic Analytics; 256bit MacSec / IPSec; Trustworthy Systems; Group based policy; Full Netflow for StealthWatch
  • Open to Cloud: DevOps Toolkit; Netconf/Yang Models; Streaming telemetry; Patching/GIR and Application Hosting.
  • IOS Features : Open IOS-XE with UDAP 2.0 features best in industry.
Fig 1.1- Cisco Continue reading
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