Epic Evaluation: Ubiquiti ERPro-8 vs Play-Doh

It’s the bake off you’ve been waiting for; a five-month real life test of a Ubiquiti ERPro-8 (EdgeRouter Pro) and a tub of Play-Doh™! Over a period of five months I carefully evaluated these two very useful items and discovered their good and bad points. But after five months, which will I choose as the ultimate winner?

The Rules

1. Each of the two competing items will be utilized over a period of five months for the purpose for which they were intended.
2. At the end of the five month test period, the performance of both items will be evaluated, and a winner chosen entirely subjectively based on:
   • Suitability for intended purpose during the test
   • Condition at the end of the test
   • Performance of intended purpose at the end of the test

The Tub of Play-Doh™

Product Specifications

The first item to be evaluated is the tub of Play-Doh™. I didn’t skimp on quality, and bought genuine Play-Doh™ as part of a set which included tubs of both light blue and red. Accessories in the box included a roller, a plastic cutting knife, four shaped cutters and an extruder with four built-in shapes as well as four interchangeable extrusion heads.

The entire kit Continue reading

There is No Perimeter in IoT Security

Worth Reading: We are all groot

If you venture forth on becoming a programmer after reaching any kind of reasonable adulthood — i.e., gotten through college, survived the military, worked a “real” job or two — you’re used to feeling reasonably successful. Which is one of the perks of being a so-called grownup. Starting new at the very bottom of a new major life area with zero knowledge or experience is something we all did at some point — when you think about it, that is pretty much what childhood is all about. But your typical kid has lots of energy, no mortgage/rent or car payments to worry about, and — most importantly — is developmentally wired to learn a whole bunch of stuff all at once with their nice fresh, flexible brain. —Free Code Camp

The post Worth Reading: We are all groot appeared first on rule 11 reader.

Gone Fishin’

Well, not exactly Fishin', but I'll be on a month long vacation starting today. I won't be posting (much) new content, so we'll all have a break. Disappointing, I know. Please use this time for quiet contemplation and other inappropriate activities. Au revoir!

Next-Generation Server Clusters: Boxes Without Bottlenecks

By matching compute, storage, and networking resources for optimal utilization, the cluster-in-a-box wastes nothing.

Cloud helps Elon Musk further his audacious goals

There are some people whose vision of the future simply defy words. I would put Elon Musk firmly in the category – changing the world through a single initiative isn’t Musk’s style, rather, he wants to deliver his vision of the future across multiple areas. Space travel? Check. Hyper-efficient terrestrial transportation? Also check. Personal automobiles that challenge both existing business and technology models? Check. Solar power with new economics and scale? Also check. While many would question his political leanings, there is no denying that Musk is a genius.I’ve never met Musk, but watching him speak it is obvious that this is one visionary who not only sees a “bigger picture” for the future of humanity, but he also deeply understands the technology constraints and opportunities that will deliver the future. Which is an inspiring thing to watch, but which also places huge challenges upon the individuals who need to deliver that work. By extension, it also pushes the boundaries of what existing technologies can do.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Cloud helps Elon Musk further his audacious goals

There are some people whose vision of the future simply defy words. I would put Elon Musk firmly in the category – changing the world through a single initiative isn’t Musk’s style, rather, he wants to deliver his vision of the future across multiple areas. Space travel? Check. Hyper-efficient terrestrial transportation? Also check. Personal automobiles that challenge both existing business and technology models? Check. Solar power with new economics and scale? Also check. While many would question his political leanings, there is no denying that Musk is a genius.I’ve never met Musk, but watching him speak it is obvious that this is one visionary who not only sees a “bigger picture” for the future of humanity, but he also deeply understands the technology constraints and opportunities that will deliver the future. Which is an inspiring thing to watch, but which also places huge challenges upon the individuals who need to deliver that work. By extension, it also pushes the boundaries of what existing technologies can do.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Top storage skills to boost your salary

Demand for skilled storage pros is on the rise as enterprise IT teams wrestle with increased storage capacity requirements and evolving business needs. In particular, companies are looking for people with experience migrating from hardware-based storage to cloud storage – and that’s resulting in higher-than-average pay increases, according to Dice.The tech career hub and job-search site released its annual guide to U.S. tech salaries, which finds that overall average pay in the industry fell slightly last year to $92,081, down from $93,328 in 2015. On the raise front, 61% of tech pros received a salary increase from a year ago, and 9% reported a decrease.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Top storage skills to boost your salary

Demand for skilled storage pros is on the rise as enterprise IT teams wrestle with increased storage capacity requirements and evolving business needs. In particular, companies are looking for people with experience migrating from hardware-based storage to cloud storage – and that’s resulting in higher-than-average pay increases, according to Dice.The tech career hub and job-search site released its annual guide to U.S. tech salaries, which finds that overall average pay in the industry fell slightly last year to $92,081, down from $93,328 in 2015. On the raise front, 61% of tech pros received a salary increase from a year ago, and 9% reported a decrease.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

OneLogin hack exposed sensitive US customer data and ability to decrypt data

OneLogin, an identity management company which provides a single sign-on platform for logging into multiple apps and sites, was hacked. US customer data was potentially compromised,“including the ability to decrypt encrypted data.”The company, which claims “over 2000+ enterprise customers in 44 countries across the globe trust OneLogin,” announced the security incident on May 31. It was short on details, primarily saying the unauthorized access it detected had been blocked and law enforcement was notified.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

OneLogin hack exposed sensitive US customer data and ability to decrypt data

OneLogin, an identity management company which provides a single sign-on platform for logging into multiple apps and sites, was hacked. US customer data was potentially compromised,“including the ability to decrypt encrypted data.”The company, which claims “over 2000+ enterprise customers in 44 countries across the globe trust OneLogin,” announced the security incident on May 31. It was short on details, primarily saying the unauthorized access it detected had been blocked and law enforcement was notified.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How To Make Mistakes

We all make mistakes. We type the wrong command. We use the wrong verb tense in an article. We leave out a critical step when explaining a process. It’s something that happens all the time. It’s avoidable through careful planning, but how do you handle things when the avoidable becomes unavoidable?

Making Amends, Not Mistakes

Once a mistake is out in the open and noticeable, it’s done. You can’t pretend it didn’t happen or that it’s not affecting things. That’s when you need to own up to what happened and fix it. Sometimes that’s not always easy. Even the best person is reticent to admit to being fallible. So the process for fixing a mistake isn’t always easy. But it is important.

1. Realize You’ve Made A Mistake – As amazing as it sounds, this is sometimes the hardest part of the deal. It’s easy to see that you’ve typed in the wrong command to a router and that the output isn’t what you were expecting. But what about those errors you don’t immediately catch. How about hearing the incorrect name at a dinner party and calling someone by the wrong name for an entire night? Or incorrectly spelling or pronouncing Continue reading

SQL Server 2017 on Linux boosts efficiency for analytics firm

Microsoft has doubled down on its love for open source by bringing SQL Server 2017 to Linux, and it seems this support can help lighten the load for enterprises that already have in-house Linux expertise but also a need for SQL's functionality.While it's not available until later this year, an early adopter has found a significant upside to the new support for Linux.dv01, a software firm that makes a reporting and analytics platform to give financial institutions insight into consumer lending, has jumped the line and is running SQL Server 2017 on Linux rather than Windows for some of its workloads.MORE: Microsoft SQL Server on Linux - YES, Linux!To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

57% off 299-Piece All-Purpose First Aid Kit – Deal Alert

This full-fledged, easy-to-tote first aid softpack is designed to save time and frustration in the midst of an emergency. It's compact and portable, but contains 299 physician-recommended supplies.  Among the items neatly organized inside the zippered kit is a first aid guide, vinyl gloves, bandages, cold compress, gauze pads, trauma pad, cotton-tipped applicators, first aid tape roll, antiseptics and all three common OTC pain medications. The kit is currently a #1 best seller on Amazon, averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 280 customers, and its typical list price of $26.74 has been reduced 56% to just $11.59. Click over to Amazon to see this deal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Videos: PowerShell 101

Mitja Robas started his PowerShell for Networking Engineers presentation with a brief introduction to PowerShell and a few simple hands-on examples. Enjoy the videos ;)

Networking Pros Will Need These Skills

Packet Blast: Top Tech Blogs, June 2

Aerohive makes Connect available across its entire product line

Earlier this year Aerohive rolled out Connect, which is a low-cost offering it wanted to use to disrupt the incumbent vendors. Connect is basic WiFi connectivity that is managed through Aerohive’s cloud portal. Customers that want more advanced features can upgrade to Select at a later date and unlock all of the other configuration parameters. Given Aerohive’s relatively small size compared to Cisco and HPE/Aruba, an aggressive strategy like this certainly made sense.Customers that choose the Connect solution can start with an access point with a price as low as $229. It’s important to note that despite the price, these are full feature, business grade access points that have the same set of functions as ones that are two to three times the price. If all the customer wants is connectivity, then that initial price is all that they will ever pay.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BGP Optimal-route-reflection (BGP-ORR)

Been a while since my last update, been quite busy! but I thought I’d do a post on something BGP related, as everyone loves BGP!

There’s an interesting addition to BGP route-reflection that’s found it’s way into a few trains of code on Juniper and Cisco, (I assume it’s on others too) that attempts to solve one of the annoying issues that occurs when centralised route-reflectors are used.

It all boils down to the basics of path selection, in networks where the setup is relatively simple and identical routes are received, at different edge routers within the network – similar to anycast routing.

Consider the below lab topology;

The core of the network is super simple, basic ISIS, basic LDP/MPLS with ASR-9kv as an out-of-path route-reflector, with iBGP adjacencies configured along the green arrows, the red arrows signify the eBGP sessions, between AS 100-200 and AS 100-300, where IOSv-7 and IOSv-8 advertise an identical 6.6.6.6/32 route. IOSv-3 and IOSv-4 are just P routers running ISIS/LDP only, for the sake of adding a few hops.

With everything configured as defaults, lets look at the path selection;

Microsoft rolls out its first Azure container tool from Deis

Just one month ago, Microsoft acquired Deis, an open source software developer focused on making Kubernetes easier to use. One month later, the acquisition pays off in the form of the first product from the group, called Draft.Draft is a tool designed to simplify and ease development of applications running on any Kubernetes cluster. Microsoft made the announcement at the CoreOS Fest in San Francisco, a conference discussing container technology. It also posted the news on the Azure blog. Gabe Monroy, lead project manager for containers on Microsoft Azure and former CTO of Deis, made the announcements.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here