Webinars in This Week

The spring craziness is still in full swing – we’ll have three webinars this week (a first) and I was so busy I didn’t even have time to write about them. Let’s fix that.

Data Center Updates on Monday is the second part of server virtualization, virtual machines and containers update to Data Center 3.0 webinar. We covered virtual machines in the last session (April 25th), this time we’ll talk about containers.

David Barroso (now at Fastly) will talk about NAPALM in Ansible on Tuesday.

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Learning Python: Week3 (Conditionals and For Loops) -Part 3

As discussed in post  ( https://crazyrouters.wordpress.com/2017/02/25/learning-python-kirk-byers-python-course/  ) , i will be sharing the my learning on weekly basis as course continues. This will not only motivate me but also help others who are in phase of learning python 3. This post will focus on Week 3 (Conditionals and For Loops) .This post will focus on […]

Savvius Insight and the use of Elastic

Last week Savvius announced upgraded versions of its Insight network visibility appliances. These have the usual performance and capacity increases you’d expect, and fill a nice gap in the market.

But the bit that was most interesting to me was the use of an on-board Elastic stack, with pre-built Kibana dashboards for visualizing network data, e.g.:

Savvius Insight Kibana Dashboard

Historically the only way we could realistically create these sorts of dashboards and systems was using Splunk. I’m a big fan of Splunk, but it has a problem: Cost. Especially if you’re trying to analyze large volumes of network data. You might be able to make Splunk pricing work for application data, but network data volumes are often just too large.

Savvius has previously included a Splunk forwarder, to make it easier to get data from their systems into Splunk. But Elastic has reached the point where Splunk is no longer needed. It’s viable for companies like Savvius to ship with a built-in Elastic stack setup.

There’s nothing stopping people centralizing the data either. You can modify the setup on the Insight appliance to send data to a central Elastic setup, and you can copy the Kibana dashboards, and create your own Continue reading

Savvius Insight and the use of Elastic

Last week Savvius announced upgraded versions of its Insight network visibility appliances. These have the usual performance and capacity increases you’d expect, and fill a nice gap in the market.

But the bit that was most interesting to me was the use of an on-board Elastic stack, with pre-built Kibana dashboards for visualizing network data, e.g.:

Savvius Insight Kibana Dashboard

Historically the only way we could realistically create these sorts of dashboards and systems was using Splunk. I’m a big fan of Splunk, but it has a problem: Cost. Especially if you’re trying to analyze large volumes of network data. You might be able to make Splunk pricing work for application data, but network data volumes are often just too large.

Savvius has previously included a Splunk forwarder, to make it easier to get data from their systems into Splunk. But Elastic has reached the point where Splunk is no longer needed. It’s viable for companies like Savvius to ship with a built-in Elastic stack setup.

There’s nothing stopping people centralizing the data either. You can modify the setup on the Insight appliance to send data to a central Elastic setup, and you can copy the Kibana dashboards, and create your own Continue reading

EternalRocks network worm uses 7 NSA hacking tools

While you won’t be forgetting the WannaCry ransomware attack, it is likely you will be hearing a lot more about the alleged NSA-linked EternalBlue exploit and DoublePulsar backdoor as it seems a wide range of bad guys have them in their toyboxes. At least one person is leveraging seven leaked NSA hacking tools for a new EternalRocks network worm.EternalBlue and DoublePulsarMalwarebytes believes WannaCry did not spread by a malicious spam email campaign, but by an scanning operation that searched for vulnerable public facing SMB ports, then used EternalBlue to get on the network and DoublePulsar to install the ransomware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EternalRocks network worm uses 7 NSA hacking tools

While you won’t be forgetting the WannaCry ransomware attack, it is likely you will be hearing a lot more about the alleged NSA-linked EternalBlue exploit and DoublePulsar backdoor as it seems a wide range of bad guys have them in their toyboxes. At least one person is leveraging seven leaked NSA hacking tools for a new EternalRocks network worm.EternalBlue and DoublePulsarMalwarebytes believes WannaCry did not spread by a malicious spam email campaign, but by an scanning operation that searched for vulnerable public facing SMB ports, then used EternalBlue to get on the network and DoublePulsar to install the ransomware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IPv6 Trends, SixXS Sunset and Project Planning

Native IPv6 availability continues to increase, leading to the sunset of SixXS services. But it looks like we don’t like starting any major IPv6 rollouts around Christmas/New Years, but instead start going into production from April onwards.

SixXS Sunset

In March 2017, the SixXS team announced that they are closing down all services in June 2017:

SixXS will be sunset in H1 2017. All services will be turned down on 2017-06-06, after which the SixXS project will be retired. Users will no longer be able to use their IPv6 tunnels or subnets after this date, and are required to obtain IPv6 connectivity elsewhere, primarily with their Internet service provider.

SixXS has provided a free IPv6 tunnel broker service for years, allowing people to get ‘native’ IPv6 connectivity even when their ISP didn’t offer it. A useful service in the early days of IPv6, when ISPs were dragging the chain.

But this is a Good Thing that it is now closing down. It’s closing down because their mission has been achieved, and people no longer require tunnel broker services. IPv6 is now widely available in many countries, and not just from niche ISPs. Mainstream ISPs such as Comcast in Continue reading

IPv6 Trends, SixXS Sunset and Project Planning

Native IPv6 availability continues to increase, leading to the sunset of SixXS services. But it looks like we don’t like starting any major IPv6 rollouts around Christmas/New Years, but instead start going into production from April onwards.

SixXS Sunset

In March 2017, the SixXS team announced that they are closing down all services in June 2017:

SixXS will be sunset in H1 2017. All services will be turned down on 2017-06-06, after which the SixXS project will be retired. Users will no longer be able to use their IPv6 tunnels or subnets after this date, and are required to obtain IPv6 connectivity elsewhere, primarily with their Internet service provider.

SixXS has provided a free IPv6 tunnel broker service for years, allowing people to get ‘native’ IPv6 connectivity even when their ISP didn’t offer it. A useful service in the early days of IPv6, when ISPs were dragging the chain.

But this is a Good Thing that it is now closing down. It’s closing down because their mission has been achieved, and people no longer require tunnel broker services. IPv6 is now widely available in many countries, and not just from niche ISPs. Mainstream ISPs such as Comcast in Continue reading

Big Bang For The Buck Jump With Volta DGX-1

One of the reasons why Nvidia has been able to quadruple revenues for its Tesla accelerators in recent quarters is that it doesn’t just sell raw accelerators as well as PCI-Express cards, but has become a system vendor in its own right through its DGX-1 server line. The company has also engineered new adapter cards specifically aimed at hyperscalers who want to crank up the performance on their machine learning inference workloads with a cheaper and cooler Volts GPU.

Nvidia does not break out revenues for the DGX-1 line separately from other Tesla and GRID accelerator product sales, but we …

Big Bang For The Buck Jump With Volta DGX-1 was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Show 340: OpenFlow, Fabrics & Network Virtualization

Todays Weekly Show is a wide-ranging discussion on OpenFlow (and what happened to it), network disaggregation, & network virtualization. Our guest Wes Felter and the Packet Pushers explore the current state of networking and speculate about where the industry is going. The post Show 340: OpenFlow, Fabrics & Network Virtualization appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Pockethernet – A Smartphone-Enabled Cable/Link/IP Tester

I saw an advertisement for Pockethernet a few months ago and it looked pretty impressive; €167.23 (~$179 based on xe.com‘s published exchange rates at the time of writing) for a 200 gram rechargeable device offering 10/100/1000 Ethernet and cable testing features such as:

  • A cable tester (wiremapping, TDR fault detection, PoE testing, BER and an analog toner)
  • Link analyzer (speed, duplex, VLAN tags, CDP/LLDP, traffic detection)
  • IP analyzer (DHCP, DNS, HTTP, ICMP ping)
  • Report generation

Over all, Pockethernet sounded like something I needed to look into more closely.

Pockethernet

Pockethernet

Pockethernet started off with the assistance of a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, raising $185,000 of their $50,000 target. Unusually for an electronic device, Pockethernet is manufactured in Hungary, which was nice to see. Unboxing the Pockethernet I was surprised (but pleased) to discover that the device is packaged in a soft, zipped carry case.

Pockethernet Unboxing

The box also contains a small User Guide, and inside the case is the Pockethernet tester, an adaptor, a short Ethernet cable and a short USB charging cable. There’s also a strip of blue velcro which will be useful to hold the tester in place if needed.

Pockethernet Unboxing

As it turns out, keeping the Pockethernet Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Veeam aims for continuous availability with Availability Suite v10

Veeam Software has been busy at its VeeamON user conference in New Orleans this week. During the event, the company talked about how it supports the "always on enterprise" and how it is helping enterprises support the transition to supporting the "digital life."The company's new Veeam Availability Suite v10 is designed to, in the company's words, "provide non-stop business continuity, digital transformation agility and analytics and visibility."Veeam Availability Suite v10 Here's what the company has to say about this new version of its software:This platform protects: Physical servers and Network Attached Storage (NAS). Tier-1 applications and mission-critical workloads with NEW Veeam CDP (continuous data protection), bringing recovery SLAs of seconds using continuous replication to the private or managed cloud. Native object storage support, freeing up costly primary backup storage with policy-driven automated data management to reduce long-term retention and compliance costs. This includes broad cloud object storage support with Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier, Microsoft Azure Blob and any S3/Swift compatible storage. The company goes on to describe what's new:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Veeam aims for continuous availability with Availability Suite v10

Veeam Software has been busy at its VeeamON user conference in New Orleans this week. During the event, the company talked about how it supports the "always on enterprise" and how it is helping enterprises support the transition to supporting the "digital life."The company's new Veeam Availability Suite v10 is designed to, in the company's words, "provide non-stop business continuity, digital transformation agility and analytics and visibility."Veeam Availability Suite v10 Here's what the company has to say about this new version of its software:This platform protects: Physical servers and Network Attached Storage (NAS). Tier-1 applications and mission-critical workloads with NEW Veeam CDP (continuous data protection), bringing recovery SLAs of seconds using continuous replication to the private or managed cloud. Native object storage support, freeing up costly primary backup storage with policy-driven automated data management to reduce long-term retention and compliance costs. This includes broad cloud object storage support with Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier, Microsoft Azure Blob and any S3/Swift compatible storage. The company goes on to describe what's new:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Raspberry Pi, ultrasonics, and music

My son is a musician and he’s mentioned several times that he’d like to get an instrument called a  theremin. If you haven’t encountered this instrument before, it consists of an antenna that the theraminist (yes, that is a real word) waves their hand around. The device responds with a musical tone that’s dependent on how close the theraminist’s hand is to the antenna. How does it actually work? According to Wikipedia: The theremin uses the heterodyne principle to generate an audio signal. The instrument's pitch circuitry includes two radio frequency oscillators set below 500 kHz to minimize radio interference. One oscillator operates at a fixed frequency. The frequency of the other oscillator is almost identical, and is controlled by the performer's distance from the pitch control antenna. /  The performer's hand acts as the grounded plate (the performer's body being the connection to ground) of a variable capacitor in an L-C (inductance-capacitance) circuit, which is part of the oscillator and determines its frequency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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