Monitoring SDN Networks: Featured Webinar in June 2016

Monitoring SDN Networks is the featured webinar of June 2017, and in the featured video Terry Slattery (CCIE#1026) talks about network analysis of SDN.

If you’re a trial subscriber, log into my.ipspace.net, select the webinar from the first page, and watch the video marked with star… and if you’d like to try the ipSpace.net subscription register here.

Trial subscribers can also use this month's featured webinar discount to get a 25% discount (and get closer to the full subscription).

Notes on open-sourcing abandoned code

The Difference Between Proper Devs and Me

I spend a lot of time poking around with code, and I can figure out most integration challenges, and simple code fixes. But I do not call myself a developer. I know, we can argue about what constitutes a developer, but I don’t really want to get into that. I’d just like to highlight something that showed the difference between the futzing about that I do, and the way a senior developer thinks about problems.

StackStorm Documentation Process

We use reStructuredText for StackStorm documentation. It’s a form of markup language, with everything is written in plaintext. It gets parsed into HTML (and potentially other formats). The use of special punctuation marks and indentation tells the parser how to render the HTML - e.g. inserting links, highlighting text, bullet points, etc.

When I want to update our documentation, I create a branch on our GitHub st2docs repo. I make my changes, then create a Pull Request against the master branch. When I do this, it triggers our CircleCI checks. These checks include attempting to build the documentation, and failing if there are any parsing errors. If I’ve made a mistake in my syntax, it gets caught at this point, and Continue reading

The Difference Between Proper Devs and Me

I spend a lot of time poking around with code, and I can figure out most integration challenges, and simple code fixes. But I do not call myself a developer. I know, we can argue about what constitutes a developer, but I don’t really want to get into that. I’d just like to highlight something that showed the difference between the futzing about that I do, and the way a senior developer thinks about problems.

StackStorm Documentation Process

We use reStructuredText for StackStorm documentation. It’s a form of markup language, with everything is written in plaintext. It gets parsed into HTML (and potentially other formats). The use of special punctuation marks and indentation tells the parser how to render the HTML - e.g. inserting links, highlighting text, bullet points, etc.

When I want to update our documentation, I create a branch on our GitHub st2docs repo. I make my changes, then create a Pull Request against the master branch. When I do this, it triggers our CircleCI checks. These checks include attempting to build the documentation, and failing if there are any parsing errors. If I’ve made a mistake in my syntax, it gets caught at this point, and Continue reading

61% off Jackery Bolt 6,000mAh Power Bank with Built-in Lightning and Micro USB Cables – Deal Alert

Reduce some of that cable clutter with the ultra compact Jackery Bolt 6,000mAh external battery charger that features a built-in Apple Lighting cable for your iPhone or iPad and a built-in micro-USB cable for other mobile devices. With an additional open USB port you can charge up to 3 devices at once. Powerful 6000 mAh capacity can fully charge an iPhone 6 at up to 3 times.  The Jackery Bolt averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 240 people on Amazon (read reviews), where its list price of $69.99 has been reduced 63% down to just $26.99. See the discounted external power bank now on Amazon. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Stretching the Business of Tape Storage to Extreme Scale

IPOs and major investments in storage startups are one thing, but when it comes to a safe tech company investment, all bets are still on tape.

The rumors of tape’s death are greatly exaggerated, but there have been some changes to the market. While the number of installed sites might be shrinking for long-time tape storage maker, SpectraLogic, the installation sizes of its remaining customers keeps growing, which produces a nice uptick in revenue for the company, according to its CTO, Matt Starr.

This makes sense since the relatively smaller backups and archives make better performance sense on disk—and many …

Stretching the Business of Tape Storage to Extreme Scale was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

Worth Reading: What if there is no money in systems?

Making money in the information technology market has always been a challenge, but it keeps getting increasingly difficult as the tumultuous change in how companies consume compute, storage, and networking rips through all aspects of this $3 trillion market. It is tough to know exactly what do to, and we see companies chasing the hot new things, doing acquisitions to bolster their positions, and selling off legacy businesses to generate the cash to do the deals and to keep Wall Street at bay. —The Next Platform

The post Worth Reading: What if there is no money in systems? appeared first on rule 11 reader.

7 must-have network tools

Fave Raves is an annual feature from Network World that invites enterprise IT pros to share hands-on assessments of products they love. Several IT pros raved about their favorite network tools. Here’s what they had to say, in their own words. For more enterprise favorites, check out the full Fave Raves collection.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

7 must-have network tools

Fave Raves is an annual feature from Network World that invites enterprise IT pros to share hands-on assessments of products they love. Several IT pros raved about their favorite network tools. Here’s what they had to say, in their own words. For more enterprise favorites, check out the full Fave Raves collection.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

7 must-have network tools

Fave Raves is an annual feature from Network World that invites enterprise IT pros to share hands-on assessments of products they love. Several IT pros raved about their favorite network tools. Here’s what they had to say, in their own words. For more enterprise favorites, check out the full Fave Raves collection.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

CA and Netrounds Partner to Combine Monitoring and Testing

CA wants to be the go-to vendor for Cisco's SD-WAN environment.

CCIE/CCDE Re-certification: An Opportunity to Learn and Grow

I did not pass my CCDE re-certification last week.  Why write a blog about a “failure”?  Honestly?  Because I think we as an IT industry overly focus and give too many kudos to the passing only.  Not to the hours and hours of studying and learning… not to the lessons learned… not to the growth gained from the studying journey.  Just to the “pass/fail”.  Well damn… no wonder people cheat.  Their focus isn’t on the learning or the journey.  Just the passing.

I thoroughly believe the expression –

Sometimes you win….. Sometimes you learn.

Did I want to pass last week?  ROFL!  Are you kidding?  Of course I did!  Did I “deserve” to pass?  Well…. um…. err… not exactly.

See that 10% at the bottom of the “Written Exam Topics v2.1?”   Truth be told I didn’t quite exactly study that part very much.

So what is my plan now?

LEARN

Honestly in my job I am not doing much Cloud, SDN, or IoT.  AND I have to admit I am quite happy I am now essentially forced to learn these to a Continue reading

Nokia rolls out its first ‘petabit-class’ router

With internet traffic set to triple over the next five years or so, according to recent estimates from Nokia and Cisco Systems, Nokia thinks the time is right for a new range of high-end routers that can boost core capacity by a factor of six—and even help 10-year-old devices to double their capacity.Nokia predicts that by 2022, total internet traffic will reach 330 exabytes per month. (That's 330 million terabytes). For its part, Cisco forecasts it will grow at 24 percent per year from a base of 96 exabytes per month in 2016 to 278 exabytes per month in 2021.That traffic growth will be driven by three things, according to Nokia: cloud services, 5G mobile networks, and the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nokia rolls out its first ‘petabit-class’ router

With internet traffic set to triple over the next five years or so, according to recent estimates from Nokia and Cisco Systems, Nokia thinks the time is right for a new range of high-end routers that can boost core capacity by a factor of six—and even help 10-year-old devices to double their capacity.Nokia predicts that by 2022, total internet traffic will reach 330 exabytes per month. (That's 330 million terabytes). For its part, Cisco forecasts it will grow at 24 percent per year from a base of 96 exabytes per month in 2016 to 278 exabytes per month in 2021.That traffic growth will be driven by three things, according to Nokia: cloud services, 5G mobile networks, and the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Watch Out for Comcast in Network Virtualization, Says TBR

SDN and NFV spending will reach $168B by 2022.

Broadcom Adds Software Control Over Chip-Based Switches

Programmability move looks to target a recent play by Barefoot Networks.

Amazon transforms data into bricks

There’s been a lot of news lately about Amazon opening physical stores. These news articles keep interrupting my regular stream of stories about digital transformation. Or are these topics the same?Digital transformation involves using technology to improve performance and/or experience. The tool kit to do this is largely software-based and includes improved integration and workflow, analytics, mobility, social media and IoT devices.Due to Amazon.com's advantage in price and selection, the company has become a retailing behemoth at the expense of local retail. Store closures are about to hit a 20-year high, and malls are dying. This is unfortunate because retail centers provide more benefits than shopping. They are gathering places and contribute tax revenue for their municipalities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CCNA Wireless – CCNA Wireless Notes Chapter 6

802.11 Frame Format

In a wired Ethernet network, the switch is not an active participant in communication at L2. In a wireless LAN, the AP is an active participant unless something like 802.11z, Extension to Direct Link Setup (DLS) is used.

To direct frames through the AP, the radio must have a MAC address, known as the BSSID.

802.11 frames can carry a maximum payload of 2304 bytes.

To support wireless communication, the Ethernet frame format is quite different compared to wired networks. The Ethernet frame starts out with a 2-byte Frame Control field, identifying the frame type, the direction the frame is traveling in and more.

In a common scenario with multiple clients associated with an AP that is connected to an DS, frames travel from clients towards the DS or from the DS towards the clients.

The frame motion is indicated by two bits, To DS and From DS, in the Frame Control field.

Frames sent by a wireless client will Continue reading

BrandPost: SD-WAN: What A Difference A Year Makes

SD-WAN is taking off.A year ago we announced 100 paying, deployed EdgeConnect SD-WAN customers. Earlier this month, we announced our 400th customer deployment, representing a quadrupling of our SD-WAN customer base in just 12 months.We are seeing our Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN solution deployed globally, across a wide range of industries including financial services, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and transport. Our customers are simplifying and consolidating their WAN edge infrastructure, reducing operating costs and delivering an improved IT experience to their distributed workforce.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Imagination adds safety, resilience to processor for IoT

Picture this: The networking stack on the main pump controller has crashed, and you need to reboot it -- but it's 20 meters underground, on another continent -- and there's no-one on site to hit 'reset'.Or you're bowling along the highway and one of the processor cores in your self-driving car gets zapped by a cosmic ray (yes, this could actually happen). The software can't tell whether the resulting error is a transient glitch or a hardware fault, so limits you to 50 kilometers per hour for safety: No fun with a monster truck hurtling up behind you.Chip designers such as ARM and Imagination Technologies are applying industrial safety design techniques to their processor cores so that they can get themselves out of situations like this. You could soon feel the benefit even if you don't run a subterranean pumping station in Azerbaijan, nor yet have a self-driving car in your garage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here