Event-Driven Ansible – ChatOps – From Chat to Action

Like any well-rounded individual, in times of intense concentration, you will find me talking to myself in search of some hidden knowledge that I might have received in a dream, or perhaps quoting something from a fantasy novel about wizards and creatures in an attempt to fix a problem. Unfortunately, wearing a robe and shouting “Repairo Network!” while pointing my pen toward the device has yet to help in any situation. 

At the 2023 AnsibleFest, as part of the main stage demonstration, I used the magic of Event-Driven Ansible to integrate ChatOps in our fictional infrastructure drama. ChatOps is not new, but I think it's a pretty cool way to make changes or interact with your infrastructure. 

We know that Event-Driven Ansible requires a source for events, a list of conditions which we call rulesets, and ultimately an action to match those conditions, which makes it perfect to use as a chatbot-type system.

For me to have a heart-to-heart with my beloved network, I will need to configure my chat as a source of events for Event-Driven Ansible, and to do this, I will use the webhook source plugin, which is part of the ansible.eda collection. Continue reading

Nexus9000v and “Missing” Routes

I have built my lab for VXLAN on the Nexus9300v platform. Since I have a leaf and spine topology, there are ECMP routes towards the spines for the other leafs’ loopbacks. When performing labs though, I noticed that I didn’t have any ECMP routes in the forwarding table (FIB). They are in the RIB, though:

Leaf1# show ip route 203.0.113.4
IP Route Table for VRF "default"
'*' denotes best ucast next-hop
'**' denotes best mcast next-hop
'[x/y]' denotes [preference/metric]
'%<string>' in via output denotes VRF <string>

203.0.113.4/32, ubest/mbest: 2/0
    *via 192.0.2.1, Eth1/1, [110/81], 1w0d, ospf-UNDERLAY, intra
    *via 192.0.2.2, Eth1/2, [110/81], 1w0d, ospf-UNDERLAY, intra

There is only one entry in the FIB, though:

Leaf1# show forwarding route 203.0.113.4?
  A.B.C.D      Display single longest match route
  A.B.C.D/LEN  Display single exact match route

Leaf1# show forwarding route 203.0.113.4/32

slot  1
=======


IPv4 routes for table default/base

------------------+-----------------------------------------+----------------------+-----------------+-----------------
Prefix            | Next-hop                                | Interface            | Labels          | Partial Install 
------------------+-----------------------------------------+----------------------+-----------------+-----------------
203.0.113.4/32       192.0.2.1                                 Ethernet1/1         

This seemed strange to me and I was concerned that maybe something was Continue reading

Lifetime ipSpace.net Subscription

More than thirteen years after I started creating vendor-neutral webinars, it’s time for another change1: the ipSpace.net subscriptions became perpetual. If you have an active ipSpace.net subscription, it will stay valid indefinitely2 (and I’ll stop nagging you with renewal notices).

Wow, Free Lunch?

Sadly, that’s not the case.

Lifetime ipSpace.net Subscription

More than thirteen years after I started creating vendor-neutral webinars, it’s time for another change1: the ipSpace.net subscriptions became perpetual. If you have an active ipSpace.net subscription, it will stay valid indefinitely2 (and I’ll stop nagging you with renewal notices).

Wow, Free Lunch?

Sadly, that’s not the case.

Cloudflare Radar’s 2023 overview of new tools and insights

Cloudflare Radar’s 2023 overview of new tools and insights
Cloudflare Radar’s 2023 overview of new tools and insights

Cloudflare Radar was launched in September 2020, almost three years ago, when the pandemic was affecting Internet traffic usage. It is a free tool to show Internet usage patterns from both human and automated systems, as well as attack trends, top domains, and adoption and usage of browsers and protocols. As Cloudflare has been publishing data-driven insights related to the general Internet for more than 10 years now, Cloudflare Radar is a natural evolution.

This year, we have introduced several new features to Radar, also available through our public API, that enables deeper data exploration. We’ve also launched an Internet Quality section, a Trending Domains section, a URL Scanner tool, and a Routing section to track network interconnection, routing security, and observed routing anomalies.

In this reading list, we want to highlight some of those new additions, as well as some of the Internet disruptions and trends we’ve observed and published posts about during this year, including the war in Ukraine, the impact of Easter, and exam-related shutdowns in Iraq and Algeria.

We also encourage everyone to explore Cloudflare Radar and its new features, and to give you a partial review of the year, in terms of Internet Continue reading

About

Author

An open source contributor ( https://github.com/kashif-nawaz?tab=repositories) with 14+ years experience with expertise in diverse domains i.e IP/ MPLS Backbone networks  , Data Center (IP-Fabric , EVPN-VxLAN, Server/ Chassis Network design), NFVI, Telco and Edge  Cloud (Openstack, K8s and Openshift). Author of the book titled “Designing and Deploying Carrier-Grade, Cloud-Native Infrastructure for Telco and Edge Cloud” (https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/day-one-books/DayOne-Designing-Deploying-Carrier-Grade-Cloud-Native-Infrastructure.pdf)

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Kashif Nawaz

(JNICE-SP & Sec, Redhat Certified Engineer,  Certified Kubernetes Administrator, Redhat Openshift Administrator )

[email protected]

VMware warns customers to immediately patch critical Aria network software holes

VMware is advising customers to upgrade or patch its Aria for Network Operations software because of potential security problems.VMware Aria is the vendor’s multi-cloud management platform that integrates previously separate VMware services such as vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations, vRealize Network Insight, and CloudHealth. A single Aria Hub console provides centralized views and controls and lets customers see and manage the entire multi-cloud environment.The vulnerabilities are in Aria Operations for Networks, a monitoring component that can find the cause of application delays based on TCP traffic latency and retransmissions and trigger alerts on the applications dashboard.To read this article in full, please click here

VMware warns customers to immediately patch critical Aria network software holes

VMware is advising customers to upgrade or patch its Aria for Network Operations software because of potential security problems.VMware Aria is the vendor’s multi-cloud management platform that integrates previously separate VMware services such as vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations, vRealize Network Insight, and CloudHealth. A single Aria Hub console provides centralized views and controls and lets customers see and manage the entire multi-cloud environment.The vulnerabilities are in Aria Operations for Networks, a monitoring component that can find the cause of application delays based on TCP traffic latency and retransmissions and trigger alerts on the applications dashboard.To read this article in full, please click here

The Edge Propels HPE While Datacenter Taps The Brakes

Customers of Hewlett Packard Enterprise have one foot on the gas and one foot on the brakes at the same time that the company is transitioning from selling gear outright to customers to selling them subscriptions that spread the cost – and therefore HPE’s recognized revenues – out over time.

The post The Edge Propels HPE While Datacenter Taps The Brakes first appeared on The Next Platform.

The Edge Propels HPE While Datacenter Taps The Brakes was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Day Two Cloud 208: HashiCorp Licensing Changes And The Day Two Cloud-Chaos Lever Crossover

Today on Day Two Cloud we dive into the implications of licensing changes that HashiCorp has made to its popular Terraform software. In short, the company has switched from an open source to a business source license. HashiCorp says it felt compelled to make the change to ensure that some other business entity doesn't take the open-source software and turn it into a competing product (looking at you, AWS). Will the licensing change have a significant impact? For 99% of users probably not, but there are caveats and concerns to discuss. Today's show is a crossover with Chaos Lever, a weekly podcast co-hosted by Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner that covers IT news.

Day Two Cloud 208: HashiCorp Licensing Changes And The Day Two Cloud-Chaos Lever Crossover

Today on Day Two Cloud we dive into the implications of licensing changes that HashiCorp has made to its popular Terraform software. In short, the company has switched from an open source to a business source license. HashiCorp says it felt compelled to make the change to ensure that some other business entity doesn't take the open-source software and turn it into a competing product (looking at you, AWS). Will the licensing change have a significant impact? For 99% of users probably not, but there are caveats and concerns to discuss. Today's show is a crossover with Chaos Lever, a weekly podcast co-hosted by Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner that covers IT news.

The post Day Two Cloud 208: HashiCorp Licensing Changes And The Day Two Cloud-Chaos Lever Crossover appeared first on Packet Pushers.

BrandPost: Top four benefits of SASE for the modern workplace

By: Gabriel Gomane, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.With the acceleration of digital transformation and hybrid working, organizations are moving their applications to the cloud at a faster pace. Users are now accessing sensitive data in the cloud from any location and device, often through untrusted connections. Traditional security models based on perimeter defenses are becoming obsolete as the security perimeter dissolves.To solve these challenges, watch my video to learn how SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) enable the workplace transformation.To read this article in full, please click here

Intel details next generation of Xeon processors

Intel used the Hot Chips 2023 show to introduce the next generation of its Xeon processors, codenamed Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids. This will be the first generation of Xeon processors with different core designs: the new Efficient-core (E-core) architecture and existing Performance-core (P-core) architecture. The new processors will be considerably beefier than the previous generation, codenamed Sapphire Rapids. They will feature up to 144 cores and emphasize greater memory and I/O bandwidth performance, two areas where Xeon has lagged behind AMD’s Epyc processors.To read this article in full, please click here