Getting Started with NSX Load Balancing

In my conversations with customers and peers, load balancing is becoming an increasingly popular discussion.  Why you may ask?  Simple, load balancing is a critical component for most enterprise applications to provide both availability and scalability to the system.  Over the last decade we have moved from bare metal servers to virtual servers and from manual deployment of operating systems to using tools like Chef, Puppet, vRA or other custom workflows. In addition to the movement towards virtualization and the API being the new CLI, we are also seeing a movement to Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) where Virtualized Network Functions (VNF) such as routing, VPN, firewalls, and load balancing are moving to software. The value of automation, SDN, and NFV has been proven in the largest networks today and this migration to software has proven to have tremendous ROI. Many companies also want to leverage the same cost effective models.   To get us started, here are the most common questions:

  1. Does NSX provide load balancing? Yes, NSX has a feature set that addresses the most common deployment requirements for load balancing in enterprises today.
  2. Do you charge more for NSX Edge Load Balancing? No, NSX Load Continue reading

Five things we’ve learned about monitoring containers and their orchestrators

This is a guest post by Apurva Davé, who is part of the product team at Sysdig.

Having worked with hundreds of customers on building a monitoring stack for their containerized environments, we’ve learned a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t. The outcomes might surprise you - including the observation that instrumentation is just as important as the application when it comes to monitoring.

In this post, I wanted to cover some details around what it takes to build a scale-out, highly reliable monitoring system to work across tens of thousands of containers. I’ll share a bit about what our infrastructure looks like, the design choices we made, and tradeoffs. The five areas I’ll cover:

  • Instrumenting the system

  • Relating your data to your applications, hosts, and containers.

  • Leveraging orchestrators

  • Deciding what to data to store

  • How to enable troubleshooting in containerized environments

For context, Sysdig is the container monitoring company. We’re based on the open source Linux troubleshooting project by the same name. The open source project allows you to see every single system call down to process, arguments, payload, and connection on a single host. The commercial offering turns all this data into thousands of Continue reading

Internet VPN or MPLS for branch office IP phone communication?

Many businesses with branch offices that have IP-enabled phones must decide what type of circuit medium to use for their communication to the corporate headquarters site.Two of the most selected choices are a MPLS circuit or internet VPN. Both solutions have their pros and cons, and what is best can depend on your business requirements. Speed, quality of service (QoS), security and cost are the key factors you should consider when making this decision.Pros and cons of an internet VPN A significant advantage of using an internet VPN for communication is the cost. Most times, a branch site can use its existing internet connection for communication back to its headquarters. Usually, a 10 Mbps internet circuit costs much less than a 10 Mbps MPLS circuit. This can encourage a business to purchase more bandwidth for their branch site.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Internet VPN or MPLS for branch office IP phone communication?

Many businesses with branch offices that have IP-enabled phones must decide what type of circuit medium to use for their communication to the corporate headquarters site.Two of the most selected choices are a MPLS circuit or internet VPN. Both solutions have their pros and cons, and what is best can depend on your business requirements. Speed, quality of service (QoS), security and cost are the key factors you should consider when making this decision.Pros and cons of an internet VPN A significant advantage of using an internet VPN for communication is the cost. Most times, a branch site can use its existing internet connection for communication back to its headquarters. Usually, a 10 Mbps internet circuit costs much less than a 10 Mbps MPLS circuit. This can encourage a business to purchase more bandwidth for their branch site.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 strategies to create meaningful mobile engagement with customers

Engaging customers via their mobile devices is an exciting proposition for many organizations; however, it has to be done with care. These solutions often carry a significant cost and depend on a Return on Investment (ROI) model to make sense.Achieving this ROI requires walking a fine line between meaningful engagement and being a nuisance. Here are five best practices to help you do that. 5 ways to ensure your mobile strategy works 1. Think big picture The goal is to create a user experience that provides vast amounts of data to the organization while delivering value to the customer. Accomplishing that means the experience needs to be immersive and omni-channel (e.g., SMS, email, app-based, digital signage, direct mail, etc.).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Email-based attacks exploit unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Word

Attackers have been exploiting an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Word for the past few months to compromise computers and infect them with malware.The first report about the attacks came Friday from antivirus vendor McAfee after the company's researchers analyzed some suspicious Word files spotted a day earlier. It turned out that the files were exploiting a vulnerability that affects "all Microsoft Office versions, including the latest Office 2016 running on Windows 10."The flaw is related to the Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) feature in Microsoft Office that allows documents to embed references and links to other documents or objects, the McAfee researchers said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Email-based attacks exploit unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Word

Attackers have been exploiting an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Word for the past few months to compromise computers and infect them with malware.The first report about the attacks came Friday from antivirus vendor McAfee after the company's researchers analyzed some suspicious Word files spotted a day earlier. It turned out that the files were exploiting a vulnerability that affects "all Microsoft Office versions, including the latest Office 2016 running on Windows 10."The flaw is related to the Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) feature in Microsoft Office that allows documents to embed references and links to other documents or objects, the McAfee researchers said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Say Hello to oVirt 4.1.1

On March 22, the oVirt project released version 4.1.1, available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3, CentOS Linux 7.3, or similar.

oVirt is the open source virtualization solution that provides an awesome KVM management interface for multi-node virtualization. This maintenance version is super stable and there are some nice new features.

So what's new in oVirt 4.1.1?

Storage Team

  • LUNs can be removed from a block data domain, provided that there is enough free space on the other domain devices to contain the data stored on the LUNs being removed.
  • Support for NFS version 4.2 connections (when supported by storage).

Integration Team

  • oVirt-hosted-engine-setup now works with NetworkManager enabled.

Network Team

  • NetworkManager keeps running when a host is added to oVirt. This allows users to review networking configurations in cockpit whenever they want.

Infra Team

  • A new tool, engine-vacuum, performs a vacuum on the PostgreSQL database in order to reclaim disk space on the operating system. It also updates and removes garbage from tables.
  • Alerts for all data centers and clusters that are not upgraded to the highest compatibility version.
  • Time zones are now shown in log records to make it easier to correlate Continue reading

Spain arrests supposed Russian computer scientist at US request

A Russian man reported to be a computer scientist has been arrested and is being held in Spain, with a law enforcement source contracting news reports saying he was involved with a computer virus linked to U.S. President Donald Trump's recent election victory.The arrest of Piotr Levashov at the Barcelona airport on Friday was not tied to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, said the source, who is close to the investigation. That contradicts news reports from Agence France-Presse and other news outlets, which said Levashov's wife, Maria Levachova, was told his arrest was connected to Trump's election.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spain arrests accused Russian spammer at US request

A Russian man long connected with sending spam emails has been arrested and is being held in Spain, with a law enforcement source contracting news reports saying he was involved with a computer virus linked to U.S. President Donald Trump's recent election victory.The arrest of Piotr Levashov at the Barcelona airport on Friday was not tied to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, said the source, who is close to the investigation. That contradicts news reports from Agence France-Presse and other news outlets, which said Levashov's wife, Maria Levachova, was told his arrest was connected to Trump's election.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spain arrests accused Russian spammer at US request

A Russian man long connected with sending spam emails has been arrested and is being held in Spain, with a law enforcement source contracting news reports saying he was involved with a computer virus linked to U.S. President Donald Trump's recent election victory.The arrest of Piotr Levashov at the Barcelona airport on Friday was not tied to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, said the source, who is close to the investigation. That contradicts news reports from Agence France-Presse and other news outlets, which said Levashov's wife, Maria Levachova, was told his arrest was connected to Trump's election.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ticked at President Trump, Shadow Brokers dump password for NSA hacking tools

Ticked at President Trump, the Shadow Brokers hacking group released the password for the NSA hacking tools they previously tried to sell.In an open letter to President Donald Trump, the group asked, “Respectfully, what the f**k are you doing?” In broken English, they accused the president of “abandoning ‘your base,’ ‘the movement,’ and the peoples who getting you elected.”After a “quick review” of the tools unlocked with the password, Edward Snowden noted that “it’s nowhere near the full library, but there’s still so much here that NSA should be able to instantly identify where this set came from and how they lost it. If they can’t, it's a scandal.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ticked at President Trump, Shadow Brokers dump password for NSA hacking tools

Ticked at President Trump, the Shadow Brokers hacking group released the password for the NSA hacking tools they previously tried to sell.In an open letter to President Donald Trump, the group asked, “Respectfully, what the f**k are you doing?” In broken English, they accused the president of “abandoning ‘your base,’ ‘the movement,’ and the peoples who getting you elected.”After a “quick review” of the tools unlocked with the password, Edward Snowden noted that “it’s nowhere near the full library, but there’s still so much here that NSA should be able to instantly identify where this set came from and how they lost it. If they can’t, it's a scandal.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Curaçao and Djibouti – two new Cloudflare datacenters located where undersea cables meet

Curaçao and Djibouti - two new Cloudflare datacenters located where undersea cables meet

Cloudflare has just turned up two new datacenters (numbers 108 and 109). Both are around halfway between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator. They are located continents-apart, yet share something very-much in common as both of these new data centers are deployed and associated with where undersea cables reach land. Undersea cables have been and still are a growing part of the interconnected world that the Internet represents.

Curaçao, part of the Netherland Antilles in the Caribbean

Curaçao and Djibouti - two new Cloudflare datacenters located where undersea cables meet CC-BY 2.0 image by Nelo Hotsuma

Curaçao is located in the Southern Caribbean Sea (just north of Venezuela) and has a strong Dutch heritage. Along with Aruba and Bonaire, Curaçao is part of the Lesser Antilles (they are called the ABC islands).

More importantly, Willemstad - the capital of Curaçao is where the Amsterdam Internet Exchange operates AMS-IX Caribbean. Why AMS-IX? Because of that Dutch relationship!

It’s AMS-IX’s goal (along with its local partners) to promote Curaçao as an interconnection location for the Caribbean. Cloudflare is there with all its services ready for that day!

Djibouti on the horn of Africa

Djibouti is a country of around 850,000 people with ~60% of the population living in the nation's capital, also Continue reading

How to improve Dynamic Lock in Windows 10 Creators Update

When Microsoft released Build 15031 of the Windows 10 Insider Preview on February 8, 2017, it added a new OS feature for Bluetooth-equipped devices. It's called Dynamic Lock, and lets you control access to your PCs based on how close they — and your Bluetooth-paired phones — are to them. That is, if the phone you've paired with your PC (it works for laptops, notebooks, tablets and desktops) is not found within radio range of your PC, Windows 10 turns off the screen and locks the PC after 30 seconds have elapsed. Thus, Dynamic Lock makes a dandy new security feature in Creators Update, one that most business users (or their IT departments) will find worth turning on and using.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to improve Dynamic Lock in Windows 10 Creators Update

When Microsoft released Build 15031 of the Windows 10 Insider Preview on February 8, 2017, it added a new OS feature for Bluetooth-equipped devices. It's called Dynamic Lock, and lets you control access to your PCs based on how close they — and your Bluetooth-paired phones — are to them. That is, if the phone you've paired with your PC (it works for laptops, notebooks, tablets and desktops) is not found within radio range of your PC, Windows 10 turns off the screen and locks the PC after 30 seconds have elapsed. Thus, Dynamic Lock makes a dandy new security feature in Creators Update, one that most business users (or their IT departments) will find worth turning on and using.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows Embedded’s future looks rocky

Ah, Windows Embedded. The Microsoft operating system that millions of devices and machines are running, typically with a custom application or skin running on top of it so that users don't automatically notice the OS. The operating system that underpins hundreds of thousands of medical devices, automatic teller machines, kiosks at airports and other crowded public places, industrial machinery and control planes, set top boxes, game consoles.Windows Embedded is a relatively unheralded version of Windows whose existence might surprise you. But it seems like Windows Embedded's existence might also surprise a lot of folks up in Redmond. Here, at the Microsoft campus, despite all of the hullabaloo about Windows 10 and device updates -- and the new Creators Update and Redstone versions that will be coming down the pike at an almost breakneck speed -- Windows Embedded suffers from an opposite problem. It appears unfortunately stuck in a place where no future has clearly been laid out for it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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