NSF and GR on Nexus 5000

NSF and GR are two features in Layer 3 network elements (NEs) that allows two adjacent elements to work together when one of them undergoes a control plane switchover or control plane restart.

The benefit is that when a control plane switchover/restart occurs, the impact to network traffic is kept to a minimum and in most cases, to zero.

NSF

  • Non-Stop Forwarding
  • When a control plane protocol such as BGP, OSPF, or EIGRP restarts and neighbors/adjacencies are reset, NSF will allow the data plane to hold onto the routes that were learned via that control plane protocol and continue to forward traffic while the neighbors/adjacencies are re-established.
  • Control plane restarts occur when you have a router or switch with dual route processors or supervisor engines and there is a switchover from the active to the hot standby. When the newly active RP/sup takes over, it has to re-establish neighbors/adjacencies because that information is not part of the synchronization that occurs between the two RPs/sups.
  • NSF keeps traffic moving — without the need to reroute — while the switchover is happening.
  • NSF happens locally, all within the network element where the switchover is happening.

GR

Facebook details its 2016 open source accomplishments

Facebook added 54 new projects to its open-source initiative during the last six months. The company is on a mission to open source its code for software and hardware to encourage ongoing development from outside companies and engineers. "We build tools that enable engineers to work more easily across platforms, automate testing to catch problems sooner, and help improve the overall performance of our products," wrote Christine Abernathy, a developer advocate with Facebook's open source team, in a blog post. "We know from experience that collaborating with the open source community surfaces new ideas and solutions to the challenges that we face." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How Salesforce.com’s Wave Analytics helps publisher track leads

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) is leaning heavily on data to identify sales opportunities and track the status of existing accounts, both crucial activities as the textbook publisher’s business increasingly shifts from ink and paper to learning software. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt CTO Brook Colangelo. HMH CTO Brook Colangelo says the company has bet on analytics software as part of a sweeping transformation at the 184-year-old publisher designed to give sales staff more easily accessible data about leads from any mobile device.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft disavows 1B-or-bust goal for Windows 10

Microsoft today acknowledged that it would not make its self-imposed goal of putting Windows 10 on 1 billion devices by mid-2018. "We're pleased with our progress to date, but due to the focusing of our phone hardware business, it will take longer than FY18 for us to reach our goal of 1 billion monthly active devices," a Microsoft spokesman said in an emailed statement. "In the year ahead, we are excited about usage growth coming from commercial deployments and new devices - and increasing customer delight with Windows." Microsoft's fiscal year 2018 -- the "FY18" mentioned in the firm's statement -- ends June 1, 2018. Ed Bott of ZDNet first reported on Microsoft's admission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If Microsoft can’t install Windows 10 on your PC, it’ll give you a new one

As July 29 gets closer and the free Windows 10 upgrade offer reaches its final days, Microsoft is pulling out all the stops in order to convince users to upgrade. It’s even willing to give you a new laptop. As spotted by Neowin, Microsoft retail stores are offering to install Windows 10 on any compatible machine for free. If the store’s technicians don’t complete the upgrade by the end of that business day, they’ll give you a free 15-inch Dell Inspiron notebook.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The H-1B positions of Clinton and Trump

With the political conventions set for the next two weeks, now is the time to offer a summary of where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton stand on tech's top issue, immigration. Silicon Valley fears Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president. A letter released Thursday and signed by about 150 technologists, inventors and entrepreneurs, said Trump would be a disaster for innovation. Much of their criticism was directed at his proposed immigration policies. Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, is far more aligned with Silicon Valley on immigration.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T likes ‘white-box’ networks and hopes you will, too

AT&T’s march toward standard “white-box” network gear will come to enterprises this week with the introduction of a standard x86 server that can take the place of four specialized network devices. AT&T is aggressively pursuing SDN and NFV (network functions virtualization), a pair of technologies that are expected to change the face of networking over the next several years. The carrier is on track to have nearly one-third of its own infrastructure virtualized this year. More important for enterprises, it’s offering customers a way to do the same thing at their own locations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T likes ‘white-box’ networks and hopes you will, too

AT&T’s march toward standard “white-box” network gear will come to enterprises this week with the introduction of a standard x86 server that can take the place of four specialized network devices. AT&T is aggressively pursuing SDN and NFV (network functions virtualization), a pair of technologies that are expected to change the face of networking over the next several years. The carrier is on track to have nearly one-third of its own infrastructure virtualized this year. More important for enterprises, it’s offering customers a way to do the same thing at their own locations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T likes ‘white-box’ networks and hopes you will, too

AT&T’s march toward standard “white-box” network gear will come to enterprises this week with the introduction of a standard x86 server that can take the place of four specialized network devices. AT&T is aggressively pursuing SDN and NFV (network functions virtualization), a pair of technologies that are expected to change the face of networking over the next several years. The carrier is on track to have nearly one-third of its own infrastructure virtualized this year. More important for enterprises, it’s offering customers a way to do the same thing at their own locations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Essential Azure automation tricks for Windows admins

Any organization making use of the cloud will want to leverage the power of infrastructure automation. This holds true whether you’re tapping Amazon Web Serices, Microsoft Azure, or any other cloud service. Automating repetitively executed tasks will save considerable labor and reduce human error.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Tech leaders challenged daily to sort through a crush of new security apps

A tech leader's day can be unpredictable, but Ginny Davis, CIO at entertainment services company Technicolor, can rely on one thing: She's guaranteed to get an email from a new security provider urging her to check out its latest and greatest technology. Davis says she values "the evolution in the fight against hackers" and considers the many new options a positive trend, "but it's mind-numbing how quickly [the security landscape] is changing." Bob Lamendola, general manager of infrastructure services at IT services provider Mindshift, agrees. "The number of security-related products and services coming at you is almost frightening. The [security] marketplace is evolving at a frantic rate, making a complex situation even more complex to navigate."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

15 free Modern Windows apps for IT pros

There are countless free app lists out there for traditional Windows applications and mobile OSs, but not as many for the newer Modern Windows apps. Most of these apps are still very basic in their functionality, but nevertheless there are some that are quite useful, even for network and IT professionals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

New products of the week 7.18.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Built.io FlowKey features: Built.io Flow makes building enterprise integrations easier. The Activity Builder allows organizations to instantly add new services to their integration library. The Data Mapper enables data transformation between heterogeneous systems. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 7.18.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Built.io FlowKey features: Built.io Flow makes building enterprise integrations easier. The Activity Builder allows organizations to instantly add new services to their integration library. The Data Mapper enables data transformation between heterogeneous systems. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Flaw in vBulletin add-on leads to Ubuntu Forums database breach

Ubuntu support forums users should be on the lookout for dodgy emails after the website's database of 2 million email addresses was stolen.Canonical announced the security breach on Friday after being notified that someone was claiming to have a copy of the UbuntuForums.org database. An investigation revealed that an attacker did get access to the website's user records through a vulnerability.The exploited SQL injection flaw was located in the Forum Runner add-on for vBulletin, commercial web forum software that powers over 100,000 community websites on the Internet and is especially popular with companies. The vulnerability was known, but the Canonical IS team had failed to apply the patch for it in a timely manner.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Flaw in vBulletin add-on leads to Ubuntu Forums database breach

Ubuntu support forums users should be on the lookout for dodgy emails after the website's database of 2 million email addresses was stolen.Canonical announced the security breach on Friday after being notified that someone was claiming to have a copy of the UbuntuForums.org database. An investigation revealed that an attacker did get access to the website's user records through a vulnerability.The exploited SQL injection flaw was located in the Forum Runner add-on for vBulletin, commercial web forum software that powers over 100,000 community websites on the Internet and is especially popular with companies. The vulnerability was known, but the Canonical IS team had failed to apply the patch for it in a timely manner.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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