Useful Utilities

Troubleshooting and managing a network is much easier when you have the proper tools. Anybody who has been in the IT world for a time likely has a stash of small, portable, and often free programs they use to help in this area. Here is a list of my most-used utilities. To skip the descriptions […]

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Technology Short Take #67

Welcome to Technology Short Take #67. Here’s hoping something I’ve collected for you here proves useful!

Networking

  • Anthony Burke has written a script that uses VMware NSX to protect VMware Log Insight instances. More information on the script is in his blog post.
  • Russ White tackles the issue of networking engineers needing to learn to code. Is it necessary? Russ thinks so—but probably not for the reasons you might think. I tend to agree with Russ’ line of thinking.
  • This article from Marcos Hernandez shows one way to do dynamic routing in OpenStack. It’s a bit of a hack, to be honest, but it gets the job done until dynamic routing makes its way into OpenStack Neutron (which looks like it may have landed in the Mitaka release—can anyone confirm?).
  • Jason Messer has an article describing how networking works with Windows containers.
  • Tom Hollingsworth discusses how the rise of overlay networks killed large layer 2 networks and tools for building large layer 2 networks, like TRILL.
  • Dmitri Kalintsev examines some options for addressing storage-related connectivity in NSX environments.

Servers/Hardware

My fellow Republicans: don’t support Trump

Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, has a post claiming a Trump presidency wouldn't be as bad as people fear. It's a good post. But it's wrong.

Trump is certainly not as bad as his haters claim. Trump not only disables the critical-thinking ability of his supporters, but also of his enemies. In most conversations, I end up defending Trump -- not because I support him as a candidate, but because I support critical-thinking. He's only racist sometimes, most of the time I love his political incorrectness.

But with all that said, he would indeed be a horrible president. As a long-term Republican, I'd prefer a Hillary Clinton presidency, and I hate Hillary to the depths of my soul. She's corrupt, and worst of all, she's a leftist.

But there's a thing worse than being a leftist (or right-winger) and that's being a "populist demagogue". Populist demagogues tell you that all your problems are caused by them (you know, those people), and present unrealistic solutions to problems. They appeal to base emotion and ignorance.

When nations fail because of politics, it's almost always due to populist demagogues. Virtually all dictators are a "man of the people", protecting Continue reading

Apple sends out invites for WWDC 2016

We already knew the dates for WWDC, but now it's 100% official. Apple yesterday began sending out invitations to select media outlets confirming that its annual developers conference will kick off at 10 am Pacific Time at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco on June 13.Per usual, Apple's WWDC event will primarily, if not exclusively, focus on updates to various pieces of Apple software. That being the case, we'll most definitely get a sneak peak at iOS 10 and there's a good chance we'll also get a glimpse at the next-gen version of OS X.Operating systems aside, rumblings from the rumor mill suggest that Apple this year will finally open up Siri to third-party developers by way of an SDK. What's more, there's also a slight chance that Apple will roll out a complete overhaul of Siri itself. Also rumored to be on the agenda is a revamp of Apple Music. Though Apple's streaming music service already has upwards of 13 million subscribers, the service has been riddled with UI and various functionality issues.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple’s enterprise partnerships, big and small, start to pay off

Apple has been the target of recent criticism for its current pace of innovation. However, though the company's slow-and-steady approach to the enterprise may not be winning over financial analysts, it is proving to be an effective strategy for expansion into the business market. Apple set the stage for a formal courtship of the enterprise nearly two years ago, when it inked an alliance with IBM. Since then, the company has struck deals with Cisco and SAP to tap the strengths of these stalwarts in enterprise services and mobility, in additional to a number of smaller players. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to embrace the benefits of shadow IT

The terms shadow IT conjures up negative images in the minds of most IT organizations. Yet non-IT enterprise functions and lines of business are buying more of their own IT systems than ever before, particularly product, operations and external customer-facing groups and highly dynamic services areas. “As business functions seek to realize the benefits from these non-traditional channels of IT enablement, the shadow IT organizations are growing aggressively in order to help orchestrate and aggregate services into business consumable offerings,” says Craig Wright, managing director of outsourcing and technology consultancy Pace Harmon.[ Related: 4 ways to apply SLAs to shadow IT ]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to embrace the benefits of shadow IT

The terms shadow IT conjures up negative images in the minds of most IT organizations. Yet non-IT enterprise functions and lines of business are buying more of their own IT systems than ever before, particularly product, operations and external customer-facing groups and highly dynamic services areas. “As business functions seek to realize the benefits from these non-traditional channels of IT enablement, the shadow IT organizations are growing aggressively in order to help orchestrate and aggregate services into business consumable offerings,” says Craig Wright, managing director of outsourcing and technology consultancy Pace Harmon.[ Related: 4 ways to apply SLAs to shadow IT ]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Data visualization firm Qlik sells for $3 billion

Qlik, a vendor of data visualization tools, has agreed to be acquired by private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo for US$3 billion.The sale will give Qlik "additional flexibility" to operate, Lars Björk, the company's CEO, said in a statement.Qlik is touted as a software package for business intelligence needs, with some customers saying it has strong data modeling features. Qlik offers what it calls "self-service" data visualization and discovery, with customer able to build custom charts based on their data needs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How millennial tech grads should tailor their resumes

You’ve recently graduated and now it’s time to start applying to jobs -- but what skills and experience should you highlight on your resume? To help you decide, CompTIA released the results of its 2016 IT Industry Outlook report, which surveyed 673 IT industry companies in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., and found that millennials have certain skills businesses are clamoring for in the coming year.“Recent grads have grown up in an age of evolving technologies, particularly the Internet Age. They’ve not only developed a unique way of problem solving and critical thinking, but they are also acutely aware of new technologies that may increase operational efficiency in a business,” says Gene Richardson, COO of Experts Exchanges.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How millennial tech grads should tailor their resumes

You’ve recently graduated and now it’s time to start applying to jobs -- but what skills and experience should you highlight on your resume? To help you decide, CompTIA released the results of its 2016 IT Industry Outlook report, which surveyed 673 IT industry companies in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., and found that millennials have certain skills businesses are clamoring for in the coming year.“Recent grads have grown up in an age of evolving technologies, particularly the Internet Age. They’ve not only developed a unique way of problem solving and critical thinking, but they are also acutely aware of new technologies that may increase operational efficiency in a business,” says Gene Richardson, COO of Experts Exchanges.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SS8 makes enterprise version of traffic-analysis platform designed for intelligence agencies

SS8 built its network traffic-inspection and analysis platform as a tool for intelligence agencies to discover communications among criminals and terrorists but now has scaled it back for enterprises to stop data breaches.Called BreachDetect, the business-sized software gathers highly detailed network traffic data that discovers application flows and the activity of individual machines and analyzes them to find anomalies that indicate foul play.The platform also stores the information it collects so it can be analyzed over and over as new threat indicators are identified. That way corporate security pros can discover threats that may have been lurking undetected for months and figure out when and how they got there, SS8 says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SS8 makes enterprise version of traffic-analysis platform designed for intelligence agencies

SS8 built its network traffic-inspection and analysis platform as a tool for intelligence agencies to discover communications among criminals and terrorists but now has scaled it back for enterprises to stop data breaches.Called BreachDetect, the business-sized software gathers highly detailed network traffic data that discovers application flows and the activity of individual machines and analyzes them to find anomalies that indicate foul play.The platform also stores the information it collects so it can be analyzed over and over as new threat indicators are identified. That way corporate security pros can discover threats that may have been lurking undetected for months and figure out when and how they got there, SS8 says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

[minipost]Quick LAB/config example for IPv6 BGP between HP Networking Comware v5 andCisco

A small lab showing basic configuration of BGP between Cisco and HP (Comware v5). This is just something small we deploying recently, there is nothing grand here, only a minor configuration example to follow later when needed.

NOTE on HP Comware v5  vs newer Comware v7, I understand I am using older version of the operating system on HP devices, the point is that this article is using one of my real work projects where Comware v5 was used without possibility to upgrade. However ALL Ipv6 functions that we needed were provided already on this older Comware, and when I checked, Comware v7 variant of this LAB is only changing commands syntax (actually quite easy to convert from v5 to v7 only following the “?”), therefore this article will remain in Comware v5 and I believe many readers will take the principles and will have no problem to upgrade to Comware v7 on their own.

Lab Topology:

This is a simple topology that is trying to simulate a typical L3 Edge / Distribution / Access with several HP 5800 layer3 switches and Cisco 3750 is simulating a typical WAN provider with dual-homing access. Of course all with limits Continue reading

Texas goes big with 18-petaflop supercomputer

The Texas Advanced Computer Center (TACC) has received $30 million in U.S. funding for a new supercomputer that will roughly double the performance of its existing 9-petaflop supercomputer.The new system, named Stampede 2 after its predecessor, is being funded by the National Science Foundation. It will be available for scientific research by June 1, 2017.The Texas supercomputing center occupies a unique niche. The U.S. government owns the nation's largest and most powerful supercomputers. The national leader is Titan, a Cray XK7 Opteron-based system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, running at a peak performance of about 27 petaflops.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Texas goes big with 18-petaflop supercomputer

The Texas Advanced Computer Center (TACC) has received $30 million in U.S. funding for a new supercomputer that will roughly double the performance of its existing 9-petaflop supercomputer.The new system, named Stampede 2 after its predecessor, is being funded by the National Science Foundation. It will be available for scientific research by June 1, 2017.The Texas supercomputing center occupies a unique niche. The U.S. government owns the nation's largest and most powerful supercomputers. The national leader is Titan, a Cray XK7 Opteron-based system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, running at a peak performance of about 27 petaflops.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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