What? No Cisco McPartnersFace?

My first thought yesterday upon seeing that Cisco Partners was asking its Twitter audience to help name its new blog was, “What, have these people learned nothing from the Boaty McBoatface kerfuffle?”Alas, the Cisco social media folks weren’t born yesterday, so they had the good sense to limit those wanting to help name the blog to only three choices. As of this morning, the third option – Weekly Rewind – was enjoying a comfortable lead.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What? No Cisco McPartnersFace?

My first thought yesterday upon seeing that Cisco Partners was asking its Twitter audience to help name its new blog was, “What, have these people learned nothing from the Boaty McBoatface kerfuffle?”Alas, the Cisco social media folks weren’t born yesterday, so they had the good sense to limit those wanting to help name the blog to only three choices. As of this morning, the third option – Weekly Rewind – was enjoying a comfortable lead.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

MacGyver IT: 19 more tools for IT heroes

MacGyver IT: 19 more tools for IT heroesSince my original incarnation of “MacGyver IT” tools four years ago, IT’s on-the-go role has evolved well beyond troubleshooting critical systems in the field. Thanks to an evolution of IT responsibilities and a revolution in technologies, in particular around IoT and video, the mix in our kits is quickly transforming.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IT resume makeover: Breaking through tech jargon

Resume writer Donald Burns was faced with an interesting challenge this time around -- he needed to take a resume that was already in good shape and make it even better. This month, makeover candidate, Sudhakar Gorti, COO and CTO for Environmental Data Resources, recruited Burn's help take his resume from tech-focused to one that showcased his business acumen. This was especially important because his ultimate 10-year goal is to move out of the tech world and become a business executive.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Popular messaging apps present real enterprise threat

Today's mobile device owners commonly use messaging apps to send selfies, command bots to order takeout and collaborate with their coworkers — sometimes simultaneously, and oftentimes via the same app. Nothing in particular precludes messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook's Messenger, Skype or Telegram from being used for work, play and everything in between. However, these consumer-focused apps are becoming the de facto software for corporate communication, and IT professionals have good reason for concern.As the distinction between enterprise and consumer messaging apps blurs, IT's needs and responsibilities are increasingly at odds with those of the workers it supports. Such a disparity can hinder workplace productivity and effective IT management.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Popular messaging apps present real enterprise threat

Today's mobile device owners commonly use messaging apps to send selfies, command bots to order takeout and collaborate with their coworkers — sometimes simultaneously, and oftentimes via the same app. Nothing in particular precludes messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook's Messenger, Skype or Telegram from being used for work, play and everything in between. However, these consumer-focused apps are becoming the de facto software for corporate communication, and IT professionals have good reason for concern.As the distinction between enterprise and consumer messaging apps blurs, IT's needs and responsibilities are increasingly at odds with those of the workers it supports. Such a disparity can hinder workplace productivity and effective IT management.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The sport of threat hunting, and who should be in the game

“Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game.”According to Field and Stream magazine, this is an oft quoted hunting expression. There is irony in applying this quote to the cyber security industry where hunting is indeed a sport. The good guys and the bad guys both know that they are in the game.Joseph Loomis, CEO of CyberSponse, works closely with the cyber units at the FBI, DHS and Secret Service described this trendy new cyber sport in which the good guys try to entrench themselves into the world of the dark web.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The sport of threat hunting, and who should be in the game

“Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game.”According to Field and Stream magazine, this is an oft quoted hunting expression. There is irony in applying this quote to the cyber security industry where hunting is indeed a sport. The good guys and the bad guys both know that they are in the game.Joseph Loomis, CEO of CyberSponse, works closely with the cyber units at the FBI, DHS and Secret Service described this trendy new cyber sport in which the good guys try to entrench themselves into the world of the dark web.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

After smashing two Atoms, Intel sees mobile future in atomic research

Weeks after cancelling two generations of Atom mobile chips, Intel is paving the way for future low-power mobile technologies with a new research collaboration with a French atomic energy lab.Fundamental research leading towards faster wireless networks, secure low-power technologies for the Internet of Things, and even 3D displays will be the focus of Intel's collaboration with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).Intel and the CEA already work together in the field of high-performance computing, and a new agreement signed Thursday will see Intel fund work at the CEA's Laboratory for Electronics and Information Technology (LETI) over the next five years, according to Rajeeb Hazra, vice-president of Intel's data center group.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

After smashing two Atoms, Intel sees mobile future in atomic research

Weeks after cancelling two generations of Atom mobile chips, Intel is paving the way for future low-power mobile technologies with a new research collaboration with a French atomic energy lab.Fundamental research leading towards faster wireless networks, secure low-power technologies for the Internet of Things, and even 3D displays will be the focus of Intel's collaboration with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).Intel and the CEA already work together in the field of high-performance computing, and a new agreement signed Thursday will see Intel fund work at the CEA's Laboratory for Electronics and Information Technology (LETI) over the next five years, according to Rajeeb Hazra, vice-president of Intel's data center group.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Monitoring CPU On firewalls

There is a trend in network monitoring toward Push Model (versus Pull Model) where network devices send metrics to a collector in a ‘netflow’ like fashion (read blog post of Matt Oswalt). It is up to the collector to interpret that data; no need to standardize what is being sent. The only agreement is on data format […]

The post Monitoring CPU On firewalls appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Monitoring CPU on firewalls

There is a trend in network monitoring toward Push Model (versus Pull Model) where network devices send metrics to a collector in a ‘netflow’ like fashion (read blog post of Matt Oswalt). It is up to the collector to interpret that data; no need to standardize what is being sent. The only agreement is on data format […]

The post Monitoring CPU on firewalls appeared first on Packet Pushers.

What Are The Problems with Broadcom Tomahawk? We Don’t Know

One of my readers has customers that already experienced performance challenges with Tomahawk-based data center switches. He sent me an email along these lines:

My customers are concerned about buffer performance for packets that are 200 bytes and under. MORE IMPORTANTLY, a customer informed me that there were performance issues when running 4x25GE connections when one group of ports speaks to another group.

Reading the report Mellanox published not so long ago it seems there really is something fishy going on with Tomahawk.

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Mozilla wants US to disclose to it first any vulnerability found in Tor by government hackers

Mozilla has asked a court that it should be provided information on a vulnerability in the Tor browser ahead of it being provided to a defendant in a lawsuit, as the browser is based in part on Firefox browser code.“At this point, no one (including us) outside the government knows what vulnerability was exploited and whether it resides in any of our code base,” wrote Denelle Dixon-Thayer, chief legal and business officer at Mozilla, in a blog post Wednesday.Mozilla is asking the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in the interest of Firefox users to ensure that the government must disclose the vulnerability to it before it is revealed to any other party, as any disclosure without advance notice to Mozilla will increase the likelihood that the exploit will become public before Mozilla can fix any associated vulnerability in Firefox.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mozilla wants US to disclose to it first any vulnerability found in Tor by government hackers

Mozilla has asked a court that it should be provided information on a vulnerability in the Tor browser ahead of it being provided to a defendant in a lawsuit, as the browser is based in part on Firefox browser code.“At this point, no one (including us) outside the government knows what vulnerability was exploited and whether it resides in any of our code base,” wrote Denelle Dixon-Thayer, chief legal and business officer at Mozilla, in a blog post Wednesday.Mozilla is asking the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in the interest of Firefox users to ensure that the government must disclose the vulnerability to it before it is revealed to any other party, as any disclosure without advance notice to Mozilla will increase the likelihood that the exploit will become public before Mozilla can fix any associated vulnerability in Firefox.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Introducing HTTP Testing in ToDD

Now that ToDD has been in the public arena for two months, one of the things I’m happiest about is the fact that testing in ToDD is totally flexible. Thanks to the concept of testlets, ToDD doesn’t have an opinion on the specifics of your tests - all of that logic is contained within the testlet. I believe there’s real value in going further than simple “ping” tests when validating that your network is working as you expect.

Introducing HTTP Testing in ToDD

Now that ToDD has been in the public arena for two months, one of the things I’m happiest about is the fact that testing in ToDD is totally flexible. Thanks to the concept of testlets, ToDD doesn’t have an opinion on the specifics of your tests - all of that logic is contained within the testlet. I believe there’s real value in going further than simple “ping” tests when validating that your network is working as you expect.

Introducing HTTP Testing in ToDD

Now that ToDD has been in the public arena for two months, one of the things I’m happiest about is the fact that testing in ToDD is totally flexible. Thanks to the concept of testlets, ToDD doesn’t have an opinion on the specifics of your tests - all of that logic is contained within the testlet.

I believe there’s real value in going further than simple “ping” tests when validating that your network is working as you expect. Customers aren’t pinging you - they’re using your applications. To that end, I have introduced a new testlet to the ToDD project that makes HTTP calls and reports on application-level metrics.

There are some very real advantages to testing HTTP reachability instead of settling for simple “ping” tests. In addition to verifying network connectivity, HTTP testing also ensures that the web application is also up and able to produce the desired status code. We’re also able to get some insight into performance at the application level.

In my initial presentations on ToDD, I talked about a use case for being able to “keep your SaaS providers honest” by making HTTP requests against the services you use in a distributed manner:

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