Using OpenSwitch Appliance With GNS3

Note: This article was originally published here.

Update:This post has been updated to account for some recent changes in the appliance configuration (support for up to 7 front ports). In my previous post I described my developer setup to work with OpenSwitch. At the end of my post I showed how to download the build system, and configure and build an ‘appliance’ image.

What Is An OpenSwitch Appliance?

The appliance is a virtual machine image (in OVA format) that could be run on VirtualBox or VMware (on this articule I will focus on VirtualBox) and provides a software datapath (based in OVS right now, but P4 support it’s landing soon). All the rest of the OpenSwitch stack is the same that you will see in a real hardware, and obviously the software datapath has certain limitations and features not implemented.

Despite his limitations, the appliance is a really nice way to get your hands into OpenSwitch without having real hardware.

If you are using the development environment, you can find the appliance .ova file on the images directory after completing the build, but otherwise you can also download a periodic image from the project archives (keep in mind Continue reading

Here’s what the new Intel will look like

The PC market has been in trouble for ages, but last year took the biscuit. Shipments dropped below 300 million for the first time since 2008, and IDC declared it the worst year in history. That explains a lot about what happened at Intel this week.The chip maker has been reducing its dependency on PCs for some time, preferring to focus on its more successful data center business. But the announcement that it would lay off 12,000 people is a sign that Intel is finally turning a corner.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Magic Leap adds virtual reality head-tracking and possibly hand-tracking

A second demonstration of mega-venture Magic Leap’s virtual reality technology indicates that head-tracking has been added and possibly hand-tracking.Head-tracking, which wasn’t shown in the only other demonstration that happened over a year ago, lets a person move around a hologram to see it from different sides. Hand-tracking, which is a mouse-like metaphor interface that lets people interact with virtual objects using hand movements, also seems to have been added. The report also hints at the principals behind how Magic Leap’s virtual reality works. Wired reported on Kevin Kelly’s visit to Magic Leap in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to experience the second public demonstration of the company’s version of virtual reality that it calls mixed reality (MR). A comparison of the Wired story with one written by Rachel Metz over a year ago for the MIT Technology Review measures Magic Leap’s progress.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Software-Defined Networks .. A Primer

SDN, Software-Defined Networking, the trending technology that some friends/colleagues of mine like to refer to it as “Still Does Nothing”. Let’s see if it does some thing. SDN has been a market hype for few years now.  Out of laziness, I ignored it in the beginning then I had to catch up a bit later …

The post Software-Defined Networks .. A Primer appeared first on Networkers-online.com.

IDG Contributor Network: Bugs for cash: Bounty hunters in the new wild west of security

The business of bug hunting is a potentially lucrative one for both seasoned security researchers and amateurs with an interest in hacking. It’s an area that’s gaining legitimacy thanks to official bug bounty programs and hacking contests, but there’s still a seedy underbelly that unscrupulous bounty hunters can take advantage of if they successfully identify a vulnerability.The average cost of a data breach is $3.8 million, according to research by the Ponemon Institute. It’s not hard to understand why so many companies are now stumping up bounties. It can also be very difficult, time consuming and expensive to root out bugs and flaws internally. Turning to the wider security community for help makes a lot of sense, and where there’s need there’s a market.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Bugs for cash: Bounty hunters in the new wild west of security

The business of bug hunting is a potentially lucrative one for both seasoned security researchers and amateurs with an interest in hacking. It’s an area that’s gaining legitimacy thanks to official bug bounty programs and hacking contests, but there’s still a seedy underbelly that unscrupulous bounty hunters can take advantage of if they successfully identify a vulnerability.The average cost of a data breach is $3.8 million, according to research by the Ponemon Institute. It’s not hard to understand why so many companies are now stumping up bounties. It can also be very difficult, time consuming and expensive to root out bugs and flaws internally. Turning to the wider security community for help makes a lot of sense, and where there’s need there’s a market.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Wi-Fi offloading breakthrough nets Korean researchers second major IEEE networking award

This year's IEEE Communications Society William R. Bennett Prize, known as the most honored award for papers in the networking communications field, goes to a Korean team for its breakthrough research on offloading data traffic from cellular networks to Wi-Fi.The award recognizes the work of Professor Kyunghan Lee  from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST); Prof. Yi Yung, Prof. Chong Song, and Dr. Joohyun Lee of Electrical and Computer Engineering at KAIST; and Executive Vice President Injong Rhee of Samsung Electronics, Mobile Division.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Wi-Fi offloading breakthrough nets Korean researchers second major IEEE networking award

This year's IEEE Communications Society William R. Bennett Prize, known as the most honored award for papers in the networking communications field, goes to a Korean team for its breakthrough research on offloading data traffic from cellular networks to Wi-Fi.The award recognizes the work of Professor Kyunghan Lee  from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST); Prof. Yi Yung, Prof. Chong Song, and Dr. Joohyun Lee of Electrical and Computer Engineering at KAIST; and Executive Vice President Injong Rhee of Samsung Electronics, Mobile Division.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First Wave of Pascal GPUs Coming to European Supercomputer

There are few international supercomputing hubs sporting the systems and software prowess of the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS), which started with large-scale vector machines in 1992 and moved through a series of other architectures and vendors; from NEC at the beginning, to IBM, and most recently, Cray. In fact, the center has had an ongoing preference for Cray supercomputers, with an unbroken stretch of machines beginning in 2007.

In addition to choosing Cray as the system vendor, CSCS has been an early adopter and long-term user of GPU acceleration. According to the center’s director, Thomas Schulthess, teams there firmed

First Wave of Pascal GPUs Coming to European Supercomputer was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

JP Morgan: “Monumental” shift of enterprise workloads to the cloud

A new report from JP Morgan quantifies just how significant the enterprise shift to the cloud has become.The Wall Street giant queried 207 CIOs who have budgets of more than $600 million to find that 16.2% of the workloads under management by the CIOs run in the public cloud and within five years, 41.3% are expected to.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: IDC: The cloud is eating legacy systems +We don’t normally put too much stock in surveys, but this one caught our eye because of who administered and took the survey.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Save 40% on the TP-LINK Wi-Fi Smart Plug – Deal Alert

The TP-LINK HS100 smart plug is quite simply a power outlet that you can control from anywhere. Using your smartphone, you can turn devices on & off, set programs to turn them on & off at set times while you're away, or engage a "countdown timer" which powers the switch off after a set amount of time. Installation is simple -- just plug a device into your smart plug and connect to your wifi network. The HS100 is also compatible with Echo, for voice control. Buy multiple plugs and get creative.The TP-LINK HS100 wifi smart plug averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon from 250 reviewers (read reviews). With a list price of $49.99, this 40% discount puts the HS100 at just $29.95. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intel’s tablet adventure looking more like its netbook disaster

Intel's rise and fall in tablets are starting to resemble the company's misadventures in netbooks less than a decade ago.The company is quickly distancing itself from basic tablets, a market it prized as little as two years ago, to go after detachable devices, hybrids, and high-end tablets that can double as PCs.Intel could also ax some Atom tablet chip lines that brought the company success two years ago. Intel this week laid off 12,000 people as part of a restructuring plan that could also include cuts in some product lines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

4 ways to apply SLAs to shadow IT

The risks and costs of shadow IT have been always been a concern for IT organizations. Yet the business clearly values the capability to procure certain IT services to rapidly meet its changing business needs — so much so that these informal IT capabilities are springing up even more often than IT leaders realize. One 2015 report by Cisco indicated that the number of unauthorized cloud applications being used in the enterprise, for example, was 15 to 10 times higher than CIOs estimated.[ Related: CIOs vastly underestimate extent of shadow IT ]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

4 ways to apply SLAs to shadow IT

The risks and costs of shadow IT have been always been a concern for IT organizations. Yet the business clearly values the capability to procure certain IT services to rapidly meet its changing business needs — so much so that these informal IT capabilities are springing up even more often than IT leaders realize. One 2015 report by Cisco indicated that the number of unauthorized cloud applications being used in the enterprise, for example, was 15 to 10 times higher than CIOs estimated.[ Related: CIOs vastly underestimate extent of shadow IT ]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

68% off Amir 3 in 1 Cell Phone Camera Lens Kit – Deal Alert

With this lens kit from Amir you can take high clarity, professional photos wish fisheye, macro and super wide angle format from virtually any cell phone. These professional HD lenses reduce glass flare & ghosting caused by reflections. A universal clip design makes it easy to attach to most cell phones, iPads and PC's as well.  The fisheye lens capture images at 180-degrees, wide angle lens at 140-degrees and the macro lens magnifies 10x with a minimum object distance of 10-15mm. The lens kit receives an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews). Regular price is listed at $39.99 on Amazon, but with the current 68% discount you can gift this kit to yourself or an aspiring photographer for just $12.88.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here