VLANs and Failure Domains Revisited

My friend Christoph Jaggi, the author of fantastic Metro Ethernet and Carrier Ethernet Encryptors documents, sent me this question when we were discussing the Data Center Fabrics Overview workshop I’ll run in Zurich in a few weeks:

When you are talking about large-scale VLAN-based fabrics I assume that you are pointing towards highly populated VLANs, such as VLANs containing 1000+ Ethernet addresses. Could you provide a tipping point between reasonably-sized VLANs and large-scale VLANs?

It's not the number of hosts in the VLAN but the span of a bridging domain (VLAN or otherwise).

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IDG Contributor Network: All the buzzwords: Behavioral biometric adaptive authentication with SecureAuth

SecureAuth is a vendor in the authentication and access space. It covers a range of related functions including authentication, single sign on, and user self-service. At its core, SecureAuth is juggling the conflicting aims of ensuring easy access to applications by legitimate users and high security for sensitive data.One of the ways in which companies reconcile these seemingly irreconcilable aims is through using deep analytics to automate some of the access functions. A case in point comes from SecureAuth's latest version, which includes behavioral analytics, risk analysis, and biometric tracking.What all that means is that SecureAuth is offering to analyze a user's keystrokes and mouse movements to build a profile of an individual user's behavior. Thereafter, this profile is compared to subsequent login attempts and, if they don't match, SecureAuth applies a higher level of access control.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tor users increasingly treated like second-class Web citizens

The Internet is becoming harder to browse for users of Tor, the anonymity network that provides greater privacy, according to a new study. The blame can be placed largely on those who use Tor, short for The Onion Router, for spamming or cyberattacks. But the fallout means that those who want to benefit from the system's privacy protections are sometimes locked out. Researchers scanned the entire IPv4 address space and found that 1.3 million websites will not allow a connection coming from a known Tor exit node. Also, some 3.67 percent of Alexa's top 1000 websites will block Tor users at the application level.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A Software-Defined Service Provider Network Improves Profitability and Delivers Competitive Advantage

At Plexxi we’re building a simply better network for public and private cloud environments and next generation service providers. The next era of IT requires support for data center agility, scale-out applications, converged infrastructure, Big Data analytics and integrated security over networks that are both local and global in scale. In a prior blog I reviewed the case study of a large enterprise that deployed a next generation data center network achieving agility through integration with VMware, data and application workload awareness and a dynamic, single-tier fabric optimized for east/west and north/south data center traffic. In this installment of my blog, I review the case study of Perseus. They have built the world’s largest SDN-based on demand services network allowing them to quickly offer new products and services while enabling new deployments at a rapid pace.

Perseus had an existing international network to transport high-speed, high-precision and high-performance applications across the globe for their managed service customers. That network was built on traditional platforms, similar to those of competitors, leveraging a layer three MPLS backbone for multi-tenancy and differentiated services.

They were planning to expand global operations to a new continent and across dozens of new countries where they did Continue reading

Baidu web browsers leaked sensitive information, researchers say

Two web browsers developed by Chinese search giant Baidu have been insecurely transmitting sensitive data across the Internet, putting users' privacy at risk, according to a new study. Baidu responded by releasing software fixes, but researchers say not all the issues have been resolved. The study was published Tuesday by Citizen Lab, a research group that's part of the University of Toronto.  It focused on the Windows and Android versions of Baidu's browser, which are free products. It also found that sensitive data was leaked by thousands of apps that use a Baidu SDK (software development kit).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SSID Overhead, Now There’s an App for that!

One of the more popular reasons that people visit my website is to understand why too many SSIDs is an issue on a WLAN. I've written about performance degradation issues due to network overhead and subsequently released an SSID Overhead Calculator. The drawback to the tool is that it's in Microsoft Excel format. This makes it's use limited to people who have Excel and is only really available on workstations (not mobile devices) which makes it hard to use on-the-fly while in the field or in front of a customer.

Thanks to collaboration with Ryan Adzima, we are announcing the availability of the Revolution Wi-Fi SSID Overhead Calculator as an Apple iOS application today! You can download it here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-store/id1041231876?pt=615227&ct=Revolution%20Wi-Fi&mt=8

The iOS application provides the full functionality of the original tool right on your phone and tablet. You can adjust beacon data rate, beacon frame size, beacon interval, number of SSIDs, and number of APs on the channel. The circular bar displays the amount of overhead that the combinations will cause on your WLAN as well as a severity indication and recommendations to improve performance.

Here are a few screenshots:

SSID Overhead 3.png
SSID Overhead 2.png
SSID Overhead 1.png

Big shoutout to Ryan for working Continue reading

IT manager gets 30 months in jail for code-bombing firm’s intellectual property

He could have gotten 10 years behind bars but this week a former IT manager at software maker Smart Online only got 30 months for sending malicious code that destroyed the company’s computers and data.+More on Network World: The weirdest, wackiest and coolest sci/tech stories of 2015+The Department of Justice said that according to the plea agreement, from 2007 to 2012, Nikhil Shah, 33 was an information technology manager at Smart Online Inc., of Durham, North Carolina, that develops mobile applications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Japan’s infrastructure probed by cybergroup, security firm says

A group of cyberattackers that emerged in 2010 and then went quiet has resurfaced and is targeting Japan's critical infrastructure, a security vendor said this week.The attacks have targeted utilities and energy companies in Japan, as well as other companies in finance, transportation and construction, said Greg Fitzgerald, chief marketing officer at Cylance, which specializes in end-point protection.The group appears to be based in Asia, and its methods and procedures suggest it may be linked to a nation state, Fitzgerald said.Symantec detected signs of the group, which Cylance calls Operation Dust Storm, in 2010, Fitzgerald said. The group went quiet in March 2013, shortly after Mandiant -- the forenics investigative unit of FireEye -- published a lengthy report on APT 1, which the company believes to be an elite cyber unit of the Chinese army.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

QOS Your Life

So as we’re all busy network professionals, I’m sure you’ve ran into the problem of a work-life balance. I personally know lots of engineers that have burned out at one time, or their family life has suffered, and their kids barely know them. Now granted these are extreme case scenarios, but it could happen to […]

The post QOS Your Life appeared first on Packet Pushers.

QOS Your Life

So as we’re all busy network professionals, I’m sure you’ve ran into the problem of a work-life balance. I personally know lots of engineers that have burned out at one time, or their family life has suffered, and their kids barely know them. Now granted these are extreme case scenarios, but it could happen to […]

The post QOS Your Life appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Apple v. FBI – Who’s for, against opening up the terrorist’s iPhone

Everyone has an opinionApple and the Department of Justice are locked in a court fight over whether the company should disable the anti-brute force mechanism on the iPhone used by the San Bernardino terrorists. Public opinion is split on which side is right, and everyone from tech experts to presidential candidates is weighing in on whether the order actually threatens privacy or whether it’s just a way to find out what’s on that particular phone. Here’s a sampling of comments about the issue from the likes of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Here’s what tech leaders have said about the Apple-FBI dispute so far

In the week since Apple said it would do battle with the FBI over the agency's request for access to a smartphone belonging to one of the San Bernardino terrorists, tech industry leaders have been weighing in with their views.Most have come down in support of Apple, though others, including Bill Gates and Simon Segars, CEO of UK chip company ARM, have leaned more towards the FBI's position.Here's a roundup of what tech leaders have said so far, starting with some of the most recent views expressed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Asus settles charges over insecure routers and cloud services

Critical security flaws in routers and cloud computing services offered by Asus put hundreds of thousands of customers at risk, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has charged.Taiwan-based Asus has agreed to settle an FTC complaint that it failed to take reasonable steps to secure the software on its routers, the agency said Tuesday. In addition to well-documented vulnerabilities in the routers, its cloud services led to thousands of customers' storage devices being compromised and exposed their personal information, the agency said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Asus settles charges over insecure routers and cloud services

Critical security flaws in routers and cloud computing services offered by Asus put hundreds of thousands of customers at risk, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has charged.Taiwan-based Asus has agreed to settle an FTC complaint that it failed to take reasonable steps to secure the software on its routers, the agency said Tuesday. In addition to well-documented vulnerabilities in the routers, its cloud services led to thousands of customers' storage devices being compromised and exposed their personal information, the agency said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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