Clear Pricing for Network Services

I had to buy some switches recently and needed to gather a second quote from another vendor. I went to the Dell website and was pleasantly surprised to quickly find a clear price and a buy-now button for each device on their website.
Normally you’d need an account of the vendors portal to get this information, so it is refreshing to have straightforward access to clear hardware pricing. However it was the list of professional services options shown in the attached image that caught my eye.
Dell_ProServices_MenuYou can choose options for ‘rack and cable’ basic deployment or more comprehensive ProDeploy solution. The out-of-hours cut-over and other on-site planning options are a lot more expensive, but I’d imagine those tasks require more polished and experienced engineers to be engaged, and a lot more time-risk. Lastly you have the more tightly defined remote consulting options, with a 1-hour or a higher-priced 1-case options of the course of a single year.
You could quibble with some of the prices but I was really surprised to see fixed pricing for professional services, presented in an easy-to-consume and transparent manner.  I’ve always had an interest in business. Now that I’m more focused on network consulting I’m paying very close attention to how consulting effort is estimated Continue reading

9 new cloud features Amazon announced, and 1 it didn’t

The AWS Summit in Chicago this week kicks off an international tour of dozens of Summits from New York to Tokyo this year, culminating with AWS re:Invent in December. At today’s conference Amazon Web Services GM of Product Strategy Matt Wood announced new features for the cloud platform.But one thing that was not officially discussed has been a rumored product that could give Amazon partner reason for concern.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: AWS Exec on competing with Google and Microsoft; the next big thing in the cloud| 10 big announcements from Google’s cloud conference +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Developing OpenSwitch With Linux VM/OS X Host

OpenSwitch on Mac

Note: This article was originally published here.

One of the purposes when we designed the build system in OpenSwitch, was to make it possible to develop on as many environments as possible. If you have some background with developing networking firmware, the typical developer love to have this VM where everything works perfectly, but makes it impossible to work in your laptop at 30000 feet. This is not really a sin (as long as you can have the VM hosted in your machine), but the problem is that usually is some IT team on charge of the VMs setup, and the deployment is not handled by some automated/version-controlled code.

So for OpenSwitch, we aimed to at least document the requirements and steps for manual setup of your environment. You can read this page to get your Linux machine to ready it for OpenSwitch development.

So, why to write an article about my particular setup? Well, I’m a Mac user, so in this article I’m going to detail my setup using a OS X host with a Linux VM. This provides some nice tricks that makes your workflow easier if you are using a similar setup. I will also explain Continue reading

70% off Pop-Tech Magnetic Cell Phone Dashboard Mount – Deal Alert

The Pop-Tech magnetic dashboard mount is a very simple, minimalistically designed mount that uses a strong magnet instead of clips or cradles to hold your phone securely in place, even on bumpy roads. The unit works with most major cell phones, and thanks to a steel ball allows you to rotate your device 360 degrees to adapt to most surfaces and angles. It averages 5 out of 5 stars from over 90 reviewers (read reviews). With a list price of $39.99, the current 70% discount on Amazon put this unit at just $11.99. If you're looking for a simple to use and unobtrusive mount, this item may be worth considering at its current price.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New AWS service helps companies to move their apps to the cloud

A new Amazon cloud service announced Tuesday could help companies with legacy applications have an easier time taking the leap to the cloud. Amazon Web Services General Manager Matt Wood announced the new Application Discovery Service, which will allow companies to easily analyze legacy applications running on their data centers. It will help companies start the migration of their application data up to the cloud, and then work with one of Amazon's partners to get their applications running in AWS.The service lets users identify their applications and the infrastructure dependencies of those applications and then measure a performance baseline of those applications operating on-premises before companies consider moving them to the cloud. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EFF sues to uncover government demands to decrypt communications

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the U.S. Department of Justice over its failure to disclose if Internet companies have been compelled to decrypt user data and communications.The EFF action targets applications to and decisions by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a Washington, D.C., based court that meets in secret to consider cases related to government surveillance and national security.The court's decisions are classified, and Internet companies are prohibited from disclosing any details about warrants received as a result of arguments in front of the court.The result is that little is known about the extent of the court's activities. In October, the EFF filed a freedom-of-information request seeking more information but, according to its lawsuit, the DOJ said it couldn't find any documents relating to the issue.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EFF sues to uncover government demands to decrypt communications

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the U.S. Department of Justice over its failure to disclose if Internet companies have been compelled to decrypt user data and communications.The EFF action targets applications to and decisions by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a Washington, D.C., based court that meets in secret to consider cases related to government surveillance and national security.The court's decisions are classified, and Internet companies are prohibited from disclosing any details about warrants received as a result of arguments in front of the court.The result is that little is known about the extent of the court's activities. In October, the EFF filed a freedom-of-information request seeking more information but, according to its lawsuit, the DOJ said it couldn't find any documents relating to the issue.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Back to Basics: Cooling – Part 1

In this pair of articles I will be dissecting the fundamentals of cooling and refrigeration from an IT engineering perspective, then going over the process of sizing a cooling system. As infrastructure engineers, we likely deal with the topic of cooling on occasion, and those occasions tend to be during a facility buildout/upgrade or outage […]

The post Back to Basics: Cooling – Part 1 appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Back to Basics: Cooling – Part 1

In this pair of articles I will be dissecting the fundamentals of cooling and refrigeration from an IT engineering perspective, then going over the process of sizing a cooling system. As infrastructure engineers, we likely deal with the topic of cooling on occasion, and those occasions tend to be during a facility buildout/upgrade or outage […]

The post Back to Basics: Cooling – Part 1 appeared first on Packet Pushers.

HPE/Aruba reportedly eyeing IP of Rasa Networks

HPE/Aruba is said to be planning to acquire the intellectual property of failing startup Rasa Networks within the next 2 to 4 weeks, according to sources close to the matter.The transaction could see between $5 million and $10 million change hands, the sources added, noting that it’s not a full buyout of the company, but merely a deal for Rasa’s IP and, potentially, one or two of the company’s data scientists.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Don’t buy into hybrid cloud headache hype, GE’s cloud guru says + Meet a handheld server with a 13-terabyte SSDTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HPE/Aruba reportedly eyeing IP of Rasa Networks

HPE/Aruba is said to be planning to acquire the intellectual property of failing startup Rasa Networks within the next 2 to 4 weeks, according to sources close to the matter.The transaction could see between $5 million and $10 million change hands, the sources added, noting that it’s not a full buyout of the company, but merely a deal for Rasa’s IP and, potentially, one or two of the company’s data scientists.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Don’t buy into hybrid cloud headache hype, GE’s cloud guru says + Meet a handheld server with a 13-terabyte SSDTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Coming soon: The Internet of Pee-Powered Things

Building the Internet of Things is a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.Researchers at the University of Bath have revealed a breakthrough -- cheekily dubbed "pee power" -- involving the use of urine to power electronic devices in remote locations.MORE: 10 Internet of Things companies to watchYou can read the details in their paper, titled "Towards effective small scale microbial fuel cells for energy generation from urine." But in a nutshell, they've figured out how to build one-inch-square fuel cells that cost a buck or two and that get their buzz from urine, which interacts with "electric" bacteria. So-called microbial fuel cells are seen as being a carbon-neutral source of power generation, and could be used to provide juice to devices such as smartphones.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‎DARPA: Researchers develop chip part that could double wireless frequency capacity

A DARPA-funded research team said recently it had developed a tiny component for silicon-based circuitry that could double the radio-frequency (RF) capacity for wireless communications—offering faster web-searching as well as the development of smaller, less expensive and more readily upgraded antenna arrays for radar, signals intelligence, and other applications.+More on Network World: Einstein was right: Gravitational waves exist!+The work was led by Columbia University electrical engineers Harish Krishnaswamy and Negar Reiskarimian and funded under DARPA’s Arrays at Commercial Timescales (ACT) program, which is looking to develop wireless electronic components that can be integrated into larger, more advanced systems quickly. DARPA said ACT products aim to “shorten design cycles and in-field updates and push past the traditional barriers that lead to 10-year array development cycles, 20- to 30-year static life cycles and costly service-life extension programs.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‎DARPA: Researchers develop chip part that could double wireless frequency capacity

A DARPA-funded research team said recently it had developed a tiny component for silicon-based circuitry that could double the radio-frequency (RF) capacity for wireless communications—offering faster web-searching as well as the development of smaller, less expensive and more readily upgraded antenna arrays for radar, signals intelligence, and other applications.+More on Network World: Einstein was right: Gravitational waves exist!+The work was led by Columbia University electrical engineers Harish Krishnaswamy and Negar Reiskarimian and funded under DARPA’s Arrays at Commercial Timescales (ACT) program, which is looking to develop wireless electronic components that can be integrated into larger, more advanced systems quickly. DARPA said ACT products aim to “shorten design cycles and in-field updates and push past the traditional barriers that lead to 10-year array development cycles, 20- to 30-year static life cycles and costly service-life extension programs.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Something Old, Something New…

Some time back a reader sent this question in—

Is there some list of design fundamentals which were “true” or at least “good rules of thumb” in the past (2 months to 20 years and beyond) which are still proclaimed as true and good, which we need to throw out, or at least question closely today?

It’s an interesting question—the problem is, of course, that there are two sorts of answers to this type of question. The first is rather specific, and the second is rather general. Let’s try the more specific answer first, and see if we can get to the more general one.

There are several rules of thumb that are no longer useful today.

OSPF and IS-IS flooding domains should be limited to 50/100/200 routers/intermediate systems. The old “50 in an area rule” is something several of us asked to be removed from Cisco Online something like 10 years ago, as it didn’t even apply then. I’ve heard 200 more recently, but the reality is—there is no right number here. I just did a two post series on dividing up flooding domains that might be useful here (part 1 and part 2).

There are provider Continue reading

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