Big Switch Meets Ansible

Big Switch offers on demand labs to get instant access to Big Cloud Fabric (BCF) and Big Monitoring Fabric (BMF). Using these labs, it’s quite easy to experience the products first hand and see what they are all about. The labs also come with lab guides that walk you through step-by-step on how to get started using BMF and BCF.

For me, one of the more appealing aspects of these labs is that Big Switch also exposes the APIs such that you can access them directly from your personal machine. This makes it possible to not only test the product, but also test the API on each controller platform (BMF and BCF).

The best part is, you don’t even need to use any docs because they offer a command that shows the API calls being made by certain show commands.

controller> debug rest
***** Enabled display rest mode *****
REST-SIMPLE: GET http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v1/data/controller/core/controller/role
controller>

Like the output from a show version? Ensure debug rest is enabled, and then just issue the command to grab the APIs being called to generate the text output on the CLI.

controller> show version
REST-SIMPLE: GET http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v1/data/controller/core/version/appliance
REST-SIMPLE: http://127.0. Continue reading

Make Like A Tree And Branch Out

Alright, so you’ve decided to branch out and you may be wondering what else you can do to help things along. You can always try your friendly neighborhood blog or message board, but there’s always the problem of whether or not you’re getting good information. You should also check to see if your company has […]

The post Make Like A Tree And Branch Out appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Make Like A Tree And Branch Out

Alright, so you’ve decided to branch out and you may be wondering what else you can do to help things along. You can always try your friendly neighborhood blog or message board, but there’s always the problem of whether or not you’re getting good information. You should also check to see if your company has […]

The post Make Like A Tree And Branch Out appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Forget Super Bowl 50: Let’s crown the cabling Installer of the Year!

There will be bonding. There will be splicing. And there will be firestopping.Yes, it’s time to roll up your sleeves, de-fog your goggles, climb your ladder and get ready for the 9th annual BICSI Cabling Skills Challenge next week in Orlando, where the Installer of the Year will be crowned and awarded a $5K prize (not to mention a towering trophy). This will definitely beat the NFL’s Pro Bowl as a competition fix during the seemingly endless lead-up to Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7.The Installer of the Year needs to be versatile, good with his or her hands, and smart to boot. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Forget Super Bowl 50: Let’s crown the cabling Installer of the Year!

There will be bonding. There will be splicing. And there will be firestopping.Yes, it’s time to roll up your sleeves, de-fog your goggles, climb your ladder and get ready for the 9th annual BICSI Cabling Skills Challenge next week in Orlando, where the Installer of the Year will be crowned and awarded a $5K prize (not to mention a towering trophy). This will definitely beat the NFL’s Pro Bowl as a competition fix during the seemingly endless lead-up to Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7.The Installer of the Year needs to be versatile, good with his or her hands, and smart to boot. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

User behavior analytics is key to identifying nefarious use of insider credentials

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.Almost all data breaches involve use of legitimate logon credentials. Guarding against these “insider threats” requires the ability to detect when cybercriminals are using stolen credentials. Sadly, traditional network security tools are not effective in identifing or mitigating these threats.  However, a new breed of user behavior analytics solutions has been designed for this specific purpose and is proving effective.The expression “insider threat” usually conjures up images of rogue employees or criminally minded contractors or business partners that are authorized to access company data. But the term is also used in a much broader sense to mean any threat or attack that abuses the logon credentials or privileges of legitimate employees or other insiders.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Juniper Networks Reports Preliminary Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2015 Financial Results

SUNNYVALE, CA–(Marketwired – January 27, 2016) –  Juniper Networks (:), the industry leader in network innovation, today reported preliminary financial results for the three months and twelve months ended Dec. 31, 2015 and provided its outlook for the three months ending March 31, 2016. Net revenues for the fourth quarter of 2015 were $1,319.6 million, an... Read more →

VMware, Cisco SDNs Bring Home the Bacon

In the scramble for SDN supremacy, Cisco and VMware usually bark about users who opt for one of their solutions over the other. In all the noise, it’s rare to hear from one that plans to implement both. But that’s what SugarCreek, a $650 million, privately-held food processing and packing company based in Washington Court House, OH, is doing in its software-defined data centers (SDDC). VMware’s NSX network virtualization software will be used to secure and automate the VMware-virtualized server environment, while Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) will be deployed to manage the physical network infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware, Cisco SDNs Bring Home the Bacon

In the scramble for SDN supremacy, Cisco and VMware usually bark about users who opt for one of their solutions over the other. In all the noise, it’s rare to hear from one that plans to implement both. But that’s what SugarCreek, a $650 million, privately-held food processing and packing company based in Washington Court House, OH, is doing in its software-defined data centers (SDDC). VMware’s NSX network virtualization software will be used to secure and automate the VMware-virtualized server environment, while Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) will be deployed to manage the physical network infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware, Cisco SDNs bring home the bacon

In the scramble for SDN supremacy, Cisco and VMware usually bark about users who opt for one of their solutions over the other.In all the noise, it’s rare to hear from one that plans to implement both.But that’s what SugarCreek, a $650 million, privately-held food processing and packing company based in Washington Court House, OH, is doing in its software-defined data centers (SDDC). VMware’s NSX network virtualization software will be used to secure and automate the VMware-virtualized server environment, while Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) will be deployed to manage the physical network infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware, Cisco SDNs bring home the bacon

In the scramble for SDN supremacy, Cisco and VMware usually bark about users who opt for one of their solutions over the other.In all the noise, it’s rare to hear from one that plans to implement both.But that’s what SugarCreek, a $650 million, privately-held food processing and packing company based in Washington Court House, OH, is doing in its software-defined data centers (SDDC). VMware’s NSX network virtualization software will be used to secure and automate the VMware-virtualized server environment, while Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) will be deployed to manage the physical network infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New Android ransomware uses clickjacking to gain admin privileges

File-encrypting ransomware applications that target Android devices are becoming increasingly sophisticated. One new such program is using clickjacking techniques to trick users into granting it administrator privileges.Clickjacking is a method that involves manipulating the user interface in a way that allows attackers to hijack users' clicks and trigger unauthorized actions. It is mostly used in Web-based attacks, where various technologies allow creating invisible buttons and positioning them on top of seemingly harmless page elements.Due to the restrictive application permissions system in Android, ransomware apps targeting the OS have historically been less effective than on Windows. For example, many of the early Android ransomware threats only displayed a persistent window on the screen with an alert intended to scare users into paying fictitious fines. Most of them impersonated law enforcement agencies and claimed that the devices were locked because illegal content was found on them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Net ring-buffers are essential to an OS

Even by OpenBSD standards, this rejection of 'netmap' is silly and clueless.

BSD is a Linux-like operating system that powers a lot of the Internet, from Netflix servers to your iPhone. One variant of BSD focuses on security, called "OpenBSD". A lot of security-related projects get their start on OpenBSD. In theory, it's for those who care a lot about security. In practice, virtually nobody uses it, because it makes too many sacrifices in the name of security.

"Netmap" is a user-space network ring-buffer. What that means is the hardware delivers network packets directly to an application, bypassing the operating system's network stack. Netmap currently works on FreeBSD and Linux. There are projects similar to this known as "PF_RING" and "Intel DPDK".


The problem with things like netmap is that it means the network hardware no longer is a shareable resource, but instead must be reserved for a single application. This violates many principles of a "general purpose operating system".

In addition, it ultimately means that the application is going to have to implement it's own TCP/IP stack. That means it's going to repeat all the same mistakes of the past, such as "ping of death" when a Continue reading

Cisco Merging IOS-XE Code Trains

Reliable sources tell me that Cisco is undergoing a huge internal transformation now that Chuck Robbins is in charge. I haven’t been able to see any evidence of this transformation and have been wondering when customers would see the results. Cisco Enterprise was presenting at Network Field Day 11 and this particular presentation from Cisco Enterprise […]

The post Cisco Merging IOS-XE Code Trains appeared first on EtherealMind.

Less porn-surfing corporate bosses, more execs taking phishing bait to infect networks

ThreatTrack Security wanted to know how the challenges facing malware analysts dealing with cyber threats have evolved in past two years. So the company had Opinion Matters conduct an independent blind survey of 207 security professionals dealing with malware analysis in the U.S. While the findings are not all sunshine and chocolate, only 11% said they investigated a data breach that was not disclosed to customers, compared to 57% who said the same back in 2013. Another piece of good news - fewer security analysts need to purge malware as a result of a company's senior leadership member visiting a porn site. In 2013, 40% of malware infections came from porn-surfing corporate bosses, compared to 26% in 2015.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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