CloudFlare launches new data centers in Oslo and Minneapolis

CloudFlare launches new data centers in Oslo and Minneapolis

Four thousand miles (6,400 kilometers) separate CloudFlare’s latest two data centers: Oslo (#75) and Minneapolis (#76).

Oslo

In Oslo, we have now built our third data center in Scandinavia. This joins our existing facilities in Stockholm and Copenhagen. With a data center in Norway, we recognize an important country that stands above others with a staggering 95.05% of the population having Internet connectivity. This Internet penetration rate is the fourth best in the world. For reference, the Internet penetration rate in the US is 84%, the UK is 90% and Egypt, where we deployed our last data center it is only 50%

At 59.9500° N, Oslo is also the “northernmost” CloudFlare data center on our network map.

Oslo, according to the Norwegian Sagas is over 1,000 years old. CloudFlare has built itself into a facility just a handful of years old and while we respect all the wonderful history and tradition associated with Norway, we hope the locals appreciate our 21st century choice.

Norway has a very important position within the history of the Internet (well the ARPANET actually). In June 1973, the Royal Radar Establishment in Norway became one of the first international connections to Continue reading

Aircraft part manufacturer says cybercrime incident cost it $54 million

An Austrian airplane component maker for Boeing and Airbus said earlier this week a cybercrime-related fraud has caused €50 million (US$54 million) in damages.FACC AG said in its third quarter results report that the accounting department of its FACC Operations unit was targeted.While many businesses have had brushes with cybercrime in the last few years, FACC's large damages figure stands out."The management board has taken immediate structural measures and is evaluating damages and insurance claims," the document said.It characterized the incident as an "outflow" of €50 million of "liquid funds." The loss does not pose an economic threat to the company, it said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Backdoor account replaced by another backdoor in vendor stumble

A company that makes video conferencing products replaced one serious security vulnerability with another, despite being warned of the dangers. AMX Harman, which makes a variety of audio-visual and building control equipment, has patched the problem. But on Thursday SEC Consult, an information security firm in Vienna, revealed what it says is the back story.  Last March, SEC Consult warned AMX that it had found a secret account in certain versions of the NX-1200, an appliance for controlling audio-visual systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM’s Power systems business is growing for the first time in years

A few years ago, you wouldn't have bet much on IBM's Power systems having a bright future. The major Unix platforms have all been on the decline for more than a decade, giving way to Linux servers powered by increasingly capable x86 processors from Intel.The jury is still out on Power, but there are signs that a bold push by IBM to revive the technology has started to pay off. Oracle's Sparc platform is also proving surprisingly resilient, raising a question about whether Hewlett-Packard should have killed its own proprietary Unix chip, PA-RISC, all those years ago.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why does Unikernel Systems Joining Docker Make A Lot of Sense?

Unikernel Systems Joins Docker. Now this is an interesting match. The themes are security and low overhead, though they do seem to solve the same sort of problem.

So, what's going on?

In FLOSS WEEKLY 302 Open Mirage, starting at about 10 minutes in, there are a series of possible clues. Dr. Anil Madhavapeddy, former CTO of Unikernel Systems, explains their motivation behind the creation of unikernels. And it's a huge and exciting vision...

Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect SD WAN – Is It Any Good?

Silver Peak

Ok, so Silver Peak offers yet another SD-WAN solution, you say? Well yes, but is it really possible to have too many options when it comes to broadband and hybrid WANs? I say no; the more choice we have, the more likely we can find the right solution for each situation and the more each vendor is encouraged to feature match with the others. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what Silver Peak offers and perhaps see how it is differentiated from the other solutions on the market.

What Is SD WAN?

Last year I wrote a brief definition of SD WAN as I see it, and for convenience I will reproduce that here as a reference point:

SD WAN is a solution that uses real time WAN link performance monitoring and data packet inspection to autonomously manage the distribution of network traffic across multiple, likely heterogenous, WAN links with the aim of improving and optimizing WAN performance in alignment with the business requirements.

My definition is intentionally vague about how such lofty goals should be accomplished, and that’s inevitably where the special sauce of each solution comes in.

Silver Peak WAN Optimization

Silver Peak sees two Continue reading

Google blocked more bad ads than ever in 2015, but they still keep coming

When Google tells us it blocked 780 million bad ads last year, is that a sign that things are getting better?In one way it is, as the 49 percent increase in bad ads blocked outpaced Google's overall advertising growth, indicating that the company has been blocking a greater number of bad ads as a percentage of the whole. Clicks on its ads grew at a slightly more leisurely pace, rising 23 percent from a year earlier in the third quarter last year, the most recent for which figures are available.But we don't know how many bad ads slipped past the 1,000+ Google employees charged with detecting them, nor how many bad advertisers simply moved to other advertising networks with less sophisticated detection systems or fewer qualms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco fixes critical flaws in digital encoder, unified computing manager and security appliance

Cisco Systems has released software updates to fix critical issues that could allow attackers to compromise digital encoders, unified computing system management servers and Firepower 9000 series security appliances.The Cisco Modular Encoding Platform D9036, a hardware appliance that provides multi-resolution, multi-format encoding for applications that require high video quality, has a hard-coded static password for the root account.This is the highest privileged account on the operating system and is created at installation time. The account and password cannot be changed or deleted without impacting the functionality of the system, Cisco said in an advisory.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco fixes critical flaws in digital encoder, unified computing manager and security appliance

Cisco Systems has released software updates to fix critical issues that could allow attackers to compromise digital encoders, unified computing system management servers and Firepower 9000 series security appliances.The Cisco Modular Encoding Platform D9036, a hardware appliance that provides multi-resolution, multi-format encoding for applications that require high video quality, has a hard-coded static password for the root account.This is the highest privileged account on the operating system and is created at installation time. The account and password cannot be changed or deleted without impacting the functionality of the system, Cisco said in an advisory.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Podcast with Nick Buraglio and Brent Salisbury

"Have you seen sFlow options in your router configuration or flow collector? Are you looking for alternatives to SNMP or NetFlow? Have you been curious about the instrumentation of your new white box or virtual switch? Yes? Then you will probably enjoy learning more about sFlow!"

Non-Blocking #1: SFlow With Peter Phaal Of InMon And SFlow.Org is a discussion between Brent Salisbury (networkstatic.net), Nick Buraglio (forwardingplane.net), and Peter Phaal (blog.sflow.com).

Web sites and tools mentioned in the podcast:
  1. sFlow.org
  2. Devices that support sFlow
  3. Software to analyze sFlow
  4. sFlow.org mailing list
  5. sFlow structures
  6. blog.sflow.com (incorrectly referenced as blog.sflow.org in the podcast)
  7. Host sFlow
  8. sflowtool

The podcast touches on a number of topics that have been explored in greater detail on this blog. The topics are listed in roughly the order they are mentioned in the podcast:
  1. Widespread support for sFlow among switch vendors
  2. Disaggregated flow cache
  3. ULOG
  4. Push vs Pull
  5. sFlow vs SNMP for interface counters
  6. Broadcom ASIC table utilization metrics, DevOps, and SDN
  7. Broadcom BroadView Instrumentation
  8. Rapidly detecting large flows, sFlow vs. NetFlow/IPFIX
  9. SDN and large flows
  10. Probes
  11. Packet headers
  12. Network virtualization Continue reading
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