Don’t Touch My Mustache, Aruba!

It’s been a year since Aruba Networks became Aruba, a Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company. It’s  been an interesting ride for everyone involved so far. There’s been some integration between the HPE Networking division and the Aruba teams. There’s been presentations and messaging and lots of other fun stuff. But it all really comes down to the policy of non-interference.

Don’t Tread On Me

HPE has done an admirable job of keeping their hands off of Aruba. It sounds almost comical. How many companies have acquired a new piece and then done everything possible to integrate it into their existing core business? How many products have had their identity obliterated to fit in with the existing model number structure?

Aruba isn’t just a survivor. It’s come out of the other side of this acquisition healthy and happy and with a bigger piece of the pie. Dominick Orr didn’t just get to keep his company. Instead, he got all of HPE’s networking division in the deal! That works out very well for them. It allows Aruba to help integrate the HPE networking portfolio into their existing product lines.

Aruba had a switching portfolio before the acquisition. But that was just an afterthought. It Continue reading

Your Cloud Computing Questions Answered

Microsoft patches remote code execution flaws in Windows, IE, Edge, Office

Microsoft has fixed 39 vulnerabilities in multiple Windows components, Internet Explorer, Edge, Office and .NET Framework, many of which allow for remote code execution.The patches are grouped in 13 security bulletins, five of which are rated critical and the rest as important.According to researchers from security vendor Qualys, systems administrators should prioritize the MS16-023 security bulletin for Internet Explorer, which covers 13 critical vulnerabilities that can be exploited over the Web to fully take control of computers.Windows 10 users who prefer Microsoft Edge to Internet Explorer should prioritize MS16-024 instead, which covers 11 vulnerabilities in Microsoft's new browser, 10 of them critical.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Docker Wrapper For Ping

Ping is probably the most popular network troubleshooting and monitoring tool.  It happens very often that to test reachability, we have to ping many destinations. The usual requirement is to ping something not from one, but multiple sources on internal network, and sometimes from internet. To be able to do it, we have to have accounts […]

The post Docker Wrapper For Ping appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Docker Wrapper For Ping

Ping is probably the most popular network troubleshooting and monitoring tool.  It happens very often that to test reachability, we have to ping many destinations. The usual requirement is to ping something not from one, but multiple sources on internal network, and sometimes from internet. To be able to do it, we have to have accounts […]

The post Docker Wrapper For Ping appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Netflix Flies In The Clouds

Last month, the announcement was made that after seven years, Netflix completed its move to the cloud. While offering my sincere congratulations to Netflix, it begs the question what chance smaller companies have of moving successfully to the cloud.

Weaving Threads

I love it when a plan comes together; it’s great seeing multiple threads in different places intersecting, and the news from Netflix pulled together a few things from the last 12 months in a rather interesting way.

Thread #1

I first heard about the Netflix announcement by listening to the Packet Pushers Network Break episode 74. I don’t have enough time to keep up with all the industry news direct from all the sources out there, so I try to listen to podcasts on my drive into work. Network Break is one of my favorites, with Drew Conry-Murray and guests rounding up the week’s news and sharing their opinions.

Thread #2

The Netflix announcement explained that the company migrated from a monolithic app to hundreds of micro-services. Rewinding the clock to ONUG Spring 2015, I listened to a presentation from Battery Ventures’ Adrian Cockroft, in which he espoused the benefits of containerized micro-services. The idea is that if Continue reading

Facebook’s open network gear hits the big time at Equinix

Facebook's open networking technology is making inroads into the data center establishment, with global giant Equinix adopting the company's Wedge switch design and an open-source architecture in some of its facilities.The collaboration is the latest sign that network and server designs coming out of the Open Compute Project, which Facebook launched in 2011, are entering the IT mainstream. It was announced at the OCP Summit in San Jose, California. OCP promotes open-source hardware that any manufacturer can make, bringing some of the efficiencies of Web-scale infrastructure built in-house at places like Facebook to general enterprises. Lower costs and greater flexibility are the key advantages that fans ascribe to this approach.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Stop Thinking About SDN!

10 SDN Platform Options

Encryption project issues 1 million free digital certificates in three months

Let's Encrypt, an organization set up to encourage broader use of encryption on the Web, has distributed 1 million free digital certificates in just three months.The digital certificates cover 2.5 million domains, most of which had never implemented SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security), which encrypts content exchanged between a system and a user. An encrypted connection is signified in most browsers by "https" and a padlock appearing in the URL bar."Much more work remains to be done before the Internet is free from insecure protocols, but this is substantial and rapid progress," according to a blog post by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of Let's Encrypt's supporters.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Don’t be Discouraged by Plagiarists

Recently, a friend pointed out that an individual had taken one of my cheat sheets, superimposed his own logo and URL on it, and published it as his own work. This is certainly not the first time I've been plagiarized, nor will it be the last, I suspect. I called out the individual on Twitter, and I'm very gratefully for the many people who helped me compel him to remove the illegitimate content. Eventually.

I wanted to write a quick post sharing my thoughts on this incident for the benefit of everyone who has expressed interest in starting their own blog or web site. I've heard plenty of people comment over the years to the effect of, "Why bother starting a blog if someone's just going to harvest the RSS feed and re-publish it on their own site to make a few bucks?" Indeed, this has always been a concern among producers of both free and paid content.

I wish I could tell you that plagiarism isn't that big a deal, or that it won't happen to you. But the truth is plagiarism is a huge problem in our industry (and across the Internet in general), and if Continue reading

Don’t be Discouraged by Plagiarists

Recently, a friend pointed out that an individual had taken one of my cheat sheets, superimposed his own logo and URL on it, and published it as his own work. This is certainly not the first time I've been plagiarized, nor will it be the last, I suspect. I called out the individual on Twitter, and I'm very gratefully for the many people who helped me compel him to remove the illegitimate content. Eventually.

I wanted to write a quick post sharing my thoughts on this incident for the benefit of everyone who has expressed interest in starting their own blog or web site. I've heard plenty of people comment over the years to the effect of, "Why bother starting a blog if someone's just going to harvest the RSS feed and re-publish it on their own site to make a few bucks?" Indeed, this has always been a concern among producers of both free and paid content.

I wish I could tell you that plagiarism isn't that big a deal, or that it won't happen to you. But the truth is plagiarism is a huge problem in our industry (and across the Internet in general), and if Continue reading

Don’t be Discouraged by Plagiarists

Recently, a friend pointed out that an individual had taken one of my cheat sheets, superimposed his own logo and URL on it, and published it as his own work. This is certainly not the first time I've been plagiarized, nor will it be the last, I suspect. I called out the individual on Twitter, and I'm very gratefully for the many people who helped me compel him to remove the illegitimate content. Eventually.

I wanted to write a quick post sharing my thoughts on this incident for the benefit of everyone who has expressed interest in starting their own blog or web site. I've heard plenty of people comment over the years to the effect of, "Why bother starting a blog if someone's just going to harvest the RSS feed and re-publish it on their own site to make a few bucks?" Indeed, this has always been a concern among producers of both free and paid content.

I wish I could tell you that plagiarism isn't that big a deal, or that it won't happen to you. But the truth is plagiarism is a huge problem in our industry (and across the Internet in general), and if Continue reading

Versa’s Software-Defined Security Wins Business With a Systems Integrator

Versa recently added SD-security to its SD-WAN.

Home Depot will pay up to $19.5 million for massive 2014 data breach

Home Depot has agreed to pay as much as $19.5 million to remedy the giant data breach it suffered in 2014, the company confirmed on Tuesday.Included in that figure is a reported $13 million to reimburse customers for their losses and $6.5 million to provide them with one and a half years of identity protection services.Home Depot was not required to admit any wrongdoing."We’re working to put the litigation behind us," spokesman Stephen Holmes said via email. "This was the most expeditious path, but it’s not an admission of liability."Customers "were not responsible for fraudulent charges, and they’ve been our primary focus throughout," he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Next Level: Challenges Aligning IT And The Business

Denise Donohue and Russ White stop by The Next Level podcast to share strategies to better align network design and technology choices with business requirements.

The post The Next Level: Challenges Aligning IT And The Business appeared first on Packet Pushers.

The Next Level: Challenges Aligning IT And The Business

Denise Donohue and Russ White stop by The Next Level podcast to share strategies to better align network design and technology choices with business requirements.

The post The Next Level: Challenges Aligning IT And The Business appeared first on Packet Pushers.

RSA 2016: There Are Way Too Many Security Companies

Let's face it, security is overcrowded.

Leaders’ STEM education determines stance on iPhone encryption case

Robert Hannigan head of Britain’s NSA equivalent agency the GCHQ, finally stopped asking for a backdoor to encrypted devices. Instead he called for an end to what he called the “abuse of encryption” by ISIS and other terrorists and criminals at the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative, according to a report by the MIT Technology Review.Hannigan wasn’t getting what he wanted by calling it a backdoor so he changed the name for building flawed encryption that law enforcement can exploit to “ending the abuse of encryption.” Hannigan’s attempt to use speechwriters and political spin to solve a mathematical problem is a fool’s errand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Collaborating on incident response: Rook Security

At the 2016 RSA Conference, CSO's Steve Ragan chats with J.J. Thompson, CEO of Rook Security, about how security teams can collaborate better (including via mobile devices) during incident response events.