The Future is Bright! The Future is PoE?

There’s no avoiding the fact that the much-hyped Internet of Things (IoT) is coming. Devices are popping up all over the place offering some form of wireless connectivity so that they can control (or be controlled) remotely, and if you want to run a Smart Building, having control over all the elements of the environment could be a huge benefit. To that end, Cisco is playing with the idea that maybe we can offer power (via PoE), networking (Ethernet) and maybe even save a little money, by using Cat6 Ethernet cabling to connect those devices.

Current State of IoT

Not everything needs to be hard-wired, for sure. Some devices can be battery powered and may need to be placed in places where any wiring would be undesirable or impossible. Other devices though, may require more than battery power to operate, and that means running power to their location. If the device needs to send or receive a reasonable amount of data, it may also need to run 802.11 wireless, or have a wired connection; the common 802.15.4 Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Network (LR-WPAN) solution utilized by many connected devices may not provide enough bandwidth to be usable, and in Continue reading

MWC: Wi-Fi hack test shows ‘reckless’ behavior; MasterCard to expand ‘Selfie Pay’

Here are a couple of news tidbit from Mobile World Congress that caught my eye.Wi-Fi hack experiment highlighted “reckless” actions by MWC attendeesIt’s likely that many people flooding into the Barcelona Airport over the weekend were headed for Mobile World Congress – a destination which should be filled with people who are smart and knowledgeable regarding mobile devices, but Avast Software called some attendees’ behavior “reckless.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Securing BGP: A Case Study (4)

In part 1 of this series, I looked at the general problem of securing BGP, and ended by asking three questions. In part 2 and part 3, I considered the third question: what can we actually prove in a packet switched network. For this section, I want to return to the first question:

Should we focus on a centralized solution to this problem, or a distributed one?

There are, as you might expect, actually two different problems within this problem:

• Assuming we’re using some sort of encryption to secure the information used in path validation, where do the keys come from? Should each AS build its own private/public key pairs, have anyone they want to validate the keys, and then advertise them? Or should there be some central authority that countersigns keys, such as the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) so everyone has a single trust root?
• Should the information used to validate paths be distributed or stored in a somewhat centralized database? At the extreme ends of this answer are two possibilities: every eBGP speaker individually maintains a database of path validation information, just like they maintain reachability information; or there are a few servers (like the root DNS servers) Continue reading

An Exciting Career In IT Awaits You

Worth Reading: Public Cloud and Prisoners of Price

-via packet pushers

The post Worth Reading: Public Cloud and Prisoners of Price appeared first on 'net work.

Anticipating the RSA Security Conference

Just a week to go before the biggest cybersecurity event of the year, the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco.  Building upon industry momentum and the dangerous threat landscape, I expect a record-breaking crowd from the Moscone Center to Union Square.What will be the focus on this year’s event?  Well it should be the global cybersecurity skills shortage which continues to get worse each year.  According to ESG research, 46% of organizations claim that they have a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills, up for 28% last year (note: I am an ESG employee).  In my humble opinion, the cybersecurity skills shortage has become a national security issue demanding a more comprehensive strategy.  Here’s an article I recently wrote with more details on this topic. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Beyond Centrino: Intel drives device changes for a 5G world

Intel sparked a wireless revolution over the last decade with its Centrino processor platform, designed to connect laptops over Wi-Fi, and now believes the 5G mobile standard will fuel the next big change in the way a new generation of devices communicate. The move to 5G networks will provide faster wireless connectivity through a host of technologies and change the way computing devices are built, said Aicha Evans, corporate vice president for Intel's Platform Engineering Group and general manager for the Communication and Devices Group. Wi-Fi is ubiquitous today, but upcoming changes may involve making cellular connectivity a common feature on laptops. This is why Intel is putting a lot of energy into modem development for laptops and mobile devices. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chinese devs abuse free Apple app-testing certs to install pirated apps

A Chinese iOS application recently found on Apple's official store contained hidden features that allow users to install pirated apps on non-jailbroken devices. Its creators took advantage of a relatively new feature that lets iOS developers obtain free code-signing certificates for limited app deployment and testing.The number of malware programs for iOS has been very low until now primarily because of Apple's strict control of its ecosystem. Devices that have not been jailbroken -- having their security restrictions removed -- only allow apps obtained from the official App Store, after they've been reviewed and approved by Apple.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network Testing Gets Easier With DevOps

What users love (and hate) about 4 leading identity management tools

Four of the top identity management products on the market are Oracle Identity Manager, CA Identity Manager, IBM Tivoli Identity Manager, and SailPoint IdentityIQ, according to online reviews by enterprise users in the IT Central Station community.But what do enterprise users really think about these tools? Here, users give a shout out for some of their favorite features, but also give the vendors a little tough love.Oracle Identity Manager Valuable Features: "The most valuable features are the attestation of identities and the robust set of identity analytics." - Mike R., Lead Solutions Architect at a media company with 1000+ employees "I feel the Provisioning and Reconciliation Engine as well as the Adapter Factory are the most valuable, apart from the standard features which most identity management solutions provide." – Gaurav D., Senior Infrastructure Engineer at a tech services company with 1000+ employees "Automated User Creation and provisioning of connected resources in the case of Identity Manager, Access control to protected web resources with regards to Oracle Access Manager." - Mwaba C., Identity and Access Management at a manufacturing company with 1000+ employees Room for Improvement: "With Oracle, it's always about the learning Continue reading

Cities, not cornfields, draw data centers

Google built a data center in an Oregon town with a population of about 15,000. Yahoo established chicken-coop style data center in New York state farm country. And Apple runs an iCloud data center in rural North Carolina.But building big data centers in rural areas may be more the exception than the rule. Most data centers are located in, or at least close to, major Metro areas, acording to a new study. flickr/Tony Webster Google Data Center - The Dalles, OregonTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Show 276: Glue Networks, SD-WAN & Network Orchestration (Sponsored)

Ethan and Greg speak with Olivier Huynh Van, CTO and Co-Founder of Glue Networks, and learn about its network orchestration solution, Gluware. Gluware is designed to build and re-use network models to provide abstraction and simplify network provisioning and configuration.

The post Show 276: Glue Networks, SD-WAN & Network Orchestration (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Show 276: Glue Networks, SD-WAN & Network Orchestration (Sponsored)

Ethan and Greg speak with Olivier Huynh Van, CTO and Co-Founder of Glue Networks, and learn about its network orchestration solution, Gluware. Gluware is designed to build and re-use network models to provide abstraction and simplify network provisioning and configuration.

The post Show 276: Glue Networks, SD-WAN & Network Orchestration (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

OpenDaylight Releases Beryllium, Touts Traction

Why Would You Need BGP-LS and PCEP?

My good friend Tiziano Tofoni (the organizer of wonderful autumn seminars in Rome) sent me these questions after attending the BGP-LS and PCEP Deep Dive webinar, starting with:

Are there real use cases for BGP-LS and PCEP? Are they really useful? Personally I do not think they will ever be used by ISP in their (large) networks.

There are some ISPs that actually care about the network utilization on their expensive long-distance links.

“Split and smear” your security policies: Static Unidimensional vs. Dynamic Multi-Dimensional Policies

In my previous post I explained why current security architectures aiming at inspecting all inline traffic via hardware appliances are failing to provide proper segmentation and scale in modern day data centers.  As I described, this has nothing to do with the type of security technology being deployed but rather with engineering security services that can answer the requirements of scale, high bandwidth, micro-segmentation and distributed applications.

We have to remind ourselves why we are having these architectural discussions: the application and service landscape has been virtualized, generally in excess of 70%, while entertaining any cloud solution will force you down the path of moving to 100% virtualization.  Yes, there are still physical servers and legacy applications to which we will extend security services to.  But instead of being the norm, we now have to consider their place in the overall architecture as exceptions and design security and networking services around what makes up the bulk of the workloads, i.e. virtualized applications in the form of VMs and containers.

With this understanding, let’s discuss how years of deploying hardware security architectures have boxed us in a complex unidimensional, sequential approach to security policies and how we can now move beyond this implementation scheme with virtualization and the proper software tools. Continue reading

Pim Sparse Mode

Pim sparse mode – Multicast is used to send the data to the multiple receivers at the same time. Multicast reduces the load on the servers (Senders/Source in multicast term), provides efficient capacity usage on the network links. Figure – 1 Unicast vs Multicast Flows Multicast runs on top of UDP. Multicast uses Class D […]

The post Pim Sparse Mode appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

Pim Sparse Mode

Pim sparse mode – Multicast is used to send the data to the multiple receivers at the same time. Multicast reduces the load on the servers (Senders/Source in multicast term), provides efficient capacity usage on the network links. Figure – 1 Unicast vs Multicast Flows Multicast runs on top of UDP. Multicast uses Class D […]

The post Pim Sparse Mode appeared first on Orhanergun.

Apple wants government to form commission over FBI demand

Apple CEO Tim Cook has asked the U.S. government to withdraw its court action demanding tools that will allow the FBI to hack the passcode of an iPhone, and instead set up a commission of tech, intelligence and civil liberties experts to discuss "the implications for law enforcement, national security, privacy and personal freedoms.""We have done everything that’s both within our power and within the law to help in this case. As we’ve said, we have no sympathy for terrorists," Cook said in an email Monday to Apple employees. Apple said it would gladly participate in the commission.The FBI has sought help from Apple for a workaround to the auto-erase function in an iPhone 5c, running iOS 9, which was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the terrorists involved in the San Bernardino, California, attack on Dec. 2. The FBI is concerned that without this workaround from Apple it could accidentally erase data, while trying to break the passcode by "brute force" techniques.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network Redesign: VLANs And Ports