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Calico’s 3.26.0 update unlocks high density vertical scaling in Kubernetes

Kubernetes is a highly popular and widely used container orchestration platform designed to deploy and manage containerized applications at a scale, with strong horizontal scaling capabilities that can support up to 5,000 nodes; the only limit in adding nodes to your cluster is your budget. However, its vertical scaling is restricted by its default configurations, with a cap of 110 pods per node. To maximize the use of hardware resources and minimize the need for costly horizontal scaling, users can adjust the kubelet maximum pod configuration to increase this limit allowing more pods to run concurrently on a single node.

To avoid network performance issues and achieve efficient horizontal scaling in a Kubernetes cluster that is tasked to run a large number of pods, high-speed links and switches are essential. A reliable and flexible Software Defined Networking (SDN) solution, such as Calico, is also important for managing network traffic efficiently. Calico has been tested and proven by numerous companies for horizontal scaling, but in this post, we will discuss recent improvements made to help vertical scaling of containerized applications to just work.

For example, the following chart illustrates the efficiency achieved with the improvements of vertical scaling in Calico 3. Continue reading

Network Administrator Skills: The Essential Job Toolkit

While network technologies are rapidly advancing, the fundamental talents administrators need to succeed remain relatively unchanged. Learn how mastering just a few basic skills can advance your job and career.

Day Two Cloud 192: OpenTelemetry – Getting From Visibility To Observability With Ben Hall

OpenTelemetry is an open-source project that brings together tools, SDKs, and APIs for collecting telemetry--that is, logs, metrics, and traces---in a standardized way. The goal of the project is to help developers and operators instrument highly distributed applications and services to understand dependencies, monitor performance, and quickly troubleshoot problems. On today's Day Two Cloud podcast we explore OpenTelemetry and how it works. We also discuss the difference between visibility and observability, and why this matters. Our guest is Ben Hall.

Day Two Cloud 192: OpenTelemetry – Getting From Visibility To Observability With Ben Hall

The post Day Two Cloud 192: OpenTelemetry – Getting From Visibility To Observability With Ben Hall appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Akamai’s new cloud firewall capabilities aim to protect network edge

Akamai's Prolexic network cloud firewall now offers the ability to customize access control lists and deploy them at network edges.

Akamai’s new cloud firewall capabilities aim to protect network edge

Akamai's Prolexic network cloud firewall now offers the ability to customize access control lists and deploy them at network edges.

Announcing the Rafay Certification program

Today I’m extremely happy to announce the launch of the Rafay Certification program – the industry’s first and only multi-cloud Kubernetes operations certification. This is a unique program for platform teams, infrastructure engineers, SREs, and application developers to develop competencies in application modernization using Kubernetes. Let’s face it. Kubernetes is difficult! Enterprises are finding it … Continue reading →

Is Dynamic MAC Learning Better Than EVPN?

One of my readers worried about the control-plane-induced MAC learning lag in EVPN-based networks:

In all discussions about the advantages/disadvantages of VXLAN/EVPN, I can’t find any regarding the lag in learning new macs when you use the control plane for mac learning.

EVPN is definitely slower than data plane-based dynamic MAC learning (regardless of whether it’s done in hardware or software), but so is MLAG.

Is Dynamic MAC Learning Better Than EVPN?

One of my readers worried about the control-plane-induced MAC learning lag in EVPN-based networks:

In all discussions about the advantages/disadvantages of VXLAN/EVPN, I can’t find any regarding the lag in learning new macs when you use the control plane for mac learning.

EVPN is definitely slower than data plane-based dynamic MAC learning (regardless of whether it’s done in hardware or software), but so is MLAG.

Tigera Named Winner of the Esteemed Global InfoSec Awards during RSA Conference 2023

The annual Global InfoSec Awards from Cyber Defense Magazine (CDM) have been announced, and we are excited to unveil that Tigera has won the ‘Hot Company: Container Security’ category! This award recognizes the value of the work Tigera does as a security company, and we wouldn’t be where we are without the support of our teams, customers, and community.

“We are honored to be recognized as one of the best in container security by Cyber Defense Magazine. As this is one of the most esteemed awards in cybersecurity, we are so grateful to have been selected amongst a pool of qualified applicants and are eager to continue to innovate and provide better container security for organizations,” said Amit Gupta, Chief Product Officer, Tigera.

Tigera’s transformative approach to container security helps prevent, detect, and mitigate threats in containers and Kubernetes environments across build, deploy and runtime stages. Calico Cloud provides a unique solution that gives users a single container security solution to improve security posture, reduce the attack surface with fine-grained security controls, and provide threat defense from network and host based threats.

Learn more: What Is Container Security? 8 Best Practices You Must Know

Cyber Defense Magazine is the Continue reading

What China’s Major Submarine Internet Cable Means for U.S. Network Architects

Will there be competing Chinese and U.S. internets? With China’s new submarine internet cable, we break down how network managers might manage those circumstances.

6G is coming sooner than you think, FCC chief Rosenworcel says

US Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel believes that the time to start planning for 6G is now, and has outlined several steps that the government agency plans to take in preparation for the new wireless standard.While there’s no general agreement on what technical innovations will be incorporated into 6G, it’s become clear that the goals of the technology are ambitious. Broadcast virtual or augmented reality, high-quality telehealth and more are expected by wireless experts.That, however, will require a great deal of spectrum, and Rosenworcel — speaking at the National Science Foundation last week — said that the FCC is working to identify suitable frequencies for the new standard.To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco Announces New XDR Service at RSA Conference

At the 2023 RSA Conference, Cisco announced a new XDR service, a first for the industry’s biggest network vendor. Learn the details and implications of the announcement.

Broadcom’s new switching chip links GPUs, aims to boost AI networks

Broadcom’s new networking chip, called the Jericho3-AI, is designed to connect supercomputers and features a high-performance fabric for artificial intelligence (AI) environments.Broadcom has three switch families: the high-bandwidth Tomahawk switch platform, which is used primarily within data centers; the lower bandwidth Trident platform, which offers greater programmability and deeper buffers, making it more suited for the edge; and the Jericho line, which sits somewhere between the other two and is best suited for low latency interconnects.Jericho3-AI is targeted at AI and machine-learning backend networks where the switch fabric handles spraying of traffic on all network links and reordering of that traffic before delivering to the endpoints. It also has built-in congestion management capabilities for load balancing and minimizing network congestion. To read this article in full, please click here

Broadcom’s new switching chip links GPUs, aims to boost AI networks

BrandPost: Scaling enterprise multi-fabric SD-WAN deployments

By: Alex Amaya, Senior Technical Marketing Engineer at HPE Aruba Networking. In today's fast-paced digital world, companies need a robust and flexible network infrastructure to support their rapidly growing and changing business requirements. As a result, many organizations are turning to Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) technology to address the challenges of traditional WANs. But as companies grow and their SD-WAN deployments expand, it can become difficult to manage and maintain the network effectively.To read this article in full, please click here

How to Decide Between a Layer 2 or Layer 3 Network

As communication service providers (CSPs) continue to provide essential services to businesses and individuals, the demand for faster and more reliable network connectivity continues to grow in demand and in complexity. To meet these demands, CSPs must offer a variety of connectivity services that provide high-quality network performance, reliability and scalability. When it comes to offering network connectivity services, CSPs have many options when providing Layer 2 (data link) or Layer 3 (network or packet layer) connectivity of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model for network communication. This article will explore some of the advantages and benefits of each type of connectivity, in order for CSPs to determine which one may be better suited for different types of environments or applications. What Is Layer 2 Connectivity? At a basic level, Layer 2 connectivity refers to the use of the data link layer of the

Aruba introduces a simplified NaaS offering

Aruba Networks has upgraded its cloud-based Aruba Central network-management package to support better control of and visibility into enterprise assets.Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s network subsidiary also rolled out a new network-as-a-service, Agile NaaS, aimed at streamling the process of choosing network infrastructure components available through the serivcethat that fit customers’ business needs.First introduced on 2014, Aruba Central is the vendor’s flagship network management package that supports device onboarding, network configuration, health monitoring, and troubleshooting as well as intrusion detection and prevention services for campus, branch, remote, data center, and IoT wired and wireless networks.To read this article in full, please click here

Netbox Upgrade Play-by-play

I just upgraded my Netbox server from v2.7.6 to v3.4.8. This is just a record of what I did in case anyone want to know how I did it.

Environment

The source v2.7.6 server is an Ubuntu 18.04 VM. Yes, both are very old.
The destination v3.4.8 server is an Ubuntu 20.04 VM.
We have no media, scripts, or reports in Netbox.
I’m running Virtualbox on my laptop to do the data migrations.
I did the Netbox installs with Netbox Build-o-matic.

Process Overview

Since we’re running such an old version of Netbox, we need to do an interim upgrade to v2.11.x before proceeding to v3.x.x. We decided on v2.11.12.

The main idea here is that you export you data, install on a VM, upgrade the app on that VM, then export it out after your upgrades are done. Of course, that is very simplified.

One key here is to take snapshots every time you do something. I started with an Ubuntu 20.04 install, ran an update, then took a snapshot. That’s where the real work starts, and a place to restore to when Continue reading