Takeaways from VMUG in Chicago

Bob getting ready - blog

Last week, I had the opportunity to travel to Chicago to attend the VMware User Group conference. It was a great event where I had the opportunity to meet and speak with many server, storage and network team members. One point that struck me was that the importance of the network is becoming clearer to everyone with a stake in the data center — and we couldn’t be happier to be leading the way.

Here are a couple of my observations from Chicago’s installation of the show:

  • Beyond applications: In the past, VMUG conferences have been heavily attended by application and server teams. This year, I found that many of the attendees were networking and storage decision-makers and administrators. To me, that signals how much storage is being virtualized and how important the network has become in virtualized environments. The success of these environments will soon depend on the network and the need for cooperation and interdependency of the applications, storage and networking teams is clear.
  • Hyperconverged layers: There’s a continued emphasis on the hyperconvergence of storage and compute—and the network is getting into the mix. I had a lot of conversations on why a converged network is a Continue reading

DockerCon EU 2015: Hands-On Labs

We know how busy everyone gets at DockerCon – there’s so much to do between conference talks, meeting members of the community and chatting with sponsors! We took all of the feedback from our pilot Docker Tutorials at DockerCon 2015 … Continued

Real-time analytics and control applications

sFlow-RT 2.0 released - adds application support describes a new application framework for sharing solutions built on top of the real-time analytics platform. Application examples are provided on the sFlow-RT Download page.

The flow-graph application, shown above, generates a real-time graph of communication between hosts.  The application uses a simple sFlow-RT script to track associations between hosts based on their communication patterns and plots the results using the vis.js dynamic, browser based visualization library. This example can be modified to track different types of relationship and extended to incorporate other popular data visualization libraries such as D3.js.
The dashboard-example includes representative real-time metric and top flows trend charts. The example uses the jQuery-UI library to build build a simple tabbed interface. This example can be extended to build groups of custom charts.
The top-flows application supports the definition of custom flows and tracks the largest flows in a continuously updating table.

Each of the examples has a server-side component that uses sFlow-RT's script API to collect, analyze, and export measurements. An HTML5 client side user interface connects to the server and presents the data.

The sFlow-RT analytics engine is a highly scaleable platform for processing sFlow measurements Continue reading

Python – Lists and Dict(ionarie)s

One of the fist things you’ll most likely encounter with Python are the datatypes lists and dicts.  While they initially seem quite simple, things can get awfully complex, awfully fast when you start intermingling the two datatypes.  So we’ll start with the basics, then dive into some more complex examples. 

Lists
Lists are defined as ‘a collection of different pieces of information as a sequence under a single variable name’.  So that’s a fancy way of saying it’s just a list.  In Python, lists are defined by using the ‘[]’ brackets.  So for example…

# A list with one item
list = ["Jon"]

# A list with multiple items
list = ["Jon", "Matt", "Bill"]

# An empty list
list = []

Items in lists can be accessed by index.  For example…

# A list with multiple items
list = ["Jon", "Matt", "Bill"]

print "The second name in the list is " + list[1]

# Result
The second name in the list is Matt

We can also iterate through the list with a simple loop…

# A list with multiple items
list = ["Jon", "Matt", "Bill"]

for name in list:
    print name

# Result
 Continue reading

Network Automation: Be Bold!

I’ve had something on my mind concerning network automation, and I think it’s worth mentioning it here.

There’s been a lot of talk - including plenty from myself - about using tools like Ansible for creating network configuration files; that is, text files that contain configurations for network devices, usually a list of CLI commands. And this is a great first step, certainly if you’re new to network automation.

It’s really not that hard to generate configurations. You can do it in about five lines of Python, or you can stick with that Excel spreadsheet powered by macros (you know who you are). I challenge anyone to tell me that Ansible is better at generating config templates than Excel. The reality is that it’s not - and it’s hardly attempting to be.

So, for the sake of making a point, let’s say the generation mechanism doesn’t matter. Let’s concede that this is the wrong optimization to be making. The question becomes - what is the right optimization?

I think the bigger problem to address is that of treating our networks like fragile snowflakes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve logged into a device, and felt like I was Continue reading

Network Automation: Be Bold!

I’ve had something on my mind concerning network automation, and I think it’s worth mentioning it here.

There’s been a lot of talk - including plenty from myself - about using tools like Ansible for creating network configuration files; that is, text files that contain configurations for network devices, usually a list of CLI commands. And this is a great first step, certainly if you’re new to network automation.

It’s really not that hard to generate configurations. You can do it in about five lines of Python, or you can stick with that Excel spreadsheet powered by macros (you know who you are). I challenge anyone to tell me that Ansible is better at generating config templates than Excel. The reality is that it’s not - and it’s hardly attempting to be.

So, for the sake of making a point, let’s say the generation mechanism doesn’t matter. Let’s concede that this is the wrong optimization to be making. The question becomes - what is the right optimization?

I think the bigger problem to address is that of treating our networks like fragile snowflakes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve logged into a device, and felt like I was Continue reading

Network Automation: Be Bold!

I’ve had something on my mind concerning network automation, and I think it’s worth mentioning it here. There’s been a lot of talk - including plenty from myself - about using tools like Ansible for creating network configuration files; that is, text files that contain configurations for network devices, usually a list of CLI commands. And this is a great first step, certainly if you’re new to network automation.

Network Automation: Be Bold!

I’ve had something on my mind concerning network automation, and I think it’s worth mentioning it here. There’s been a lot of talk - including plenty from myself - about using tools like Ansible for creating network configuration files; that is, text files that contain configurations for network devices, usually a list of CLI commands. And this is a great first step, certainly if you’re new to network automation.

NASA spots briny water flows on Mars

NASA said today that liquid water flows intermittently on Mars– a significant finding in the decades-long search for life and for possible human use on future trips to the red planet.The water flow evidence was spotted by researchers from Georgia Tech employing NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) – a 4,800lb spacecraft that has been taking pictures and measurements of Mars since 2006. In this case, using an imaging spectrometer researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious dark streaks are seen on the red planet in dozens of locations.+More on Network World: NASA touts real technologies highlighted in imminent 'The Martian' flick+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‘Found this today in a building…’

A Redditor submitted this picture to the section of that site that is devoted to networking. “I think this is more of a network cabling thing,” he writes. “I mean the installation isn’t that old to find something like this but ... personally speechless to find this in a modern building.” Here’s the full picture: Reddit user riahc3 via Imgur What is it?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to ace the CISO interview – be ready for the tough questions

Getting a top job in information security has never been as simple as just having the required training and experience. Yes, those are mandatory, but the modern hiring process also includes personality evaluations to determine the so-called “XQ” – whether a candidate would be a good “fit” for a position – background checks and yes, the personal interview.It is generally the final stop before either a job offer, or a perfunctory “thanks-for-your-interest” dismissal.And as the roles of the CISO and CSO have evolved in recent years from a relatively narrow focus as “guardians of the data” to members of the C suite who are expected to speak the language of business, participate in strategic planning and be perceived as business enablers rather than impediments, the interview has evolved as well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Cloudera unveils in-memory store, security layer for Hadoop

Just ahead of the opening of Strata + Hadoop World in New York City tomorrow, Cloudera today unveiled a new open source project to enable real-time analytic applications in Hadoop and an open source security layer for unified access control enforcement in Hadoop.The first project, Kudu, is an in-memory store for Hadoop that supports high-performance sequential and random reads and writes, enabling fast analytics on changing data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NSA chief warns cyberthreats persist despite China accord

On the eve of a significant agreement between the United States and China on trade and information security, the head of the National Security Agency cautioned that the two superpowers must develop a set of norms that would curb cyber-espionage and theft of intellectual property from U.S. firms.Adm. Michael Rogers appeared in a rare open hearing of the Senate intelligence committee to offer an update on the agency's work, with a particular focus on the various cyberthreats, which increasingly are coming from state-sponsored actors.[ Related: What would a U.S.-China cybertreaty really mean? ]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Using Vagrant with OpenStack

In my earlier post on using Docker Machine with OpenStack, I talked about combining technologies in a “provider/consumer” model. In this post, I’m going to talk about creating this provider/consumer model using a different combination of technologies: OpenStack as the infrastructure provider and Vagrant for consuming that infrastructure.

If you’re unfamiliar with Vagrant, I recommend you first read this introduction to Vagrant (after that you can dig into all the other Vagrant-tagged posts). As I explain in that first post, Vagrant leverages the idea of providers (which enable Vagrant to work with various back-end virtualization platforms/solutions) as well as boxes (which are essentially VM templates). In this particular case, we’re leveraging an OpenStack provider for Vagrant that allows Vagrant to use OpenStack as the back-end virtualization solution. However, since OpenStack already has the equivalent of VM templates (in the form of images), there’s no need to use a Vagrant box. This makes using Vagrant with OpenStack slightly different than your typical Vagrant use case.

Prerequisites

Let’s start with reviewing some prerequisites—these are the things you’ll need to do/have done before you can use Vagrant with OpenStack (besides the obvious things like having Vagrant installed).

  1. You’ll need a working OpenStack Continue reading
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