IT/IT: Distributed OpenFlow

According to ECI, it’s a naïve view to have a single controller control large-scale networks in a reactive mode. Such a global view doesn’t scale, ECI claims. It means the first frame of each new flow is sent to the controller, where an SDN app decides on the desired behavior, derives the required network configurations and then uses the SDN controller to configure all the relevant switches. via sdxcentral

If I were a bit more snarky, I’d be tempted to say something like, “well, if you add a small hello protocol to each of the applets to monitor neighbor reachability, and a small protocol that can exchange local reachability information, and then perhaps a local algorithm to determine which path is the shortest, you can reinvent IS-IS.” But I’m not that snarky, of course…

I have come to believe that at least half of what we invent in the networking world is simply a product of not spending the time nor effort to study what’s already been invented, or the perception that what’s already been invented is “too complex,” and hence not stuff anyone wants to spend time learning nor understanding. A full three quarters of what remains is Continue reading

Malvertising – the new silent killer?

Malvertising is the latest way for criminals to infect your computer with malware – and the only thing you need to do to allow it is to visit your favorite website that relies on advertising. That's because they're slipping bad code into ads that are put onto those websites through advertising networks. Big name websites like Forbes, Huffington Post and the Daily Mail have been the focus of attacks.In a recent report by Cyphort found that malvertising has spiked 325 percent in 2014. A more recent report shows that malvertising reached record levels this past summer. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ever Heard of Role-Based Access Control?

During my recent SDN workshops I encountered several networking engineers who use Nexus 1000V in their data center environment, and some of them claimed their organization decided to do so to ensure the separation of responsibilities between networking and virtualization teams.

There are many good reasons one would use Nexus 1000V, but the one above is definitely not one of them.

Read more ...

CCNA – Operation Of IP Data Networks 1.4

It’s time for the next topic for the CCNA.

1.4 Describe the purpose and basic operation of the protocols in the OSI and TCP/IP models

There are tons of books written on the OSI and TCP/IP model so I won’t describe these models in depth here. What I will do is explain what you need to know at each level and explain how the real world works. We have two models, one from OSI and one from DOD.

CCNA OSI vs DOD model
CCNA OSI vs DOD model

In the real life everyone references the OSI model. I’ve never heard anyone reference the DOD model which doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its merits but everyone always uses the OSI model as a reference.

The OSI model has seven layers but people sometimes joke that layer 8 is financial and layer 9 is political.

Starting out with the physical layer, what you need to know is auto negotiation. Auto negotiation is good, hard coding speed and duplex will no doubt lead to ports that are hard coded on one side and auto on the other side to end up in half duplex. Gone are the days when auto negotiation wasn’t compatible and lead to misconfigured Continue reading

Google, Yahoo tighten spam filtering

Google and Yahoo are expanding their use of a successful system for identifying spam.The move is part of years-long effort to implement a series of checks designed to figure out if an email really has been sent by the domain it purports to come from.Email spoofing has long been a problem since its easy to forge the "from" address, making it more likely the receiver will believe it came from a legitimate source.By Nov. 2, Yahoo plans to being using DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) for its ymail.com and rocketmail.com services. Next year, Google also plans to move Gmail to a strict DMARC policy, according to a news release.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

6WIND Offering Accelerated L3 Virtual Appliances

6WIND, a Packet Pushers sponsor, has been helping get the most networking performance from x86 hardware, making the acceleration software that other companies could use to make the most of their standard servers with multi-core CPUs and Linux. 6WIND has recently taken a further step, offering its own VNFs and virtual networking acceleration software packages to end users like you and me. For example, the Turbo Router and Turbo IPSEC appliances compete with virtual routers from Cisco and Brocade. 6WIND will be appearing on the Packet Pushers Priority Queue podcast near the end of October 2015.

The post 6WIND Offering Accelerated L3 Virtual Appliances appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Magento says compromised sites haven’t patched older vulnerabilities

Magento said Tuesday there does not appear to be a new vulnerability in its e-commerce platform that is causing some websites to become infected with the Neutrino exploit kit. Some of the affected websites appear to not have patched a code execution vulnerability nicknamed the Shoplift Bug Patch, Magento's security team wrote in a blog post. A patch was released in February. Other Magento-powered sites have not applied other patches, making them vulnerable. The latest attack against Magento was highlighted by Malwarebytes and Sucuri, two security companies, who noticed attacks on the client and server sides.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DNSSEC is Open for Beta

DNSSEC logo

Since January, CloudFlare has been running a small, private beta for DNSSEC. Starting today, the DNSSEC beta is open for everyone. To request access, email [email protected].

A Background on DNS and DNSSEC

DNS is the system that lets your browser know which web server to connect to when you request to visit a website. It’s the underlying backbone of the usable internet, and yet, is vulnerable to man in the middle attacks.

In DNS, an attacker sitting in the middle of your connection to the internet can tell your browser to connect to any web server they’d like. Browsers trust any DNS records they receive as a response to a DNS query, because DNS, invented in 1983 before the public consumption of the Internet, does not perform any authentication.

There is a solution. It’s called DNSSEC and it adds cryptographic hashes and signatures for authenticating DNS records. You can read more about DNSSEC and how it works in a previous blog post.

The DNSSEC beta is open to all websites that use CloudFlare for DNS. If you want to be a part of our beta and be one of the first CloudFlare websites with DNSSEC, email us for beta Continue reading

Dell targets hyperscale wannabes with new line of bare-bones servers

Dell has released a new family of servers aimed at companies that want some of the cost savings of using custom-built hardware but without having to do as much of the engineering work.The servers are aimed at what Dell calls the second tier of hyper-scale customers -- those big enough to buy hundreds or even thousands of servers at a time, but who aren't as massive as a Google or a Facebook. That includes smaller Web-scale companies as well as telcos, financial services firms, cloud software companies and others.The Googles of the world design their own hardware to make it as energy- and space-efficient as possible. That means stripping out management software and redundant components, and building resiliency into their software stack rather than the hardware itself.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Former Cisco CTO taking a seat at Microsoft?

Is Padmasree Warrior in line to take a seat on Microsoft’s board? She’s been nominated, along with Sandra Peterson, group worldwide chairman of health products giant Johnson & Johnson. Cisco Padmasree Warrior, Cisco's former chief technology and strategy officer. Warrior was Cisco’s CTO and chief strategy officer and was one of the executives swept out shortly after new CEO Chuck Robbins was tapped to succeed John Chambers. Warrior was highly visible, always keynoting a Cisco or industry trade show and conference, and is omnipresent on Twitter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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