What to do with tomorrow’s leap second

We are being granted a leap second tomorrow so the question arises: What am I – or any of us, for that matter -- to do with the extra time? Among the necessarily brief possibilities that have occurred to me so far: Consider buying an Apple Watch. Slice as seen on TV (above). Work on that novel. Say leap second one time fast. Hold my breath. Drink responsibly. Make sweet, sweet love. Or, care about what Antonin Scalia thinks. As you might expect, I’m open to suggestions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Service Provider IPv6 Deployment

These are my study notes regarding IPv6 deployment in SP networks in preparation for the CCDE exam.

Drivers for implementing IPv6

  • External drivers
    • SP customers that need access to IPv6 resources
    • SP customers that need to interconnect their IPv6 sites
    • SP customers that need to interface with their own customers over iPv6
  • Internal drivers
    • Handle problems that may be hard to fix with IPv4 such as large number of devices (cell phones, IP cameras, sensors etc)
    • Public IPv4 address exhaustion
    • Private IPv4 address exhaustion
  • Strategic drivers
    • Long term expansion plans and service offerings
    • Preparing for new services and gaining competitive advantage

Infrastructure

  • SP Core Infrastructure
    • Native IPv4 core
    • L2TPv3 for VPNs
    • MPLS core
    • MPLS VPNs

My reflection is that most cores would be MPLS enabled, however there are projects such as Terastream in Deutsche Telekom where the entire core is IPv6 enabled and L2TPv3 is used in place of MPLS.

  • IPv6 in Native IPv4 Environments
    • Tunnel v6 in v4
    • Native v6 with dedicated resources
    • Dual stack

The easiest way to get going with v6 was to tunnel it over v4. The next logical step was to enable v6 but on separate interfaces to not disturb the “real” traffic and to be Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Next-generation 5G speeds will be 10 to 20 Gbps

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has defined 5G network speeds as being 20 Gigabits per second (Gbps), according to an article in the Korea Times.However, an ITU spokesperson says it will be more like 10 Gbps with peak speeds at 20 Gbps, according to a separate Fierce Wireless report.The ITU, a United Nations organization, has also come up with a name for the 5G standard – "IMT-2020."The ITU allocates global radio spectrum and is also responsible for coordinating mobile radio strategy and regulations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cybercriminals adopt recently patched zero-day exploit in a flash

Just four days after Adobe Systems patched a vulnerability in Flash Player, the exploit was adopted by cybercriminals for use in large-scale attacks. This highlights the increasingly small time frame users have to deploy patches.On Saturday, a malware researcher known online as Kafeine spotted a drive-by download attack done with the Magnitude exploit kit that was exploiting a Flash Player vulnerability patched Tuesday.The flaw, tracked as CVE-2015-3113 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database, had zero-day status—that is, it was previously unpatched—when Adobe released a patch for it. It had already been exploited by a China-based cyberespionage group for several weeks in targeted attacks against organizations from the aerospace, defense, construction, engineering, technology, telecommunications and transportation industries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Banking malware proves tough to repel

Companies are finding it tough to keep out new types of banking malware, which continue to get better following the bar-raising threat known as Zeus.The malicious programs all aim to swiftly and secretly steal credentials for online bank accounts, with some specializing in making large, unauthorized wire transfers from businesses using the ACH (Automated Clearing House) system.A study by the firm SecurityScorecard, which specializes in tracking a company’s risk of intrusion, found more than 4,700 organizations that were infected by some type of advanced banking malware.SecurityScorecard collected the data in part by using sinkholes, or computers that researchers control which are part of a network of infected machines, known as a botnet. An analysis of those sinkholes can lend insight into how many machines may be infected with a particular type of malware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Pie Problem: Growth and Ratios

Why does it seem life goes faster as you get older? There are several reasons, of course — a primary one being it always seems there’s more you need to do and less you want to do, as you get older and take on responsibilities. I know that the last 17 years, since my first child was born, has often felt like a runaway train. But there’s another reason — a set of problems I’ve been working on with my younger daughter a lot because the math is easy, but the concept is hard.

It’s all in the ratios. To give an example, a teacher I once spent a lot of time listening to would often pose this to his friends:

You’re around 50. That means you’ve been given 2600 weekends so far, and you have about 1500 weekends left (give or take). What did you do with the weekends you’ve already lived, and what do you plan on doing with the 1500 you have left?

The math is simple — what’s the average life expectancy, how many weekends are there in a year, etc. But the problem is really all about ratios. The older you get, the less percentage Continue reading

Inside the bold plan to bring gigabit fiber to Detroit

When discussing the ongoing revitalization efforts in Detroit, it's hard to miss the name Dan Gilbert. The founder of Quicken Loans, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and a Detroit native himself, Gilbert's investment firms have funded dozens of tech startups in the city and turned its defunct old buildings into shiny new workspaces that look like Silicon Valley transplants.Until last year, what Detroit lacked in this daunting task to become a tech hub was access to affordable, high-speed broadband, the kind that Google Fiber was famously bringing to other cities around the country. So, rather than pray for Google to arrive or incumbent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to spontaneously change their pricing and services, Gilbert invested in two Quicken Loans employees who were crazy enough to suggest building a fiber network themselves.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: Breakthroughs in endpoint security

Despite advances in malware protection, endpoints get infected every day, even those running some form of anti-virus or other defense that the threat is able to circumvent. In our recent roundup of anti-virus programs, we discovered several new techniques being employed by anti-virus companies to make PCs safer against advanced threats. Even so, many anti-virus companies we talked with acknowledged that their software can’t catch everything, especially within those commonly exploited areas that are tricky to defend.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Review: Breakthroughs in endpoint security

Despite advances in malware protection, endpoints get infected every day, even those running some form of anti-virus or other defense that the threat is able to circumvent. In our recent roundup of anti-virus programs, we discovered several new techniques being employed by anti-virus companies to make PCs safer against advanced threats. Even so, many anti-virus companies we talked with acknowledged that their software can’t catch everything, especially within those commonly exploited areas that are tricky to defend.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

New products of the week 06.29.2015

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Cloud Application Delivery Platform (CADP) V. 15.1Key features: Avi’s Cloud Application Delivery Platform includes new and enhanced capabilities, including additional support and integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest public cloud environment for DevOps and coder segments. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Robots that cook, clean, sing and dance

RobotsImage by National GeographicNational Geographic’s movie Robots is making its way around theaters - including 3D - this summer featuring a range of robots with skills from cleaning to dancing to acting. Here are a few of them and their talents. These copyrighted images were provided by National Geographic.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Networking Pioneers, Settlers and Town Planners

Can we broadly separate Networking into Pioneers, Settlers, and Town Planners? I’ve been thinking about how to apply Simon Wardley’s PST model to networking. This leads to thinking about how we can encourage networking evolution. The model needs a lot of fleshing out, but I’m interested in what others think.

Pioneers, Settlers and Town Planners (PST)

Simon Wardley has written about “Pioneers, Settlers and Town Planners (PST)” in many places – e.g. here and here. It derives from Cringely’s Commandos, Infantry, Police model (see Chapter 12 of Accidental Empires). It provides a organisational structure, grouping areas based upon their current state of evolution. It recognises that no one operational model works for all parts of a business. You can’t say “We’re using Agile, or Lean, or Six Sigma” – you need to use the appropriate model for each area. Even “Bi-Modal IT” is too limiting, as the divide is too great.

Screen Shot 2013-03-20 at 16.50.22

(Image from blog.gardeviance.org, used under Creative Commons License)

Applying PST to networking

The model is a helpful way of thinking about the role of different groups across a business. It also helps us understand why teams need to evolve over time, Continue reading

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