Let’s Revisit The Aruba Networks Acquisition

Aruba-HP-LogoBack in February, I wrote a piece entitled “HP Buying Aruba?”. In that post, I provided some context around why I thought HP buying Aruba could end up being a bad idea. I also mentioned in that post that I hoped HP did right by Aruba’s customer base and didn’t put the corporate handcuffs on them.

After several months and many conversations with HP, Aruba, and my peers, I have a different take. I am not 100% ready to back off from my concerns though. The acquisition has closed. The deal is done. However, it is too early in the process to be certain of much of anything regarding the future state of Aruba, its products, and its ability to execute as they have in the past. Let’s just say I am about 75% headed in the opposite direction of my initial concerns.

This past week, I was fortunate enough to attend HP Discover in Las Vegas. HP paid for my travel and expenses for HP Discover. For that, I thank them and I can definitively tell you that I was not pressured into writing anything as a result of this trip. As luck would have it, Aruba Continue reading

Cisco Announces New CCNA and CCNP IoT Cloud Certifications, Could a CCIE Cloud be on the Horizon?

As many of you have heard by now, Cisco has announced their new CCNA Cloud and CCNP Cloud certifications. These certifications are designed to be a focus-based around their “Internet of Things” (IoT) concept, which will also play into the “Internet of Everything” (IoE) transformation that we’ll see happening over the next several years. In addition to Cisco, so many other companies are participating in the IoT concept, at a minimum, the companies listed here.

As a quick summary, the IoT definition refers to the endpoints, devices, and networks that connect to the internet, whereas their IoE definition is more of a “tied in system” that brings networked devices, and endpoints (IoT) together into a much larger solution that will allow the ability to connect people, places, and things in a much more relevant and valuable way than ever imagined. IoE brings people, processes, data, and the connected devices together to form – essentially, in my own words “a connected world”.

For a visual explanation, check out this slideshow and video (which I love) developed by Cisco.

Top IoT Trends and Their Impact on the Internet of Everything

Cisco’s Internet of Everything | Circle Story

As I read into Cisco’s Continue reading

So You Need ISSU on Your ToR switch? Really?

During the Cumulus Linux presentation Dinesh Dutt had at Data Center Fabrics webinar, someone asked an unexpected question: “Do you have In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) on Cumulus Linux” and we both went like “What? Why?”

Dinesh is an honest engineer and answered: “No, we don’t do it” with absolutely no hesitation, but we both kept wondering, “Why exactly would you want to do that?”

Read more ...

Considering On-Call Pay

Let’s say you’ve been offered a new job. $70k base salary, with up to $20k per year extra for on-call duties. Great! $90k! That’s $10k more than my salary now! Sign me up!

Wait a minute. Not so fast.

Years ago I received some good advice: Treat your on-call payment as a separate item. Don’t consider it as part of your base salary. This is because you need to be paid properly both for doing your job, and for the inconvenience of being on-call.

Evaluate the base salary for what it is: Your salary for doing your day-to-day job. Ignoring the on-call part, did they offer you enough money for the role? Is it a good match for your experience?

Separately decide if the on-call payment is enough to justify being on-call. Does it represent a fair payment for the extra work?

Why does this matter? A few reasons:

  • Being on-call has a big impact on your life, and you need to be properly paid for it.
  • You still need to get paid properly for the job you do Monday-Friday.
  • On-call payments will vary. Your job role could change. Maybe the team gets bigger, and you go on-call less often. Now you’re earning Continue reading

WWDC 2015 Rumors: What to expect from Apple

Tomorrow at 10 A.M Pacific Time, Tim Cook and his trusted cadre of lieutenants will take the stage at Moscone West in San Francisco where they will show us what the company has been working on over the last 12 months.When it comes to Apple related announcements, WWDC is undoubtedly one of the most exciting events of the year. Per usual, there's been a steady stream of rumors pointing to what we can expect to see from Apple tomorrow. To help you get acquainted with what some of the announcements may touch on, below is a broad overview of what Apple will likely touch on during tomorrow's highly anticipated presentation.iOS 9To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 7 rumor rollup: Feeling left out at Apple WWDC, but design concepts cheer us up

The world of Apple prognosticators expect a Beats-infused streaming music service, support for native Apple Watch apps and a first look at iOS 9 at this week’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference. But iPhone 6S or iPhone 7 are expected to gain nary a mention by Apple big shots at the annual San Francisco confab.Sure, iOS advances in Version 9 will be directly applicable to iPhone users, but who knows, Apple might be on to iOS 10 by the time its next iPhone surfaces. Enter the iPhone concept designs Deviant Art iPhone 7 design concept: Home button is nowhere to be seenTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PQ Show 51 – LightCyber Magna Active Breach Detection – Sponsored

LightCyber Magna Active Breach Detection automatically detects active attackers by identifying the anomalous operational behaviors sourced from compromised hosts in your network. By focusing on actual attack behaviors, and not technical artifacts like signatures, Magna provides accurate breach indicators and eliminates excessive false positives.

Author information

Ethan Banks

Co-host at Packet Pushers

Ethan Banks, CCIE #20655, has been managing networks for higher ed, government, financials and high tech since 1995. Ethan co-hosts the Packet Pushers Podcast, which has seen over 3M downloads and reaches over 10K listeners. With whatever time is left, Ethan writes for fun & profit, studies for certifications, and enjoys science fiction. @ecbanks
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The post PQ Show 51 – LightCyber Magna Active Breach Detection – Sponsored appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

Cloonix network simulator updated to version 26

The Cloonix development team released an update to Cloonix version 26 in May 2015. An important addition in version 26 is a greatly expanded and improved Cloonix user guide.

Cloonixv26-002

The new version also changes the user interface, adds a new LAN type, and eliminates the t2t device. It also includes updated guest virtual machines.

User interface changes

In Cloonix Version 26, the user interface eliminates the tool bar and makes all graph objects available via a right-click drop-down menu.

Right-click to access the virtual network object menu

Right-click to access the virtual network object menu

Also, the different LAN types are no longer available as separate objects. They are configured in the KVM configuration window.

Cloonix v26 KVM configuration window

Cloonix v26 KVM configuration window

Installing Cloonix v26

The only change to the install procedure is a some new prerequisite software packages that must be installed to support compilation.

You can install pre-compiled binaries or compile Cloonix from source code. I prefer to compile it. The source code and the precompiled binaries are on the Cloonix Software page.

To compile the source code on Xubuntu 14.04, I followed the procedure documented in the Cloonix install documentation.

We will install Cloonix v26 in our Home directory. Download and unpack the source code.

$ Continue reading

How to Enable Dot1x – more complex setup for wired network

How does Internet work - We know what is networking

This one is long. Do not be afraid though, I made it just to give you the fastest way to deploy functional dot1x to your company HQ without reading even more documentation and searching for those little timer default settings. I the article prior to this I showed you how to setup your environment with simple dot1x and make it as simple as possible. I will not repeat again the part about setting up Radius Clients on server side, everything else is here once again just more complex. Now is time for a more complex example that will make your implementation

How to Enable Dot1x – more complex setup for wired network

Brocade Certified vRouter Engineer

If you’ve visited the Brocade website recently, you’ve probably seen the “Free NFV Certification” banner. I signed up for this several months ago, but had put off completing the course. I had a little downtime recently prior to starting work at Brocade, so I completed this course & exam. Here’s my impressions.

Disclaimer: I now work for Brocade. Assume what you will about my biases. These are my opinions, not my employer’s.

What’s the Course/Exam About?

From the official documentation:

As a Brocade Certified vRouter Engineer, you must be able to demonstrate the ability to install, configure and troubleshoot features of Brocade Vyatta Network OS.

i.e. it’s primarily about the basics of Vyatta.

What’s Included?

Here’s what you get when you sign up:

  1. A download link to the Brocade Vyatta 5400 vRouter image.
  2. Access to the “Brocade Certified vRouter Engineer Course.”
  3. Links to certification materials and communities.
  4. Promo code for the BCVRE exam.

Note that you can run the Vyatta image on a local hypervisor, or if you prefer you can select it from the AWS marketplace. Personally I ran it on VMware Fusion on my laptop. It’s light on resource, so you can easily spin up several Continue reading

HTC Fail: Company posts photos of 24-karat gold M9 that were taken with an iPhone

 HTC on Friday took to Twitter to announce a new limited edition 24-karat gold M9 that it's releasing to celebrate Saturday's Champions League final. That's all well and good, but in one of the three photos HTC posted online, it's clear that they were taken with (gasp!) an iPhone.Here's the offending photo.Nothing terribly shocking at first glance, but if we zoom in a little bit on the lower right hand corner on the right-hand device, well, that's an iPhone 6 we see taking the shot.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Citizens of Tech 006 – Saga of Lucimia Special, Part 2

On this week's Citizens of Tech podcast, we conclude our special on how complex games are developed. Regular host Eric Sutphen (@zutfen) and special guest Jeff Pugliese (@tpyowritr) continue their interview with game developers Tim Anderson and Giovanni Martello from Saga of Lucimia. Topics include community, archetypes, and character progression.

The post Citizens of Tech 006 – Saga of Lucimia Special, Part 2 appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Citizens of Tech 006 – Saga of Lucimia Special, Part 2

On this week's Citizens of Tech podcast, we conclude our special on how complex games are developed. Regular host Eric Sutphen (@zutfen) and special guest Jeff Pugliese (@tpyowritr) continue their interview with game developers Tim Anderson and Giovanni Martello from Saga of Lucimia. Topics include community, archetypes, and character progression.

Author information

Ethan Banks

Co-host at Packet Pushers

Ethan Banks, CCIE #20655, has been managing networks for higher ed, government, financials and high tech since 1995. Ethan co-hosts the Packet Pushers Podcast, which has seen over 3M downloads and reaches over 10K listeners. With whatever time is left, Ethan writes for fun & profit, studies for certifications, and enjoys science fiction. @ecbanks
TwitterGoogle+LinkedIn

The post Citizens of Tech 006 – Saga of Lucimia Special, Part 2 appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

Managed power supplies and how to automate your branch network

One of the worst parts of the day has to be calling AT&T or Comcast to request a dispatch to a branch office or to check up on a problem internet circuit.  Yelling out “Technical Support” to try and get past the prompts.  The first question I get asked every time, “Did you reboot the modem?”. […]

Author information

William Marti

William Marti

Network Admin for the last 5 years at a large NA based food distributor. Graduated with a Bachelors in Information Systems
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The post Managed power supplies and how to automate your branch network appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by William Marti.

Soviet Mi-24V Hind E, 1/72 scale

For best article visual quality, open Soviet Mi-24V Hind E, 1/72 scale directly at NetworkGeekStuff.

0606060005The Mil Mi-24 (Russian: Миль Ми-24; NATO reporting name: Hind) is a large helicopter gunship and attack helicopter and low-capacity troop transport with room for eight passengers. It is produced by Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant and has been operated since 1972 by the Soviet Air Force and its successors, along with more than 30 other nations.

In NATO circles, the export versions, Mi-25 and Mi-35, are denoted with a letter suffix as “Hind D” and “Hind E” respectively. Soviet pilots called the Mi-24 the “flying tank”, or летающий танк (letayushchiy tank). More common unofficial nicknames were “Crocodile” (Крокодил or Krokodil) due to the helicopter’s camouflage scheme and “Drinking Glass” (Стакан or Stakan) because of the flat glass plates which surround the cockpit of the Mi-24.

In my small interpretation, I have used the Revell kid that was released in 2014 targeting the Czech Air Force variant, but it also has the option of doing Soviet markings, so I decided to go with this much more generally known view as I have a certain nostalgia on this thing appearing in the old Operation Flashpoint (2001) by Continue reading

How to Enable Dot1x authentication for wired clients

How does Internet work - We know what is networking

If your LAN is extending to some places where unauthorised people can just plug in and gain access to your protected network, it’s time to implement some security on your access switch. The best thing to do is to implement IEEE 802.1X port-based authentication which will enable users/machine authentication and prevent unauthorized devices from getting access switch port running when connected. IEEE 802.1X port-based authentication is mostly called simply as dot1x. In this article I will show you how to configure some basic dot1x stuff on switch side. I will also include Windows machine side of configuration as this is something most people presume

How to Enable Dot1x authentication for wired clients

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