Cisco CEO feisty til the end

John Chambers’ last quarterly conference call as Cisco CEO this week was as bullish as it’s ever been, especially on switching. Chambers left little doubt what he thought about prognostications that software-defined networking and whitebox switching would ultimately kill Cisco’s switching dominance: So all this garbage about new players coming in and software coming in and white label killing our approach was entirely wrong… We are beating our competitors that you all were worried about. In Cisco’s fiscal Q3, orders for the Nexus 9000 switch and APIC controller, the guts of its SDN – or SDN killing – offering grew sequentially 27%. As we reported earlier, APIC customers just about doubled and Nexus 9000 customers grew 56% since January.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ARM seen making rapid progress on next high-end chip

ARM’s next major CPU design could be here sooner than you think.The company is in the advanced stages of development with its next high-end processor, which will succeed the Cortex-A72 and could reach smartphone and tablet makers by the end of next year, chip analyst Linley Gwennap said in a research note this week.ARM’s chip designs are used in most of the world’s smartphones and tablets, and its speedy development work reflects the intense pressure gadget makers are under to get new products to market quickly. It also reflects heightened competition from Intel.ARM hasn’t discussed the new chip publically and even its name it not yet known. But the company seems to be accelerating the pace at which it gets new processor designs to market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

European mobile operators seemingly divided over sanity of blocking ads

Several European telcos have come out against a scheme by their fellow operators to block advertising as a maneuver to force Google to share its revenue.An executive at a European telecom operator has said it and others are planning to start blocking online ads this year in their respective mobile networks, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.First, the unnamed operator will launch an advertising-free service for its subscribers on an opt-in basis. However, there are also plans to use the technology across its entire network. The plan is to specifically target Google, blocking ads on the company’s websites in an attempt to force the online giant to share its revenue, according to the Financial Times.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PlexxiPulse—Scale-out Networking for Oracle

We were in Overland Park, KS this week at the Spring Oracle Summit hosted by the Central States OAUG (Oracle Application Users Group). We hosted a lecture on scale-out networking for Oracle applications. We’ll be at the next summit on May 27 in St. Louis, MO. Will you be in the area? Drop us a line on Twitter or at [email protected]. We’d love to see you.

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Have a great weekend!

CRN: 2015 Virtualization 50
By Joseph Kovar
While software-defined data centers are not yet available, there is considerable buzz building up about the possibility of virtualizing an ever-larger part of the data center as such technologies, including server and storage virtualization, software-defined networking and storage, and VDI and hyper-converged infrastructures, continue to come to market…Plexxi develops software-defined networking software that “renders” network configurations based on application requirements. That software sits on the company’s software-definable hardware platform. The company claims its hardware can be quickly defined and redefined by its software in response to the needs of a customer’s application.

Network Computing: SDN Introduces Choice To The Data Center
By Gilad Shainer
There Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Samsung launches Internet of Things boards

Samsung is getting serious about Internet of Things (IoT). Following up on its 2014 purchase of startup SmartThings, Samsung has just unveiled a set of modules called ARTIK, which it hopes companies will adopt in order to build IoT into their products.SmartThings is an app-controlled remote control for a smart home.ARTIK Three tiny circuit boards make up the ARTIK collection. They're about the "size of a ladybug," says Don Clark, writing about the technology in the Wall Street Journal. The smallest is 12 millimeters on each side.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Samsung launches Internet of Things boards

Samsung is getting serious about Internet of Things (IoT). Following up on its 2014 purchase of startup SmartThings, Samsung has just unveiled a set of modules called ARTIK, which it hopes companies will adopt in order to build IoT into their products.SmartThings is an app-controlled remote control for a smart home.ARTIK Three tiny circuit boards make up the ARTIK collection. They're about the "size of a ladybug," says Don Clark, writing about the technology in the Wall Street Journal. The smallest is 12 millimeters on each side.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

vSphere with Cumulus Linux

I presented my first webinar on VMware vSphere with Cumulus® Linux® last week, which was really exciting for me. VMware has been around for 17 years and counting while Cumulus® Networks® came out of stealth mode only in June 2013. We all know that VMware vSphere works with a variety of network architectures, so I wanted to take a slightly different approach while presenting the webinar and writing this blog:

  •  What does Cumulus Networks bring to vSphere that others don’t?
  •  Does Cumulus Linux work well with vSphere?  How can we test it?

VMware vSphere and Cumulus Linux

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Cumulus Linux and VMware vSphere are both software solutions that run on a variety of hardware platforms. This allows customers to build and use platforms from a range of suppliers for compute, storage and networking. The software defines the performance and behavior of the environment, which allows the administrator to exercise version control and programmatic approaches that are already in use by DevOps teams. Today, switches with Cumulus Linux can be treated as servers.

Cumulus Linux with ONIE, ZTP and Automation

How does Cumulus Linux just work on top of bare metal switches? What is so different? Why can’t we do this with any switch out there Continue reading

PPP CHAP Authentication Question

 

The following question was recently sent to me regarding PPP and CHAP:

 

At the moment I only have packet tracer to practice on, and have been trying to setup CHAP over PPP.

It seems that the “PPP CHAP username xxxx” and “PPP CHAP password xxxx” commands are missing in packet tracer.

I have it set similar to this video… (you can skip the first 1 min 50 secs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ltNfaPz0nA

As he doesn’t use the missing commands, if that were to be done on live kit would it just use the hostname and magic number to create the hash?

 

Also, in bi-directional authentication, do both routers have to use the same password or can they be different as long as they match what they expect from the other router?

Thanks, Paul.

 

Here was my reply:

Hi Paul,

When using PPP CHAP keep in mind four fundamental things:

  1. The “magic number” that you see in PPP LCP messages has nothing to do with Authentication or CHAP.  It is simply PPPs way of trying to verify that it has a bi-directional link with a peer. When sending a PPP LCP message a random Magic Number is generated. Continue reading

Online Meetup recap: Docker Compose 1.2

Continuing our Docker Online meetup series centered on the Docker 1.6 release, we are pleased to share the video recording from Wednesday’s webinar with Aanand Prasad the lead maintainer of Compose. In this session, Aanand detailed new key features and the first step towards a Docker Compose / Swarm … Continued

Google’s self-driving cars hitting the streets of California

The first self-driving cars built by Google are heading to public roads for the first time.A “few” of the prototype vehicles Google has developed will appear on the streets of Mountain View, California, this summer, the company said Friday. Until now, those vehicles have been tested and driven on private property.“Safety drivers” will go along for the ride, but they’ll only take control “if needed,” using a removable steering wheel and brake and accelerator pedals, according to the company.The initial prototype Google showed in May of last year lacked manual controls and only had a power button, but the company promised that later versions would include these components.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Envisioning a day in the future cloud-connected world

The very term "cloud" refers to any computing resource not in your current building. There is cloud storage, computing, and various applications ranging from the success of Salesforce online apps to the map you used on your phone (or watch) this morning.The Internet is now synonymous with the The Cloud. Let's dream about the cloud a little bit.Your JourneyYour body token was read by an RFID scanner as you walked in the door to the (train station, airport, building complex entrance) where it authorized you to go inside, noted you have $20 to spend on food in the (canteen, restaurant, company cafeteria), and that you can use the (company self-driving car, network terminals, network itself to Grade 51, doors to all red/green/black restrooms with unlimited toilet paper) and are permitted to exit any door.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spec showdown: HTC’s J Butterfly flies past its One M9

Unless you live in Japan, get ready to feel jealous: HTC on Thursday announced a new and impressive J Butterfly that is only available there. Here is how it compares to the One M9, currently the most advanced smartphone from HTC available globally.Both smartphones are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processor and have 32GB of integrated storage, but a review of the specs shows a number of opportunities HTC missed with the One M9, which started shipping in March.ScreenThe One M9 has a 5-inch screen and the Butterfly’s screen measures 5.2 inches. But the newcomer has a 1440 x 2560 pixel resolution compared to 1080 x 1920 pixels on the One M9. That puts the Butterfly on par with competitors like Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and LG’s G4. To go along with all those pixels, the Butterfly also has a bigger battery. You can say what you like about whether the higher resolution is necessary, but One M9 is at a distinct disadvantage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Better than best effort — Rise of the IXP

In my last post I talked about how the incentive models on the Internet keep ISPs from managing peering and backbone capacity in a way that supports reliable communication in the face of ever growing volume of rich media content.  If you haven't done so, please read that post before you read this one.

It's clear that using an ISP for business communication comes with the perils associated to the "noisy neighbor" ebb and flow of consumer related high volume data movement.  Riding pipes that are intentionally run hot to keep costs down is a business model that works for ISP, but not for business users of the Internet.  Even with business Internet service, customers may get a better grade of service within a portion of an ISP's networks, but not when their data needs to traverse another ISP which they are not a customer of.  There is no consistent experience, for anyone.

However there is an evolving solution to avoid getting caught in the never ending battle between ISP and large consumer content.  As the title of this blog gives away, the solution is called an Internet eXchange Point (IXP).

IXPs are where the different networks that make up Continue reading

BlackBerry CEO/Twitter latecomer on how he got @JohnChen handle: ‘Beats me…very lucky’

There are more John Chens on Twitter than a patient person can count, yet when Blackberry CEO John Chen started tweeting just a week ago he had somehow managed to secure the coveted and unique-among-Chens Twitter handle of @JohnChen.How?As anyone who has ever signed up for an email or social media account knows, you can never get your own name plain and simple unless you’re an earliest of early adopters or you have a highly uncommon name. You Browns, Smiths, Johnsons -- and Chens -- know this better than most.Twitter has been around for nine years now and if you enter the name John Chen into its people search you can scroll page after page of John Chens for as long as you’re willing to scroll. Their Twitter handles, however, are all @JohnChenPlusANumber or @JohnMiddleInitialChen or some other variation involving underscores or a nickname.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPexpert’s Newest “CCIE Wall of Fame” Additions 5/15/2015

Please join us in congratulating the following iPexpert students who have passed their CCIE lab!

This Week’s CCIE Success Stories

  • Denys Monteiro, CCIE #48536 (Wireless)
  • Travis Bugh, CCIE #48508 (Wireless)
  • Manojkumar Chandrasekaran, CCIE #15387 (Wireless)
  • Rodrigo Espinha, CCIE #8847 (Data Center)

This Week’s Testimonials

Travis Bugh CCIE #48508 (Wireless)
I made the investment of getting the iPexpert Workbooks and Videos to prepare for my CCIE Wireless lab attempt. Their materials prepared me for the actual lab through well thought out mock labs that simulated the real environment you will be facing. Coupled with the video series for precise explanations on what you need to know, and I had the recipe for my own success in the wireless lab.

Denys Monteiro CCIE #48536 (Wireless)
I am very happy to announce that I passed my CCIE Wireless LAB. I would like to thank iPexpert which gave me great study material.

We Want to Hear From You!

Have you passed your CCIE lab exam and used any of iPexpert’s self-study products, or attended a CCIE Bootcamp? If so, we’d like to add you to our CCIE Wall of Fame!

Worth Reading

For whatever reason, we seem to have moved into the “summer doldrums” a bit early this year. Emails seem to just not being answered for weeks — if ever — several friends have emailed me in the last week or two ago asking if it was just them, or if the IT industry was going crazy. All that said, though, there is still a lot going on in the world of IT.

Geoff Huston — if you don’t follow the rantings of Geoff, you really should — makes a point I wish I’d thought of first. The Internet of Things isn’t necessarily a security risk so much as it’s just a stupidity risk. He uses the example of millions of smaller home based devices being shipped with hard coded IP addresses that impact time and DNS servers to make the point that once things are deployed, they don’t tend to be touched. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” He calls it the Internet of Stupid Things.

Along those same lines, I saw an article this week about how Microsoft is threatening the end of the world (or some such) because they’re ending support for Windows 2003 server. The Continue reading

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