Networks! Now, With More DevOps!

TL;DR – buzzwords suck and I want to rant about that.

I’ve been doing a lot of posts lately on the skillsets and technologies needed to move networking into the same level of productivity that other disciplines have reached. During this process, I’ve had time to contemplate labels and buzzwords.

By itself, I don’t see much value in the term “DevOps”, whether it’s succeeded by the phrase “for networking” or not. These days, the person using this term might just mean “automation”, or be describing a technical position.

As in “We’re looking for an experienced DevOp.” I know, right?

Just today I heard yet another story that illustrated a total misuse of this term, undoubtedly confusing all involved. I say, what’s in a name?

DevOps For Networks

This leads me down the path of considering that the phrase “DevOps for networking” is just as useless. Although I’m sure this was certainly not intended, this phrase implies that there is a special sector of the DevOps movement that is specific to networking. Unless you’re focusing on specific tools (which you shouldn’t be) then this isn’t the case. The underlying business value is precisely the same.

The DevOps culture and tooling that came Continue reading

Introducing New VCE VxBlock Systems with Integrated VMware NSX

Last month, we outlined VMware’s vision for helping customers achieve one cloud for any application and any device. We believe the prevailing

The EMC Federation

model for cloud adoption will be the hybrid cloud, and the best architecture for achieving the hybrid cloud is through a software-defined data center architecture.

The fastest path to building reliable infrastructure for the hybrid cloud is through the use of converged infrastructure systems, and no company has been more successful at delivering on the promise of converged infrastructure than our partner VCE.

Now, the ability to procure and deploy the VMware NSX network virtualization platform with VCE converged infrastructure is about to get whole lot easier.

Today, VCE launched VCE VxBlock Systems, a new family of converged infrastructure systems that will factory-integrate VMware NSX for software-defined data center deployments. The new VxBlock Systems will include VCE pre-integration, pre-testing and pre-validation of VMware NSX, with seamless component-level updates, ongoing lifecycle assurance, and unified single-call support from VCE.

As I wrote previously, VMware NSX already runs great on existing Vblock Systems. Customers today are deploying VMware NSX with their existing Vblocks, and customers will be able to extend VMware NSX environments across their entire Continue reading

Alibaba investing $200 million in photo-messaging app Snapchat

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is investing US$200 million in photo-messaging app Snapchat, following a string of prior investments in U.S. tech companies.The companies did not publicly comment on the deal. But a person familiar with the matter confirmed the investment on Thursday.The e-commerce firm has been funding both U.S. and Chinese tech companies, as a way to grow the company’s global ecosystem, the source said.Previous deals made in the U.S. include investing in messaging app Tango, online retail site ShopRunner, and ride-sharing service Lyft.The activity has sparked speculation that the Chinese e-commerce company is preparing to buy its way into the U.S. market. Last week, Alibaba announced it was opening its first data center in Silicon Valley to target the U.S. cloud computing sector.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Alibaba investing $200 million in photo-messaging app Snapchat

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is investing US$200 million in photo-messaging app Snapchat, following a string of prior investments in U.S. tech companies.The companies did not publicly comment on the deal. But a person familiar with the matter confirmed the investment on Thursday.The e-commerce firm has been funding both U.S. and Chinese tech companies, as a way to grow the company’s global ecosystem, the source said.Previous deals made in the U.S. include investing in messaging app Tango, online retail site ShopRunner, and ride-sharing service Lyft.The activity has sparked speculation that the Chinese e-commerce company is preparing to buy its way into the U.S. market. Last week, Alibaba announced it was opening its first data center in Silicon Valley to target the U.S. cloud computing sector.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google researchers hack computers using DRAM electrical leaks

Google researchers have written the first-ever attack code that takes advantage of electrical interference between densely packed memory cells, a unique style of attack that could require changes in chip design.The work builds on a paper published last year by Carnegie Mellon University and Intel, which found it was possible to change binary values in stored memory by repeatedly accessing nearby memory cells, a process called “bit flipping.”DRAM memory is vulnerable to such electrical interference because the cells are so closely packed together, a result of engineers increasing a chip’s memory capacity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Twitter bans stolen nude photos and revenge porn

Twitter has amended its policies to ban the posting of intimate photos and videos taken without the person’s permission.“You may not post intimate photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject’s consent,” the company added to its rules on Wednesday. Twitter otherwise allows pornographic content, but not in people’s profiles, headers or background images.Content that is identified as violating Twitter’s policies will be hidden from public view, and users posting it will have their accounts locked. Users will be required to delete the content in question before they can return to using the site.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What the *, traceroute?

If you've ever done a traceroute from one IOS box to another, you've undoubtedly seen output like this:

R8# traceroute 192.168.100.7
Tracing the route to 192.168.100.7
VRF info: (vrf in name/id, vrf out name/id)
  1 192.168.0.1 4 msec 3 msec 4 msec
  2 192.168.100.7 4 msec *  0 msec

That msec * msec output. Why is the middle packet always lost?? And why only on the last hop??

Networks! Now, With More DevOps!

Networks! Now, With More DevOps!

Android app developers should update to Dropbox’s latest SDK

Android apps that use Dropbox for storage and are built using an older version of its SDK are vulnerable to an attack that can steal data, although Dropbox has released a fix, according to IBM security researchers.IBM’s application security research team said Wednesday they had found a way to link their own Dropbox account to an Android app on another person’s phone that connects to the storage service. After a successful attack, any data uploaded by the app is delivered to the attacker’s Dropbox account.Dropbox publishes an SDK (software development kit) for linking its service to an app. The flaw, nicknamed “DroppedIn,” affected Dropbox SDK versions 1.5.4 through 1.6.1 and was fixed in version 1.62, IBM said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hillary Clinton’s email system was insecure for two months

The private email system used by Hillary Clinton when she was U.S. Secretary of State didn’t encrypt messages during the first two months of use, an Internet security company said Wednesday.That would have left emails sent and received by Clinton in early 2009 vulnerable to eavesdropping—just when British and American intelligence agencies were reportedly spying on world leaders.Internet records show the clintonemail.com domain was first registered on Jan. 13, 2009. Clinton became Secretary of State eight days later, but it wasn’t until March 29 that the first SSL certificate was issued for the domain, according to Venafi, a security company that analyzes encryption keys and digital certificates.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google, Aopen’s new Chrome desktops targeted at digital signage

Google’s Chromebooks are popular in educational institutions, but the company is now looking at digital signage as the next big market for Chrome OS computers.The company has partnered with Aopen to develop a rugged Chromebox mini-desktop and two Chromebase all-in-ones designed to dynamically display information and advertisements.Google has been targeting the commercial market for a while. Chrome desktops are being tuned for videoconferencing and for use in classrooms. However, Google’s Chromeboxes haven’t found much adoption as desktops, and Chromebases have largely failed as all-in-ones. They could get a new lease of life in the digital signage market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Topology discovery with Cumulus Linux

Prescriptive Topology Manager

cumulus@wbench:~$ curl http://leaf1:8080/ptm

{
 "links": {
  "L1": {
   "node1": "leaf1", 
   "node2": "spine1", 
   "port1": "swp1s0", 
   "port2": "swp49"
  },
  ...
 }
}

LLDP

IDG Contributor Network: Scaling networks for the web-scale effect

The world has gone web-scale crazy, but what does web-scale mean when we apply the term to networking? Isn't the network how we got the web in the first place? Unfortunately, many of today's networks leave a lot to be desired. For decades now, we've basically designed, built, and operated networks using a provision and monitor paradigm. WAN connections can take days, weeks, even months to correctly provision. If your connectivity needs were complex, timeframes could be even longer, if the desired services were available at all. Contrast this antiquated networking model with the real-time, on-demand environment that we have created for ourselves with applications, content, and businesses that can "go viral."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Code name found in Equation group malware suggests link to NSA

As security researchers continue to analyze malware used by a sophisticated espionage group dubbed the Equation, more clues surface that point to the U.S. National Security Agency being behind it.In February, Russian antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab released an extensive report about a group that has carried out cyberespionage operations since at least 2001 and possibly even as far back as 1996. The report detailed the group’s attack techniques and malware tools.The Kaspersky researchers have dubbed the group Equation and said that its capabilities are unrivaled. However, they didn’t link the group to the NSA or any other intelligence agency, despite similarities between its tools and those described in secret NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook’s Open Compute Project starts to crack networking

The Open Compute Project says it has broken tight bonds between hardware and software that have kept networking closed for decades—and it took less than two years.Switches and routers traditionally have been “black boxes” with hardware and software from the same vendor and no way for others with new ideas to modify them. Networking is like Unix servers 15 years ago, with proprietary hardware and OSes ruling the day, said Omar Baldonado, Facebook’s manager of infrastructure software engineering. An OCP effort that began in May 2013 has now opened that world up a little bit, he told the OCP Summit in San Jose on Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Docker Online Meetup: Machine, Swarm and Compose.

New Chrome app puts Act-On’s marketing automation tools front and center for SMBs

Few would dispute marketing automation’s potential to benefit corporate marketing efforts, but with all the many and varied tools out there, keeping campaigns coordinated and cohesive can be difficult.With such challenges in mind, Act-On Software on Wednesday launched Act-On Anywhere, an application that makes the engagement data, assets and functionality of the company’s SaaS platform available from anywhere within the browser.An explosion of stand-alone tools has created a marketing climate in which fragmentation is a major problem, said Act-On, which targets SMBs with its platform. In fact, a full 83 percent of marketers cite fragmented systems as one of their most troublesome challenges, according to a study the company recently conducted with Gleanster Research.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google picks London for its first shop-within-a-shop

Google has opened its first shop-within-a-shop in London, yet another retail experiment by the company, which already has counters in third-party stores.The London shop is located inside the Currys PC World store on Tottenham Court Road, and it features Google’s Nexus devices, Chromebooks and other products. Currys PC World is the biggest consumer electronics retailer in the UK.Google’s shop is not a full blown retail outlet like Apple’s huge and sophisticated stores, but more of a modest test balloon for the search giant. It builds on dedicated areas Google has already in big electronics stores.Although not very big, the shop is prominently located by the entrance of the Currys store, so it’s impossible to miss. Shoppers can test and buy Google’s Android phones and tablets as well as Android Wear smartwatches and Chromebook laptops from partners such as LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, HP and Asus.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google picks London for its first shop-within-a-shop

Google has opened its first shop-within-a-shop in London, yet another retail experiment by the company, which already has counters in third-party stores.The London shop is located inside the Currys PC World store on Tottenham Court Road, and it features Google’s Nexus devices, Chromebooks and other products. Currys PC World is the biggest consumer electronics retailer in the UK.Google’s shop is not a full blown retail outlet like Apple’s huge and sophisticated stores, but more of a modest test balloon for the search giant. It builds on dedicated areas Google has already in big electronics stores.Although not very big, the shop is prominently located by the entrance of the Currys store, so it’s impossible to miss. Shoppers can test and buy Google’s Android phones and tablets as well as Android Wear smartwatches and Chromebook laptops from partners such as LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, HP and Asus.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here