FCC votes to overturn state laws limiting municipal broadband

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted to overturn large parts of two state laws that limit local governments from funding and building broadband networks.Commissioners, in a 3-2 vote Thursday, moved to preempt laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that limit the expansion of existing municipal broadband networks in the two states.The FCC order, coming in response to petitions from a city in each state, does not apply to laws that limit municipal broadband networks in about 20 other states. But the vote signals how the agency may act if it gets similar petitions from cities in other states, FCC officials have said.The FCC action will help bring broadband competition to new areas, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said. “You can’t say you’re for broadband, and then turn around and endorse limits on it,” he said. ‘You can’t say you’re for competition, then deny local officials the right to offer competing choices.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung will freeze workers’ pay in South Korea

Samsung Electronics will freeze the salary of all its employees in South Korea this year as the company struggles to improve its bottom line in an ever more competitive global smartphone market.The salary freeze, the company’s first since 2009, won’t affect bonuses and performance-based incentives, the company said Thursday.Samsung hopes the move will help it survive a challenging business environment. The world’s largest smartphone maker reported plunging profits throughout last year as the popularity of its premium Galaxy smartphone series lagged compared to that of low-priced Android devices from Chinese brands such as Xiaomi and Lenovo.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EVPN (RFC 7432) Explained

EVPN or Ethernet VPN is a new standard that has finally been given an RFC number. Many vendors are already working on implementing this standard since the early draft versions and even before that Juniper already used the same technology in it’s Qfabric product. RFC 7432 was previously known as: draft-ietf-l2vpn-evpn.

The day I started at Juniper I saw the power of the EVPN technology which was already released in the MX and EX9200 product lines. I enabled the first customers in my region (Netherlands) to use it in their production environment.

EVPN is initially targeted as Data Center Interconnect technology, but is now deployed within Data Center Fabric networks as well to use within a DC. In this blog I will explain why to use it, how the features work and finally which Juniper products support it.

Why?

Data Center interconnects have historically been difficult to create, because of the nature of Layer 2 traffic and the limited capabilities to control and steer the traffic. When I have to interconnect a Data Center today I have a few options that often don’t scale well or are proprietary. Some examples:

  • Dark Fiber
  • xWDM circuit
  • L2 service from a Service Provider
  • VPLS
  • Continue reading

Reminder that the Internet, too, could have saved Coca-Cola from ‘New Coke’ debacle

Don Keough, retired chief operating officer at Coca-Cola, died earlier this week at the age of 88. He is described in a Fortune headline as “The real boss behind Coke's secret formula.”Among the accomplishments credited to Keough is one that directly involved that secret formula, namely convincing CEO Roberto Goizueta in 1985 to reverse course on the disaster that was “New Coke” in favor of returning to the original recipe.News of Keough’s death had me rereading a 2010 Buzzblog  post that involved this thought experiment: Let's rewrite history: It was 25 years ago tomorrow, April 23, 1985, that the world's most famous soft drink company committed arguably the world's most famous product development/marketing gaffe: New Coke.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Announcing Docker Machine Beta

At DockerCon EU earlier this year, we announced Docker Machine, a tool that makes it really easy to go from “zero to Docker”. Machine creates Docker Engines on your computer, on cloud providers, and/or in your data center, and then … Continued

Scaling Docker with Swarm

We are extremely excited to announce the first beta release of Swarm, a native clustering tool for Docker. For the past two years, Docker has made the lives of millions of developers easier by making building, shipping and running applications … Continued

Announcing Docker Compose

Today we’re excited to announce that Docker Compose is available for download. Docker Compose is an orchestration tool that makes spinning up multi-container applications effortless. Head to the install docs to download it. With Compose, you define your application’s components … Continued

Sturdy design is still Moto E’s trump card

The Moto E’s specification doesn’t stand out from the competition even with LTE and a faster processor. Instead it’s the design that makes Motorola’s new device a good alternative for consumers who want an affordable smartphone.With the 2015 version of the Moto E, Motorola Mobility is again hoping to get more people around the world to buy their first smartphone.Many low-cost smartphones suffer from a toy-like plastic construction, but the Moto E is more substantial, and even if the product doesn’t use any metal it feels more expensive than its $150 price tag.Motorola has made a couple of changes compared to the original model. The company has decided to stick with a rubbery plastic on the back and now also on the sides. The back is no longer removable; instead a band is removed to access SIM and MicroSD card slots. The smartphone still has a non-removable battery, but the battery has grown from 1,980 to 2,390 mAh.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP Is Buying Aruba. Who’s Next?

HPAruba_Networks_Logo

Sometimes all it takes is a little push. Bloomberg reported yesterday that HP is in talks to buy Aruba Networks for their wireless expertise. The deal is contingent upon some other things, and the article made sure to throw up disclaimers that it could still fall through before next week. But the people that I’ve talked to (who are not authorized to comment and wouldn’t know the official answer anyway) have all said this is a done deal. We’ll likely hear the final official confirmation on Monday afternoon, ahead of Aruba’s big conference.

R&D Through M&A

This is a shot in the arm for HP. Their Colubris-based AP lineup has been sorely lacking in current generation wireless technology, let alone next gen potential. The featured 802.11ac APs on their networking site are OEMed directly from Aruba. They’ve been hoping to play the OEM game for a while and see where the chips are going to fall. Buying Aruba gives them second place in the wireless market behind Cisco overnight. It also fixes the most glaring issue with Colubris – R&D. HP hasn’t really been developing their wireless portfolio. Some had even thought it was gone for good. This immediately Continue reading

Google designing new Mountain View headquarters

Google will submit plans this week to build a new headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.The company, which already has a large multi-building campus in Mountain View, confirmed to Computerworld that it plans to lay out its plans for a new development Friday. At that point, Google is expected to release information about the size, design and specific location of the new development.Earlier today, The New York Times reported that Google representatives have discussed the plan with the Mountain View city council.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Scaling Overlay Networks: Scale-Out Control Plane

A week or so ago I described why a properly implemented hypervisor-based overlay virtual networking data plane is not a scalability challenge; even though the performance might decrease slightly as the total number of forwarding entries grow, modern implementations easily saturate 10GE server uplinks.

Scalability of the central controller or orchestration system is a totally different can of worms. As I explained in the Scaling Overlay Networks, the only approach that avoids single failure domain and guarantees scalability is scale-out control plane architecture.

Watch the video

Google’s new Android for Work locks down business data on your personal phone

Almost a year after tipping its hand at Google I/O 2014, Google announced Android for Work, a way to lock down sensitive business data on personal Android phones owned by employees—using versions of Android either old or new.Google said it would deploy Android for Work in not one but two ways: as a native work profile that can be enabled within the latest Android 5.0 (Lollipop) devices, as well as a separate app for devices runninng Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) through Android 4.4 (KitKat). Google also said that it had crafted a special business apps store, known as Google Play for Work, and brought its Docs, Sheets, and Slides business apps into the walled-off Android Work partition, plus versions of its browser, contacts and calendar apps. All of the information stored in Android for Work will be encrypted.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, February 26

Lenovo’s defaced website points to weakness in Net domain name systemSome hackers took Lenovo’s corporate web address for a joyride on Wednesday, redirecting traffic to a video stream showing an apparently bored teen sitting in his bedroom. The prank, like the hijacking of Google’s Vietnam site recently, highlights continued weakness in the Internet’s Domain Name System, which translates website names into IP addresses.Samsung gets more woe over eavesdropping TVsThe fuss over data collected by voice-operated TVs made by Samsung Electronics is not going away, despite its efforts to minimize the issue. Now the Electronic Privacy Information center is asking the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate, in a complaint that says Samsung has violated federal law.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, February 26

Lenovo’s defaced website points to weakness in Net domain name systemSome hackers took Lenovo’s corporate web address for a joyride on Wednesday, redirecting traffic to a video stream showing an apparently bored teen sitting in his bedroom. The prank, like the hijacking of Google’s Vietnam site recently, highlights continued weakness in the Internet’s Domain Name System, which translates website names into IP addresses.Samsung gets more woe over eavesdropping TVsThe fuss over data collected by voice-operated TVs made by Samsung Electronics is not going away, despite its efforts to minimize the issue. Now the Electronic Privacy Information center is asking the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate, in a complaint that says Samsung has violated federal law.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

So. Cal. Edison’s IT layoffs are ‘heartless,’ says Sen. Grassley

Southern California Edison (SCE) IT workers replaced by H-1B contractors have become the latest Exhibit A in Congress for reformers of the visa program.Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has long advocated for changes to the H-1B program to protect U.S. workers, said the Edison layoffs illustrate how some employers "are potentially using legal avenues to import foreign workers, lay-off qualified Americans, and then export jobs overseas."I was shocked by the heartless manner in which U.S. workers were injured," said Grassley in a Senate floor speech Wednesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A Quick Look at Cisco FabricPath

Cisco FabricPath is a proprietary protocol that uses ISIS to populate a “routing table” that is used for layer 2 forwarding.

Whether we like or not, there is often a need for layer 2 in the Datacenter for the following reasons:

  • Some applications or protocols require to be layer 2 adjacent
  • It allows for virtual machine/workload mobility
  • Systems administrators are more familiar with switching than routing

A traditional network with layer 2 and Spanning Tree (STP) has a lot of limitations that makes it less than optimal for a Datacenter:

  • Local problems have a network-wide impact
  • The tree topology provides limited bandwidth
  • The tree topology also introduces suboptimal paths
  • MAC address tables don’t scale

In the traditional network, because STP is running, a tree topology is built. This works better for for flows that are North to South, meaning that traffic passes from the Access layer, up to Distribution, to the Core and then down to Distribution and to the Access layer again. This puts a lot of strain on Core interconnects and is not well suited for East-West traffic which is the name for server to server traffic.

A traditional Datacenter design will look something like this:

DC1

If we Continue reading

HP Buying Aruba?

hplogoTwo things happened today. First, Twitter blew up at some point with rumors of HP in talks to buy Aruba. Second, my shares of Aruba stock shot up about 20%. I was disappointed with the first and pleased with the second. Of course, they were directly related.

 
In Case You Weren’t Aware…..
 
HP has had some issues over the past several years. Not so much issues with their technology, which has always been good, but more so with execution. The latest attempt to right the ship has been to split the company into two distinct entities. Trim the fat off of the corporate monster so to speak. Or, maybe a better way to put it is that HP wants to become less of an “all things to all customers” type of company, and more of a “some things to some customers” type of company. Some customers will be served by one of the two HP companies, and some customers will be served by the other, or both. This allows more focus in certain areas, and focus is never a bad thing.
 
Why Does It Matter If HP Buys Aruba?
 
Although this is all speculation, allow me to continue down this Continue reading

The Mobile Internet

It has been observed that the most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it, and are notable only by their absence. So how should we regard the Internet? Is it like large scale electricity power generators: a technology feat that is quickly taken for granted and largely ignored? Are we increasingly seeing the Internet in terms of the applications and services that sit upon it and just ignoring how the underlying systems are constructed? To what extent is the mobile Internet driving this change in perception of the Internet as a technology we simply assume is always available, anytime and anywhere? What is happening in the mobile world?
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