Cisco Live 2015 – Helping Others

Another year, another Cisco Live.  Boy, was it a good one.  San Diego is a great city, and convention center there is plenty big to take care of all 25k attendees.  On top of that, the city itself is equipped to handle groups of 40 roaming the streets looking for food and entertainment.

This year’s event had the usual stuff that everyone talks about – breakout session, keynotes, exams, etc. – but Cisco stepped outside of technology this year by helping others.

  • Stop Hunger Now Volunteer Space – Cisco partnered with Stop Hunger Now and set up a space where attendees could assemble meal kits to fight hunger worldwide.  I believe the final number was 100,656 kits assembled, which is a fantastic number.  I’m ashamed to say, though, that I missed this due to scheduling issues, but I’m proud of Cisco and the attendees for participating.
  • Mike Rowe Works Foundation – The keynote speaker this year was Mike Rowe, whom most of us know from his TV show Dirty Jobs.  His foundation helps to support skilled labor movements in order to keep all jobs meaningful.  As part of his appearance, Cisco gave his foundation a nice check for $20,000 and promised another Continue reading

CORE Network Emulator updated to 4.8

The CORE Network Emulator has been updated to version 4.8. This new version fixes the issues I noted in my previous review of CORE release 4.7. It also implements some new features. See the CORE 4.8 release notes for all the details.

The most visible change is the addition of some new services — most notably a new Docker service that will allow Docker containers to be used as nodes in the simulation scenario.

More about CORE

I’ve written a lot about the CORE Network Emulator and all my previous posts are still relevant to CORE 4.8 — except where I discuss the bugs in previous versions that are fixed in the latest release. If you have not used the CORE Network Emulator before, I suggest you read the following posts, in order:

This should get you started using the CORE Network Emulator. If you wish to learn more, please read my other posts about CORE and consult the CORE documentation.

Install CORE 4.8 from packages

One can Continue reading

Openstack and Docker – Part 2

This is a continuation of my previous blog on Openstack and Docker. In this blog, I will cover Openstack Docker heat plugin and Magnum. Following are some of the items that Nova Docker driver cannot do currently: Passing environment variables Linking containers Specifying volumes Orchestrating and scheduling the containers Heat docker plugin solves problems 1-3 … Continue reading Openstack and Docker – Part 2 →

Openstack and Docker – Part 1

In this blog, I will cover the different ways in which Openstack can create and manage Docker Containers. The 3 predominant approaches are using Nova Docker driver, Heat Docker plugin and Magnum. Magnum is pretty new and is under development. Openstack is opensource cloud orchestration software and Docker is opensource container management software. For this … Continue reading Openstack and Docker – Part 1 →

Building a Simple Network TDD Framework

In the following series of posts I will show how to build a simple Test-Driven Development framework for Cisco devices. This framework will allow a network engineer to define traffic patterns in a human-readable format and automatically check if those assumption hold. It will be built as a series of Ansible modules and playbooks. The idea is to show an example of how programming can be used by network engineers even now, before all devices acquire their own APIs as well as introduce some well-known programming paradigms and best practices to network engineers thereby making a small step towards networking nirvana a.k.a. SDN. The reader is assumed to have only a basic networking, linux and python programming skills.

Continue reading

Russia, China reportedly crack Snowden’s files, identify US, UK spies

Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies have reportedly decrypted files of former U.S. National Security Agency contractor and leaker Edward Snowden, and have identified British and U.S. secret agents.MI6, the U.K.’s secret intelligence service, has withdrawn agents from overseas operations in hostile countries, according to a report in the Sunday Times of London, citing U.K. government officials and Western intelligence agencies.The report contains some apparently contradictory information. Although The Sunday Times quoted a U.K. Home Office official saying that Snowden has “blood on his hands,” it also quoted a government source saying that there was no sign that agents have been hurt.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

With payroll in arrears, online antivirus seller shuts doors

The sudden shutdown of a computer tech support call center has left some of its employees wondering if they will be paid.EZ Tech Support, based in Portland, Oregon, took calls from people who had advertising software installed on their computers that warned of possible security and performance problems. The programs implored people to call the company’s number, which was displayed amid warnings.The company stopped taking calls earlier this week, according to two former EZ Tech Support employees. Contacted by email, its general manager, Gavynn Wells, said he was no longer worked there and was “unclear as to the direction the company will be going into.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SDN for the Network Engineers, What should you do ?

Software Defined Networking is real,everyone talks about SDN, network engineers worry about their jobs and ask below questions. Hundreds if not thousands of articles, a lot of books have been written on SDN. SDN is not a new idea or concept and we see this ping pong game many times but this time it is marketed very… Read More »

The post SDN for the Network Engineers, What should you do ? appeared first on Network Design and Architecture.

Citizens of Tech 007 – Liquid Photon Kerbal Computing

On this Citizens of Tech, we discuss the Kerbal space program, waterproofing your phone without a case, Scrabble letting down humanity, IPv6’s importance to gaming according to Microsoft, light speed computing, high dynamic range TVs, liquid metal antennas, and more.

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 Citizens of Tech 007 – Liquid Photon Kerbal Computing appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

This Blog Post Wasn’t Properly Scheduled

A few days ago I stumbled upon an interesting blog post by my friend J Metz in my RSS feeds. As with all blog posts published on Cisco’s web site, all I got in the feed was a teaser (I know, I shouldn’t complain, I’m doing the same ;), but when I wanted to read more, I was greeted with a cryptic 404 (not even a fancy page full of images saying “we can’t find what you’re looking for).

Read more ...

Docker on Google Compute Engine Using Docker Machine

Next up in Using Docker Machine across private and public clouds, is Google Compute Engine (GCE). As with the other posts, a diagram of how I view the importance of a Docker Machine abstraction. First, if you don’t already have an account you can get $300 credit expiring after 60-days towards Google GCE that we will use as Docker hosts ... The post Docker on Google Compute Engine Using Docker Machine appeared first on NetworkStatic | Brent Salisbury's Blog.

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US fears second major breach exposed more employee data

A second major cyber breach that might reveal far more personal and damaging information appears to have hit the U.S. government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM).The breach was apparently carried out by hackers with connections to China and targeted a database containing copies of the government’s Standard Form 86, according to news reports citing unnamed government officials. The form, available online, is a 120-page questionnaire that’s answered by people seeking a national security clearance.Those filling out the form are asked to provide highly personal details about their lives that go far beyond their birth dates and social security or passport numbers. Among the questions asked are details of former residences, names and addresses of neighbors and detailed information about family members.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Leaf and spine traffic engineering using segment routing and SDN


The short 3 minute video is a live demonstration showing how software defined networking (SDN) can be used to orchestrate the measurement and control capabilities of commodity data center switches to automatically load balance traffic on a 4 leaf, 4 spine, 10 Gigabit leaf and spine network.
The diagram shows the physical layout of the demonstration rack. The four logical racks with their servers and leaf switches are combined in a single physical rack, along with the spine switches, and SDN controllers. All the links in the data plane are 10G and sFlow has been enabled on every switch and link with the following settings, packet sampling rate 1-in-8192 and counter polling interval 20 seconds. The switches have been configured to send the sFlow data to sFlow-RT analytics software running on Controller 1.

The switches are also configured to enable OpenFlow 1.3 and connect to multiple controllers in the redundant ONOS SDN controller cluster running on Controller 1 and Controller 2.
The charts from The Nature of Datacenter Traffic: Measurements & Analysis show data center traffic measurements published by Microsoft. Most traffic flows are short duration. However, combined they consume less bandwidth than a much smaller number of Continue reading

Migrating to the cloud? Start with a readiness assessment

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

After careful consideration you’ve decided it’s time to migrate a major on-premise software solution to the cloud. But how do you create and execute a plan to make sure your migration stays on time, on budget, and delivers on your expectations? Effective planning is critical, and it should start with a thorough assessment of your infrastructure by an experienced vendor who understands your specific objectives.

Usually available as a service engagement from a hosting vendor or, better yet, from the software vendor whose solution is being migrated to the cloud, this cloud readiness assessment is part checklist and part roadmap. It audits the entire environment so you can plan and execute an efficient and effective migration.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Datanauts 001 – Hyper Convergence with Scott D. Lowe

A brand new podcast -- Datanauts -- has launched! Here's the summary of episode 1. The latest form factor, hyper-converged infrastructure, seems to be storming through the data center market like a thundering donkey with a rainbow laser cannon. Join the Datanauts as they pick apart the pros and cons of hyper-converged, ramble on about architecture and design challenges, and shine a piercing light into a dark and murky corner of the next generation data center!

The post Datanauts 001 – Hyper Convergence with Scott D. Lowe appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Datanauts 001 – Hyper Convergence with Scott D. Lowe

A brand new podcast -- Datanauts -- has launched! Here's the summary of episode 1. The latest form factor, hyper-converged infrastructure, seems to be storming through the data center market like a thundering donkey with a rainbow laser cannon. Join the Datanauts as they pick apart the pros and cons of hyper-converged, ramble on about architecture and design challenges, and shine a piercing light into a dark and murky corner of the next generation data center!

The post Datanauts 001 – Hyper Convergence with Scott D. Lowe appeared first on Packet Pushers.

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