Talented startup aims to deliver software defined cloud

One of the ways you can tell that software defined networking (SDN) has the power to change the vendor landscape is by the number of startups that have emerged. Over the past few years, we've seen startups pop up to address the evolution of the data center and the WAN. For this reason, I always tend to keep my eyes open for companies generating buzz in the marketplace in this area. In my recent travels, I was made aware of another "stealth-mode" startup that's building a solution to address a new use case for SDNs. According to its website, Avni Networks addresses the "transformation of the Data Center to Virtual Clouds for the Applications Economy." From what I can tell, there seems to be some buzz around what this company is up to, which made me curious about learning more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Products of the week 02.16.2015

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Actifio OneKey features: Actifio One is a flexible cloud-based service for midmarket companies to extend their datacenter. Built on the copy data virtualization technology, applications are available when and where users need them. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Monday, February 16

Kaspersky exposes huge, ongoing bank-robbery-by-hackRussian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab is releasing a report Monday with some details on a wide-ranging series of hacks into at least 100 banks in 30 counties—some of which are apparently still ongoing. Kaspersky gave the New York Times an advance look at the material, and says that losses total at least $300 million, mostly suffered by banks in Russia but also affecting institutions in Japan, Europe and the U.S.Xiaomi still tops Apple in China, says IDCTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Monday, February 16

Kaspersky exposes huge, ongoing bank-robbery-by-hackRussian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab is releasing a report Monday with some details on a wide-ranging series of hacks into at least 100 banks in 30 counties—some of which are apparently still ongoing. Kaspersky gave the New York Times an advance look at the material, and says that losses total at least $300 million, mostly suffered by banks in Russia but also affecting institutions in Japan, Europe and the U.S.Xiaomi still tops Apple in China, says IDCTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 cool ways to give an iOS device a physical keyboard

This week, a startup named Tactus Technology got a lot of attention for its Phorm iPad Mini case, which includes a transparent screen cover that creates bubbles over each letter in the iOS keyboard. It's basically a tactile keyboard that appears on a touchscreen only when the user needs it. Tactus has been working on its on-demand keyboard technology for more than five years, according to Wired. The screen cover is based on microfluidic technology, which has its roots in ink jet printers, and it has small grooves carved into the spot where each letter appears on the iPad screen. When the user slides a switch on the back of the case – which appears to be almost a third of the size of the rear of the case, so it won't require you to flip your iPad around and hunt for a button – the case applies a small amount of pressure that forces a tiny amount fluid to rush across the screen. That fluid gets caught fills up each of the grooves, creating bubbles that act as tactile buttons on the touchscreen keyboard. Here's a video showing the technology in use.To read this article in full or Continue reading

Tech Notes: Audio Ping Response From The Terminal / CLI

The following command line will use the Text to Speech converter in *nix to say the word "pingtastic" every time a successful icmp response message is received using the ping command.

The post Tech Notes: Audio Ping Response From The Terminal / CLI appeared first on EtherealMind.

Information disclosure flaw exposes Netgear wireless routers to attacks

Several wireless routers made by Netgear contain a vulnerability that allows unauthenticated attackers to extract sensitive information from the devices, including their administrator passwords and wireless network keys.The vulnerability can be exploited over local area networks, as well as over the Internet if the devices are configured for remote administration and expose their Web interface externally.Details about the vulnerability were published on the Full Disclosure mailing list last week, along with a proof-of-concept exploit. Peter Adkins, the researcher who found the flaw, claims that he contacted Netgear but that his attempts to explain the nature of the issue to the company’s technical support department failed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IP FRR and Micro-loops Part 2

This is a continuation from Part 1 Remote LFA At this point we already know that simple LFA doesn’t always provide full coverage and its very topology dependent. Reason is simple i.e.in many cases backup next hop best path goes through the router calculating the backup next hop.  This problem can be solved if we […]

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Diptanshu Singh

Diptanshu Singh,(3xCCIE,CCDE) is a Sr. Engineer mostly focused on service providers , data center and security. He is a network enthusiast passionate about network technologies so not only is it his profession, but something of a hobby as well.

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The post IP FRR and Micro-loops Part 2 appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Diptanshu Singh.

IP FRR and Micro-loops Part 1

Introduction In this post we will take a look at IP FRR and Micro-loops. If the reader already doesn’t have some kind of basic familiarity with IP FRR and Micro-loops, then I would highly recommend the reader go through below post series by Russ as he introduces various concepts in a very clear way. This post […]

Author information

Diptanshu Singh

Diptanshu Singh,(3xCCIE,CCDE) is a Sr. Engineer mostly focused on service providers , data center and security. He is a network enthusiast passionate about network technologies so not only is it his profession, but something of a hobby as well.

LinkedIn

The post IP FRR and Micro-loops Part 1 appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Diptanshu Singh.

Myths That Refuse to Die: Scalability of Overlay Virtual Networking

If you watched the Network Field Day videos, you might have noticed an interesting (somewhat one-sided) argument I had with Sunay Tripathi, CTO and co-founder of Pluribus Networks (start watching at around 32:00 to get the context). Let’s try to get the record straight.

Is Apple building a car?

Early last week, a somewhat bizarre Apple rumor emerged from out of nowhere. Specifically, rumor has it that Apple is seriously investigating the prospect of developing its own branded automobile. The wave of rumors began a few days ago when Business Insider posted a report claiming that Apple was working on an exciting project that was luring back former employees from Tesla.... We got an unsolicited email from an employee at Apple about "vehicle development" at the company. This person said Tesla employees were "jumping ship" to work at Apple. "Apple's latest project is too exciting to pass up," the person said. "I think it will change the landscape and give Tesla a run for its money." Initially, it was easy to scoff at the report. Not only does the notion of Apple getting into the car business seem absurd on its face, but it's not as if Apple employees are exactly known for sending unsolicited emails about top secret research initiatives to tech publications. At most, the prevailing attitude was that Apple was simply keen on deepening their exploration into automotive-based software such as CarPlay. The very next day, Bryan Chaffin of Mac Observer chimed in with a Continue reading

Xiaomi leads China’s smartphone market, despite Apple’s iPhone 6

Apple’s iPhone 6 has been a hit in China, but according to one account, rival Xiaomi still reigns as the country’s largest smartphone vendor.In last year’s fourth quarter, Android handset maker Xiaomi had a 13.7 percent share, while second place Apple only had a 12.3 percent share, research firm IDC said Monday.The rankings are, however, different from those of another research firm Canalys, which put Apple as the top vendor, and Xiaomi second.Apple achieved in the fourth quarter its highest quarterly market share in China over the past two years, and it came from strong demand for its newest iPhone, said Xiaohan Tay, an IDC analyst.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Infosys to acquire startup Panaya to automate customer tasks

Indian outsourcer Infosys is to acquire Panaya, a U.S. vendor of automation technology for testing enterprise software deployments and upgrades.The cash deal values Panaya at an enterprise value of US$200 million, and is in line with the company’s strategy under new CEO Vishal Sikka to automate processes, including by using artificial intelligence, to cut down on repetitive tasks and accelerate services delivery.“This acquisition aims to use automation to boost the revenue of the company without a corresponding increase in staff,” said Sudin Apte, CEO and research director at analyst firm Offshore Insights. He pointed out that Infosys’ rivals like Tata Consultancy Services already use some degree of automation developed in-house.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cybercriminal gang plunders up to $1 billion from banks over two years

A still-active cybercriminal gang has stolen up to a $1 billion from banks in at least 25 countries over the last two years, infiltrating networks with malware and spying on employees’ computers to facilitate large wire transfers, Kaspersky Lab said Sunday.The computer security vendor, which said it will release a report Monday on its findings, said the gang penetrated deeply into the banks’ networks, taking time to learn about internal procedures to make their fraudulent activity less suspicious.In some cases, the gang learned about wire transfer systems by watching administrators’ computers over video.“In this way the cybercriminals got to know every last detail of the bank clerks’ work and were able to mimic staff activity in order to transfer money and cash out,” Kaspersky said in a news release.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Generating Web Docs for Ansible Modules

Spanning Tree Portfast – The Definitive Guide

Original content from Roger's CCIE Blog Tracking the journey towards getting the ultimate Cisco Certification. The Routing & Switching Lab Exam
The spanning tree portfast command is a very simple feature but often mis-understood. In this short post I will explore how this feature behaves, how it works and how to configure it on a cisco switch. Portfast is a Cisco Propietary feature that was originally developed to overcome an issue when a PC was trying... [Read More]

Post taken from CCIE Blog

Original post Spanning Tree Portfast – The Definitive Guide

Must bookmark: NSX Link-o-Rama

Generating Web Docs for Ansible Modules

If you have ever worked with Ansible, it’s almost a guarantee that you have used their online docs to figure out what parameters a given module supports, how they should be used, or what their defaults are. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on a few custom modules and was trying to find a way to generate web docs for them, and have them locally accessible or easily posted to GitHub.

Ansible offers a way to “make webdocs,” but it generates the complete module inventory and truth be told, I didn’t get this work for my custom modules, so I figured I would explore a “simplified” way — a way that should be able to generate docs as needed for one or more modules on an as needed basis.

The outcome was the creation of an Ansible module and Jinja2 template that automatically generates a markdown file (that can then be viewed or posted anywhere).

How does it work?

The modules you’ve built or are local to your machine (even Ansible core modules) that you want to generate a web doc for must be documented according to Ansible standards. That’s the only major requirement.

From there, Continue reading

NAT, Security, and Repeating Myself

In a former post I pointed out that we need to think of obscurity as a tool in network security — that we shouldn’t try to apply rules that are perfectly logical in terms of algorithms to networks as a system. While I’m not normally one to repeat myself, this topic needs a little more […]

Author information

Russ White

Principal Engineer at Ericsson

Russ White has scribbled a basket of books, penned a plethora of patents, written a raft of RFCs, taught a trencher of classes, nibbled and noodled at a lot of networks, and done a lot of other stuff you either already know about — or don't really care about. You can find Russ at 'net Work, the Internet Protocol Journal, and his author page on Amazon.

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The post NAT, Security, and Repeating Myself appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Russ White.

Securing BFD now possible!

Confession Time.

I am guilty of committing several sins. One that egregiously stands out is writing two IETF specs for BFD security (here and here) without considering the impact on the routers and switches implementing those specs. Bear in mind that Bi-directional Forwarding Detection (BFD) is a hard protocol to implement well. Its hard to get into a conversation with engineers working on BFD without a few of them shedding copious quantities of tears on what it took them to avoid those dreaded BFD flaps in scaled setups. They will tell you how they resorted to clever tricks (hacks, if you will) to process BFD packets as fast as they could (plucking them out of order from a shared queue, dedicated tasks picking up BFD packets in the ISR contexts, etc) . In a candid conversation, an ex-employee of a reputed vendor revealed how they stage managed their BFD during a demo to a major customer since they didnt want their BFD to flap while the show (completely scripted) was on. So, long story short — BFD is hard when you start scaling. It just becomes a LOT worse, when you add security on top of it.

The reason BFD is hard is because of Continue reading