The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, March 12

High-end phones on the way with LG, Huawei next in lineIf you were disappointed with the shortage of new flagship smartphones at Mobile World Congress last week, just hang on until next month. LG Electronics is expected to announce the highly anticipated successor to its good-looking G3—the G4?—that may sport a 1620 x 2880 pixel display. Huawei has started to post teasers for an event on April 8 for its P8, likely to offer a screen that’s a bit larger than the Ascend P7’s 5 inches, better battery life and an improved camera. Even Sony, which badly needs a big hit, may jump in the fray, with the Xperia Z4.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Juniper rewires the data center

Juniper Networks this week rolled out new data center switches to help customers address opportunities and challenges presented by cloud computing.The new switches are yet another line of data center spine switches that have virtually no integration with Juniper’s three-and-a-half year old QFabric portfolio.Juniper says there will be 7.6 billion Internet users with 50 billion connected devices by 2020, continually accessing data around the globe. This necessitates higher levels of network performance, automation and scale for both enterprises and service providers to address growing demands on their IT infrastructure.+ MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Juniper unveils new fabric switch, architecture +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Juniper rewires the data center

Juniper Networks this week rolled out new data center switches to help customers address opportunities and challenges presented by cloud computing.The new switches are yet another line of data center spine switches that have virtually no integration with Juniper’s three-and-a-half year old QFabric portfolio.Juniper says there will be 7.6 billion Internet users with 50 billion connected devices by 2020, continually accessing data around the globe. This necessitates higher levels of network performance, automation and scale for both enterprises and service providers to address growing demands on their IT infrastructure.+ MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Juniper unveils new fabric switch, architecture +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Reducing BGP SNMP Traps in DMVPN Networks

One of my readers decided to build a large DMVPN network with BGP as the WAN routing protocol (good choice!) and configured BGP SNMP traps with snmp-server enable traps bgp command on the hub router to detect spoke router failures. Turns out that’s not exactly a good idea.

What is your opinion about the new blog design ?

As you might notice I changed the blog design, and I want your feedback about the new design from all the points (speed, simplicity, look and feel,etc…). Your suggestion and feedback is highly appreciated to enhance the blog. Did you like it ? Was the old design better ? Based on the comments we will… Read More »

The post What is your opinion about the new blog design ? appeared first on Network Design and Architecture.

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

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