C can be memory-safe

The idea of memory-safe languages is in the news lately. C/C++ is famous for being the world's system language (that runs most things) but also infamous for being unsafe. Many want to solve this by hard-forking the world's system code, either by changing C/C++ into something that's memory-safe, or rewriting everything in Rust.

Forking is a foolish idea. The core principle of computer-science is that we need to live with legacy, not abandon it.

And there's no need. Modern C compilers already have the ability to be memory-safe, we just need to make minor -- and compatible -- changes to turn it on. Instead of a hard-fork that abandons legacy system, this would be a soft-fork that enables memory-safety for new systems.

Consider the most recent memory-safety flaw in OpenSSL. They fixed it by first adding a memory-bounds, then putting every access to the memory behind a macro PUSHC() that checks the memory-bounds:

A better (but currently hypothetical) fix would be something like the following:

size_t maxsize CHK_SIZE(outptr) = out ? *outlen : 0;

This would link the memory-bounds maxsize with the memory outptr. The compiler can then be relied upon to do all the bounds checking to prevent buffer Continue reading

Response: Complexities of Network Automation

David Gee couldn’t resist making a few choice comments after I asked for his opinion of an early draft of the Network Automation Expert Beginners blog post, and allowed me to share them with you. Enjoy 😉

Network automation offers promises of reliability and efficiency, but it came without a warning label and health warnings. We seem to be perpetually stuck in a window display with sexily dressed mannequins.

Read more …

Response: Complexities of Network Automation

David Gee couldn’t resist making a few choice comments after I asked for his opinion of an early draft of the Network Automation Expert Beginners blog post, and allowed me to share them with you. Enjoy 😉

Network automation offers promises of reliability and efficiency, but it came without a warning label and health warnings. We seem to be perpetually stuck in a window display with sexily dressed mannequins.

Read more …

Free training from 8 top vendors to advance your IT career

Skill development has always been a must for anyone in an IT career, but this is especially true as cloud services mature and the components of cloud infrastructure trickle down into the rapidly evolving corporate data center.Whether you are looking to refresh existing skills on the latest technologies or branch out into a new specialty there are a host of invaluable resources available at no cost to you from some of the biggest vendors in the computing industry.The result for IT pros is that vendors’ marketing budget could very easily be your ticket to advancement should the skills they teach become needed where you work now or at a different organization.To read this article in full, please click here

Startup ECL promises off-the-grid green data centers

Startup ECL has emerged from stealth mode with some mighty big plans: to reinvent the data-center industry with hydrogen-powered modular data centers that use no local power and water.Rather than drawing power from the electrical grid the company will generate electricity for its data centers using hydrogen fuel cells. The only byproduct is water either as a liquid or vapor that is used for cooling with the leftovers being returned to the local environment. “So we can give back to the community some of the water that we’re producing,” said ECL founder and CEO Yuval Bachar, who previously helped design data centers for Facebook and LinkedIn.To read this article in full, please click here

Startup ECL promises off-the-grid green data centers

Startup ECL has emerged from stealth mode with some mighty big plans: to reinvent the data-center industry with hydrogen-powered modular data centers that use no local power and water.Rather than drawing power from the electrical grid the company will generate electricity for its data centers using hydrogen fuel cells. The only byproduct is water either as a liquid or vapor that is used for cooling with the leftovers being returned to the local environment. “So we can give back to the community some of the water that we’re producing,” said ECL founder and CEO Yuval Bachar, who previously helped design data centers for Facebook and LinkedIn.To read this article in full, please click here

Kubernetes network monitoring: What is it, and why do you need it?

In this article, we will dive into Kubernetes network monitoring and metrics, examining these concepts in detail and exploring how metrics in an application can be transformed into tangible, human-readable reports. The article will also include a step-by-step tutorial on how to enable Calico’s integration with Prometheus, a free and open-source CNCF project created for monitoring the cloud. By the end of the article, you will be able to create customized reports and graphical dashboards from the metrics that Calico publishes to get better insight into the inner workings of your cluster and its various components. In addition, you will have the fundamental knowledge of how these pieces can fit together to establish Kubernetes network monitoring for any environment.

Background

The benefits offered by cloud computing and infrastructure as code, including scalability, easy distribution, and quick and flexible deployment, have caused cloud service adoption to skyrocket. But this rapid adoption requires checks and balances to ensure that cloud services are secure and running in their desired state. Furthermore, any security events and problems should be logged and reported for future examination.

Read our guide on Kubernetes logging: Approaches and best practices

In the past, traditional monitoring solutions such as Nagios Continue reading

Missed the big CPU news this month?

Sponsored Post: In case you missed the big news earlier this month, Intel introduced its 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors (formerly codenamed Sapphire Rapids) to a huge industry fanfare – groundbreaking datacenter silicon which promises to push the boundaries of performance for high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI) and networking workloads. …

Missed the big CPU news this month? was written by Martin Courtney at The Next Platform.

Ansible Automation Platform 2.3 Configuration as Code Improvements

On November 29, we launched Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.3, which included new and exciting features including improvements for Configuration as Code (CaC). Ansible Automation Platform 2.3 also includes improvements to automation controller as well as the introduction of Ansible validated content. This blog post will walk you through what CaC is and the benefits it can bring to your organization, including a UI and API walkthrough of automation controller and how to take a full Configuration as Code approach to your automation infrastructure.  

 

What is Configuration as Code (CaC) in Ansible Automation Platform?

CaC is a term generally referring to the separation of configuration settings from the actual code. The ideal being you can store that configuration data in source control, and easily run and tweak it to match different environments.

In Ansible Automation Platform terms, we can use the features within the automation controller in combination with CaC to provide a more flexible, richer experience. Essentially we’ve added ‘Prompt on Launch’ to everything within a job template, many of which will also trickle down into workflows.

‘Prompt on launch’ is our Ansible Automation Platform way of saying ‘this is the Continue reading

1 … 352 353 354 355 356 … 3,836