Interview with Ansible CEO

Ansible CEO Saïd Ziouani recently sat down for an interview with Adrian Bridgwater of ToolsAdvisor.net to talk about the past, present and future of Ansible. 

Tools Advisor: Ansible Tower is an opportunity for less technical users to get involved with IT automation by virtue of its role-based access control and dashboard functionality being core extras over and above the command line version of the open source product. Just exactly how 'non-technical' a user do you think should be involved here?

Saïd Ziouani: We strongly believe that IT Automation should be a dull task; your IP competency should be your priority and the main focus for your software developers. Managing your infrastructure must be simple to a point that it's almost boring. Tower takes the simplicity model of Ansible to a new level, allowing easy push button automation at scale, and team role delegation.

Read the full interview here.

Software Defined Reality – NFD9 Redux

I’ve just got back from Networking Field Day 9 (NFD9) and my head is buzzing after a busy week of presentations. I posted a preview of NFD9 so it seems only fair to give a quick wrap up of the week’s themes and presentations as I saw it.

My NFD9

After some time spent thinking on the flights back home, I came to the conclusion that there were two themes that were recurring this week.

The dominating theme for me was, at last, seeing the magic rainbow-expelling problem-solving unicorn that is Software Defined Networking – SDN – and all its inherent paradigm-shifting magic, turned into products that actually seem real, and are starting to deal with some of the issues that were flagged up when SDN was first being described. It’s relatively easy to SDN-wash a product, but making it something from which a user can actually benefit, well, that’s something else.

The second theme was that many of the products looked to the concept of detecting or fixing problems before the users were aware of them, whether as an alert from a monitoring system, or a network that automatically self-heals or otherwise avoids problem areas.

SDN == Programming

Don’t Continue reading

Proposal for altered data retention law is still unlawful, Dutch DPA says

The Dutch government’s proposed revision of the country’s data retention law is not enough to bring it into compliance with a recent European Union court ruling, the Dutch privacy watchdog said Monday.An effort by the Dutch government to adjust a law requiring telecommunications and Internet companies to retain their customers’ location and traffic metadata for investigatory purposes should be dropped, as the infringement of the private life of virtually all Dutch citizens is too great, the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) said on Monday.The Dutch government is looking to change data retention obligations for telephone and Internet communications operators following a decision last year by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The court invalidated the European data retention directive, on which the Dutch law is based, because it violates fundamental privacy rights.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Materials breakthrough promises smaller chips

If you haven't heard of graphene, or its new brother silicene, you will.For the uninitiated, graphene is a super cost-effective, ultra-hard and light-weight conductor. It's better than copper at conducting and is in fact the world's most conductive substance. Silicene is similar in that it's also ultra-thin, but it has properties that may be more suited for use in chips.We've been hearing about graphene for a while. However, this miracle substance has a slight, somewhat awkward problem for a superstar. Despite its second-coming-like trumpet blowing, it's not very good in transistors. The reason: it doesn't have the necessary logic operation capability.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Materials breakthrough promises smaller chips

If you haven't heard of graphene, or its new brother silicene, you will.For the uninitiated, graphene is a super cost-effective, ultra-hard and light-weight conductor. It's better than copper at conducting and is in fact the world's most conductive substance. Silicene is similar in that it's also ultra-thin, but it has properties that may be more suited for use in chips.We've been hearing about graphene for a while. However, this miracle substance has a slight, somewhat awkward problem for a superstar. Despite its second-coming-like trumpet blowing, it's not very good in transistors. The reason: it doesn't have the necessary logic operation capability.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Huawei looks to give indoor mobile speeds a boost with LTE-Advanced

Huawei Technologies has conducted a real-world trial of LTE-Advanced that shows that much faster indoor cellular speeds may be around the corner.The telecommunications equipment vendor conducted the trial with Singaporean network operator StarHub, using products capable of download speeds of up to 300Mbps. Early test results were promising, with users getting much faster downloads and better video quality than before, Huawei said without offering any details of the data rates achieved.The speed increase is fueled by a technique called carrier aggregation, an LTE-Advanced technology that allows mobile operators to treat up to three radio channels in different frequency bands as if they were one.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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 […]

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 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