0

Cisco, ACI, OpFlex and OpenDaylight

Cisco's April 2nd, 2014 announcement - Cisco and Industry Leaders Will Deliver Open, Multi-Vendor, Standards-Based Networks for Application Centric Infrastructure with OpFlex Protocol - has drawn mixed reviews from industry commentators.

In, Cisco Submits Its (Very Different) SDN to IETF & OpenDaylight, SDNCentral editor Craig Matsumoto comments, "You know how, early on, people were all worried Cisco would 'take over' OpenDaylight? This is pretty much what they were talking about. It’s not a 'takeover,' literally, but OpFlex and the group policy concept steer OpenDaylight into a new direction that it otherwise wouldn’t have, one that Cisco happens to already have taken."

CIMI Corp. President, Tom Nolle, remarks "We’re all in business to make money, and if Cisco takes a position in a key market like SDN that seems to favor…well…doing nothing much different, you have to assume they have good reason to believe that their approach will resonate with buyers." - Cisco’s OpFlex: We Have Sound AND Fury

This article will look at some of the architectural issues raised by Cisco's announcement based on the following documents:

• OpenDaylight: Project Proposals:Group Based Policy Plugin
• IETF: OpFlex Control Protocol

The diagram at the top of this article illustrates the Continue reading

0

Parsing a Routing Table with Python – Part 1

It's all in the API's, well, not exactly, not everything you want to get or parse is handed down in a nicely formatted XML file or JSON format.

[[ Summary content only, you can read everything now, just visit the site for full story ]]

0

Parsing a Routing Table with Python – Part 2

In the previous article (they’re split to make them easier to read) I talked about the theory and representation. How a properly formatted data structure and a non-formatted data structure look like....

[[ Summary content only, you can read everything now, just visit the site for full story ]]

0

Parsing a Routing Table with Python – Part 2

In the previous article (they’re split to make them easier to read) I talked about the theory and representation. How a properly formatted data structure and a non-formatted data structure look like....

[[ Summary content only, you can read everything now, just visit the site for full story ]]

0

Parsing a Routing Table with Python – Part 1

It’s all in the API’s, well, not exactly, not everything you want to get or parse is handed down in a nicely formatted XML file or JSON format. These file structures translate to some type of data...

[[ Summary content only, you can read everything now, just visit the site for full story ]]

0

Parsing a Routing Table with Python – Part 2

GETTING READY In the previous article (they’re split to make them easier to read) I talked about the theory and representation. How a properly formatted data structure and a non-formatted data...

[[ Summary content only, you can read everything now, just visit the site for full story ]]

0

Parsing a Routing Table with Python – Part 1

It’s all in APIs! Well, not exactly, not everything you want to get or parse is handed down in a nicely formatted XML file or JSON format. These file structures translate to some type of data...

[[ Summary content only, you can read everything now, just visit the site for full story ]]

0

7 all-in-one security suites: Anti-malware for all your devices

Let's face it: No matter what device you use, you're in danger. Security threats and malware lurk on Windows PCs, Macs, and Android and iOS devices. If you use more than one device -- like most of us do -- that makes it even more difficult and expensive to be vigilant and keep yourself safe.That's where all-in-one security suites come in. They protect not just a single device, but multiple ones, and offer comprehensive security for a far lower price than if you had to buy software individually for each of your devices.All of the suites reviewed here protect Windows, Macs and Android devices. A few add iOS security as well. Most offer some kind of Web-based dashboard for installing and managing the software on each individual device.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

0

Indonesia Hijacks the World

Yesterday, Indosat, one of Indonesia’s largest telecommunications providers, leaked large portions of the global routing table multiple times over a two-hour period. This means that, in effect, Indosat claimed that it “owned” many of the world’s networks. Once someone makes such an assertion, typically via an honest mistake in their routing policy, the only question remaining is how much of the world ends up believing them and hence, what will be the scale of the damage they inflict? Events of this nature, while relatively rare, are certainly not unheard of and can have geopolitical implications, such as when China was involved in a similar incident in 2010.

Keep in mind that this is how the Internet is designed to work, namely, on the honor system. Like Twitter and Facebook, where you can claim to be anyone you want, Internet routing allows you to lay claim to any network you want. There is no authentication or validation. None. But unlike Twitter and Facebook, such false claims propagate through the world in a matter of seconds and decisions, good or bad, are made algorithmically by routers, not humans. This means that innocent errors can have immediate global impacts. In this incident, Continue reading

0

Hijack event today by Indosat

Today we observed a large-scale ‘hijack’ event that affected many of the prefixes on the Internet. This blog post is to provide you with some additional information.

What happened?
Indosat, AS4761, one of Indonesia’s largest telecommunication networks normally originates about 300 prefixes. Starting at 18:26 UTC (April 2, 2014) AS4761 began to originate 417,038 new prefixes normally announced by other Autonomous Systems such as yours. The ‘mis-origination’ event by Indosat lasted for several hours affecting different prefixes at different times until approximately 21:15 UTC.

What caused this?
Given the large scale of this event we presume this is not malicious or intentional but rather the result of an operational issue. Other sources report this was the result of a maintenance window gone bad. Interestingly we documented a similar event involving Indosat in 2011, more details regarding that incident can be found here: http://www.bgpmon.net/hijack-by-as4761-indosat-a-quick-report/

Impact
The impact of this event was different per network, many of the hijacked routes were seen by several providers in Thailand. This means that it’s likely that communication between these providers in Thailand (as well as Indonesia) and your prefix may have been affected.
One of the heuristics we look at to determine the Continue reading

0

10 Wi-Fi Terms You’ve Probably Been Using Incorrectly

Sometimes we fall into bad habits. Unfortunately, the improper use of terminology is quite common in the Wi-Fi industry. This can cause a great deal of confusion when people discuss technical topics. Therefore, as a Wi-Fi industry, I think we should start referring to the following terms using more accurate terminology so we are all on the same page.

Here goes:

1. Over-the-Air Rogue APs - if it's not on your wired network, it's NOT a "Rogue AP" so let's start calling them Neighboring APs so we all know what someone is talking about rather than having to inquire each and every time someone mentions a rogue for clarification. And let's reserve using the term Rogue APs for when unauthorized APs are on the internal wired network.
   Correct Term: Neighboring APs
   
   
2. Co-Channel Interference (CCI) - APs and clients that are operating on the same channel don't cause interference with one another, they contend for the same airtime and backoff if another one is transmitting. This is distinctly different from interference where a transmission cannot be properly decoded because the receiver can't distinguish the valid signal from noise.
   Correct Term: Co-Channel Contention (CCC)
   
   
3. Collision - okay, here is one that most of Continue reading

0

Fun with Router IP Traffic Export and NSM

The Basics
I finally got around to setting up Security Onion (the best network security monitoring package available) to monitor my home network, only to discover that my Cisco 891 router doesn't support support the right form of SPAN. Here's how I worked around it. The topology looks like this:


The 891 router has an integrated 8-port switch module, so the simple case would have been a traditional SPAN setup; something like this:

! vlan 10 is the user VLAN
monitor session 1 source interface vlan 10
monitor session 1 destination interface FastEthernet0

with the server's monitoring NIC connected to FastEthernet0.

The problem is that the 891 doesn't support using a VLAN as a source interface, and because of the way the embedded WAP works, a physical source interface won't work either. Hence, I turned to an obscure feature that's helped me occasionally in the past: Router IP Traffic Export. This is a feature for IOS software platforms that enables you to enable SPAN-like functions for almost any source interface.

The configuration looks like this:

ip traffic-export profile RITE_MIRROR
  interface FastEthernet0
  bidirectional
  mac-address 6805.ca21.2ddd

interface Vlan10
 ip traffic-export apply RITE_MIRROR

This takes all traffic routed across Continue reading

0

Fun with Router IP Traffic Export and NSM

The Basics
I finally got around to setting up Security Onion (the best network security monitoring package available) to monitor my home network, only to discover that my Cisco 891 router doesn't support support the right form of SPAN. Here's how I worked around it. The topology looks like this:


The 891 router has an integrated 8-port switch module, so the simple case would have been a traditional SPAN setup; something like this:

! vlan 10 is the user VLAN
monitor session 1 source interface vlan 10
monitor session 1 destination interface FastEthernet0

with the server's monitoring NIC connected to FastEthernet0.

The problem is that the 891 doesn't support using a VLAN as a source interface, and because of the way the embedded WAP works, a physical source interface won't work either. Hence, I turned to an obscure feature that's helped me occasionally in the past: Router IP Traffic Export. This is a feature for IOS software platforms that enables you to enable SPAN-like functions for almost any source interface.

The configuration looks like this:

ip traffic-export profile RITE_MIRROR
  interface FastEthernet0
  bidirectional
  mac-address 6805.ca21.2ddd

interface Vlan10
 ip traffic-export apply RITE_MIRROR

This takes all traffic routed across Continue reading

0

OUTAGES: They Suck, But Let’s Share the After-Action Reports

“It’s impossible to solve significant problems using the same level of knowledge that created them!” –Albert Einstein Outages happen- it’s a simple fact of running any type of system, be it network, server, application, aviation, nuclear, etc.  Urs Hölzle, a Distinguished Fellow at Google and it’s first vice president of engineering, plainly states it this […]

Author information

0

Great News for Networkers: Embrane’s 2014 Is Off to a Great Start!

0

Response: Best Of Interop 2014 Winners Unveiled

Well deserved Overall Best of Interop  (in my opinion) for OpenDaylight Hydrogen release. As the IEEE and IETF fail deliver on innovation we are turning to open source for real progress & change in networking. While the Open Daylight Hydrogen release is a bit rough, it deserves the Best of Interop award for the reasons […]

The post Response: Best Of Interop 2014 Winners Unveiled appeared first on EtherealMind.

0

The Value of a Microsecond

While perusing vendor datasheets, have you ever questioned the inclusion of seemingly insignificant latency specifications? Take a look at Arista's line-up, for instance. Their 7500 series chassis lists a port-to-port latency of up to 13 microseconds (that's thirteen thousandths of a millisecond) whereas their "ultra-low latency" 7150 series switches provide sub-microsecond latency.

But who cares? Both values can be roughly translated as "zero" for us wetware-powered humans. (For reference, 8,333 microseconds pass in the time it takes your shiny new 120 Hz HDTV to complete one screen refresh.) So, does anyone really care about such obscenely low latency?

For a certain few organizations involved in high-frequency stock trading, those shaved microseconds can add up to billions of dollars in profit. The New York Times recently published an article titled The Wolf Hunters of Wall Street by Michael Lewis, which reveals how banks have leveraged low network latency to manipulate stock prices in open markets. (Thanks to @priscillaoppy for the tip!)

The increments of time involved were absurdly small: In theory, the fastest travel time, from Katsuyama’s desk in Manhattan to the BATS exchange in Weehawken, N.J., was about two milliseconds, and the slowest, from Continue reading

0

Fibre Channel: The Heart of New SDN Solutions

From Juniper to Cisco to VMware, companies are spouting up new SDN solutions. Juniper’s Contrail, Cisco’s ACI, VMware’s NSX, and more are all vying to be the next generation of data center networking. What is surprising, however, is what’s at the heart of these new technologies.

Is it VXLAN, NVGRE, Openflow? Nope. It’s Fibre Channel.

Seriously.

If you think about it, it makes sense. Fibre Channel has been doing fabrics since before we ever called Ethernet fabrics, well, fabrics. And this isn’t the first time that Fibre Channel has shown up in unusual places. There’s a version of Fibre Channel that runs inside certain airplanes, including jet fighters like the F-22.

Keep the skies safe from FCoE (sponsored by the Evaluator Group)

New generation of switches have been capable of Data Center Bridging (DCB), which enables Fibre Channel over Ethernet. These chips are also capable of doing native Fibre Channel So rather than build complicated VPLS fabrics or routed networks, various data center switching companies are leveraging the inherent Fibre Channel capabilities of the merchant silicon and building Fibre Channel-based underlay networks to support an IP-based overlay.

Buffer-to-buffer (B2B) credit system and losslessness of Fibre Channel, plus the new 32/128 Continue reading

0

Route Analytics in the Age of SDN – Now, More than Ever.

Route Analytics in the Age of SDN - Now, More than Ever.

---

by Brian Boyko, Technology Commentator - April 1, 2014

One of the biggest problems that may delay widespread SDN adoption is not a problem of coding or engineering, but one of poetry.

Network management is about logic and reason, but our nomenclature was written by poets. Even the word “networking” calls to the image a “netting work” - like you would find on a hammock or trapeze artist's safety net. We talk about network “pipes,” and conjure throughput like liquid water flowing through Roman aqueducts or modern PVC piping. We think of the “flow” of data through those pipes, though the only “fluid” is the movement of electrons – if that.

Metaphors that are inelegant or uninformative (“Information Superhighway” for example) fail.

Which is why SDN can be hard to envision. Intellectually, we know that it is about separating the control of where data is sent and the hardware that actually sends it. But what metaphor can we conjure that makes sense to explain this concept?

This is a problem for poets.

One metaphor that was recently used in IT Business Edge was the idea of “relying Continue reading

0

FCC Eases Restrictions on 5GHz UNII-1 Band

The FCC just made an unofficial news release of pending action that was approved at today's commission hearing which eases restrictions on the existing 5 GHz UNII-1 frequency band (5.150-5.250 GHz, Wi-Fi channels 36-48).

To quote from the news release (emphasis added by me):

By its action the Commission significantly increased the utility of the 100 megahertz of spectrum, and streamlined existing rules and equipment authorization procedures for devices throughout the 5 GHz band.

This ruling makes the following changes to the UNII-1 band:

• Removes restriction on indoor use. Now the UNII-1 band can be used outdoors as well. This will allow use of the band by WISPs and for outdoor hotspot deployments which are rapidly growing with the support of telecommunications and cable operators.
  
  
• Increases the allowed power output. The power output had been lower in UNII-1 than other 5 GHz UNII bands due to indoor-only use (50mW IR, 200mW EIRP). Exact details of the new power limits have not been released, but it is fair to assume the UNII-1 band will have similarly capable power output as UNII-2/2e bands (250mW IR, 1W EIRP) the UNII-3 band (1W IR, 4W EIRP). (Update after reviewing Commissioner Rosenworcel's Continue reading