I’m a long way from being the first person to comment that some of the icons we use in our software are somewhat anachronistic. The example we hear most often is that of the Save icon in most software: It … Continue reading
If you liked this post, please do click through to the source at Anachronism In the UK (and elsewhere) and give me a share/like. Thank you!
Last week Midokura decided to follow Juniper’s lead and make MidoNet an open-source product (after all, a similar move worked really well for Contrail, right?).
I may be too skeptical (again), but I fail to see how this could possibly work.
Read more ...CORE Services is a feature of the CORE Network Emulator — an open-source network simulator — that configures and starts processes on each node running in a network simulation. Examples of processes supported by CORE Services are: quagga, dhcpd, or radvd.
Because the CORE Network Emulator implements its virtual nodes using a lightweight virtualization technology called Linux namespaces, we cannot use the normal init or upstart scripts to start networking daemons on these nodes. We must use CORE Services.
A benefit of using CORE Services is that they allow us to set up and manage processes running on each node by using the CORE GUI. This may reduce the time required to configure nodes used in a simulation scenario, especially if a large number of nodes require similar configuration procedures. Also, network scenarios that require customized configurations can be saved and used again if those configurations are implemented by customizing CORE Services.
To run complex network simulation scenarios, we must understand how to use CORE Services. In this post we will provide an overview of CORE Services.
CORE Services are used to start processes on the virtual nodes in a CORE network simulation. For the processes Continue reading
Ethan Banks (@ecbanks) initiated an interesting Twitter conversation last weekend by claiming that the constant “technique churn” within organizations that utilize SDN and NetOps is doing the networking industry a disservice. Banks feels that ever-changing frameworks make it nearly impossible to thoroughly understand new technologies. Our own Mike Bushong (@mbushong) took a deep dive into the subject on the Plexxi blog this week in response to those claims. Be sure to check it out before you head out for the day.
In this week’s PlexxiTube video of the week, Dan Backman explains how Plexxi’s Big Data fabric solution can run both L2 and L3 simultaneously.
SDN Users’ Wish Lists Sounds a Lot Like White Box Switching
In an article this week for SDN Central, Craig Matsumoto looks at users that are growing increasingly tired of vendor lock-in and therefore turn to white box switching to provide additional interoperability. In my opinion, the interoperability provided is interesting as it is not a property of vendor intentions. When we accelerate the pace of innovation, there are going to be new capabilities that get added to gear. At the time of first-add, no one else supports the feature. At Continue reading
I am in the Bay Area this week, working on some network automation stuff, and I was fortunate to be able to stop by and say hello to the Storage Field Day 6 folks over drinks.
I was told by several impressed delegates about a talk by Andy Warfield of Coho Data, where he described how they used OpenFlow to steer storage traffic intelligently to and from various nodes in a distributed storage array.
For the majority of the discussion, he talks at length about how NICs have long been able to push more data than a single CPU core is able to process, and as a result, they have to be intelligent about the distribution of packet processing onto the cores within a multicore system.
In summary, a big problem with file-based storage systems is dealing with load sharing. NFS clients have to point to an IP address where the exports are located, and if this IP address was available only on a single NIC on a storage array, this pretty severely limits your options – that port becomes a big bottleneck. I’ve seen some customers assign IP addresses to several ports on an array, and use them in rotations Continue reading
Sometimes we confuse effort with outcome. We think that hours spent are more important than outcomes achieved. Or we unintentionally create a system where effort is rewarded, rather than outcomes.
Consider a situation where you work for a consulting firm, doing capped Time & Materials jobs. The client gets charged for the amount of time actually worked. Any amount of time up to the cap will be accepted. If more time is needed to complete a task, you’ll need to go back to the client to negotiate for more time/money. Occasionally you’ll need to do that, but usually the job will be completed under the cap.
As a consultant, you’re normally measured on your utilisation, and the amount you bill. So what’s the optimum amount of work to do for each job? Funnily enough, it is very close to the amount estimated – no matter what the estimate was. Maximise revenue & utilisation, while still doing the work under budget. There’s no incentive to do the job quicker.
Look at it from the perspective of two different consultants, Alice & Bob:
Note: We had an audio problem and Network Break 19 is now fixed.
The post Network Break 19 – Fixed appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Greg Ferro.
Welcome to Technology Short Take #46. That’s right, it’s time for yet another collection of links and articles from around the Internet on various data center-related technologies, products, projects, and efforts. As always, there is no rhyme or reason to my collection; this is just a glimpse into what I’ve seen over the past few weeks. I hope you are able to glean something useful.
This September I was invited to come to New York for Interop New York 2014 and participate in a couple of technical sessions as part of a Tech Field Day Extra event. In addition to the presentations by HP Networking and … Continue reading
If you liked this post, please do click through to the source at SDN And More – Interop Roundtable Discussion and give me a share/like. Thank you!
Welcome to Technology Short Take #46. That’s right, it’s time for yet another collection of links and articles from around the Internet on various data center-related technologies, products, projects, and efforts. As always, there is no rhyme or reason to my collection; this is just a glimpse into what I’ve seen over the past few weeks. I hope you are able to glean something useful.
Some of you may have heard that Jeff Fry has published his Unofficial JNCIE-ENT Prep Guide, but how many of you have purchased it yet? I’ve had the opportunity to look it over as he was completing it, and I must say it is an impressive collection of work. He has stuffed over 500 pages into the workbook and we’re not talking about fluff. Countless hours and many months of work later, he has published it with LeanPub, and will continue to issue updates. That is one of the nice things about Leanpub, with your purchase, you have the right to receive all future updates to the content! And many publishers, at least the ones I’ve purchased from, do push out significant updates to their work. You also receive a 100% guarantee on your purchase, that means if you are not happy, you can receive a full refund within 45 days of purchase. Jeff has also published a sample which includes the full table of contents and small sample section of the content.
If you’re studying for the JNCIE-ENT use the link below and receive 25% off your purchase.
The post The Unofficial JNCIE-ENT Prep Guide appeared first on Continue reading
This is a pretty cool demo of SDN (Software-Defined Networking) and NFV (Network Function Virtualization) by our SDN Consultant. I’ve seen a lot of slideware on Contrail and NFV, but they don’t really help understanding very well. Seeing it actually happen makes a world of difference.
Watch the demo trailer here.
Imagine being an IT administrator running a multi-tenant enterprise environment (example: an SMB business center). How many things would you have to configure to add a new tenant? How about adding a new user for an existing tenant?
The engineers behind the scenes of FlipIT cloud service ended up with a 40-page configuration guide when they started the service years ago… and obviously decided full-blown automation is the only way to go.
Read more ...1 | /c/slb/real r8080 |
You’ll like this, and you won’t; and that reflects on how I’ve felt variously about this task/burden. So, I’ve spent three weeks, almost full-time, on the work necessary to use Puppet to configure F5 Networks LTM via SOAP. Not just a few Pools and Virtual Servers; the whole box, from scratch. I knew this would be […]
The post Using Puppet to Configure F5 Network’s LTM via SOAP appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.
Yes, we know: Your product has an API. Yawn. Sorry for not getting excited. That’s just table stakes now. What I’m interested in is the pre-written integrations and code you have that does useful things with that API.
Because sure, an API lets me integrate my various systems however I want. Theoretically. Just the same way that Bunnings probably sells me all the pieces I need to build a complete house.
If I’m running a small company staffed by developers, then just giving me an API is acceptable. But in a larger company, or one without developer resources, an API alone isn’t enough. I want to see standard, obvious integrations already available, and supported by the vendor.
In this spirit, I’m very pleased to see that ThousandEyes now has a standard integration with PagerDuty:
ThousandEyes appears as a partner integration from which you can receive notifications; and, within ThousandEyes we now have a link to easily add alerts to your PagerDuty account.
You can read more at the ThousandEyes blog.
This is exactly the sort of obvious integration I Continue reading
