Network Automation Considered Harmful

Some of the blog comments never cease to amaze me. Here’s one questioning the value of network automation:

I think there is a more fundamental reason than the (in my opinion simplistic) lack of skills argument. As someone mentioned on twitter

“Rules make it harder to enact change. Automation is essentially a set of rules.”

We underestimated the fact that infrastructure is a value differentiator for many and that customization and rapid change don’t go hand in hand with automation.

Whenever someone starts using MBA-speak like value differentiator in a technical arguments, I get an acute allergic reaction, but maybe he’s right.

Read more …

Oracle and Nvidia expand AI partnership

Oracle and Nvidia have extended their partnership to help speed customer adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) services.As part of the deal, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), which is Oracle’s cloud service, will beef up the infrastructure with tens of thousands of Nvidia GPUs, both the Ampere A100 currently on the market and the upcoming Hopper H100. Oracle will also add Nvidia’s AI software stack that supports AI training and deep learning.This includes an upcoming release of Nvidia AI Enterprise software with access to Nvidia’s AI development and deployment platform that provides processing engines for each step of the AI workflow, from data processing and AI model training to simulation and large-scale deployment.To read this article in full, please click here

Cleaning Out The Cruft

I spent the weekend doing something I really should have done a long time ago. I went through my piles of technology that I was going to get around to using one day and finally got rid of anything I didn’t recognize. Old access points, old networking gear, and even older widgets that went to devices that I don’t even remember owning.

Do you have one of these piles? Boxes? Corners of your office or cave? The odds are good there’s a pile of stuff that you keep thinking you’re eventually going to get around to doing something with some day. Except some day hasn’t come yet. So maybe it’s time to get rid of that pile. Trust me you’re going to feel better for getting rid of that stuff.

What to do with it? It needs to be properly recycled so don’t just toss it in the trash can. Anything with electric circuits needs to be properly disposed of so look for an electronics recycling facility. Yes, there are stories that electronics recycling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be but it’s better than polluting with e-waste everywhere.

Consider donating the devices to a trade school or other maker Continue reading

Network Break 404: Episode Not Found

This week the Network Break covers new SASE capabilities from Fortinet, new 800G hardware from Cisco that uses its homegrown ASIC, and an app from RSA for smart phones that can disable authentication if the app detects malicious behavior. Plus we cover new initiatives from the Open Compute Project, disaggregated Wi-Fi, and more tech news.

Network Break 404: Episode Not Found

This week the Network Break covers new SASE capabilities from Fortinet, new 800G hardware from Cisco that uses its homegrown ASIC, and an app from RSA for smart phones that can disable authentication if the app detects malicious behavior. Plus we cover new initiatives from the Open Compute Project, disaggregated Wi-Fi, and more tech news.

The post Network Break 404: Episode Not Found appeared first on Packet Pushers.

On the ‘net: Privacy and Networking

The final three posts in my series on privacy for infrastructure engineers is up over at Packet Pushers. While privacy might not seem like a big deal to infrastructure folks, it really is an issue we should all be considering and addressing—if for no other reason than privacy and security are closely related topics. The primary “thing” you’re trying to secure when you think about networking is data—or rather, various forms of privacy.

Focusing on legal defensibility is the wrong way to look at privacy, or rather the wrong end of the stick.

What are some best practices network operators can follow to reduce their risk? The simplest way to think about best practices is to think about user rights and risks at each stage of the data lifecycle.

For the final post in this series, I’ll address two topics: the privacy implications of Domain Name System (DNS) queries, and the absolute necessity of having a plan for how to respond to a breach. Let’s start with DNS.

Sidecars are Changing the Kubernetes Load-Testing Landscape

As your infrastructure is scaling and you start to get more traffic, it’s important to make sure everything works as expected. This is most commonly done through testing, with load testing being the optimal way of verifying the resilience of your services. Traditionally, load testing has been accomplished via standalone clients, like JMeter. However, as the world of infrastructure has gotten more modern, and organizations are using tools like Kubernetes, it’s important to have a modern toolset as well. With traditional load testing, you’ll commonly run into one of three major issues: Scripting load tests takes a lot of time Load tests typically run in large, complex, end-to-end environments, that are difficult to provision, as well as being expensive for production-scale infrastructure Data and realistic use cases are impossible to mirror one-to-one, unless you have production data A more modern approach is to integrate your load-testing tools directly into your infrastructure. If you’re using Kubernetes, that can be accomplished via something like an 

Tech Bytes: Using Opengear Every Day–For Disruptions And More (Sponsored)

Today on the Tech Bytes podcast we talk about how to use out-of-band management for daily networking tasks, not just when there’s a problem or crisis. Our sponsor is Opengear and we’re joined by Ramtin Rampour, Solutions Architect, to talk about use cases including zero touch provisioning, configuration, and more.

The post Tech Bytes: Using Opengear Every Day–For Disruptions And More (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

How chaos engineering can improve network resiliency

Conventional wisdom says, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Chaos engineering says, ‘Let’s try to break it anyway, just to see what happens.’The online group Chaos Community defines chaos engineering as “the discipline of experimenting on a system in order to build confidence in the system’s capability to withstand turbulent conditions in production.”Practitioners of chaos engineering essentially stress test the system and then compare what they think might happen with what actually does. The goal is to improve resiliency.For network practitioners who have spent their entire careers focused on keeping the network up and running, the idea of intentionally trying to bring it down might seem a little crazy.To read this article in full, please click here

Best of Fest 2022

At AnsibleFest 2022, the power of automation was on full display. Through sessions, workshops, labs and more, we explored how to transform enterprise and industry through automation. There were a lot of exciting announcements made on both days, and in case you missed it, we are going to dive into what is new!

 

Ansible + AWS 

We are thrilled to also announce a new AWS Marketplace offering, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. By offering Ansible Automation Platform as a pre-integrated service that can be quickly deployed from cloud marketplaces, we are meeting our customers where they are, while giving them the flexibility to deliver any application, anywhere, without additional overhead or complexity. Whether you are automating your hybrid cloud or multi-cloud environments, Ansible Automation Platform acts as a single platform. This platform provides consistency, visibility, and control to help  you manage these environments at scale. Ansible is the IT automation “glue” for bringing your cloud, network, bare-metal and cloud-native infrastructure together. This  provides the functionality to coordinate and manage across  hybrid cloud environments in a simple and efficient way. Interested in learning more? Check out the press release. 

 

Automation at the Edge

Ansible Automation Platform provides a Continue reading

And here’s another one: the Next.js Edge Runtime becomes the fourth full-stack framework supported by Cloudflare Pages

And here's another one: the Next.js Edge Runtime becomes the fourth full-stack framework supported by Cloudflare Pages
And here's another one: the Next.js Edge Runtime becomes the fourth full-stack framework supported by Cloudflare Pages

You can now deploy Next.js applications which opt in to the Edge Runtime on Cloudflare Pages. Next.js is the fourth full-stack web framework that the Pages platform officially supports, and it is one of the most popular in the 'Jamstack-y' space.

Cloudflare Pages started its journey as a platform for static websites, but with last year's addition of Pages Functions powered by Cloudflare Workers, the platform has progressed to support an even more diverse range of use cases. Pages Functions allows developers to sprinkle in small pieces of server-side code with its simple file-based routing, or, as we've seen with the adoption from other frameworks (namely SvelteKit, Remix and Qwik), Pages Functions can be used to power your entire full-stack app. The folks behind Remix previously talked about the advantages of adopting open standards, and we've seen this again with Next.js' Edge Runtime.

Next.js' Edge Runtime

Next.js' Edge Runtime is an experimental mode that developers can opt into which results in a different type of application being built. Previously, Next.js applications which relied on server-side rendering (SSR) functionality had to be deployed on a Node.js server. Running a Node.js Continue reading

The Cloud is Not a Railroad – An Argument Against the Vertical Separation of Cloud Providers

 

There's a move to regulate cloud providers by vertically separating the services they offer.

Like railroads of yore, who were not allowed to provide freight services on top of their base services, cloud providers would not be allowed to provide services on top of their base platform services.

Vertical separation would be new to the cloud industry. Is it a good idea? Would it actually solve any problems? My answers are no and no, but probably not for the reasons you think. Let's dive in.

Here are a few useful resources for exploring this argument:

  • Maintaining monopolies with the cloud by Cory Doctorow. https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/28/other-peoples-computers.
  • A group advocating for fair licensing. https://www.fairsoftwarelicensing.com/our-principles.
  • Cloud Infrastructure Services -- An analysis of potentially anti-competitive practices by Professor Frédéric Jenny. https://www.fairsoftwarestudy.com/.

Now Cory is about 100x times smarter than I am, but this analogy is wrong:

That's why the trustbusters were so big on "structural separation": the principle that a business can own a platform or use the platform, but not both.

So this remedy is also wrong:

Rather than trying to construct rules that kept the referee honest even when they played on one of the teams, they Continue reading

Use VRFs for VXLAN-Enabled VLANs

I started one of my VXLAN tests with a simple setup – two switches connecting two hosts over a VXLAN-enabled (gray tunnel) red VLAN. The switches are connected with a single blue link.

Test lab

Test lab

I configured VLANs and VXLANs, and started OSPF on S1 and S2 to get connectivity between their loopback interfaces. Here’s the configuration of one of the Arista cEOS switches:

Read more …

Use VRFs for VXLAN-Enabled VLANs

I started one of my VXLAN tests with a simple setup – two switches connecting two hosts over a VXLAN-enabled (gray tunnel) red VLAN. The switches are connected with a single blue link.

Test lab

Test lab

I configured VLANs and VXLANs, and started OSPF on S1 and S2 to get connectivity between their loopback interfaces. Here’s the configuration of one of the Arista cEOS switches:

Read more …
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