Creating automation execution environments using ansible-builder and Shipwright

Reproducibility and consistency are two key traits that are the driving forces behind the popularity of containers. Consistency is also a principle found within Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. With only a few lines of YAML-formatted manifests, thousands of instances can be set up and configured uniformly. While the management of target instances is simple, it is the control node, or where the Ansible execution is initiated, that can  be the most challenging aspect. As Ansible is written in Python, does the machine have the correct version of Python installed?  Are the necessary Python modules installed? Are there any operating system dependencies needed? The list goes on and on.

These concerns, along with many others, led to a desire to leverage the benefits of containers to perform the control node’s role and eventually ushered in the concept of automation execution environments in Ansible Automation Platform 2. Running Ansible within containers is not a new concept and has been used quite successfully for some time now. However, there was no consistent process for building the container or executing Ansible from within the container. It seemed like everyone and anyone had their own version of running Ansible in a container. Ansible Continue reading

7 ways to fight network tool sprawl

Tool sprawl is a daunting problem that plagues enterprise IT everywhere you look, from data center operations to cybersecurity to network reliability to application performance.Tool sprawl occurs when organizations acquire licenses (or not, in the case of open source) for multiple tools that tackle related, but not completely overlapping, issues. Layered security is the most obvious example of this, but the problem bedevils networking, DevOps, cloud teams, etc.To read this article in full, please click here

7 ways to fight network tool sprawl

Tool sprawl is a daunting problem that plagues enterprise IT everywhere you look, from data center operations to cybersecurity to network reliability to application performance.Tool sprawl occurs when organizations acquire licenses (or not, in the case of open source) for multiple tools that tackle related, but not completely overlapping, issues. Layered security is the most obvious example of this, but the problem bedevils networking, DevOps, cloud teams, etc.To read this article in full, please click here

Cloud environments challenge network visibility

Network visibility is getting murkier, and enterprises are investing in tools to cut through the fog, tighten security, and boost IT pros’ productivity.A majority (78%) of companies plan to increase their spending on network visibility tools over the next two years, according to Shamus McGillicuddy, vice president of research at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). Traffic growth is the main impetus, due in large part to adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud architectures.Other factors driving the need for better visibility include increases in east-west data center traffic and greater use of encryption by bad actors to hide malicious traffic.To read this article in full, please click here

Troubleshooting microservices: Challenges and best practices

When people hear ‘microservices’ they often think about Kubernetes, which is a declarative container orchestrator. Because of its declarative nature, Kubernetes treats microservices as entities, which presents some challenges when it comes to troubleshooting. Let’s take a look at why troubleshooting microservices in a Kubernetes environment can be challenging, and some best practices for getting it right.

Why is troubleshooting microservices challenging?

To understand why troubleshooting microservices can be challenging, let’s look at an example. If you have an application in Kubernetes, you can deploy it as a pod and leverage Kubernetes to scale it. The entity is a pod that you can monitor. With microservices, you shouldn’t monitor pods; instead, you should monitor services. So you can have a monolithic workload (a single container deployed as a pod) and monitor it, but if you have a service made up of several different pods, you need to understand the interactions between those pods to understand how the service is behaving. If you don’t do that, what you think is an event might not really be an event (i.e. might not be material to the functioning of the service).

When it comes to monitoring microservices, you need to monitor at Continue reading

Route Servers and Loops

From the question pile: Route servers (as opposed to route reflectors) don’t change anything about a BGP route when re-advertising it to a peer, whether iBGP or eBGP. Why don’t route servers cause routing loops (or other problems) in a BGP network?

Route servers are often used by Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) to distribute routes between connected BGP speakers. BGP route servers

  • Don’t change anything about a received BGP route when advertising the route to its peers (other BGP speakers)
  • Don’t install routes received through BGP into the local routing table

Shouldn’t using route servers in a network—pontentially, at least—cause routing loops or other BGP routing issues? Maybe a practical example will help.

Assume b, e, and s are all route servers in their respective networks. Starting at the far left, a receives some route, 101::/64, and sends it on to b,, which then sends the unmodified route to c. When c receives traffic destined to 101::/64, what will happen? Regardless of whether these routers are running iBGP or eBGP, b will not change the next hop, so when c receives the route, a is still the next hop. If there’s no underlying routing protocol, c won’t know how Continue reading

Full Stack Journey 069: Network Automation Challenges For Engineers And Organizations

Today's Full Stack Journey podcast explores the barriers to network automation that individuals and organizations face. We also discuss how network engineers can overcome the inertia of just getting started, skills development tips, and more. Our guests are Matt Oswalt and Christian Adell.

The post Full Stack Journey 069: Network Automation Challenges For Engineers And Organizations appeared first on Packet Pushers.

HS030 Can Low Code Fit Your IT Strategy

Both sides of the low code/no code debate. We outline two sides of the debate, discuss four topics in favour of low code and then cover four negatives. Avoidance of toil coding, avoid skill shortage and viable testing are good things. Lockin, shadow IT and ownership are problematic. Its a solid debate on the topic.

How to Get Over a Friendship Breakup

Losing a friend can be just as painful as any other breakup. You may feel betrayed, rejected, and even like you’re grieving the loss of a relationship. If you’re struggling to cope with a friendship breakup, there are a few things you can do to make the process easier.

Getting Over a Friendship Breakup

Acknowledge your feelings.

It’s normal to feel sad, angry, or even hurt after a friendship ends. Allow yourself to experience these emotions instead of pushing them away. This can help you come to terms with the loss and start to move on.

Talk about what happened.

If you’re feeling up to it, try talking to your former friend about what happened. This can be a difficult conversation, but it can help you understand their side of the story and closure.

Focus on your other relationships.

It’s important to remember that you still have other friends in your life. Spend time with them and pour your energy into these relationships. They can help you feel better and remind you that you’re not alone.

Do something for yourself.

A friendship breakup can be a chance to focus on your own needs for a while. Do something that makes Continue reading

Cloudflare Support Portal gets an overhaul

Cloudflare Support Portal gets an overhaul
Cloudflare Support Portal gets an overhaul

The Cloudflare Support team is excited to announce the launch of our brand-new Customer Support Portal. When our customers open support tickets, we understand that they want quick and accurate responses from us. For those of you who have opened a support ticket in the past, we are certain you will notice the improvements we've made! The new Support Portal lives where our ticket submission form has always been, dash.cloudflare.com/support, but that's where the similarities between the old and the new one end.

What can you expect in the new portal?

The new Support Portal will help you solve your problems quickly and effectively, by getting you on the fastest path to resolution. In some cases, the most efficient way to resolve your issue will be to use our self-help resources or our machine learning-trained Support Bot. Other times, the most efficient way to resolve your issue will be by working with one of our Support Engineers via ticket, phone or chat, depending on your plan type. Regardless of how we help you solve your issue, we will have more context about the products you are using and your issue up front, reducing time-consuming back and forth.

Continue reading

The simplicity and complexity of using quotes on Linux

There are only a few special characters involved in working with character strings on the command line or in a script on Linux: the single quote, the double quote and the backslash. But the rules aren’t as obvious as one might think. In this post, we’ll look at the easy and the somewhat tricky uses of these special characters.Echoing text The echo command doesn’t require any variety of quote characters much of the time. You can echo a phrase like this without bothering with quotes of any kind.To read this article in full, please click here

The simplicity and complexity of using quotes on Linux

There are only a few special characters involved in working with character strings on the command line or in a script on Linux: the single quote, the double quote and the backslash. But the rules aren’t as obvious as one might think. In this post, we’ll look at the easy and the somewhat tricky uses of these special characters.Echoing text The echo command doesn’t require any variety of quote characters much of the time. You can echo a phrase like this without bothering with quotes of any kind.To read this article in full, please click here

The simplicity and complexity of using quotes on Linux

There are only a few special characters involved in working with character strings on the command line or in a script on Linux: the single quote, the double quote and the backslash. But the rules aren’t as obvious as one might think. In this post, we’ll look at the easy and the somewhat tricky uses of these special characters.Echoing text The echo command doesn’t require any variety of quote characters much of the time. You can echo a phrase like this without bothering with quotes of any kind.To read this article in full, please click here

Enterprise adoption of smartNICs faces challenges

Growth in hyperscaler data centers and processor-intensive enterprise workloads, such as high-performance computing (HPC) and AI, is set to drive broadscale adoption of SmartNICs.The Ethernet controller and adapter market will grow from $3.2 billion in 2021 to $5 billion in 2026, with smartNICs contributing significantly to the growth, according to Dell’Oro Group. In addition, server network connectivity will transition to higher speeds, according to the research firm, which predicts 100 Gbps and higher-speed ports will account for 44% of the shipments in five years.To read this article in full, please click here

Enterprise adoption of smartNICs limited to high-end applications

Growth in hyperscaler data centers and processor-intensive enterprise workloads, such as high-performance computing (HPC) and AI, is set to drive broadscale adoption of smartNICs.The Ethernet controller and adapter market will grow from $3.2 billion in 2021 to $5 billion in 2026, with smartNICs contributing significantly to the growth, according to Dell’Oro Group. In addition, server network connectivity will transition to higher speeds, according to the research firm, which predicts 100 Gbps and higher-speed ports will account for 44% of the shipments in five years.To read this article in full, please click here

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