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Announcing VMware HCX 4.3

VMware HCX, an application mobility platform, is a crucial part of an organization’s digital transformation journey. HCX simplifies application migration, workload rebalancing, and business continuity across data centers and clouds. This becomes increasingly important as organizations consolidate data centers, extend data centers to the cloud, or replace on-premises infrastructure.

Let’s dig into some of the new and exciting features of HCX 4.3.0:

Transition to PostgreSQL

One of the key improvements HCX 4.3.0 introduces is the use of PostgreSQL. The goal is to replace the older databases and leverage some inherent advantages of PostgreSQL. From an end-user perspective, this transition will have no impact. Once the upgrade process is triggered, the system will automatically transition to the newer database in the backend, and all the data is seamlessly transferred to the new database.

Building Resiliency in HCX Network Extension

The second significant enhancement is the high availability of Network Extension appliances. Network Extension service is a critical part of HCX, and any disruption during normal migration activities can have a high impact on business operations. HCX 4.3.0 aims to minimize the impact of such disruptions by introducing a high availability (HA) feature for Network Extension Continue reading

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Don’t let bad press about Open RAN sink your private 5G plans

Here’s a paradox for you. Why is a technology that’s supported at the planning level by 90% of the telcos, and by the majority of enterprises, getting a bunch of negative press? Why is something that’s both 5G and open not being applauded by all?I’m referring to the Open RAN model for 5G, of course, and the answer to all these “Why?” questions could say a lot about our industry and have a significant impact on enterprises looking at deploying private 5G networks or even consuming a 5G network slice of their own.To read this article in full, please click here

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ICANN DNS Symposium

ICANN hosted a Resolver Operator Forum in mid-December, and the session had several interesting presentations that I would like to comment on here.

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Red Teaming: A Deep Assessment of the Company’s Security Posture

Red Teaming is a complex interaction with IT infrastructure, the task of which is to improve the processes of monitoring and responding to various cyber threats.

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NSX Year in Review: 2021

With 2022 just around the corner, we can’t help but look back at the past year. 2021 was one for the books, as the world continued to navigate the ups and downs of the pandemic and the new way of working. It was also a big year for NSX, with many firsts, releases, awards and events. Before we head into the new year, take a quick trip down memory lane with us for an NSX year in review and reminisce on all the news we shared this year:

January

Shared on YouTube

January, besides marking the start of the new year, was the month of the -tion’s on YouTube. Our top-viewed videos this month were the classic NSX Introduction, Micro-segmentation, Network Evolution, NSX-T Migration, and NSX-T Federation. Check out the videos and let us know in the comments if any of the information in these creations got your attention.

February

Introduced HCX 4.0

Roses are red, violets are blue. Have you heard? HCX 4.0 is new! This major release focused on providing enhanced visibility, reducing service downtime during upgrades, and simplifying the reconfiguration of NSX security policies post-migration. Since February, Continue reading

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Iron Mountain acquires ITRenew in sustainability move

Iron Mountain has been around for 60 years, and it's well known for providing storage and information management services that protect critical business assets and highly sensitive data. But it's probably is not the first name that comes to mind when you think of IT hardware. That’s not for lack of trying. Since 2017, Iron Mountain has invested more than $2 billion in building and buying data centers. It has a total of 18 around the world, and those data centers are powered by 100% renewable energy.Now it’s making inroads into the broader data-center supply chain with the acquisition of ITRenew, which specializes in IT asset disposal. With ITRenew, Iron Mountain sees opportunities to enhance the value of its environmental, social and governance offerings.To read this article in full, please click here

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Iron Mountain acquires ITRenew in sustainability move

Iron Mountain has been around for 60 years, and it's well known for providing storage and information management services that protect critical business assets and highly sensitive data. But it's probably is not the first name that comes to mind when you think of IT hardware. That’s not for lack of trying. Since 2017, Iron Mountain has invested more than $2 billion in building and buying data centers. It has a total of 18 around the world, and those data centers are powered by 100% renewable energy.Now it’s making inroads into the broader data-center supply chain with the acquisition of ITRenew, which specializes in IT asset disposal. With ITRenew, Iron Mountain sees opportunities to enhance the value of its environmental, social and governance offerings.To read this article in full, please click here

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The top 5 Ansible Automation Platform blogs of 2021

Year-end recaps have a way of encapsulating the most significant topics of the year, ones that sparked a curiosity to learn more, excitement to incorporate into our work, and inspiration to put our core takeaways into practice. As a newer member of the Ansible Automation Platform team, I’m always interested to learn which blogs resonate with our customers. To that end, we’re sharing our top five most read blogs so you can catch up on what you missed as well as gain some insight into what your peers are reading. For our Ansible blog aficionados, we welcome you to read alongside us for a refresher of what was most meaningful to your work this year. 

A common thread running through these posts: Red Hat Ansible Certified Content Collections. As you look to expand your automation in 2022, remember that there are over 100 Certified Content Collections from more than 40 partners, and Red Hat to help you jump start your next automation project with consistent and reusable modules, plug-ins and roles. 

Let’s dive in: 

5. Introduction to ansible-test

Even expert developers can make mistakes, so if you’re a busy content creator, you should always test your own Collections Continue reading

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Best new features in Windows Server 2022

Windows Server 2022 was released this summer ready to take on production workloads with a host of new features. What’s hot in the latest edition of Windows Server? Let’s take a look.New network protocols It’s no surprise that a major focus for Microsoft in Windows Server is performance. Most people using Windows Server are using it to host critical business services and applications that directly support either employees or customers. In either case time is money, and the platform your critical systems run on needs to be both stable and efficient.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Microsoft has included some notable networking improvements to Windows Server 2022. For starters, the Quick UDP Internet Connection (QUIC) protocol developed by Google has been added and enhances UDP connections in a number of ways including encryption, reduced latency, connection reuse, version control, and extension frames. UDP also gets some love in the form of UDP Segmentation Offload (USO) and UDP Receive Side Coalescing (UDP RSC), each of which moves a lot of the work to assemble UDP packets off CPUs and onto network adapters that support the protocols.To read this article in full, please click here

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Best new features in Windows Server 2022

Windows Server 2022 was released this summer ready to take on production workloads with a host of new features. What’s hot in the latest edition of Windows Server? Let’s take a look.New network protocols It’s no surprise that a major focus for Microsoft in Windows Server is performance. Most people using Windows Server are using it to host critical business services and applications that directly support either employees or customers. In either case time is money, and the platform your critical systems run on needs to be both stable and efficient.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Microsoft has included some notable networking improvements to Windows Server 2022. For starters, the Quick UDP Internet Connection (QUIC) protocol developed by Google has been added and enhances UDP connections in a number of ways including encryption, reduced latency, connection reuse, version control, and extension frames. UDP also gets some love in the form of UDP Segmentation Offload (USO) and UDP Receive Side Coalescing (UDP RSC), each of which moves a lot of the work to assemble UDP packets off CPUs and onto network adapters that support the protocols.To read this article in full, please click here

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Automation 7. Running and Parsing MD-CLI Commands with pySROS Directly on Nokia Router or Remotely.

Hello my friend,

We are continuing studying the Python library pySROS, which Nokia recently published. With all our passion for the Model-Driven Automation, we know that still a lot of people use the CLI daily. As such, today we’ll take a look on how we can automate execution and processing of the output of CLI commands in Nokia SR OS devices.

I See 10 Years Old Kids Creating Tools in Python… Is That Late to Start?

It is not. In fact, it shows that the there are no barriers to start learning and using Python. People come to a programming and software development with different backgrounds and for different purposes. However, all of them are united by a single goal: how to do something more efficient. This something is in fact can be anything: starting from a simple data analysis to a complex web application to games and, of course, to a network automation. At our trainings we use Python a lot; however, we know that network engineers may have no background in software development, and, therefore, we teach you basics of Python syntax, semantic and architecture, so that you can use it for network automaton (and other purposes) Continue reading

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EX3400 Disk Space and Upgrades

The Juniper EX3400 switch series is a decent access switch. But a Product Manager chose to save $0.50 on COGS by choosing a 2GB disk. That’s just not enough space to handle normal Junos upgrades. This has wasted untold engineer hours on busywork. I hope that person (A) got a bonus, and (B) is never allowed to under-spec hardware again.

Here’s some tips I’ve learnt for manual and automated upgrades for EX3400s.

Manual Upgrades

Search for “Juniper EX3400 disk space” and you’ll find plenty of people complaining about this, and some suggestions. Juniper KB31198 looks like a good place to start. But it starts with request system storage cleanup and request system snapshot delete snap*.

Those might work if you’re upgrading from 15.1X -> 18.2. Maybe if you’re lucky it will be enough for upgrades within the 18.4 train. But it almost certainly won’t work if you’re going from 18.4.x -> 20.2.x.

There have been PRs that are supposed to fix this, and they might help around the edges, but they don’t help a lot.

With certain version combinations, you could get away with copying the new verson to /mfs, and Continue reading

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Upleveling Network Strategy and Embracing an Automation Factory Model

Network managers turning automation to support new, advanced capabilities, but they need an overarching strategy to drive the most transformational change.

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Pluribus Networks 2021 Year In Review

Dear Pluribus customers, partners and employees:

At this same time last year, I posted about how impressed I was with the progress Pluribus Networks had made in spite of 2020 being a year unlike any we’d ever experienced. As we turn the page on 2021, while we still face challenges brought on by COVID-19, there is a sense that enterprises and economies are adapting to this new reality and finding their footing. I’m pleased to say that, despite all the constraints that make up this “new normal”, Pluribus excelled in 2021.

From a technical standpoint alone, Pluribus had a banner year. We released version 6.1 of our Linux Netvisor^® ONE network operating system (OS) and elevated our Adaptive Cloud Fabric to new heights to enable customers to build bigger, faster cloud networking fabrics with more services and even simpler operations. We also released version 6.2 of our UNUM Management Platform, which includes our powerful Fabric Manager GUI-based portal and Insight Analytics telemetry solution. The platform empowers NetOps teams with tools to provision services at cloud speed and resolve network performance issues in record time.

Additionally, we extended the Pluribus switch portfolio with support for multiple new Dell Continue reading

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Pluribus Networks 2021 Year In Review

As we turn the page on 2021, while we still face challenges brought on by COVID-19, there is a sense that enterprises and economies are adapting to this new reality and finding their footing. I’m pleased to say that, despite all the constraints that make up this “new normal”, Pluribus excelled in 2021.

The post Pluribus Networks 2021 Year In Review appeared first on Pluribus Networks.

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How to Get the Most Out of VMware NSX with Advanced Load Balancing

Switzerland never takes sides. Safeguarding its independence is one of the principal objectives of Swiss foreign policy. And Swiss neutrality, one of the main principles of this policy, dictates that Switzerland remain agnostic.

Hailed as the Switzerland of load balancers, VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi) doesn’t take sides either. It is environment-agnostic. Designed to save you from costly re-platforming, retooling, and retraining, Avi offers the same great user experience regardless of the number or types of underlying infrastructure that support your apps. So you get a consistent experience, across any cloud, every time. The Avi platform enables a fast, scalable, and secure application delivery experience.

Network Automation and Advanced Load Balancing: Better Together

Customers invest in VMware NSX to achieve network automation and deploy a software-defined data center (SDDC) or private cloud that is programmable. However, they have historically used either the native NSX load balancer or legacy load balancers such as F5 or Citrix. Neither solution is adequate for the level of automation — and the enterprise-grade load balancing functions — that customers hope to enjoy with NSX.

Customers deploying VMware NSX-T need an integrated, automation-driven, multi-cloud application services solution. Avi integrates with NSX-T, simplifies Day 0 deployments, Continue reading

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Zero Trust with Zero Visibility Can’t Stop Ransomware

The real goal of zero trust isn't necessarily to prevent every breach—it's to limit the movement of malware within the network and thus limit the damage it can do.

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In 2021, the Internet went for TikTok, space and beyond

The years come and go, Internet traffic continues to grow (at least so far and with some ‘help’ from the pandemic), and Internet applications, be they websites, IoT devices or mobile apps, continue to evolve throughout the year, depending on if they attract human beings.

We’ll have a more broad Internet traffic-related Year in Review 2021 in the next few days (you can check the 2020 one here), but for now, let’s focus on the most popular domains this year according to our data on Cloudflare Radar and those domains’ changes in our popularity ranking. With Alexa.com going away, if you need a domain ranking, you can get it from Cloudflare.

We’ll focus on space (NASA and SpaceX flew higher), e-commerce (Amazon and Taobao rule), and social media (TikTok ‘danced’ to take the crown from Facebook). We’ll also take a little ‘bite’ on video streaming wars. Netflix is a Squid Game of its own and January 2021 was at the highest in our ranking — probably lockdown and pandemic-related.

Chat domains (WhatsApp, what else) will also be present and, of course, the less established metaverse domains of sorts ( Continue reading

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How Fortinet Stitches Together An Intelligent LAN

Fortinet customers can leverage AI/ML and a simplified NAC solution to get a more performant and secure LAN at both the core and edge. Here's how.

The post How Fortinet Stitches Together An Intelligent LAN appeared first on Packet Pushers.

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Network Modeling: Automating Mikrotik RouterOS CHR Containerlab images

Introduction

In a previous post, we talked about using Containerlab and ZeroTier to provide remote access to a lab instance. One of the things that was glossed over was creating the Containerlab images. As part of building the images, Containerlab ready Mikrotik RouterOS images are available on Docker Hub.

Containerlab images

Containerlab currently supports 2 different kinds of images: pre-built containers and VMs packaged as containers.

Presently, only a handful of NOS vendors provide pre-built containers (Nokia’s SR Linux, Juniper cRPD, Arista cEOS, Cumulus VX, and SONIC VS).

The other option utilizes vrnetlab and is essentially a QEMU VM packaged in a Docker container. The more traditional network operating systems are currently supported via this method. This includes operating systems like Mikrotik RouterOS, Juniper vMX, Nokia SROS, and many more.

Building Mikrotik RouterOS containers

Containerlab provides a nice and easy way to build Containerlab ready Docker images. The process is fairly simple.

Setting it up

Containerlab uses a custom fork of vrnetlab that sets things up so that the images built will work with Containerlab. That repository can be found on Github. The first step is to clone that repository.

The next step is to download the Continue reading