Network Break 360: Facebook Chooses Cisco ASIC For OCP; Apple To Allow Limited Self-Service Repair

This week's Network Break podcast examines why Facebook has chosen Cisco and Broadcom ASICS for new Open Compute Project switch designs, Apple will allow self-service repair of two iPhone models, Fortinet partners with Azure on SD-WAN and firewalls, Cisco and NVIDIA announce quarterly earnings, and more tech news.

The post Network Break 360: Facebook Chooses Cisco ASIC For OCP; Apple To Allow Limited Self-Service Repair appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Learn the 4 Security Requirements for Modern Apps

Flying cars will be available by 2024 — or so they say. Imagine cars being able to run their errands faster, be safer off the ground, and allow for higher-level observability. In the cybersecurity world, we have our own version of a flying car: modern applications. Modern apps are extremely multi-faceted: housing microservices/APIs, they are SLO/SLI driven, and native to the multi-cloud. The innovative and futuristic feel of modern apps is exciting, but the transition to them doesn’t come without complications. Despite modern app complexities, there are standard security best practices you can use to meet your challenges and continue to move your enterprise forward. 

The four major security requirements are:  

  1. Multi-Cloud Secure Connectivity
  2. Traffic Management and Perimeter Security
  3. Security Observability
  4. Distributed Security and Compliance  

Come along for the ride as we break these down. 

Multi-Cloud Secure Connectivity 

A multi-cloud environment is becoming the standard within enterprises today. But just because something is standard doesn’t mean there’s a universal understanding of it. Multi-cloud networks involve the use of multiple cloud computing, storage, and traffic services in a single-space architecture. The multi-cloud aims to provide fast distribution of cloud assets, apps, software, end-to-end encryption, and much more. Adopting this strategy effectively means no room for error. As the multi-cloud is built to speed up an enterprise’s digital transformation, it requires a fast, secure, and reliable foundation to provide a strong end-user experience. If connectivity lags, your organization will Continue reading

Burkina Faso Internet shutdown

Burkina Faso Internet shutdown
Burkina Faso Internet shutdown

A few days after Sudan restored access to the Internet, people living in Burkina Faso are facing an Internet shutdown. On Saturday, Cloudflare Radar shows that after 22:00 UTC (the same local time) Internet traffic went down significantly, something that has happened in the context of social tensions in the country that started on November 14, 2021, and after this Saturday’s shooting of protesters that tried to block a French military convoy.

Burkina Faso Internet shutdown

It is clear when we look at the last 30 days, that Sunday and today, Monday, November 22, are days almost without Internet traffic in Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso Internet shutdown

All the Internet Service Providers (ISP) of the country were significantly affected by what we could see in our data. That is evident when we look at HTTP traffic by ASN (Autonomous System Number). Orange, FasoNet and Telecel are the three most used ISPs in the country and this chart clearly shows how they were impacted.

Burkina Faso Internet shutdown

Mobile traffic affected

Burkina Faso is a mobile-first country because mobile is the main way of accessing the Internet — in the last 30 days the mobile traffic percentage represented 77% of the total Internet traffic in the country.

We can also Continue reading

Sudan was cut off from the Internet for 25 days

Sudan was cut off from the Internet for 25 days
Sudan was cut off from the Internet for 25 days

Internet traffic started to come back in Sudan (with limitations) on Thursday, November 18, 2021. This happened after 25 days of an almost complete shutdown that affected the whole country. It’s a simple line going up on a chart for us, but for a country that also meant that Internet access was (at least in part) back on with all of what comes with it for businesses, communities, families and society as a whole.

You can see that trend on Cloudflare Radar, in particular after 13:00 UTC (15:00 local time). After that Internet traffic went up like we haven’t seen at all in the previous three weeks.

Sudan was cut off from the Internet for 25 days
Sudan was cut off from the Internet for 25 days

Internet access was mostly cut off on October 25, 2021, after a political turmoil in the country. A Sudanese court previously ordered the restoration of Internet access on November 9, but until last Thursday, November 18, there were no signs of services returning to normal. The biggest Internet access shutdown in recent history in the country was back in 2019 — for a full 36 days.

Looking back at the last 30 days Cloudflare Radar shows very distinctively a big difference from what was previously normal in the country.

Sudan was cut off from the Internet for 25 days

On Wednesday, Continue reading

netlab Custom Groups and Deployment Templates

Using custom templates to test IP anycast with MPLS was fun, but as I got into interesting discussions focusing on convoluted details, I found myself going through the same set of steps too many times.

It started with the need to specify individual devices in netlab config command to create new loopback interfaces on anycast servers but not on any other device in the lab. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a group of devices (similar to Ansible groups) that one could use in the limit parameter of netlab config?

Custom Groups and Deployment Templates in netsim-tools

Using custom templates to test IP anycast with MPLS was fun, but as I got into interesting discussions focusing on convoluted details, I found myself going through the same set of steps too many times.

It started with the need to specify individual devices in netlab config command to create new loopback interfaces on anycast servers but not on any other device in the lab. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a group of devices (similar to Ansible groups) that one could use in the limit parameter of netlab config?

IETF 112

Here the rest of the notes from some selected working group meetings that caught my attention at the recent IETF 112 meeting that are not related to DNS work.

Network Performance Update: Full Stack Week

Network Performance Update: Full Stack Week

This blog was published on November 20, 2021. As we continue to optimize our network we're publishing regular updates, which are available here.

Network Performance Update: Full Stack Week

A little over two months ago, we shared extensive benchmarking results of last mile networks all around the world. The results showed that on a range of tests (TCP connection time, time to first byte, time to last byte), and on a range of measurements (p95, mean), that Cloudflare was the fastest provider in 49% of networks around the world. Since then, we’ve worked to continuously improve performance until we’re the fastest everywhere. We set a goal to grow the number of networks where we’re the fastest by 10% every Innovation Week. We met that goal during Birthday Week (September 2021).

Today, we’re proud to report we blew the goal away for Full Stack Week (November 2021). Cloudflare measured our performance against the top 1,000 networks in the world (by number of IPv4 addresses advertised). Out of those, Cloudflare has become the fastest provider in 79 new networks, an increase of 14% of these 1,000 networks. Of course, we’re not done yet, but we wanted to share the latest results and explain how we did it.

However, Continue reading

Technology Short Take 148

Welcome to Technology Short Take #148, aka the Thanksgiving Edition (at least, for US readers). I’ve been scouring RSS feeds and various social media sites, collecting as many useful links and articles as I can find: from networking hardware and networking CI/CD pipelines to Kernel TLS and tricks for improving your working memory. That’s quite the range! I hope that you find something useful here.

Networking