The Next Step

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is typically attributed as the creator of the well-known phrase “Change is the only constant.” Since I left VMware in 2018 to join Heptio, change has been my companion. First, there was the change of focus, moving to a focus on Kubernetes and related technologies. Then there was the acquisition of Heptio by VMware, and all the change that comes with an acquisition. Just when things were starting to settle down, along came the acquisition of Pivotal by VMware and several more rounds of changes as a result. Today, I mark the start of another change, as I begin a new role and take the next step in my career journey.

Last week, I announced via Twitter that I was leaving VMware to explore a new opportunity. Today, I start at Kong, Inc., as a Principal Field Engineer. Kong, if you aren’t already familiar, is a company focused on service connectivity for modern architectures, with products like their eponymous API gateway and the Envoy-powered Kuma service mesh. I’m really looking forward to getting much more familiar with Envoy, the Kong API gateway, Kuma, and related projects and technologies. I still get to be Continue reading

Multiplayer Doom on Cloudflare Workers

Multiplayer Doom on Cloudflare Workers
Multiplayer Doom on Cloudflare Workers

There are halls and corridors in Cloudflare engineering, dangerous places for innocent wanderers, filled with wild project ideas, experiments that we should do, and extremely convincing proponents. A couple of months ago, John Graham-Cumming, our CTO, bumped into me in one of those places and asked: "What if we ported Doom multiplayer to work with our edge network?". He fatally nerd-sniped me.

Aside by John: I nerd-sniped him because I wanted to show how Cloudflare Workers and Durable Objects are a new architectural paradigm where, rather than choosing between two places to write code (the client, the browser or app, and the server, perhaps in a cloud provider availability zone), there’s a third way: put code on the edge.

Multiplayer Doom on Cloudflare Workers

Writing code that runs on a client (such as JavaScript that runs in a browser or a native app on a phone) has advantages. Because the code runs close to the end-user it can be highly interactive, there’s almost no latency since it’s literally running on the device. But client-side code has security problems: it’s literally in the hands of the end-user and thus can be reverse engineered or modified. And client-side code can be slow to update as it Continue reading

MIRA Project to Provide Overview of Internet’s Resiliency in Africa

Internet resilience is the ability of a network to maintain an acceptable level of service at all times. The Internet  plays a critical role in society and the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of reliable and stable Internet connectivity. However, not all countries have Internet infrastructure that is robust enough to provide an acceptable […]

The post MIRA Project to Provide Overview of Internet’s Resiliency in Africa appeared first on Internet Society.

Born In The Cloud Enterprise Case Study With Tekion – Packet Pushers LiveStream With Alkira (Video 2)

Tekion builds cloud-based applications for the automotive retail industry. The company uses Alkira’s cloud networking product to connect a network of automobile dealerships to an array of cloud-hosted services. In this video, the Packet Pushers’ Ethan Banks talks to Tekion’s Jamie Fox. They discuss how the Alkira platform enables Tekion to leverage multiple clouds with […]

The post Born In The Cloud Enterprise Case Study With Tekion – Packet Pushers LiveStream With Alkira (Video 2) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Using Gimp to modify PDF files

If you’ve never used Gimp—a free image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows and other operating systems—you might be quite surprised by its capabilitiesI use it for everything from Facebook posts when the available backgrounds don’t work well for what I want to say to political buttons that I design and press out using a button-making machine.Converting and manipulating image files with Linux commands Gimp can do everything from resizing and cropping images to adding text, changing colors or distorting images in artistic ways. You can use it to draw with its pencil or paintbrush and layer additional images. It’s quite a versatile tool. Yet I only recently noticed that it can also be used to manipulate PDF files, not just the many types of image files that most people use it to create, modify or enhance.To read this article in full, please click here

The timeline for quantum computing is getting shorter

Financial traders rely heavily on computer financial simulations for making buying and selling decisions. Specifically, “Monte Carlo” simulations are used to assess risk and simulate prices for a wide range of financial instruments. These simulations also can be used in corporate finance and for portfolio management.But in a digital world where other industries routinely leverage real-time data, financial traders are working with the digital equivalent of the Pony Express. That’s because Monte Carlo simulations involve such an insanely large number of complex calculations that they consume more time and computational resources than a 14-team, two-quarterback online fantasy football league with Superflex position.To read this article in full, please click here

Using Gimp to modify PDF files

If you’ve never used Gimp—a free image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows and other operating systems—you might be quite surprised by its capabilitiesI use it for everything from Facebook posts when the available backgrounds don’t work well for what I want to say to political buttons that I design and press out using a button-making machine.Converting and manipulating image files with Linux commands Gimp can do everything from resizing and cropping images to adding text, changing colors or distorting images in artistic ways. You can use it to draw with its pencil or paintbrush and layer additional images. It’s quite a versatile tool. Yet I only recently noticed that it can also be used to manipulate PDF files, not just the many types of image files that most people use it to create, modify or enhance.To read this article in full, please click here

The timeline for quantum computing is getting shorter

Financial traders rely heavily on computer financial simulations for making buying and selling decisions. Specifically, “Monte Carlo” simulations are used to assess risk and simulate prices for a wide range of financial instruments. These simulations also can be used in corporate finance and for portfolio management.But in a digital world where other industries routinely leverage real-time data, financial traders are working with the digital equivalent of the Pony Express. That’s because Monte Carlo simulations involve such an insanely large number of complex calculations that they consume more time and computational resources than a 14-team, two-quarterback online fantasy football league with Superflex position.To read this article in full, please click here

Packet Bursts in Data Center Fabrics

When I wrote about the (non)impact of switching latency, I was (also) thinking about packet bursts jamming core data center fabric links when I mentioned the elephants in the room… but when I started writing about them, I realized they might be yet another red herring (together with the supposed need for large buffers in data center switches).

Here’s how it looks like from my ignorant perspective when considering a simple leaf-and-spine network like the one in the following diagram. Please feel free to set me straight, I honestly can’t figure out where I went astray.

Read more …

Packet Bursts in Data Center Fabrics

When I wrote about the (non)impact of switching latency, I was (also) thinking about packet bursts jamming core data center fabric links when I mentioned the elephants in the room… but when I started writing about them, I realized they might be yet another red herring (together with the supposed need for large buffers in data center switches).

Here’s how it looks like from my ignorant perspective when considering a simple leaf-and-spine network like the one in the following diagram. Please feel free to set me straight, I honestly can’t figure out where I went astray.

Read more …

Chip shortage will hit IT-hardware buyers for months to years

A shortage of all sorts of processors and other components could affect the availability and price of IT hardware for the next 12 to 18 months, according to CEOs of major tech companies including Intel, IBM, Extreme, Cisco and Juniper.COVID-19 triggered an explosion of the global remote workforce, which created an extraordinary demand for new tech gear. It also forced the shutdown of processor plants, and restarting them and renewing supply chains to their pre-pandemic state will be a lengthy process, according to industry executives and analysts. Beyond the pandemic, a recent fire at a large chip plant in Japan didn’t help.To read this article in full, please click here

Chip shortage will hit IT-hardware buyers for months to years

A shortage of all sorts of processors and other components could affect the availability and price of IT hardware for the next 12 to 18 months, according to CEOs of major tech companies including Intel, IBM, Extreme, Cisco and Juniper.COVID-19 triggered an explosion of the global remote workforce, which created an extraordinary demand for new tech gear. It also forced the shutdown of processor plants, and restarting them and renewing supply chains to their pre-pandemic state will be a lengthy process, according to industry executives and analysts. Beyond the pandemic, a recent fire at a large chip plant in Japan didn’t help.To read this article in full, please click here

Tech Bytes: Automating Network Troubleshooting With PathSolutions (Sponsored)

Today we’re talking about automating network troubleshooting. We’re sponsored by PathSolutions, maker of the TotalView network monitoring software. TotalView pulls in network and device data and then runs it through a heuristics engine to identify problems such as cabling faults, QoS misconfigurations, VLAN tagging faults, and others. The engine can surface up issues automatically to help network engineers identify and resolve problems. Our guest is Tim Titus, CTO at PathSolutions.

Tech Bytes: Automating Network Troubleshooting With PathSolutions (Sponsored)

Today we’re talking about automating network troubleshooting. We’re sponsored by PathSolutions, maker of the TotalView network monitoring software. TotalView pulls in network and device data and then runs it through a heuristics engine to identify problems such as cabling faults, QoS misconfigurations, VLAN tagging faults, and others. The engine can surface up issues automatically to help network engineers identify and resolve problems. Our guest is Tim Titus, CTO at PathSolutions.

The post Tech Bytes: Automating Network Troubleshooting With PathSolutions (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Network Break 333: Cisco Acquires Optical Controller Software; DarkSide Gang Gets The Spotlight

This week's Network Break covers a pair of Cisco acquisitions, new path analysis capabilities from NetBeez, how the DarkSide ransomware gang is getting the spotlight, sleazy behavior from US broadband companies, and other tech news.

The post Network Break 333: Cisco Acquires Optical Controller Software; DarkSide Gang Gets The Spotlight appeared first on Packet Pushers.

The Effectiveness of AS Path Prepending (2)

Last week I began discussing why AS Path Prepend doesn’t always affect traffic the way we think it will. Two other observations from the research paper I’m working off of are:

  • Adding two prepends will move more traffic than adding a single prepend
  • It’s not possible to move traffic incrementally by prepending; when it works, prepending will end up moving most of the traffic from one inbound path to another

A slightly more complex network will help explain these two observations.

Assume AS65000 would like to control the inbound path for 100::/64. I’ve added a link between AS65001 and 65002 here, but we will still find prepending a single AS to the path won’t make much difference in the path used to reach 100::/64. Why?

Because most providers will have a local policy configured—using local preference—that causes them to choose any available customer connection over other paths. AS65001, on receiving the route to 100::/64 from AS65000, will set the local preference so it will prefer this route over any other route, including the one learned from AS65002. So while the cause is a little different in this case than the situation covered in the first post, the result is the Continue reading

1 … 683 684 685 686 687 … 3,795