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Car Warranty vs Technology Service Contract

I’ve been struggling with the value of service contracts on IT equipment for some time now. As a rule of thumb, service contracts on IT infrastructure cost ~30% of the purchase price. This means that over three years of ownership you will pay the purchase price again. Which is quite a thing. I’m struggling to […]

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Using New Ansible Utilities for Operational State Management and Remediation

Comparing the current operational state of your IT infrastructure to your desired state is a common use case for IT automation.  This allows automation users to identify drift or problem scenarios to take corrective actions and even proactively identify and solve problems.  This blog post will walk through the automation workflow for validation of operational state and even automatic remediation of issues.

We will demonstrate how the Red Hat supported and certified Ansible content can be used to:

• Collect the current operational state from the remote host and convert it into normalised structure data.
• Define the desired state criteria in a standard based format that can be used across enterprise infrastructure teams.
• Validate the current state data against the pre-defined criteria to identify if there is any deviation.
• Take corrective remediation action as required.
• Validate input data as per the data model schema

 

Gathering state data from a remote host:

The recently released ansible.utils version 1.0.0 Collection has added support for ansible.utils.cli_parse module, which converts text data into structured JSON format.  The module has the capability to either execute the command on the remote endpoint and fetch the text response, or Continue reading

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Using New Ansible Utilities for Operational State Management and Remediation

Comparing the current operational state of your IT infrastructure to your desired state is a common use case for IT automation.  This allows automation users to identify drift or problem scenarios to take corrective actions and even proactively identify and solve problems.  This blog post will walk through the automation workflow for validation of operational state and even automatic remediation of issues.

We will demonstrate how the Red Hat supported and certified Ansible content can be used to:

• Collect the current operational state from the remote host and convert it into normalised structure data.
• Define the desired state criteria in a standard based format that can be used across enterprise infrastructure teams.
• Validate the current state data against the pre-defined criteria to identify if there is any deviation.
• Take corrective remediation action as required.
• Validate input data as per the data model schema

 

Gathering state data from a remote host:

The recently released ansible.utils version 1.0.0 Collection has added support for ansible.utils.cli_parse module, which converts text data into structured JSON format.  The module has the capability to either execute the command on the remote endpoint and fetch the text response, or Continue reading

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VMware takes an executive talent hit but can handle it

The news that Pat Gelsinger is departing as CEO of VMware to take over at Intel generated a positive response for Intel and an equally negative response for VMware. Intel's stock jumped 7% on the day of the news, while VMware's stock fell 7%, and investment bank Piper Sandler slashed its VMware price target from $178 down to $157.Most of the discussion has been around Gelsinger and his return to Intel. VMware, meanwhile, has been overlooked in the process. So what's the outlook for VMware, which has lost more talent than just its CEO in recent months? To read this article in full, please click here

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Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for

This spring the FCC opened up a new swath of unlicensed wireless spectrum in the 6GHz band that’s intended for use with Wi-Fi and can provide lower latency and faster data rates. The new spectrum also has a shorter range and supports more channels than bands that were already dedicated to Wi-Fi, making it suitable for deployment in high-density areas like stadiums.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

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Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest?

One of the most anticipated features of Wi-Fi 6 wireless routers is improved throughput over their Wi-Fi 5 predecessors, and we wanted to check whether they deliver. Wi-Fi resources How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for Four vendors – Extreme, Cisco, EnGenius and Meraki (owned by Cisco) – provided access points (AP) for our test. Since the routers support both Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), we tested them against two Wi-Fi 5 and two Wi-Fi 6 clients and recorded the average throughput and the peak throughput during one-minute tests.To read this article in full, please click here

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How-to measure enterprise Wi-Fi speeds

There are many ways to evaluate the speed of your wireless LAN (WLAN), whether you’re trying to troubleshoot issues, ensure bandwidth-intensive clients will work well, fine-tune the performance, or just curious about your Wi-Fi speeds. Wi-Fi resources Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest? How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for The simple Internet-speed apps or websites can be useful, but sometimes you need to measure the actual Wi-Fi throughput. For this you usually need a testing platform with a server and clients.To read this article in full, please click here

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VMware takes an executive talent hit but can handle it

The news that Pat Gelsinger is departing as CEO of VMware to take over at Intel generated a positive response for Intel and an equally negative response for VMware. Intel's stock jumped 7% on the day of the news, while VMware's stock fell 7%, and investment bank Piper Sandler slashed its VMware price target from $178 down to $157.Most of the discussion has been around Gelsinger and his return to Intel. VMware, meanwhile, has been overlooked in the process. So what's the outlook for VMware, which has lost more talent than just its CEO in recent months? To read this article in full, please click here

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How Important is BGP RPKI?

Corey Quinn mentioned me in a tweet linking to AWS announcement that they are the biggest user of BGP RPKI (by the size of signed address space) worldwide. Good for them – I’m sure it got their marketing excited. It’s also trivial to do once you have the infrastructure in place. Just saying…

On a more serious front: how important is RPKI and what misuses can it stop?

If you’ve never heard of RPKI, the AWS blog post is not too bad, Nick Matthews wrote a “look grandma, this is how it works” version in 280-character installments, and you should definitely spend some time exploring MANRS resources. Here’s a short version for differently-attentive ;))

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How Important is BGP RPKI?

Corey Quinn mentioned me in a tweet linking to AWS announcement that they are the biggest user of BGP RPKI (by the size of signed address space) worldwide. Good for them – I’m sure it got their marketing excited. It’s also trivial to do once you have the infrastructure in place. Just saying…

On a more serious front: how important is RPKI and what misuses can it stop?

If you’ve never heard of RPKI, the AWS blog post is not too bad, Nick Matthews wrote a “look grandma, this is how it works” version in 280-character installments, and you should definitely spend some time exploring MANRS resources. Here’s a short version for differently-attentive ;))

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Cisco tags critical security holes in SD-WAN software

Cisco has noted and fixed two critical and a number of high-degree vulnerabilities in its SD-WAN software portfolio.Most of the vulnerabilities could let an authenticated attacker execute command injection attacks against an affected device, which could let the attacker utilize root privileges on the device.The first critical problem–with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System rating of 9.9 out of 10–is  vulnerability in the web-based management interface of Cisco SD-WAN vManage Software. “This vulnerability is due to improper input validation of user-supplied input to the device template configuration,” Cisco stated. “An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by submitting crafted input to the device template configuration. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to gain root-level access to the affected system.”To read this article in full, please click here

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Cisco tags critical security holes in SD-WAN software

Cisco has noted and fixed two critical and a number of high-degree vulnerabilities in its SD-WAN software portfolio.Most of the vulnerabilities could let an authenticated attacker execute command injection attacks against an affected device, which could let the attacker utilize root privileges on the device.The first critical problem–with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System rating of 9.9 out of 10–is  vulnerability in the web-based management interface of Cisco SD-WAN vManage Software. “This vulnerability is due to improper input validation of user-supplied input to the device template configuration,” Cisco stated. “An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by submitting crafted input to the device template configuration. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to gain root-level access to the affected system.”To read this article in full, please click here

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Get the Network Out of the Way

Getting the network out of the way has been very important for me in my thinking about networks, and is an easy way to help talk about a bunch of very important concepts, decisions, and arguments. This can sound trite, obvious, or insulting. In this post I’ll try to describe...

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What Gelsinger Can Do To Unscrew Intel

A little more than a week ago, Intel announced that Pat Gelsinger, its former chief technology officer and former manager of the predecessor of its Data Center Group as well as the current chief executive officer at server virtualization juggernaut VMware, would be returning to the world’s biggest chip maker to be its CEO and to take on the task of rescuing the company from itself and its competition. …

What Gelsinger Can Do To Unscrew Intel was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

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Graphcore IPU Put Through the Supercomputing Paces

With performance comparable to the Nvidia V100 GPU, a common accelerator in HPC but better energy consumption numbers and memory bandwidth potential, Graphcore can turn heads in supercomputing.

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Graphcore IPU Put Through the Supercomputing Paces was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

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Istio’s Complexity Leads Some Users to Linkerd

Twain Taylor Twain is a guest blogger for Twistlock and a Fixate IO Contributor. He began his career at Google, where, among other things, he was involved in technical support for the AdWords team. His work involved reviewing stack traces and resolving issues affecting both customers and the Support team, and handling escalations. Today, as a technology journalist, he helps IT magazines, and startups change the way teams build and ship applications. Service meshes have been getting quite a bit of attention, and with good reason. By providing reliability, security, and observability at the platform layer, service meshes can play a mission-critical role in Kubernetes applications. But tales of adoption are mixed: some practitioners report shying away from adopting a service meshes due to their apparent complexity, while others report getting them up and running with apparent ease. So which is it? Are service meshes too complex to be worth the effort, or ready for adoption today? In this article I wanted to focus on

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Tech Bytes: VMware’s vRealize True Visibility Suite Illuminates Dark Corners Of Your IT Stack (Sponsored)

On today's sponsored Tech Bytes podcast we discuss VMware's vRealize True Visibility Suite (TVS), an add-on that helps you understand transactions from the physical layer all the way through to the application layer. Our guest is Apolak Borthakur, VP/GM at VMware.

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Tech Bytes: VMware’s vRealize True Visibility Suite Illuminates Dark Corners Of Your IT Stack (Sponsored)

On today's sponsored Tech Bytes podcast we discuss VMware's vRealize True Visibility Suite (TVS), an add-on that helps you understand transactions from the physical layer all the way through to the application layer. Our guest is Apolak Borthakur, VP/GM at VMware.

The post Tech Bytes: VMware’s vRealize True Visibility Suite Illuminates Dark Corners Of Your IT Stack (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

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Day Two Cloud 081: Abstractions Should Save Typing, Not Thinking

Today's Day Two Cloud episode is part one of a two-part show on abstractions. Hosts Ned Bellavance and Ethan Banks riff on the idea that "Abstractions are there to save you typing, not to save you thinking." The upshot? Abstractions don't eliminate issues, they just move them someplace else. And that has repercussions for design, development, infrastructure, and operations.

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Day Two Cloud 081: Abstractions Should Save Typing, Not Thinking

Today's Day Two Cloud episode is part one of a two-part show on abstractions. Hosts Ned Bellavance and Ethan Banks riff on the idea that "Abstractions are there to save you typing, not to save you thinking." The upshot? Abstractions don't eliminate issues, they just move them someplace else. And that has repercussions for design, development, infrastructure, and operations.

The post Day Two Cloud 081: Abstractions Should Save Typing, Not Thinking appeared first on Packet Pushers.