MUST READ: Lessons from load balancers and multicast

Justin Pietsch published another must-read article, this time dealing with operational complexity of load balancers and IP multicast. Here are just a few choice quotes to get you started:

  • A critical lesson I learned is that running out of capacity is the worst thing you can do in networking
  • You can prevent a lot of problems if you can deep dive into an architecture and understand it’s tradeoffs and limitations
  • Magic infrastructure is often extremely hard to troubleshoot and debug

You might find what he learned useful the next time you’re facing a unicorn-colored slide deck from your favorite software-defined or intent-based vendor ;))

Fast Friday- Labor Day Eve Edition

It’s a long weekend in the US thanks to Labor Day. Which is basically signaling the end of the summer months. Or maybe the end of March depending on how you look at it. The rest of the year is packed full of more virtual Zoom calls, conferences, Tech Field Day events, and all the fun you can have looking at virtual leaves turning colors.

It’s been an interesting news week for some things. And if you take out all the speculation about who is going to end up watching TikTok you are left with not much else. So I’ve been wondering out loud about a few things that I thought I would share.

  • You need a backup video conferencing platform. If Zoom isn’t crashing on you then someone is deleting WebEx VMs. Or maybe your callers can’t get the hang of the interface. Treat it like a failing demo during a presentation: if it doesn’t work in five minutes, go to plan B. Don’t leave your people waiting for something that may not happen.
  • If you work in the backbone service provider market, you need to do two things next week. First, you need to make sure all your Continue reading

Evolution of Excel 4.0 (XL4) Macro Weaponization Presentation

What is Virus Bulletin?

Virus Bulletin (often abbreviated as “VB”) is a magazine devoted to the discussion of malware and spam and has been around over 30 years. It is the forum in which security researchers and professionals discuss and share new directions in both the development of and protection against malware and spam. VB’s annual conference is almost as old as the magazine and has traditionally takes place in late September or early October each year.

VB2020 localhost

Why Attend VB2020?

As always, this year’s VB conference covers a broad spectrum of topics by some of the most talented security researchers in the world. Included in the agenda is a paper published by three members of our VMware Threat Analysis Unit discussing how the weaponization of XL4 macros in Excel has evolved.

Excel 4.0 (XL4) macros have become increasingly popular for attackers, as many security vendors struggle to play catchup and detect them properly. This technique provides attackers with a simple and reliable method to get a foothold on a target network, as it simply represents an abuse of a legitimate 30-year-old feature of Excel and does not rely on any vulnerability or exploit to be successful.

Register to attend Continue reading

VMware certifications, virtualization skills get a boost from pandemic

CEO Yves Sandfort is bullish on certifications. His company, Comdivision Consulting, uses VMware's NSX network virtualization and security platform on its own network and implements NSX for its clients. He not only encourages all employees to get VMware certs, but he also earned his own VCDX-NV, the Ph.D. of VMware certifications, in April."We see a constant demand [for networking skills]. Most of our people were certified on NSX-V and have in the last 12 months also recertified on NSX-T as we see constant, growing need for highly qualified resources," Sandfort says. "For me, certification is one level to prove my skillset and experience with the product."To read this article in full, please click here

Video: Define the Problem Before Searching for a Solution

In December 2019 I finally turned my focus on business challenges first presentation into a short webinar session (part of Business Aspects of Networking Technologies webinar) starting with defining the problem before searching for a solution including three simple questions:

  • What BUSINESS problem are you trying to solve?
  • Are there good-enough alternatives or should you really invest into new technology and/or equipment?
  • Is the problem worth solving?
Watch the video
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The Memory Area Network At The Heart Of IBM’s Power10

It must have been something in the cosmic ether.

Apopros of nothing except the need to fill a blank page with something interesting back when we were analyzing IBM’s second quarter financials and considering the options that Big Blue has with the “Cirrus” Power10 systems it will be launching about a year from now, we did a thought experiment about what it would mean if IBM started to believe in big iron machines again. …

The Memory Area Network At The Heart Of IBM’s Power10 was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Marvell exits the general purpose Arm server business

Marvell Technology Group announced last week that it has decided to cancel its ThunderX3 Arm-based server processor for general-purpose server use in favor of vertical markets and the hyperscaler server market.Marvell was best known for making controllers for storage and networking devices before it bought Cavium, an Arm server developer, in 2018. The company announced the ThunderX3 in March and on paper it looked like a real monster, with 96 cores and four threads per core.To read this article in full, please click here

Marvell exits the general purpose Arm server business

Marvell Technology Group announced last week that it has decided to cancel its ThunderX3 Arm-based server processor for general-purpose server use in favor of vertical markets and the hyperscaler server market.Marvell was best known for making controllers for storage and networking devices before it bought Cavium, an Arm server developer, in 2018. The company announced the ThunderX3 in March and on paper it looked like a real monster, with 96 cores and four threads per core.To read this article in full, please click here

The New Model for Network Security: Zero Trust

The old security model, which followed the “trust but verify” method, is broken. That model granted excessive implicit trust that attackers abused, putting the organization at risk from malicious internal actors and allowing unauthorized outsiders wide-reaching access once inside. The new model, Zero Trust networking, presents an approach where the default posture is to deny access. Access is granted based on the identity of workloads, plus other attributes and context (like time/date, source, destination), and the appropriate trust required is offered at the time.

Calico Enterprise Zero Trust Network Security is one of the most effective ways for organizations to control access to their Kubernetes networks, applications, and data. It combines a wide range of preventative techniques including identity verification, least privilege controls, layered defense-in-depth, and encryption of data-in-transit to deter threats and limit access in the event of a breach. Kubernetes is particularly vulnerable to the spread of malware as a result of the open nature of cluster networking. By default, any pod can connect to any other pod, even across namespaces. Without a strong security framework, it’s very difficult to detect malware or its spread within a Kubernetes cluster.

Zero Trust policies rely on real-time visibility into workloads, Continue reading

Getting Started with Docker Using Node.js(Part I)

A step-by-step guide to help you get started using Docker containers with your Node.js apps.

Prerequisites

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following:

Docker Overview

Docker is an open platform for developing, shipping, and running applications. Docker enables you to separate your applications from your infrastructure so you can deliver software quickly. 

With Docker, you can manage your infrastructure in the same ways you manage your applications. By taking advantage of Docker’s methodologies for shipping, testing, and deploying code quickly, you can significantly reduce the delay between writing code and running it in production.

Sample Application

Let’s create a simple Node.js application that we’ll use as our example. Create a directory on your local machine named node-docker and follow the steps below to create a simple REST API.

$ cd [path to your node-docker directory]
$ npm init -y
$ npm install ronin-server ronin-mocks
$  Continue reading

Next Platform TV for September 3, 2020

A Linux distro natively tuned for containers (and open source); FPGAs in Space; funding for spin qubits (among other quantum tech); the IO500 and evaluating large-scale storage systems; an automotive company’s AI supercomputer; much more…

Linked timestamps for all interviews below for those who want to skip ahead/around.

…

Next Platform TV for September 3, 2020 was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

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  • ipdata is a reliable IP Address Geolocation API that allows you to lookup the approximate location of any IP Address, detect proxies and identify a company from an IP Address. Trusted by 10,000+ developers. Try it now!

  • Developers care about shipping secure applications. Application security products and processes, however, have not kept up with advances in software development. There are a new breed of tools hitting the market that enable developers to take the lead on AppSec. Learn how engineering teams are using products like StackHawk and Snyk to add security bug testing to their CI pipelines.

  • Learn the stuff they don't teach you in the AWS docs. Filter out the distracting hype, and focus on the parts of AWS that Continue reading

How to try open networking for free.

Want to try open networking for free? Try NVIDIA® Cumulus VX – a free virtual appliance that provides all the features of NVIDIA Cumulus Linux. You can preview and test NVIDIA Cumulus Linux in your own environment, at your own pace, without organizational and economic barriers. You can also produce sandbox environments for prototype assessment, pre-production rollouts, and script development.

NVIDIA Cumulus VX runs on all popular hypervisors, such VirtualBox and VMware VSphere, and orchestrators, such as Vagrant and GNS3.

Our website has the images needed to run NVIDIA Cumulus VX on your preferred hypervisor—download is simple. What’s more, we provide a detailed guide on how to install and set up NVIDIA Cumulus VX to create this simple two leaf, one spine topology:

With these three switches up and running, you are all set to try out NVIDIA Cumulus Linux features, such as traditional networking protocols (BGP and MLAG), and NVIDIA, formally Cumulus Networks-specific technologies, such as ONIE and Prescriptive Topology Manager (PTM). And, not to worry, the NVIDIA Cumulus Linux user guide is always close at hand to help you out, as well as the community Slack channel, where you can submit questions and engage with the wider Continue reading

How Remote Networking Events Actually Work

When working from home or from a remote place, there is an added pressure of trying to figure out how you can network with other co-workers or professionals from the same field. This is why remote networking is a new phenomenon that is the talk of the town. Even when you are working remotely, you need to be able to network with other people so that you can think outside the box, make decisions, and make professional connections with others in your field.

How it Works

Networking events can be a bit tricky. Knowing who to talk to and how to communicate in person and keep it interesting is hard but useful. Remote networking, on the other hand, is a whole different ballpark. This means that you are not physically present at the event but you still have to figure out a way to be in touch with most people and talk to them professionally. Here are a few ways and tips with which you can actually make remote networking easier.

1.     Be a Part of Online Networking Groups

By being a part of a networking group online, you can easily be in connection with people from different professions Continue reading

Rendering React on the Edge with Flareact and Cloudflare Workers

Rendering React on the Edge with Flareact and Cloudflare Workers

The following is a guest post from Josh Larson, Engineer at Vox Media.

Imagine you’re the maintainer of a high-traffic media website, and your DNS is already hosted on Cloudflare.

Page speed is critical. You need to get content to your audience as quickly as possible on every device. You also need to render ads in a speedy way to maintain a good user experience and make money to support your journalism.

One solution would be to render your site statically and cache it at the edge. This would help ensure you have top-notch delivery speed because you don’t need a server to return a response. However, your site has decades worth of content. If you wanted to make even a small change to the site design, you would need to regenerate every single page during your next deploy. This would take ages.

Another issue is that your site would be static — and future updates to content or new articles would not be available until you deploy again.

That’s not going to work.

Another solution would be to render each page dynamically on your server. This ensures you can return a dynamic response for new or updated articles.

Continue reading

Chapter Leaders Worldwide Make the Case for Strong Encryption

What makes a great leader? Earlier this year, 473 Chapter Members participated in the 2020 Chapters Training Program. The Internet Society kicked off the program with a lot of hope and excitement. This was an opportunity to harness the power of us – our global community – to incubate innovative ideas and tomorrow’s Internet leaders.

The program aimed to develop new community leaders to work with their Chapters, create local awareness of the Internet Society’s mission-driven work, and become involved in Action Plan projects, including Encryption.

Each time we share information on the Internet, we assume that only our selected recipients – and no one else – will receive and read it. But how can we be sure? Ursula Wyss of the Switzerland Chapter says, this is “where end-to-end encryption comes in, since it ensures that only you and those people who are intentionally included in the conversation can read the messages that are being exchanged. This is done by scrambling the message in a way that it can only be read by those who have the right encryption key to unscramble it. For everyone else, the messages remain scrambled.”

The Encryption Chapters Training Program was developed Continue reading

Considerations for Host-based Firewalls (Part 1)

This is a guest blog post by Matthias Luft, Principal Platform Security Engineer @ Salesforce, and a regular ipSpace.net guest speaker.

Having spent my career in various roles in IT security, Ivan and I always bounced thoughts on the overlap between networking and security (and, more recently, Cloud/Container) around. One of the hot challenges on that boundary that regularly comes up in network/security discussions is the topic of this blog post: microsegmentation and host-based firewalls (HBFs).

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