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Connect a VXLAN-EVPN DC to the Public Cloud the right way

In my latest blog post i was ranting on how you should not do cloud connectivity, and specifically how you should stay miles away from whoever suggests the use of vxlan to “extend layer 2”.
Today i wanted to show you instead how you could actually extend your network into the cloud to allow workload mobility. It’s assumed that your application is “cloud ready” and won’t require a layer 2 adjacency with other components.

As part of a customer project i was supposed to design a cloud connectivity solution that would allow to extend several VRFs into AWS. The requirements were very clear, so let’s list them:

1. It is required to extend around 15 VRFs into AWS to allow application migrations into the cloud.
2. The solution needs to be ready for other clouds like Azure or IBM Cloud
3. The solution needs to be scalable and be able to ensure support to additional VRFs without network redesign

The high level solution

Simply put, what we did was to extend VXLAN-EVPN Overlay into AWS, specifically by making the CSR 1000v a vtep.
In my specific use case, the customer is running a dual site VXLAN-EVPN DC with EVPN Multi-Site for the DCI Continue reading

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DevAsc – Python Palindrome Challenge

Time for another Python challenge. This time it’s the palindrome challenge. What is a palindrome? A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward as forward. Some examples are level, radar, stats.

The goal is to take a string the user inputs, reverse the string and see if it’s identical backward as forward. I will divide my code into two functions:

• get_string
• check_palindrome

The first function simply takes the string that is input. The second function checks if it’s a palindrome and prints the result.

As always, let’s first start with a docstring:

"""Program to check if string is a palindrome"""

Then we create a function to get the string from the user. This code should look familiar if you went through the divisors challenge.

def get_string():
    """Get a string from user to be used in function to check for palindrome"""
    # Get string from user with input() and return result 
    user_string = input("Please enter a string to check if it's a palindrome: ")
    return user_string

Now for the more interesting part, to check if a string is a palindrome. To do that, we need to reverse the string. How can we Continue reading

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Worth Reading: When Security Takes a Backseat to Productivity

Brian Krebs wrote an interesting analysis of CIA’s Wikileaks report. In a nutshell, they were a victim of “move fast to get the mission done” shadow IT.

It could have been worse. Someone with a credit card could have started deploying stuff in AWS ;))

Not that anyone would learn anything from the PR nightmare that followed.

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Measuring IPv6

This week I participated in a workshop on measurement of IPv6, organised by the US Naval Postgraduate School's Centre for Measurement and Analysis of Network Data (CMAND) and the folk at UC San Diego's Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA). Here's my notes from that workshop and a few opinions about IPv6 thrown is as well.

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Weekend Reads 061920

A few months ago, there was a lot of discussion that despite its claims, Zoom did not actually offer end-to-end encryption. They’re in the process of fixing that, which is good, but that raises a deeper question: why trust their code?—Steve Bellovin

Intel has announced new CPU-level capabilities designed to protect apps against threats that take advantage of buffer overflow and other common vulnerabilities related to memory security. —Jai Vijayan

The Department of Homeland Security and CISA ICS-CERT today issued a critical security advisory warning about over a dozen newly discovered vulnerabilities affecting billions of Internet-connected devices manufactured by many vendors across the globe. —Mohit Kumar

The cyber risks to our H2O infrastructure have yet to enter the public debate in the way that vulnerabilities in the electric grid have, despite proven attacks on this critical infrastructure. —Samantha F. Ravich

Amazon Web Services recently had to defend against a DDoS attack with a peak traffic volume of 2.3 Tbps, the largest ever recorded, ZDNet reports. —Jon Porte

Intel today announced its third-generation Xeon Scalable (meaning Gold and Platinum) processors, along with new generations of its Optane persistent memory (read: extremely low-latency, high-endurance SSD) and Stratix AI FPGA products. Continue reading

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Daily Roundup: AT&T Clarifies 5G Timeline

AT&T clarified its nationwide 5G timeline; Microsoft bought ADRM; and Verizon teased of its...

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Next Platform TV for Friday, June 19, 2020

On this wide-ranging episode of Next Platform we move in several directions; from the world of bioinformatics infrastructure in the pandemic era to what’s ahead for HPC to what the largest cloud vendors are buying—and what that means for the market. …

Next Platform TV for Friday, June 19, 2020 was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

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Words Matter: Finally, Tech Looks at Removing Exclusionary Language

This month the tech industry’s lexicon is seeing a small but significant shift: Common technical phrases, most notably “Master/Slave” and “Whitelist/Blacklist” that have been red-flagged as offensive, or even racist, sometimes for decades, are getting updates. Android and GitHub Android, Splunk. Many orgs are also looking at replacing the concept of “whitelist” in both its documentation and in its APIs. Other companies and open source projects are following suit. This work is in part to take another semantic and moral stand that Black Lives Matter. And, at times, it is

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DevAsc – Python Divisors Challenge

As part of Nick Russo’s DevAsc study plan, he recommends doing a few Python challenges to check your existing knowledge of Python. One of these is the Divisors challenge. The goal of of this exercise is to take a number, such as 12, and then find all the divisors, that is the numbers that you can divide 12 with and have no remainder. This would 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and finally 12 itself.

Now, solving this doesn’t take a lot of code. However, I decided that gold plating is allowed in my studies of code. That is, I would rather practice writing functions from the get go rather than just quickly moving from exercises.

To find divisors, we need a little basic math. We can use the Modulo operation to find the reminder of a division. For example, if you divide 5 by 2, the remainder is 1. We call this 5 modulo 2. Because there is a remainder of 1, this means that 2 is not a divisor for 5. If we however use 9 and 3 instead, with 9 modulo 3, the remainder is 0. This means that 3 is a divisor for 9. We then Continue reading

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Technology Short Take 128

Welcome to Technology Short Take #128! It looks like I’m settling into a roughly monthly cadence with the Technology Short Takes. This time around, I’ve got a (hopefully) interesting collection of links. The collection seems a tad heavier than normal in the hardware and security sections, probably due to new exploits discovered in Intel’s speculative execution functionality. In any case, here’s what I’ve gathered for you. Enjoy!

Networking

• Graham Smith writes about switching his NSX-T lab to use single N-DVS Edge nodes.
• Here’s another useful article from Eric Sloof on bridging between GNS3 and NSX-T. Lots of network engineers are familiar with GNS3, and showing how to integrate it with NSX-T for testing and simulation is, I think, going to be helpful.
• The inimitable Ivan Pepelnjak provides a primer on Azure networking.
• Sebastian Cohnen of StormForger shares some results from network performance testing of AWS Fargate. Note that this article is a couple of years old, so some things may have changed since it was written.
• Daniel Teycheney discusses starting your network automation journey.

Servers/Hardware

• This article from Carlos Fenollosa talks about his experience with a new 2020 MacBook Pro compared to his 2013-era MacBook Air. While there is some Continue reading

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Infinera, Windstream Claim 800G Milestone

Infinera says it has achieved 800 Gb/s line rates over a 730-kilometer from San Deigo to Pheonix on...

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Verizon Teases Forthcoming DSS Launch for Nationwide 5G

Verizon’s market position on 5G is heavily dependent on its ability to use dynamic spectrum...

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Remote work makes network visibility more critical than ever

What, exactly, is on your network? More to the point, where is your network? Ask yourself that now, then compare this to how your network looked a year ago. The answers have almost certainly changed, with most organizations seeing a rapid increase in the number of employees working remotely.

Hardened, policy-managed corporate networks are being exposed via remote VPNs to home network environments and, in some cases, employees’ home computers. This increases network complexity and may introduce new security and performance issues. To keep things running smoothly, having an in-depth view of the devices and events on your network is crucial.

Maintaining network performance with remote workers

When employees work from home, troubleshooting becomes more complex. Even if an employee is using a company-supplied computer, it is operating on an unmanaged network, and is exposed to everything else that happens to be on that network.

Today’s home networks often have multiple computers, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, game consoles, and even Internet of Things devices like security camera doorbells. In addition to the security risks of putting a company computer on an insecure network, there are IT infrastructure problems that can arise when work-from-home becomes normalized.

A March 19, 2020, Network Continue reading

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Heavy Networking 524: Network Modeling With Open Source pyNTM

Today on Heavy Networking we cover network modeling using the Python Network Traffic Modeler, or pyNTM, an open-source tool. Creator Tim Fiola explains what network modeling is and how you can use this tool to help you make WAN design decisions and avoid costly mistakes.

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Heavy Networking 524: Network Modeling With Open Source pyNTM

Today on Heavy Networking we cover network modeling using the Python Network Traffic Modeler, or pyNTM, an open-source tool. Creator Tim Fiola explains what network modeling is and how you can use this tool to help you make WAN design decisions and avoid costly mistakes.

The post Heavy Networking 524: Network Modeling With Open Source pyNTM appeared first on Packet Pushers.

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FinTech Industry Report 2020-2025 – Trends, Developments and Growth Deviations Arising from the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Global Fintech Market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of around 20% during the forecast period...

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Microsoft Buys ADRM for Azure Data Lake Boost

The acquisition also supports Microsoft’s continued investments into artificial intelligence and...

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The Conundrum of Virtual Conferences

Okay, the world is indeed crazy. We can’t hide from it or hope that it just blows over sooner or later. We’re dealing with it now and that means it’s impacting our work, our family lives, and even our sanity from time to time. One of the stalwart things that has been impacted by this is the summer conference schedule. We’ve had Aruba Atmosphere, Cisco Live, VMworld, and even Microsoft Ignite transition from being held in-person to a virtual format complete with shortened schedules and pre-recorded sessions. I’ve attended a couple of these so far for work and as an analyst, and I think I’ve figured it out.

If you come to a conference for content and sessions, you’ll love virtual events. If you come for any other reason, virtual isn’t going to work for you.

Let’s break this down because there’s a lot to unpack.

Information Ingestion

Conferences are first and foremost about disseminating information. Want to learn what new solutions and technologies have been launched? It’s probably going to be announced either right before or during the conference. Want to learn the ins-and-outs of this specific protocol? There’s probably a session on it or a chance to ask Continue reading

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The Conductor That Sets The Pace For Science At Oak Ridge

Every orchestra needs a conductor to keep everyone playing together on pace, and while a good conductor doesn’t need to know how to play every instrument well, they have to know how to play many instruments and also to understand how it all comes together to create a symphony. …

The Conductor That Sets The Pace For Science At Oak Ridge was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

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Weekly Wrap: Hackers Cryptojack Microsoft Azure ML Clusters

SDxCentral Weekly Wrap for June 19, 2020: The Azure attack targets Kubeflow; Cisco SD-WAN update...

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