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SONiC and White Box switches in the Enterprise DC! – Part 2

As discussed during our part 1, we are trying to configure a VXLAN-EVPN fabric using SONiC on white box switches in order to determine if Open Networking is ready to be deployed in most enterprise DCs.

As a small Recap, below is the topology we are trying to bring online:

Familiarise with the OS

The most interesting thing of SONiC is its architecture!
I’ll write a blog just about it because it’s a fascinating topic, but in short, every single process is living inside a dedicated container.

Linux SONIC-Leaf301 4.9.0-11-2-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.189-3+deb9u2 (2019-11-11) x86_64
You are on
  ____   ___  _   _ _  ____
 / ___| / _ \| \ | (_)/ ___|
 \___ \| | | |  \| | | |
  ___) |  | |\  | | |___
 |____/ \___/|_| \_|_|\____|

-- Software for Open Networking in the Cloud --

Unauthorized access and/or use are prohibited.
All access and/or use are subject to monitoring.

Help:    http://azure.github.io/SONiC/

Last login: Thu Apr 20 12:52:21 2017 from 192.168.0.31
admin@SONIC-Leaf301:~$ show version 

SONiC Software Version: SONiC-OS-3.0.1-Enterprise_Advanced
Product: Enterprise Advanced SONiC OS - Powered by Broadcom
Distribution: Debian 9.12
Kernel:  Continue reading

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Making Video Intuitive: An Explainer

On the Stream team at Cloudflare, we work to provide a great viewing experience while keeping our service affordable. That involves a lot of small tweaks to our video pipeline that can be difficult to discern by most people. And that makes the results of those tweaks less intuitive.

In this post, let's have some fun. Instead of fine-grained optimization work, we’ll do the opposite. Today we’ll make it easy to see changes between different versions of a video: we’ll start with a high-quality video and ruin it. Instead of aiming for perfection, let’s see the impact of various video coding settings. We’ll go on a deep dive on how to make some victim video look gloriously bad and learn on the way.

Everyone agrees that video on the Internet should look good, start playing fast, and never rebuffer regardless of the device they’re on. People can prefer one version of a video over another and say it looks better. Most people, though, would have difficulty elaborating on what ‘better’ means. That’s not an issue when you’re just consuming video. However, when you’re storing, encoding, and distributing it, how that video looks determines how happy your viewers are.

To determine Continue reading

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Journey Through Open Networking

Arista has a decade long history of collaboration in open networking. We have pushed the envelope, co-developed open platforms and deployed them to build the world’s largest cloud -scale networks.

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Journey Through Open Networking

Arista has a decade long history of collaboration in open networking. We have pushed the envelope, co-developed open platforms and deployed them to build the world’s largest cloud -scale networks.

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Feedback: How Networks Really Work

In early April 2020 I ran another live session in my How Networks Really Work webinar. It was supposed to be an easy one, explaining the concepts of packet forwarding and routing protocols… but of course I decided to cover most solutions we’ve encountered in the last 50 years, ranging from Virtual Circuits and Source Route Bridging to Segment Routing (which, when you think about it, is just slightly better SRB over IPv6), so I never got to routing protocols.

That webinar was supposed to be an introductory one, but of course I got pulled down all sorts of rabbit trails, and even as I was explaining interesting stuff I realized a beginner would have a really hard time following along… but then I silently gave up. Obviously I’m not meant to create introduction-to-something material.

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Reducing Your Database Hosting Costs: DigitalOcean vs. AWS vs. Azure

If you’re hosting your databases in the cloud, choosing the right cloud service provider is a significant decision to make for your long-term hosting costs. This is especially apparent in today's world where organizations are doing whatever they can to optimize and reduce their costs. Over the last few weeks, we have been inundated with requests from SMB customers looking to improve the ROI on their database hosting. In this article, we are going to compare three of the most popular cloud providers, AWS vs. Azure vs. DigitalOcean for their database hosting costs for MongoDB® database to help you decide which cloud is best for your business.

Comparing Cloud Instance Costs

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Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 6: Building modern campus networks

Subscribe to Kernel of Truth on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Cast Box and Sticher!

Click here for our previous episode.

In this episode we talk about trends, architectures and technologies for building modern Campus networks. Joining Kernel of Truth podcast hosts Brian O’Sullivan and Roopa Prabhu are two of our senior consultants, Eric Pulvino and David Marshall, who know what they’re talking about because they are in the field working with customers building these networks. They share their first hand knowledge here so be sure to take a listen!

Guest Bios

Brian O’Sullivan: Brian currently heads Product Management for Cumulus Linux. For 15 or so years he’s held software Product Management positions at Juniper Networks as well as other smaller companies. Once he saw the change that was happening in the networking space, he decided to join Cumulus Networks to be a part of the open networking innovation. When not working, Brian is a voracious reader and has held a variety of jobs, including bartending in three countries and working as an extra in a German soap opera. You can find him on Twitter at @bosullivan00.

Roopa Prabhu: Roopa Prabhu is Chief Linux Architect at Cumulus Networks. Continue reading

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Tech Bytes: Accelerating Cloud Connectivity With Megaport (Sponsored)

Megaport provides global cloud connectivity, data center interconnect, and Internet exchange peering. On today's sponsored Tech Bytes podcast, we talk about the services Megaport offers, and how the company can support your remote-work needs. Our guest is Misha Cetrone, Sr. Global Director, Cloud Solutions.

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Tech Bytes: Accelerating Cloud Connectivity With Megaport (Sponsored)

Megaport provides global cloud connectivity, data center interconnect, and Internet exchange peering. On today's sponsored Tech Bytes podcast, we talk about the services Megaport offers, and how the company can support your remote-work needs. Our guest is Misha Cetrone, Sr. Global Director, Cloud Solutions.

The post Tech Bytes: Accelerating Cloud Connectivity With Megaport (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

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Network Break 283: NVIDIA Acquires Cumulus Networks; Innovium Announces 25.6 Tbps Switch ASIC

Today's Network Break analyzes NVIDIA's purchase of Cumulus Networks, boggles at Innovium's announced 25.6Tbps ASIC, and parses why Arista will support the SONiC network OS on its switches. We also cover a new 5G lobbying organization, Zoom's Keybase acquisition, financial results, and more tech news.

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Network Break 283: NVIDIA Acquires Cumulus Networks; Innovium Announces 25.6 Tbps Switch ASIC

Today's Network Break analyzes NVIDIA's purchase of Cumulus Networks, boggles at Innovium's announced 25.6Tbps ASIC, and parses why Arista will support the SONiC network OS on its switches. We also cover a new 5G lobbying organization, Zoom's Keybase acquisition, financial results, and more tech news.

The post Network Break 283: NVIDIA Acquires Cumulus Networks; Innovium Announces 25.6 Tbps Switch ASIC appeared first on Packet Pushers.

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Daily Roundup: Ericsson Says Pandemic to Drive 5G

Ericsson anticipates the pandemic to drive 5G; McAfee, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks tracked...

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AnsibleFest 2020 is now a virtual experience

Each year, AnsibleFest is one of our favorite events because it brings together our customers, partners, community members and Red Hatters to talk about the open source innovations and best practices that are enabling the future of enterprise technology and automation.

Because the safety of our attendees is our first priority, we have decided to make AnsibleFest 2020 a virtual experience. We are excited to connect with everyone virtually, and look forward to expanding our conversation across the globe. By changing our event platform, we hope to use this opportunity to collaborate, connect, and chat with more automation fans than ever before. It is exciting to think about how many more people will be able to join in on the automation conversation.

The AnsibleFest Virtual Experience will be a free, immersive multi-day event the week of October 12th, 2020, that will deliver timely and useful customer keynotes, breakout sessions, direct access to Ansible experts, and more. You will want to sign up to stay connected and up-to-date on all things AnsibleFest on the AnsibleFest page. 

 

Call for proposals is open

We are still working through the details for the virtual event, but are very excited to announce that Continue reading

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Simplicity and Security: What Commercial Providers Offer for the Service Mesh

“Open source is free like a puppy,” said Aspen Mesh, provider of an enterprise version of the open source Linkerd, that is the only reason to turn to William Morgan, CEO of Buoyant. “This is more of a philosophical stance. However, if you want to have a commercial relationship with us, we will make sure the service mesh works for you, with services and integration and all that stuff.”  Taming Complexity Service meshes are designed for very complex architectures. They only make sense for companies Continue reading

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SONiC and White Box switches in the Enterprise DC! – Part 1

In recent years two buzz words began to arise: open-networking and white box switches. Those two words go often hand-in-hand with each other. They are often promoted by big names like Facebook or Microsoft.
From the software side, SONiC is maybe the biggest player out there as it powers Microsoft Azure’s cloud, while from the hardware side, Accton has arguably been one of the most important vendors.

The truth though, at least in my opinion, is that while this innovation is great it is not ready to be embraced by everyone yet. Only companies willing to make this “leap of faith” can take advantage of all of this, but what about us poor mortals? Are SONiC and white boxes ready to be widely deployed? Well let’s give it a look!

We will be deploying a simple VXLAN-EVPN Fabric like in the picture below and we will be checking how difficult is to configure and troubleshoot the fabric, but also and most importantly if this common Enterprise design actually works.

The Hardware

For our spines we’ll be using Edge-Core’s AS7816-64X, powered by Broadcom’s Tomahawk II chipset. This switch is a 2RU lean spine providing 64x 40/100 Gbps QSF28 ports.

For Continue reading

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Geo-Distributed Packet Broker Services with Pluribus Adaptive Monitoring Fabric

Any Tap, Any Tool, Anywhere Introduction As applications and workloads become more distributed across data centers, edge locations and public...

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McAfee, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks Track Evolving COVID-19 Cyberattacks

Three reports show cyberattacks continue to mutate along with the COVID-19 pandemic, and they...

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Ericsson Pins 5G Gains on Pandemic

The Swedish vendor raised its prediction for 5G subscriptions from 2.6 billion to 2.8 billion by...

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The Week in Internet News: Hackers Revamp Malware With COVID-19 Messages

Taking advantage: Cyberattackers are reconfiguring the Remcos trojan, which allows them full access to victims’ computers, to include COVID-19 warnings in spam and phishing emails, Security Boulevard reports. “With the economy directly affected by the pandemic, people pay more attention to emails pretending to offer solutions, loans and other types of financial support. Another effective approach is to scare people with threats of account closures or company furloughs.”

The impact of a shutdown: An ongoing phone and Internet service shutdown in the Kashmir region is hurting the ability to distribute information and supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic, Greater Kashmir says. “People in need of essentials used to reach out to us on our helplines which have turned defunct,” said the chairman of an aid agency. “We used to make phone calls to our existing 750 beneficiaries for conveying them about timings to pick up their quota of essentials. But suspension of mobile networks has disturbed this entire process.”

Cooperative Internet service: The Christian Science Monitor has a story about small rural cooperatives building their own Internet services. Cooperatives, which are private businesses owned by customers, are common in parts of the U.S. Midwest, some providing electricity and Continue reading

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Using Cisco ACI as Inventory for Ansible Tower

Managing a software-defined networking (SDN) solution in Ansible can be tricky. In most use cases, Ansible communicates with each managed node individually. However, in a SDN scenario, Ansible is most likely managing policy on a controller appliance, which ultimately may make changes to thousands of network endpoints behind it.

But what about these endpoints behind that controller abstraction? Wouldn't it be best if Ansible Tower had visibility to every node, in addition to the controller? Not to run playbooks directly against those nodes, but for the following reasons:

• Many organizations need to perform capacity planning against current and projected license usage. Ansible Tower provides license usage data, but it's not accurate if Ansible Tower only knows about the SDN controller(s).
• Networking teams are still asked for physical node information by other IT areas, even if the focus is on a software-defined fabric. What if the best system to get that data from is Ansible Tower? You may not want a CMDB probe (for example) to communicate directly with the SDN controller, or Ansible Tower may already be home to similar data about other systems.

 

Inventory plugin for Cisco ACI

I wrote an Ansible inventory plugin that solves these issues Continue reading