The Fat Pipe - All Packet Pushers Pods

The following is a transcript of the audio recording you can listen to in the player above.

Welcome to Briefings In Brief, an audio digest of IT news and information from the Packet Pushers, including vendor briefings, industry research, and commentary. I’m Ethan Banks, it’s December 6, 2018, and cloud visibility is on my mind.

Application Architecture Complexity

Imagine a complex application. There are multiple parts to it. A web farm behind a load balancer on the front end. A firewall or two. Probably some database calls. And then the stuff we tend to forget about like authentication and domain name services. Okay, you’re with me so far.

Now let’s make this more complex by splitting the web app into elastic microservices living in the public cloud. At least, part of the app lives in the public cloud, because an AWS bill shows up every month. Part of the app also lives on-premises. You think. Which is the problem. It’s actually getting hard to tell what is going on with this app, as the developers aren’t always in lock step with the operations team about what they’ve deployed where, and the architecture team just points you to a reference document…that is full of lies.

You shake your head that no one seems to know what’s going on. Business as usual. And then on a fateful day, the help desk tickets start piling up. The app performance has gone down the toilet, much like your hopes for a lunch outside the office, and no one seems to know why. Must be the network. Or the cloud. Or that Kubernetes thing. Or something.

Data Visualization With Kentik

What’s an infrastructure engineer to do? You need visibility. A few weeks ago, I had a briefing with Kentik. Their mission in life is to collect infrastructure data and help you gain meaningful insights from it. I’m not talking about stacks of RRD graphs that look cool while communicating almost nothing. Rather, Kentik shows how data relates to other data in an intuitive way that helps you make decisions or solve problems.

Let me give you an example. One of their core use cases has been helping service providers and Internet exchange points understand how data is flowing through their network. Who sent them this data? Where is this data going next? Oh, AS 12345 is sending us data for AS 54321, but it’s costing us a ton of money because it’s traversing our link to AS 31416. Maybe we should create a peering relationship with AS 54321 directly and stop running up our bill to AS 31416.

That’s just one example. In the latest demo I’ve seen, Kentik has applied their visualization and analysis to cloud traffic, helping IT teams understand the flows that are happening between services that make up an application.

Kentik Cloud Visibility

Kentik works by ingesting data. Massive amounts of netflow and other sorts of records from your network and endpoints. For cloud visibility use cases, Kentik is able to absorb AWS & GCP flow logs, with Azure support coming soon. Kubernetes for container orchestration and Istio for service mesh control are also data providers to Kentik, among many other data providers. These are added to the host level instrumentation and network device data Kentik has been able to gather since it came on the scene a few years back.

In the briefing I attended, Crystal Li, Senior Product Marketing Manager with Kentik pointed out, “We consume the tag and label information which contains the information about your infrastructure, your service mapping, and your user information.”

Which is quite granular indeed. When Kentik has ingested & analyzed the information, results, alarms and actions can be handed off to third party providers as complex as ServiceNow or PagerDuty, and as simple as JSON you bring into a tool of your choosing.

Let’s bring this back to our opening hypothetical situ…

The following is a transcript of the audio recording you can listen to in the player above.

Welcome to Briefings In Brief, an audio digest of IT news and information from the Packet Pushers, including vendor briefings, industry research, and commentary. I’m Ethan Banks, it’s December 6, 2018, and cloud visibility is on my mind.

Application Architecture Complexity

Imagine a complex application. There are multiple parts to it. A web farm behind a load balancer on the front end. A firewall or two. Probably some database calls. And then the stuff we tend to forget about like authentication and domain name services. Okay, you’re with me so far.

Now let’s make this more complex by splitting the web app into elastic microservices living in the public cloud. At least, part of the app lives in the public cloud, because an AWS bill shows up every month. Part of the app also lives on-premises. You think. Which is the problem. It’s actually getting hard to tell what is going on with this app, as the developers aren’t always in lock step with the operations team about what they’ve deployed where, and the architecture team just points you to a reference document…that is full of lies.

You shake your head that no one seems to know what’s going on. Business as usual. And then on a fateful day, the help desk tickets start piling up. The app performance has gone down the toilet, much like your hopes for a lunch outside the office, and no one seems to know why. Must be the network. Or the cloud. Or that Kubernetes thing. Or something.

Data Visualization With Kentik

What’s an infrastructure engineer to do? You need visibility. A few weeks ago, I had a briefing with Kentik. Their mission in life is to collect infrastructure data and help you gain meaningful insights from it. I’m not talking about stacks of RRD graphs that look cool while communicating almost nothing. Rather, Kentik shows how data relates to other data in an intuitive way that helps you make decisions or solve problems.

Let me give you an example. One of their core use cases has been helping service providers and Internet exchange points understand how data is flowing through their network. Who sent them this data? Where is this data going next? Oh, AS 12345 is sending us data for AS 54321, but it’s costing us a ton of money because it’s traversing our link to AS 31416. Maybe we should create a peering relationship with AS 54321 directly and stop running up our bill to AS 31416.

That’s just one example. In the latest demo I’ve seen, Kentik has applied their visualization and analysis to cloud traffic, helping IT teams understand the flows that are happening between services that make up an application.

Kentik Cloud Visibility

Kentik works by ingesting data. Massive amounts of netflow and other sorts of records from your network and endpoints. For cloud visibility use cases, Kentik is able to absorb AWS & GCP flow logs, with Azure support coming soon. Kubernetes for container orchestration and Istio for service mesh control are also data providers to Kentik, among many other data providers. These are added to the host level instrumentation and network device data Kentik has been able to gather since it came on the scene a few years back.

In the briefing I attended, Crystal Li, Senior Product Marketing Manager with Kentik pointed out, “We consume the tag and label information which contains the information about your infrastructure, your service mapping, and your user information.”

Which is quite granular indeed. When Kentik has ingested & analyzed the information, results, alarms and actions can be handed off to third party providers as complex as ServiceNow or PagerDuty, and as simple as JSON you bring into a tool of your choosing.

Let’s bring this back to our opening hypothetical situ…

On today's Priority Queue we dive into ArcOS®, a new network OS designed for whitebox routing and switching from our sponsor Arrcus. We examine how the OS was designed, how it differentiates itself from competitors, and explore key use cases.

Whitebox network hardware paired with disaggregation has created a market for network operating systems.

One of the latest entrants to that market is Arrcus, which launched in 2018 with guns blazing, claiming that its ArcOS® NOS is so strong it should be mentioned in the same breath as operating systems from Cisco, Juniper, and Arista.

Today, Arrcus has sponsored the podcast, and we’re going to have a discussion about ArcOS®. Why another NOS? What’s special about ArcOS®? What use cases is it best suited for?

Joining us from Arrcus are Keyur Patel, CTO and Murali Gandluru, VP of Product Management.

We discuss how ArcOS® was designed from first principles to support routing and switching, and is built around a microservices, scale-out architecture.

We also examine how it meets emerging demands for 5G and distributed data center and edge architectures; the different chipsets it can run on; how it differentiates itself from network OSs from Cisco, Arista, and others; and look at key use cases.

Show Links:

ArcOS® Website – Arrcus

Arrcus Blog

Arrcus Videos

Arrcus News

Arrcus Whitepapers (ArcOS Security, ArcOS DPAL)

ArcOS® At-a-Glance (PDF)

Arrcus and Broadcom: Partnering to power smart network infrastructure (Webinar)

Arrcus on LinkedIn

Arrcus on Twitter

Welcome to Briefings In Brief, an audio digest of IT news and information from the Packet Pushers, including vendor briefings, industry research, and commentary.

Ethan Banks and Drew Conry-Murray discuss the new Tofino 2 ASIC from Barefoot Networks. This ASIC boasts 12.8Tbps total throughput, which puts it on par with silicon from providers such as Broadcom and Innovium.

Barefoot’s compelling differentiator is that Tofino offers a fully programmable packet-processing pipeline. Using the open-source P4 language, Tofino customers can customize how the ASIC processes packets, add or remove features, and create their own programs to run on the switch.

Small Is Beautiful

The Tofino 2 is made with the 7nm process, giving it more transistors in the same die area and greater power efficiency compared to Tofino 1, which uses the 16nm process. Barefoot says the new chip offers a 50% improvement in packets per second per watt.

Port options include 32X400GbE, 128x100GE, or 256×10/25/50GE on a single chip.

Barefoot Tofino is available through ODMs. Version 1 of the ASIC is also available from Cisco (the Nexus 34180YC) and Arista (the 7170).

Barefoot says the Tofino 2 will sample to customers in the first half of 2019.

Learn More

Tofino 2 – Barefoot Networks

BiB 017: Barefoot Networks Introduces Deep Insight – Packet Pushers

Barefoot Releases P4 Studio To Streamline Tofino ASIC Programming – Packet Pushers

Barefoot Networks At Network Field Day (videos and blogs) – Tech Field Day

Increase Flexibility with Cisco’s Programmable Cloud Infrastructure – Cisco

Welcome to Briefings In Brief, an audio digest of IT news and information from the Packet Pushers, including vendor briefings, industry research, and commentary.

Ethan Banks and Drew Conry-Murray discuss the new Tofino 2 ASIC from Barefoot Networks. This ASIC boasts 12.8Tbps total throughput, which puts it on par with silicon from providers such as Broadcom and Innovium.

Barefoot’s compelling differentiator is that Tofino offers a fully programmable packet-processing pipeline. Using the open-source P4 language, Tofino customers can customize how the ASIC processes packets, add or remove features, and create their own programs to run on the switch.

Small Is Beautiful

The Tofino 2 is made with the 7nm process, giving it more transistors in the same die area and greater power efficiency compared to Tofino 1, which uses the 16nm process. Barefoot says the new chip offers a 50% improvement in packets per second per watt.

Port options include 32X400GbE, 128x100GE, or 256×10/25/50GE on a single chip.

Barefoot Tofino is available through ODMs. Version 1 of the ASIC is also available from Cisco (the Nexus 34180YC) and Arista (the 7170).

Barefoot says the Tofino 2 will sample to customers in the first half of 2019.

Learn More

Tofino 2 – Barefoot Networks

BiB 017: Barefoot Networks Introduces Deep Insight – Packet Pushers

Barefoot Releases P4 Studio To Streamline Tofino ASIC Programming – Packet Pushers

Barefoot Networks At Network Field Day (videos and blogs) – Tech Field Day

Increase Flexibility with Cisco’s Programmable Cloud Infrastructure – Cisco

Tech Bytes are short, sponsored conversations on the latest technologies and products. Today’s episode is sponsored by VIAVI.

Our guest is Charles Thompson, Sr. Director of Product Line Management at VIAVI. We talk about performance management and the essential role that end user experience metrics play in turning piles of data into actionable insights.

We also discuss how VIAVI gathers end user performance metrics through synthetic transactions, and how it ties those metrics into problem isolation to help troubleshoot and resolve problems faster.

To learn more about VIVAI, check out viavisolutions.com/packetpushers to access a 14 day free trial of its ObserverLIVE platform, and receive a complementary copy of VIAVI’s enterprise protocol poster based on the OSI model.

Show Links:

The Users’ Experience is Always Right – VIAVI

IT teams are drowning in data – throw them a lifetime – Network World

Big Data Vs. Big Insight – Packet Pushers Human Infrastructure

VIAVI on Twitter

Tech Bytes are short, sponsored conversations on the latest technologies and products. Today’s episode is sponsored by VIAVI.

Our guest is Charles Thompson, Sr. Director of Product Line Management at VIAVI. We talk about performance management and the essential role that end user experience metrics play in turning piles of data into actionable insights.

We also discuss how VIAVI gathers end user performance metrics through synthetic transactions, and how it ties those metrics into problem isolation to help troubleshoot and resolve problems faster.

To learn more about VIVAI, check out viavisolutions.com/packetpushers to access a 14 day free trial of its ObserverLIVE platform, and receive a complementary copy of VIAVI’s enterprise protocol poster based on the OSI model.

Show Links:

The Users’ Experience is Always Right – VIAVI

IT teams are drowning in data – throw them a lifetime – Network World

Big Data Vs. Big Insight – Packet Pushers Human Infrastructure

VIAVI on Twitter

Today's Network Break analyzes the impact of AWS announcements including Outposts and Transit Gateway, Juniper's HTBASE acquisition, VMware's Q3 financial results, and more of what's happening in IT.

The following is a transcript of the audio you can listen to in the player above.

Welcome to Briefings In Brief, an audio digest of IT news and information from the Packet Pushers, including vendor briefings, industry research, and commentary.

I’m Ethan Banks, it’s December 1, 2018, and here’s what’s on my mind.

I’ve had a few briefings with Riverbed in the last month or two. You can watch some of those on YouTube by searching for Riverbed SD-WAN and Tech Field Day. You probably know Riverbed as that WAN optimization company that bought CACE Technologies a few years back bringing WireShark under Riverbed’s care.

SD-WAN Is Crucial To Riverbed

The most critical thing happening at Riverbed these days is SD-WAN. Here’s why. The SD-WAN market is exploding with products. Consolidation is beginning to happen as major players Cisco and VMware have made SD-WAN acquisitions and begun preaching about the glory of SD-WAN to their customers…and that’s a lot of customers.

Many of those WAN customers might well be Riverbed customers, too–Riverbed’s install base of WAN optimization appliances is huge. But the need for WAN optimization, by itself, isn’t a strong enough play anymore. People might or might not need WAN op, but as applications increasingly transition to encrypted HTTP, WAN op isn’t providing the gain it once did. That’s not to say it doesn’t matter, but organizations have to evaluate WAN optimization’s usefulness to them based on their individual application mix.

So when Cisco comes knocking on my door telling me I can install IOSXE-SDWAN on my ISR routers and get the Viptela product, that’s pretty interesting. Sure, there’s no WAN optimization there, but maybe I make the switch and have one less supplier to deal with. Why keep Riverbed around?

Then again, maybe I don’t make the switch. Riverbed has been a little slow with their SD-WAN strategy, but it’s far from too late. SD-WAN adoption in the enterprises where Riverbed has been making their money for so many years has been slow, too. And I think that’s going to work out well for Riverbed. Because now, I think their SD-WAN story has shaped up reasonably. This could keep Riverbed customers in the fold.

Two New Riverbed SD-WAN Products

If I’m interested in SD-WAN and I am running Riverbed SteelHeads, I now have an in-place upgrade option, plus some lower cost device options for sites where maybe I hadn’t deployed SteelHeads before. There are 2 appliances Riverbed has announced, adding to the SteelConnect products they launched a couple of years ago.

SteelHead SD

The first new appliance is the SteelHead SD. Riverbed bills SteelHead SD as a full-featured SD-WAN product, with VPN, cloud connectivity, OSPF and BGP routing, active/active high availability pairs managed as a single unit, path steering, and a business intent driven policy engine, as well as retaining the WAN optimization capabilities that Riverbed customers are likely familiar with.

Again, just because WAN optimization isn’t as important as it once was doesn’t mean it’s no longer important at all. For example, Silver Peak claims that a pretty large percentage of their SD-WAN customers will license Boost, their WAN optimization module, for some or all of their SD-WAN fabrics. I’m sure that will be true with Riverbed SD-WAN customers as well.

SteelHead SD is available as a software upgrade for many existing Riverbed appliances, so a lot of folks can get these features with a minimum of operational disturbance. And in fact, Riverbed has that exact scenario in mind with SteelHead SD. They are aiming this product at brownfield deployments where the routing requirements might be complex and the WAN circuits might be a hybrid of private MPLS and public Internet. Riverbed knows from their work with customers that bolting SD-WAN on…