This is a great writeup from Max Mortillaro about moving from Gmail to ProtonMail, an end-to-end encrypted email service. It’s an interesting evaluation of the service, but also of switching primary email addresses in 2017. At first, I thought that would be the least interesting part of the piece. As I thought more about it, this is really the whole point of the article.
Scale Computing works within the HCI space, but instead of just refining how converged their solution is, they’re also rethinking the infrastructure as a whole. They designed their solution from the ground up to be an implementation of virtualization how you would want it to be, not just an extension of the current status quo.
Motherboard shares a great history of the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association slot. Now a glorious piece of obsolesce, the standard was inspired by what USB would become, a way to easily extend a computers capabilities without having to crack open the machine.
What is data control? I thought it seemed like a pretty straight forward idea, but reading this piece by Justin Warren changed the way I conceived of it. I assumed that control meant that I could use my data however I wanted. But that is less about control and more about access and movement of data. Control subsumes these functions, but it also includes the ability to restrict that data.
Among the enterprise-focused SD-WAN companies, a lot of solutions rely on deep packet inspection. It makes a lot of sense, it allows you to see specifically what application traffic is coming through the network, and allows you to do useful analysis. But deep packet inspection does have some performance and security considerations to take into account, and depending on compliance, might not be a viable option. That’s why I was interested to hear about Silver Peak’s SD-WAN solution. It’s an enterprise focused solution, but because of their WAN optimization heritage, doesn’t reply on DPI.
Gestalt IT is here with your bi-weekly slate of all the latest and greatest in networking news. In this edition:
– Cumulus Networks and the conundrum of hardware
– Juniper Networks defines the self-driving network
– DDoS detection solutions
– And automating in a sea of vendors
All this plus a review of the best novelty MacBook Pro Touch Bar apps!
Cumulus Networks is switching up their software only model with Cumulus Express. This is the first time the company is selling hardware pre-loaded with their software. It’s an interesting approach. The company has taken pains to show that they are not trying to compete with their own customers. Drew Conry-Murray spoke with their CEO, Josh Leslie, said that they are not trying to get into the hardware business, and that their existing relationships with equipment makers are strong.
Riverbed is working in the growing field of SD-WAN. The SD-WAN space seems like it’s ready to explode in 2017. I’m on record as predicting we’ll see the space’s first big IPO this year. Riverbed is growing within the space, having acquired another SD-WAN company, Ocedo, a little over a year ago. The company now has over 300 customers and is currently providing about 1,600 free trials of their software. They’ve been around in the WAN optimization market for a while, and are now starting to combine the two solutions in unified devices.
At Networking Field Day, Juniper Networks gave details and a technical deep dive into their Junos operating system for their routers. They specifically went into great detail about some of the automation now available. It’s genuinely impressive. But I really enjoyed how the presentation started.
Kentik takes an interesting approach to monitoring. They know a lot of people aren’t thrilled with tools taking in NetFlow data, as it doesn’t really work great with the rest of the networking toolset. The company didn’t want to throw NetFlow out with the bathwater. Instead, they try to throw a broad a net as possible to gather as many metrics on network performance as possible.
