Network code and automation are taking over a lot of enterprise networking. While these concepts are starting to fundamentally change networking, their shortcomings are often underreported. Pete Welcher does a great job reviewing the current issues surrounding these important concepts.
API
The Logic Of Tables with Broadcom SDKLT
Broadcom announced their new SDKLT, a logical table-based API for programming Tomahawk switches. But why is this new idea so important? Tom Hollingsworth looks at the impact of both the new data structures and open source release and why it matters to network programmers.
The CLI is Dead – The On-Premise IT Roundtable
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:28 — 8.8MB)
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The roundtable discusses the premise that the CLI is dead, or at least terminally ill. They look at why this is the prevailing narrative in networking and the greater IT landscape. Is the death of the CLI a forgone conclusion, or merely a framing device for moving to better processes in IT?
Recognizing Disruption and the Death of the Storage Admin
In this piece, Gabriel Chapman makes an interesting case for the demise of the storage admin. He compares the state of storage to the smartphone pre-iPhone. The market is poised for someone make storage radically simpler, from providing a service that has to be laboriously constructed, to something that’s more of a platform to be built on with accessible APIs.
Automation Empowered Backups with Rubrik
I longingly remember being a Systems Administrator configuring all my infrastructure through a variety of consoles. Those days are far behind me now since I spend much of my time helping customers navigate the new cloud world where infrastructure is managed through automation. It can be difficult to orchestrate pieces of the infrastructure into your server provisioning lifecycle but some vendors are embracing the new provisioning methods. Rubrik is one infrastructure company that has built a platform to thrive in this new automated world.
Is Rubrik Really a Cloud Solution???
Rubrik calls themselves the “Cloud Data Management Company”. This provoked Eric Shanks to ask the question, “What are the characteristics of a cloud product?” This is a very difficult question to answer and leaves too much room for ambiguity. This lack of formal definition creates the opportunity for almost any product vendor to call their product “Cloud Ready.” In this article, Eric sets out some definitions to see if Rubrik truly is a cloud solution.
NETCONF, RESTCONF on IOS XE
Jason Edelman comments on his blog: There is a lot of buzz around network APIs such as NETCONF and RESTCONF. Here we’ll take a quick a look at these APIs on Cisco IOS XE. On the surface, it seems Cisco IOS XE is the first network device platform that supports NETCONF and RESTCONF both driven […]
Leveraging Cisco NX-API with Ansible to Make Your Life Easier
Jason Edelman comments on his blog: I had a conversation recently with someone who has more of a sysadmin background. We started talking about the intersection of DevOps and networking and while his environment wasn’t large, there was one pain point he talked about — he doesn’t have access to the network switches to […]
The API Obsession
Teren Bryson of packetqueue.net comments: With all of the recent talk in the networking community about software defined this or that, it can be hard to separate the marketing and spin from the substantial and substantive. Beyond that, however, it can be even harder to pull out the truly useful ideas from among those that […]
We Don’t Need Cloud Standards (Yet)
Championing “open” and calling for standards has become the first stalling action by late-movers in technology spaces. They see opportunity passing by and try to hold back progress and FUD the market by yelling about proprietary solutions, vendor lock-in, and a lack of standards. Many well-intentioned IT folks follow along: After all, who doesn’t want openness, standardization, and interoperability?