Early Stages of Product Decline

One of the worst things that can happen to anyone selecting equipment for a new network infrastructure is to receive the End-of-Life notice a week after the gear has been deployed in a production network… or maybe it’s even worse to be stuck with a neglected piece of technology full of bugs that the vendor never fixes because they’re chasing other shinier squirrels.

If you’re careful and watch what the vendors are doing, you might be able to save the day and identify the early phases of product decline. Here they are (as seen from the outside) in approximate order:

End of promotion opportunities. In most corporations aggressive hunters fare better than meticulous farmers, and product development is no different. As a friend of mine working for a large corporation once said “The culture here rewards launches instead of steady improvements. Like in academia, publishing a paper is valued more than running ISS”.

Read more ...
Thanks to Ivan Pepelnjak (see source)

Vietnam’s biggest mobile company to roll out 5G services

Viettel will bypass Huawei and use technology it has developed itself
Thanks to (see source)

Windows Server vulnerability disclosed by NSA; Don’t wait to patch

Microsoft’s monthly Patch Tuesday included a hefty haul of fixes: 49 total, and one of them is more than just critical. For enterprises running Windows Server 2016 and Server 2019, it's vital you implement the patch ASAP.

The National Security Agency (NSA) disclosed the Windows vulnerability on Tuesday, the same day the fix was issued. That means the NSA found the flaw likely months ago but held off on public notification until Microsoft could come up with a fix. It would be irresponsible for the NSA, or anyone else, to announce a vulnerability and not give the software maker time to patch it.

The vulnerability was spotted in "crypt32.dll," a Windows module that has been in both desktop and server versions since NT 4.0 more than 20 years ago. Microsoft describes the library as handling certificate and cryptographic messaging functions in the CryptoAPI.

To read this article in full, please click here

Thanks to Andy Patrizio (see source)

Windows Server vulnerability disclosed by NSA; Don’t wait to patch

Microsoft’s monthly Patch Tuesday included a hefty haul of fixes: 49 total, and one of them is more than just critical. For enterprises running Windows Server 2016 and Server 2019, it's vital you implement the patch ASAP.

The National Security Agency (NSA) disclosed the Windows vulnerability on Tuesday, the same day the fix was issued. That means the NSA found the flaw likely months ago but held off on public notification until Microsoft could come up with a fix. It would be irresponsible for the NSA, or anyone else, to announce a vulnerability and not give the software maker time to patch it.

The vulnerability was spotted in "crypt32.dll," a Windows module that has been in both desktop and server versions since NT 4.0 more than 20 years ago. Microsoft describes the library as handling certificate and cryptographic messaging functions in the CryptoAPI.

To read this article in full, please click here

Thanks to Andy Patrizio (see source)

Samsung names new smartphone chief

South Korean electronics group faces rising competition from rivals like Huawei 
Thanks to (see source)

MacOS Catalina = Windows Vista

Remember the Windows version that was so security-focused that it broke everything, and needed a gazillion changes/updates/upgrades to get back to where you had a working computer? I think it was Vista, but maybe my memory is failing me. Anyway, Apple got its Vista moment with macOS Catalina.

I was stupid enough to upgrade just before New Year, and I’m still struggling with aftereffects and skeletons falling out of every cupboard I look at. I appreciate Apple trying to make their operating system ever more secure, but breaking stuff every time I upgrade it is borderline ridiculous.

Read more ...
Thanks to Ivan Pepelnjak (see source)

How to secure the 5G network of the future

Telecom operators believe the debate over Chinese company ‘has an expiration date’
Thanks to (see source)

Worth Reading: Seven Deadly Sins of Predicting the Future of AI

The next time the sales system engineer working for your beloved $vendor drops by with a glitzy unicorn-based slide deck full of AI/ML goodies, read this article to get a slightly better understanding of where we are... from the perspective of someone who has actual experience doing that stuff.

Thanks to Ivan Pepelnjak (see source)

Shares in Vodafone’s India venture plunge after court ruling

Vodafone Idea hit after Supreme Court upholds decision on repayment of retrospective spectrum and licence fees
Thanks to (see source)

Video: Fallacies of Distributed Computing

What better way to start How Networks Really Work webinar than with fallacies of distributed computing… and that’s exactly what I did in late August 2019.

You need Free ipSpace.net Subscription to watch the video, and the Standard ipSpace.net Subscription to register for upcoming live sessions.

Watch the video

Thanks to Ivan Pepelnjak (see source)

How to back up Kubernetes and Docker

Yes, your container infrastructure needs some type of backup.  Kubernetes and Docker will not magically build themselves after a disaster. As discussed in a separate article, you don’t need to back up the running state of each container, but you will need to back up the configuration used to run and manage your containers.

Here’s a quick reminder of what you’ll need to back up.

[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]

Configuration and desired-state information

• The Dockerfiles used to build your images and all versions of those files
• The images created from the Dockerfile and used to run each container
• Kubernetes etcd & other - K8s databases that info on cluster state
• Deployments - YAML files describing each deployment

Persistent data created or changed by containers

• Persistent volumes
• Databases

Dockerfiles

Docker containers are run from images, and images are built from Dockerfiles. A proper Docker configuration would first use some kind of repository such as GitHub as a version-control system for all Dockerfiles. Do not create ad hoc containers using ad hoc images built from ad hoc Dockerfiles. All Dockerfiles should be stored in a repository that allows you to pull historical versions of that Dockerfile should there be a problem with the current build. 

To read this article in full, please click here

Thanks to W. Curtis Preston (see source)

India mobile storm blows in Reliance Jio’s favour

Remaining rivals of Mukesh Ambani’s group face struggle to survive after $13bn levy
Thanks to (see source)

Locking and unlocking accounts on Linux systems

If you are administering a Linux system, there will likely be times that you need to lock an account. Maybe someone is changing positions and their continued need for the account is under question; maybe there’s reason to believe that access to the account has been compromised. In any event, knowing how to lock an account and how to unlock it should it be needed again is something you need to be able to do.

One important thing to keep in mind is that there are multiple ways to lock an account, and they don't all have the same effect. If the account user is accessing an account using public/private keys instead of a password, some commands you might use to block access to an account will not be effective.

To read this article in full, please click here

Thanks to Sandra Henry-Stocker (see source)