High availability is the nirvana of network engineers. When everything is humming, monitoring screens are green, and no notifications are in their inbox, network managers can spend time dreaming about how big their Christmas bonuses might be this year. But an unforeseen problem can interrupt their dreams and pop their bubbles at any given moment. […]
Internet technology continues to change at a rapid pace, but the fundamentals are the same. Most networks are still using TCP/IP. Networks are designed and analyzed using protocol stacks. And data packet switching is still the lifeblood of the network. In this post, we take a look at some fundamental concepts in networking that the […]
What is SPF? Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a protocol designed to help combat forged email. It allows the owner of a domain to specify which hosts are authorized to send email from that domain. Full details can be found in RFC 7208. How does SPF work? Domain owners publish SPF records in the Domain […]
Your network is everything. At least it seems that way. You can offer the most wonderful services in the world, but if your customer can’t access them, you’re dead in the water. Let’s face it. Most businesses suffer when the internet goes down, or when critical network services are not available. You’ve probably experienced the […]
Despite whatever bad news you read in this article, we encourage you to remain positive. It’s just human nature to have a curious interest in the calamities of others. So if that’s what gives you your kicks, feel free to enjoy our 2nd annual dispatch on some of the most interesting outages of the past […]
If you’ve ever made an in-person visit to your well-protected server or other device in a colocation facility or data center, then you know firsthand about security. The hand scanners, the thumbprint readers, the man-traps, the security guards, the metal cages — all the security features that make data centers feel like a secure prison. […]
We end the year with a major CenturyLink outage that started early Thursday morning for many and spread across the country, according to reports on Reddit, GeekWire and Newsweek affecting Internet, 911 services and other internet-dependent services like waves and VoIP. The outage also affected other providers who lease long haul connectivity from them, such […]
They say what you don’t know can’t hurt you — but that’s not really true. One example is a zero-day exploit. This is a network vulnerability that hasn’t been identified yet, at least not by the people who need to fix it. These IT professionals have zero days to fix the problem because they don’t […]
We all know how a computer user interface (UI) works — at least in general terms. Humans interact with digital machines using input devices, and we watch everything real-time on computer monitors. When we think of user input, we usually think of Input devices like a mouse, keyboard, touchscreen, trackball, or pointing stick. But we […]
Your plaintext internet traffic is subject to attack. You already knew this. And it probably won’t surprise you to learn that your encrypted internet traffic is also vulnerable. It’s an unfortunate situation. Carl Herberger, Radware’s VP for Security Solutions, says that the prospect of SSL-based attacks “makes a folly of our existing security infrastructure”. The […]