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Xantaro Xpert Blog - by Xperts for Experts
Find out more about the latest technologies, services and innovations relating to network infrastructures. Our experts present new approaches, explain the background and take a critical look at topical areas.
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Xpert-Team 13. September 2024
How SASE is changing the future of IT architecture
Corporate networks have evolved rapidly over the last few decades. In view of increasing cloud integration, the classic "hub-and-spoke" network model has become obsolete - at the cost of escalating complexity and all the associated problems. With SASE, a new model is now on the market that no…
Xpert-Team 12. September 2024
Unlocking IT Security with Next Gen Firewalls
In the dynamic world of IT security, the evolution from traditional firewall solutions to Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) marks a significant leap forward in protecting digital assets. As cyber threats grow in sophistication, the need for more advanced security measures becomes not just a…
Xpert-Team 11. September 2024
10 features that a SASE solution should offer
The concept of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) has established itself as a central technology that makes modern corporate networks more secure and efficient. SASE combines network and security functions in an integrated architecture that is specifically designed to meet the challenges of…
Xpert-Team 09. September 2024
Network Segmentation for Enhanced Security
In the digital age, cybersecurity has become a cornerstone of business operations. With cyber threats evolving at an unprecedented rate, companies are constantly searching for innovative methods to protect their sensitive data and infrastructure. One such method that has gained prominence is…
Xpert-Team 06. September 2024
SOC, SIEM, XDR and more
IT security is a crucial component of modern corporate strategies. In view of the increasing number and complexity of cyber attacks, companies must be well equipped to protect their systems and data. In this context, certain concepts and technologies play a central role. What is behind the…
Xpert-Team 19. August 2024
Tailor-made 5G connectivity: Customised at its core
5G integrates many modern technologies and concepts that are highly relevant for industrial users, including elements of network virtualisation. Network slicing also falls into this area. This involves splitting a physical network into various virtual networks, with interesting effects.
Xpert-Team 16. July 2024
Navigating the Choice Between Private and Public Network
After the 2019 frequency auction, it took a while for the roll-out of 5G networks to get rolling. Reasonable coverage has now been achieved. So can public networks take over connectivity in companies?
Xpert-Team 25. June 2024
5G unleashes advantages in network management
The new 5G mobile communications standard is expressly designed for the requirements of industry. Numerous features have either been incorporated or are scheduled for future releases, addressing the requirements of various industries. These include energy-saving capabilities, positioning…
Xpert-Team 13. March 2024
Convergence of IT and OT: the dimensions of cyber security in the IIoT
In the course of the rapid progress of digitalisation, the significance of topics such as information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) is escalating in the realm of cybersecurity. The convergence of IT and OT, particularly in the context of Industry 4.0, introduces an escalating risk…
Xpert-Team 15. February 2024
Successful proof of concept for 5G in shipbuilding
Employing wireless data communication within the setting of metal structures poses a significant challenge. Thus, what environment could be more demanding than a shipbuilding yard, complete with the ships under construction? Orchestrated and executed by specialists, 5G demonstrates remarkable…
Xpert-Team 29. January 2024
5G Release 16 fulfils industry promise
From the outset, the focus of development for the new 5G mobile radio standard was not on telephony, but on data transmission for professional users. However, only part of the announced advantages have been implemented so far. With Release 16 (5G R16), which is now slowly entering the market, the…
Xpert-Team 15. January 2024
5G and IIoT - key factors to becoming a digital company
The 5G mobile communications standard has the potential to fundamentally change companies. Particularly in the context of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), 5G is becoming a key technology for companies that want to drive their digital transformation forward. In this text, we look at the…
Xpert-Team 08. January 2024
Network Landscape of 2024: Top 5 Tech Trends Transforming the Industry
Throughout 2023, we witnessed remarkable advancements across various key technologies, spanning autonomous driving, automation, robotics, augmented reality, and virtual reality integrated into intelligent production processes. The swift evolution of artificial intelligence across a wide array of…
Xpert-Team 11. December 2023
5G and AI - an inseparable pair for Industry 4.0
The integration of the 5G mobile communications standard has revolutionised the potential uses of modern technologies for companies. The use of 5G networks is particularly interesting when combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Sebastian Graf 14. September 2023
SDN – Part 3: Software Defined Networking in Wide Area Networks
BGP-LS is a promising approach for SDN in Wide Area Networks (WAN). This video gives an overview on how it works and what advantages service providers may benefit from.
Tobias Heister 04. August 2022
BGP Full Table Processing: Juniper CP/DP Convergence Testing
When qualifying new HW platforms or software releases in our XT³Lab facilities we typically go through a very long list of individual test steps for the device under test (DUT). Just recently we performed qualifications for the PTX10001-36MR which included dozens of individual tests and test…
Marcel F 17. March 2022
Automation in the Cloud with Terraform
In this post, we explain the background and advantages of automating deployments in public cloud environments and explain automated provisioning using Terraform.
Nils Kammann 04. March 2022
Next-Generation Firewall in the Public-Cloud
3rd-party tools in Amazon AWS With the ever-growing need for digital resources, in recent years an increasing number of companies have decided to outsource their IT to a public cloud. As a consequence, the security requirements for protecting your property against external attacks have also…
Tobias Heister 09. February 2022
Juniper Networks PTX10001 tested as a Peering / Edge Router
Juniper Networks PTX Series Routers were previously designed to be used as MPLS-P devices in large tier 1 networks. With the new generation, the PTX series now includes devices that can be appealing for different use cases and utilization in smaller networks as well. The new PTX systems now run…
Sahil Anand 28. April 2021
Support optimisation through simplified network management and automated data collection
Surely you know the problem: Your network is running perfectly, but suddenly there is a breakdown. To create the support ticket with your service partner, you need information such as the maintenance contract number of the component, its serial number, but also manufacturer-specific system…
Tobias Heister 28. February 2021
From Ethernet Layer 2 to an EVPN-VXLAN Overlay Fabric Architecture with pre-tested standards
In the past, network designs were typically built around large Ethernet Layer 2 domains spanning across the whole data centre, whilst external connectivity was provided by Layer 3 routers, firewalls, load balancers etc. attached to the Layer 2 domains. These designs, however, were deployed in a…
Sebastian Graf 30. January 2021
Advantages of software update automation in high-end networks
Software in today’s high-end networks Modern-day high-end networks are based on two key elements: specialised hardware for packet forwarding on the data plane and specialised software on the control plane.
Oliver Pinter 15. December 2020
Stability and availability through testing and qualification of hardware and software in the modern data center network
For the smooth operation of business and production processes a stable data center as the linchpin in a corporate network is essential. In principle, an existing infrastructure can of course be operated reliably for a certain period of time according to the motto “never touch a running system”. But…
Manuel te Laak 01. December 2020
Receiving and evaluating multi-vendor network telemetry data with XNTI
Network Management & Performance Monitoring To ensure smooth running, network operators need extensive information and, particularly, performance data relating to their network infrastructure and utilisation. This can be quite a challenge, as it is hard to find one tool that meets all of those…
Tobias Heister 15. October 2020
NAT64 and DNS64 with A10 Networks Thunder CGN
The arrival of the RIPE NCC last phase of the IPv4 address run out in November 2019 (https://www.ripe.net/manage-ips-and-asns/ipv4/ipv4-run-out), makes network deployments using only IPv6 addresses more necessary and common. When deploying IPv6 only networks or network segments, we quickly find out…
Stephan Linnerz 26. June 2019
XFAST: Fully Automated Software Testing
Network operators must continuously improve their infrastructure: On the one hand, rapid technological development requires the implementation of ever new services and applications with an increasing complexity of the functions to be mapped. On the other hand, the systems must be regularly updated…
Stephan Linnerz 03. April 2019
Juniper Networks Contrail SD-WAN
Within our SD-WAN tech blog, we have generally introduced the benefits of the software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) technology, which enables service providers to evolve their WAN connectivity offerings through a high degree of flexibility, visibility and control. But how can we implement…
Stephan Linnerz 27. February 2019
Overview of Juniper Networks Contrail
The rapid development of new cloud-based applications and IT services is creating ever-increasing diversity in the market and the multi-cloud has long become a reality. In addition, the enormous demand for connectivity and bandwidth often pushes existing network infrastructures and operations to…
Stephan Linnerz 12. February 2019
SD-WAN has the flexibility, visibility and control to compete in today’s market
For years, software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV) have symbolised innovative change in the network industry, using software to turn classic network business upside down. New, innovative approaches offering tremendous agility and savings have come to the market,…
Marcel F 15. January 2019
Virtualisation Technologies and Hypervisor-based concepts
Since decoupling networking hardware from its software was identified as an enabler for the move from traditionally rigid, cost-intensive network components and related network functions to agile, flexible resource deployment, the virtualisation of network functions has become a prominent way to…
Security-Team 14. November 2018
Use Cases of Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity
In this tech blog, we explain selected Artificial Intelligence (AI) use cases in cybersecurity. But before we start we would like to mention some prerequisites and impacts for security architectures:
Security-Team 25. October 2018
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning?
As we wrote in our first part of the tech blog series “AI in Cybersecurity”, the term Artificial Intelligence is currently ubiquitous. But many do not know the difference or the delimitations between Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL). Therefore, it is…
Security-Team 10. October 2018
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Cybersecurity
A visit to the InfoSec events that are held for the Cybersecurity industries will show you that nearly all exhibitors and vendors are now using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and promoting it in their advertising. Reading through recently published articles on the topic of AI in Cybersecurity, you…
Stephan Linnerz 25. September 2018
Cost and risk reduction through fully automated testing and qualification of network systems
Service providers are trying to achieve the best possible availability of their network infrastructure to ensure the smooth operation of their services. Any interruption, no matter how brief, leads to dissatisfaction, disruption of operations, loss of revenue, or even customers, and in extreme…
Sebastian Graf 12. July 2018
MX204: performance beast in a compact one-rack unit with a throughput of up to 400 Gbps full-duplex
While internet usage and demand for more bandwidth continues to increase, network infrastructures need to be upgraded with components which meet modern requirements such as reliability, scalability and being feature-rich at the same time. If your applications require advanced features you often…
Security-Team 26. June 2018
Protect your IT services against multi-vector DDoS threats on-premise with Arbor APS
In our previous tech blog, we highlight the dangers of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks for the reliability and availability of your critical IT services. Today, it is significantly more important than ever to understand the complexity of multi-vector threats and that even…
Security-Team 11. May 2018
Defending services against DDoS attacks is about understanding the complexity of multi-vector threats
The availability of business-critical services is essential – and not just to avoid loss of revenue. Reliability and availability of services also strengthen the company’s reputation in the market and contribute to sustainable business success. The increasing number and diversity of Distributed…
Sebastian Graf 16. April 2018
Simulating realistic network environments for scalability testing with IXIA’s IxNetwork
Testing of new systems has become a crucial element in scalable and complex network architectures. This is why we at Xantaro have always invested in the testing capabilities of our famous XT3Lab located in Frankfurt. Our lab allows us to simulate our customers’ complex network scenarios or to test…
Tobias Heister 28. March 2018
Arista and Internet-scale Routing? We have put the R-Series to the test
Arista Networks enters the routing market It’s no secret that Arista has in the past focused on data centre switching. As of late, this constellation has changed with the release of the 7500R series in March 2016, because Arista is now also targeting the routing market. The most recent…
Stephan Linnerz 16. March 2018
Satisfying massive demand for Cloud-based services with Cloud Xpress 2 from Infinera
Within the Telco industry, we can see a massive demand for Cloud-based services. This forces cloud service providers (cloud SPs) to heavily invest in their data center and network infrastructures to keep pace with this development. Evolving the capacity scaling within providers’ data centre…
Stephan Linnerz 07. March 2018
A software-defined and secure corporate network with Juniper’s SDSN architecture
We are delighted that our team successfully demonstrated Xantaro’s expertise in Security, Software Defined Secure Networks (SDSN) and Automation at the “Juniper OpenLab SDSN Throwdown” in Amsterdam from February 26-28. In the three-day competition, Juniper Networks challenged several partners to…
Sven Beermann 02. February 2018
A new cost-effective 100G Metro DCI Option? PAM4 makes it happen!
So far, CFP or CFP2 optical transceivers have been the only way to implement a coherent digital transmission of 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100GbE) data traffic with optics and over long distances in the embedded DWDM approach. Using the PAM4 modulation method and the newly developed PAM4 optics we now…
Tobias Heister 16. February 2016
Traffic diversion with SDN – Part 3: The Brain
Until now, we have taken it for granted that the OpenFlow switches have preprogramed flows and that the routing daemon on the injector knows what to announce. We will now cover how this happened.
Tobias Heister 01. February 2016
Traffic diversion with SDN – Part 2: What happens in the OpenFlow Switches?
Both OpenFlow Switches are programmed with a specific set of Flows.
Tobias Heister 25. January 2016
Traffic Diversion with SDN – Part 1: A Practical Approach
A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources. Across the globe DDoS attack size, frequency and complexity is on the rise. At the same time, businesses have never been more connected and…
Sebastian Graf 24. November 2015
Juniper QFX5100 OVSDB Integration with VMware NSX for vCenter – Part 3
Part 3: Running OVSDB between Juniper QFX5100 and VMware NSX for vCenter
Sebastian Graf 22. November 2015
Juniper QFX5100 OVSDB Integration with VMware NSX for vCenter – Part 2
Part 2: Using hardware VTEPS to integrate physical devices These principals work great if every workload is virtualized and running on a hypervisor, however often there are still resources that cannot be virtualized because of various reasons. In this case it is extremely helpful if the ToR…
Sebastian Graf 20. November 2015
Juniper QFX5100 OVSDB Integration with VMware NSX for vCenter – Part 1
Part 1: Overlay Networks in Data Centres Overlay technologies for providing network virtualization have a long history in the industry. A current incarnation can be seen in more or less every Service Provider network these days that run MPLS-based services like L2VPNs, L3VPNs or EVPNs.
Sebastian Graf 11. June 2015
SDN – Part 2: Software Defined Networking in the Data Centre & Juniper Networks Contrail Show Case
Scalability, the physical network integration and functionalities of ToR switches are the challenges of today’s data centres. In addition, the flexibility introduced by computing virtualisation is somehow thwarted by 'classical network'. This video explains and demonstrates how these challenges can…
Sebastian Graf 02. June 2015
SDN – Part 1: A Technical Definition of Software Defined Networking
There are many facets of Software Defined Networking (SDN) implementation. What exactly it means depends on the type of problem you try to solve. Sebastian Graf, Solutions Architect at Xantaro, explains the advantages of Software Defined Networking from a technical perspective and gives an idea of…