IPv6 - Networking Anew

- Rick Chisholm

There has been a buzz around for some years now regarding IPv6, which is the next generation Internet protocol and successor to IPv4. Many are familiar with IPv4 whether they know it or not, four octet IP addresses like 10.1.1.1 are common place today. Years ago it was feared that we were close to running out of IPv4 addresses and a protocol was designed that would mitigate that issue. IPv4 has 2^32 addresses - over 4 billion, but the Internet explosion threatened to gobble up all those addresses. IPv6 was designed to support an astronomical number of addresses to the point where everyone on the planet could have as many universally scoped addresses as they desire. Each person alive today could have an entire IPv4 Internet address space all to themselves and still would not have made a dent in the space available. We are talking Avogadro's Number big! This is important because we are entering an age where devices of all kinds will require an address, all sort of mobile devices, appliances, vehicles, robots, IP phones... it's an ever-growing list.

Luckily IPv4 and v6 can coincide and will for some time going forward, allowing for easier, smoother adoption and transition. There are both advantages and disadvantages to moving to IPv6, but in the end it is the only way to go. By June 2008, the US Government and military are planning to adopt IPv6, from there, large enterprises will follow. Some have already taken the plunge updating routers, firewalls, Intrusion detection and adding IPv6 support to the necessary software. Why have we not run out of old IPv4 addresses yet? A band-aid solution called NAT (network address translation) was put to good use and to this day the vast majority of hosts on the Internet are likely behind some device being NAT'd.

Intrusion Detection in a Nutshell

- Rick Chisholm

Preferably, I would like a pinscher-handed, flimsy-armed, bubble-headed robot to exclaim in a lovely monotoned voice "danger! danger! intrusion detected!!" - all the while flailing his arms and blinking madly. Considering even a robot vacuum is over-priced by my standards, I will have to settle for something else. In the world of Intrusion Detection you have two camps, there is the full-blown, commercial appliance from folks like Cisco and there is the do-it-yourself open source Snort-based IDS. The purpose of Intrusion detection is two-fold - (1) alert you of intrusion into your network by those not authorized to be there and (2) help you monitor attempts, attacks and suspicious activity allowing you to prevent and proactively protect yourself. I recently deployed a Snort IDS on FreeBSD using standard PC hardware - while the task is not for the faint of heart, it is quite an eye opener once up and running. For the full monty, check-out http://brokertech.parallel42.ca

Magic 8-Ball for Servers

- Rick Chisholm

Wondering if your server is getting too old, are system slow-downs due to the ole girl letting you down? Don't you wish there was a way you could see what your server was doing all day, a way to see if it's breaking a sweat or just humming along. Lucky for you there's a wonderful little utility built right in for doing all sorts of server performance analysis - it's called Performance Monitor and it is easy to use and quite versatile.

A handy method for measuring server performance over time can be found at http://brokertech.parallel42.ca

A Brief Tidbit on Processors

- Rick Chisholm

If you own a television, you have most likely been exposed to the Intel marketing campaign behind their new processor technology the Core Duo and most recently the Core 2 Duo. Perhaps you are wondering how these new technologies might benefit your business. Both AMDs and Intels latest CPU offerings at both a desktop and server level provide a great deal of processing power and take advantage of newer and burgeoning technologies such as multiple core-on-die and Virtualization (in the case of the Core 2). The insurance industry is ever asking more and more of the file and terminal servers we deploy, as databases are ever-growing and new functions and capabilities are being explored. These new processors are at the very centre of the fray and at some point using a specific application might hinge upon whether or not your processor will execute 64-bit code.

One area that may soon become of particular interest is virtualization and the new CPUs are very much geared toward that particular technology.

For a little more insight into the CPU market, visit http://brokertech.parallel42.ca