Of all the new technologies that are now coming of age in the infrastructure world, it is SDN and NFV that are causing the most wide-ranging shifts.  All vendors have been preparing for the new milieu, but few have taken as dramatic steps as Ciena did with the purchase and integration of Cyan last year.  Tying those capabilities in with their Services division, they have quickly put together the means to help network operators hit the accelerator on SDN and NFV at just the right time.  With us today to talk about how they see it all panning out are Pamela Morgan, Services Marketing Lead for Ciena’s Services division, and Joe Cumello, VP of Portfolio Marketing at Ciena. ... [visit site to read more]

ONF Director of Technical Programs Rick Bauer shares how networking was a life-changing opportunity.  

It was in the early 1990’s, and our family microfilm service bureau in Washington, DC, was taking off. Film had turned to images, images meant digital storage, and accessing those images meant networks. From crude peer-to-peer to Netware to TCP-IP based LAN’s, we scanned millions of images monthly and created massive databases for hospital systems, large litigation projects where collections of documents numbered tens of millions, and our company went to over 800 employees and $80 million revenue. My dad—an orphan from the streets of Depression New York City—had realized the American Dream for himself and his children. Our clients ranged from Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus to the CIA. One of the more exciting—and now declassified—jobs we did was microfilming spy transcripts from East Germany only days after the Berlin Wall fell. It was heady stuff, and very exciting, to work around the clock and create this material. We even created the network for Langley to use.

Networks were the key. Information could move if networks worked. Soon our vision expanded: what could schools and small businesses accomplish if they had network tools? We started a spinoff that wired schools to radically change how schools, instruction, and families engaged due to these networks. With help from MCI, we created the first school where every parent and student had his/her own e-mail account.  Seems so passé today but this school network could change the way parents engaged with teachers, the ways that students could collaborate, and the way that this growing World Wide Web thing could help learning. I got to work with industry luminary Vint Cerf from MCI (now Google) as we played “Johnny-E Appleseed”, hooking up donated T-1 circuits to underprivileged schools in Baltimore and Washington. Other companies came to help. Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Lew Platt—they all came to these schools, donated equipment, services, and expertise to provide world-class networking to students and teachers.

While at a conference in Australia, I presented about our  experiences in the DC area, I met a few schools where every student and teacher had a laptop computer. Imagine that! A chance meeting led to a new job as the CIO for the first school in America where every student and teacher had a notebook computer. Again, passé today, but it was thrilling stuff at the time—and networking was the key to making a 500-acre campus with 80 buildings connected. This school went from ATM to 10/100 switched networks, and we were rolling. We adopted 100-VG AnyLAN from HP with  then-CEO Lew Platt voluntarily replacing the entire campuses of 100VG to 100T switches, at HP’s expense, just for interoperability and because “it was the right thing to do for these schools.” Thanks to network upgrades, changes were brought to education!

My work moved over to CompTIA and it was fun helping create certifications families in cloud computing, enterprise mobility, and even healthcare IT. In my interview for that job, one of the managers looked me straight in the eye and said, “Rick, are you going to work hard for us? Do you realize just how important this is? These certifications can change someone’s life!” Tears welled up in my own eyes, because I knew that computer networking had given me a job, fed my kids (and now feed my grandkids), and had changed the lives of hundreds of my own students. “Yeah, I know all about that,” I choked up, “because networking changed my own life.”

Later we got CompTIA to donate “all you can eat” certifications to military bases around the country, and they gave me leave every Tuesday to teach PC bench tech and networking classes to Wounded Warriors—men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Watching these young men and women—many with traumatic injuries, missing limbs, and other challenges—build their own computers, networks, train and certify, and then get jobs because open-minded companies invested in those who gave so much for our nation—what a difference we could make through networking. I would drive home from nearby Fort Carson each Tuesday evening, filled with gratitude, knowing that we had done good work and provided a foundation through training in networking. We changed people lives through networking. For a former West Point cadet who never saw action, I felt like I was serving my country in a genuine way—and all through these networking skills I had been so blessed to learn.

Today I get to work with some of the greatest people in the world through the Open Networking Foundation. Folks who work for transformative companies who are bringing SDN to the world, changing the way networking is done—and will be done. They are inspired by a vision of lives that can be changed through networking connections. Sometimes I miss running and managing (and occasionally breaking) a company network, but strolling through their labs and data centers, I get a sense of how impressive and impacting their world is, and what kind of networked world we will leverage in the future. It still gets me jazzed and excited to go to work. I try to avoid the “when I was your age” stories about early networking, but the truth is networking changed my life and it is something that makes our world go around.

- Rick Bauer

• The fabric is built on Edgecore bare-metal hardware from the Open Compute Project (OCP) and switch software, including OCP’s Open Network Linux and Broadcom’s OpenFlow Data Plane Abstraction (OF-DPA) API. 
• It leverages earlier work from ONF’s Atrium and SPRING-OPEN projects that implemented segment-routed networks using SDN.
• It offers HA and scale support with multi-instance ONOS controller cluster (previous work was with single-controller)
• vRouter for interfacing with traditional networks using BGP and/or OSPF
• CORD’s vOLT for residential access network support
• Support for IPv4 Multicast forwarding for residential IPTV streams in CORD
• Integration with CORD’s XOS-based orchestration framework

The era of software defined everything is here. Bithika Khargharia discusses the top three technologies utilizing the software approach.

Software defined everything (SDE) – virtualized computing infrastructure delivered as a service – is taking over. Hardware components that used to be manually controlled are now being automated by intelligent software, reducing complexity and increasing cost savings. The top three terms that have gained the most buzz in this movement are software defined networking (SDN), software defined data center (SDDC) and software defined storage (SDS), and for good reason.  All of these terms, which fall under the umbrella of information and communications technology (ICT), are more agile and programmable, as they are software based. SDE will bring maximum flexibility across all ICT.

SDN

In a traditional network architecture, the data plane and control plane are coupled on the physical device; an architecture not particularly fit to meet the needs of today’s end users since it makes the network too static and limits network designers. SDN decouples the control and data planes, abstracts the underlying network infrastructure from the applications, and logically centralizes the state and intelligence of the network. With the explosion of mobile devices and content, server virtualization, and the advent of cloud services, it is clear why the industry is going software-defined in the network.

SDDC

In an SDDC, all technology components are virtualized and represented as a software function. The software-defined approach to data centers provides service agility and provisioning benefits and reduces energy consumption. Unlike hardware-driven data centers, where OpEx costs can run high, SDDCs lower costs through streamlining and automation. SDDCs make the data center more scalable and easier to manage.

SDS

Each time an organization buys traditional storage, they have to pay for the hardware and the associated proprietary management software. SDS separates the hardware from the software, creating flexibility and cost savings. In an SDS environment, resources of the pooled storage infrastructure can be automatically and efficiently allocated to match the application needs of an enterprise. Automating storage infrastructure with software provides better scalability, speed, and utilization.

It is more than clear that the era of SDE is here. The efficiency gains made possible by virtualization, open source software and hardware disaggregation first seen in data center compute now extend to and have been integrated with on-line storage, and networking infrastructure, enabling greater automation, faster provisioning, decreased costs, quicker implementation, and more overall efficiency. Software defined ICT only makes sense! The future has arrived, and it’s software-defined.

- Bithika Khargharia, Director of Product and Community Management

Quick take

The longer version…

A little over a year ago we made it super easy to include your latest Pins and Instagram photos in your emails. It’s pretty neat, adding visual interest to your mailings and exposing your email subscribers to more of your activity online on platforms other than your blog.

Since then we’ve extended the capability to include your latest YouTube videos and Tumblr.

And now, we’ve added e-commerce to the mix. Simply tell the FeedBlitz easy template editor your Etsy name, and / or give it the web address of your Shopify store, and voila! Every update to your readers reminds them of the latest and greatest on your e-commerce site. Every email we send for you just got more interesting, more compelling, and more valuable. Dare we say, more lucrative?

Since we don’t have an Etsy or Shopify store, if you’re getting this via email today, we’ve included a couple of examples for you. For Shopify, we’ve linked to “Death Wish Coffee” because I think they’re cool and we’re total coffee hounds here! For Etsy, I’ve linked to friend and FeedBlitz client StudioJewel‘s Etsy store. The live, mobile friendly responsive demos are at the foot of the email, if you’re an email subscriber, after the latest support videos.

If you’re reading this online instead, here’s what that part of the email update looks like:

One Last Thing

So this is a great way to add Etsy and Shopify content to your blog emails. It ALSO means that you can use us to send emails to subscribers where the latest store updates ARE the content. In other words, you can set up a “Be the First to Know” email list, and every time you add an item to your e-commerce site, we’ll email subscribers to that list with the news. Which makes them feel super special and more likely to buy from you.

Need help setting it up? Contact support – we’ll be happy to help.

       

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What are four letters that can send shivers down the spine of any email marketer?

S-P-A-M

Trust us, we don’t like the sound of it either, so today we’re going to lift the curtain on spam and talk about how and why it happens, along with what you can do to help prevent it from happening.

What is Spam?

Spam, defined by Wikipedia, is unsolicited bulk email, UBE for short.

Seems fairly simple, right?

Unsolicited: Something that is not asked for.
Bulk: Sent in a batch of more than one.
Email: Electronic communications you and I send on a daily basis.

So basically as long as I don’t send a whole lot of emails to people who don’t even want them in the first place, I’m in the clear, right? That would make the most sense, yet that’s not always the case.

How does an email get flagged as Spam?

There are the obvious phishing scams from our deceased second great auntie’s housekeeper in some far off land asking for our bank information to claim the $2 million inheritance waiting for us, OR the emails with blinking, animated emojis in the subject lines, which are both clearly spam. And then there are the more subtle forms of spam such as the instant deals we need to take advantage of right away, faux census surveys asking for personal information, make money online fast deals and more.

So what exactly classifies an email as spam and another as not? Unfortunately, there is no clear cut answer. Internet and email service providers diligently update security settings and increase protection to reduce the amount of spam which makes it’s way into inboxes across the world.

While there is not a clear guide to avoiding spam, things such as phishy content (i.e. something that reads of a scam or fraud), a poor sending reputation of your email address or email service provider, and even a clickbait headline are a few ways an email can be relegated to the  spam folder or bounced completely.

A Closer Look at Content: Words and Phrases to use Wisely

There are many resources available that list  spam triggers (words and phrases to avoid in email communication for fear of being labeled spam). After scouring page after page and reading about 99.9% of these lists, we highly recommend this guide from our friends at HupSpot. Divided into categories, it is an incredibly comprehensive list of words and phrases that when used repeatedly, or mixed too freely together, can trigger spam filters.

Print it out and highlight the ones you find yourself most commonly using throughout your content. This is also a great reference should any of your emails be categorized as spam. Scan through to see what content could have triggered this reaction and adjust your concept moving forward.

Is there anything I can do to prevent my emails from being marked as Spam?

As a publisher, being well informed of how spam filters work and what words and phrasing are possible triggers will help you tremendously.

Work from home!

Make money online TODAY!

Lots of unnecessary exclamation!!!!!!! points!!!!!

Emojis in subject lines

Are you repetitive with keywords and phrases? Is there another way you could state something as opposed to repeating it multiple times? This is where writing creatively can come into play as a publisher. Adjust your content as necessary to deliver your message while still staying in line with best email practices. Remember that SEO guidelines evolve and you no longer need to repeat your keywords like a machine to rank high in Google. This technique is now seen as keyword stuffing with concise readability being the clear winner.

What is FeedBlitz doing to prevent my emails from being categorized as Spam?

We work very, very hard to protect our sending reputation! Remember how we talked about that during the hard bounces post? These vital steps work to prevent your emails from landing in a subscriber’s Spam folder. Major ISPs like FeedBlitz, and we intend to keep it that way.

Another precaution we take is to have  our own spam filters and traps in place. If an email you craft pings a spam trap, it isn’t sent. You’ll be notified via email should this happen and can contact our Support Desk for assistance. Usually it’s a matter of simply rewording a phrase or two, however, in some cases a complete rewrite is necessary.

What do I do if someone marks one of my emails as Spam?

Ah, yes, hitting the spam button on an email. Maybe you’ve even hit spam on an email, intentionally or not, a time or two. FeedBlitz likes to consider what we call the “people factor” when it comes to a subscriber hitting spam on an email. Not all subscribers are aware of what selecting spam means and can select this if they simply are not interested in the content or wish to unsubscribe to your email updates. One or two occasional subscribers hitting spam on your emails falls into this “people factor” category and will not cause your account to be suspended.

An influx of Spam notices, however, will cause us to take a closer look at your account. Unless a large change has occurred (i.e. re-branding or increased advertising), this should cause you to reconsider your content as well. If your account is determined to be primarily focused on Phishing and Spamming your subscribers, it will be revoked. Why? Well, we have the sending reputation of all of our publishers to consider, and unfortunately, too many bad apples can ruin the bunch when it comes to email marketing. For more information, please read through our Terms of Service here.

Have you landed in a spam folder before but still aren’t sure why? Send us the email to support@feedblitz.com and we’ll take a look and offer insight for you. And as always you can chat, check out our Help Forum, or give us a call at 1.877.692.5489. Our Support and Sales Desk is available Monday – Friday from 9 am to 5 pm EST.

-•-

Easy enough for a blogger to set up in seconds, powerful enough for sophisticated corporate email campaigns, FeedBlitz is an RSS, Email and Social Automation Tool to take your email marketing to the next level. Visit us online to learn more or start your 30 Day Free Trial!

       

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Learn about ONF’s Common Information Model work and how it will benefit network operators as well as their respective organizations.

Information modeling holds significant value for network operators and their companies, but this is one area in the SDN landscape that has admittedly been a little lacking. We’ve aimed to address this need through our Common Information Model (CIM) work, and I recently shared some additional information about this project with Network Computing readers. Here’s a quick excerpt:

Information modeling may seem like an arcane aspect of computer networking, but it has huge implications for the level of consistency — and therefore interoperability — that product developers, service providers, and open source projects bring to their respective products, services, and architectures. That’s why the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) launched its CIM work in 2014.

Our goal is to help foster development of an industry-wide, open CIM that reduces unnecessary variety in how developers represent a given concept or problem. Having a CIM, a process for using the CIM to generate implementation views, and tools that consistently generate the implementations is key to ensuring unambiguous and interoperable products as well as open source software.

This also helps reduce errors and enables code to be more easily produced. For network operators who want to build best-of-breed networks, it enables them to compare apples to apples and take full advantage of the latest abstractions and virtualization technologies.

To learn more about information modeling and ONF’s CIM work, read the full article at Network Computing.

- Dan Pitt, Executive Director

SDN is having an impact on networking throughout the globe. 

It is no secret that SDN has made great strides over the last five years. In this time, we have seen SDN grow and expand to have a global impact. Research firm IDC recently forecasted that the worldwide SDN market will be worth nearly $12.5 billion by 2020. There is good reason for this projected growth – as more and more connected devices emerge for consumer and enterprise use, the networks will be tasked with handling the increase in traffic flow and radically changed usage patterns. The reality is, not all networks today are set up to manage traffic in the ways that can accommodate their evolving usage. Here are three areas within the networking industry that are driving SDN adoption around the globe.

Cloud Data Centers

Data centers are growing in complexity and requiring greater agility, motivating enterprises to move their data centers to the cloud. In 2014, cloud traffic crossed the zettabyte threshold, and according to the Cisco Cloud Index Report, more than 86 percent of all data center traffic will be based in the cloud by 2019. Cloud data centers support increased virtualization, standardization, and automation leading to better performance as well as higher capacity and throughput, but at the cost of significantly increased network complexity. With virtualization, services move rapidly between physical hosts, and data must often migrate between locations. To cope with these demands the network fabric must be dynamically reconfigurable in real-time, while exponential growth in the number of network connected devices is rendering manual control of the network logistically and economically unfeasible. Even though traditional switched networks are still prevalent in the enterprise, the value of SDN in coping effectively with and even reducing complexity in the data center is already well established. The performance of cloud data centers with SDN means that administrators can deploy new services quickly and securely, scale them gracefully and cost effectively, and optimize utilization of resources in support of evolving network usage. Now more than ever, reliable implementations of SDN technologies is an essential requirement for leading data centers.

Applications

SDN creates a direct channel of communication between applications and network functionality, very much in contrast with traditional networking where applications see the network as a “black box” into they have very limited oversight. SDN makes it possible for applications to replace and expand current network functions that have traditionally been delivered through proprietary network appliances and hardware devices. SDN-enabled applications can actively request specific network resources and participate in managing network bandwidth and Quality of Service (QoS), thus directly impacting customer experience, delivering new monetization opportunities and ultimately enhancing the network’s overall business value. For example, consider self-optimizing networks. Organizations have long relied on technologies such as load balancers and mobile optimization, applied on a device-by-device level and not holistically. Self-optimizing networks enable IT managers to have a bird’s-eye view of the entire network, allowing them to manage, route, and prioritize traffic effectively. Since optimization can be done automatically via an application, these networks can turn the network overload into a balanced load, improving the quality of user experience. By thinking of these applications now, network infrastructure providers and operators will be able to rapidly evolve and provide customized, flexible networks that enhance the user experience and positively affect their bottom line. Moreover, many of these network functions are now available as Open Source Software that can be deployed on standard COTS or merchant silicon based platforms, reducing both OPEX and CAPEX, avoiding vendor lock-in, and enabling a more agile response to changing networking requirements.

5G Connectivity

With the emergence of connected devices from smartphones to fitness trackers, our mobile networks will soon face a revolution. Current mobile connectivity, 4G, has lived up to its expectations. But in order for mobile networks to successfully transmit communication from the disparate connected devices that are emerging, they too will also need to change, and SDN can help. The next generation of connectivity is already being tested in some markets around the globe. There are also plans to have 5G connectivity up and running as early as the 2018 Winter Olympics in Seoul, Korea. 5G promises to provide 100 times greater speed, latency cut by a factor of five, and data volume capacity up to 1,000 times greater than 4G. In order for 5G networks to be successful, they will need to have SDN at the core to allow flexibility and programmability. As more devices infiltrate the network, SDN and NFV will be critical in not only reallocating resources based on demand, but also deploying services to the network’s edge. 5G will drive a revolutionary change in the way networks operate and SDN will help them along in this revolution.

The networking areas highlighted above are not acute to one region over another. All of these areas touch various businesses around the globe in need of SDN today in order to support network connectivity of the future. As SDN continues on its path of exponential growth, we will continue to hear about new use cases that SDN impacts for the better. It is clear that SDN will continue to have a global impact as the revolution continues.

- Marc LeClerc, Market Area Director and VP of Strategy and Marketing for NoviFlow

ONF Director of Technical Programs Rick Bauer shares how networking was a life-changing opportunity.  

It was in the early 1990’s, and our family microfilm service bureau in Washington, DC, was taking off. Film had turned to images, images meant digital storage, and accessing those images meant networks. From crude peer-to-peer to Netware to TCP-IP based LAN’s, we scanned millions of images monthly and created massive databases for hospital systems, large litigation projects where collections of documents numbered tens of millions, and our company went to over 800 employees and $80 million revenue. My dad—an orphan from the streets of Depression New York City—had realized the American Dream for himself and his children. Our clients ranged from Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus to the CIA. One of the more exciting—and now declassified—jobs we did was microfilming spy transcripts from East Germany only days after the Berlin Wall fell. It was heady stuff, and very exciting, to work around the clock and create this material. We even created the network for Langley to use.

Networks were the key. Information could move if networks worked. Soon our vision expanded: what could schools and small businesses accomplish if they had network tools? We started a spinoff that wired schools to radically change how schools, instruction, and families engaged due to these networks. With help from MCI, we created the first school where every parent and student had his/her own e-mail account.  Seems so passé today but this school network could change the way parents engaged with teachers, the ways that students could collaborate, and the way that this growing World Wide Web thing could help learning. I got to work with industry luminary Vint Cerf from MCI (now Google) as we played “Johnny-E Appleseed”, hooking up donated T-1 circuits to underprivileged schools in Baltimore and Washington. Other companies came to help. Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Lew Platt—they all came to these schools, donated equipment, services, and expertise to provide world-class networking to students and teachers.

While at a conference in Australia, I presented about our  experiences in the DC area, I met a few schools where every student and teacher had a laptop computer. Imagine that! A chance meeting led to a new job as the CIO for the first school in America where every student and teacher had a notebook computer. Again, passé today, but it was thrilling stuff at the time—and networking was the key to making a 500-acre campus with 80 buildings connected. This school went from ATM to 10/100 switched networks, and we were rolling. We adopted 100-VG AnyLAN from HP with  then-CEO Lew Platt voluntarily replacing the entire campuses of 100VG to 100T switches, at HP’s expense, just for interoperability and because “it was the right thing to do for these schools.” Thanks to network upgrades, changes were brought to education!

My work moved over to CompTIA and it was fun helping create certifications families in cloud computing, enterprise mobility, and even healthcare IT. In my interview for that job, one of the managers looked me straight in the eye and said, “Rick, are you going to work hard for us? Do you realize just how important this is? These certifications can change someone’s life!” Tears welled up in my own eyes, because I knew that computer networking had given me a job, fed my kids (and now feed my grandkids), and had changed the lives of hundreds of my own students. “Yeah, I know all about that,” I choked up, “because networking changed my own life.”

Later we got CompTIA to donate “all you can eat” certifications to military bases around the country, and they gave me leave every Tuesday to teach PC bench tech and networking classes to Wounded Warriors—men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Watching these young men and women—many with traumatic injuries, missing limbs, and other challenges—build their own computers, networks, train and certify, and then get jobs because open-minded companies invested in those who gave so much for our nation—what a difference we could make through networking. I would drive home from nearby Fort Carson each Tuesday evening, filled with gratitude, knowing that we had done good work and provided a foundation through training in networking. We changed people lives through networking. For a former West Point cadet who never saw action, I felt like I was serving my country in a genuine way—and all through these networking skills I had been so blessed to learn.

Today I get to work with some of the greatest people in the world through the Open Networking Foundation. Folks who work for transformative companies who are bringing SDN to the world, changing the way networking is done—and will be done. They are inspired by a vision of lives that can be changed through networking connections. Sometimes I miss running and managing (and occasionally breaking) a company network, but strolling through their labs and data centers, I get a sense of how impressive and impacting their world is, and what kind of networked world we will leverage in the future. It still gets me jazzed and excited to go to work. I try to avoid the “when I was your age” stories about early networking, but the truth is networking changed my life and it is something that makes our world go around.

- Rick Bauer

The era of software defined everything is here. Bithika Khargharia discusses the top three technologies utilizing the software approach.

Software defined everything (SDE) – virtualized computing infrastructure delivered as a service – is taking over. Hardware components that used to be manually controlled are now being automated by intelligent software, reducing complexity and increasing cost savings. The top three terms that have gained the most buzz in this movement are software defined networking (SDN), software defined data center (SDDC) and software defined storage (SDS), and for good reason.  All of these terms, which fall under the umbrella of information and communications technology (ICT), are more agile and programmable, as they are software based. SDE will bring maximum flexibility across all ICT.

SDN

In a traditional network architecture, the data plane and control plane are coupled on the physical device; an architecture not particularly fit to meet the needs of today’s end users since it makes the network too static and limits network designers. SDN decouples the control and data planes, abstracts the underlying network infrastructure from the applications, and logically centralizes the state and intelligence of the network. With the explosion of mobile devices and content, server virtualization, and the advent of cloud services, it is clear why the industry is going software-defined in the network.

SDDC

In an SDDC, all technology components are virtualized and represented as a software function. The software-defined approach to data centers provides service agility and provisioning benefits and reduces energy consumption. Unlike hardware-driven data centers, where OpEx costs can run high, SDDCs lower costs through streamlining and automation. SDDCs make the data center more scalable and easier to manage.

SDS

Each time an organization buys traditional storage, they have to pay for the hardware and the associated proprietary management software. SDS separates the hardware from the software, creating flexibility and cost savings. In an SDS environment, resources of the pooled storage infrastructure can be automatically and efficiently allocated to match the application needs of an enterprise. Automating storage infrastructure with software provides better scalability, speed, and utilization.

It is more than clear that the era of SDE is here. The efficiency gains made possible by virtualization, open source software and hardware disaggregation first seen in data center compute now extend to and have been integrated with on-line storage, and networking infrastructure, enabling greater automation, faster provisioning, decreased costs, quicker implementation, and more overall efficiency. Software defined ICT only makes sense! The future has arrived, and it’s software-defined.

- Bithika Khargharia, Director of Product and Community Management

FeedBlitz allows you to easily autopost your blog updates to a Twitter account of your choice, right from your publisher’s dashboard. While only one account is able to be linked in this way, there is another route to have additional Twitter accounts posting your updates automatically.

Bonus Note: This is great if you have multiple contributors, or owners, who would all like to autopost your content.

Follow the steps below add a second Twitter account for autoposting:

1.  Log out of your current Twitter account.
2.  Select the Mailing List from your left hand menu. (Under My Sites, it will have an envelope icon next to it.)
3.  Press the orange Subscription Forms button.
4.  Chose Classic Form.
5.  Change the answer on #2 to Any FeedBlitz Option.
6.  Click the link of your subscription form.

7.  When the form appears, select Twitter

A popup will appear, prompting you to enter your login information for Twitter in order to authorize the FeedBlitz App. Once completed, you will have successfully added an additional Twitter account to your site and updates will be sent starting with your next post.

       

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Alex Stancu provides insight on the completion of ONF’s second wireless transport SDN PoC. 

We recently completed ONF’s second wireless transport Proof of Concept (PoC) to continue advancing the industry’s commercial adoption of SDN. The second PoC was a success, with wide participation from the wireless transport industry. I provided some insight into how the project came together in a contributed piece for SDxCentral. Here is an excerpt from that article:

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a paradigm that emerged in the networking industry in order to mitigate the limitations proven by traditional networks, such as complexity, difficult management and configuration, or vendor dependency. SDN was adopted initially in campus networks, then in data centers, and now researchers are trying to introduce it in all of the aspects of a network, from optical domain, wireless transport networks to Internet exchange points. Last October, the Open Networking Foundation’s (ONF) Wireless Transport project completed the industry’s first multi-vendor Wireless Transport SDN Proof of Concept (PoC). Furthering ONF’s goal of promoting greater commercial adoption of SDN, the PoC was designed to encourage the development, testing, and implementation of an open source controller capable of managing a multi-vendor microwave network.

Over the past six months, the project developed and executed a second PoC at Telefónica’s German offices in Munich. Several entities that form the Wireless Transport project, including equipment vendors Ceragon, Ericsson, Huawei, NEC, and SIAE; integrators and application providers such as HCL, Tech Mahindra, highstreet technologies, and Wipro; and operators AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, and Telefónica joined forces to demonstrate the applicability of this information model in an SDN environment.

Wireless transport networks are a key component of existing network deployments. The need for capillarity (i.e., extension of the service reach) to provide the sufficient network coverage demanded by end users resides greatly on wireless transport networks connecting access nodes to aggregation domains. Being a huge area of investment by network operators, it is a desirable objective to simplify and facilitate the roll-out and run of this network segment.

Read the complete article on SDxCentral to learn more about ONF’s second wireless transport SDN PoC. We’ve also put together a white paper to summarize the full details of the PoC, which can be found here.

- Alex Stancu, Ceragon Networks