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How to Gracefully Degrade Web 2.0 Applications To Maintain Availability I haven’t heard the term “graceful degradation” in a long time, but as we continue to push the limits of data centers and our budgets to provide capacity it’s a concept we need to revisit. You might have heard that Twitter was down (again) last week. What you might not have heard (or read) is some interesting crunchy bits about how Twitter attempts to maintain availability by degrading capabilities gracefully when services are over capacity. “Twitter Down, Overwhelmed by Whales” from Data Center Knowledge offered up the juicy details: ... posted @ Wednesday, January 27, 2010 2:55 AM | Feedback (1)

Next-Generation Management of Data Centers Should be Modeled on Social Networking Should the next generation management of network and application network devices look and act more like Facebook and Twitter? Infrastructure 2.0 could take us there. Y ou may think I’m kidding and certainly I make this proposal with some amount of humorous intent, but there is some value, I think, in applying the concepts of Web 2.0 and social networking to network management systems (NMS). There’s a reason it’s called social networking, after all. It’s modeled closely on networking and NMS is primarily about managing not just individual network and application network devices, but on managing... posted @ Friday, December 04, 2009 4:34 AM | Feedback (0)

Twitter Account Lockouts Continue to Plague Users Brute force attacks by spammers seeking easy access causing frustration for users with no resolution in sight At least once a day I see someone on Twitter broadcast that they have been “locked out of their Twitter account, temporarily.” A search for “locked out” returns thousands of tweets with a good mixture of some folks who’ve (amusingly) been locked out of apartments/houses/buildings and many that have been temporarily locked out of Twitter. The more technically savvy tweeters like Ray Valdes often mention that it is most likely the result of spammers and miscreants attempting to brute force their... posted @ Thursday, November 05, 2009 3:27 AM | Feedback (1)

Linux is Not the Answer to Security Problems Malicious links served up in a browser are OS agnostic. They don’t care about the OS because the target is people, not technology. In response to the problem of links and trust put forth in a recent post a reader replies that the answer to “evil links” is simply to run Linux instead of Windows. the very best solution is to run something other than windows, and with ubuntu at its current state of maturity (and free-ness), why wouldn't you? I won’t disagree with the assessment of Ubuntu and its current... posted @ Friday, October 02, 2009 5:04 AM | Feedback (5)

If Your Users See an HTTP Error Code You’re Doing It Wrong There is no reason in a modern web application for users to see a white error page Sightings of the Twitter “fail whale” are, these days, fewer and far between. That’s a good thing. What’s interesting is that when it does show up, users are almost amused – as if they’re glad to see an old friend. I mean, come on; Twitter’s users named the whale, for crying out loud. How many of your users have a fan club for your error pages? Exactly. That’s the kind of reaction you want from HTTP errors but what you... posted @ Thursday, September 03, 2009 2:52 AM | Feedback (10)

Taking Down Twitter as easy as D.N.S. If they can take down Twitter via DNS, they can take your site, too. Everyone is talking about the DoS (Denial of Service) attack on Twitter but most of them are missing what really happened. We’re so used to defending against HTTP-based DoS attacks that we’ve missed that it’s much easier to DoS a site based on the most critical piece of infrastructure on the Internet: DNS. If you really wanted to take out a site like Twitter or Facebook using an HTTP-based DoS it would take a whole lot of serious traffic because those sites are designed and architected... posted @ Thursday, August 06, 2009 2:40 PM | Feedback (5)

I Can Has UR .htaccess File Notice that isn’t a question, it’s a statement of fact Twitter is having a bad month. After it was blamed, albeit incorrectly, for a breach leading to the disclosure of both personal and corporate information via Google’s GMail and Apps, its apparent willingness to allow anyone and everyone access to a .htaccess file ostensibly protecting search.twitter.com made the rounds via, ironically, Twitter. This vulnerability at first glance appears fairly innocuous, until you realize just how much information can be placed in an .htaccess file that could have been exposed by this technical configuration faux... posted @ Tuesday, July 21, 2009 3:28 AM | Feedback (5)

Rip and Replace Won’t Solve Twitter’s (Or Your) Security Problems The “replace” in “rip and replace” essentially means getting rid of old security problems and replacing them with new ones. Twittergate is (thankfully) behind us but it’s almost assuredly going to be the case that we’ll be rehashing this one for a while. This certainly isn’t the first time Twitter and security issues have clashed, and as in the past Twitter (and really any very public application in a similar situation) is the clear loser. And of course there comes the unsolicited advice offered regarding what Twitter needs to do to address its security issues. I am, of... posted @ Monday, July 20, 2009 3:43 AM | Feedback (2)

Twittergate Reveals E-Mail is Bigger Security Risk than Twitter First, everyone needs to calm down. Twitter.com itself was not breached. According to Evan Williams as quoted in a TechCrunch article, the attack did not breach Twitter.com or its administrative functions, nor were user accounts affected in any way. So everyone can just stop with the “Twitter needs to revamp its security!” and “Twitter isn’t secure” headlines and articles because it’s not only blatantly wrong, it’s diverting attention that should be devoted to the real problem: e-mail and account self-service. THE E-MAIL FACTOR What was compromised remains somewhat of a mystery. Following through the... posted @ Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:58 AM | Feedback (3)

Automatically Removing Cookies Using network-side scripting to remove client-side cookies @quine overhead an interesting question that he offered via Twitter regarding cookies and BIG-IP. Specifically someone was wondering whether BIG-IP automatically removes cookies from the browser. Our team had a quick discussion because the question isn’t as straight-forward as it first appears. On the surface the answer is an unequivocal “no”, because for an intermediary to just arbitrarily remove cookies would be a Very Bad Thing. But the ability to manipulate cookies is certainly something you can do using iRules, and if you implemented such functionality then the... posted @ Wednesday, July 08, 2009 3:43 AM | Feedback (0)

The Gluten-free Application Network If you haven’t got your (applications’) health, then you haven’t got anything If you happen to be unlucky enough to suffer from Celiac disease - gluten intolerance (wheat, barley, oats, rye) - then you know how important it is to keep gluten out of your diet. If you don’t know let’s just say that you have to keep even trace amounts of gluten out of your diet lest you suffer the consequences, which can be different from person to person, but none are pleasant. You feed off food; applications feed off requests and responses. Like those who... posted @ Friday, June 05, 2009 4:08 AM | Feedback (0)

Can You Teach an Old Developer New Tricks? When SOA was declared dead there was a spate of articles and blogs on why the architecture “died.” Most pundits came to the conclusion that like many innovations it wasn’t the technology to blame but rather people. Architects lacked the skills to properly leverage SOA; business stakeholders failed to look at SOA as a strategic architecture, choosing instead to use it as a tactical integration-solving solution; network and systems’ administrators did not understand the unique characteristics and issues a well-designed SOA raised within the network and on systems; and developers were loathe to “reuse” and “share” services despite alternate... posted @ Thursday, June 04, 2009 4:07 AM | Feedback (1)

Is Social Media a Hostile Work Environment? The blurring of professional and personal lives in social media and the rush of organizations to “join in” may create just that. Almost every modern organization has behavioral policies known as “zero-tolerance” these days. These policies are designed to provide a healthy, productive environment in which anyone can work without fear of being insulted, offended, harassed, or otherwise made uncomfortable on a day to day basis. Basically, “zero-tolerance” policies are - in part - the codification of the common-sense rule that says you don’t talk about religion, politics, or sex in the work environment. Controversial topics,... posted @ Wednesday, April 29, 2009 3:05 AM | Feedback (2)

The Web 2.0 Botnet: Twisting Twitter and Automated Collaboration Collaborating automatically via Web 2.0 APIs is a beautiful thing. I can update status on Twitter and it will automagically propagate to any number of social networking sites: Facebook. FriendFeed. MySpace. LinkedIn. If I had to do it all manually, I wouldn’t. But the automation of sharing, i.e. collaboration, between Web 2.0 social networking sites made possible by open APIs is just too easy to pass up. The danger is, of course, that a single malicious message can just as quickly propagate through that same social network. The power of the API can quickly be turned against us. A... posted @ Monday, April 13, 2009 4:05 AM | Feedback (0)

Twitter's API limit: Static control in a dynamic world Twitter is, once again, feeling growing pains. This time the microblogging darling of the social networking world is proactively addressing the problem - by further rate limiting its APIs. Alex Payne, API Lead for Twitter, explained on the Twitter Developers mailing list: “Starting later this week we’ll be limiting those on the whitelist to 20,000 requests per hour. Yes, you read that right: twenty THOUSAND requests per hour. According to our logs, this accounts for all but the very largest consumers of our API. This is essentially a ... posted @ Thursday, January 22, 2009 6:14 AM | Feedback (1)

Putting the network back in social networking A while back Joe blogged about some Twitter integration he'd done around monitoring of BIG-IP. He's  got a PERL proxy that monitors the BIG-IP and sends out notifications and alerts to a specified Twitter account. But I wanted something more interactive, something more social. I wanted to be able to send a tweet to my BIG-IP and have it respond; a BIG-IP Twitter bot, if you will. So Friday I finally decided it was time to do it. I set up a Twitter account for my BIG-IP and started coding. Luckily, the Twitter API is pretty straight-forward and... posted @ Monday, December 15, 2008 6:03 AM | Feedback (3)

The Soft Risks of Social Networking Just about every large organization, a whole lot of startups, are trying to leverage the potential of social media in their marketing efforts. We all read great articles containing tips and tricks regarding how to use social media for business purposes, and how to gauge whether or not we are successful. The discussions often ignore the risks, especially the soft risks, of engaging the market and so-called citizen journalists at the Internet's watercoolers. Soft risks are always part of the equation of the return on investment for a product or piece of software. Soft risks are... posted @ Thursday, November 06, 2008 3:10 AM | Feedback (0)

Old and busted: RSS feeds. New hotness: Followers. According to Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion, I must be way more geeky than your average consumer. (Thanks, Steve!) That's because I'm using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and Google to peruse myriad feeds in my daily quest to "read the Internet."   Steve comments on a recently released Forrester report citing the adoption of RSS as low with no real indication it will get any better in the future. According to the research, of the 89% of those who don't use feeds only 17% say they're interested in using them. In fact Forrester... posted @ Tuesday, October 21, 2008 4:36 AM | Feedback (3)

Is Twitter the newest data security threat? One of the most dangerous threats to data security is also one of the least talked about: employees. Are Twitter and other microblogging sites yet another avenue through which sensitive data can leak out of the corporate database and into the hands of ... anyone? Perhaps more worrisome, what information are you giving away simply by being a part of the community? Of course Twitter is a potential threat. Like personal e-mail accounts and instant messaging, Twitter and sites of its ilk are primarily messaging mechanisms, which translates into personal channels for exporting sensitive data outside the... posted @ Thursday, October 16, 2008 4:00 AM | Feedback (6)

3 Really good reasons you should use TCP multiplexing AJAX. SOA. Social network API integration. What is TCP Multiplexing? All of aforementioned technologies have one thing in common. Okay, they have more than that in common,  but for the purposes of this discussion there's one very TCP multiplexing is a technique used primarily by load balancers and application delivery controllers (but also by some stand-alone web application acceleration solutions) that... posted @ Tuesday, October 14, 2008 5:10 AM | Feedback (7)

My application is not the next Twitter so why should I care about high availability? It often seems that load balancing and high availability are associated with only high traffic sites, like Twitter and Google. But load balancing and high availability isn't just for Web 2.0 phenomenons or web monsters; it can be an invaluable tool in your strategy to maintain service level agreements and customer satisfaction no matter how large or small your customer base - and data center - might be. ... posted @ Tuesday, September 23, 2008 4:34 AM | Feedback (3)

Are you (and your infrastructure) ready for virtualization? We're virtually there! Figuratively speaking, of course. VMWorld kicks off Monday night, and F5 is just putting the finishing touches on everything we've got to bring along to the show (yes, that means trinkets, too). What the heck are we doing at a virtualization show? Pshaw. We've been in the business of network and server virtualization for ... well, forever. Hey, 12 years is forever in this industry, isn't it? We'll be doing a cool demo with BIG-IP GTM in the B-Hive demo, where we'll demonstrate global load sharing between virtual data centers, and Trace|3... posted @ Wednesday, September 10, 2008 4:18 AM | Feedback (0)

IE8: Robbing Peter to pay Paul For those of you unfamiliar with the idiom, it should be taken to mean "benefiting one at the expense of another." In this case, Paul is the end-user and Peter is the server administrator. Or better yet, Paul is the browser and Peter is the server. All web browsers, including IE (Internet Explorer), impose a per-server connection limit was imposed to reduce overload on servers. This was introduced back when the web was exploding and browsers opened up connections willy-nilly and made server operators cry. Often. The limitation imposed by IE (two connections per host) was harsher... posted @ Friday, September 05, 2008 4:19 AM | Feedback (5)

Dear Plurk: We're Through. Kthxbye. Plurk. Twitter. Plurk? Twitter? When Twitter is down (which is often) many denizens of the "life streaming" site rush to plurk to continue sharing news, blog posts, gossip, and general tidbits of interest. The difference between the two is that Twitter doesn't put any pressure on your to tweet. Sure, your "followers" can "nudge" you to update, but it's not the headless-dog-staring-at-you-on-every-page pressure of plurk. If you haven't plurked, that may be lost on you. So let me explain. Plurk is partially a karma-based site. You can raise your karma by inviting friends, gaining followers, plurking,... posted @ Wednesday, July 16, 2008 2:16 PM | Feedback (5)

Apple twitters twitter (v) to allow your services go up and down randomly under heavy load due to inadequate architecture or planning, annoying a lot of the known (online) world In case you've been living under a rock (or been heads down coding for the past week), Apple launched its latest iPhone today to the delight and, it appears, consternation of customers. A colleague relates his experience not just purchasing one of the eagerly awaited phones, but the disaster that was the activation process. Apparently Apple wasn't satisfied with all the good press it gets about how hip and trendy... posted @ Friday, July 11, 2008 2:19 PM | Feedback (2)

API Request Throttling: A Better Option This past week there's been some interesting commentary regarding Twitter's change to its API request throttling feature. Request throttling, often used as a method to ensure QoS (Quality of Service) for a variety of network and application uses, is used by Twitter as an attempt to not overwhelm the system such that they are forced to display the now (in)famous Twitter fail whale image. One of the things you can do with a BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and iRules is request throttling. Why would you want to let a mediating device like an application delivery controller control... posted @ Monday, June 30, 2008 3:43 AM | Feedback (7)

How much is Twitter costing your organization? "@blahblah Can't twitter from work :-(" From some of the tweets on twitter it appears that some organizations are blocking the strangely popular and addictive social networking site. Even Don has expressed concern that "tweeting" could be dangerously distracting and decrease productivity, not to mention that tweeting during business hours costs the organization money. That led us to a conversation in which we tried to determine the financial cost to organizations of tweeting. To do so, we have to make certain assumptions. Those assumptions are: The average WPM typing speed of a twitterer: 70 ... posted @ Wednesday, June 04, 2008 8:21 AM | Feedback (6)