"Deploying a Global Network with Skynet Beta" & "Testing CDN Performance"
Details
Special thanks to Verizon Digital Media for hosting this meet up! Check out the engineering blog (https://eng.verizondigitalmedia.com/) for details on cool things happening at Verizon. Thanks @engage_vdms (https://twitter.com/engage_vdms)!
Speaker Bio for Fred Jones:
Fred started working on the EdgeCast Content Delivery Network at Verizon Digital Media Services (VDMS) in May of 2017 as a Sr. Network Engineer. Fred has been working in tech since 2001. Starting out as a network administrator and venturing to SCADA systems, he has witnessed operational issues with sustenance, deployment, and maintenance of industrial, manufacturing, and consumer systems.
At VDMS we designed our content delivery network (CDN) for the web of tomorrow — a web brimming with rich media and millions of users who demand a high-quality, instant-on experience. With over 100 points of presence in data centers spanning 5 contents, the EdgeCast CDN has peak egress bandwidth of over 47TBs (or whatever is on the map) to bring data to the consumers.
The problems associated with scaling to that capacity are surmountable. Leveraging Ansible to manage configurations of the network and ensure fault tolerant delivery in a global environment allows us to scale to 125+ “Super Pops”.
Talk description:
From the command line to code the evolution of configuration deployment is happening and the network is next in line. The decision to use a deployment framework doesn’t come easy.
Choosing the right platform that allows you to evolve your process is crucial. The need to scale systems as well as meet business demands and operational problems comes at a cost. Learning curves are steep as tackling a fragile process such as network deployment could cripple the network, delivery deadlines and induce risks that are not realized until deployment.
At VDMS we have gone through the shells of the jungle and explored synchronization of the enter button. Leveraging Ansible increased the synchronicity of delivery to systems and the speed to deploy multiple pops in a timely manner.
In this presentation you will learn:
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Introduction to Ansible - Need for faster deployment
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How VDMS leveraged Ansible for network automation and configuration management
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Current Process
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Migrating to Hands Off Network (HON) a.k.a Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)
Speaker Bio for Benjamin Rodgers:
Benjamin Rodgers, a Performance Engineer at Verizon Digital Media Services, first chipped his teeth on development operations in 2009, has engineered deployment pipelines for multiple web properties at Fox Networks Group, and is now applying his knowledge to performance testing for a content delivery network.
Talk description:
At VDMS, every millisecond counts and marks the difference between begging the fastest content delivery network (CDN) or not. The use of Ansible allows to focus more in the data analysis by reducing the operational time in every single test.
In this talk, we are going to show the way the Performance team is using Ansible to tackle the operational part of running hundreds of tests on multiple servers. Our tests cover different server components from network cards to NUMA interconnect paths.
Parking, etc:
After turning off of Jefferson on to Alla Road, there is free street parking at the first right Coral Tree Place. From there you can enter the Reserve business park at the Gate 1 main entry which is the gate near the end of the road, or via a pedestrian entrance near gate 2.
Space 900 is the large building that is closest to the Gate 1 main entry.
Our fearless host Jordan Schwartz is going to livestream the presentation. The link for the livestream is [TBD]
"Deploying a Global Network with Skynet Beta" & "Testing CDN Performance"