Microsoft has announced that it is partnering with chipmaker Nvidia and chip-designing software provider Synopsys to provide enterprises with foundry services and a new chip-design assistant. The announcement was made at the ongoing Microsoft Ignite conference.The foundry services from Nvidia, which will deployed on Microsoft Azure, will combine three of Nvidia’s elements — its foundation models, its NeMo framework, and Nvidia’s DGX Cloud service.To read this article in full, please click here
A lack of cloud management skills could be limiting in-house innovation and the benefits enterprises gain from implementing public cloud exclusively, driving more IT organizations to invest in hybrid cloud environments, according to recent research. In one survey, software vendor Parallels polled 805 IT professionals to learn more about how they use cloud resources. The responses showed that a technical skills gap continues to concern many organizations deploying cloud. Some 62% of survey respondents said they viewed the lack of cloud management skills at their organization as a “major roadblock for growth.” According to the results, 33% of respondents pointed to a lack of in-house expertise when trying to get maximum value from their cloud investment. Another 15% survey cited a difficulty finding the appropriate talent.To read this article in full, please click here
To get started as a Linux (or Unix) user, you need to have a good perspective on how Linux works and a handle on some of the most basic commands. This first post in a “getting started” series examines some of the first commands you need to be ready to use.On logging in
When you first log into a Linux system and open a terminal window or log into a Linux system from another system using a tool like PuTTY, you’ll find yourself sitting in your home directory. Some of the commands you will probably want to try first will include these:pwd -- shows you where you are in the file system right now (stands for “present working directory”)
whoami – confirms the account you just logged into
date -- show the current date and time
hostname -- display the system’s name
Using the whoami command immediately after logging in might generate a “duh!” response since you just entered your assigned username and password. But, once you find yourself using more than one account, it’s always helpful to know a command that will remind you which you’re using at the moment.To read this article in full, Continue reading
Nvidia has announced a new AI computing platform called Nvidia HGX H200, a turbocharged version of the company’s Nvidia Hopper architecture powered by its latest GPU offering, the Nvidia H200 Tensor Core.The company also is teaming up with HPE to offer a supercomputing system, built on the Nvidia Grace Hopper GH200 Superchips, specifically designed for generative AI training.A surge in enterprise interest in AI has fueled demand for Nvidia GPUs to handle generative AI and high-performance computing workloads. Its latest GPU, the Nvidia H200, is the first to offer HBM3e, high bandwidth memory that is 50% faster than current HBM3, allowing for the delivery of 141GB of memory at 4.8 terabytes per second, providing double the capacity and 2.4 times more bandwidth than its predecessor, the Nvidia A100.To read this article in full, please click here
Ransomware is a growing threat to organizations, according to research independently conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group and sponsored by Zerto, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.According to the report, 2023 Ransomware Preparedness: Lighting the Way to Readiness and Mitigation, 75% of organizations experienced ransomware attacks in the last 12 months, with10% facing daily attacks.[i]
46% of organizations experienced ransomware attacks at least monthly—with 11% reporting daily attacks.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco is taking a collaborative approach to helping enterprise customers build AI infrastructures.At its recent partner summit, Cisco talked up a variety of new programs and partnerships aimed at helping enterprises get their core infrastructure ready for AI workloads and applications.“While AI is driving a lot of changes in technology, we believe that it should not require a wholesale rethink of customer data center operations,” said Todd Brannon, senior director, cloud infrastructure marketing, with Cisco’s cloud infrastructure and software group. To read this article in full, please click here
VMware has two new corporate partners, in the form of Intel and IBM, for its private AI initiative. The partnerships will provide new architectures for users looking to keep their generative AI training data in-house, as well as new capabilities and features.Private AI, as VMware describes it, is essentially a generative AI framework designed to let customers use the data in their own enterprise environments — whether public cloud, private cloud or on-premises — for large language model (LLM) training purposes, without having to hand off data to third parties. VMware broke ground on the project publicly in August, when it rolled out VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA. That platform combines the VMware Cloud Foundation multicloud architecture with Nvidia AI Enterprise software, offering systems built by Dell, HPE and Lenovo to provide on-premises AI capabilities.To read this article in full, please click here
It’s barely fall of 2023, but it’s already clear that CIOs aren’t particularly positive about their network plans for 2024. Of 83 I have input from, in fact, 59 say they expect “significant issues” in their network planning for next year, and 71 say that they’ll be “under more pressure” in 2024 than they were this year. Sure, CIOs have a high-pressure job, but their expectations for 2024 are worse than for any year in the past 20 years, other than during Covid. Nobody is saying it’s a “the sky is falling” crisis like the proverbial Chicken Little, but some might be hunching their shoulders just a little.It seems that in 2023, all the certainties CIOs had identified in their network planning up to now are being called into question. That isn’t limited to networking, either. In fact, 82 of 83 said their cloud spending is under review, and 78 said that their data center and software plans are also in flux. In fact, CIOs said their network pressures are due more to new issues relating to the cloud, the data center, and software overall than to any network-specific challenges. Given all of this, it’s probably not surprising Continue reading
IT leaders are investing in observability technologies that can help them gain greater visibility beyond internal networks and build more resilient environments, according to recent research from Splunk.Splunk, which Cisco announced it would acquire for $28 billion, surveyed 1,750 observability practitioners to gauge investment and deployment of observability products as well as commitment to observability projects within their IT environments. According to the vendor’s State of Observability 2023 report, 87% of respondents now employ specialists who work exclusively on observability projects.To read this article in full, please click here
When evaluating the design of your backup systems or developing a design of a new backup and recovery system, there are arguably only two metrics that matter: how fast you can recover, and how much data you will lose when you recover. If you build your design around the agreed-upon numbers for these two metrics, and then repeatedly test that you are able to meet those metrics in a recovery, you’ll be in good shape.The problem is that few people know what these metrics are for their organization. This isn’t a matter of ignorance, though. They don’t know what they are because no one ever created the metrics in the first place. And if you don’t have agreed upon metrics (also known as service levels), every recovery will be a failure because it will be judged against the unrealistic metrics in everyone’s heads. With the exception of those who are intimately familiar with the backup and disaster recovery system, most people have no idea how long recoveries actually take.To read this article in full, please click here
The UK government has revealed technical and funding details for what will be one of the world’s fastest AI supercomputers, to be housed at the University of Bristol — and one of three new supercomputers slated to go online in the country over the next few years.Dubbed Isambard-AI, the new machine, first announced in September, will be built with HPE’s Cray EX supercomputers and powered by 5,448 NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips. The chips, which were launched by Nivida earlier this year, provide three times as much memory as the chipmaker’s current edge AI GPU, the H100, and 21 exaflops of AI performance. To read this article in full, please click here
Linux’s compgen command is not actually a Linux command. In other words, it’s not implemented as an executable file, but is instead a bash builtin. That means that it’s part of the bash executable. So, if you were to type “which compgen”, your shell would run through all of the locations included in your $PATH variable, but it just wouldn’t find it.$ which compgen
/usr/bin/which: no compgen in (.:/home/shs/.local/bin:/home/shs/bin:/usr/local/bin:
/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin)
Obviously, the which command had no luck in finding it.If, on the other hand, you type “man compgen”, you’ll end up looking at the man page for the bash shell. From that man page, you can scroll down to this explanation if you’re patient enough to look for it.To read this article in full, please click here
Network management and visualization vendor Splunk, which is set to be acquired by Cisco in a $28 billion deal, will cut about 560 jobs in a global restructuring, the company announced Wednesday in an SEC filing.Splunk president and CEO Gary Steele said in the filing that employees in the Americas set to lose their jobs will be notified throughout today, and that the company plans to offer severance packages to laid-off employees, as well as healthcare coverage and job placement assistance for an undisclosed length of time.To read this article in full, please click here
The data circulatory system Data is the lifeblood of enterprise, flowing vital information through a network of IT veins and arteries to deliver resources exactly where they are needed. Like how innovations in medicine and nutrition have changed the way we live, advanced technologies like IoT, AI, machine learning, and increasingly sophisticated applications are necessitating change in where and how data lives and is processed. To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco is teaming with Aviz Networks to offer an enterprise-grade SONiC offering for large customers interested in deploying the open-source network operating system.Under the partnership, Cisco’s 8000 series routers will be available with Aviz Networks’ SONiC management software and 24/7 support. The support aspect of the agreement may be the most significant portion of the partnership, as both companies attempt to assuage customers’ anxiety about supporting an open-source NOS.While SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) is starting to attract the attention of some large enterprises, deployments today are still mainly seen in the largest hyperscalers. With this announcement, Cisco and Aviz are making SONiC more viable for smaller cloud providers, service providers, and those very large enterprises that own and operate their own data centers, said Kevin Wollenweber, senior vice president and general manager with Cisco networking, data center and provider connectivity.To read this article in full, please click here
Intel’s traditional PC dominance looked to be approaching its former rude health, but that good news in its earnings report was offset by ongoing weakness in servers.
Public cloud migration long ago wrested control over digital infrastructure from network and security teams, but now is the time for those groups to retake the initiative. Cloud operations and DevOps groups will never cede ground, but they will welcome self-service networking and security solutions that provide guardrails that protect them from disaster. Cooperation between traditional infrastructure teams and cloud teams is even more important as enterprises embrace multi-cloud architecture, where complexity and risk are increasing. In fact, my research has found that security risk, collaboration problems, and complexity are the top pain points associated with multi-cloud networking today.To read this article in full, please click here
A few months ago, Arm Holdings introduced the Neoverse Complete Subsystem (CSS), designed to accelerate development of Neoverse-based systems. Now it has launched Arm Total Design, a series of tools and services to help accelerate development of Neoverse CSS designs.Partners within the Arm Total Design ecosystem gain preferential access to Neoverse CSS, which can enable them to reduce time to market and lower the costs associated with building custom silicon. This ecosystem covers all stages of silicon development. It aims to make specialized solutions based on Arm Neoverse widely available across various infrastructure domains, such as AI, cloud, networking, and edge computing.To read this article in full, please click here
Versa Networks has bumped up its secure access service edge (SASE) software with a variety of features, including AI to help customers better manage LAN resources at the edge of their networks.The company announced Versa SD-LAN, a software package that the company says will let customers integrate security, switching, routing, network and AI management services on approved white box Ethernet switches and access points.“Versa Secure SD-LAN is built as an extension of Versa’s Unified SASE platform, so it shares the same management console, policy repository, and data lake as our Versa Secure SD-WAN, cloud, and data center products,” according to Kevin Sheu, vice president of product marketing with Versa. To read this article in full, please click here
Dependency and trust have a complicated relationship, and that’s especially true with regard to enterprise views on networks. If you ask enterprise executives what network service has been the most transformational for their business, almost 100% will say “the internet.” If you ask them what network service has created the most problems for them, you get almost exactly the same response. The internet, they tell me, is insecure (87%), unreliable (81%), and lacks service quality (77%). And yet its loss would create “a major business disruption,” according to 97% of those users. Do you sense contradiction here? Well, we’re just getting started with that question.To read this article in full, please click here