Managing the Wide Area Network (WAN) for Redmond Inc., a supplier of industrial and commercial products – from salt that’s used to protect winter roadways to organic dairy products and health items – is an easier job today for the company’s technical project manager Aaron Gabrielson than it was a year ago.Redmond manages a phone system, point of sale and fax centrally out of headquarters in Heber City, Utah, which means each of Redmond’s 10 branch sites across the Midwest need a reliable connection back to headquarters in Utah. That’s easier for some sites, like those in Salt Lake City, than others, such as rural areas where there may only be a handful of workers on a farm.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
AppLovin is a 4-year old marketing platform that places advertisements in mobile apps. And it’s a data-intensive business to say the least.When AppLovin learns of an advertising opportunity in an app, the company has 100 milliseconds to decide if it will bid on the spot in a real-time auction. If it wins the bid, it consults a database storing billions of user preferences to serve an ad personalized to that user. AppLovin processes about 30 billion to 50 billion actions per day, all of which need to happen in millisecond timeframes and on a global basis.The company started as a customer of Amazon Web Services' IaaS public cloud. But in the past few years CTO John Krystynak – an early VMware employee - has moved AppLovin’s operations to another platform: Hosted bare metal infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled tools that protect not only cloud-based workloads in the company's Azure IaaS public cloud, but those on customers’ premises and even in competing clouds, such as those from Amazon Web Services.Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gave a keynote address at a Government Cloud Forum in Washington, D.C. this morning in which he talked about his company’s broad security efforts. Microsoft spends $1 billion annually in research and development to improve security across the company’s three major products: Windows 10, Office 365 and Azure. “We don’t think of security as being a separate piece of technology,” Nadella said. “It has to be core to the operational systems that you use, where your data resides, where your most critical application usage is.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
SolidarityImage by REUTERS/Philippe WojazerIn the hours and days following the tragic terror attacks in Paris, the Internet became a primary vehicle for not only disseminating information but also for individuals and companies to show their solidarity with the French. Check out the various ways the Internet responded to the French terror attacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
No, hell has not frozen over, but yes Microsoft and Red Hat have announced a major partnership today.In a collaboration that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, Microsoft – the purveyor of the mainstream and proprietary Windows OS – has partnered with Red Hat, the champion of an enterprise-class iteration of Linux. And analysts say the move is good for both companies.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: You built a cloud and now they want containers? | Microsoft pumps up Azure ahead of Amazon’s big cloud conference +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A new crop of products is emerging that aim to implant security best practices and compliance checks as early and often as possible when new infrastructure is spun up in the cloud or when new applications are launched in a rapid development environment.The idea behind these products is that security should be incorporated into the entire life cycle of resources being used or applications being developed. Some vendors contend that too often security assessments are either not performed, or they’re done too late in the process of managing resources and apps. Tools from companies like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Chef are all aiming to ensure security best practices are automatically enforced as early on in the process as possible.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hewlett Packard split into two companies yesterday: One is Hewlett Packard Enterprise, or HPE, which will sell infrastructure to enterprises. The other is HP Inc., which is the company’s printers and PC business.But whatever you do, don’t call the infrastructure business HP Enterprise.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Vote! Which is the better strategy? HP splitting up, or Dell buying EMC? | HP Split up: How did we get here? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
HP is splitting up while Dell and EMC are coming together. Which move will pan out better?+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: HP is now two companies: How did we get here? +The two companies are taking dramatically different paths to set themselves up to compete in the fast-moving technology landscape of today.HP is dividing itself into two businesses starting today; HP Inc. will sell PCs and printers while Hewlett Packard Enterprise will focus on infrastructure sales. Dell, meanwhile, has engineered a $67 billion buyout of EMC, and by extension VMware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While HP’s announcement that it will shutter its Helion Public Cloud early next year didn’t surprise those who watch the market closely, the move does raise questions about what’s next for HP and other cloud vendors.HP plans to focus on two major areas: Bringing efficiencies to customers’ on-premises environments, and arming its partners with HP hardware and software to build out hosted clouds.Analysts say HP is the latest example of a legacy IT vendor that has had to adjust its cloud ambitions in light of how dominant Infrastructure-as-a-Service players Amazon Web Services and Microsoft have become. The consolation prize is that there’s still plenty of opportunity left in the private, managed and hybrid cloud markets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Docker containers have spread like wildfire across the technology industry, and now one of the biggest companies behind the movement has taken a big step toward making it easier to manage application containers across various infrastructure environments.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Amazon’s case for running containers in its cloud | 12 Hot application container startup companies to watch +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Here’s to hoping that Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, didn’t get off on the wrong foot with his new boss on Monday.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: The Bunch is back - How Dell and EMC could change the IT landscape | How will Dell justify its massive payout for EMC? +Some commenters were quick to point out that Gelsinger was using a Mac during the kick-off conference call to announce Monday’s mega-merger between Dell and EMC. When Michael Dell buys your company, does that mean you have to start using Dell laptops?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With Dell acquiring EMC for a record $67 billion, it raises the question: What does this all mean for VMware and its customers?Officially, Dell says VMware will remain an independent publicly traded company. The wrinkle is that EMC owns 83% of VMware’s stock; and Dell is acquiring EMC.Forrester analyst Glenn O’Donnell says he expects the impact of the merger on VMware customers to be minimal. “You can basically look at this as some musical chairs at the high end,” he says. But other analysts say there could be significant opportunities for Dell to combine its hardware with VMware’s software.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Dell acquires EMC for $67 billion | VMware CEO hits on network virtualization reality, feuding with Cisco & the EMC Federation's future +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.BitbucketKey features: Bitbucket Server (formerly named Stash) is a Git solution for professional teams. New capabilities include Git Mirroring for distributed team members, Large File Storage support and help in organizing complex repository structures. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.BitbucketKey features: Bitbucket Server (formerly named Stash) is a Git solution for professional teams. New capabilities include Git Mirroring for distributed team members, Large File Storage support and help in organizing complex repository structures. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Matt Asay has a smart piece over on InfoWorld about some ongoing struggles with OpenStack, as evidenced by Red Hat’s most recent earnings call.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: What broke Amazon's cloud +It begs the question: Are containers to blame?Here’s Asay:
As big as the community behind OpenStack has been, [Red Hat CEO Jim] Whitehurst declared Docker the “single biggest topic that comes up among ... [Red Hat’s] leading [customers].” In fact, Whitehurst noted that he hears more from customers about Docker than OpenStack.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Despite all the hype about containers, the application packaging technology is still evolving, especially as relates to networking.
In the past year though there have been significant advancements to Docker container networking functionality. At the same time Docker has built a plug-in architecture that allows more advanced network management tools to control containers.
+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Cisco’s “open” data center OS embraces containers +
Meanwhile, startups have developed custom platforms for managing containers, while traditional vendors such as Cisco and VMware have enabled their network management tools to control containers. So, the earliest container networking challenges are beginning to be solved, but there’s still more work to be done.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
VMworld used to be a conference to learn how to use server virtualization.+MORE VMWORLD COVERAGE FROM NETWORK WORLD: Why (and how) VMware created a whole new virtualization platform just for containers +Forrester analyst Dave Bartoletti says it’s not nearly a virtualization show anymore though. This year the conference focused on a variety of topics, from cloud to network virtualization, storage virtualization and hybrid cloud enablement.In the video below Bartoletti discusses VMware’s hybrid cloud strategy, and why there’s so much hype about containers in the market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As the hype about containers has mounted over the past year, it has raised questions about what this technology – which is for packaging applications - means for traditional management and virtualization vendors. Some have wondered: Will containers kill the virtual machine?VMware answered that question with a resounding no at its annual conference in San Francisco last week. But, company officials say containers can benefit from having a new type of management platform. And it’s built a whole new type of virtualization just for containers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A key theme at this year's VMworld conference was the virtualization of the data center, and specifically the network.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Containers key to Cisco's "open" data center OS +VMware entered into the networking market two years ago when it purchased Nicira for more than $1 billion. Since then VMware has rolled out NSX, it’s virtual networking product. Officials say there are already 700 NSX deployments, including 65 customers that have $1 million+ NSX deployments.In the video below, check out what VMware’s Chris King says have been some of the driving factors behind virtual networking, and learn how virtual networking is being used as a security tool, and not just network agility software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A key theme at this year's VMworld conference was the virtualization of the data center, and specifically the network.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Containers key to Cisco's "open" data center OS +VMware entered into the networking market two years ago when it purchased Nicira for more than $1 billion. Since then VMware has rolled out NSX, it’s virtual networking product. Officials say there are already 700 NSX deployments, including 65 customers that have $1 million+ NSX deployments.In the video below, check out what VMware’s Chris King says have been some of the driving factors behind virtual networking, and learn how virtual networking is being used as a security tool, and not just network agility software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Brandon Butler