Jeff Vance
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Jeff Vance
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7 ways to fight network tool sprawl
Tool sprawl is a daunting problem that plagues enterprise IT everywhere you look, from data center operations to cybersecurity to network reliability to application performance.Tool sprawl occurs when organizations acquire licenses (or not, in the case of open source) for multiple tools that tackle related, but not completely overlapping, issues. Layered security is the most obvious example of this, but the problem bedevils networking, DevOps, cloud teams, etc.To read this article in full, please click here
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What is a VLAN and how does it work?
A VLAN is a logical subnetwork of devices in a broadcast domain that is partitioned by network switches and/or network management software to act as its own distinct LAN. Switches that support VLANs give network managers the ability to create flexible virtual network segments that are independent of the underlying physical wired or wireless topology.VLANs operate at either Layer 2 (data-link layer) or Layer 3 (network layer), depending on the design of the network. Several different network protocols support VLANs, most notably Ethernet and Wi-Fi.To read this article in full, please click here
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What is a VLAN and how does it work?
A VLAN is a logical subnetwork of devices in a broadcast domain that is partitioned by network switches and/or network management software to act as its own distinct LAN. Switches that support VLANs give network managers the ability to create flexible virtual network segments that are independent of the underlying physical wired or wireless topology.VLANs operate at either Layer 2 (data-link layer) or Layer 3 (network layer), depending on the design of the network. Several different network protocols support VLANs, most notably Ethernet and Wi-Fi.To read this article in full, please click here
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What is DRaaS and how it can save your business from disaster
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) provides data replication, hosting, and recovery services from the cloud in the event of a disaster, power outage, ransomware attack, or other business interruption.DRaaS backs up data, applications, and IT infrastructure to the cloud, with providers typically having geographically dispersed data center footprints. In the event of a disaster, the business will failover to the DRaaS provider’s data center in a different region. As opposed to traditional disaster recovery methods, which require businesses to operate an off-site DR facility, DRaaS shifts that burden to service providers, and, thus, expands the market beyond the large enterprises that could afford such capital-intensive setups.To read this article in full, please click here
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What is DRaaS and how it can save your business from disaster
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) provides data replication, hosting, and recovery services from the cloud in the event of a disaster, power outage, ransomware attack, or other business interruption.DRaaS backs up data, applications, and IT infrastructure to the cloud, with providers typically having geographically dispersed data center footprints. In the event of a disaster, the business will failover to the DRaaS provider’s data center in a different region. As opposed to traditional disaster recovery methods, which require businesses to operate an off-site DR facility, DRaaS shifts that burden to service providers, and, thus, expands the market beyond the large enterprises that could afford such capital-intensive setups.To read this article in full, please click here
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What is NAC and why is it important for network security?
Network Access Control (NAC) is a cybersecurity technique that prevents unauthorized users and devices from entering private networks and accessing sensitive resources. Also known as Network Admission Control, NAC first gained a foothold in the enterprise in the mid-to-late 2000s as a way to manage endpoints through basic scan-and-block techniques.As knowledge workers became increasingly mobile, and as BYOD initiatives spread across organizations, NAC solutions evolved to not only authenticate users, but also to manage endpoints and enforce policies.How NAC works NAC tools detect all devices on the network and provide visibility into those devices. NAC software prevents unauthorized users from entering the network and enforces policies on endpoints to ensure devices comply with network security policies. NAC solutions will, for instance, make sure that the endpoint has up-to-date antivirus and anti-malware protections.To read this article in full, please click here
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What is NAC and why is it important for network security?
Network Access Control (NAC) is a cybersecurity technique that prevents unauthorized users and devices from entering private networks and accessing sensitive resources. Also known as Network Admission Control, NAC first gained a foothold in the enterprise in the mid-to-late 2000s as a way to manage endpoints through basic scan-and-block techniques.As knowledge workers became increasingly mobile, and as BYOD initiatives spread across organizations, NAC solutions evolved to not only authenticate users, but also to manage endpoints and enforce policies.How NAC works NAC tools detect all devices on the network and provide visibility into those devices. NAC software prevents unauthorized users from entering the network and enforces policies on endpoints to ensure devices comply with network security policies. NAC solutions will, for instance, make sure that the endpoint has up-to-date antivirus and anti-malware protections.To read this article in full, please click here
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How 6 top SD-WAN and SASE vendors are evolving
As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on and continues to impact the way people work, SD-WAN vendors are responding by investing heavily in new capabilities that extend the enterprise edge to wherever workers happen to be—branches, campuses, home offices, co-working spaces, mobile, etc.The main thrust of this evolution in SD-WAN technology is the merger of networking and security functions into a single platform, which most vendors now call Secure Access Service Edge (SASE).Who’s selling SASE, and what do you get? SASE, a term coined by Gartner in 2019, converges SD-WAN with basic security offerings, including encryption, anti-malware, and firewalls, while adding advanced services, such as Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS), Data Leak Prevention (DLP), Secure Internet Gateway (SIG), and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).To read this article in full, please click here
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3 types of edge-gateway vendors
As the enterprise edge expands to encompass everything from the factory floor and oil rigs to solar arrays and retail stores, overcoming the challenges of processing, managing, and securing data traffic close to the source has become a top priority for many organizations.Enter edge gateways. These devices process data from sensors, monitors, industrial controllers, and other devices at the edge, passing only actionable information over the WAN to cloud and enterprise data centers while weeding out bandwidth-hogging noise—for example, pressure sensors on an oil rig showing everything is fine. Read more: How to choose an edge gatewayTo read this article in full, please click here
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3 types of edge-gateway vendors
As the enterprise edge expands to encompass everything from the factory floor and oil rigs to solar arrays and retail stores, overcoming the challenges of processing, managing, and securing data traffic close to the source has become a top priority for many organizations.Enter edge gateways. These devices process data from sensors, monitors, industrial controllers, and other devices at the edge, passing only actionable information over the WAN to cloud and enterprise data centers while weeding out bandwidth-hogging noise—for example, pressure sensors on an oil rig showing everything is fine. Read more: How to choose an edge gatewayTo read this article in full, please click here
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Fractured edge-gateway market starts to heat up
As the enterprise edge expands to encompass everything from the factory floor and oil rigs to solar arrays and retail stores, overcoming the challenges of processing, managing, and securing data traffic close to the source has become a top priority for many organizations.Enter edge gateways. These devices process data from sensors, monitors, industrial controllers, and other devices at the edge, passing only actionable information over the WAN to cloud and enterprise data centers while weeding out bandwidth-hogging noise—for example, pressure sensors on an oil rig showing everything is fine. Read more: How to choose an edge gatewayTo read this article in full, please click here
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Fractured edge-gateway market starts to heat up
As the enterprise edge expands to encompass everything from the factory floor and oil rigs to solar arrays and retail stores, overcoming the challenges of processing, managing, and securing data traffic close to the source has become a top priority for many organizations.Enter edge gateways. These devices process data from sensors, monitors, industrial controllers, and other devices at the edge, passing only actionable information over the WAN to cloud and enterprise data centers while weeding out bandwidth-hogging noise—for example, pressure sensors on an oil rig showing everything is fine. Read more: How to choose an edge gatewayTo read this article in full, please click here
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Top SD-WAN vendors and how they got there
Even in the midst of the pandemic, revenues from SD-WAN grew 18.5% from 2019 to 2020, and is expected to grow another 26.5% this year, according to IDC.In the research firm’s forthcoming Worldwide SD-WAN Infrastructure Forecast, IDC projects compound annual growth of 18.9% through 2025, when total revenues will top $7 billion.SD-WAN buyers guide: Key questions to ask vendors “We expected to see a significant drop due to the pandemic, dragging the growth rate down to at least single digits,” said Brandon Butler, Senior Research Analyst, Enterprise Networks at IDC, but the rise of cloud computing and the need to connect enterprises to cloud-based resources including video conferencing applications offset the slowdown caused by a newly remote workforce. To read this article in full, please click here
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9 enterprise-storage startups to watch
As the enterprise edge expands to include semi-permanent remote workforces, IoT, and a range of applications like AI and M2M, they generate torrents of nonstop data that must be stored indefinitely and be available in near-real-time to users and applications.Legacy storage architectures are failing to keep up with both data growth and user/application demand. While storage innovation is pushing more workloads into the cloud, many startups have found that the average enterprise is not yet ready for cloud-only storage. Legacy architectures and applications are experiencing extended shelf-lives due to tight IT budgets, and many enterprises still prefer to keep certain workloads on-premises.To read this article in full, please click here
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9 enterprise-storage startups to watch
As the enterprise edge expands to include semi-permanent remote workforces, IoT, and a range of applications like AI and M2M, they generate torrents of nonstop data that must be stored indefinitely and be available in near-real-time to users and applications.Legacy storage architectures are failing to keep up with both data growth and user/application demand. While storage innovation is pushing more workloads into the cloud, many startups have found that the average enterprise is not yet ready for cloud-only storage. Legacy architectures and applications are experiencing extended shelf-lives due to tight IT budgets, and many enterprises still prefer to keep certain workloads on-premises.To read this article in full, please click here
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Nimble tech startups find ways to navigate the pandemic
The economic devastation of the global COVID-19 pandemic has many businesses fighting for survival, but dealing with chaos and uncertainty comes with the territory for a certain category of business: Startups.They thrive on disruption (or at least that’s the message they pitch to investors), but is the lean, move-fast-and-break-things model one that can survive global disruptions?Unlike retail, travel, and tourism that have been hammered by the downturn, data-center and networking businesses have fared better, with some such as teleconferencing seeing spikes in demand.To read this article in full, please click here
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5 hot network-automation startups to watch
With the combined challenges of tight IT budgets and scarcer technical talent, it’s becoming imperative for enterprise network pros to embrace automation of processes and the way infrastructure responds to changing network traffic.Not only can automation help address these problems, they can also improve overall application-response time by anticipating and addressing looming congestion. Modern applications, such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence, and architectures that incorporate IoT and hybrid cloud have yet to reach their true potential because network capacity seems to always lag behind demand. A common problem is that too much networking infrastructure is still manually maintained and managed, but major vendors are starting to addressing these issues, as are startups that seek to break bottlenecks through automation.To read this article in full, please click here
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5 hot network-automation startups to watch
With the combined challenges of tight IT budgets and scarcer technical talent, it’s becoming imperative for enterprise network pros to embrace automation of processes and the way infrastructure responds to changing network traffic.Not only can automation help address these problems, they can also improve overall application-response time by anticipating and addressing looming congestion. Modern applications, such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence, and architectures that incorporate IoT and hybrid cloud have yet to reach their true potential because network capacity seems to always lag behind demand. A common problem is that too much networking infrastructure is still manually maintained and managed, but major vendors are starting to addressing these issues, as are startups that seek to break bottlenecks through automation.To read this article in full, please click here
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5 Hot network-automation startups to watch
With the combined challenges of tight IT budgets and scarcer technical talent, it’s becoming imperative for enterprise network pros to embrace automation of processes and the way infrastructure responds to changing network traffic.Not only can automation help address these problems, they can also improve overall application-response time by anticipating and addressing looming congestion. Modern applications, such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence, and architectures that incorporate IoT and hybrid cloud have yet to reach their true potential because network capacity seems to always lag behind demand. A common problem is that too much networking infrastructure is still manually maintained and managed, but major vendors are starting to addressing these issues, as are startups that seek to break bottlenecks through automation.To read this article in full, please click here
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5 Hot network-automation startups to watch
With the combined challenges of tight IT budgets and scarcer technical talent, it’s becoming imperative for enterprise network pros to embrace automation of processes and the way infrastructure responds to changing network traffic.Not only can automation help address these problems, they can also improve overall application-response time by anticipating and addressing looming congestion. Modern applications, such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence, and architectures that incorporate IoT and hybrid cloud have yet to reach their true potential because network capacity seems to always lag behind demand. A common problem is that too much networking infrastructure is still manually maintained and managed, but major vendors are starting to addressing these issues, as are startups that seek to break bottlenecks through automation.To read this article in full, please click here