Joab Jackson, Author at NetworkingNexus.net

Joab Jackson

Author Archives: Joab Jackson

Microsoft Patch Tuesday: The patches just keep coming

For Microsoft, the vulnerabilities just keep popping up, and appear to be surfacing more quickly than ever before.Like last month, Microsoft issued a fairly large number of security bulletins for April Patch Tuesday—11 bulletins addressing 26 vulnerabilities. Last month brought 14 bulletins from Microsoft, covering 43 vulnerabilities.A year ago, Microsoft’s monthly bulletins tended to be fewer in number, usually in the single digits, noted Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer for IT security firm Qualys.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon offers network file storage in the cloud

Amazon Web Services continues to chip away at the enterprise storage market, with plans for a new service designed to be a nimbler alternative to network attached storage (NAS) appliances.The Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) will provide a shared, low-latency file system for organizations or project teams that need to share large files and access them quickly, such as a video production company.“The file system is the missing element in the cloud today,” Amazon Web Services head Andy Jassy said Wednesday at the AWS Summit in San Francisco. The service is not yet available for full commercial use, though a preview will be available shortly.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In a mock cyberattack, Deloitte teaches the whole business how to respond

A security breach or big data loss can trigger an emergency for the entire business, not just for the IT or security teams, so staffers from multiple departments must know how to react quickly and effectively in such situations.This was one of the main lessons taught in a cyber incident war-gaming exercise held for the media on Tuesday in New York by consulting firm Deloitte.Deloitte typically conducts such exercises on behalf of large organizations that want to prepare for when they are hit by a major computer breach. In Tuesday’s event, the participants were executives from various companies, many of whom had participated in such an exercise before.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft creates a container for Windows

Hoping to build on the success of Docker-based Linux containers, Microsoft has developed a container technology to run on its Windows Server operating system.“We’re finding that interest in containers is very high,” said Mike Schutz, who runs cloud platform product marketing for Microsoft. Twenty percent of Azure users deploy Linux and a significant number of those users run Docker containers, he said.The Windows Server Container can be used to package an application so it can be easily moved across different servers. It uses a similar approach to Docker’s, in that all the containers running on a single server all share the same operating system kernel, making them smaller and more responsive than standard virtual machines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM to pump $3 billion into new IoT business unit

Hungry for a bigger piece of the Internet of things market, IBM will invest US$3 billion over four years to establish a new business unit dedicated to providing IoT systems and services to enterprises.“We’re only at the very beginning of an amazing revolution. If we thought we were dealing with big data now, we haven’t seen anything yet,” said Erick Brethenoux, IBM director of analytics.IBM General Manager Chris O’Connor will oversee the new unit, which will initially court enterprises in travel, logistics, insurance, public utilities, transportation and retail, Brethenoux said.IBM will also tailor a new cloud service, the IBM IoT Cloud Open Platform, providing a way for enterprises to build their own data-driven systems, Brethenoux said. Over time, it will also develop specialized packages for specific fields like the insurance industry.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP boxes up the cloud for the enterprise

Enterprises that wish to enjoy the benefits of cloud computing but still prefer to keep computational resources in-house should take a look at a new cloud system offered by Hewlett-Packard.A preconfigured package of hardware and software, the HP Helion Rack “is designed to help enterprises deploy private clouds much faster,” said Ken Won, director of HP Helion marketing.A private cloud allows an organization to offer cloud services, such as virtual machines, on internal networks. For example, employees could use a private cloud to provision their own IT resources. Or, a company may want to set up a cloud computing infrastructure itself to run cloud services on behalf of their customers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Red Hat formulates a plan for building enterprise mobile apps

Red Hat understands that developing a mobile application is not the same as building one for the desktop, which is why the company has augmented its software stack with new technologies for mobile development.“The whole Web architecture is giving way to an emerging mobile architecture,” said Cathal McGloin, Red Hat vice president of mobile platforms.Like IBM and Oracle, Red Hat has been working to extend its enterprise software portfolio so it can support mobile applications as well, particularly those that its customers develop in house.The company said Tuesday that it has completed integrating into its own software portfolio the mobile platform it acquired when it purchased FeedHenry last October. It has outlined how enterprises could use these technologies to build mobile applications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Red Hat formulates a plan for building enterprise mobile apps

VMware expands desktop virtualization to Linux

VMware’s VMware Horizon desktop virtualization software suite will soon deliver virtual Linux desktops over a network, in addition to the Microsoft Windows desktops it has long provided for remote workers.The company has launched an early access program for customers to test a version of Horizon 6 that can package server-based Red Hat and Ubuntu Linux desktops so they can be accessed from remote computers and mobile devices.Although Windows remains the dominant platform for enterprise desktops, at least a small percentage of organizations use Linux instead, according to market reports.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Red Hat strips down for Docker

Reacting to the surging popularity of the Docker virtualization technology, Red Hat has customized a version of its Linux distribution to run Docker containers.The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host strips away all the utilities residing in the stock distribution of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that aren’t needed to run Docker containers.Removing unneeded components saves on storage space, and reduces the time needed for updating and booting up. It also provides fewer potential entry points for attackers.Containers are valuable for organizations in that they cleanly separate the application from the underlying infrastructure, explained Lars Herrmann, Red Hat senior director of product strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon’s next cloud conference set for October in Las Vegas

IT professionals with skills in Amazon Web Services will once again swarm Las Vegas come October.Amazon will hold its next annual cloud services conference, re:Invent, from October 6 to October 9.As has been the case since the event’s debut in 2012, the venue will be the Venetian, a spacious hotel and conference facility.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon’s next cloud conference set for October in Las Vegas

IBM acquires AlchemyAPI to fatten Watson portfolio

IBM has acquired computing services provider AlchemyAPI to broaden its portfolio of Watson-branded cognitive computing services.AlchemyAPI’s set of services could help developers augment their applications with machine-learning capabilities typically too complex to maintain in-house.IBM is banking on a great need for such services. Cognitive computing will generate $50 billion in IT business within the U.S. alone, according to consulting firm Deloitte.AlchemyAPI was founded in 2005 to provide computing services accessed over the Internet by a set of APIs (application programming interfaces). Approximately 40,000 developers have used AlchemyAPI’s services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Android users spammed with fake Amazon gift card offers

New malware spreading across Android devices via text messages promises free Amazon gift cards but delivers only spam to everyone on the device’s contact list.The “Gazon” threat, as it is called by IT security firm AdaptiveMobile, has already infected more than 4,000 Android phones in North America, making it the single largest text-based mobile malware attack against Android to date, according to the company. Gazon has also been seen on devices outside North America.Gazon has thus far spewed out more than 200,000 unsolicited SMS messages, luring some to click on a link promising free Amazon gift cards, an action that causes more messages to be sent out.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Docker introduces orchestration tools for large scale deployments

As adoption of the Docker virtualization container grows, the namesake company behind the open source technology has released three tools for managing large scale deployments.Docker Machine, Swarm and Compose are collectively designed to make containers more portable and scalable, so they can be deployed and managed more easily en masse. Machine and Swarm are in a beta stage of development.Debuting in 2013, Docker has become popular with developers and organizations, having been downloaded over 100 million times. The software provides a way to package an application along with its dependent libraries so it can be easily and quickly run on any Linux platform. All the major cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM, Joyent, and Microsoft, can host Docker containers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM brings location awareness to MobileFirst apps

Enterprise apps built with IBM’s MobileFirst management and development platform can now be made more aware of their surroundings.The new capabilities, included in an upcoming MobileFirst update, could give app users more information about their location and let enterprises more granularly tailor their apps to user needs, said Mike Gilfix, vice president of IBM’s MobileFirst platform.MobileFirst is IBM’s package to build enterprise mobile applications that tie directly into the data and business logic of backend IT systems.The software is targeted at those organizations that don’t have sufficient in-house IT or development staff to fully build and support apps. About 75 percent of organizations have a backlog of up to 20 mobile apps that they plan to build, but haven’t yet, according to a survey commissioned by IBM and conducted by OutSystems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google Cloud offers security scanning for customer apps

Google has released a security scanner to help its cloud customers guard against attacks on their Web applications.Google Cloud Security Scanner, now available as a free beta for Google App Engine users, is designed to overcome a number of limitations often found in commercial Web application security scanners, noted Google security engineering manager Rob Mann in a blog post announcing the new service.Commercials scanners can be difficult to set up. They can over-report issues, leading to too many false positives. They are designed more for security professionals than developers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hitachi buying Pentaho to boost its IoT business

Hitachi Data Systems is purchasing business intelligence software maker Pentaho to incorporate analysis into Internet of Things systems it’ll build for the healthcare, public safety and other industries.“Hitachi owns the infrastructure and Pentaho owns the data integration and analytics platform and know-how to harness the value in big data,” wrote Pentaho CEO Quentin Gallivan in a blog post detailing the rationale behind the acquisition.Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) is a wholly owned subsidiary of global conglomerate Hitachi, and focuses on IT and data center support and integration. It has been working to expand into the IoT market, which will generate over $2 trillion in business for all industries by 2020, according to Goldman Sachs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft fixes IE memory problems

Internet Explorer is getting major repairs, as Microsoft has issued 41 patches to fix memory vulnerabilities in its browser.The Internet Explorer patches are part of the company's routine monthly release of security and bug fixes for its software products, called "Patch Tuesday." Microsoft Office and both the desktop and server editions of Windows are also getting fixes in this batch.Overall, Microsoft issued patches to cover 56 different vulnerabilities, which are bundled into nine separate security bulletins.Three of the bulletins are marked as critical, meaning they fix vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious attackers without user intervention. System administrators should tend to critical vulnerabilities as quickly as possible. These bulletins cover Internet Explorer and both the server and desktop editions of Windows.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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