Extreme completes Brocade acquisition, finishing a remarkable turnaround story

Extreme Networks today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Brocade’s data center switching, routing and analytics business, completing one of the most remarkable and unlikely turnaround stories in tech history.In the technology industry, rising from the ashes is very rare. Once a vendor, no matter how big, starts to slide, it generally has a bad outcome. Consider all the giants in networking alone that went from 800-pound gorillas to a puff of smoke seemingly overnight. Names including Lucent, Nortel, 3Com, Cabletron, Marconi and Fore Systems, once seemingly mighty powers that could never be toppled, are now all gone. Some vendors have avoided that fate by going private to revamp the company without the pressure of meeting Wall Street expectations every quarter. Recent examples of this are Polycom, Riverbed, Dell and Solar Winds.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco adds telemetry to storage networks

Fiber Channel (FC) storage networks have always been somewhat of a black box. Servers and storage devices are plugged in, and things magically seem to work.For the most part, storage-area networks (SANs) are reliable and perform well – and they better because the applications that rely of FC-SANs are typically the most important ones in the company. But what happens when things aren’t working? A poorly performing SAN might mean that the database with critical customer information isn’t available or financial records can’t be pulled up. Also on Network World: 10 Most important open source networking projects Historically, troubleshooting SANs has been difficult because the FC switches give off little data that can be used to identify the source of a problem. Typically, engineers would need to deploy a physical test access port (TAP) or packet broker in front of the product to capture the data. This may seem like a reasonable strategy until one prices out TAPs and learns the price per port is about 5-10x a FC port. Companies that go down this route often buy a few and deploy them only when there is a problem. This causes the engineering team to always be in Continue reading

Tempered Networks extends Bring Your Own Network across the enterprise

Remember when Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) was all the rage? That’s the concept of workers being able to bring their own mobile phones and tablets into the workplace and use them for business-related functions. That quickly evolved into bring your own applications, where workers or lines of business would go get their own apps via the cloud.Also on Network World: 7 must-have network tools So, what else can non-technical people go get on their own? How about a network? That may seem a bit farfetched, as I’ve never seen an application developer bring a router into the office. But that’s exactly what Tempered Networks is enabling with the introduction of Bring Your Own Network (BYON). To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tempered Networks extends Bring Your Own Network across the enterprise

Remember when Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) was all the rage? That’s the concept of workers being able to bring their own mobile phones and tablets into the workplace and use them for business-related functions. That quickly evolved into bring your own applications, where workers or lines of business would go get their own apps via the cloud.Also on Network World: 7 must-have network tools So, what else can non-technical people go get on their own? How about a network? That may seem a bit farfetched, as I’ve never seen an application developer bring a router into the office. But that’s exactly what Tempered Networks is enabling with the introduction of Bring Your Own Network (BYON). To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco, Google partner to simplify hybrid cloud deployments

There should be no question that for most organizations, hybrid clouds are the way of the future. My research shows that over 80 percent of organizations either use or plant to use a hybrid cloud strategy, so it’s coming and coming fast. However, the path to hybrid clouds won’t be the same for all companies. Some will be aggressive and migrate to a cloud-native strategy today. Others will be more conservative and will “lift and shift” a few applications at a time before rewriting them. There’s no right answer when it comes to creating a hybrid cloud world; the key is to get there. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ThousandEyes’ Device Layer helps solve application problems faster

Understanding user experience is becoming critically important to the success of all companies. I’ve interviewed dozens of business leaders on their digital transformation initiatives, and I can sort them into two larger buckets: increasing workforce productivity and improving customer experience. Those may seem somewhat unrelated, other than they used digital technologies, but there is another point of commonality and it’s that applications play a key role.Also on Network World: 7 must-have network tools By 2020, customer experience will be the #1 brand differentiator, topping price, product, or any other metric you can think of. While a web or mobile app experience isn’t the only thing that creates a good or bad experience, it’s often the first touch point for customers — and a bad one could drive them away.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ThousandEyes’ Device Layer helps solve application problems faster

Understanding user experience is becoming critically important to the success of all companies. I’ve interviewed dozens of business leaders on their digital transformation initiatives, and I can sort them into two larger buckets: increasing workforce productivity and improving customer experience. Those may seem somewhat unrelated, other than they used digital technologies, but there is another point of commonality and it’s that applications play a key role.Also on Network World: 7 must-have network tools By 2020, customer experience will be the #1 brand differentiator, topping price, product, or any other metric you can think of. While a web or mobile app experience isn’t the only thing that creates a good or bad experience, it’s often the first touch point for customers — and a bad one could drive them away.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ThousandEyes’ Device Layer helps solve application problems faster

Understanding user experience is becoming critically important to the success of all companies. I’ve interviewed dozens of business leaders on their digital transformation initiatives, and I can sort them into two larger buckets: increasing workforce productivity and improving customer experience. Those may seem somewhat unrelated, other than they used digital technologies, but there is another point of commonality and it’s that applications play a key role.Also on Network World: 7 must-have network tools By 2020, customer experience will be the #1 brand differentiator, topping price, product, or any other metric you can think of. While a web or mobile app experience isn’t the only thing that creates a good or bad experience, it’s often the first touch point for customers — and a bad one could drive them away.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Top 10 reasons why moving to private cloud isn’t as scary as you think

It’s late October now, which means Halloween (and our upcoming themed webinar, which you can register for here) is right around the corner. This time of year reminds people of lots of scary things such as goblins, zombies, witches and other monsters that go bump in the night. While these creatures aren’t real (at least not for the other 364 days of the year), one very real thing that often gives IT and business leaders nightmares is moving to a private cloud. Today, businesses are moving to the cloud faster than a ring wraith in pursuit of Frodo Baggins. Move too slow and the business will fall behind and perhaps never catch up.

The private versus public cloud debate has raged on for well over a decade and CIOs want to ensure that they’re making the best decision. However, deploying a private cloud only seems scary to some because they’re not aware of the benefits of private clouds. A private cloud delivers the same scale and self-service benefits as a public cloud but does so with a modernized architecture designed for a single enterprise. If that’s not enough to convince you, then check out these 10 reasons why the Continue reading

Why network operations should care about AppDynamics

Earlier this year, Cisco surprised many industry watchers when it forked out a cool $3.7 billion to acquire AppDynamics, which was about 2x the valuation it had going into its IPO. Most people know Cisco as the de facto standard and market leader in networking. AppDynamics lives higher up the stack and provides a view into how applications are performing by collecting data from users, applications, databases and servers.One might surmise that Cisco will use AppDynamics to go after a different buyer, and that assumption is correct. AppDynamics paves the way for Cisco to have a meaningful discussion with lines of business, application developers and company leaders. However, thinking AppDynamics isn’t for Cisco’s current core customers, network engineers, is wrong. AppDynamics can provide an equal amount of value to that audience.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why network operations should care about AppDynamics

Earlier this year, Cisco surprised many industry watchers when it forked out a cool $3.7 billion to acquire AppDynamics, which was about 2x the valuation it had going into its IPO. Most people know Cisco as the de facto standard and market leader in networking. AppDynamics lives higher up the stack and provides a view into how applications are performing by collecting data from users, applications, databases and servers.One might surmise that Cisco will use AppDynamics to go after a different buyer, and that assumption is correct. AppDynamics paves the way for Cisco to have a meaningful discussion with lines of business, application developers and company leaders. However, thinking AppDynamics isn’t for Cisco’s current core customers, network engineers, is wrong. AppDynamics can provide an equal amount of value to that audience.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco AI-driven services help close widening IT skills gap

The drive to digital transformation is causing the world to move faster than ever. And it seems businesses are experiencing a huge case of “fear of missing out” (FOMO) and adopting new technologies at a dizzying pace.A few years ago, only a few companies had invested in the Internet of Things (IoT), software-defined networking (SDN), cloud services and DevOps. Today, they’re rapidly becoming the norm, and it’s difficult, if not impossible, for IT to maintain the current environment.Doing things manually no longer works. An experienced engineer used to be able to look at router logs, TCP dumps or other data and figure out what was going on and find the source of a problem. But now, so much data is being generated from so many sources that even the best engineers can’t keep up and know the network like they used to. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco AI-driven services help close widening IT skills gap

The drive to digital transformation is causing the world to move faster than ever. And it seems businesses are experiencing a huge case of “fear of missing out” (FOMO) and adopting new technologies at a dizzying pace.A few years ago, only a few companies had invested in the Internet of Things (IoT), software-defined networking (SDN), cloud services and DevOps. Today, they’re rapidly becoming the norm, and it’s difficult, if not impossible, for IT to maintain the current environment.Doing things manually no longer works. An experienced engineer used to be able to look at router logs, TCP dumps or other data and figure out what was going on and find the source of a problem. But now, so much data is being generated from so many sources that even the best engineers can’t keep up and know the network like they used to. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco brings intent-based networking to the data center

A decade ago, one of the big knocks on Cisco was that its products were difficult to deploy and often even harder to manage. Over the past few years, though, particularly since Chuck Robbins took the helm as CEO, the company has been laser focused on making its products simpler to operate.It’s important to understand that making products easy to use is actually much more difficult than those that are hard to use. As an example, Cisco’s network-intuitive, intent-based networking solution enables the operations for the campus network to be fully automate, dramatically cutting the operational overhead required by network engineers.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: What is intent-based networking? This week, Cisco is bringing the benefits of intent-based networking to the data center with the 3.0 version of its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) software-defined networking (SDN) product. The latest release of ACI will increase network automation, simplify operational tasks and make it easier to secure agile workloads regardless of whether they are in containers, in virtual machines, on bare metal or in on-premises data centers. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco brings intent-based networking to the data center

A decade ago, one of the big knocks on Cisco was that its products were difficult to deploy and often even harder to manage. Over the past few years, though, particularly since Chuck Robbins took the helm as CEO, the company has been laser focused on making its products simpler to operate.It’s important to understand that making products easy to use is actually much more difficult than those that are hard to use. As an example, Cisco’s network-intuitive, intent-based networking solution enables the operations for the campus network to be fully automate, dramatically cutting the operational overhead required by network engineers.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: What is intent-based networking? This week, Cisco is bringing the benefits of intent-based networking to the data center with the 3.0 version of its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) software-defined networking (SDN) product. The latest release of ACI will increase network automation, simplify operational tasks and make it easier to secure agile workloads regardless of whether they are in containers, in virtual machines, on bare metal or in on-premises data centers. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Private networks still the best option for global companies

The rise of SD-WANs has raised an interesting debate. Is the internet good enough to replace a private network for an enterprise WAN?A decade ago, no one would have even considered this, but broadband speeds have increased and more things have moved to the cloud. Also, SD-WAN technology allows for dynamic path selection, which protects the WAN from outages so companies can use multiple broadband connections instead of something like MPLS.Global SD-WAN vendor Aryaka recently examined this question in its “State of SD-WAN Connectivity” report (registration required), which measured and compared data transport from the same pairs of locations using both the internet and over Aryaka’s own global private network. The test run was a randomly created 100 KB file, and connect time and transfer time were captured. The application response time was then calculated as the sum of these two metrics.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Private networks still the best option for global companies

The rise of SD-WANs has raised an interesting debate. Is the internet good enough to replace a private network for an enterprise WAN?A decade ago, no one would have even considered this, but broadband speeds have increased and more things have moved to the cloud. Also, SD-WAN technology allows for dynamic path selection, which protects the WAN from outages so companies can use multiple broadband connections instead of something like MPLS.Global SD-WAN vendor Aryaka recently examined this question in its “State of SD-WAN Connectivity” report (registration required), which measured and compared data transport from the same pairs of locations using both the internet and over Aryaka’s own global private network. The test run was a randomly created 100 KB file, and connect time and transfer time were captured. The application response time was then calculated as the sum of these two metrics.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The future of self-driving cars: New tech advances possibilities

Over the past few weeks, Nvidia has been holding a series of regional GPU Technology Conferences (GTC) in different parts of the globe. In September, Nvidia showed off its new Tensor3 GPU made for artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing in China. This week, the company took its show to Munich to host GTC Europe where it made a couple of announcements in the advancements of self-driving vehicles.The quest for the fully autonomous car has been somewhat of a “holy grail” and one of the best examples of what’s possible when discussing advanced technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The future of self-driving cars: New tech advances possibilities

Over the past few weeks, Nvidia has been holding a series of regional GPU Technology Conferences (GTC) in different parts of the globe. In September, Nvidia showed off its new Tensor3 GPU made for artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing in China. This week, the company took its show to Munich to host GTC Europe where it made a couple of announcements in the advancements of self-driving vehicles.The quest for the fully autonomous car has been somewhat of a “holy grail” and one of the best examples of what’s possible when discussing advanced technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apstra bridges the physical — virtual network divide

Intent-based systems have been all the rage since Cisco announced its “Network Intuitive” solution earlier this year. For Cisco customers, its solution is certainly interesting. But what about businesses that want an alternative to Cisco? Or companies that want to run a multi-vendor environment?Over a year before Cisco’s launch, a start-up called Apstra shipped the closed-loop, intent-based solution. It was designed to be multi-vendor in nature with support for Cisco but also Arista, Juniper, HP and others, including white box. Apstra operates as an overlay to networks built on any of the leading vendors to deliver intent-based networking in heterogeneous environments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here