Databases. Alongside networking, they're arguably one of the less exciting areas of the technology world.But no matter how boring they are, databases are, of course, a critical part of delivering technology. And we live in a changing time for the humble database, with new models challenging incumbent approached. A case in point is graph databases.For a quick primer, per Wikipedia, a graph database is a database that uses graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges and properties to represent and store data. A key concept of the system is the graph (or edge or relationship), which directly relates data items in the store. The relationships allow data in the store to be linked together directly and, in most cases, retrieved with a single operation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
We heart this hardwareWe love all our gear, from our desktop PCs to every last one of our high-tech gadgets, but some pieces of kit hold a very special place in our hearts. It can’t be helped. A component either fulfills its performance promise so spectacularly, or it perfectly satisfies a particular need, or we’re just plain attached to it out of well-worn habit.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The war against spam has been a long one. Just as we get better filtering, spammers and phishers turn to more sophisticated techniques. We are even seeing ransomware attacks like Cryptolocker and Cryptowall become commonly spread over email. There must be a technical way to stop some of this, right?Getting DKIM set up with Microsoft Exchange ServerTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
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.Ruckus Cloudpath ES 5.0Pricing: based on total number of users and is available in 1/3/5 year subscriptions ranging from: $1.50/user for Education on-prem subscription; $1.70/user for Education cloud subscription; $5.00/user for Education on-prem subscription; $5.80/user for Education cloud subscriptionTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
MongoDB just released version 3.4 of its database product. The company states that this release targets enterprises wanting to conduct a "digital transformation."What MongoDB appears to mean is that version of the software extends operational and analytical capabilities with the goal in mind of helping those enterprises select a single database for their "Next-Generation Applications."Here's what MongoDB has to say about version 3.4
The latest version is a major advance that places MongoDB at the center of enterprises’ digital transformation initiatives. Organizations today are focused on delivering new classes of applications, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence, which have deep operational and analytical requirements. By further strengthening the product’s always-on operational and real-time analytics capabilities, MongoDB makes it easier for enterprises to consolidate their technology footprint and accelerate their digital transformation with a single database.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Aligned Energy is about to complete construction of its Phoenix data center, a facility that it claims is leading the way in terms of data center efficiency. Aligned Energy's leaders are so sure of the efficiencies they're driving that they're introducing a new model for how data center space is bought and sold.But before we look at that, let's look at some fundamentals around data centers.+ Also on Network World: Google's DeepMind A.I. can slash data center power use 40% +
It is a generally accepted fact that data centers, a massive and growing industry, is highly wasteful of both energy and water. Indeed, Greenpeace recently went out on a limb with a campaign and report questioning the environmental impact of some major data center users and calling for a move to environmentally efficient construction and operation of data centers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Chip maker Broadcom wants to buy storage vendor Brocade Communications Systems, stripping out its Fibre Channel business and selling the rest.
Broadcom has agreed to pay around US$5.5 billion for Brocade, it said Wednesday.
But it doesn't want all of it: After the deal closes -- between May and October 2017, Broadcom hopes -- it plans to sell off Brocade's IP-based wireless and campus networking, data center switching and routing, and software networking products.
The bit Broadcom wants to keep, Brocade's Fibre Channel SAN business, is in for a challenging time as enterprises turn to cloud storage and hyperconverged infrastructures. Fibre Channel doesn't play well in the virtualized SANs that hyperconvergence entails.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A hyperscale cloud data center looks different from an enterprise data center, or even a large hosting provider. The problems they face are different from the problems you face. And your approach to everything from how you choose a site to how you manage power to how long you keep servers is not their approach.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft this week has open sourced the design specifications of servers and racks that make up its hyperscale Azure cloud data centers, contributing the information to the Open Compute Project (OCP).OCP was founded in 2011 and now includes member companies such as Facebook, Intel, Google, Apple, Dell, Rackspace, Cisco, Juniper Networks, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity and Bank of America, who share design specifications for hardware used in their data centers. OCP is meant to be an open source community where member companies share how they buy and configure components used to make data center equipment.Microsoft joined OCP in 2014 and has contributed server and data center designs for its Azure cloud. This week the company announced that it will contribute Project Olympus, which are a series of hardware design specifications for “next-generation hyperscale hardware design,” the company said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco today said Roland Acra has rejoined the company as a senior vice-president/general manager for its data center business. If the name sounds familiar to Cisco watchers anyway, that’s because this will be Acra’s third stint with the company since 1991.“As a long-standing industry expert in Internet routing, software engineering and communication protocol development, Roland fits right in – once again. He is a Cisco veteran having held several general management and executive leadership positions from 1991 – 2003. In 2010, he came back to Cisco as Vice President in our Smart Grid Business Unit, following the acquisition of Arch Rock, a developer of IPv6-based wireless sensor networks where he served as President and CEO. Prior to Arch Rock, he was the President and CEO of Procket Networks,” wrote David Goeckeler senior VP/GM for Cisco’s networking and security business in a blog about Acra’s return.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Online services and workers choosing the tools they want to work with, rather than employees being dictated to by in-house IT experts, means the IT department’s functions are now primarily redundant, says Japan-based Brother.The printer maker refers to IT departments’ control over technology as “dark days” in its web-based advertorial feature in the British national newspaper the Telegraph in September.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It takes a technologically nimble and well-managed enterprise to take advantage of today’s fast-changing market conditions. Eschewing the plodding, monolithic business models of the past, today’s best-run businesses rely on interchangeable, best-of-breed approaches that allow them to adapt on the fly and seize market opportunities others miss.Multi-sourcing brings speed, but also complications
At the heart of such speed and agility is the practice of multi-sourcing, a business model that has been on the rise for many years and is now considered a secular trend. But many enterprises still struggle with managing and integrating so many service streams to achieve their desired business outcomes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Serverless computing is one of today’s hottest technology topics. Now that Amazon has announced AWS Lambda and Microsoft is previewing Azure Functions, the concept is becoming real.Serverless is billed as a solution that dynamically creates cloud services to process events in an ephemeral container that are executed on your behalf as a backend-as-a-service. Instead of leasing a virtual machine, then writing and deploying your code, you get to use a new “pay-per-event” pricing model while leveraging a catalogue of executable functions (building blocks) to construct your own service. It is a DIY cloud deployment model that promises to allow clouds to be used the same way we have become accustomed to using mobile applications on our smartphones: simply access the app (“function”) you need at any moment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The new APC Back-UPS BE600M1 provides instant battery power to your critical electronics when the power goes out, keeping you connected and available both personally and professionally. Designed specifically to enhance the features that matter most to you, including more runtime, more battery backup outlets, and a USB port for charging convenience, the BE600M1 is also smaller and lighter than the previous model. APC's BE600M1 offers guaranteed surge and lightning protection for attached devices. When the power goes out, the APC BE600M1 will power critical devices including home networking equipment; allowing you to maintain your internet connection. This allows you to work productively, avoid the loss of valuable data, and safely shut down equipment. It currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 4,400 people on Amazon (read reviews), where its list price of $74.99 has been reduced 20% to $59.95.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
On numerous recent occasions, Cisco Executive Chairman John Chambers has acted as a harbinger for dramatic changes he and others say face the world because of the pace of technology change.In a video recorded at a recent International Monetary Fund event Chambers says technology “will transform every business model that we see,” predicting that “40 percent of the companies in America, Asia, Europe … will disappear in the next decade.”As dramatic as these predictions may seem, they are not unprecedented in business history. In fact, many of the dynamics at play, although happening at a more accelerated pace today, are in part responsible for the success of the company that Chambers led from 1995 to 2006. In this post, I’ll look at two examples from business history, companies whose fates were intertwined with that of Cisco Systems, and compare to the forces at work today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you watched any football yesterday, chances are you saw the latest in Southwest Airlines’ “Wanna get away?” commercial series, this one featuring a military general and his comical willingness to surrender his network access password.While funny on its face, the commercial is not exactly a lesson in proper password management. Watch or read the transcript that follows:
Transcript:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The digital business era has brought with it a number of new tools and technologies, such as software-defined networking (SDN), Internet of Things (IoT), mobility and the cloud. These innovations enable businesses to increase their level of dynamism and be more distributed, but they also increase the complexity of securing the business. Old-school security methods and tools do not work in an environment where the perimeter is eroding and resources are becoming more virtual and cloud-centric.+ Also on Network World: Always be prepared: Monitor, analyze and test your security +
To combat this, security professionals have embraced the concept of segmentation. The number of segmentation providers has exploded over the past few years, including VMware repositioning its NSX network virtualization product as a micro-segmentation solution. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Looking to lock down government cloud-based resources in particular, researchers from the Intelligence Advance Research Projects Activity this week announced a program that will develop better technology to manage and secure Virtual Desktop Infrastructure environments.
+More on Network World: Gartner: Virtual personal health assistants and other technology eliminate the physician for annual exams+
The advanced research arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence rolled out the Virtuous User Environment (VirtUE) program which the agency says “is looking to use the federal government’s impending migration to commercial cloud-based IT infrastructures and the current explosion of new virtualization and operating system concepts to create and demonstrate a more secure interactive user computing environment than the government has had in the past or likely to have in the near future.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's good to be near the top of the list.As for the embargo's likely effectiveness, #1 on the Top500 list happens to be China's Sunway TaihuLight at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi. It sustains a performance of 93 petaflops using 10,649,600 cores, all of them 1.45GHz Sunway (also rendered ShenWay) SW26010 devices, which fit Dongarra's description of "lightweight" processors. And all were made in China.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)