DXC Technology, the massive service provider formed in the 2017 merger of HPE Enterprise Services (formerly EDS) and Computer Sciences Corp., has a new CEO who is focused on shedding distraction businesses and focusing on core businesses of IT outsourcing.That means looking at "strategic alternatives," including the possible divesture of three of its businesses it feels are a distraction and slowing the company’s growth. The company feels most IT apps and services will remain on-premises and will focus on supporting that business.Last week’s conference call with financial analysts to discuss Q2 earnings was the first for new CEO Mike Salvino, who joined the company in September after 22 years at Accenture. DXC did not have a good quarter. The company reported non-GAAP earnings of $1.38 per share, which fell short of the consensus estimate of $1.44 and way down from EPS of $2.02 from the same quarter a year ago. Revenue of $4.85 billion fell short of the analyst estimate of $4.92 billion.To read this article in full, please click here
Cray says it will be the first supercomputer vendor to license Fujitsu’s A64FX Arm-based processor with high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for exascale computing.Under the agreement, Cray – now a part of HPE – is developing the first-ever commercial supercomputer powered by the A64FX processor, with initial customers being the usual suspects in HPC: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, RIKEN, Stony Brook University, and University of Bristol.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
As part of this new partnership, Cray and Fujitsu will explore engineering collaboration, co-development, and joint go-to-market to meet customer demand in the supercomputing space. Cray will also bring its Cray Programming Environment (CPE) for Arm processors over to the A64FX to optimize applications and take full advantage of SVE and HBM2.To read this article in full, please click here
Running apt-get commands on a Debian-based system is routine. Packages are updated fairly frequently and commands like apt-get update and apt-get upgrade make the process quite easy. On the other hand, how often do you use apt-get clean, apt-get autoclean or apt-get autoremove?These commands clean up after apt-get's installation operations and remove files that are still on your system but are no longer needed – often because the application that required them is no longer installed.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
apt-get clean
The apt-get clean command clears the local repository of retrieved package files that are left in /var/cache. The directories it cleans out are /var/cache/apt/archives/ and /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/. The only files it leaves in /var/cache/apt/archives are the lock file and the partial subdirectory.To read this article in full, please click here
Capturing solar energy in space and then beaming it down to Earth could provide consistent electricity supplies in places that have never seen it before. Should the as-yet untested idea work and be scalable, it has applications in IoT-sensor deployments, wireless mobile network mast installs and remote edge data centers.The radical idea is that super-efficient solar cells collect the sun’s power in space, convert it to radio waves, and then squirt the energy down to Earth, where it is converted into usable power. The defense industry, which is championing the concept, wants to use the satellite-based tech to provide remote power for forward-operating bases that currently require difficult and sometimes dangerous-to-obtain, escorted fuel deliveries to power electricity generators.To read this article in full, please click here
Juniper has enhanced its network and hybrid cloud management software by integrating further the AI technology it recently acquired from Mist and adding new features to its Contrail Enterprise Multicloud software.The company recently closed the agreement to buy wireless-gear-maker Mist for $405 million and promised to meld the Mist technology with Juniper’s. Mist is known for its cloud-managed artificial-intelligence-based wireless service called WiFi Assurance that measures performance and service-level metrics to make wireless networks more predictable and reliable, the company said.To read this article in full, please click here
Two announcements from Hewlett Packard Enterprise highlight the potential for artificial intelligence to make systems more autonomous and adaptable to changing workload demands.HPE has beefed up its SimpliVity hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform and its Primera storage system to include AI capabilities and composability features from HPE Synergy and HPE Composable Rack.
Read more: Making the right hyperconvergence choice: HCI hardware or software?To read this article in full, please click here
Sales of AMD's Epyc server processors grew more than 50% over the second quarter of this year, thanks in part to the second-generation “Rome” platform in August.Q3 was a bang-up quarter for the rebounding company, with third-quarter revenue of $1.8 billion, a 9.1% year-over-year increase, and net income of 18 cents per share, in line with analyst projections. This was AMD's best quarter for revenue since 2005, when AMD was super hot and Intel was spinning its wheels.More importantly, CEO Lisa Su, in reporting the company's third quarter earnings, said AMD is on track to reach double-digit server CPU share by the middle of next year. Just a few years ago, Mercury Research, which tracks semiconductor market share, estimated Opteron market share at below one percent.To read this article in full, please click here
Red Hat has just today announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.1, promising improvements in manageability, security and performance.RHEL 8.1 will enhance the company’s open hybrid-cloud portfolio and continue to provide a consistent user experience between on-premises and public-cloud deployments.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
RHEL 8.1 is also the first release that will follow what Red Hat is calling its "predictable release cadence". Announced at Red Hat Summit 2019, this means that minor releases will be available every six months. The expectation is that this rhythmic release cycle will make it easier both for customer organizations and other software providers to plan their upgrades.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco and Microsoft this week extended their relationship to make it easier and more efficient for SD-WAN customers to set up and run direct Internet access to enterprise applications such as Office 365 and other Azure Cloud services.Specifically Cisco said it would integrate its SD-WAN package with Microsoft’s Azure Virtual WAN and Office365. This amalgamation will let customers extend their WAN to Microsoft Azure Cloud and, in parallel, deliver optimized, secure Office 365 communications, according to Sachin Gupta, senior vice president, product management with Cisco’s Enterprise Networking Business. To read this article in full, please click here
Digital Realty Trust, one of the largest data center operators in the U.S., has agreed to acquire European data center provider Interxion for $8.4 billion. The deal will put DRT ahead of Equinix in terms of size and give the San Francisco company a massive move into Europe as well as the Middle East and AsiaThe deal is strategic and complementary. DRT has about 200 data centers, mostly in the U.S but with some foreign locations as well. Interxion is a major European player, with 53 data centers in 13 of the biggest European markets, including London, Paris, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam.
READ MORE: Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends for 2020To read this article in full, please click here
Like client/server and cloud before it, edge computing will be a critical component in any enterprise IT strategy. Here why you need an edge strategy to be competitive.
Intel is relaunching the Xeon E-2200 line, which it first introduced in May for workstations, as a low-end server processor for simpler tasks. The new chips are socket-compatible with the older E-2100 line so existing servers can be upgraded.Intel makes no bones about it, the Xeon E-2200 processors are for entry-level servers, coming in 4-core and 6-core designs as well as a new 8-core product capable of hitting 5.0 GHz with Intel’s Turbo Boost Technology 2.0.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
The Xeon E-2288G and E-2278G CPUs are the new high-end models with eight cores and 16 threads, a boost over the six-core count of the E-2100. The E-2200 is meant for single-socket systems with a maximum memory capacity of 128GB.To read this article in full, please click here
The failure to back up data that is stored in a cloud block-storage service can be lost forever if not properly backed up. This article explains how object storage works very differently from block storage and how it offers better built-in protections.What is Object Storage?
Each cloud vendor offers an object storage service, and they include Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3), Azure’s Blob Store, and Google’s Cloud Storage.Think of object storage systems like a file system with no hierarchical structure of directories and subdirectories. Where a file system uses a combination of a directory structure and file name to identify and locate a file, every object stored in an object storage system gets a unique identifier (UID) based on its content.To read this article in full, please click here
Petabit-class networks will support more than 100-times the capacity of existing networks, according to scientists who have just demonstrated an optical switching rig designed to handle the significant amounts of data that would pour through future petabit cables. One petabit is equal to a thousand terabits, or a million gigabits.Researchers at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan routed signals with capacities ranging from 10 terabits per second to 1 petabit per second through their node. Those kinds of capacities, which could send 8K resolution video to 10 million people simultaneously, are going to be needed for future broadband video streaming and Internet of Things at scale, researchers believe. In-data-center applications and backhaul could benefit.To read this article in full, please click here
ORLANDO – Forecasting long-range IT technology trends is a little herding cats – things can get a little crazy.But Gartner analysts have specialized in looking forwardth, boasting an 80 percent accuracy rate over the years, Daryl Plummer, distinguished vice president and Gartner Fellow told the IT crowd at this year’s IT Symposium/XPO. Some of those successful prediction have included the rise of automation, robotics, AI technology and other ongoing trends.Now see how AI can boost data-center availability and efficiency
Like some of the other predictions Gartner has made at this event, this year’s package of predictions for 2020 and beyond is heavily weighted toward the human side of technology rather than technology itself. To read this article in full, please click here
The results of an experiment performed on Google’s Sycamore quantum computer demonstrate that theoretical quantum computing designs can work as expected, the company announced today in a paper published in the journal Nature.Formulating the problem was the first hurdle. The company’s research team eventually settled on comparing the Sycamore computer’s output to that of a modern, classical supercomputer in the task of reading the state of a pseudo-random quantum circuit. This results in a computational challenge that should be comparatively simple for Sycamore, but enormously difficult for a supercomputer equipped with traditional silicon.To read this article in full, please click here
When investment bank Bear Stearns collapsed in 2008, there was nothing left of value to auction off except its data centers. JP Morgan bought the company's carcass for just $270 million but the only thing of value was Bear's NYC headquarters and two data centers.Since then there have been numerous sales of data centers under better conditions. There are even websites (Datacenters.com, Five 9s Digital) that list data centers for sale. You can buy an empty building, but in most cases, you get the equipment, too.To read this article in full, please click here
ORLANDO – The pace of technology change is accelerating rapidly, augmented by factors that IT pros need to study-up on, things they never had to deal with before like hyperautomation, multiexperience, and human augmentation that Gartner says will have a significant impact on enterprises."It's been 50 years since the first message was sent across what became the internet. In 50 years we've seen technology transform our enterprises, our relationships, and society itself,” said Val Sribar, senior research vice president at Gartner. “The next five years may bring as much change as those last 50."[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
Looking ahead just on year, Gartner created the “Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2020,” which the consulting firm released at its IT Symposium/XPO 2019 here this week.To read this article in full, please click here
Aruba has expanded its switch portfolio to include new software and switches that bring the company’s automation and software intelligence to campus networks.The HPE company is offering up a new release of its switch software – AOS-CX 10.4 – and the Aruba stackable CX 6300 and modular CX 6400 Series switches. The company also said it had integrated its switch-configuration software, NetEdit, into its Network Analytics Engine (NAE). NAE uses embedded analytics and automation to simplify management, accelerate troubleshooting of application-performance issues and remediate common network problems, Aruba stated. [Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
AOS-CX is the network operating system software that Aruba introduced with its first core switch – the 19.2Tb/sec 8400 programmable, modular campus core and aggregation switch in 2017. Aruba describes AOS-CX as a cloud-native, programmable software package that can automate and simplify many critical and complex network functions such as end-to-end network monitoring, troubleshooting, network performance and security-related issues. To read this article in full, please click here
ORLANDO – Corporate network infrastructure is only going to get more involved over the next two to three years as automation, network challenges and hybrid cloud become more integral to the enterprise.Those were some of the main infrastructure trend themes espoused by Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst David Cappuccio at the research firm’s IT Symposium/XPO here this week.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
Cappuccio noted that Gartner’s look at the top infrastructure and operational trends reflect offshoots of technologies – such as cloud computing, automation and networking advances the company’s analysts have talked about many times before.To read this article in full, please click here