Fujitsu is helping to keep SPARC from extinction as it continues to design and develop the architecture. The company has introduced two Unix servers -- the M12-2S and the M12-2 -- using SPARC chips based on a new CPU architecture.The M12 servers are about 2.5 times faster than their predecessor, the M10, which used the older SPARC X chips.Oracle and partner Fujitsu are the only companies using the SPARC architecture, and share a healthy partnership. Devotees of SPARC feared the architecture was on its way out after Oracle restructured its Solaris OS and chip roadmap and Fujitsu adopted ARM architecture to build Japan's flagship supercomputer, Post-K, which is due for release by 2020.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sir Tim Berners Lee, deservingly among the most decorated of technology professionals for his invention of the world wide web, has now been honored with the 50th edition of the ACM A.M. Turing Award (a.k.a., the Nobel Prize of Computing).The MIT and University of Oxford professor is being recognized with the $1M Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) prize, funded by Google, for inventing the web, coming up with the first browser and working on the protocols and algorithms that have allowed the web to scale.MORE: Whirlwind tour of computing and telecom's top honors, awards & prizesTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When it comes to creating secure applications, nothing beats focusing on the basics: secure coding in development and then testing the application for security defects. Part of the testing regime should always include an in-depth application pen test. But how do organizations know they are getting the full benefit from such assessments?What goes (or should go) into developing application security is well known. Developers should have their code vetted in their development environment. Their code should go through a series of quality and security tests in the development pipeline. Applications should be vetted again right after deployment. And, after all of that, it’s very likely that more vulnerabilities exist in the application that have yet to be uncovered.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s a standard line of inquiry by sportswriters that until now has always generated answers straight out of the Crash Davis school of interview banalities.Question: “How do you feel about the way you’re being used?”Answer: “I’ll do anything to help the team; anything the (manager/coach) wants.”For emphasis you may hear the athlete express a willingness to carry equipment or staff a concession stand or the like.Then we have Sports Illustrated asking Cleveland Indians All-Star relief pitcher Andrew Miller about last year’s postseason, which saw manager Terry Francona not only calling upon Miller in virtually every game but often for multiple innings, a workload considered barbaric by today’s standards. Miller doesn’t see himself being used quite so often during this just-begun 162-game regular season, but adds:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekImage by MicroStrategyOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The White House announced Friday that come this summer it will be issuing commemorative safety glasses in anticipation of the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse, an extraordinarily rare event that will cast a rolling 60-mile wide swath of daytime darkness from Oregon cross-country to South Carolina.Emphasizing the danger of viewing a solar eclipse without protective eyewear (NASA explains), these safety glasses will come emblazoned with the slogan, “Make America Safe Again,” the choice of which need not be explained.The glasses will cost $9.95, with “100% of the proceeds going to charity,” according to a White House press release that included a photo of President Trump modeling a pair (above).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The biggest names in technology are among 185 companies urging Congress to ignore a line item in the Trump Administration’s proposed budget that would entirely defund the Legal Services Corporation, a non-profit organization that has provided civil legal assistance to the poor since 1974.The letter to Congress reads:
The undersigned 185 leaders of corporate legal departments across the country write to urge you to support the preservation of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and provide funding at a level of $450 million for FY 2018, which would be consistent with the appropriation received in FY2010, adjusted for inflation. As the cornerstone of equal justice in America, LSC creates a level playing field for the many lower and moderate- income families who cannot afford a lawyer. By upholding the fundamental American promise of liberty and justice for all, the minimal investment in LSC generates a significant positive return for business and for the health of individuals and communities across the nation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Any fan of the PGA Tour will never forget the “better than most” call by NBC’s Gary Koch. On March 24, 2001, Tiger Woods stepped up to execute one of the most difficult putts of his career. Halfway to the hole, Koch uttered the words “better than most” as it looked like his putt was going to be a good one. It wound up going in, and that become yet another notable moment in Tiger’s illustrious career where great execution was becoming the norm. In the highly tumultuous networking market, Extreme Networks’ CEO, Ed Meyercord, continues to make moves that are “better than most,” putting his company in a position to be a long-term share gainer in a market that badly needs more strong vendors. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Last year, Brocade introduced its 32 Gig Fibre Channel portfolio. Gen6, as Brocade calls it, is ideally suited to meet the demands of a digital world that is seeing an explosion of traffic from data center modernization, the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing.Earlier this week the company announced its new G610 switch. The product is designed to be an entry-level switch that enables businesses to start at eight ports and then expand to 24 ports through a software license. The ports can be configured to run at 16 Gbps today and then upgraded to 32 Gbps when the data demands require it. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As April brings the best college basketball teams together for the final leg of March Madness, college basketball is in full swing. With all this attention on the top teams and programs in country, there is more than one parallel between data center managers and NCAA basketball coaches.Their management techniques and job descriptions often align: optimizing lineups to ensure they have the best team on the floor in the final seconds of a big game, or stressing teamwork and cooperation during tight deadlines, outages or other time-sensitive situations. Coaches and data center managers play a similar role to ensure their team (or infrastructure) is ready to perform when it matters most.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Today’s processors, made using a single continuous slab of silicon, may soon give way to multiple chips interconnected at high speeds, Intel said Tuesday morning.Intel said its new Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge, or EMIB, technology would let a 22nm chip connect to a 10nm chip and a 14nm chip, all on the same processor.“For example, we can mix high-performance blocks of silicon and IP together with low-power elements made from different nodes for extreme optimization,” said Intel’s Murthy Renduchintala, who heads the Client, IoT, and Systems Architecture Group.That’s a radical departure from how the company has constructed most CPUs and SoCs, where all components of a CPU or SoC are built on the same process. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At your company, who’s responsible for what technology is bought and implemented?It’s a critical question, with deep implications for how your company leverages technology to get things done and drive competitive advantage. A recent survey from Spiceworks takes a stab at answering this question. But while the survey offers a number of insights, it leaves out perhaps the most important constituency in the procurement process.+ Also on Network World: Struggling with shadow IT? Maybe re-evaluate the IT department +
As you can surmise from the title—ITDMs and BDMs: Tech Purchase Superheroes—the Spiceworks survey was taken mostly from the standpoint of vendors trying to sell you hardware, software and services. It focuses on teasing out the differences between two key groups: IT decision makers (ITDMs) and business decision makers (BDMs). Amidst perceptions that the balance of power is shifting from IT to the business, the survey attempts to find out if the two groups work together in a smooth, well-oiled process or if they struggle to coordinate separate agendas. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
No doubt many a soccer fan has been inspired to pick up a fancy call center package or some sweet, sweet SDN technology after catching a San Jose Earthquakes soccer match at Avaya Stadium, but the company found its brand splattered all over headlines it would rather have avoided after an ugly incident at the field on Sunday.
My Google Alert on Avaya, used mainly to help keep track of the company's product announcements and business drama (Chapter 11 filing, networking business sale to Extreme, etc.), started blowing up this morning:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There is reality in the hype that moving to a converged storage environment can produce major cost savings while paving the path to advanced virtualization technologies. Part of the appeal comes from the ability to use commodity servers and storage to build a shared storage pool vs. relying on a dedicated appliance that typically comes at a pretty substantial premium. Increased flexibility is another reason for moving in this direction. IT teams gain greater options in how they configure server and storage nodes to meet workload and application demands. Adjusting configurations is straightforward, so adding more disks to nodes is a pretty easy task. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel's artificial intelligence efforts have been scattered over many different units but are now being united into a single operating group.The Artificial Intelligence Products Group will focus on the development of chips and software products tied to machine learning, algorithms, and deep learning.The new group could become Intel's single most important group as companies implement machine learning into operations. Intel is tweaking more chips and developing software to take on workloads like analytics, image recognition, and automation.Intel is designing a new Xeon Phi chip code-named Knights Mill that will focus on machine learning. Additionally, it is applying its wide portfolio of FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) to artificial intelligence. Intel also offers many software tools for deep learning, like its Deep Learning SDK.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco today closed its approximately $3.7 billion deal for application analytics specialist AppDynamics giving the networking giant a nice revenue stream and bolstering its software strategy.The nine-year-old company – which Cisco bought Jan. 24, days before it was to go IPO -- and its almost 1,250 employees become part of Cisco as the 17th acquisition since Chuck Robbins took the CEO reins in 2015.+More on Cisco software from Network World: Has Cisco broken out of the network hardware box?+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The only sane and efficient way to manage a large numbers of servers—or even a few dozen, if they change often—is through automation. Automation tools have to be learned and mastered, so they exact a significant up-front cost, but they dramatically reduce the administrative burden in the long run. Perhaps most important, they provide a staunch line of defense against the fatal fat-fingered mistake, which even the most sophisticated cloud operators struggle to avoid.Ease of use. Configuration management is simple with SaltStack. Because Salt uses the YAML configuration format, states are can be written quickly and easily. YAML state descriptions are structured well, with solid readability. The support for Mako, JSON, Wempy, and Jinja allows developers to extend Salt’s capabilities. The availability of built-in modules makes it easy to configure and manage states.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Large data center interconnect users needing high-speed connectivity and bandwidth for access to massive cloud resources have a new option to handle these demands.Juniper today rolled out its Open Cloud Interconnect package which includes Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing optical boards for its QFX10000 Layer 3 spine switch and BTI7800 optical transport switch families as well as software to manage those systems.+More Juniper coverage on Network World: Juniper battles Cisco, Huawei with new cloud infrastructure software, switches+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A couple of months after announcing that Windows 10 will be available on ARM laptops based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 when the Creators Update launches this spring, Microsoft also revealed that it has been trying out ARM servers in its Azure data centers and is planning to use them for some very specific production workloads.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Two months after acquiring SimpliVity for US$650 million, Hewlett Packard Enterprise is beginning to reshape the company's converged infrastructure offering in its own image. SimpliVity’s hyperconverged infrastructure appliance, the OmniCube, replaces storage switches, cloud gateways, high-availability shared storage, and appliances for backup and deduplication, WAN optimization, and storage caching. The company also offers OmniStack, the software powering the OmniCube, packaged for other vendors’ hardware.Now HPE has qualified that software on its workhorse ProLiant DL380 server and will sell it as the snappily titled HPE SimpliVity 380 with OmniStack, Mark Linesch, the vice president for global strategy and operations of HPE's enterprise group, said Tuesday at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here