The hotly anticipated Ryzen processors are expected to start rolling out in early March, but AMD's still pushing its older FX-series chips folks looking to build a budget gaming PC. Newegg and AMD just revealed a FX processor promotion that bundles a 6- or 8-core chip with the real-time strategy game Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, the poster child for cutting-edge DirectX 12 technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Whether you realize it or not, you may already be using, rely upon, affiliated with, support or otherwise involved with data infrastructures. Granted what you or others generically refer to as infrastructure or the data center may, in fact, be the data infrastructure.
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Business, IT Information, Data and other Infrastructures
Business, IT Information, Data and other Infrastructures overview image Greg Schulz - Server StorageIO
Generally speaking, people tend to refer to infrastructure as those things that support what they are doing at work, at home, or in other aspects of their lives. For example, the roads and bridges that carry you over rivers or valleys when traveling in a vehicle are referred to as infrastructure. This is also the situation with IT systems and services where, depending on where you sit or use various services, anything below what you do may be considered infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Understanding the impact of an IT outage is a fairly standardized process. Take how much revenue the company generates, break it down to an hourly amount and, as they say in the UK, “Bob’s your Uncle”. However, IT outages aren’t nearly as common as they used to be a decade or more ago. Businesses build their infrastructure with so much redundancy that the concept of an outage is rare. I believe most companies could go into their data center and flick any piece of equipment off and not one user would notice.The bigger problems today are related to “brown out” situations, where things are working but not quite right. A user tries to make a call from a VoIP phone and the call is choppy or attempts to input some information into a CRM system and the interface is slow. These are much more difficult problems to quantify the impact of. Last year I asked a number of IT leaders if they were aware of how much productivity was lost due to poor application performance and most either took a shot in the dark or admitted they had no idea. As best as I can tell, the number is Continue reading
Dell EMC is now offering a combination of its VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure and the Dell EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud (EHC) platform to make it easier for mid-size organizations to build private clouds.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: This DARPA-backed Machine Learning program is a quick thinker | Hot Products at RSA 2017 +VxRail, which combines compute, network and virtual storage, is based largely on VMware management software, including the vRealize Suite, which allows for self-provisioning of virtual machines, and vSAN, which is VMware’s virtual storage array. Dell EMC introduced VxRail about a year ago and Thursday said that to date it has sold 8,000 nodes to 1,000 customers, reaching over 65 Petabytes of scale.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
What’s your reaction when you learn that a company keeps a fleet of private jets? Does it suggest that the company is generally frugal and prudent with shareholder money? Or does it raise concerns that perhaps the company is spending in ways that wouldn’t withstand closer scrutiny? Given the tremendous expenses involved, objective financial analysis usually recommends against it, instead using commercial air travel services, maybe with upgrades in certain exceptional circumstances.Similar concerns should arise when you learn that a company keeps private data centers. Objective financial analysis of owning and operating such complicated systems increasingly shows that other choices make more sense. That’s because of the growing availability of so many attractive commercial information technology services, ranging from software-as-a-service to public cloud infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It is not surprising that Cisco, Mitel and others are targeting Avaya’s customers as the networking company goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy but sometimes it is a bit startling in its boldness.For example, Cisco wrote: “Let’s not dance around it. Avaya’s recent announcements have put a lot of people into the decision process. Change and uncertainty usually do. So then, what to do next? I’m not bold enough to say, ‘Hey, come on over and write me a check right now.’ That’s not how this works. It’s not an overnight decision. You have to figure out who you trust with your unified communications and customer care solutions. And to get there means asking a lot of questions – and getting the answers you need.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Lenovo has introduced tablets with unique designs over the years, and their latest Yoga Book, released in October, is one of the most intriguing examples. This hybrid device looks like a mini notebook, but it’s technically a tablet with a swing-open digital drawing and writing pad that can capture your handwriting or sketching when you use its included digital pen.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is so last year, according to some experts.Scientists at MIT this week claimed a breakthrough in how human intuition can be added to algorithms. And in a separate, unrelated report, Deloitte Consulting is chastising the business community for not comprehending fully that new, cognitive computing technology should be exploited.“Artificial intelligence is only the beginning,” researchers write in a Deloitte University Press article about Deloitte's February study.+ Also on Network World: Using artificial intelligence to teach computers to see +
“Advanced cognitive analytics” is just one of the “fast-evolving” technologies businesses need to get a handle on, they say. A kind of artificial intuition and cognition through algorithms is one part of that machine intelligence (MI). Notably, it’s not AI. MI is more cognitive and mimics humans, the firm explains, while AI is simply a subset of MI.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco today said it would expand its hybrid cloud offerings by integrating Microsoft Azure Stack into its Unified Computing System.
The turnkey package, officially known as the Cisco Integrated Solution for Microsoft Azure Stack, grows Cisco’s Microsoft portfolio and let application developers and IT managers more easily deploy, manage and grow enterprise applications.
Azure Stack expands Cisco’s hybrid cloud offerings for customers who want the advantages of a single API for private and public cloud applications.
+More on Network World: Cisco: Faulty clock part could cause failure in some Nexus switches, ISR routers, ASA security appliances+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Algorithms are hot – so hot that Gartner is saying that by 2019, 250,000 patent applications will be filed that include claims for algorithms, a tenfold increase from five years ago.Gartner wrote that according to a worldwide search on analytics vendor Aulive, nearly 17,000 patents applied for in 2015 mentioned "algorithm" in the title or description, versus 570 in 2000. Including those mentioning "algorithm" anywhere in the document, there were more than 100,000 applications last year versus 28,000 five years ago.At this pace, and considering the rising interest in protecting algorithmic intellectual property, by 2020 there could be nearly half a million patent applications mentioning "algorithm," and more than 25,000 patent applications for algorithms themselves, Gartner stated. Of the top 40 organizations patenting the most algorithms the past five years, 33 are Chinese businesses and universities – IBM is the only western tech company on the list at No. 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s not often enterprises get direct evidence of a shadow IT operation but a recent audit of NASA’s IT realm came up with 28 unsanctioned cloud services operating in its environment.
NASA’s own CIO office found eight such services while the NASA Office of Inspector General discovered another 20, as part of an overall cloud security audit done by the NASA OIG.
+More on Network World: NASA’s “Human Computers” and the Hidden Figures movie story+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Everyone knows what to do when life gives you lemons. Well, the same can apply when technology cries wolf at four in the morning, according to a contributor to Reddit’s section devoted to systems administration.
Every morning at just past 4 a.m., I get a text from Solarwinds that makes my phone beep. The alert is that one of our LDAP servers is unresponsive. Then two minutes later I get a text/phone beep that LDAP is back up. Every day.It’s OK, I need to catch the bus/train just past 5 a.m. anyway, gives me time to get ready / pack my lunch, drink a cup of coffee, etc.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Like every previous Windows Server release, Windows Server 2016 is jam-packed with new features and capabilities. While it is difficult to pick one single feature as the most significant, the new Nano Server deployment option is definitely a strong contender.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Founder and current CTO of Juniper Pradeep Sindhu says he will reduce his role at the company to focus on developing technology for a startup he co-founded in 2015 called Fungible.On his Juniper blog Sindhu wrote: I am equally passionate about the success of Juniper Networks, the company I founded in 1996. I believe that the technology I am working on at Fungible, in conjunction with Juniper's technologies, have the potential to revolutionize the industry. This is why Juniper has invested in Fungible. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cloud service provider Stratoscale has snapped up database-as-a-service vendor Tesora to beef up its hybrid cloud offering.Stratoscale's key product, Symphony, is built on OpenStack and allows businesses to set up an Amazon Web Services (AWS) "region" in their own data center, so they can easily move workloads between private and public cloud servers or scale up capacity without having to migrate to a different service.Tesora's database as a service, also built on OpenStack, runs in public, private or hybrid clouds. Stratoscale plans to use it to expand its existing managed database support, which includes AWS Relational Database Service and the AWS NoSQL database, DynamoDB. Tesora will bring Stratoscale self-service provisioning capabilities for Oracle, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, PostgresSQL, Couchbase, Cassandra, Redis, DataStax Enterprise, Persona and DB2 Express databases.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Once upon a time, there was a role known as the database administrator. Back when all data was stored locally, these employees were the keepers of the company database, responsible for making sure all information was accessible and tracking things such as financial information and customer details.Typically, these employees would hold a bachelor’s degree in computer science or similar subjects, while being well-versed in the major database management products (SQL, SAP and Oracle-based database management software).+ Also on Network World: If the cloud is so great, why are so many businesses unsatisfied? +
In 2017, however, the trend of enterprises moving data into the cloud continues to reduce the role of the database administrator (DBA) in big and small businesses alike around the world.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Geek outImage by Stephen SauerTreat your favorite Valentine to something special. Check out these gifts that offer a techie alternative to the usual flowers, jewelry and candy.MORE IDEAS: See our Valentine’s Day gift guides from 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Legacy is a scary and bad word in the computing industry. Most enterprises have "legacy" technologies, and all who do wish that they did not.Now everyone thinks of public clouds as the next greatest thing, which means they cannot possibly be "legacy." While the major public cloud vendors (Amazon, Microsoft, Google) currently drive a great deal of innovation, they might also be trapping themselves and their customers into legacy situations.So, there is a real risk that the current public cloud leaders (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform) could become legacy vendors. To understand this risk, we need to understand what creates legacy technologies and vendors and analyze the strategies of the public cloud vendors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If anyone can make sense of the over 74,000 pages of the US tax code, IBM’s Watson can. Or at least that’s the plan as Big Blue has teamed up its Watson cognitive supercomputer with the tax return specialists at H&R Block to help customers with tax filing options.As part of the first phase of the collaboration, H&R Block and IBM development teams trained tax language Watson, first applying the technology to the myriad questions and topics discussed during the return filing process.The service uses cloud-based Watson services to understand context, interpret intent and draw connections between clients’ statements and relevant areas of their return, the companies said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In business, as in life, a great deal of time is spent predicting the future, especially at the dawn of a new year. Market watchers are scrambling to identify the top IT trends that will shape buying patterns in 2017. Amid all the data gathering and crystal-ball gazing, I prefer to look back and learn from what’s happened in the past so I’ll be better prepared to handle what lies ahead. Last month, I attended the Gartner Data Center, Infrastructure & Operations Management Conference, which never fails to deliver an insider’s look at the latest priorities, challenges and transformations in the corporate data center. This past conference provided lots of valuable insight, especially when it came to the topic of cost optimization. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here