Few areas of the enterprise are as ripe for change as the wide area network. And there are plenty of technologies – from hybrid WAN services and software defined networking to better management tools -- lining up to push such a makeover closer to reality.
“There is about as much turmoil in the WAN arena as possible,” said Steve Taylor, senior research fellow with Webtorials.com.
You can get the sense of the tumult by taking a look at the vendor activity in all aspects of the WAN. A ton of startups including vendors such as CloudGenix, Glue Networks, Viptela and Velocloud are offering new WAN services and products. Established vendors such as Cisco, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent and Riverbed are also scrambling to address WAN issues with new software and hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Four U.S. senators have resurrected legislation that would allow consumers to see and correct personal information held by data brokers and tell those businesses to stop sharing or selling it for marketing purposes.The Data Broker Accountability and Transparency Act, introduced by four Democratic senators Thursday, also would require the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to craft rules for a centralized website for consumers to view a list of data brokers covered by the bill.Data brokers collect personal information about consumers, often without their knowledge, and resell it to other businesses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Just about every cyber-attack follows a similar pattern: An end-user is fooled into clicking on a malicious link, downloading malware, or opening an infected file. This is one of the early stages of the famous Lockheed Martin “kill chain.”Given this pedestrian malware workflow, endpoint security is absolutely key – catch an attack early when it compromises a few endpoints and you can avoid the more ominous phases of the kill chain including data exfiltration. To pull off today’s endpoint security requirements, you can’t assume that you can block all attacks using AV or patching software vulnerabilities. Rather, you need smart security analysts skilled at detecting and responding to attacks on endpoint devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
China defends surveillance plan by pointing to U.S.The Chinese government is calling out U.S. opposition to its new anti-terror law, saying that it’s similar to what other countries are doing as they ask tech companies to hand over information that they need to fight terrorism. On Wednesday, China’s parliamentary spokeswoman tried to play down the impact the proposed legislation might have on foreign tech businesses, who have complained about having to turn over encryption keys and create “back doors” to enable government surveillance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
China seeks to help the country’s Internet firms gain a bigger foothold in the international market, and is preparing to pour more state funds into its emerging tech sector, according to one of its top leaders.Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made the statement in his opening address to the country’s annual parliamentary session on Thursday. He added that China is establishing an “Internet Plus” plan to promote its mobile Internet, cloud computing, and e-commerce sectors, as part of a push to support the country’s emerging industries.“The country has already established a 40 billion yuan (US$6.5 billion) emerging industry innovation investment fund, and more capital will be brought in and integrated,” he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Etsy, the online marketplace for buying and selling handmade goods and crafts, disclosed some interesting tidbits about the company’s business when it filed to go public Wednesday.Did you know that 86 percent of Etsy’s U.S. sellers at the end of last year were women? Or that three-quarters of its sellers consider their online store a business rather than a hobby?Etsy is hoping to raise US$100 million from the offering to help expand its business. Here are five other things we learned from combing through its S-1 filing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco is preparing to open up its Nexus 9000 switches for further programmability, perhaps even supporting a popular open source tool for booting them up.A Cisco white paper posted on the company’s website and then withdrawn last week stated that the company’s Nexus 9000 switches, in standalone NX-OS mode, can now support the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE). ONIE is a network boot loader to install software, including operating systems from multiple vendors, on bare metal Ethernet network switches.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook is taking steps to improve how it detects fake profiles, particularly those created by people claiming to be someone else.Fake profiles are a real challenge for Facebook, especially in developing markets. For example, in India there is a significant problem with men creating profiles that impersonate real women, a violation of Facebook’s rules. This makes some women afraid of creating profiles.It’s part of a larger problem in India, where more men are on the Internet than women in comparison to other parts of the world, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday.Facebook, Zuckerberg said, is tackling this problem and trying to become faster at flagging fake profiles, in part by getting better feedback from its users.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IT professionals with skills in Amazon Web Services will once again swarm Las Vegas come October.Amazon will hold its next annual cloud services conference, re:Invent, from October 6 to October 9.As has been the case since the event’s debut in 2012, the venue will be the Venetian, a spacious hotel and conference facility.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Given the amount of time the FTC and others have put into curing the robocall problem, it is disheartening to hear that a group of companies for almost a year have been making billions of illegal robocalls.
The Federal Trade Commission and 10 state attorneys general today said they have settled charges against a Florida-based cruise line company and seven other companies that averaged 12 million to 15 million illegal sales calls a day between October 2011 through July 2012, according to the joint complaint filed by the FTC and the states.
+ More on Network World: FTC: Imposter scams bully into top 3 consumer complaints spot +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
European Union countries have proposed keeping roaming charges around at least until mid-2018, going against proposals from the European Parliament and Commission for their all-out abolition by the end of the year.At the same time, representatives of the countries proposed weakening the net neutrality rules already agreed on by the Parliament and the Commission. The counter-proposal sets the stage for heated discussions as the 28 EU member states, gathered as the Council of the EU, try to reach a compromise with the EU’s other two law-making bodies on a new telecommunications law before the end of June.The Council proposed introducing a basic roaming allowance within which consumers can make and receive calls, send text messages and use data services without paying roaming fees. Once this allowance is used up though, the operator will be allowed to charge a fee, albeit much lower than current charges, the Council said. It proposes reassessing the situation in mid-2018 to see if further regulatory measures are needed to phase out charges altogether.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Here's the quandary with smartphones: despite featuring copious radios within, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi over both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, 4G LTE, Near Field Communication (NFC), and so on, the radios with the most propensity for delivering media don't work together.The two Wi-Fi bands found in today's smartphones generally aren't used at the same time. The issue has been related to needing two antennas connected at the same time for the different bands. It's because the frequencies used have very different characteristics.New routersThis dual-band limitation is about to change, for a couple of reasons.Firstly, the newest routers, or wireless access points, that are being sold are already kitted with the two radios and antennas configured to work together at the same time. I wrote about a few of these monsters recently in a post titled "Is it time to move to beamforming 802.11ac?"To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. net neutrality rules will help Europe take the lead in broadband, Cisco CEO John Chambers says.The regulations approved last week by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will slow down broadband deployment, Chambers said at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday. Instead of focusing on net neutrality, the government should aim for more available broadband, he said.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD Follow all the stories from Mobile World Congress +"Sometimes, if you're not careful, your regulatory goals can slow down your end goals," Chambers said. He praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying she's kept Germany focused on fast Internet access for every citizen. The U.S. led in the Internet era until about 2010 but in a few years will be behind the major European countries, India and China, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Alibaba opens its cloud for business in U.S.Alibaba is set to compete for cloud services with Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Engine and Microsoft Azure with a new data center in California, the first outside China for the Aliyun subsidiary. It is initially targeting low-hanging fruit: the U.S. operations of Chinese companies. But its use of proprietary technology may be a turnoff for prospective customers who are wary of cloud lock-in.IBM plugs its OpenPower servers into the cloudIBM wants to show that its Power processors are a good alternative to Intel’s x86 chips in the cloud market, so it’s rolling out an infrastructure-as-a-service using OpenPower servers. The SoftLayer division is starting the Power move with a data center in Texas but will later roll out the service worldwide.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is making a push into the U.S. cloud computing market, where it’s expected to run into competition from Amazon.com, Google and Microsoft.Alibaba subsidiary Aliyun is already the biggest cloud player in its home market, and on Wednesday, it opened a data center in California, its first data center outside of China.The U.S. business will first focus on attracting Chinese enterprises based in the country, before it expands to international customers in this year’s second half, Alibaba said in a statement.No doubt Alibaba will face intense competition in the U.S., where Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are major players. But opening the data center in Silicon Valley sends another message that it wants to be a global company, said Charlie Dai, an analyst with Forrester Research.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A consumer privacy proposal from U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration gives people too little control over their personal data and companies too much latitude to use that information, a coalition of 14 privacy and digital rights groups said.The Obama administration’s consumer privacy bill of rights, released late Friday, allows companies holding personal data to determine whether consumers should be able to demand changes to the information, the groups said in a letter to Obama, sent Tuesday.The White House proposal contains several “shortcomings,” said the groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Watchdog, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet of Things is really an Internet of data about things, and combining that information with other kinds of knowledge could add to its impact.
At Mobile World Congress this week, data is starting to come together in new ways. One of the most powerful combinations may emerge from partnerships between IoT veteran Jasper Technologies and two software giants: Salesforce.com and SAP.
Jasper sells a SaaS platform that companies use to monitor and control products or equipment in the field. It’s designed to handle all the functions involved in making money from a device or just using it within an enterprise, including setup, ongoing service and data collection. Jasper sells its SaaS through mobile operators, and the platform can be deployed through multiple carriers to give customers global reach.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Aruba Networks today announced the availability of the 7000 series cloud services controller, an all-in-one box that aims to dramatically simplify branch office IT for far-flung businesses.The 7000 series combines a host of capabilities into a single unit, featuring a stateful firewall, deep packet inspection, WAN optimization, RF interference control and user access control, Aruba said.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: HP will buy Aruba to bolster its wireless networking business | Google's new campus plans hint at staggering ambitions | Will network disaggregation play in the enterprise? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google will sell wireless service in the U.S.At Mobile World Congress on Monday, Google executive Sundar Pichai confirmed the rumors: The company plans to sell mobile service in the U.S., but insists it won’t mount significant competition to mobile carriers. Pichai said the offering will give Google a platform for experimenting with new services for Android smartphones....And teases launch of Internet-via-balloon, but Zuckerberg scoffsGoogle’s ambitious efforts to bring balloon and aircraft-borne connectivity to underserved areas of the globe are pushing past some key milestones, with a public launch likely in a few years, Pichai said at MWC. But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg later picked holes in the plans, criticizing them as costly and impractical, and said the best way to grow Internet access worldwide is to work with telco operators—as he’s doing with the internet.org effort.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
VMware has jumped into the hot NFV market with a platform that lets service providers run their network functions as virtualized applications from different vendors.The company launched VMware vCloud for NFV on Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where telecommunications and IT vendors and their carrier customers are all promoting NFV (network functions virtualization) as the future of mobile networks.NFV takes back-end functions involved in managing services and subscribers out of dedicated appliances and turns them into virtualized applications that can run on generic hardware. This makes carriers faster and leaner, allowing them to roll out new services more quickly and be more flexible in how they run their networks. It’s also designed to help support the new demands that come with the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here