Abandoning a signal’s traditional binary ones and zeroes will improve throughput in fiber, a Dutch PhD researcher says. By increasing the number of bit states from the traditional two — the one and zero — to four or eight, adding more light colors, and changing clock rates for each wavelength, throughput will be significantly increased, he claims.“A higher number of levels implies more information per symbol, so four levels contain two bits of information, and eight levels contain three bits,” says Robbert van der Linden in an article on the Eindhoven University of Technology Department of Electrical Engineering website.To read this article in full, please click here
It’s a pretty common scenario. You’re considering implementing Cisco hardware in your infrastructure, and you talk to a vendor who pushes a shiny, new, cutting-edge solution on you.It’s impressive, this bleeding-edge solution — it has all sorts of bells and whistles (whether your business plan can make smart use of them or not) and it comes with a nice, healthy price tag.So, you’re left with a really difficult question. Should you stretch your already thin budget with a solution that may actually be overkill for your needs? Or do you have options[ Read also: 80/20 rule of network equipment: Stay on budget and innovate. | Get daily insights: Sign up for Network World newsletters. ]
5 things to consider when buying network hardware
Keep these five factors in mind as you consider how to proceed with your Cisco hardware solutions because that vendor who thinks you should buy new probably doesn’t want you to know them.To read this article in full, please click here
With budgets and resources becoming ever tighter, the health care industry, in common with many others, is undergoing a significant digital transformation. Advances in digital technology are proving to be a great benefit, enabling health care providers to do more with less.The ability to securely access a patient’s Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and their diagnostic test results in real time, from virtually any device, regardless of location, is now largely taken for granted. Not only does it improve a health care provider’s operational efficiency, but it can also allow for more accurate diagnoses and inform a patient’s ongoing treatment plan. Likewise, the introduction of e-prescriptions, and almost ubiquitous Wi-Fi connectivity throughout hospitals and doctors’ surgeries, have reduced the volume of administrative tasks, allowing frontline operatives to concentrate more on their primary task of delivering high-quality health care to their patients.To read this article in full, please click here
Facing the reality that many enterprise data-center managers now work in a hybrid cloud environment, Juniper Networks is set to release Contrail Enterprise Multicloud, a software package designed to monitor and manage workloads and servers deployed across networking and cloud infrastructure from multiple vendors.Enterprises are moving to the cloud for operational efficiency and cost optimization, but at the moment most big companies are operating hybrid environments, which has added to the complexity of managing computing infrastructure.[ Check out What is hybrid cloud computing and learn what you need to know about multi-cloud. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
Juniper is competing with a variety of networking and multicloud orchestration tools from major data center players, including VMware's NSX, Cisco's ACI, and HPE's OneSphere. What's more, Juniper does not have as big a presence in the data center as some of its rivals, particularly Cisco.To read this article in full, please click here
5G is nearly here. The next generation of wireless connectivity promises superfast speeds, ultra-low latency and more network capacity than ever. 5G auctions have or are due to take place in the US, UK, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Australia and host of other countries.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
5G is nearly here. The next generation of wireless connectivity promises superfast speeds, ultra-low latency and more network capacity than ever. 5G auctions have or are due to take place in the US, UK, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Australia and host of other countries.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
Cisco’s Digital Network Architecture (DNA) promises to help companies in their digital transformation journey where new technologies can be used to accelerate business activities and processes to make them more competitive. It's also a big validation that network analytics is no longer a nice to have but a must have. Cisco DNA aims to provide a platform that companies can use as the foundation for digital transformation projects. The architecture's key tenants are virtualization, automation, analytics, a cloud-based service management layer, and open application programming interfaces (APIs). It’s a system that’s “designed for automation.” In other words, Cisco wants to make its products easier to deploy and manage. At the heart of that message is a move away from CLI. Sounds good so far.To read this article in full, please click here
Spreading bad routing information to your neighbors on the internet isn’t just bad manners, it could be bad for business.That, at least, is the message that the Internet Society (ISOC) wants to spread, as it calls on internet exchange points (IXPs) to help eliminate the most common threats to the internet’s routing system.[ Don’t miss customer reviews of top remote access tools and see the most powerful IoT companies . | Get daily insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
If they do so, then it’s good news for their members, the ISPs that interconnect there, and for those ISPs’ customers, who will benefit from more secure and robust internet access.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has unified its two, largely separate, collaboration packages – Spark and WebEx – into a single platform that supports a single set of features.The move makes sense because Cisco had been developing the somewhat similar packages separately, and there was some confusion about that in the market and sales channels. No more.[ Don’t miss customer reviews of top remote access tools and see the most powerful IoT companies . | Get daily insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
Webex Teams combines collaboration features in Cisco Spark and WebEx such as whiteboarding, persistent messaging, roster, meeting controls, content sharing and so on. To read this article in full, please click here
Today’s enterprise relies heavily on applications for just about every business function, making it critical for administrators to have full visibility into networks to better manage traffic and application usage. With MPLS (multiprotocol label switching) networks, this level of visibility is virtually impossible because those networks weren’t designed with an application-first mentality, but that is changing with the implementation of software-defined networks (SDN).Often, administrators don’t even know what apps are on their network or they know only what traffic comes in and out of their firewall/proxy servers. SDN, which replaces most network hardware with software-based controls, is providing transparency that administrators never had before, allowing them to steer application traffic to achieve the best performance.To read this article in full, please click here
I recently had the pleasure of speaking as a panelist at an event break-out session discussing the benefits of SD-WAN. The session, “Catch the Next Wave of Cost Savings,” mirrored much of the current SD-WAN hype, and the abstract further stimulated excitement:“With the promise of savings as high as 90%, are you ready to make the leap from MPLS?”While the benefits of hybrid networks with SD-WAN are already proven and groundbreaking for many companies, the claims of totally replacing MPLS with SD-WAN are becoming bold and perpetuating unrealistic expectations. And it’s not just at events; I have seen white papers lately advertising 10X savings with pure SD-WAN. The issue: enterprises need help clarifying the line between hype and reality.To read this article in full, please click here
There are many reasons to deploy a software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), including saving a boatload of money, improving network agility, and increasing WAN resiliency. However, those all pale in comparison to the ROI that a business would see by making its employees more productive.One of the biggest drags on worker productivity is poor application response time. In 2016, ZK Research conducted a study that found on average, workers were 14 percent less productive than their optimal state because of poor application performance. (Note: I am an employee of ZK Research.) There’s nothing that frustrates a worker more than clicking on an icon and sitting around waiting for it to open or update, but that’s exactly what happens to global organizations that need to access resources over a long distance.To read this article in full, please click here
The topic of network engineer re-skilling has been front and center for the past few years. Some network professionals have embraced the concept and are leading the network industry in a whole new direction. Others, though, are more resistant and show about as much enthusiasm for this new world as my wife does when I ask her to watch a Star Trek marathon with me.Network professionals need to become software-fluent
Part of the resistance to re-skilling is that change is scary and often hard. Many network engineers have been working a certain way for years, possibly decades, and now they are asking, "Do I need to throw those skills away and learn new ones?" To those people, I say an emphatic YES! It’s absolutely critical to learn new skills today, or you could find yourself quickly looking for a job.To read this article in full, please click here
5G represents a fundamental shift in communication network architectures. It promises to accelerate future revenue generation through innovative services facilitated via 5G-enabled devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and Internet-of-Things (IoT). 5G deployments are envisioned as a complex amalgamation of next-generation technological enhancements to telecommunication networks, which will help 5G become the catalyst for next-generation IoT services.Examples of such innovations include: 1) advanced modulation schemes for wireless access, 2) network slicing capabilities, 3) automated network application lifecycle management, 4) software-defined networking and network function virtualization, and 5) support for cloud-optimized distributed network applications.To read this article in full, please click here
Internet-based virtual private networks rose to popularity in the 1990s by providing cost-effective connections securely across an insecure internet, and along the way VPNs have provided the impetus for today’s SD-WAN technology.VPN definition
The definition of a virtual private network (VPN) is creating a secure network over network transport that is less secure, such as the internet. [ Click here to find out more about SD-WAN and why you’ll use it one day and learn about WANs and where they’re headed. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
VPNs are used to connect two or more nodes in a network and are most commonly used to connect individual users’ machines to sites or to connect sites to sites. It’s possible to connect users to each other, but the use case for that is very limited so such deployments are rare. To read this article in full, please click here
This is a glossary of terminology frequently used in describing and discussing wireless technology – from amplifier to wireless network topology that will come in handy when trying to understand articles about wireless devices and networks.It is designed to enable those familiar with networking but not necessarily with radio and wireless technologies to quickly cut through the clutter and understand the meaning of these terms.[ Check out our hands-on wireless-product reviews: 5 top hardware-based Wi-Fi test tools and Mojo wireless intrusion prevention system. ]
The entries are arranged in alphabetical order except for this initial entry, radio, which is meant to set the stage for all the rest.To read this article in full, please click here
We live in a world in which we’re regularly streaming Netflix in 4K, using the power of the phones in our pockets to augment our realities with virtual gaming, and even watching basketball from a virtual courtside seat. Our networks have evolved to cater for these technologies, and each evolutionary step has brought with it a technological boom enabled by greater capacity, speed, automation, intelligence and programmability.The next step has arrived and it’s just in time, because when you thought we were finally content with, well, content, new technologies have emerged that push beyond what we ever thought possible.At the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Intel Studios unveiled what it’s calling Volumetric Video – and it’s nothing short of stunning. Volumetric Video uses multiple cameras to shoot a 360-degree field of view, but it differs from standard 360-degree or VR video in that it captures footage “from the outside in”. To picture how it works, visualize the action scenes from The Matrix, in which the cameras pan around a frozen-in-mid-air Keanu Reeves. But now imagine being a viewer with the ability to zoom in on any part of that scene or look at any part of the Continue reading
The Domain Name System (DNS) is one of the foundations of the internet, yet most people outside of networking probably don’t realize they use it every day to do their jobs, check their email or waste time on their smartphones.At its most basic, DNS is a directory of names that match with numbers. The numbers, in this case are IP addresses, which computers use to communicate with each other. Most descriptions of DNS use the analogy of a phone book, which is fine for people over the age of 30 who know what a phone book is.[ Don’t miss customer reviews of top remote access tools and see the most powerful IoT companies . | Get daily insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
If you’re under 30, think of DNS like your smartphone’s contact list, which matches people’s names with their phone numbers and email addresses. Then multiply that contact list by everyone else on the planet.To read this article in full, please click here
2018 has already been hailed as the “Year of SD-WAN” and while the promises of this technology are undoubtedly appealing to most enterprises, it’s equally important to understand its potential shortcomings.The “Death of the Router” has been largely exaggerated by those trying to market their “silver bullet” solutions that still lack basic routing capabilities. While there’s no doubt that years of technical debt have added some unnecessary functionality to the modern router, it’s worth acknowledging that there are many “table-stakes” features leveraged that need to exist in any SD-WAN solution that is meant to replace those boring routers.I’d like to highlight some often-missed considerations drawn from hard lessons learned by SD-WAN early adopters. Specific names and details have been left out to protect both the guilty and innocent.To read this article in full, please click here
When thin clients were first introduced to the market in 1995, there was a cultural backlash. Thin clients may have made working with company data less costly and more secure, but from the workers’ perspective, their PC was replaced by a little box connected by a serial cable, with limited graphics that was much slower than the PC they were used to working on every day.In those early days, even as we swapped the serial cables for network ones, shrunk the cases, and doubled the performance, it didn’t take long before thin clients were banished to niche use cases, becoming the territory of call centers, nurses’ stations and manufacturing plants—often to those workers’ disappointment.To read this article in full, please click here