Hyperconvergence is an IT framework that combines storage, computing and networking into a single system in an effort to reduce data center complexity and increase scalability. Hyperconverged platforms include a hypervisor for virtualized computing, software-defined storage, and virtualized networking, and they typically run on standard, off-the-shelf servers. Multiple nodes can be clustered together to create pools of shared compute and storage resources, designed for convenient consumption.The use of commodity hardware, supported by a single vendor, yields an infrastructure that's designed to be more flexible and simpler to manage than traditional enterprise storage infrastructure. For IT leaders who are embarking on data center modernization projects, hyperconvergence can provide the agility of public cloud infrastructure without relinquishing control of hardware on their own premises.To read this article in full, please click here
IPv6 has characteristics lacking in IPv4 that make it advantageous for internet of things deployments, such as supporting large IoT networks, helping preserve battery life of IoT devices and reducing administrative and maintenance burden. Could IoT be helping to drive IPv6 adoption in enterprise networks?To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
Technology is always evolving. However, in recent time, two significant changes have emerged in the world of networking. Firstly, the networking is moving to software that can run on commodity off-the-shelf hardware. Secondly, we are witnessing the introduction and use of many open source technologies, removing the barrier of entry for new product innovation and rapid market access.Networking is the last bastion within IT to adopt the open source. Consequently, this has badly hit the networking industry in terms of slow speed of innovation and high costs. Every other element of IT has seen radical technology and cost model changes over the past 10 years. However, IP networking has not changed much since the mid-’90s.To read this article in full, please click here
Network capacity planning aims to ensure that sufficient bandwidth is provisioned, allowing network SLA targets, such as delay, jitter, loss, and availability, to be reliably met. It's a complex, error-prone task with serious financial implications. Until recently, the network data necessary for insightful capacity planning was generally only available via static, historical, after-the-fact reports. This situation is now rapidly changing.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
As the number of cyber attacks increases, the demand for penetration tests – to determine the strength of a company’s defense – is also going up. People are worried about their companies’ networks and computer systems being hacked and data being stolen. Plus, many regulatory standards such PCI and HITRUST require these tests to be performed on at least an annual basis.The demand for these tests is only going to increase as attackers get more sophisticated. And it’s essential these tests catch all possible vulnerabilities.[ Also read: What to consider when deploying a next-generation firewall | Get regularly scheduled insights: Sign up for Network World newsletters ]
Benefits and gaps of penetration tests
Penetration tests involve live tests of computer networks, systems, or web applications to find potential vulnerabilities. The tester actually attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities and documents the details of the results to their client. They document how severe the vulnerabilities are and recommend the steps that should be taken in order to resolve them.To read this article in full, please click here
Solutions are needed to replace the archaic air-gapping of computers used to isolate and protect sensitive defense information, the U.S. Government has decided. Air-gapping, used often now, is the practice of physically isolating data-storing computers from other systems, computers, and networks. It theoretically can’t be compromised because there is nothing between the machines — there are no links into the machines; they’re removed.However, many say air-gapping is no longer practical, as the cloud and internet takes a hold of massive swaths of data and communications.“Keeping a system completely disconnected from all means of information transfer is an unrealistic security tactic,” says Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on its website, announcing an initiative to develop completely new hardware and software that will allow defense communications to take place securely among myriad existing systems, networks, and security protocols.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has rolled out a new family of switches, software, developer tools and blueprints to meld IoT and industrial networking with intent-based networking and classic IT security, monitoring and application-development support.To take on the daunting task the company unveiled a new family of industrial-networking Catalyst switches, IoT developer tools and support for Cisco’s DevNet developer program, and it validated IoT network design blueprints customers can work with to build solid IoT environments. To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco is significantly spreading its data-center technology to help customers grow and control hybrid, multicloud or hyperconverged edge environments.In a series of announcements at its Cisco Live! customer gathering in Barcelona, the company sought to expand its data center-influence by extending its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) to the cloud, extending its hyperconverged HyperFlex offering to the edge and bolstering the management capabilities of its CloudCenter offering.To read this article in full, please click here
The Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer some futuristic thing that’s years off from being something IT leaders need to be concerned with. The IoT era has arrived. In fact, Gartner forecasts there will be 20.4 billion connected devices globally by 2020.An alternative proof point is the fact that when I talk with people about their company's IoT plans, they don’t look at me like a deer in headlights as they did a few years ago. In fact, often the term “IoT” doesn’t even come up. Businesses are connecting more “things” to create new processes, improve efficiency, or improve customer service.As they do, though, new security challenges arise. One of which is there's no “easy button.” IT professionals can’t just deploy some kind of black box and have everything be protected. Securing the IoT is a multi-faceted problem with many factors to consider, and it must be built into any IoT plan.To read this article in full, please click here
Today, the wide area network (WAN) is a vital enterprise resource. Its uptime, often targeting availability of 99.999%, is essential to maintain the productivity of employees and partners and also for maintaining the business’s competitive edge.Historically, enterprises had two options for WAN management models — do it yourself (DIY) and a managed network service (MNS). Under the DIY model, the IT networking and security teams build the WAN by integrating multiple components including MPLS service providers, internet service providers (ISPs), edge routers, WAN optimizers and firewalls.The components are responsible for keeping that infrastructure current and optimized. They configure and adjust the network for changes, troubleshoot outages and ensure that the network is secure. Since this is not a trivial task, therefore many organizations have switched to an MNS. The enterprises outsource the buildout, configuration and on-going management often to a regional telco.To read this article in full, please click here
Firewalls been around for three decades, but they’ve evolved drastically to include features that used to be sold as separate appliances and to pull in externally gathered data to make smarter decisions about what network traffic to allow and what traffic to block.Now just one indespensible element in an ecosystem of network defenses, the latest versions are known as enterprise firewalls or next-generation firewalls (NGFW) to indicate who should use them and that they are continually adding functionality.What is a firewall?
A firewall is a network device that monitors packets going in and out of networks and blocks or allows them according to rules that have been set up to define what traffic is permissible and what traffic isn’t.To read this article in full, please click here
Data breaches and security threats are a top concern among IT leaders, yet it’s harder than ever to hire skilled security professionals. That has organizations looking for ways to more easily improve their security strategy. One option is to implement a software-defined WAN (SD-WAN).I recently talked with Hamza Seqqat, director of solutions architecture at Apcela, to get his take on how SD-WAN affects security strategy. Seqqat helps enterprise organizations redefine their wide-area networks to accommodate the growing use of cloud-based applications and services. In our discussion, he outlined four areas where SD-WAN offers new security benefits.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has patched security vulnerabilities in four packages of SD-WAN Solution software that address buffer overflow, arbitrary file override and privilege access weaknesses that could have led to denial-of-service attacks or access problems.The first patch, called “Critical” by Cisco, fixes a vulnerability in the vContainer of the Cisco SD-WAN Solution that could let an authenticated, remote attacker cause a denial of service (DoS) and execute arbitrary code as the root user, the company wrote in a security advisory. To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco’s AppDynamics business rolled out a raft of enterprise technologies it says will help customers better manage everything from software-defined networks and serverless computing environments to application performance.The wide-ranging announcement – easily AppDynamics largest technology upgrade since being acquired by Cisco two years ago – targets enterprise customers looking to monitor performance and automate the response to problems in business applications. [ Learn more about SDN: Find out where SDN is going and learn the difference between SDN and NFV. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco’s AppDynamics business rolled out a raft of enterprise technologies it said will help customers better manage everything from software-defined networks and serverless computing environments to application performance.The wide-ranging announcement – easily AppDynamics largest technology upgrade since being acquired by Cisco two years ago – targets enterprise customers looking to monitor performance and automate the response to problems in business applications. [ Learn more about SDN: Find out where SDN is going and learn the difference between SDN and NFV. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
The rollout included key components such as a Cognition Engine that will be the basis for future automation and artificial intelligence-based application performance management and the integration of AppDynamics application monitoring tools and Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) technology to help customers mix application health and network operations management in the data center and multi-cloud environments.To read this article in full, please click here
Internet of Things (IoT) research firm Berg Insight recently released figures indicating the installed base of wireless IoT devices in industrial automation reached 21.3 million in 2018. That number could be 50.3 million connections by 2023, the company says. It’s a lot of new industrial wireless nodes coming, and potentially a lot of data packet collisions if the new networks aren’t thought out for handling a snowballing scale.Copying frogs is the answer, say researchers at Osaka University in Japan. They say they’ve discovered that the calling patterns of male Japanese tree frogs don’t overlap, and thus replicate how one would ideally like to see a network function — no packets crashing. The leaping amphibians collectively orchestrate their croaking and silences.To read this article in full, please click here
The government in Durham County, N.C., was spending hours and hours manually provisioning its network and keeping security policies current, so it decided two and a half years ago to upgrade for the sake of efficiency and security.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
Network management tools have come a long way from the early command-line products with arcane, text-based configuration files that kept everyone except the resident (typically Linux) guru in the dark. Today’s management tools, replete with desktop or web-based GUIs, easy installs and configuration wizards, are far more accessible. With each iteration vendors find ways to make these tools more powerful and easier to use. For this review, we evaluated newer versions of three established open-source network management products – OpenNMS, Zenoss Core and NetXMS – as well as a relative newcomer, Sensu Core. All four products are free and open source.To read this article in full, please click here
Enterprises operating in the traditional monolithic environment may have strict organizational structures. As a result, the requirement for security may restrain them from transitioning to a hybrid or cloud-native application deployment model.In spite of the obvious difficulties, the majority of enterprises want to take advantage of cloud-native capabilities. Today, most entities are considering or evaluating cloud-native to enhance their customer’s experience. In some cases, it is the ability to draw richer customer market analytics or to provide operational excellence.Cloud-native is a key strategic agenda that allows customers to take advantage of many new capabilities and frameworks. It enables organizations to build and evolve going forward to gain an edge over their competitors.To read this article in full, please click here