When choosing the wireless LAN gear to be used in enterprises, it's important to look at security, reliability and ease of system management, and that's exactly what a group of Aruba and Aerohive customers have done.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
It’s common for a newly released application to have a few bugs in it. Customers may grumble, and IT service requests may increase, but life goes on and people will figure out how to work around the issues. The same cannot be said for a network software upgrade. If the network goes down, everything grinds to a halt, and service to employees and customers ceases.In the old hardware network model, an operator relied on three to four vendors to run annual or semiannual upgrades, and even that process put the network’s resiliency at risk. As networks transition to a software model, they are supported by a myriad of best-of-breed partners and a more diverse ecosystem, increasing the frequency of updates and therefore the degree of network vulnerability. In addition, the technology implemented is less mature, resulting in greater network exposure to errors and risk.To read this article in full, please click here
In the world of wireless, the term Wi-Fi is synonymous with wireless access in general, despite the fact that it is a specific trademark owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance, a group dedicated to certifying that Wi-Fi products meet the IEEE’s set of 802.11 wireless standards.These standards, with names such as 802.11b (pronounced “Eight-O-Two-Eleven-Bee”, ignore the “dot”) and 802.11ac, comprise a family of specifications that started in the 1990s and continues to grow today. The 802.11 standards codify improvements that boost wireless throughput and range as well as the use of new frequencies as they become available. They also address new technologies that reduce power consumption.To read this article in full, please click here
SD-WAN has become the definitive buzzword in enterprise networking, and if you’re a decision maker in IT, chances are the technology has come up in conversation. According to Gartner, by 2018, 40 percent of WAN edge infrastructure will be based on SD-WAN or something similar.What is SD-WAN?
In a nutshell, Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) simplifies enterprise connectivity between remote locations and branch offices. Common features of a SD-WAN solution include:
Combining network links of one location into a single pool of capacity available for all applications and services
Customization of the bandwidth and connectivity to meet the needs of your specific network services, locations, or users
The ability to centrally define and manage policies and network traffic without requiring manual configuration at each device.
Many startups and tech giants have positioned themselves as an SD-WAN solution, each with their own idea on how the technology works and what solution it offers the business. Yet with so many vendors out there claiming to be SD-WAN, it’s hard to determine which solution is right for your business.To read this article in full, please click here
To gain the edge in today’s competitive digital marketplace, enterprises must update/transform from their old-school network services tools in favor of innovative solutions that revamp existing infrastructures. The best way to stay ahead of the digital evolution curve is to plan your digital infrastructures in advance and create strategic execution plans involving multiple teams. We’ve already determined that network automation is the ultimate solution, but challenges remain. In this article, we will discuss the visibility challenges ahead in 2018, and how to overcome them. Major challenges faced by network teams today
There are many automation technologies available for enterprises to strengthen digital infrastructures. Regardless of their availability, network teams are finding it extremely difficult to adapt. There is a huge misconception today that applying automation is a single-step process. The truth is, automation is a complex progression to put in place, as all existing infrastructures and processes must be redefined. Apart from this, network automation creates the demand for team restructuring, role defining, and allotment of access control for various tasks. Amidst these tasks, networking teams also face major visibility challenges when restructuring the digital networks. Below are few initiatives that can help businesses gain agility and security in Continue reading
Cisco has advanced its intent-based networking gear so now it can both verify that networks are actually running according to the intentions set by admins and also so it can help to find and resolve network problems faster on both wired and wireless networks.The company says this is a new phase in the evolution of its IBN in which it is addressing assurance – the ability to assess whether the intentions that have been translated into policies and orchestrated throughout the network by configuring individual devices are carrying out the intentions they are supposed to.+DON'T MISS:Getting grounded in intent-based networking; A deep dive into Cisco's intent-based networking; What is intent-based networking?+To read this article in full, please click here
CES 2018 did not disappoint, with a gaggle of networking-enabled gadgets for your home, car and bathroom. But many of these technologies demand more data, putting strain on wireless networks.Imagine if all 125 million U.S. households suddenly invested in a smart toilet? When the number of low- and high-bandwidth devices multiply, cable TV networks and cellular base stations bear the burden. So, what’s a network provider to do?The answer – somewhat surprisingly – is to borrow from the defense industry. When times get tough in the commercial electronics space, network providers seek to adopt high-gain, high-power RF solutions from defense radar and communications systems, including many that depend on gallium nitride.To read this article in full, please click here
A lot of people outside China ask whether the government there is going to shut down the corporate VPNs of international companies with facilities in China. How will the new Chinese cybersecurity law impact foreign IT operations in the country? Is it safe to transfer information into and out of China?To answer, let’s start with the Great Firewall of China (GFC), which has a big impact on what information is allowed to move in and out of the country. The GFC is a combination of government policies and advanced telecom equipment deployed by the main Internet Service Providers in China. It is intended to safeguard the national security and the best interests of China.To read this article in full, please click here
The science behind a lot of today’s newest trends is actually pretty old.John McCarthy is considered the father of AI after he coined the phrase in 1955 and then held the first academic conference on the topic the next year.The term “virtual reality” was first used in the mid-1980s, but the attempts to use electronics to develop simulated environments also reach back to the 1950s.Then, there’s the Internet of Things (IoT). It’s a hot topic now, but it’s been nearly 20 years since the phrase was introduced in 1999. And the first connected “thing” (a toaster created by John Romkey and Simon Hackett) actually debuted even earlier, in 1990.To read this article in full, please click here
In one of my favorite movies of all time, Amadeus, there is a scene in which a conversation takes place between Mozart and the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II, just after the first performance of the opera The Marriage of Figaro. During exchange, the Emperor “explained” to Mozart, in a condescending way, that while the opera was excellent, it had “too many notes.” He went on to suggest “Just cut a few and it will be perfect.” Nonplussed, Mozart calmly replied “Which few did you have in mind your majesty?” A pregnant pause ensues, and the Emperor is only saved by a distraction which allows the change of subject.
This “change request” – while it appeared on the surface trivial to the Emperor – turned out to be quite a challenge, as it required the complete knowledge of the score (state/intent) and required composition skills (design/action). So, what does this have to do with networking?To read this article in full, please click here
As the explosive growth of IoT tech continues; businesses, vendors and consumers all have to confront the issue that the world is more connected than ever before, with potentially gigantic consequences.The central problem with IoT security is that there is no central problem – IoT is a more complicated stack than traditional IT infrastructure and is much more likely to be made up of hardware and software from different sources.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Review: VMware’s vSAN 6.6 + Configuration errors in Intel workstations being labeled a security holeTo read this article in full, please click here
SD-WAN deployments show the power of software-defined networking and virtualization to improve bandwidth efficiency and deliver application performance, and now this software-centric approach is being applied to the unique requirements of branch offices.Known as SD-Branch, this next step in the evolution of branch technology can be defined as a single hardware platform that supports SD-WAN, routing, integrated security and LAN/Wi-Fi functions that can all be managed centrally.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: After virtualization and cloud, what’s left on premises?; Windows Server in the cloud: Can you, should you, and with which provider?; SD-WAN: What is it and why you’ll use it one day+To read this article in full, please click here
Understanding how applications perform has been somewhat of a mystery for IT departments since the advent of networked applications.The reason why it’s been so hard is that traditional management tools operate in a bottoms-up manner. That is, each infrastructure component is monitored, usually with its own management tool, and then the data is rolled up to some kind of manager of managers. Application performance management is inferred by trying to correlate the information manually. The problem is today there is far too much data to be analyzed using manual processes.Also on Network World: Manage user performance, not the network, with machine learning-based tools
Nyansa takes a different approach. It provides a top-down view of the infrastructure, so application performance can be determined through the lens of the user instead of the infrastructure. Its Voyance product can be thought of as actual user performance management instead of traditional application performance management. Voyance uses machine language to interpret the massive amounts of data collected at the access edge, including wireless infrastructure.To read this article in full, please click here
If it weren’t for wide-area networks, it wouldn’t be possible to create unified networks for organizations with far-flung locations, to telecommute, or to do online anything. But WANs do exist and have for decades, constantly evolving to carry more and more traffic faster as demands increase and technology becomes more powerful.What is a WAN?
A WAN is a network that uses various links – private lines, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), virtual private networks (VPNs), wireless (cellular), the Internet – to connect smaller metropolitan and campus networks in diverse locations into a single, distributed network. The sites they connect could be a few miles apart or halfway around the globe. In an enterprise, the purposes of a WAN could include connecting branch offices or even individual remote workers with headquarters or the data center, in order to share corporate resources and communications.To read this article in full, please click here
Fog computing is the concept of a network fabric that stretches from the outer edges of where data is created to where it will eventually be stored, whether that's in the cloud or in a customer’s data center.Fog is another layer of a distributed network environment and is closely associated with cloud computing and the internet of things (IoT). Public infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud vendors can be thought of as a high-level, global endpoint for data; the edge of the network is where data from IoT devices is created.Fog computing is the idea of a distributed network that connects these two environments. “Fog provides the missing link for what data needs to be pushed to the cloud, and what can be analyzed locally, at the edge,” explains Mung Chiang, dean of Purdue University’s College of Engineering and one of the nation’s top researchers on fog and edge computing.To read this article in full, please click here
During the sales process, every vendor sounds great. They have case studies, they have great-looking material, they talk like experts and everything is good. But nothing is as simple as it looks in the beginning.There are always additional challenges. The true test of a service provider, or any vendor, is how they respond to those changes and challenges. Do they put you, the customer, first or do they get slow and unresponsive? If you have a vendor who isn’t meeting your needs, but you’re locked into a contract that makes it cost-prohibitive to leave, these steps will help you reduce some of the friction in the relationship, while providing a better outcome for your company.To read this article in full, please click here
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is an odd place to announce an enterprise product, but the Wi-Fi Alliance used the massive trade show — which has more or less taken over where Comdex left off — to announce a major upgrade to Wi-Fi security.The alliance announced the Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3), a new standard of Wi-Fi security that greatly increases the security capabilities of the wireless standard. WPA2, which is the current standard in wireless security, has been around for 14 years, so this is way overdue.To read this article in full, please click here
More than a decade ago, I launched the forerunner to SD-WAN Experts, MPLS Experts, on a project to China. Back then finding out telecom services in another country, let alone another continent, seemed like a mission impossible. China was among the most difficult.Much has changed in our industry. MPLS has given way to SD-WAN, but some things remain the same. We still need global connectivity and China continues to remain a mystery. My story about China blocking VPN traffic – and potentially SD-WAN traffic – caused quite a stir in the industry, in large part because, like so many things when dealing with China, concrete information remains scarce (particularly for non-native speakers).To read this article in full, please click here
1. Whether your users are happy (without having to talk to them)
It’s not always cool to admit, but the ultimate goal of every networker is to have happy users. Like many other thankless jobs, we only hear about problems. When we do, we react. But that isn’t ideal. What we really want is to know about problems as they are developing, before users complain. They don't even have to know. But we do.A Network Management System (NMS) has been the traditional go-to solution to sniff out these sorts of problems. But most were designed for just one view of a certain part of the network using antiquated technology that doesn't provide any sort of predictive problem solving based on what the user is actually experiencing. It's like trying to figure out San Francisco traffic based on the status of the traffic signals. Just because the signals are working properly doesn’t mean the drivers (users) are having a good experience.To read this article in full, please click here