For the first time since their debut on the market in the mid-2000s, 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches are set to lose share in the networking industry this year as service providers and hyperscale customers continue to adopt faster bandwidth 40 and 100 GbE switches, according to data from research firm IDC.IDC estimates that last year 10 GbE revenues stood at $6.15 billion, up from $5.44 billion in 2015. This year, IDC predicts 10 GbE switching revenues will fall to $5.94 billion.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Nokia rolls out its first 'petabit-class' router | SD-WAN, what it is and why you'll use it one day +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For the first time since their debut on the market in the mid-2000s, 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches are set to lose share in the networking industry this year as service providers and hyperscale customers continue to adopt faster bandwidth 40 and 100 GbE switches, according to data from research firm IDC.IDC estimates that last year 10 GbE revenues stood at $6.15 billion, up from $5.44 billion in 2015. This year, IDC predicts 10 GbE switching revenues will fall to $5.94 billion.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Nokia rolls out its first 'petabit-class' router | SD-WAN, what it is and why you'll use it one day +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Fave Raves is an annual feature from Network World that invites enterprise IT pros to share hands-on assessments of products they love. Several IT pros raved about their favorite network tools. Here’s what they had to say, in their own words. For more enterprise favorites, check out the full Fave Raves collection.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
With internet traffic set to triple over the next five years or so, according to recent estimates from Nokia and Cisco Systems, Nokia thinks the time is right for a new range of high-end routers that can boost core capacity by a factor of six—and even help 10-year-old devices to double their capacity.Nokia predicts that by 2022, total internet traffic will reach 330 exabytes per month. (That's 330 million terabytes). For its part, Cisco forecasts it will grow at 24 percent per year from a base of 96 exabytes per month in 2016 to 278 exabytes per month in 2021.That traffic growth will be driven by three things, according to Nokia: cloud services, 5G mobile networks, and the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Managing the Wide Area Network (WAN) for Redmond Inc., a supplier of industrial and commercial products – from salt that’s used to protect winter roadways to organic dairy products and health items – is an easier job today for the company’s technical project manager Aaron Gabrielson than it was a year ago.Redmond manages a phone system, point of sale and fax centrally out of headquarters in Heber City, Utah, which means each of Redmond’s 10 branch sites across the Midwest need a reliable connection back to headquarters in Utah. That’s easier for some sites, like those in Salt Lake City, than others, such as rural areas where there may only be a handful of workers on a farm.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For network professionals looking to get the latest in training for new skills and certifications, there is no shortage of resources on the web, but how do you know which online offers are legitimate?+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Cisco certifications target business professionals eyeing software roles +One way is to go straight to Cisco. The company has a broad array of training tools available for a variety of different topics and price points, ranging from free to thousands of dollars.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Before the advent of sensors in cars, phones, thermostats, refrigerators and factory-floor devices, information technology and operational technology were two different worlds. The Internet of Things is changing that.Now, as a sea of data is sucked in to all kinds of devices in all sorts of places, there is an increasing need to merge IT and OT in order to collect, store and analyze information in the most cost-efficient manner possible -- all in real time. The network edge increasingly is where the action is, as these worlds come together.Enterprises now use edge computing to create "smart" buildings and cities, more efficient factory floors and unique retail customer experiences. It's a huge opportunity for vendors like IBM, Cisco, GE and HPE.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Extreme Network’s recent string of acquisitions – including it’s recent $100 million auction-buy of Avaya’s networking business, it’s purchase of Brocade’s Ethernet IP networking assets and its purchase of wireless vendor Zebra Technologies last year – should cause enterprise end users to potentially rethink their network infrastructure buying decisions when it comes time for their next hardware refresh, according to Forrester analyst Andre Kindness.Kindness says in the immediate short term, there are not likely to be any major changes to offerings from these vendors; all current Avaya and Brocade networking gear will still be supported. But given Extreme’s acquisition spree, it’s expected there will be some consolidation and blending of products over the medium and long-term. “As with anything, it will take some time to reconcile the moves and figure out the new direction,” says Kindness.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
They have the resources, the expertise and, though they may not realize it, the need -- but it turns out that enterprises are often the ones that don't yet have IPv6.That's the finding of the Internet Society its latest report on IPv6 deployment, published five years after the organization began a worldwide push to deploy the new addressing protocol and almost 20 years after the protocol was defined.Around 13 percent of the top one million websites is inviting IPv6 traffic today, it said, citing a Hurricane Electric analysis of data provided by Amazon.com. That figure rises to around 22 percent for the top 1,000 websites.In 37 countries, IPv6 is used for over 5 percent of internet traffic, according to Google, which bases its estimate on traffic hitting its load-balancers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
They have the resources, the expertise and, though they may not realize it, the need -- but it turns out that enterprises are often the ones that don't yet have IPv6.That's the finding of the Internet Society its latest report on IPv6 deployment, published five years after the organization began a worldwide push to deploy the new addressing protocol and almost 20 years after the protocol was defined.Around 13 percent of the top 1 million websites is inviting IPv6 traffic today, it said, citing a Hurricane Electric analysis of data provided by Amazon.com. That figure rises to around 22 percent for the top 1,000 websites.In 37 countries, IPv6 is used for over 5 percent of internet traffic, according to Google, which bases its estimate on traffic hitting its load-balancers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Digital transformation has been a hot topic with IT and business leaders over the past few years. In fact, it’s rare for me to talk to any organization, regardless of size, and not talk about the challenges of going digital.One of the interesting elements of this shift is that it makes the network significantly more important than it ever has been. Most of the technologies used to fuel digitization, such as IoT, cloud and mobility are all network centric in nature, so the network has a direct impact on a company’s ability to become a digital organization.RELATED: SD-WAN: What it is and why you will use it one day
In today’s rapidly changing business climate, competitive differentiation revolves around speed, and that requires a highly dynamic and scalable IT foundation. However, a business can only be as agile as the least agile component, and that today is the network. Software-defined networks (SDNs) have helped transform the data center and SD-WANs the wide-area network, but what about the campus? That seems to have been forgotten about through this transition to a software-defined world.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Demand for skilled storage pros is on the rise as enterprise IT teams wrestle with increased storage capacity requirements and evolving business needs. In particular, companies are looking for people with experience migrating from hardware-based storage to cloud storage – and that’s resulting in higher-than-average pay increases, according to Dice.The tech career hub and job-search site released its annual guide to U.S. tech salaries, which finds that overall average pay in the industry fell slightly last year to $92,081, down from $93,328 in 2015. On the raise front, 61% of tech pros received a salary increase from a year ago, and 9% reported a decrease.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IP networks were originally designed to be fairly simple. There’s a source and a destination address, and the network devices use this information to perform some fancy calculations—and magically, things connect. But as the internet has grown and more endpoints have been connected, networking has become a black magic. Since it’s impossible to give every device its own unique IP address, the clever folks at networking companies came up with an assortment of workarounds, such as being able to NAT (network address translation) non-routable, private addresses. And as we’ve added more dynamic environments, such as private and public cloud, defining policy based on addresses or ranges has become unsustainable. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The AC1200 is a wifi range extender that transmits its signal through your home wiring via your wall outlets, so walls and floors won't slow it down. Game online and watch HD movies in any room. The powerline adapter is simple to use -- it sets up in minutes, plugs into any power outlet, works with all routers, and up to 16 can be added to the same network, making it easy to expand your Wi-Fi across your home. Right now the price on this highly rated wifi extender will be reduced $10 to $99.99 in your shopping cart when you "clip" a special coupon. See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The new APC Back-UPS BE600M1 provides instant battery power to your critical electronics when the power goes out, keeping you connected and available both personally and professionally. Designed specifically to enhance the features that matter most to you, including more runtime, more battery backup outlets, and a USB port for charging convenience, the BE600M1 is also smaller and lighter than the previous model. APC's BE600M1 offers guaranteed surge and lightning protection for attached devices. When the power goes out, the APC BE600M1 will power critical devices including home networking equipment; allowing you to maintain your internet connection. This allows you to work productively, avoid the loss of valuable data, and safely shut down equipment. It currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 4,400 people on Amazon (read reviews), where its list price of $74.99 has been reduced 22% to $58.73.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The shift to software-defined networks (SDN) was the catalyst to usher in a whole new way of running networks—and that’s through software. Some may argue that network engineers have been using software for decades, as every good router jockey had a laptop filled with scripts and templates that could be cut and pasted into the command line interface. This ad hoc model is highly error prone and not scalable, which is why human error still accounts for much of the downtime with respect to networks. Historically, Cisco hasn’t exactly helped its customers be more proficient with software. Oh sure, it had programs such as the Cisco Technology Developer Program (CTDP) that were targeted at developers, but what about the network engineer? The person who wants to do his job more efficiently? For that audience, Cisco didn’t have an answer. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I was recently invited to participate on a panel at a major IT conference, where questions from the audience provided an interesting window into the top issues that networking professionals are dealing with as part of their organizations’ digital transformation.Every enterprise, it seems, is planning a cloud strategy. On closer inspection, most are already using the cloud in the form SaaS ERP and CRM applications like Salesforce, NetSuite, etc. These applications have performed well enough on top of traditional, legacy networks.However, newer, more multi-dimensional cloud applications are forcing businesses to look for ways to make their networks more agile. One of these is Microsoft Office 365. Microsoft is aggressively investing in their infrastructure to provide a superior experience for users. Nevertheless, the enterprise network, and more specifically the wide area network (WAN), remains one of the biggest impediments to providing an on-premise caliber quality of experience for cloud applications. Finding the most efficient exit to Office 365 and best performance server are usually the culprits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Network traffic analysis should be used more in the fight against malware. That’s because pointers show up on the network “weeks and even months” in advance of new malicious software being uncovered, scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology explain in an article on the school’s website.The researchers, who have been studying historic network traffic patterns, say the latest malware tracking should take advantage of inherent network-supplied barometers and stop simply focusing on trying to identify malware code already on networks and machines. By analyzing already-available, suspicious network traffic created by the hackers over a period of time, administrators will be able to pounce and render malware harmless before it can perform damage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Network traffic analysis should be used more in the fight against malware. That’s because pointers show up on the network “weeks and even months” in advance of new malicious software being uncovered, scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology explain in an article on the school’s website.The researchers, who have been studying historic network traffic patterns, say the latest malware tracking should take advantage of inherent network-supplied barometers and stop simply focusing on trying to identify malware code already on networks and machines. By analyzing already-available, suspicious network traffic created by the hackers over a period of time, administrators will be able to pounce and render malware harmless before it can perform damage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here