My first thought yesterday upon seeing that Cisco Partners was asking its Twitter audience to help name its new blog was, “What, have these people learned nothing from the Boaty McBoatface kerfuffle?”Alas, the Cisco social media folks weren’t born yesterday, so they had the good sense to limit those wanting to help name the blog to only three choices.
As of this morning, the third option – Weekly Rewind – was enjoying a comfortable lead.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IT professionals are looking to software-defined networking to automate what are still complex and vulnerable systems controlled by human engineers. Major General Sarah Zabel knows where they’re coming from.Zabel is the vice director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which provides IT support for all U.S. combat operations. Soldiers, officers, drones, and the president all rely on DISA to stay connected. Its network is the epitome of a system that’s both a headache to manage and a prime hacking target.Zabel was a featured speaker on Tuesday at the Open Networking User Group conference, a Silicon Valley gathering of enterprise IT leaders who want to steer vendors toward technologies that meet their real needs. Members include large retailers, financial institutions, and manufacturers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A user group for enterprise IT managers is taking on software-defined networking, calling for new technologies they say would better serve enterprise needs.On Tuesday, the Open Networking User Group (ONUG) announced initiatives behind four technologies that it says would help enterprises build and run their networks better.There’s no shortage of platforms and protocols for software-defined infrastructure, including things like OpenFlow, OpenStack and ONOS (Open Network Operating System). But they were developed around the needs of vendors and service providers more than of enterprises, ONUG founder Nick Lippis said. His group wants to push along a few more pieces that aren’t there yet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At Interop 2016, Network World chats with Mike Leibovitz from Extreme Networks, about what comes next for enterprise Wi-Fi deployments after they've covered the office building and/or large campus.
Housecleaning yesterday unearthed this miniature 8-page publication called TimesFax, which was delivered to me by the New York Times aboard a cruise ship somewhere in the Caribbean on May 23, 1998. Measuring 7 by 8.5 inches, it was, as I recall, the only source of news available, and since it lacked a full-service sports section, meant I had to go without the box scores needed to follow my fantasy baseball team (unthinkable today).
Such were the limitations of leisure travel in that primitive era, at least the manner of leisure travel that I could afford.
While the form factor and delivery method were unusual by today’s standards, the headlines were certainly familiar, as the front page featured accounts of both a school shooting and a Clinton scandal, the latter involving the former president as opposed to the future one, of course. That skimpy sports section did include an Associated Press story about the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus, meeting in the final of the French Open, marking the first time they had ever met in the final of a professional tournament.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Wireless networking device manufacturer Aruba Networks has fixed multiple vulnerabilities in its software that could, under certain circumstances, allow attackers to compromise devices.The vulnerabilities were discovered by Sven Blumenstein from the Google Security Team and affect ArubaOS, Aruba's AirWave Management Platform (AMP) and Aruba Instant (IAP).There are 26 different issues, ranging from privileged remote code execution to information disclosure, insecure updating mechanism and insecure storage of credentials and private keys. However, Aruba combined them all under two CVE tracking IDs: CVE-2016-2031 and CVE-2016-2032.Common issues that are shared by all of the affected software packages have to do with design flaws in an Aruba proprietary management and control protocol dubbed PAPI.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
LAS VEGAS -- Apparently Ethernet isn’t all THAT ubiquitous. That is judging by the number of new applications, speed changes and future options for the networking standard that were discussed at the Interop symposium here.“We are now beyond the ‘let’s just go faster’ development of Ethernet and are now looking at developing Ethernet for specific applications,” said David Chalupsky, Ethernet Alliance BASE-T subcommittee chair and principal engineer at Intel.+More on Network World: Ethernet everywhere!+That’s not to say Ethernet won’t continue to get faster – it is. There is currently work to develop 50Gbps, 200Gbps and 400Gbps Ethernet in the next three years. But perhaps more telling, the Ethernet community is also looking to standardize on slower speeds 2.5Gbps, 5Gbps and 25Gbps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The next time you want to complain about slow Wi-Fi, think about saving your vitriol for wires instead.So-called gigabit Wi-Fi, or 802.11ac, is slowly starting to show up in homes, buildings and public hotspots, but it’s not delivering a gigabit to smartphones, according to an analysis by research company OpenSignal. That’s partly because of how wireless works and how the newest technology is being rolled out, but it also reflects the performance of the wired networks that Wi-Fi taps into.OpenSignal used its free connection-monitoring app, running on thousands of smartphones, to learn what kinds of Wi-Fi networks users were on and what kind of speed they were getting.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With the strike by Verizon union members now in its fourth week – and no settlement appearing near -- frustrations born of service delays and cancelations remain primarily the bane of consumers, although business customers are also taking on collateral damage, some of which may not be visible to the untrained eye.That’s the view of David Rohde, a longtime industry watcher and senior consultant at TechCaliber in Washington D.C.“Customers are asking their Verizon (Enterprise) account teams for, you name it – an inventory of current services, a next response to a bid for new services, a network management request that can’t otherwise be handled automatically – and the answer is coming back very frequently that those people aren’t around right now so you’re going to have to wait,” Rohde writes in a recent blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At the 2016 Interop show, David Chalupsky from the Ethernet Alliance chats with Network World about its six new data rates and 2016 Ethernet Roadmap. Chalupsky also explains why the networking standard is not only getting faster, but slower for some particular applications and use cases.
Cisco Systems has fixed a critical vulnerability that could allow attackers to take over TelePresence systems, and patched other high-severity flaws in Cisco FirePOWER and Adaptive Security Appliance devices.The TelePresence software vulnerability stems from an improper authentication mechanism for the XML application programming interface (API). Attackers could exploit it by sending crafted HTTP requests to the XML API in order to bypass authentication and execute unauthorized configuration changes and commands on the system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Many smart city proponents speak in vast generalities. They talk about the ways that Internet of Things sensors and big data will improve life for citizens while conserving water and energy resources and reducing traffic congestion.Not so Bob Bennett, the recently installed chief innovation officer for Kansas City, Mo. He's a combination of CIO, city planner and futurist with a quick grasp of technical details about what smart city technology can do. Bennett arrived at his job just four months before the city's planned opening on Friday of a shiny new downtown streetcar line offering free rides and the deployment of public Wi-Fi that spreads over two square miles, an area of more than 50 square blocks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
LAS VEGAS --The growing number of vendors supporting 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet over twisted pair copper cabling demonstrated the interoperability of a variety of new gear at the Interop event here.The NBase-T Alliance showed off an assortment of 2.5 and 5GBase-T products – from switches to NICs -- it says show new applications for NBase-T products, including the ability to aggregate data at 2.5G and 5G Ethernet data across 802.11ac Wave2 access points and improved speed links to network-attached storage devices. The Alliance noted that Dell’Oro Group predicted recently that there will be a doubling of ports shipped every year in the 2.5G and 5G Ethernet market over the next 3 years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Pricing in ads for broadband Internet access is too often misleading and needs tighter regulation.That's the verdict of the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority, which on Wednesday gave ISPs six months to clean up their act before it introduces new rules on how they can promote their services.The monthly cost of broadband Internet access bundled with fixed-line telephone service ought to be simple enough to determine.INSIDER: 5 tricks to improve poor TCP performance
However, after viewing a typical ad, only 23 percent of people could correctly identify the cost in a study by the ASA and the U.K.'s communications regulator, Ofcom.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google, Verizon and others are partnering with NASA on an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) traffic management scheme. Microsoft has been working with universities on drone-enabled mosquito traps in an effort to stall infectious diseases from spreading. Cisco has shown off drones whose cameras feed into the company’s collaboration technologies. And AT&T, IBM and Intel have all demonstrated advanced drone-based research.All of this activity by enterprise IT vendors in the commercial drone field is a far cry from what was being done -- or at least being publicly discussed -- back in late 2014, when our efforts to get such vendors to share their ambitions largely went unheeded. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Interop 2016The 30th version running this week in Las Vegas features a trade show with more than 160 vendors displaying their wares and where its interoperability mission ventures far outside the show’s signature InteropNet Demo Lab. This year it is focused on promoting interoperability among Internet of Things devices, a category of gear unheard of that first year. (See Network World's preview story of the show.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Interop conference convening this week will be a far cry from the gathering of a small group of technology pioneers who sought interoperability among Internet devices 30 years ago.Then, the 1986 invitation-only TCP/IP Interoperability Conference drew representatives from 65 tech companies.The 30th version running this week in Las Vegas features a trade show with more than 160 vendors displaying their wares and where its interoperability mission ventures far outside the show’s signature InteropNet Demo Lab. This year it is focused on promoting interoperability among Internet of Things devices, a category of gear unheard of that first year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.Step back and imagine the world of technology 10 years ago. YouTube was in its infancy, the iPhone was more than a year away from release, Blackberry was the smartest phone on the market and Twitter was barely making a peep.While the masses are now glued to their iPhones watching cat videos and pontificating 140 characters at a time, the backend infrastructure that supports all of that watching and tweeting—not to mention electronic health records, industrial sensors, e-commerce, and a myriad of other serious activities—has also undergone a massive evolution. Unfortunately, the tools tasked with monitoring and managing the performance, availability, and security of those infrastructures have not kept up with the scale of data or with the speed at which insight is required today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Television stations have volunteered to sell off 126MHz of "beach front" wireless spectrum to mobile carriers in an ongoing U.S. Federal Communications Commission auction, potentially bringing higher speeds and more reliable networks to customers.The 126MHz of spectrum was the highest amount anticipated by the FCC in the so-called incentive auction, agency officials said Friday. In most areas of the country, the agency will be able to auction 10 blocks of 10MHz to mobile carriers and other interested bidders.This low-band spectrum, in the 600MHz band, is highly coveted by mobile carriers because it can cover long distances and penetrate walls and other obstacles. Mobile carriers have pushed for more spectrum as their customers' network use keeps growing, and the low-band spectrum will help carriers roll out faster 5G service, supporters say.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
On April 27, 1986, a Florida man with workplace access to a satellite transmission dish – and a financial beef with HBO -- pulled off the kind of audacious stunt that were it to happen today would likely land him in prison for a long, long time.From a 2011 Buzzblog post:
John MacDougall, then 25, was the lonely pamphleteer of lore, only instead of paper and ink he was armed with a 30-foot transmission dish, an electronic keyboard, and a burning objection to HBO's decision in 1986 to begin scrambling its satellite signal and charging viewers $12.95 a month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here