There is no shortage of vendors competing for business at every part of the enterprise network - every vertical, every size business, from the edge to the core. None are created equal, but a few have separated themselves from the pack to become the 10 most powerful.This is Network World's understanding of the most powerful enterprise networking companies, which we based on our own research, consultations with trusted industry analysts and the work of our in-house journalists. For our purposes, we thought of power mostly as market share in key areas of the enterprise networking marketplace - specifically core networking, monitoring and management, WLAN and the edge, though we did consider their technology bases and important market factors as well. Enjoy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Edge computing, where processing takes place closer to the end user in order to reduce latency, among other things, is set to balloon according to a researcher.Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) will grow with a high compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 50.2 percent per year over the next few years (2016-2023), says Occams Business Research and Consulting, which published research in July.Yet-to-be-launched 5G wireless networks and overall increasing use of data will be among the drivers. Global mobile data should reach 69 exabytes by the close of 2022, up from 8.9 exabytes in 2016, the report says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Do you have, or does your data infrastructure environment have a tradecraft skills gap?Keep in mind that tradecraft is your fundamental skills along with experiences, knowing not just the tools, also the various techniques of what to use when, where, why and how.A tradecraft gap exists when there is work to be done, people are available to fulfill those tasks, yet they lack the skills and experiences to do what is needed. For example, you have a position opening to support some function in your data infrastructure environment; many people are applying for that spot. Perhaps all of those applicants have tons of certificates, yet they lack the skills experience for the position. In other words, there is no shortage of people and their certificates, yet there is a gap between the workers and work to be done.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Much ink has been spilled on the topic of what constitutes true “line rate,” and in the past we’ve advocated offering traffic at, and only at, 100.00 percent of theoretical line rate to determine if frame loss exists. However, the distinction between 99.99 percent (which we used in these tests) and 100.00 percent load is not all that meaningful, especially at higher Ethernet speeds, for a couple of reasons. First, Ethernet is inherently an asynchronous technology, meaning each device (in this case, the device under test and the test instrument) uses one or more of its own free-running clocks, without synchronization. Thus, throughput measurements may just be artifacts of minor differences in the speeds of clock chips, not descriptions of a system’s fabric capacity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The concept of user performance management (UPM) is easy to understand but very difficult to implement. The Holy Grail of UPM would be a single, unified dashboard where IT operations would be able to “see” the status of every user. If a website were taking too long to load or an application were performing poorly, the operations staff could click on that user and immediately see where the problem is. One challenge for IT departments is that today’s user isn’t always a person. Thanks to the rise in the number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, “headless” clients that provide critical services to users now pump data through the network. For example, medical devices deliver time-critical information that can be the difference between life and death. Getting a grip on how these headless devices are performing on the network has become a daunting task for IT staff. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The traditional approaches to data storage reduction aren’t creating the necessary density savings that will be required in the future, some scientists say. We’re creating a lot of ones and zeros these days, and we will be generating many more.To handle that, researchers say data should be completely re-written. It should use a four-symbol code, rather than classic two-symbol binary. That, coupled with chemical solutions for carrying the media, along with light, will greatly shrink data storage density, researchers say.Chemists at Case Western Reserve University say the current approach, which is to make existing storage, like drives, more compact—pushing the data closer together by reducing space, for example—isn’t the way to go.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Almost everywhere I travel these days I hear someone talking about making their city a "smart city." I personally put the most faith in those initiatives that have determined what they want "smart" to accomplish whether it be zero net water consumption, becoming energy neutral for the public infrastructure, reduction in commute times or improving services like refuse collection. Defining and agreeing to measurable goals is a key milestone in a city’s journey to becoming "Smart."Another key milestone is making sure that the basic connectivity infrastructure, what we usually call "the network" is up to the task. A useful “smart city” requires that the city services be connected and automated wherever possible via a strong, resilient, secure network. And while progress has certainly been made – one only has to look at what Barcelona has achieved since the “smart city” ideal was first envisioned – it’s clear there’s still a lot of work to do to get this right the first time. There’s a sense of urgency from governments and vendors alike to get smart city solutions up and running, and in that rush those solutions are often proprietary and, with no standards in place, we risk Continue reading
Is your organization looking to get a piece of the Internet of Things (IoT) action? You’re not alone. IoT continues to draw lots of attention from companies across a multitude of industries, even though few organizations have actually launched full-scale projects to connect objects and gather and analyze data from connected things.But whenever a technology trend gathers real steam, it’s tempting to quickly jump onto the bandwagon before there’s a concrete plan in place, if for no other reason than to appear savvy and competitive. This approach would be a mistake with IoT, as it would be with any other major technology project.Before launching an IoT initiative, organizations need to have a comprehensive strategy in place. Otherwise, there’s a risk of overspending, exposing data to security and privacy threats, limiting the payback from IoT technologies, as well as other negative outcomes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This is a tale of two cloud players, both old-guard IT firms with vested interests in on-premises software sales. One is making a very successful transition to the cloud era, while the other is failing badly. And it’s a familiar story. Microsoft is kicking butt, and IBM is getting its butt kicked.In its most recent quarter, Microsoft announced revenues of $23.3 billion, $7.43 billion of that comes from what it calls “the Intelligent Cloud,” including Azure, a 97 percent year-over-year increase. There was another $8.45 billion from the Productivity and Business Process business, which includes Office and Office 365. The company did not separate out the installed software sales from the on-demand version, but it did say that for the first time, Office 365 is outselling the on-premises version.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Enjoy more comfortable, efficient typing on your iPad and keep it protected as well with this smart folio keyboard case. Opening or closing the cover triggers your iPad's sleep or wake modes, and the keyboard connects automatically when needed via Bluetooth. With the one of the highest capacity battery of any iPad keyboard case, it lasts half a year between charges. The typical list price of $69.99 has been reduced 61% to just $27. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A recent survey of IEEE engineers reveals some interesting insights into the Internet of Things (IoT)—both challenges and expectations. Commissioned by Northeastern University Silicon Valley, the survey asked the engineers to answer nine questions about IoT development and deployment. Some of the answers might surprise you.While still in its infancy, the IoT is poised to change our lives in very personal and meaningful ways. The visionaries are already asking if robots will someday replace soldiers, if guns will be traded for cyber-bots, and if artificial intelligence (AI) will change the way we live our daily lives.The audience for the survey was a group of 500 IEEE members—all in fields associated with IoT or working in IoT itself. Their areas of expertise varied from manufacturing (nearly 40% of the participants) to project management (only .19%).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Software companies are exploiting the current artificial intelligence (AI) craze by exaggerating the scope and capabilities of AI in their products, according to a report from Gartner. Gartner tracks product marketing hype with a tool it calls the Hype Cycle, measuring the growth and decline of products as they mature. It calls the process of overhyping AI "AI washing," similar to the way the term “greenwashing” was used to describe exaggerated claims of environmental-friendliness in various products or practices. Gartner said more than 1,000 vendors say their products employ AI, but many are "applying the AI label a little too indiscriminately." And it has happened fast.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Skilled storage pros are in demand as enterprise IT teams take on exponential data growth and strategically migrate data assets from legacy systems to more modern options.For these professionals who are looking for a new job or aiming to advance in their current role, a certification could potentially differentiate them from other one candidates. And for hiring managers, certifications can help trim some of the risk from the recruitment process by validating to some extent expertise in areas such as network-attached storage, storage area networks, and storage configuration and operations management.Vendor neutral vs. vendor specificTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Earlier this week, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standards have been extended to include mesh network features. It is clear that the Internet of Things (IoT) is the intended market. The SIG says: Bluetooth Mesh is “ideally suited for building automation, sensor networks and other IoT solutions where tens, hundreds, or thousands of devices need to reliably and securely communicate with one another.” Mesh networks are not new. It is a network topology in which each node relays data for the network. All mesh nodes cooperate in the distribution of data in the network. The IoT-purpose-built Zigbee—a low-power, low-bandwidth ad hoc network—is a mesh network. Dating to 2002, Aruba Networks was founded to build Wi-Fi mesh networks. In 2014, student protesters in Hong Kong used mobile app FireChat to turn the crowd’s smartphones into a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth mesh network so authorities could not interrupt protester’s coordinating conversations by blocking 3G and 4G network access. Bluetooth Mesh has some very desirable features:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Forrester analyst Andre Kindness says a lot of clients ask him how they should think about software-defined networking (SDN), which has been heralded for years as the next great thing in the industry.SDN – which is an architecture approach, not a specific product - has traditionally been thought of as virtualizing data center networks. This typically means separating the management of the control plane of network devices from the underlying data plane that forwards network traffic. Using a software-defined system to control this disaggregation brings many benefits, including increased network management flexibility and being able to more easily implement fine-grained security policies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There are lots of motivations driving organizations to install location-tracking technologies. The obvious driver is to find things, especially things on wheels, such as medical equipment in a hospital. It can also be smart to keep tabs on things in transit, such as a container. But the biggest reason to track things is simply because we can. We can also use these technologies to track people. Some solutions such as facial recognition can literally track people, but usually we just track a device someone might be carrying. We can now literally track the customer’s journey (through a retail store). There’s a popular misconception that global positioning satellites (GPS) are usable inside, but they range from worthless to unhelpful. GPS satellite signals require a direct line of sight to multiple satellites. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Oracle is adding 1000 new sales staff in EMEA to help it compete with cloud giants like AWS and Microsoft, but it won't say if there are cuts coming to traditional sales roles
A few weeks back, I wrote that “choosing Microsoft Windows for your organization should get you fired.”It’s a statement that, while certainly a bit on the inflammatory side, I completely stand by—mostly due to the known insecure nature of running Windows as a server operating system.What I didn’t do was give specific examples of what to move your existing Windows-based infrastructure to. Sure, the obvious answer for most SysAdmins is simply “migrate the servers over to Linux.” But what about specific server applications that your organization might already rely upon? That’s a whole other can of worms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Put 2 Echo devices in your cart and Amazon will credit you back $100 right now, effectively pricing each one at $129.99 vs. the typical $179.99 list price. But you'll have to use a special code at checkout, to activate the discount: ECHO2PACK. Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more—instantly. All you have to do is ask. Echo has seven microphones and beam forming technology so it can hear you from across the room—even while music is playing. Echo is also an expertly tuned speaker that can fill any room with 360° immersive sound. When you want to use Echo, just say the wake word “Alexa” and Echo responds instantly. If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, Alexa responds intelligently from the Echo you're closest to with ESP (Echo Spatial Perception), so it makes a lot of sense to pick up 2 right now with this discount. See the Amazon Echo on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The mesh networking features introduced to Bluetooth this week are designed to make the technology more appealing for enterprise IoT use. A lot depends, however, on which enterprise use case you’re talking about.Put simply, Bluetooth Mesh is a new technology that lets Bluetooth endpoints form networks among themselves, instead of having a central hub do the processing and sending all the instructions. That’s a big advantage since it overcomes the limited range inherent to the technology – as long as an endpoint is close enough to at least one other endpoint, it’s connected to the rest of the network, too.It’s a big change for the technology, according to Farpoint Group principal and Network World contributor Craig Mathias.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here