Extreme Networks has added network fabric capabilities to its flagship SD-WAN platform to enable customers to link and manage distributed resources more securely.Additional enhancements to the ExtremeCloud SD-WAN platform include improved automated workflows and direct connectivity to cloud systems such as Microsoft Azure and AWS.“The overarching idea is to help customers more effectively connect distributed sites, especially the smaller branch office, without increasing optical or management overhead,” said Rob Hull, product marketing director at Extreme. “For the smaller sites, especially, with maybe no IT person or few, it gives them the big-site quality-of-service feel and big-site centralized management capability.”To read this article in full, please click here
By: Cathy Won, Consultant with eTeam, HPE Aruba Contributor.NaaS is the acronym for Network as a Service. NaaS can have different definitions, depending on whom you ask. At the highest level, NaaS is defined as network infrastructure hardware, software, services, management, and licensing components consumed in a subscription-based or flexible consumption model. NaaS is different from other traditional as a service models that take advantage of cloud and virtualization capabilities because a significant amount of on-premises cabling and distributed networking equipment are required for network connectivity operations. Additionally, organizations may still require WAN interconnections to the cloud which may or may not be included in a NaaS offering. So, is NaaS different than other cloud as a service offerings, like compute and storage? Are there different NaaS solutions and does the definition vary by implementation? Does NaaS mean completely outsourcing your network infrastructure to a managed service partner?To read this article in full, please click here
Oracle on Monday said it is planning to invest $1.5 billion in Saudi Arabia to bolster its cloud computing capacity in the Middle East.The planned investment, which is part of Oracle’s memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, will see the public cloud services provider expand its existing cloud region in Jeddah, and open a new one in Riyadh. In addition to the Riyadh region, Oracle will work with the ministry to set up a commercial and operational model for another cloud region in Saudi Arabia that complies with Saudi government requirements and local data residency regulations.To read this article in full, please click here
Before the start of the Covid epidemic, a traditional WAN architecture with centralized security worked well for Village Roadshow. "Advanced security inspection services can be applied, firewalls can provide separation, and a demilitarized zone can be implemented," said Michael Fagan, chief transformation officer at Village Roadshow, the largest theme park owner in Australia.But it required backhauling traffic from remote sites to a data center or hub for security inspection, which can hurt application performance, create a poor user experience, and cost the company in productivity, he said.When the pandemic led the company to transition to a hybrid workforce, with most people working from home or from a remote site, it prompted Village Roadshow to rethink its network and security approach.To read this article in full, please click here
A computer network as we usually visualize it involves various cables (Ethernet, fiber optic, coaxial) connecting to appliances like routers and switches, which direct data packets where they need to go.The rise of Wi-Fi and cellular data networks have replaced some of those wires with wireless signals, but even radio waves are in the realm of the physical, and they connect back to cell towers or Wi-Fi access points.In the seven-layer OSI network reference model, all of that network equipment, processing, and communication occupies the lowest three layers: Level 3 (the network), Level 2 (the data link), and Level 1 (the physical layer).To read this article in full, please click here
Earlier this month AMD quietly disclosed 31 new CPU vulnerabilities affecting both its Ryzen desktop chips and EPYC data center processors. AMD disclosed the flaws in coordination with several researchers, including teams from Google, Apple, and Oracle.AMD typically releases vulnerability findings twice a year, in May and November, but decided to release the fixes early due to the relatively large number of new vulnerabilities and the timing of the mitigations.Despite the severity and number of flaws, AMD posted the lists to its security page. The flaws include BIOS/UEFI revisions that AMD has distributed to its OEMs. Since every OEM has a different BIOS/UEFI, it’s best to check with your motherboard maker or system vendor to see if you need the updates.To read this article in full, please click here
About 87% of container images include a high or critical vulnerability, while 90% of granted permissions are not used, according to cybersecurity firm Sysdig.
Startup ECL has emerged from stealth mode with some mighty big plans: to reinvent the data-center industry with hydrogen-powered modular data centers that use no local power and water.Rather than drawing power from the electrical grid the company will generate electricity for its data centers using hydrogen fuel cells. The only byproduct is water either as a liquid or vapor that is used for cooling with the leftovers being returned to the local environment. “So we can give back to the community some of the water that we’re producing,” said ECL founder and CEO Yuval Bachar, who previously helped design data centers for Facebook and LinkedIn.To read this article in full, please click here
Linux systems support a number of file editors – like vi, vim, neovim, ne, GNU Emacs etc. But you can also install an editor that allows you to view the contents of and make changes to binary files--hexedit.With hexedit, you can edit images, executables and other binaries, though you have to know a lot about the format of the file you’re editing to make valid changes that don't disrupt the file's format. After all, you'll be editing one byte at a time. This is not meant to imply that you can't use this command for viewing or editing text files. There's just little or no reason to do that.To read this article in full, please click here
Your network is the heartbeat of the user experience. When it goes down, employees and customers get frustrated, which can lead to reduced productivity, abandoned sales, and other unwelcome business results. And there’s further frustration if users must call or submit a support ticket to IT. This extra step slows resolution. How can an organization avoid this scenario?The answer is experience-first networking, which includes a strong network infrastructure with visibility into how it’s performing. This approach provides the best possible experience for network operators who must keep the network heartbeat thrumming, as well as end users who keep the business moving.To read this article in full, please click here
Trust is a critical factor in most aspects of life. But this is especially true with complex concepts like artificial intelligence (AI). In a word, it’s essential for day-to-day users to trust these technologies will work.“AI is so complicated that it can be difficult for operators and users to have confidence that the system will do what it’s supposed to do,” said Andrew Burt, Managing Partner, BNH.AI.Without trust, individuals will remain uncertain, doubtful, and possibly even fearful of AI solutions, and those concerns can seep into implementations.To read this article in full, please click here
Artificial intelligence (AI) solutions are grabbing headlines for good reasons. These technologies — which include intelligent automation, machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP) — are delivering business value and easing the workloads of IT and network teams.For example, an AI-driven network can reduce the need for IT staff to:
Travel to remote locations to provision network capabilities
Spend days pushing out updated network configurations to access points
Manually stitch together information to gain visibility into incidents
Spend hours or days troubleshooting network support tickets
AI-enabled network solutions can also help IT teams rapidly deliver network enhancements and get ahead of issues before they become problems. The combination of AI, ML, and data science enables automated event correlation, root cause identification, anomaly detection, and more. Together, these technologies optimize operations across wireless, wired, and SD-WAN networks.To read this article in full, please click here
Analysts are debating what effect the layoffs at Alphabet will have on the delivery of enterprise cloud services at its Google subsidiary, while investors call for deeper cuts.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Tuesday said its second infrastructure region in Australia has been made available for customers.The new region in Melbourne (codenamed: ap-southeast-4), which was first announced in December 2020, will consist of three availability zones.Availability zones are the building blocks of an AWS region that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations.AWS had launched its first infrastructure region in Sydney in 2012, which also has three availability zones.Other than the two regions, Australia is home to seven Amazon CloudFront Edge locations in Australia, backed by a Regional Edge cache in Sydney. The company had launched an additional CloudFront point of presence (PoP) in Perth in 2018.To read this article in full, please click here
By 2024, 88% of enterprises will use two or more infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers, according to research by EMA, which believes that network infrastructure and operations teams must take a leadership role in defining network architecture that ensures the performance and security of their multi-cloud digital services.EMA recently polled a group of these enterprises, surveying 351 IT stakeholders, including 39% in network engineering, 21% in the CIO suite, 15% on cloud teams, and 11% in cybersecurity.EMA found that networking teams and network technology have become more important in 81% of multi-cloud strategies in recent years. Unfortunately, only 24% of research participants firmly believe that their networking teams have enough influence over cloud decision-making.To read this article in full, please click here
Expect to hear a lot about telemetry this year as its use gains steam in open-source projects and vendors’ observability software.While telemetry has been used for monitoring network and application activity for years, historically it has been siloed in specific use cases, but with the advent of open-source application development along with ML- and AI-based systems, its use is expected expand significantly.“Traditional monitoring and/or siloed visibility does not work in a world driven by hybrid or cloud-native deployments, as application components have become smaller, more distributed, and shorter-lived,” said Carlos Pereira, Cisco Fellow and chief architect in its Strategy, Incubation & Applications group. ““Now it’s more about using that telemetry data to watch over multiple operational domains so you can track experience in real time.”To read this article in full, please click here
It’s only two years late, but the fourth generation of Xeon Scalable processors, aka Sapphire Rapids, is hitting the ground running, with every major OEM offering new servers featuring the chips.The 4th Gen Xeon Scalable is notable because it contains a number of specialty computing engines in addition to its x86 cores, and it also has lots of cores as well; up to 60. One of the special engines is for AI acceleration, as Intel is determined to make the CPU viable as an AI processor instead of GPUs. So not surprisingly, many of the new servers are built with AI processing in mind.To read this article in full, please click here