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Category Archives for "Network World SDN"

AI beating humans? Not in my lifetime, says Google’s cloud chief

The head of Google's cloud business says she doesn't expect machine intelligence to exceed that of humans during her lifetime, despite recent rapid progress that has surprised many.Diane Greene, who turns 61 this year, said that while researchers are making strides in programming intelligence into computers, there's still a long way to go."There is a lot that machine learning doesn’t do that humans can do really, really well," she said on Tuesday at the Code Enterprise conference in San Francisco.Her remarks came hours after Google said Greene's division had hired two leading machine learning and artificial intelligence experts: Fei-Fei Li, who was director of AI at Stanford University, and Jia Li, who headed up research at Snap, the operator of SnapChat.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BrandPost: How business goals can be foundation for branch office networking with SD-WAN

Connecting branch offices to a business wide area network (WAN) is time-consuming and often disrupts IT operations. Branch office connectivity has long posed a challenge for geographically distributed organisations, a problem that multiplies as they enter new markets or expand within existing ones. But now, emerging software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) technology is resolving remote office connection issues and delivering substantial cost savings. Until SD-WAN emerged, configuring or even changing WAN infrastructure at branch offices could prove a nightmare, given its distributed nature and the remote touch points involved. Attempts at delivering the ‘lean’ branch office have sometimes resorted to public cloud services that might fail to meet IT requirements for performance, security and more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

46% off VIAIR 85P Portable Air Compressor – Deal Alert

Maintaining proper tire pressure improves gas mileage and the lifespan of your tires, and also cuts down on the likelihood of a blowout or the unexpected flat that may leave you stranded. The Viair 85P is a small 12-volt portable air compressor with a built-in LED work light that lets you inflate your vehicle's tires quickly and quietly by simply plugging it into your vehicle's power port (cigarette lighter adapter). It's small enough to keep in your trunk, and features a 10-foot cord, a built-in pressure guage, and a max working pressure of 60psi. It averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 1,300 people (read reviews). Currently discounted 46% off its list price of $69.93, putting it at just $38. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM sets up test range to practice fighting nightmare cyber battles safely

IBM Security has launched a network-emulation environment where corporate teams can play out attack scenarios so they are better prepared for incidents they might face in the real world.The facility, called a cyber range (as in shooting range), provides a place for enterprises to practice incident-response, not only for their IT and IS staffs but also for company directors, C-level executives, corporate counsel, human resources pros, public relations staff – anyone who might be drawn into an actual cyber emergency.+More on Network World: IBM: Many companies still ill-prepared for cyber attacks+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

39% off LOOP International Travel Plug with USB Charging and Power Bank – Deal Alert

If you travel internationally, or know someone who does, this may be one to consider. LOOP Electronics travel adapter is an all-in-one travel plug that not only keeps you powered in over 150 countries, but also includes dual USB charging ports and a battery backup (power bank) for when you need power or charging but can't locate a plug. The adapter has a built-in fuse, is made of fire-resistant materials, and comes with an 18-month warranty. It currently averages 4 out of 5 stars from 230 customers (read reviews). With a regular list price of $40, it's currently discounted to just $24.45. See this discounted travel plug now on Amazon to learn more and explore buying options.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Congress members try to grasp enormity of IoT DDoS attacks

Today I watched an interesting Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing about “Understanding the Role of Connected Devices in Recent Cyber Attacks.” The attacks refer to when insecure IoT devices infected with Mirai malware hammered DNS provider Dyn in October.The hearing included testimony, as well as submitted prepared remarks, from Dale Drew (pdf), CSO and senior vice president of Level 3 Communications; crypto and privacy guru Bruce Schneier (pdf); and Dr. Kevin Fu (pdf), who helped shock the world years ago by saying pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators were vulnerable to hackers. You can read the experts’ testimonies for specific concerns and suggestions, but this is primarily based on paraphrased commentary during the hearing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM: Many companies still ill-prepared for cyber attacks

When it comes to responding to cyber-attacks it seems many companies are severely lacking.A study out this week conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Resilient an IBM company said that 66% of the 2,400 security and IT professionals they interviewed said their organization is not prepared to recover from cyberattacks.+More on Network World: Cisco: Potent ransomware is targeting the enterprise at a scary rate+According to Ponemon, for the second straight year the Cyber Resilient Organization study showed that incident response challenges are hindering what the researchers called cyber resilience or what they define as the as “the alignment of prevention, detection, and response capabilities to manage, mitigate, and move on from cyberattacks.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DataStax buys DataScale, plans to launch managed cloud service

Distributed database software vendor DataStax announced today that it had completed the acquisition of DataScale, a specialist in cloud-based management services for data infrastructure, paving the way for a fully managed version of DataStax's offering in early 2017."There is a huge need for an always-on, distributed database," says Martin Van Ryswyk, executive vice president of Engineering, DataStax. "Whether you're in retail, transportation, the hotel business — everyone has to have an online presence. That has driven this need for this type of database we've built.""What happens in these technology shifts, when something gets really important and really hot at a certain time, you start to get a skills shortage," he adds.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SWIFT has not seen its last ‘bank robbery’

A former CSO of the World Bank Treasury calls the SWIFT system outdated and open to malware attacks. Those vulnerabilities could lead to manipulation of financial transactions.SWIFT is the interbank financial messaging system for sending international money transfer instructions. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, which the industry refers to as the SWIFT co-op maintains this system.CSO looks at the SWIFT co-op’s denial of the real issue, the cost of attacks, informed expert insights into these security flaws, how hackers are using and abusing these to their profit, and what the co-op should do to seal its messaging system to mitigate further falsifications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Meet Cisco’s Founders Forum members

Cisco Talent ShowCisco has acquired 193 companies over its history, and in an effort to retain as much talent from its buyouts as possible, the company has created a Founders Forum consisting of 46 entrepreneurs who started and/or led businesses Cisco has purchased. These creative minds meet quarterly to share ideas. Here is a sampling of the members, who are listed alphabetically by acquired company name.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Beyond brainstorming: 4 cool action items hatched from Cisco ideation session

Matt Cutler, whose startup Cisco bought three years ago, found himself moving from an outfit with eight people to one with tens of thousands. He looked forward to accessing resources beyond his reach at Collaborate.com, but was wary of being able "to get stuff done" within the larger organization.One way he’s been able to get stuff done is through Cisco’s little-known Founders Forum for the entrepreneurial leaders of companies it has acquired. Passionate about the sort of modern workstyles and design thinking (and "a lot of sticky notes") he incorporated at his startup, Cutler recently volunteered to lead a break-out ideation session in an effort to extract great ideas from his peers in the Forum. That of course could be easier said than done when dealing with a large group of intelligent, highly opinionated people.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco Founders Forum: One creative way to keep & energize talent

The tech industry brims with examples of bright entrepreneurs who have struck it big by selling their startups and then hightailing it out of those larger companies once contractually eligible so that they can pursue their next venture.So what the heck is Matt Cutler still doing at Cisco three years after selling his mobile collaboration startup to the networking giant? Well, among other things, he’s teaching a bunch of his peers who have stayed at Cisco after having their own companies acquired -- as well as any Cisco lifers who will listen -- a thing or two about how to keep cranking out new ideas. Cisco Matt Cutler, Lead Evangelist for Cisco Cloud Collaboration Technologies, has big ideas on ideation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Gartner predicts: SD-WANs to replace routers, but which SD-WAN is the question

That SD-WANs will replace routing was not the most important message from last week’s Gartner webinar with Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst Joe Skorupa.No, the biggest message came in some startling statistics. Half the market revenue is held by just two startups, which begs the question: With 30-plus vendors in the SD-WAN space, are you sure the SD-WAN vendor you’re considering has the cash for the long haul?No more routing Back in September, we wrote about the argument for replacing routing with SD-WANs. It’s a message we've been thinking about for some time, listening to the frustrations of many of our enterprise customers. It’s also a trend that Skorupa's market data supports—and for good reason.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft and Google bury the hatchet in one small way

There's no love lost between Google and Microsoft. The two companies have been fiercely competitive with one another in the public cloud, productivity and operating system markets, at times leaving users in the lurch. There's one small glimmer of hope in the relationship between the two companies: Google has joined the .NET Foundation, to help drive forward the programming language framework Microsoft originated. Google will be a part of the technical steering group for the foundation, which helps guide the future of the platform and consults on changes to the .NET roadmap and project release schedule. The foundation oversees projects including .NET Core and the Roslyn .NET compiler.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft doubles down on Linux love, joins foundation

After a long campaign against open source and Linux, Microsoft has for the past few been pushing its love of the popular operating system. On Wednesday, the company made that even more official by joining the Linux Foundation, an organization that shepherds development of the operating system's kernel and provides funding for open source projects.Microsoft also launched the public beta of SQL Server on Linux, the much-anticipated port of the relational database software that was first announced in March. Linux developers can also start working with a beta of Azure App Service, which is designed to take away the work of managing infrastructure for cloud-based apps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: Spark lights up machine learning

As I wrote in March of this year, the Databricks service is an excellent product for data scientists. It has a full assortment of ingestion, feature selection, model building, and evaluation functions, plus great integration with data sources and excellent scalability. The Databricks service provides a superset of Spark as a cloud service. Databricks the company was founded by the original developer of Spark, Matei Zaharia, and others from U.C. Berkeley’s AMPLab. Meanwhile, Databricks continues to be a major contributor to the Apache Spark project.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Is critical infrastructure the next DDoS target?

The massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack last month on Dyn, the New Hampshire-based Domain Name System (DNS) provider, was mostly an inconvenience.While it took down a portion of the internet for several hours, disrupted dozens of major websites and made national news, nobody died. Nobody even got hurt, other than financially.But the attack, enabled by a botnet of millions of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, inevitably led to speculation on what damage a DDoS of that scale or worse could do to even a portion of the nation’s critical infrastructure (CI).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

4 employee benefits that will improve retention

Most businesses offer no shortage of benefits to employees, but what happens when your employees aren't aware most of those benefits exist? While free lunch and snacks in the break room are easy enough to spot, and appreciate, there are plenty of overlooked benefits hiding in your onboarding handbook.Dean Aloise, global HR consulting leader at Xerox HR Services, a division of Xerox focused on HR consulting, says that businesses are looking for more "value" in their benefits beyond flashy perks that get people in the door. But what employees value is going to vary depending on factors like age, demographic and personal view point. Aloise says the only way to understand what most your employees want from their benefits package, is to ask them and then communicate those benefits regularly to the workforce.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Five things AIs can do better than us

For millennia, we surpassed the other intelligent species with which we share our planet -- dolphins, porpoises, orangutans, and the like -- in almost all skills, bar swimming and tree-climbing.In recent years, though, our species has created new forms of intelligence, able to outperform us in other ways. One of the most famous of these artificial intelligences (AIs) is AlphaGo, developed by Deepmind. In just a few years, it has learned to play the 4,000-year-old strategy game, Go, beating two of the world's strongest players.Other software developed by Deepmind has learned to play classic eight-bit video games, notably Breakout, in which players must use a bat to hit a ball at a wall, knocking bricks out of it. CEO Demis Hassabis is fond of saying that the software figured out how to beat the game purely from the pixels on the screen, often glossing over the fact that the company first taught it how to count and how to read the on-screen score, and gave it the explicit goal of maximizing that score. Even the smartest AIs need a few hints about our social mores. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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