California-based secure networking company Exium is adding a new, on-premises SASE ( secure access service edge) node to its cloud-based network management and security platform, bringing that system's capabilities directly to end users' data centers.SASE is a Gartner-defined model that combines SD-WAN with cloud services. It aims to provide a single, cloud-based service that can dramatically simplify the deployment of modern, identity-based security technology. Gartner's definition of SASE mandates the use of five specific security technologies, including secure web gateways, SD-WAN, firewall-as-a-service, a zero-trust network access model and a cloud access security broker to keep data in cloud systems secure.To read this article in full, please click here
If chipmaker Broadcom buys virtualization and multi-cloud vendor VMware as rumored, enterprise customers should watch out for whether the deal hampers the software vendor’s innovation, experts say.Others say the purchase—valued to be about $60 billion by the The Wall Street Journal—could be a boon for Broadcom by moving forward its years-long efforts to acquire enterprise technology.To read this article in full, please click here
Secure access service edge (SASE) has generated a buzz over the last couple of years, particularly in light of the pandemic and its associated surge in remote employees. But SASE hasn’t quite materialized in the way Gartner – which first coined the term in a 2019 white paper – initially expected. In particular, there’s been pushback around the idea that SASE should be delivered by a single vendor, as a single integrated cloud service at the network edge.The SASE model combines network security functions with WAN capabilities, delivering the security elements in the cloud and using SD-WAN at the edge or in the cloud. Key security functions include secure web gateway (SWG), zero trust network access (ZTNA), firewall as a service (FWaaS), and cloud access security broker (CASB).To read this article in full, please click here
IBM has added a new member to its Spectrum Scale Enterprise Storage Server (ESS) portfolio that featuers a faster controller CPU and more throughput and that is designed to work with Nvidia’s DGX dense compute servers for AI training.The new ESS 3500 is a 2U design with 24 drive bays and a maximum raw capacity of 368TB. But it can achieve up to 1PB through LZ4 compression, a first for the series that earlier ESS versions do not have. The ESS 3500 can achieve up to 91GB/s of throughput performance, better than the 80GB/s of the older models.To read this article in full, please click here
Canada is the latest country to ban Huawei and ZTE equipment from use in the telecommunications field generally and 5G networks in particular, as the government's announcement this week detailed its intention to introduce a broad, new telecom security framework.Canadian telecom companies are to be barred officially from buying new Huawei or ZTE equipment as of September of this year, according to the government's policy statement Thursday. Canada will also mandate the removal of all Huawei and ZTE gear from 5G networks by June 28, 2024, as well as the removal of all those companies' 4G/LTE equipment by the end of 2027.This means that, like the US, Canada's move to ban certain Chinese networking gear extends to equipment already in use, so that telecom companies that have bought such gear will need to replace it. It's unclear from the announcement whether Canada will follow the US' lead in providing financial assistance to companies working to rid their networks of banned equipment, although the statement did say that the government plans to "engage with industry" in order to make sure that logistical considerations for gear replacement are taken into account.To read this article in full, please click here
Intel has announced its intention to invest $700 million in a new research and development lab focused on developing sustainable data center technologies, such as immersion cooling, water usage effectiveness, and heat recapture and reuse.The 200,000-square-foot lab will be located at Intel’s Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro, Oregon. Construction will begin this year, with an estimated opening date of late 2023. To read this article in full, please click here
Google Cloud is rolling out new security services designed to address enterprise challenges including securing open-source software and accelerating the adoption of zero-trust architectures.At its annual Google Cloud Security Summit, the company said it's building on its Invisible Security effort, which promises to bake security into tools and services that enterprises and other customers use most.One example is a new service called Assured Open Source Software (Assured OSS), which is aimed at making it easier for organizations to securely manage their open-source dependencies."Today patching security vulnerabilities in open source software often feels like a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole: fix one, and two more pop up," wrote Sunil Potti, vice president and general manager of Google Cloud Security, in a blog about the new services. "This helps explain research done by Sonatype software that shows that there’s a 650% year-over-year increase in cyberattacks aimed at open source software (OSS) suppliers."To read this article in full, please click here
There are many ways to extract substrings from lines of text using Linux and doing so can be extremely useful when preparing scripts that may be used to process large amounts of data. This post describes ways you can take advantage of the commands that make extracting substrings easy.Using bash parameter expansion
When using bash parameter expansion, you can specify the starting and ending positions for the text that you want to extract. For example, you can create a variable by assigning it a value and then use syntax like that shown below to select a portion of it.To read this article in full, please click here
AMD continues to increase its share of both the overall x86 chip market and the server x86 market in particular, despite a large-scale general downturn in shipments, according to a report released this week by Mercury Research.The majority of the fall-off in x86 shipments was felt in the desktop market, the report said, but the server market was also down on a quarterly volume basis — despite reaching record highs in revenue.Dean McCarron, president of Mercury Research, said that the decline was due to a combination of factors."There's a pretty heavy uplift in Q4 on consumer systems due to holiday buying, and it drops off in Q1," he said. "Typically, the worst drop of the year happens in Q1, so not only did that happen, but there's also some excess inventory that got built up and negatively impacted sales."To read this article in full, please click here
Private clouds make efficient use of storage, compute, and memory resources, can provide faster response times for enterprise applications, and help comply with regulations about where data is stored.What is a private cloud?
The concept of a private cloud is relatively simple and straightforward. NIST defined it in its NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap back in 2013 with this description: “The private cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers (e.g., business units).”To read this article in full, please click here
Wireless operators around the world have been heavily focused on providing the best possible consumer 5G download speeds, but a new survey from the research division of French managed services provider SmartCIC says that upload connections—which enterprises need to enable important applications—are lagging behind.In fact, according to the survey, 4G/LTE networks, on average, have 1ms of latency, compared to 8ms for 5G networks. The researchers said that there’s a possibility that a large proportion of tests being run on low-band 5G networks skewed the results somewhat, but also noted that even tests on very high frequency mmWave (millimeter wave) networks showed up to 10ms of latency on 5G networks.To read this article in full, please click here
Western Digital introduced new high-capacity and high-performance products this week during its What’s Next event in San Francisco.First up, WD announced it is sampling conventional 22TB and shingled 26TB hard disk drives to cloud service providers, with widescale availability expected this summer. The drives, named Ultrastar DC HC570 for the 22TB version and DC HC670 for the 26TB version, are what WD calls UltraSMR disk drives. It's a means of packing greater amounts of data onto a disk platter. Western Digital
WD’s previous high-end drive was the 20TB Ultrastar DC HC560. It packed 2.2TB per platter and came with nine platters. The two new drives managed to pack a tenth platter into a 3.5 drive form factor. All of these drives are helium-filled to reduce friction of the spinning platters and feature Western Digital’s triple-stage actuator (TSA) with multiple independent read/write heads.To read this article in full, please click here
Nokia has announced two new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings, aimed at helping communication service providers (CSPs) and enterprise customers reduce energy consumption across their networks and automate device management control for smart home devices.The first, dubbed Nokia Analytics Virtualization and Automation (AVA) for Energy SaaS, uses artificial intelligence to monitor network traffic and help reduce the amount of connectivity resources used during periods of low demand. It also looks to spot network anomalies and benchmark the energy efficiency of passive infrastructure, such as batteries and power supplies. Nokia says AVA for Energy SaaS can help CSPs achieve up to five-fold energy savings.To read this article in full, please click here
AMD is looking to quickly integrate Xilinx technology into its CPU business, but perhaps more significantly it’s developing software to enable a broad portfolio of applications for its hardware.On a recent earnings call, AMD CEO Lisa Su said the company sees opportunities to deliver stronger products as a result of technology it gained when it merged with Xilinx in February.
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“As one example, we are integrating Xilinx’s differentiated AI engine across our CPU product portfolio to enable industry-leading inference capabilities, with the first products expected in 2023,” Su said.To read this article in full, please click here
It's a war zone out there. In the seemingly endless game of cyber cat and mouse, accurate intelligence remains the best tool for beating attackers at their own game.Here's an analysis of today's six top network threats and tips for how to identify and quash them.1. Ransomware
Ransomware is easily the greatest network threat, since it gives attackers the biggest bang for the buck with a relatively low probability of getting caught. "There's also a low bar in the skill category to break into this sort of thing," says Andy Rogers, a senior assessor at cybersecurity and compliance firm Schellman. "There are plenty of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) businesses that will be more than willing to ensure you have the tools you need to unleash a ransomware campaign."To read this article in full, please click here
IBM has grand plans for its quantum-computing systems but acknowledges much work needs to be done.IBM announced its goal to build a 4,000 qubit system by 2025 at its Think! event this week saying it wanted to build practical quantum-computing systems that feature an intelligent software orchestration layer to efficiently distribute workloads and remove infrastructure challenges.
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“We think by next year, we’ll begin prototyping quantum software applications for specific use cases,” IBM stated. “We’ll begin to define these services with our first test case—machine learning—working with partners to accelerate the path toward useful quantum software applications.”To read this article in full, please click here
Intel is betting that future data-center operations will depend on increasingly powerful servers running ASIC-based, programable CPUs, and its wager rides on the development of infrastructure processing units (IPU), which are Intel’s programmable networking devices designed to reduce overhead and free up performance for CPUs.
Read more: SmartNICs set to infiltrate enterprise networksTo read this article in full, please click here
If you want to try using a Linux terminal and aren’t sitting anywhere near a Linux system, don’t despair. There are some services that will allow you to run a Linux terminal inside a browser. This post examines some of these and should give you a feel for what you can do and the performance you might experience.The Linux terminal sessions described here were all run on a Windows system using a Chrome browser. While you could as easily run a Linux terminal in a browser on a Linux system, you’d likely be less motivated to do so.JSLinux
JSLinux is essentially a computer that’s implemented in JavaScript. So, all you need to do is open a browser and type the right URL to get started.To read this article in full, please click here
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger expects chip shortages will continue into 2024 due to a lack of manufacturing equipment and tools to make the chips. Gelsinger made the comments during an interview with CNBC's TechCheck about Intel’s first quarter earnings. While the company did well in Q1, the outlook for Q2 is not as positive, and Intel stock took a hit for it.Semiconductor manufacturers have faced a number of challenges to meet demand, most notably production shutdowns due to the Covid pandemic. However, Gelsinger specifically linked the shortages to a lack of manufacturing equipment and difficulty building new semiconductor fabrication plants, or fabs.To read this article in full, please click here
The modern graphics processing unit (GPU) started out as an accelerator for Windows video games, but over the last 20 years has morphed into an enterprise server processor for high-performance computing and artificial-intelligence applications.Now GPUs are at the tip of the performance spear used in supercomputing, AI training and inference, drug research, financial modeling, and medical imaging. They have also been applied to more mainstream tasks for situations when CPUs just aren’t fast enough, as in GPU-powered relational databases.
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