The more you know about how Linux works, the better you'll be able do some good troubleshooting when you run into a problem. In this post, we're going to dive into a problem that a contact of mine, Chris Husted, recently ran into and what he did to determine what was happening on his system, stop the problem in its tracks, and make sure that it was never going to happen again.Disaster strikes
It all started when Chris' laptop reported that it was running out of disk space--specifically that only 1GB of available disk space remained on his 1TB drive. He hadn't seen this coming. He also found himself unable to save files and in a very challenging situation since it is the only system he has at his disposal and he needs the system to get his work done.To read this article in full, please click here
Virtualization software is dated and does not take full advantage of modern hardware, making it extremely power-inefficient and forcing data centers to overprovision hardware to avoid poor performance.That’s the pitch of Sunlight, a virtualization-software vendor whose products take advantage of technologies that didn’t exist when Xen, KVM, VMware and Hyper-V were first developed.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
“The cloud infrastructure or virtualization stacks have been designed and built 15 to 20 years ago,” said Kosten Metreweli, chief strategy officer of Sunlight. “So the big problem here is that back then, I/O, and particularly storage, was really slow. So fast forward, and we now have NVMe storage, which pushes millions of IOPS from a single device, which is orders of magnitude better than was possible just a few years ago.”To read this article in full, please click here
Business users looking for an upgrade to the very latest Wi-Fi standard, also known as Wi-Fi 6E, now have the option of Aruba’s new AP 635, the company announced this morning.
Wi-Fi resources
Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest?
How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you
Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6
Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for
Wi-Fi 6E works much the same as Wi-Fi 6, sharing that standard’s improved ability to handle dense client environments, high throughput, and advanced multi-user and multi-antenna functionality. The new feature is the ability to use the 6GHz spectrum that the FCC opened in April 2020 to unlicensed users, representing a two-fold increase in the spectrum available for WI-Fi. That added spectrum means that Wi-Fi users can take advantage of much wider channels, leading to commensurately higher throughput.To read this article in full, please click here
Ampere, the chip startup building Arm-based server processors and led by former Intel exec Renee James, has updated its product roadmap and announced new customers.The biggest news is that the company is designing its own custom cores for release in 2022. Ampere Altra processors are already on the market but use the Neoverse core from Arm. When it introduces the next generation Ampere built on a 5nm process next year, it will be with a homegrown core optimized around cloud workloads."If you go back to the objectives we had, which were delivering predictable, high performance, scalability and power efficiency, we really need to develop our own cores ... to be able to actually focus in on the exact way that the cloud wants single-threaded performance," Jeff Wittich, chief product officer for Ampere, told Network World.To read this article in full, please click here
Palo Alto Networks bolstered its security portfolio with products that target enterprise network users looking to make the move to a zero-trust environment.The new capabilities focus on a number of zero trust mechanisms—including SaaS, cloud and DNS that will be available in June—and will make it significantly easier for organizations to adopt zero-trust security across the enterprise, according to Anand Oswal, senior vice president and general manager with Palo Alto.
More about DNS:
DNS in the cloud: Why and why not
DNS over HTTPS seeks to make internet use more private
How to protect your infrastructure from DNS cache poisoning
ICANN housecleaning revokes old DNS security key
As more people are working from anywhere, they require fast and always-on access to data and applications in the distributed cloud, regardless of location, Oswal said. “An all-encompassing zero-trust approach to network security is critical for safeguarding productivity in the new reality of remote, mobile, and hybrid work,” he said.To read this article in full, please click here
Erosion of the traditional network perimeter and the transition to work-from-anywhere have conspired to bring an unprecedented threat level to endpoint devices, users, and applications, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins told the online audience at the virtual RSA Conference 2021.Such threats are exacerbated by the fact that over 3,500 vendors offer security products and services that many customers patchwork together, creating complexity that makes it hard for many to build an effective security position, Robbins said.Backup lessons from a cloud-storage disaster
Against that backdrop, Cisco announced a number of security moves to further integrate and upgrade its own overarching offerings with new features and services.To read this article in full, please click here
Linux commands offer a lot of flexibility. This post details some ways to make them even more convenient to use by making use of some clever tricks.Using file-name completion
You can avoid typing a full file name by typing the beginning of its name and pressing the tab key. If the string uniquely identifies a file, doing this will complete the filename. Otherwise, you can enter another letter in the name and press tab again. However, you can also get a list of all files that begin with a particular string by typing the string and then hitting the tab key twice. In this example, we do both:$ ls di<tab><tab>
diff-commands dig.1 directory
dig.2 dimensions disk-usage-commands
$ cd dir<tab>
$ pwd
directory
[Find out how MINNIX was used as the inspiration for Linux.]
Reusing commands and changing them
Reissuing recently used commands is easy in bash. To rerun the previous command, all you have to do it type !! on the command line. You can also reissue a command with changes. If you issued the first command shown below only to find that sshd wasn't running, you could issue the second command to start it. Continue reading
A UK-based AI-chip startup is making its first moves into North American to take on Nvidia on its home turf in the enterprise with new channel and reseller partners.Founded in 2016, Graphcore makes what it calls Intelligence Processing Units (IPUs) and shipped its first product—the Colossus GC2 “massively parallel, mixed-precision floating point processor”—in 2018. In July 2020, it released its second-generation processor called GC200, but news of that was drowned out by all the disruption caused by COVID-19.Now see "How to manage your power bill while adopting AI"
In addition to chips, the company sells cards and racks. The IPU-M2000 is a 1U blade built around four Colossus GC200 IPU processors, capable of one petaFlop of AI compute. The IPU-POD64 is designed for large-scale deployments and offers the ability to run very large models across as many as 64 IPU processors in parallel.To read this article in full, please click here
A lot of the value built into Windows Admin Center has to do with it being a remote-management tool that can have a lot of upside in a modern IT shop, including implementing best practices by not logging directly into servers, bringing flexibility to the management architecture, and performing admin tasks from high-DPI or touchscreen devices.Considered a complement to System Center, Admin Center is a free app, downloadable here, that runs in a browser and can manage Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows 10, Azure Stack HCI through Windows Admin Center Gateway, software installed on Windows Server or domain-joined Windows 10.To read this article in full, please click here
Certificate-based authentication is a cryptographic technique that allows one computer to securely identify itself to another across a network connection, using a document called a public-key certificate.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
Juniper Networks has laid a key part of its Secure Access Services Edge (SASE) foundation with a cloud-based security-control service that provides a central way to control and protect on-premises or cloud-based enterprise resources.Called Security Director Cloud, the service focuses Juniper's SASE efforts by providing a central point to manage enterprise security services including policy setting, and threat-detection and -prevention.Juniper (like other key enterprise networking vendors such as Cisco, Hewlitt-Packard Enterprise (Aruba) and VMware, as well as service providers including Cato Networks, Akamai, and Zscaler) has pledged allegiance to growing SASE support in its product families.To read this article in full, please click here
You know Google has more money than it could ever spend when it invests in a custom chip to do one task. And now they’ve done it for the third time.The search giant has developed a new chip and deployed it in its data centers to compress video content. The chips, called Video (Trans)Coding Units, or VCUs, do that faster and more efficiently than traditional CPUs.In a blog post discussing the project, Jeff Calow, a lead software engineer at Google said the VCU gives the highest YouTube video quality possible on your device while consuming less bandwidth than before.To read this article in full, please click here
Used frequently, bash aliases can make working on the Linux command line a lot smoother and easier, but they can also be complicated and hard to remember. This post examines how you might make your aliases work for you rather than vice versa.In general, aliases are especially good for:
simplifying commands that are long and overly complex
remembering commands with odd or complicated names
saving time using commands that you use very often
What you need to keep in mind is that:
aliases can themselves be hard to remember
giving an alias the same name as a regular command can be a good thing or a bad thing (more on this shortly)
How to create an alias
Use the alias command and remember to add it to your ~/.bashrc file so that it will still be waiting for you whenever you login.To read this article in full, please click here
Dell is launching a new offering of managed storage, server, and hyperconverged infrastructure that can be deployed in a company's own data center, at edge locations or in colocation facilities, and enterprises pay for capacity as needed.Dubbed Dell Apex, it includes storage, cloud services, and a console for streamlined management. The launch coincides with the kickoff of Dell Technologies World 2021, which is being held virtually this year.Now see "How to manage your power bill while adopting AI"
Pay-per-use hardware models such as Dell Apex and HPE GreenLake are designed to deliver cloud-like pricing structures and flexible capacity to private data centers. The concept of pay-per-use hardware isn't new, but the buzz around it is growing. Enterprises are looking for alternatives to buying equipment outright for workloads that aren't a fit for public cloud environments.To read this article in full, please click here
Hewlett Packard Enterprise took a big step toward delivering on its “entire-portfolio-as-a-service” strategy this week by unveiling cloud-based storage and data service that will help manage storage needs in distributed IT enterpises.HPE said in 2019 that by 2022 it wanted to remake itself into a more service-oriented company and announced plans to transition its entire portfolio to subscription based, pay-per-use, and as-a-service offerings. It has since made headway, for example, recently adding HPE GreenLake cloud services for HPC.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has taken the wraps off a technology package it says will utilize existing core wireless and wired systems to help enterprises better control their physical environments and enable a safer, more secure return to the office.While supporting remote offices and branches of one—IDC says that post-COVID, more than 52% of workers will either remain remote or hybrid—they rest could return to an altered business space. Who’s selling SASE, and what do you get?
In these offices, sensors and devices that have been used to manage lighting and HVAC systems can be adapted to occupancy and density monitoring, air-quality testing, contact tracing, and in-room presence, according to Anoop Vetteth, vice president of product management with Cisco’s Enterprise Switching and Software Solutions group.To read this article in full, please click here
Fresh off one of the strongest quarters in the company’s 25 year history where it hit double-digit, year-over-year revenue growth and a fourth consecutive quarter of growth, Extreme Networks is betting heavily on automation, AI and cloud management to keep the party going. Extreme Networks
Extreme CEO Ed MeyercordTo read this article in full, please click here
IT teams are dealing with rapid technology changes with increased retraining and skill development, according to a report by trade association CompTIA.Seven in 10 HR professionals surveyed who work with IT personnel said they plan a substantially increased effort to help workers re-skill in the coming year, with larger firms reporting a particularly strong emphasis in that area. Nearly 80% of IT HR professionals employed at such companies rated re-skilling or up-skilling as “more important” for the coming year, in contrast to 68% at medium-sized firms and 52% at smaller businesses.Network training 2021: Businesses grow their own expertise
These numbers mark a changed relationship between employers and tech, according to CompTIA director of education and ed tech Stephanie Morgan, adding that the pandemic helped force companies to rethink the way they deal with their workers. “Businesses have realized they have to talk about people like they’re people, not like they’re assets,” she said.To read this article in full, please click here
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is not inclined to wait for next-generation (NextG) networks. And who can blame it? NextG promises faster cellular, Wi-Fi, and satellite networks, all of which can be used to enhance data streaming, wireless communications, analytics, and automation.For the NSF, this translates into improved national defense, education, public health and safety, transportation, and digital infrastructure. For enterprises, NextG means greater efficiency, flexibility, business insights, and more opportunities to replace human workers with robots. (I’m just sayin’.)To read this article in full, please click here
IBM announced a pair of additions to its storage portfolio designed to improve the access to and management of data across hybrid-cloud environments and offer faster, higher capacity.The first is container-native software defined storage (SDS) called IBM Spectrum Fusion that’s due out in the second half of 2021. It will initially come in the form of a container-native hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) system that integrates compute, storage, and networking. Next year, IBM plans to release an SDS-only version of Spectrum Fusion.To read this article in full, please click here