As edge computing deployments get under way, organizations need to make their edge computing sites resilient. As the saying goes, “you’re only as good as your weakest link,” so if edge computing locations are allowed to be the weakest link in a multi-location environment, the entire network surely will suffer.You can’t have a truly resilient IT deployment without resilience at these edge computing sites. So organizations have to harden these sites with best-in-class technology as they do at centralized and regional data centers. Organizations need redundancy, security and management controls designed to prevent downtime.To read this article in full, please click here
Ethernet networking technology is flawed, say some engineers. The problem is it doesn’t have any inherent security built in to it. Ethernet also hard to manage because it's centralized. It’s out-of-date, and it needs revamping, researchers say.One attempt to address the issue is the Marconi protocol, which is a strategy to shift network and packet management over to a smart contract, decentralized chain-based system. Smart contracts are trackable, verifiable transactions. They’re performed through encrypted blockchains and are self-enforcing.To read this article in full, please click here
The wireless industry has always had to deal with regular (and alarming) pronouncements that we're somehow running out of radio spectrum. We’re not. But the misconception regardless gives many IT and network managers pause. After all, if the availability, reliability and especially the capacity of wireless were to degrade to the point of a de-facto shortage, the situation would be dire for communications at the edges of both the LAN and WAN.So let’s start putting to rest any conjecture regarding a spectrum shortage and focus on reality: Thanks to a combination of continual advances in wireless technologies, recent enhancements to spectrum regulatory policy, and novel thinking around spectrum allocation, we can be assured that a “spectrum shortage” is, and will remain, an abstract theoretical concept.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has bundled 25 security advisories that describe 26 vulnerabilities in Cisco NX-OS switch and Firepower FXOS firewall software.While the 26 alerts describe vulnerabilities that have a Security Impact Rating of “High,” most –23 – affect Cisco NX-OS software, and the remaining three involve both software packages.[ Also see What to consider when deploying a next generation firewall. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
The vulnerabilities span a number of problems that would let an attacker gain unauthorized access, gain elevated privileges, execute arbitrary commands, escape the restricted shell, bypass the system image verification checks or cause denial of service (DoS) conditions, Cisco said.To read this article in full, please click here
This week Juniper Networks plunked down $405 million to acquire Wi-Fi vendor Mist Systems. As always, Network World's Michael Cooney did a fine job covering the news, so I won’t rehash that. What I want to look at is something specific that Cooney wrote — that “Mist touts itself as having developed an artificial-intelligence-based wireless platform.” Why does Wi-Fi need artificial intelligence (AI)?To read this article in full, please click here
There are plenty of reasons for organizations to embrace edge computing. By moving applications, data, and computing services to the edge of a network, as opposed to a large data center or cloud, organizations can lower operating costs, improve application performance, reduce network traffic, and achieve real-time data analytics.As more organizations come to know the advantages of edge of network devices, many are eyeing deployments. In fact, according to the IDG 2018 State of the Network, 56% of networking professionals have plans for edge computing in their organizations.To read this article in full, please click here
If there was one common theme to the blizzard of announcements, demonstrations and general public happenings going on at MWC 2019 in Barcelona this year, it was that everyone from smartphone makers to mobile carriers to hardware manufacturers is wildly excited about the advent of 5G technology.Wireless equipment vendors, like Nokia and Ericsson, both announced slates of 5G customers and rolled out new capabilities aimed at helping 5G reach the critical inflection point. Smartphone manufacturers touted the pending availability of 5G-capable handsets, and silicon vendors trumpeted their 5G-ready chipsets and SIM cards.To read this article in full, please click here
I have documented more than once that the data center is not going away; it’s being reimagined. And now comes a report with greater details on that change.Spiceworks has released its 2019 State of Servers report that examines on-premises server infrastructure in the workplace, including purchase plans, brand prevalence, and perceptions. The results of the survey, which was conducted in February and included 530 IT buyers from organizations across North America and Europe, show that 98 percent of businesses currently run on-premises servers, and 72 percent of businesses plan to purchase new server hardware within the next three years. To read this article in full, please click here
Ciena
Mina Paik, Director of Portfolio Marketing, Blue Planet
Integrating AI and advanced analytics into your network processes and operations can seem like a daunting task. Mina Paik provides three guidelines for choosing a solution that best fits your company’s unique requirements.Artificial intelligence (AI) is undoubtedly a very hot topic across many industry segments and verticals, with one analyst even pointing out that “it will empower the fourth industrial revolution.” In the telco world, AI when used together with analytics is now associated with powering intelligent and “self-aware” digital networks (which Ciena and Blue Planet refer to as the “adaptive network”). While there are substantial discussions and write-ups around the topic of AI-driven analytics, our VP of Blue Planet Solutions & Engineering, Kailem Anderson, made a very important point in one of his recent blog posts—namely, that the term “AI” must avoid becoming a cliché.To read this article in full, please click here
According to Imperva research, a container flaw reported last month (CVE-2019-5736) in Docker's remote API has already been taken advantage of by hundreds of attackers.Imperva claims that they were able to locate 3,822 Docker hosts with the remote API (port 2735) publicly exposed. Of these, approximately 400 were accessible, and most of these were running a cryptocurrency miner for a lesser-known form of cryptocurrency called Monero. [ Two-Minute Linux Tips: Learn how to master a host of Linux commands in these 2-minute video tutorials ]
Monero (ticker symbol XMR) is an open-source cryptocurrency that was created in April 2014. It focuses on fungibility (individual units are essentially interchangeable), privacy, and decentralization. It also takes advantage of an obfuscated public ledger. That means anyone can broadcast or send transactions, but outside observers cannot tell the source, amount, or destination of the funds.To read this article in full, please click here
In the enterprise half of the IoT world, heavy industries like energy, manufacturing, and automotive are the biggest success stories for the new technology, but the prospect of integrating their existing computerized-orchestration and management technology with modern industrial IOT gear can be daunting.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
Eight years ago, Facebook launched the Open Compute Project (OCP), an open-source hardware initiative to design the most energy-efficient server gear for massive, hyperscale data centers. The promise was flexibility of hardware and software and designs for greater power efficiency.Very quickly, Intel, Rackspace, Goldman Sachs and Sun Microsystems' co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim joined with Facebook to launch the OCP project, with Microsoft joining in 2014.The project has hummed along quietly with no sales figures until now, thanks to supply chain market research specialists IHS Markit. It surveyed both Facebook, Microsoft, and Rackspace, as founding partners, and looked at sales to customers beyond those three.To read this article in full, please click here
When companies move away from using data centers with fixed costs toward consumption-based spending in the cloud, they have to consider transforming their financial operating model.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
Last week I highlighted a pair of ARM processors with very different use cases, and now the pattern repeats as Western Digital, a company synonymous with hard-disk technology, introduces a pair of SSDs for markedly different use.The Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN630 NVMe SSD and the Western Digital CL SN720 NVMe SSD both sport internally developed controller and firmware architectures, 64-layer 3D NAND technology and a NVMe interface, but that’s about where they end.To read this article in full, please click here
Mobile edge computing (MEC) is a network architecture that supports compute, analytics and storage capacity at the edge of the network, and proponents say it provides substantial performance benefits for applications requiring low latency, especially IoT applications.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
There's a new Linux security tool you should be aware of — Cmd (pronounced "see em dee") dramatically modifies the kind of control that can be exercised over Linux users. It reaches way beyond the traditional configuration of user privileges and takes an active role in monitoring and controlling the commands that users are able to run on Linux systems.Provided by a company of the same name, Cmd focuses on cloud usage. Given the increasing number of applications being migrated into cloud environments that rely on Linux, gaps in the available tools make it difficult to adequately enforce required security. However, Cmd can also be used to manage and protect on-premises systems.To read this article in full, please click here
There's a new Linux security tool you should be aware of — Cmd (pronounced "see em dee") dramatically modifies the kind of control that can be exercised over Linux users. It reaches way beyond the traditional configuration of user privileges and takes an active role in monitoring and controlling the commands that users are able to run on Linux systems.Provided by a company of the same name, Cmd focuses on cloud usage. Given the increasing number of applications being migrated into cloud environments that rely on Linux, gaps in the available tools make it difficult to adequately enforce required security. However, Cmd can also be used to manage and protect on-premises systems.To read this article in full, please click here
What do embedded sensors, ecommerce sites, social media platforms, and streaming services have in common? They all produce vast volumes of data, much of which travels across the internet. In fact, Cisco estimates global IP traffic will grow to 3.3 zettabytes annually by 2021 – up three times compared to internet traffic in 2017.For many businesses, these data packets represent treasure troves of actionable information, from customers’ buying preferences to new market trends. But as the volume and velocity of data increases, so too does the inefficiency of transmitting all this information to a cloud or data center for processing.To read this article in full, please click here
What do embedded sensors, ecommerce sites, social media platforms, and streaming services have in common? They all produce vast volumes of data, much of which travels across the internet. In fact, Cisco estimates global IP traffic will grow to 3.3 zettabytes annually by 2021 – up three times compared to internet traffic in 2017.For many businesses, these data packets represent treasure troves of actionable information, from customers’ buying preferences to new market trends. But as the volume and velocity of data increases, so too does the inefficiency of transmitting all this information to a cloud or data center for processing.To read this article in full, please click here
Most networking groups have a wireless guy, maybe two – you might be that person. For years, the rest of the campus network group hasn’t really had to think about what they plugged into the network. Give them a gig port, PoE, probably set up a VLAN and that’s it: wireless sorted.Because when it all came down to it, it didn’t matter how many wireless users connected to the access point because only one device, the client or the access point, could transmit at one time. What’s more, a single wireless client is not going to tax a gig port. In fact, the more clients there are on an AP, the less traffic ends up on the wire since they spend more time trying to get a timeslot to transmit, like the seagulls in “Finding Nemo” yelling “Mine, mine, mine.”To read this article in full, please click here