It’s May, and that means all the April showers we had will soon bring spring flowers. April and May are also busy conference months, as many vendors host customer, partner, or analyst events. This week, it was Dell’s turn as the company held its first-ever Dell Technology World. Dell has obviously had other user events before, including Dell World and Dell-EMC World, but the naming of this one is indicative of how Dell is now one company and there’s better product and go-to-market integration between Dell, EMC and VMware.VMware introduces Virtual Cloud Network
As expected, much of the news at the show revolved around Dell Technologies compute products. But the network got some love, as well, when VMware announced its Virtual Cloud Network, which is the coming together of many of its network assets, including NSX and VeloCloud. The Virtual Cloud Network can be thought as an agile network and security overlay that acts as a “fabric” for digital businesses that connect apps, data, and users to each other regardless of where they are located.To read this article in full, please click here
If you spend much time on the Linux command line (and you probably wouldn't be reading this if you didn't), you've undoubtedly noticed that the ls command displays your files in a number of different colors. You've probably also come to recognize some of the distinctions — directories appearing in one color, executable files in another, etc.How that all happens and what options are available for you to change the color assignments might not be so obvious.[ Also read: Unix tip: Coloring your world with LS_COLORS | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
One way to get a big dose of data showing how these colors are assigned is to run the dircolors command. It will show you something like this:To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco lost a key warrior in its battle to become a monster software player this week as Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and head of the $5 billion Application Group, said he would be leaving the company effective May 3 to become CEO of cloud startup Five9.“During Trollope’s tenure, his team reinvented Cisco’s Collaboration business, pivoting to a SaaS model and making design, simplicity and exponential improvement the guiding principles of product development,” Five9 wrote in describing its new CEO’s pedigree.To read this article in full, please click here
The past few months have been incredibly instructive on the critical importance of keeping one’s data safe, be it customer data or your own intellectual property. Data protection itself covers a broad span:
Physical data protection
Protection from device failure
Protection from data loss and breach
Not only is data security important to the success and reputation of your company, it can be IT that goes “under the bus” when a security event occurs. This means that your career is literally on the line. As a result, your storage architecture better be up to the task of maintaining the integrity of your data store.To read this article in full, please click here
Dell EMC this week unveiled storage, server and hyperconvergence upgrades aimed at enterprises that are grappling with new application types, ongoing digital transformation efforts, and the pressure to deliver higher performance and greater automation in the data center.On the storage front, Dell EMC rearchitected its flagship VMAX enterprise product line, which is now called PowerMax, to include NVMe support and a built-in machine learning engine. Its XtremIO all-flash array offers native replication for the first time and a lower entry-level price. To read this article in full, please click here
As Tom Brady once said, “if you don’t play to win, don’t play at all.” This mantra is reflected in Brady’s TB12 Method, a holistic lifecycle based on 12 principles that make up the optimal approach to exercise, training and living a life of vitality. It’s built on the premise of stopping an accident prior to it happening through pre-habitation and taking intelligent, strategic preventative measures. And while implementing all 12 principles is not required, their effect is cumulative: the more you can incorporate, the better your results will be.While this methodology applies to training superior athletes, data center managers have their own set of principles to ensure optimal data center performance. What we’ve dubbed the DCM10 Method, there are 10 fundamental steps every data center manager should use to evaluate their current data center and help transform its functionality. Similar to the TB12 Method, while not all of these steps are required to create a successful strategy, the more best practices applied will result in higher performance across the board.To read this article in full, please click here
It’s a pretty common scenario. You’re considering implementing Cisco hardware in your infrastructure, and you talk to a vendor who pushes a shiny, new, cutting-edge solution on you.It’s impressive, this bleeding-edge solution — it has all sorts of bells and whistles (whether your business plan can make smart use of them or not) and it comes with a nice, healthy price tag.So, you’re left with a really difficult question. Should you stretch your already thin budget with a solution that may actually be overkill for your needs? Or do you have options[ Read also: 80/20 rule of network equipment: Stay on budget and innovate. | Get daily insights: Sign up for Network World newsletters. ]
5 things to consider when buying network hardware
Keep these five factors in mind as you consider how to proceed with your Cisco hardware solutions because that vendor who thinks you should buy new probably doesn’t want you to know them.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco this week fortified its storage family with two new 32G Fibre Channel switches and software designed to help customers manage and troubleshoot their SANS.The new switches, the 48-Port MDS 9148T and 96-Port MDS 9396T feature a technology called Auto Zone that automatically detects any new storage servers or devices that log into a SAN and automatically zones them without having to do manual configuration.[Check out REVIEW: VMware’s vSAN 6.6 and see IDC’s top 10 data center predictions . | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
The idea is to eliminate the cycles spent in provisioning new devices and avert errors that typically occur when manually configuring complex zones. Even when a host or storage hardware is upgraded or a faulty facility is replaced, the switch automatically detects the change and zones them into the SAN, Cisco said.To read this article in full, please click here
Windstream made its SDN move by implementing Ciena’s Blue Planet to automate how it delivers wavelength services across its multi-vendor optical network -- setting the stage for the provider to virtualize network functions to enhance service activation and delivery times. Operational efficiency and customer experience are crucial to Windstream's success in the USA, but its heterogeneous network footprint can make network service provisioning and device configuration complex and costly. Building a programmable SDN-based network with Ciena's Blue Planet software is helping Windstream simplify operations, move to DevOps-centric processes, and create an extensible platform for new services.To read this article in full, please click here
If you are a large-scale enterprise, Google has a service called Dedicated Interconnect that offers 10Gbps connections between your data center and one of theirs. But what if you are a smaller firm and don’t need that kind of bandwidth and the expense that goes with it?Google now has you covered. The cloud giant recently announced Google Cloud Partner Interconnect, a means of establishing a direct connection between a SMB data center, with emphasis on the medium-sized business, and Google's hybrid cloud platform. The company did this in concert with 23 ISP partners around the globe.To read this article in full, please click here
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is one of those tantalizing technologies that looks great on paper, but hasn’t gained much traction over the years for a variety of financial, technical, cultural, even philosophical reasons.However, a relatively new framework called hyperconvergence, which combines compute, storage and networking in a single data center appliance, could breathe new life into VDI by reducing the cost and complexity associated with a VDI rollout.The argument in favor of VDI, also known as desktop virtualization or thin-client computing, makes perfect sense.To read this article in full, please click here
5G is nearly here. The next generation of wireless connectivity promises superfast speeds, ultra-low latency and more network capacity than ever. 5G auctions have or are due to take place in the US, UK, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Australia and host of other countries.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently advised "consumers to throw away any store-bought romaine lettuce and warned restaurants not to serve it amid an E. coli outbreak that has sickened more than 50 people in several states."This problem highlights the dangers of modern supply chains. They help lower costs and improve business efficiency, but they’re complex and a single failure can sicken people thousands of miles away. The food we eat and the medicines we use come from remote suppliers, transported in refrigerated trucks, and stored in different warehouses. How can perishable commodities be tracked from suppliers to customers? How can the temperature conditions during shipment be monitored to avoid contamination? How can spoilt products be quickly recalled even if they’re in transit or stored in a warehouse?To read this article in full, please click here
Today’s digital economy depends entirely on the speed and reliability of the networks across which information flows. And while it has become cliché to say the demands on the network are increasing, the facts bear this out: the number of Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices is set to triple—to 27 billion devices—over the next 10 years. Cellular connections will grow even more over the same period, by 85 percent to 2.2 billion, according to a recent study by Machina Research.1The way customers use the network is also changing. The rise in popularity of cloud services is growing by double digits every year, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS), which Gartner predicts will grow by 36.8 and 20.1 percent, respectively, this year alone. Users expect to be able to access these cloud services on any device, from any location and at any time, which places greater demand on the network both in terms of traffic volume as well as increased performance and reliability requirements.To read this article in full, please click here
Many people today work on mixed networks, with both Linux and Windows systems playing important roles. Sharing files between the two can be critical at times and is surprisingly easy with the right tools. With fairly little effort, you can copy files from Windows to Linux or Linux to Windows. In this post, we'll look at what is needed to configure your Linux and Windows system to allow you to easily move files from one OS to the other.Copying files between Linux and Windows
The first step toward moving files between Windows and Linux is to download and install a tool such as PuTTY's pscp. You can get PuTTY from putty.org and set it up on your Windows system easily. PuTTY comes with a terminal emulator (putty) as well as tools like pscp for securely copying files between Linux and Windows systems. When you go to the PuTTY site, you can elect to install all of the tools or pick just the ones you want to use by choosing either the installer or the individual .exe files.To read this article in full, please click here
Not so long ago, the phrase “consumerization of IT” was on everyone’s lips. Whole publications and conferences (remember CITE, for Consumerization of IT in the Enterprise?) were created to chronicle the trend of corporations relying on products and services originally created for consumers — which was often easier to use and of higher quality than its business-oriented competitors.Well, no one talks much about the consumerization of IT anymore… not because the trend went away, but because consumer tech has now permeated every aspect of business technology. Today, it’s just how things work — and if you ask me, that’s a good thing.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has rolled out software tools for helping customers control access and more easily manage the burgeoning amount of enterprise IoT devices in their networks. The company has also begun filling out its Catalyst 9000 line of intent-based networking (IBN) switches with new boxes aimed at customers wanting 100G/sec and 25G/sec network migration options.[ For more on IoT see tips for securing IoT on your network, our list of the most powerful internet of things companies and learn about the industrial internet of things. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
IoT access control, security, management
The need for much better enterprise IoT access control is obvious, Cisco says: According to its Midyear Cybersecurity Report for 2017 most companies are not aware of what IoT devices are connected to their network.To read this article in full, please click here
The promise of cloud services as the means of delivering applications and services is quite attractive. However, in the rush to adopt cloud services, a few myths have been created that can lead to bad decisions and botched implementations. One myth that has created more problems than most is the belief that, by using the cloud, a company doesn’t have to worry about its on-premises IT infrastructure or the support systems for it.The assertion that cloud service providers “handle everything” is not really true. They provide access to the services as long as your equipment can get you to their data center. While this may reduce the load on your servers and potentially your storage hardware, in many instances using the cloud creates a need for new networking hardware to support much higher wide-area network (WAN) utilization both in terms of number of users and the amount of data traffic. When companies want to use multiple network carriers for cost, reliability, and performance issues, the result may be more network hardware than initially expected.To read this article in full, please click here
Can you do math on the Linux command line? You sure can! In fact, there are quite a few commands that can make the process easy and some you might even find interesting. Let's look at some very useful commands and syntax for command line math.expr
First and probably the most obvious and commonly used command for performing mathematical calculations on the command line is the expr (expression) command. It can manage addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication. It can also be used to compare numbers. Here are some examples:Incrementing a variable
$ count=0
$ count=`expr $count + 1`
$ echo $count
1
Performing a simple calculations
$ expr 11 + 123
134
$ expr 134 / 11
12
$ expr 134 - 11
123
$ expr 11 * 123
expr: syntax error <== oops!
$ expr 11 \* 123
1353
$ expr 20 % 3
2
Notice that you have to use a \ character in front of * to avoid the syntax error. The % operator is for modulo calculations.To read this article in full, please click here
Check out our webinar series – hear from industry analysts to learn about the Adaptive Network and gain insights on network transformation at the speed of business.Live Webinar: Harness the Power of Automation through Intent-Based Policy Date / Time: Tuesday, April 17, 2018, 11:00 a.m. New York/ 4:00 p.m. LondonOverview:Network providers are struggling to keep pace with escalating demand. Rapid traffic increases and the threat of network performance failures have put a premium on automation. But it's important for providers to maintain control of their networks as they automate. How can an automation platform help remove obstacles and still give the control providers need to accelerate the business?To read this article in full, please click here