For the third straight year, IT organizations are keeping tight control over their IT budgets, but not because of economic uncertainty. Instead, the hesitancy to spend is because of the transition to the cloud.That’s the findings from IT market research firm Computer Economics, which published the report Worldwide IT Spending and Staffing Outlook for 2018 (paywall), and it echoes a common finding that on-premises computing continues to fall out of favor as IT shops look to migrate as much work as possible to the public cloud.“Typically, before the cloud transition, companies would grow IT budgets roughly to match expected revenue growth,” said David Wagner, vice president of research for Computer Economics in a statement. “This is no longer true in regions of higher cloud adoption, such as the U.S. and Canada, where IT budgets are not keeping pace with revenue growth.”To read this article in full, please click here
It’s common for a newly released application to have a few bugs in it. Customers may grumble, and IT service requests may increase, but life goes on and people will figure out how to work around the issues. The same cannot be said for a network software upgrade. If the network goes down, everything grinds to a halt, and service to employees and customers ceases.In the old hardware network model, an operator relied on three to four vendors to run annual or semiannual upgrades, and even that process put the network’s resiliency at risk. As networks transition to a software model, they are supported by a myriad of best-of-breed partners and a more diverse ecosystem, increasing the frequency of updates and therefore the degree of network vulnerability. In addition, the technology implemented is less mature, resulting in greater network exposure to errors and risk.To read this article in full, please click here
Microsegmentation is a method of creating secure zones in data centers and cloud deployments that allows companies to isolate workloads from one another and secure them individually. It’s aimed at making network security more granular. Microsegmentation vs. VLANs, firewalls and ACLs Network segmentation isn’t new. Companies have relied on firewalls, virtual local area networks (VLAN) and access control lists (ACL) for network segmentation for years. With microsegmentation, policies are applied to individual workloads for greater attack resistance.To read this article in full, please click here
SD-WAN has become the definitive buzzword in enterprise networking, and if you’re a decision maker in IT, chances are the technology has come up in conversation. According to Gartner, by 2018, 40 percent of WAN edge infrastructure will be based on SD-WAN or something similar.What is SD-WAN? In a nutshell, Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) simplifies enterprise connectivity between remote locations and branch offices. Common features of a SD-WAN solution include: Combining network links of one location into a single pool of capacity available for all applications and services Customization of the bandwidth and connectivity to meet the needs of your specific network services, locations, or users The ability to centrally define and manage policies and network traffic without requiring manual configuration at each device. Many startups and tech giants have positioned themselves as an SD-WAN solution, each with their own idea on how the technology works and what solution it offers the business. Yet with so many vendors out there claiming to be SD-WAN, it’s hard to determine which solution is right for your business.To read this article in full, please click here
To gain the edge in today’s competitive digital marketplace, enterprises must update/transform from their old-school network services tools in favor of innovative solutions that revamp existing infrastructures. The best way to stay ahead of the digital evolution curve is to plan your digital infrastructures in advance and create strategic execution plans involving multiple teams. We’ve already determined that network automation is the ultimate solution, but challenges remain. In this article, we will discuss the visibility challenges ahead in 2018, and how to overcome them. Major challenges faced by network teams today There are many automation technologies available for enterprises to strengthen digital infrastructures. Regardless of their availability, network teams are finding it extremely difficult to adapt. There is a huge misconception today that applying automation is a single-step process. The truth is, automation is a complex progression to put in place, as all existing infrastructures and processes must be redefined. Apart from this, network automation creates the demand for team restructuring, role defining, and allotment of access control for various tasks. Amidst these tasks, networking teams also face major visibility challenges when restructuring the digital networks. Below are few initiatives that can help businesses gain agility and security in Continue reading
I’d like to wish everyone a hearty Happy New Year! This is the time of year that we make promises to ourselves like saying we will get to the gym more often, lose weight, not text and drive, and other things that should improve our lives or the world we live in. Many of us make these resolutions annually, but fail to keep them because they are often unrealistic or simply too hard to live up to.I’d like to offer five New Year’s resolutions for those of you who manage your company’s wide-area network (WAN). They are as follows:I resolve to leverage automation. The concept of automating manual networking tasks certainly isn’t new. However, the implementation of automation has been very light to date, primarily because most skilled engineers could keep the network up and running doing things the way they’ve always been done. Also, networking professionals generally fear the concept of automation as it threatens to marginalize or eliminate their jobs.To read this article in full, please click here
With the software fixes for the Spectre and Meltdown chip vulnerabilities slowing servers down by unacceptable amounts, a hardware fix is clearly what is needed, and Intel’s boss says one is coming this year.Intel CEO Brian Krzanich told analysts during the company's Q4 2017 earnings call earlier this week that "silicon-based" fixes for Spectre and Meltdown would arrive by the end of 2018. Intel has several launches set for this year and he did not specify which."We're working to incorporate silicon-based changed to future products that will directly address the Spectre and Meltdown threats in hardware. And those products will begin appearing later this year," were his exact words.To read this article in full, please click here
The only thing techies love more than creating acronyms is the chance to create even longer ones. Such is the case with wireless acronym MIMO (multiple input, multiple output), which got some additional letters with the release of MU-MIMO a few years ago and is on the verge of becoming more popular with the release of the forthcoming 802.11ax wireless standard.MU-MIMO stands for multi-user, multiple input, multiple output, and is wireless technology supported by routers and endpoint devices. MU-MIMO is the next evolution from single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO), which is generally referred to as MIMO. MIMO technology was created to help increase the number of antennas on a wireless router that are used for both receiving and transmitting, improving capacity for wireless connections.To read this article in full, please click here
At first glance, they may not seem like they have anything to do with each other. But when technology trends as hot as the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain are involved, you can bet that lots of smart, ambitious people are working overtime to find ways to leverage both at the same time.Read also: AI and IoT: Like peanut butter and chocolate? The biggest connection, naturally, revolves around security issues. Many companies and pundits see blockchain as a powerful way to bring scalable, decentralized security and trust to IoT devices, applications and platforms, which are similarly distributed and decentralized.To read this article in full, please click here
CES 2018 did not disappoint, with a gaggle of networking-enabled gadgets for your home, car and bathroom. But many of these technologies demand more data, putting strain on wireless networks.Imagine if all 125 million U.S. households suddenly invested in a smart toilet? When the number of low- and high-bandwidth devices multiply, cable TV networks and cellular base stations bear the burden. So, what’s a network provider to do?The answer – somewhat surprisingly – is to borrow from the defense industry. When times get tough in the commercial electronics space, network providers seek to adopt high-gain, high-power RF solutions from defense radar and communications systems, including many that depend on gallium nitride.To read this article in full, please click here
A lot of people outside China ask whether the government there is going to shut down the corporate VPNs of international companies with facilities in China. How will the new Chinese cybersecurity law impact foreign IT operations in the country? Is it safe to transfer information into and out of China?To answer, let’s start with the Great Firewall of China (GFC), which has a big impact on what information is allowed to move in and out of the country. The GFC is a combination of government policies and advanced telecom equipment deployed by the main Internet Service Providers in China. It is intended to safeguard the national security and the best interests of China.To read this article in full, please click here
It’s been a busy hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) week for Cisco. Yesterday it announced its intent to acquire secure HCI vendor, Skyport Systems. Today it announced HyperFlex 3.0, which is the biggest update Cisco has had to the product since it introduced the product years ago. Cisco’s driving vision is a business that can run any workload on any cloud that can easily scale up as required. This latest release is entirely dedicated to fulfilling that vision.The cloud is the future, and the majority of businesses will adopt hybrid clouds. In announcing HyperFlex 3.0, Cisco cited an IDC data point that states that 87 percent of businesses are using or plan to use a hybrid environment, and 94 percent plan to use multiple clouds — meaning that hybrid, multi-clouds will be the norm.To read this article in full, please click here
In one of my favorite movies of all time, Amadeus, there is a scene in which a conversation takes place between Mozart and the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II, just after the first performance of the opera The Marriage of Figaro. During exchange, the Emperor “explained” to Mozart, in a condescending way, that while the opera was excellent, it had “too many notes.” He went on to suggest “Just cut a few and it will be perfect.” Nonplussed, Mozart calmly replied “Which few did you have in mind your majesty?” A pregnant pause ensues, and the Emperor is only saved by a distraction which allows the change of subject. This “change request” – while it appeared on the surface trivial to the Emperor – turned out to be quite a challenge, as it required the complete knowledge of the score (state/intent) and required composition skills (design/action). So, what does this have to do with networking?To read this article in full, please click here
As the explosive growth of IoT tech continues; businesses, vendors and consumers all have to confront the issue that the world is more connected than ever before, with potentially gigantic consequences.The central problem with IoT security is that there is no central problem – IoT is a more complicated stack than traditional IT infrastructure and is much more likely to be made up of hardware and software from different sources.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Review: VMware’s vSAN 6.6 + Configuration errors in Intel workstations being labeled a security holeTo read this article in full, please click here
For today’s IT professional, hybrid clouds are a fact of life and will be for years to come. Digital businesses need to have an agile infrastructure foundation, which the cloud provides.However, rarely does one size fit all when it comes to cloud options. Some workloads are ideally suited for public cloud services, while others make more sense to go in a private cloud. With some apps, though, part of it runs in the traditional data center and part runs in a public cloud, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform. There are also apps that run in a private data center but then need to connect to a SaaS application.To read this article in full, please click here
Disasters come in all shapes and sizes. It’s not just catastrophic events such as hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes, but also incidents such as cyber-attacks, equipment failures and even terrorism that can be classified as disasters.Companies and organizations prepare by creating disaster recovery plans that detail actions to take and processes to follow to resume mission-critical functions quickly and without major losses in revenues or business. BE SURE NOT TO MISS: REVIEW: 4 top disaster-recovery platforms compared Go-to storage and disaster recovery products Video: Questions to ask your recovery vendor before you buy What is disaster recovery? In the IT space, disaster recovery focuses on the IT systems that help support critical business functions. The term “business continuity” is often associated with disaster recovery, but the two terms aren’t completely interchangeable. Disaster recovery is a part of business continuity, which focuses more on keeping all aspects of a business running despite the disaster. Because IT systems these days are so critical to the success of the business, disaster recovery is a main pillar in the business continuity process.To read this article in full, please click here
One of the most exciting things to happen in the Linux world in the past few years is the emergence of containers — self-contained Linux environments that live inside another OS and provide a way to package and isolate applications.They're not quite virtual systems, since they rely on the host OS to operate, nor are they simply applications. Dan Walsh from Red Hat has said that on Linux, "everything is a container," reminding me of the days when people claimed that everything on Unix was a file. But the vision has less to do with the guts of the OS and more to do with explaining how containers work and how they are different than virtual systems in some very interesting and important ways.To read this article in full, please click here
Amazon's Echo Spot brings you all the features of its Echo, with a screen for displaying weather forecasts, news updates, sports scores, song lyrics and much more. All you need to do is ask Alexa. It fits comfortably on a nightstand and works well as an alarm clock and bedside calendar as well. Watch videos, call your friends, control your smarthome -- new features are added all the time. Right now, if you buy two, Amazon will activate a $40 discount in your cart. See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full, please click here
Over the last two years, SD-WANs have been the hottest topic in networking. In that timeframe, SD-WAN solutions have evolved dramatically with many vendors recently implementing new, highly robust architectures and adding functionality such as routing and more sophisticated security.But it is not just the technology that has changed. The way that SD-WANs are planned, owned and operated has also matured significantly. The goals of this blog include discussing the large interest that organizations have relative to consuming SD-WAN as a managed service; the evolution of what is meant by a managed SD-WAN service; and the evolution of how managed SD-WAN services are built and operated.To read this article in full, please click here
When you find a good cable for a cheap price, it never hurts to grab it. Anker's USB-C to USB cables feature a double-braided nylon exterior, toughened aramid fiber core and laser-welded connectors, which Anker says makes them more reliable and longer lasting. With this deal, you'll get two 6-foot cables for $9.49, which is a healthy discount from its average list price. See Anker's discounted cables now on Amazon, where they currently average 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 300 customers.To read this article in full, please click here