Docker announced the first major update to its flagship Docker Enterprise Edition 17.06, with a clear eye to on-premises data centers and DevOps. Docker rolled out the rebranded Docker EE in March, based on what was previously known as the Docker Commercially Supported and Docker Datacenter products. With that launch, Docker added the ability to port legacy apps to containers without having to modify the code.The major new feature of this update — which seems to borrow from Microsoft’s year/month naming convention for Windows 10 updates — is support for IBM z Systems mainframes running Linux. Now containerized apps can be run on a mainframe, with all of the scale and uptime reliability it brings, and they run with no modifications necessary.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
“It’s not getting any younger.”In my house, that’s code for either eating or trashing something in the refrigerator that’s flirting with its “best-by” date — or just no longer looks as appetizing as it once did.Sensors are the core of the Internet of Things
But what if Internet of Things (IoT) sensor technology could tell you whether that lasagna was still safe for dinner or whether it’s time to toss the hair-coloring product slowly drying out in the back of your medicine cabinet? That promise is what’s on the menu at the 254th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Washington, D.C., this week. So, what does the world’s largest scientific society, with more than 157,000 members, have to do with IoT? To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
By now I'm sure you're familiar with Amazon's Echo device. Amazon Echo comes in both white and black, and is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, make calls, send and receive messages, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more. One works well, or string them around your house for Alexa in every room. Multiple Echo devices work together seamlessly. It may be one of those devices that actually does what it promises to do. Echo is discounted fairly regularly, but usually not by this much. If you've been thinking about picking one up, now may be a good time. Its list price has been reduced from $179 to $99.99 for a limited time. See the deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sync and charge iOS & Android devices with this generous 6-foot lightning/micro USB combo cable, available right now as a 3-pack, discounted to $9.99. Features a durable stainless steel connector, and a tangle-free nylon braided cord. The company offers a 12-month warranty against any issues with quality, as well. See this 3-pack deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Engineers at Google have developed a new algorithm to speed up TCP, the main transport protocol for traffic on the internet, by optimizing the speed at which traffic is sent so it doesn’t clog up the available routes. They say their acceleration method, called bottleneck bandwidth and roundtrip (BBR) propagation time, measures the fastest way to send data across different routes and is able to more efficiently handle traffic when data routes become congested. Google is already using BBR to speed up its YouTube traffic, and last month the company made BBR available in its Google Cloud Platform. Google says implementing BBR sped up the already highly-optimized YouTube traffic by 4% on average, and as much as 14% in some countries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Software defined WANs (SD-WANs) have gained market momentum so quickly because their value proposition is multi-faceted. Some enterprises have looked to SD-WAN as a way to dramatically lower network transport costs, while others are building SD-WANs to automate network operations. One of the more common use-cases I have seen is to shift toward an “active-active” architecture.ACTIVE-ACTIVE WAN ARCHITECTUREHistorically, WANs are built on the concept of “active-passive”, where a branch can be connected using two or more links, but only the primary link is active and passing traffic. In this scenario, the backup connection only becomes active in the event the primary connection fails. While this might seem sensible, it’s highly inefficient as enterprises are paying for far more bandwidth than they are actually leveraging. This inefficient architectural design is driving increased interest in active-active configurations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft pulled off a big get with its acquisition of Cycle Computing, the developer of a suite of high-performance computing (HPC) services called CycleCloud for cloud orchestration, provisioning and data management in the cloud.You may not know its name but Cycle Computing is actually a major player. In 2012, it helped Amazon create the first massive cloud-based supercomputer, spanning 51,000 cores. For just one hour of run time, the bill was $5,000.+ Also on Network World: Azure Stack: Microsoft’s private-cloud platform and what IT pros need to know about it +
In 2013, Cycle Computing hit its biggest cloud run, creating a cluster of 156,314 cores with a theoretical peak speed of 1.21 petaflops that ran for 18 hours and spanned Amazon data centers around the world. The bill for that monstrosity was $33,000. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
SoundCore 2 From Anker produces outstanding audio from an astonishingly compact speaker. Upgraded 2x 6W drivers blast out rich, clear sound. IPX5 water-resistant rating and dustproof engineering mean you can bring your beats anywhere - from the garden, to the beach. Upgraded materials provide smooth touch, and better grip. Listen for up to 66ft with latest Bluetooth 4.2 technology, while an in-built microphone makes hands-free calling a breeze. If you find yourself without BlueTooth, an aux port allows you to plug in and play. And a 24-hour / 500-song playtime means you can listen all day. The SoundCore 2 from Anker's typical list price has been reduced 63% to just $33.59. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As a free and open internet continues to come under assault by the FCC’s proposal to effectively end net neutrality, investors, programmers, and internet-users of all stripes have vociferously voiced their support of the Internet of Things and the open web that enables it. It appears those voices have been heard, as the US Senate may be taking steps to secure the Internet of Things’ future.So what exactly is the senate up to, and how might its actions impact the health of the Internet of Things? What are the specifics of the bill in question, and how might its text impact American’s everyday lives as they make use of the IoT?A hopeful bill
A new bipartisan bill published Tuesday by Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Cory Gardner, the Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017, hopes to beef up America’s internet security. The bill highlights the enormous complexity of the IoT and the huge benefits it provides to the American economy, but also notes the fragility and vulnerability of the system to outside attacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As a free and open internet continues to come under assault by the FCC’s proposal to effectively end net neutrality, investors, programmers, and internet users of all stripes have vociferously voiced their support of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the open web that enables it. It appears those voices have been heard, as the U.S. Senate may be taking steps to secure the IoT's future.So, what exactly is the U.S. Senate up to, and how might its actions impact the health of the IoT? What are the specifics of the bill in question, and how might its text impact American’s everyday lives as they make use of the IoT?A hopeful IoT security bill
A new bipartisan bill published Tuesday by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), the Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017, hopes to beef up America’s internet security. The bill highlights the enormous complexity of the IoT and the huge benefits it provides to the American economy, but it also notes the fragility and vulnerability of the system to outside attacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The much-beloved Internet of Things has come to fundamentally reshape how firms in virtually every industry operate. Nonetheless, the 21st century phenomenon that’s connected us all has some significant downsides, chief among them its vulnerability to outside attacks.As consumers and producers of IoT gadgets alike are finding their privacy and security increasingly jeopardized, many don’t know where to turn to for advice. By following these three simple tips, you can enhance your IoT security without creating a needless hassle or paying too much.Ensure your gadgets are patchable
A staggeringly large amount of everyday IoT gadgets sold on the market come equipped with pre-prepared passwords which are essentially impossible to change, or, even worse, are just entirely impossible to patch. In the ever-changing digital world of the 21st century, IoT devices need to be patchable so they can be updated to resist the latest trends in malware attacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Once upon a time, in a magic, faraway land called “The 1990s,” every application had its own set of physical servers. Citizens of this land, who sometimes called themselves "developers," feared getting fired for not having enough capacity to handle peak loads. New physical servers took months to be delivered, so developers ordered more data center hardware than they probably needed. Because it was so difficult to get new machines, developers treated them like pets, gave them names and took great care to keep them up and running at all times. Everybody was so excited about the “Internet Bubble” and the land grab that was going on that no one seemed to care about underutilized hardware. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The G105 gaming keyboard from Logitech features dual-level LED backlighting, fully programmable g-keys for single actions and macros, and anti-ghosting capabilities. Program 3 macros per key -- configure up to 18 unique functions per game. Program single keystrokes, complex macros or intricate LUA scripts. Record new macros on the fly while you're in the game. The G105 Logitech gaming keyboard is built for serious gaming and its typical list price of $59.99 has been reduced 60% to $23.99. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
How often do you check temps in your fridge or freezer? With the AcuRite wireless fridge/freezer thermometer you can be sure that your food is being stored at safe temperatures. It displays the refrigerator temperature, freezer temperature and the high / low temperatures recorded for each. An alarm notifies you audibly and visually when temperatures exceed your customizable presets. Especially useful in a power outage, or if you plan to store food in a cooler for an extended period of time. Right now the typical list price on AcuRite's thermometer is discounted 65% to just $13.84. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In any enterprise – large and small – bottom-line ROI is arguably the biggest factor driving business decisions. Whether switching from PCs to Macs, investing in new travel and expense management software or integrating data center solutions, every business unit, from HR to sales and IT, must prove the value that new processes and offerings will have on the enterprises’ bottom line. The problem? Getting buy-in from all business groups, from the C-Suite on down, can be a serious undertaking often halting or ceasing potential implementation. When it comes to the data center, no one knows this better than data center managers who must work tirelessly with C-Suite to showcase the value and benefits of next generations data center software solutions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Buying into IoT comes with a wealth of benefits, but adopting heavy use of the internet of things means more than plugging in devices and waiting for the data to pour in; it means modifying network infrastructure to accommodate them.This is not a trivial consideration. If the network doesn’t adequately support all aspects of IoT, a company may be unable to take advantage of all that data and will fail to realize the return on investment it was hoping for.+Related: Feds consider tougher requirements for IoT security; IoT Security for Health Care is in critical condition; What is IoT?+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It is probably safe to assume that private networking has been an afterthought. In fact, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) document (RFC 1918) that created private network addresses that are “un-routable” was released years after BGP-4 and IPV6 were codified into standards.In order to join private networks to each other, wide area networks (WANs) emerged. Initially, the benefits obtained by WANs were just pure connectivity. Subsequent benefits accrued, including the belief that private networks were secure because addresses of servers and clients in the private address could not be reached from the public network unless a “translation” or rule was established. This, however, may no longer be the case.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is preparing to send a supercomputer to where no supercomputer has gone before — into orbit. HPE and NASA have worked on what HPE calls the Spaceborne Computer for the better part of a year. It uses commercial off-the-shelf computer components, meaning it’s a fairly generic supercomputer. It’s decent — Ars Technica quotes HPE as stating it’s a 1 teraflop computer, but that wouldn’t get it on the Top 500 list by a mile. The Spaceborne Computer is built on HPE's Apollo 40 system, a high-density server racks that houses the compute, storage and networking in one case, much like a hyperconverged system. HPE Apollo is typically used for data analytics and high-performance computing (HPC). To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While the Internet of Things (IoT) has carved out a comfortable place for itself in today’s society and markets, many still fear that the interconnectivity-driven phenomenon is extraordinarily vulnerable to outside attacks. A number of U.S. Senators believe they may have a solution to the problem, and have put forward the Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017.What are the exact details of the text of the bill, and how does it intend to secure one of the most diverse and unregulated assets of the economy? What potential pitfalls stand in the bills way, and how much of a chance does it have of becoming law? An analysis of the IoT Act reveals that it’s a healthy step in the right direction, but it may not be enough.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Artificial intelligence won’t solve every problem, but its current applications are already fundamentally reshaping the way we do business and collect data.