All too often SD-WAN and hybrid WAN are used interchangeably—mistakenly.
SD-WANs extend software-defined networking (SDN) technologies to the WAN. As with SDNs, SD-WANs build an “overlay” or a virtual abstraction of the underlying physical network that can then be reconfigured and optimized for the applications traveling across the overlay. It’s this property that allows SD-WANs to give one application a hub-and-spoke WAN configuration, while another application a meshed WAN configuration each with their own IP addressing spaces, traffic policies and more.
Hybrid WANs combine a mix of data services to interconnect geographically dispersed locations. A network that combines MPLS and carrier Ethernet services is a hybrid WAN, so too is a WAN that combines 4G and MPLS. When you have some sites connected via MPLS and others via IP VPNs, this too was a hybrid WAN. When you have sites connected to an MPLS backbone with a secondary Internet connection, you also have a hybrid WAN.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Many of you are on Wi-Fi, but this is salient to you. Amazon’s enormous sales site is marketing Cat 5 and Cat 6 Ethernet cable with aluminum conductors, as well as “plenum-rated” cable that bears no UL markings and is likely fraudulent. This comes after a run of apparently bogus Apple chargers and cables. Why do you care? Several reasons:
Some of the Ethernet cable sold uses either copper-coated or copper-mixed aluminum. Numerous specs call for the conductors to be solid copper. Why? Copper meets conductivity specs and won’t heat up under load.
Organizations using Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) to power remote Wi-Fi access points (quite common these days) risk having the cable catch fire due to overheating, or just melt and short—especially on long cable runs.
Plenum-rated cables are self-extinguishing. This means if you put a nail through one (we hope accidentally), then a jacket surrounding the cable prevents setting something in the surrounding area on fire.
If you add the two factors together, cable that heats up and jackets that don’t extinguish a possible flame, then the sprinklers turn on. We hope.
Whilst perusing the listings, I came across numerous enticing examples. Why enticing? Because their cost Continue reading
Hasbro is giving Monopoly fans a choice of going old school, very old school or new school in an online vote to determine which tokens will come standard with a new version of the game hitting shelves in August.The Monopoly Token Madness Vote, open through Jan. 31, leaves the fate of old faithfuls like the Scottie dog, thimble and wheelbarrow in the hands of voters, who might be tempted by more than 50 new contenders. Monopoly has been around since 1935 and Hasbro says the game is enjoyed by more than 1 billion players around the world.Hasbro has protected itself from voters getting to, uh, creative, by restricting the token choices to a pre-selected pool of designs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Nyotron today launched its cybersecurity product in the U.S. Nothing too exciting about that, but the history of the company’s founder might pique your interest.Nir Gaist is the sort of over-achiever that one either worries hugely about or admires greatly (or probably both in equal measure). Nyotron’s CEO and founder, Gaist started programing at the age of six. (Which leads me to ask, what took him so long?) In 2008, he and his brother Ofer Gaist, now COO, started Nyotron as a penetration testing company. Before founding the company, and as a departure from his buddies who were probably playing Candy Crush or something, Nir hacked an Israeli service provider, which was so impressed with his skills it ended up hiring him. From there, he went on to test telephone systems, online banking protocols, ATMs and more for the largest banks in Israel. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In November of 2015, First National Bank of South Africa received a ransom email from the Armada Collective, which was quickly followed by a teaser flood attack that the bank proactively mitigated. Sort of a shot across the bow to make sure the bank knew the criminals were serious.Bank officials didn’t flinch. According to a verbatim in Radware’s recently released Global Application & Security survey, the bank detected and mitigated the teaser flood attack before officials discovered the email, which had been sent to an unattended mailbox while the company was closed. With a hybrid DDoS mitigation solution in place, the flood attack had no impact and was immediately diverted to a scrubbing center for cleanup.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
One build, almost a whole new OSMicrosoft releases new builds of Windows 10 for its Insider beta testers every so often—some minor, some really significant. You can call Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 15002, released this week, a really big deal.Microsoft’s notes on the new build ran to over a dozen pages, according to the company, and we found over 20 notable new features. (We left out some minor tweaks to keep this list manageable.) Some are cosmetic improvements that enhance the user experience, while others add powerful new features that Windows lacked before.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A non-volatile memory technology based on carbon nanotubes that's poised for commercialization in 2018 is expected to be more disruptive to enterprise storage, servers and consumer electronics than flash memory, according to a new report from BCC Research."It is rare to see a technology catch fire after so long in development, but NRAM appears poised to do just that," said BCC research editorial director Kevin Fitzgerald. "In fact, your next smartphone could be a carbon-based lifeform."The BCC report predicts the overall Nano RAM (NRAM) market will see a compound annual growth rate of 62.5% between 2018 and 2023, with the embedded systems market in which it will be used expected to grow from $4.7 million in 2018 to $217.6 million in 2023. That would represent a combined annual growth rate over those five years of 115.3%.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It is going to cost yaImage by ThinkstockA recent IBM study found that the average cost of a data breach has hit $4 million—up from $3.8 million in 2015. There are countless factors that could affect the cost of a data breach in your organization, and it’s virtually impossible to predict the exact cost. You might be able to estimate a range with the help of a data breach calculator, but no single tool is perfect.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s not an exaggeration to say that your smartphone is the most personal device you have. The fact it’s always with you, however, sure does generate a lot of information about your habits.Your location history, Google searches, web browsing habits, app usage, and even recordings of your voice talking to the Google Assistant.Yes, your phone and the Google services powering it are incredibly useful in many tangible ways. And if you use a strong password and two-factor authentication, your information is likely safer on Google’s servers than just about anywhere else.But it’s not paranoia to take stock from time to time of just how much you’re handing over to Google or if you’d rather not place all your digital privacy eggs in the same basket. Here are some simple tips about how you can stay in control of all that critical information and ensure that privacy isn’t something you have to surrender.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
DARPA is kicking off a project to create a new way to enable U.S. troops working in remote areas around the world to securely send and receive sensitive information on their devices.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research arm of the Department of Defense, said it's working on a project that would use software and networking technology to securely share information on unsecured commercial and military networks.NEWSLETTERS: Get the latest tech news sent directly to your in-box
The agency scheduled a Proposer's Day for Jan. 31 to provide more information on the project.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
President-elect Donald Trump plans to consult "the greatest computer minds” for input on bolstering U.S. hacking defenses, as experts say an overhaul to the country's cybersecurity is badly needed.“We’re going to put those minds together, and we're going to form a defense,” Trump said in a Wednesday press conference.Trump made the statement as he said Russia, China and other parties continue to launch cyber attacks against the U.S. In recent weeks, he’s also been confronting claims that the Kremlin used hacks and online propaganda in a covert campaign to tilt the election in his favor.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The raw intelligence document published this week that contains salacious stories about Donald Trump also offers up a glimpse into how Russia goes about its cyber spying – including the tidbit that it has cracked Telegram’s encrypted instant messaging service.While none of the 35-page document is substantiated, it is detailed, and at least some of it is considered credible enough by U.S. intelligence agencies for them to have briefed Trump and President Barack Obama on it.According to the documents prepared by a former British spy, a “cyber operative” for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) told him that Telegram no longer posed an issue for the government. “His/her understanding was that the FSB now successfully had cracked this communication software and therefore it was no longer secure to use,” the document says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There are many companies vying to build the industrial internet of things, but the systems involved are so complex that those vendors also need to cooperate. A new lab at National Instruments, in Austin, Texas, is bringing some competitors together.The NI Industrial IoT Lab opened on Wednesday and will house testbeds for applications like predictive maintenance, time-synchronized industrial networking and “microgrids” for renewable energy. It will also be a place where companies can show off joint solutions to customers.One of the aims of the lab is to show enterprises that IoT works, said Jamie Smith, director of embedded systems at National Instruments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Step on the Withings Body scale to view full body composition metrics for a holistic picture of your health and fitness. The scale displays your weight, body fat, water percentage, bone and muscle mass. The scale's screen will also display a graph with your last 8 weigh-ins, making it easy to immediately see weight trends. All data syncs to the Withings Health Mate app, automatically. Also features integrated nutrition tracking and ability to pair with over 100 health and fitness apps to help understand how your efforts impact what you see on the scale. Works via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The scale can automatically recognize and record data from up to 8 users, and lasts up to 18 months on a single set of AAA batteries (included). Its typical price of $130 has been discounted a generous 41% to $77 on Amazon, where it averages 4 out of 5 stars from over 200 people. See the discounted Withings Body Composition Wi-Fi Scale on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
First, do no harm. This is the underlying message of the Hippocratic Oath historically taken by physicians to show they will abide by an ethical code of conduct. Plumbers, construction workers, law enforcement -- almost any professional whose work impacts the public must abide by some sort of ethical code of conduct.There's one fairly notable exception: technology. While there are organization-- and company-specific codes of conduct -- like these guidelines from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - Computer Science (IEEE-CS) joint task force on software engineering ethics professional practices, there's no one all-encompassing set of standards that includes the entire industry.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The cloud is a big place, and it’s getting bigger as everyone moves more and more computation out of their server rooms into the large datacenters. Amazon is the dominant force in the cloud, but it is far from the only choice. When the market grows this big, niches can develop. DigitalOcean is a company that has found a fertile niche by branding itself as the developer’s choice.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
To Microsoft’s credit, Windows 10 is more stable than previous versions of Windows. As with any operating system, however, things can still go wrong. Fortunately, Microsoft offers several tools that can be used to correct the most common problems: Some are built right into Windows 10, and others you download from the Microsoft site. Here’s a walk-thru explaining when you might need each tool, and how to use it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft on Tuesday promised that it will dial back diagnostic data collection from Windows 10 devices when users select the "Basic" setting for the controversial harvesting."We've further reduced the data collected at the Basic level," said Terry Myerson, Microsoft's top Windows executive, in a post to a company blog. Myerson did not elaborate on what was to be struck from Basic, the lowest level of diagnostic data collection offered to those running Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro.[To comment on this story, please visit Computerworld's Facebook page.]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Keurig K475 brews a rich, smooth, and delicious cup every time with the quality you expect from Keurig. With a strength control setting for a bolder brew, five temperature settings, and multiple K-Cup, K-Mug, and K-Carafe pod brew sizes, you can customize your settings to get your perfect cup. The Keurig K475 is currently listed at just $93.49, it best price to date, and you'll only get this price when you add it to your cart. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Imagine you are the receptionist at the front desk of a bank around Valentine’s Day. There are countless bouquets of flowers and boxes of chocolate being dropped off for delivery to employees. You just set them aside and alert the employee upon arrival.He said organizations that have been targeted by well-funded Nation States never stand much of a chance. “Knowing your most likely adversaries is very important and designing a penetration test to simulate the majority of your adversaries would be key to a successful comparison.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)