Zero trust (ZT) is a mindset and a method, not a technology. The current push to adopt ZT is driven by an urgent and growing need to make a major leap forward in risk management and attack containment in enterprise networks, a need driven home by every successive wave of ransomware. IT can use the urgency of moving to ZT to root out some of the technical debt in the environment. Specifically, it can be a catalyst to find areas exempted from network and network security standards and bring them up to date under the new paradigm of zero trust.No more exempting network components from access-control roles
In a ZT environment, the network not only doesn’t trust a node new to it, but it also doesn’t trust nodes that are already communicating across it. When a node is first seen by a ZT network, the network will require that the node go through some form of authentication and authorization check. Does it have a valid certificate to prove its identity? Is it allowed to be connected where it is based on that identity? Is it running valid software versions, defensive tools, etc.? It must clear that hurdle before being Continue reading
At its GPU technology conference (GTC) last year, Nvidia announced it would come out with its own server chip called Grace based on the Arm Neoverse v9 server architecture. At the time, details were scant, but this week Nvidia revealed the details, and they are remarkable.With Grace, customers have two options, both dubbed superchips by Nvidia. The first is the Grace Hopper Superchip that was formally introduced last year, but only broadly described. It consists of a 72-core CPU, and a Hopper H100 GPU tightly connected by Nvidia’s new high-speed NVLink-C2C chip-to-chip interconnect, which has 900GB/s of transfer speed.To read this article in full, please click here
Nvidia is known for its GPUs, but has introduced Spectrum-4, a combination of networking technologies that reinforces its commitment not only to graphics processors, but also to systems designed to handle the demanding network workloads of AI and high-performance computing.The latest Nvidia Spectrum products rely on the new Spectrum-4 Ethernet-switch ASIC that boasts 51.2 Tb/s switching and routing capacity. The chip underpins the latest members of the company’s Spectrum switches, which are available later this year. The switches are part of a larger Spectrum-4 platform that integrates Nvidia’s ConnectX-7 smartNIC, its new BlueField-3 DPU, and its DOCA software-development platform.To read this article in full, please click here
A recent study by the UK-based price comparison site Uswitch has found that Chile boasts the fastest average broadband internet connection across the 37 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), followed by Denmark and the United States.At 189.36Mbps, the average Chilean broadband connection can download a 1,500MB movie in just over a minute – that’s about 100Mbps faster than the average connection across the OECD, and seven times faster than the slowest country, which was Turkey, clocking in at 26.34Mbps.The second- and third-slowest average broadband connections belonged to Greece and Mexico, at 33.41Mbps and 38.77Mbps, respectively. Denmark’s 163.60Mbps and the United States’ 143.76Mbps were good for second and third places at the top end, as mentioned.To read this article in full, please click here
IBM is launching a new service to help customers manage their data encryption keys in a hybrid cloud environment. Unified Key Orchestrator lets customers integrate all security key-management systems into one managed service that's backed by Big Blue’s Hardware Security Module. HSM is IBM’s system that protects against physical or logical attacks and has special hardware to perform cryptographic operations and protect keys.Gartner: IT skills shortage hobbles cloud, edge, automation growth
Available from IBM Cloud, Unified Key Orchestrator lets customers maintain visibility and control over who has access to their critical data, while running workloads across hybrid or multicloud cloud environments. In addition, with a single, secure, cloud-based view of an organization’s crypto keys, enterprises can create and revoke keys for their data across multiple clouds. At the same time, companies no longer need to rely on security experts with specialized knowledge of each individual cloud to handle security operations, according to IBM.To read this article in full, please click here
HPE is significantly expanding its GreenLake cloud services platform with 12 new packages that focus on strengthening and simplifying networking, high-performance computing (HPC) and storage environments.The goal of GreenLake and these new offerings is to offer customers greater flexibility in the way they build and manage their infrastructure, whether it's on premises, at the edge, in a colocation facility, or in a public cloud, according to Alan Ni, HPE Aruba senior director of edge marketing.To read this article in full, please click here
While the rest of the computing industry struggles to get to one exaflop of computing, Nvidia is about to blow past everyone with an 18-exaflop supercomputer powered by a new GPU architecture.The H100 GPU, has 80 billion transistors (the previous generation, Ampere, had 54 billion) with nearly 5TB/s of external connectivity and support for PCIe Gen5, as well as High Bandwidth Memory 3 (HBM3), enabling 3TB/s of memory bandwidth, the company says. Due out in the third quarter, it’s the first in a new family of GPUs named Hopper after Admiral Grace Hopper who created COBOL and coined the term computer bug.To read this article in full, please click here
Shared object files streamline programs by providing information applications need to do their jobs, but that don't have to be part of the application itself. To find out which of these files a Linux command calls on, use the ldd command.What is a shared object file?
Shared object files (designated as .so) are libraries that are automatically linked into a program when the program starts, yet exist as a standalone files. They contain information that can be used by one or more programs to offload resources so that any program calling a .so file doesn't itself have to actually provide all the needed tools. These files can be linked to any program and be loaded anywhere in memory.To read this article in full, please click here
Software skills are becoming increasingly desirable for network engineers and architects, and the uptick in Cisco’s DevNet certification program reflects the trend. According to Cisco, there’s been more than 50% growth in the number of DevNet certifications awarded in the past year.Cisco says it no longer gives out specific numbers, but in 2020, nearly 8,000 participants earned some 10,500 DevNet certifications, including DevNet Associate, DevNet Professional and DevNet Specialist. These DevNet certifications focus on coding, automation, network access, IP connectivity, security and application development on Cisco platforms, as well as what developers need to know about network doctrines.To read this article in full, please click here
When you think about the metaverse and the enterprise, do you think about millions of workers buzzing about in a virtual world to do their work? Maybe employees picking Star Wars characters as avatars and fighting with light sabers? CEOs likely blanch at that image; to most, virtual workers implies virtual work, and it’s hard to say how that generates real sales and products. Fortunately, there’s an alternative that depends not on enterprises using the metaverse but on riding its coattails.If you ask enterprises what they think about the next frontier in cloud computing is, the responses are mixed between “the edge” and “IoT”, and of course the latter is really an example of an edge application. Well that frontier may be delayed because service providers would have to make a significant investment in infrastructure just to create an edge/IoT option for enterprises, and most enterprises aren’t willing to start planning for that next frontier until services are available. With buyers waiting for services and sellers wanting proven demand, we could be in for an era of false starts, edge-wise.To read this article in full, please click here
AMD is adding four new processor SKUs to its EPYC (formerly codenamed Milan-X) lineup of high-end chips, building additional L3 cache capability onto the existing EPYC series.The key new feature of the new 7773X, 7573X, 7473X, and 7373X chips, which were initially announced in a roadmap made public late last year, is in their physical construction — AMD refers to the new technique as 3D V-Cache. Where most processors are constructed with a single piece of silicon inside, the new AMD chips mount a second microprocessor die atop the first one, which allows for a larger L3 cache.IDC's research vice president for computing semiconductors, Shane Rau, said that this is an important feature for the very high-end applications that AMD is targeting with the EPYC series, which AMD groups under the rubric of "technical computing" — highly demanding enterprise workloads like modeling and visualization, as well as academic and scientific applications.To read this article in full, please click here
This year, server vendors will begin shifting to a new form of memory, Double Data Rate version 5, or DDR5 for short. With its improved performance, it will be very appealing in certain use cases, like virtualization and artificial intelligence. We’ll get to that in a minute.The DDR spec has been developed by the Joint Electronic Device Engineering Council since 2001, and with each iteration the spec supports faster speed and lower power draw. This holds true for DDR5.
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Did you ever order something online from a distant retailer and then track the package as it makes strange and seemingly illogical stops all over the country?That’s similar to the way IP routing on the Internet works. When an internet router receives an IP packet, that packet carries no information beyond a destination IP address. There is no instruction on how that packet should get to its destination or how it should be treated along the way.Each router has to make an independent forwarding decision for each packet based solely on the packet’s network-layer header. Thus, every time a packet arrives at a router, the router has to “think through” where to send the packet next. The router does this by referring to complex routing tables.To read this article in full, please click here
For the first time, 5G-capable smartphones outsold 4G/LTE devices in global monthly sales in January 2022, as demand for 5G upgrades reached its highest point yet, according to a report issued by Counterpoint Research.The upward trend of 5G smartphone sales has been accelerating for some time, and Counterpoint's report said that Western Europe and North America's proportion of 5G sales has reached 76% and 73%, respectively.According to Gartner director analyst Bill Menezes, recent gains in 5G smartphone sales have been fueled in large part by device upgrade cycles."You're starting to get 5G phones sold by default, as people upgrade on a two- or three-year cycle," he said. "From what I've seen on some of the carrier sites, there's some midrange or cheaply priced 5G phones out there, so even users who don't want to pay $1,000 for a 5G phone can get one."To read this article in full, please click here
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has committed to invest £1.8 billion (US$2.4 billion) in the UK over the next two years as it looks to expand its presence in the region.The investment hinges on a commitment to spend “more than £1.8 billion in the next two years building and operating data centres in the UK in order to meet the growing needs of our customers and to help strengthen the UK’s digital infrastructure,” the cloud vendor announced.AWS has had a presence in the UK since it launched a London region in December 2016, which now extends to three availability zones and various edge locations.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco and NetApp have upgraded their converged-infrastructure platform, FlexPod, to handle hybrid-cloud services.FlexPod--which Cisco and NetApp have been building since 2010 and has some 10,000 customers the vendors say--includes integrated Cisco UCS servers and networking gear and NetApp ONTAP storage components sold as an on-premises or edge converged-infrastructure package.How to build a hybrid-cloud strategy
Customers are now in the midst of a major shift to modernize and unify their infrastructure and operations, Siva Sivakumar senior director for Computing System Platforms Group at Cisco said in a blog about the enhancements. “Customers are evaluating every tool available to augment their in-house resources and skillsets including automation, observability, and a variety of hybrid-cloud and SaaS services," he wrote. "The goal is simple: Use whatever is available to supercharge IT productivity and agility to drive better operational results while lowering operational costs.”To read this article in full, please click here
Scripting in Linux--putting commands into a file so you can run them as a group—is a lot easier than running them from the command line because you don't have to figure out the process over and over again. Aliases can also be used to repeat commands easily, but are really only used for individual commands that are complex or difficult to remember.As you will see in the examples below, the bash shell provides plenty of commands for testing, looping, creating functions, and annotating your scripts.
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Pluribus Networks has extended its switch-fabric software to server-based data processing units (DPU)—aka smartNICs—that can lighten the workload for server CPUs.Pluribus has ported its Unified Cloud Fabric (previously Adaptive Cloud Fabric) software to the Nvidia BlueField-2 DPU, which offloads software-defined storage, networking, security, and management workloads from traditional servers.To read this article in full, please click here
Juniper Networks has added features to it’s Apstra intent-based networking software it says will help customers secure and support smaller data centers at distributed edge networks. The Apstra software keeps a real-time repository of configuration, telemetry, and validation information to ensure the network is doing what IT teams want it to do.The software includes automation to provide consistent network and security policies for workloads across physical and virtual infrastructures. In addition, its baked-in analytics performs regular network checks to safeguard configurations. To read this article in full, please click here