The pace of private 5G/LTE growth in the enterprise is likely to drop substantially below earlier estimates, thanks to Covid's aftereffects and slack growth in the development of 5G-equipped endpoints, according to a report issued today by IDC.A December 2020 forecast predicted the size of the annual market for private LTE/5G wireless infrastructure to reach roughly $4.7 billion in 2023, but that figure has been revised downward to about $3.8 billion in the new report. That's still a sharp increase from 2021's $1.8 billion figure, but a substantial change, nonetheless.To read this article in full, please click here
If Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) didn’t exist, network administrators would have to manually parcel out IP addresses from the available pool, which would be prohibitively time consuming, inefficient, and error prone. Fortunately, DHCP does exist.What is DHCP and how does it work? DHCP is an under-the-covers mechanism that automates the assignment of IP addresses to fixed and mobile hosts that are connected wired or wirelessly.When a device wants access to a network that’s using DHCP, it sends a request for an IP address that is picked up by a DHCP server. The server responds be delivering an IP address to the device, then monitors the use of the address and takes it back after a specified time or when the device shuts down. The IP address is then returned to the pool of addresses managed by the DHCP server to be reassigned to another device as it seeks access to the network.To read this article in full, please click here
If you’re looking to add more certifications to your resume, don’t forget about wireless! Whether you’re just starting your IT career, have been in IT before Wi-Fi was a thing, or even if you have a non-IT position, there are certifications to help prove your wireless knowledge and skills.For starters, there are vendor-neutral certifications from Certified Wireless Network Professionals (CWNP), one of most popular programs in the wireless world. These are great if you aren’t already loyal to a networking brand. And even if you already have a favorite brand, these go deeper into the 802.11 standards and radio frequency (RF) technology without all the proprietary details and brand specifics.To read this article in full, please click here
If you’re looking to add more certifications to your resume, don’t forget about wireless! Whether you’re just starting your IT career, have been in IT before Wi-Fi was a thing, or even if you have a non-IT position, there are certifications to help prove your wireless knowledge and skills.For starters, there are vendor-neutral certifications from Certified Wireless Network Professionals (CWNP), one of most popular programs in the wireless world. These are great if you aren’t already loyal to a networking brand. And even if you already have a favorite brand, these go deeper into the 802.11 standards and radio frequency (RF) technology without all the proprietary details and brand specifics.To read this article in full, please click here
Supply chain problems for Wi-Fi 6E access points are so bad that enterprises are skipping that version of wireless technology and waiting until Wi-Fi 7 equipment starts to ship late next year, says market researcher Dell'Oro Group.Wi-Fi 6E builds on Wi-Fi 6 by adding the the 6GHz band (5.925 GHz to 7.125 GHz), where, currently, there is a lot less traffic and much lower latency than in 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands that Wi-Fi 6. That extra bandwidth makes 6E a logical choice for latency-sensitive applications.But you can’t use something if you can’t buy it, and Dell'Oro says that based on its discussions with enterprises, 6E products are in very limited supply or unavailable.To read this article in full, please click here
While the physical war in Ukraine is already a humanitarian disaster, the virtual war over the internet and the tech companies that run it and use it will likely get a lot worse.That’s because for the most part the actual internet network has withstood the onslaught since Russia invaded Ukraine. There have been outages and extreme slowness in parts of the country and malware or other threats have proliferated but in general—to the surprise of many—the network has been pretty resiliant considering the extreme circumstances, experts say.To read this article in full, please click here
The National Security Agency this week issued detailed recommendations for businesses trying to secure their networking infrastructure against attacks, giving safe configuration tips for commonly used networking protocols and urging the use of basic security measures for all networks.The NSA's report began by highlighting the importance of zero trust principles for network security, but the bulk of it covers specific steps network administrators should take to keep their infrastructure safe from compromise. Configuration tips for network admins include the use of secure, frequently changed passwords for all administrative accounts, limiting login attempts and keeping potentially vulnerable systems patched and up-to-date. The report also describes safe configurations for SSH (secure shell), HTTP and SNMP (simple network management protocol).To read this article in full, please click here
The National Security Agency this week detailed recommendations for businesses to secure their network infrastructure against attacks, giving safe configuration tips for commonly used networking protocols and urging the use of basic security measures for all networks.The NSA's report highlighted the importance of zero trust principles for network security, but the bulk of it covers specific steps network administrators should take to keep their infrastructure safe from compromise. Configuration tips for network admins include the use of secure, frequently changed passwords for all administrative accounts, limiting login attempts, and keeping potentially vulnerable systems patched and up-to-date. The report also describes safe configurations for SSH (secure shell), HTTP and SNMP (simple network management protocol).To read this article in full, please click here
By: Dolan Sullivan, Vice President of Federal at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.With sophisticated cyberattacks, such as ransomware and denial of service (DOS) persistently aimed at the public and private sectors being perpetrated by nation-state and rogue criminal actors, Federal IT teams are consistently dealing with a growing cybersecurity challenge: They must combat many forms of fraud and impersonation while protecting a vast amount of connected assets and sensitive data.Federal government agencies are increasingly impacted by contemporary digital trends, namely mobility and the decentralization of assets. This includes adopting multi-cloud services to support and secure business applications while using an appropriate mix of traditional on-premises compute and communication resources.To read this article in full, please click here
Domain name system (DNS) attacks, in which bad actors take advantage of vulnerabilities in the DNS Internet protocol, are extremely prolific—and costly.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
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.As wireless standards evolved from 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) to 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), new features were added to MU-MIMO as well to improve speeds and efficiency, specifically in the number of streams it can support, as well as bidirectional functionality (uplink and downlink).How to buy Wi-Fi 6 access points What is MU-MIMO? MU-MIMO stands for multi-user, multiple input, multiple output, and represents a significant advance over single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO), which is generally referred to as MIMO. MIMO technology was created to help increase the number of simultaneous users a single access point can support. This was initially achieved by increasing the number of antennas on a wireless router.To read this article in full, please click here
How bad is the chip supply shortage? Gartner reports that clients are complaining about lead times as long as 400 days to get networking equipment, plus pricing increases and missed ship dates.“We expect lead times to remain high through early 2023, at which point we expect slow incremental improvement over the course of months,” Gartner wrote in a report titled, "What Are My Options for Dealing With Long Lead Times on Network Equipment?" Read more: Chip shortage has networking vendors scramblingTo read this article in full, please click here
Being able to quickly identify what software is installed on your servers has value for a host of reasons. Managing software licensing costs and entitlements, planning upgrade budgets, identifying candidates for server consolidation, or even responding to security incidents are all common reasons for performing a software inventory.There are of course enterprise tools for tracking software inventory. But these tools can be expensive and complex, or could have access limited to specific groups or individuals in your organization. Fortunately PowerShell can help with some of the leg work in analyzing the software on your systems in order to help drive your planning and incident response.To read this article in full, please click here
The FCC is launching an inquiry into security issues surrounding the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), a widely used standard used to manage interconnectivity between large portions of the Internet.The move, announced Monday, was issued in response to "Russia's escalating actions inside of Ukraine," according to the commission's notice of inquiry.BGP is, in essence, a method of ensuring that independently managed networks that make up the global internet are able to communicate with one another. Its initial design, which the FCC said is still in widespread use today, does not contain important security features, meaning that, simply by misconfiguring its own BGP information, a bad actor could potentially redirect Internet traffic wherever it sees fit. This could let that attacker send incorrect information to its targets, read and compromise login credentials, or simply shut down whichever kinds of traffic it wishes.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco will use system integrators, service providers, and channel partners to deliver its subscription-based private-5G managed service supported by its hardware and software, the company announced at Mobile World Congress (MWC).Those partners include JMA, Airspan, Dish Networks, and Logicalis to support the cloud-based service that will integrate with Wi-Fi networks, reduce up-front costs, and provide deployment when and where needed, Cisco says.Cisco will provide its mobile-core technology and IoT portfolio such as Cisco IoT Control Center and Cisco P5G Packet Core as well as IoT sensors and gateways. It will provide device-management software, and monitoring tools via a single portal, the comapy says.To read this article in full, please click here
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced Tuesday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the US government agency will auction off spectrum in the 2.5GHz band in July for use in 5G networks, paving the way for telecom companies to further expand their midband holdings.The 2.5GHz auction represents the pending sale of what Rosenworcel called “the biggest swath of contiguous midband spectrum we have available below 3GHz,” and will be followed by a further auction of midband spectrum in the 3.1GHz-3.45GHz range.The FCC has had plans for this auction in the works for more than a year, having first sought public comment in January of 2021. The auction will cover roughly 200MHz of spectrum, and will be sold on a per-county basis, according to the earlier request for comment.To read this article in full, please click here
Everyone in tech likely thinks they know what “cloud computing” and “networking” mean, but they’re probably wrong, and their misconceptions about the first topic color their view of the second. Yes, the cloud is dominating computing, but most stuff isn’t “moving to the cloud”. This subtle point is already changing how we think about networking.I’ve worked with the cloud from the first, and while there was a bit of “move this to the cloud” going on for server consolidation reasons, the overwhelming majority of stuff enterprises run in the cloud today isn’t an entire application at all. It’s the presentation layer of legacy data-center apps.Corporate transaction processing, data storage and retrieval, and analytics are all things that demand security and reliability. From the first, enterprise executives have been telling me that these activities aren’t going to move to the cloud because they believe that their requirements can’t be met, and the cost would be greater rather than lower. My work with them proves out that view. Despite all the hype about the economy of scale of the cloud providers, the fact is that most enterprises achieve economies close enough to those of the cloud that the difference wouldn’t Continue reading
In order to back up a database, you need to know how it’s delivered, but you also need to know which of the more than 13 types of database designs it employs. Here we’ll cover four of them—relational, key-value, document, and wide column—that generate a lot of backup questions.Understanding these models will help the backup team create a relationship and trust level with the database admins, and that will help both parties.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Four database types Relational A relational-database management system (RDBMS) is a series of tables with a defined schema, or layout, with records in rows of one or more attributes, or values. There are relationships between the tables, which is why it is called a relational database, and why backups generally have to back up and restore everything. Examples of RDMBSs include Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, and PostgreSQLTo read this article in full, please click here
At this year's Intel's investors' day meeting with Wall Street analysts, CEO Pat Gelsinger revealed new road maps for Xeon CPUs and Xe GPUs that you would typically expect to see reveals at an IDF show that stretches through 2024.Most notable about the Xeon news is that for the first time, Intel is bifurcating the processor line into two microarchitecture types. The two types are a continuation of the current design, and a whole new architecture based on the Alder Lake hybrid architecture currently used in client CPUs.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Adler Lake uses a different core design than traditional Intel CPUs have used. Up to now, Intel cores have all been the same, identical. But Adler Lake uses two types of cores; the performance core used to do the computing, and the efficient core, used to do small background tests that don’t require a high-performance core. This is hardly an original design; Arm has been doing for years.To read this article in full, please click here
In order to back up a database, you need to know how it’s delivered, but you also need to know which of the more than 13 types of database designs it employs. Here we’ll cover four of them—relational, key-value, document, and wide column—that generate a lot of backup questions.Understanding these models will help the backup team create a relationship and trust level with the database admins, and that will help both parties.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Four database types Relational A relational-database management system (RDBMS) is a series of tables with a defined schema, or layout, with records in rows of one or more attributes, or values. There are relationships between the tables, which is why it is called a relational database, and why backups generally have to back up and restore everything. Examples of RDMBSs include Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, and PostgreSQLTo read this article in full, please click here