Worldwide spending on edge computing is expected to reach $176 billion in 2022, an increase of 14.8% over last year, according to new figures from analyst IDC.Edge computing started out rather modest in its use cases but has quickly expanded across industries and scope. Five years ago an edge network was a few mid-range servers in a ruggedized container. Now Nvidia and Lenovo are deploying GPU-based AI systems.How to choose an edge gateway “If we have learned anything over the last two years, the ability to quickly adapt to rapidly changing conditions is critical to business success. Organizations investing in edge computing combined with AI and modern application design will have an advantage when it comes to tackling whatever challenge comes next,” according to Dave McCarthy, research vice president for Cloud and Edge Infrastructure Services at IDC.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco is expanding its Catalyst family of switches for enterprises that need to blend industrial and operational technology (OT) systemsThe the ruggedized Catalyst Industrial Ethernet 9300 1RU rack-mountable switch is based on the same programmable Unified Access Data Plane (UADP) ASIC found in other Catalyst 9000 and features 28 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Up to eight of the units can be stacked together and managed as one system.SD-WAN buyers guide: Key questions to ask vendors The 9300 runs the same IOS XE operating system as other Catalyst boxes and can be centrally controlled via DNA Center, Cisco’s principal networking-control platform that features myriad services from analytics, network management, and automation capabilities to assurance setting, fabric provisioning, and policy-based segmentation.To read this article in full, please click here
When it comes to hardcore quantum computing players Cisco might not be the first company you think of, but that could change a lot in 2022 and beyond.For starters, the company is investing in photonics development, which will enable quantum communications as well as other hardware and software technologies for quantum computing, networking, and cryptography. Researchers show quantum computers can reason Developing quantum technologies was also one of the top predictions on the 2022 predictions list of Cisco’s executive vice president, general manager and Chief Strategy Officer Liz Centoni. To read this article in full, please click here
At the end of last year, I heard from a long-time enterprise contact that had a major security concern. The company had installed three layers of security and just completed an audit. It showed that since thIey’d finished their installation they’d had five security incidents, and all of them had originated inside their security perimeter, bypassing most of their protection.Their question was what they did wrong and how they could fix it.What this company experienced is far from rare, and the source of their problems and the paths to correction are far from easy.We tend to think of security as a goal we can achieve with a simple toolkit. Not so. Security is the state you achieve by dealing with all likely threats, and every threat has to be addressed in its own unique way. Problems can come from hackers gaining access to an application or database from the outside, through things like stealing credentials or exploiting weak authentication.To read this article in full, please click here
The look command on Linux can be handy for selecting particular lines from text files with sorted contents. Let's look into how it can be used and where you might run into some problems.Case sensitivity If you type a command such as "look unix", you should see this:$ look unix UNIX Unix unix Notice that, because no file was specified in the command shown, look reverts to using the words file on the system (probably /usr/share/dict/words or whatever that points to). Also notice that it finds the three lines in the file even though the argument for the command has only lowercase characters. The command is case-insensitive when you don't provide a file name and instead allow it to default to the words file.To read this article in full, please click here
Remember when Nvidia was a gaming-card vendor? That doesn’t seem all that long ago but now it’s a full-blown enterprise high-performance computing and AI company that happens to sell videogame cards - if you can actually find them.Its latest move is the acquisition of Bright Computing, a maker of Bright Cluster Manager software that controls the configuration of clustered HPC systems, including Nvidia’s own DGX servers and HGX systems made by OEMs and ODMs, plus clusters from other manufacturers. The clusters of servers are linked by high-speed networks into a single unit.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] If the deal goes through, Bright Cluster Manager will become a part of Nvidia’s Enterprise Products Group. Nvidia has no intention of keeping Bright Cluster Manager for itself, and by being a part of the Nvidia channel, it gives Bright an opportunity to expand and grow its market.To read this article in full, please click here
Recent wrangling over 5G and Wi-Fi wireless spectrum indiates the breakneck pace of new bandwidths being opoened up to broadband use will continue.The underlying issues are whether newly alloted 5G bandwidth will interfere with airplane safety and whether new unlicensed spectrum will interfere with the backhaul of communications from cell towers.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Airlines vs. telecoms The FAA’s well-publicized worries over 5G deployments in the recently auctioned C-band frequencies center on the potential of those 5G services to interfere with radio altimeter equipment in older aircraft. A radio altimeter is an avionics device that measures the distance between the bottom of an airplane and the ground directly, using radio waves, rather than measuring the surrounding air density like barometric altimeters do. It’s a key technology for bad-weather and low-visibility landings, and the possibility of any interference with those systems is worrisome from a safety perspective.To read this article in full, please click here
The Internet of Things has been a hyped technology for years, but the pandemic and its associated tidal wave of remote work pushed its actual use in the enterprise into overdrive. What’s more, IoT is maturing as vendors begin to sell fully functioning applications, not just the components needed for businesses to build their own.The pandemic has already driven sharp growth in the types of technologies for which the IoT is already well-known including predictive maintenance in industry and automation at ports and other transportation facilities. In those areas IoT limits the amount of time workers spend on-site because remotely monitored systems don’t need to be maintained in-person nearly as often as they might otherwise. Some functions, including certain types of inspection and servicing, can be handled fully remotely, further reducing the amount of time workers have to spend on-site and in close proximity to one another.To read this article in full, please click here
The latest 5G technical specifications from an overarching standards organization sets a roadmap for development that addresses streamlined IoT support, AI/machine learning, and more efficient use of wireless spectrum.The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a group of seven organizations developing telecom standards, has issued Release 18 of the specs on both 5G systems architecture and radio access networks.“This is deciding on which project the 3GPP ecosystem is going to work on, and how far the scope of each project needs to go,” said Qualcomm senior director of technical marketing Danny Tseng. Qualcomm is a member of 3GPP and an important contributor to 5G development.To read this article in full, please click here
French IT giant Schneider Electric has published a five-part framework meant to serve as a guide to minimizing the environmental impact of data center operations.Schneider is billing the framework as an industry first, but the company does specialize in power systems management so it’s not all self-congratulations. The framework is designed to help operators make their sites more environmentally friendly regardless of how far along they are in sustainability efforts.Data center power consumption is on pretty much everyone’s radar to varying degrees. Researchers have estimated that data centers worldwide account for between 1% and 2% of all power consumption. For hyperscalers like Google and Facebook, as well as for enterprises, power savings is equal parts benefit to the bottom line and being good corporate stewards.To read this article in full, please click here
Iron Mountain has been around for 60 years, and it's well known for providing storage and information management services that protect critical business assets and highly sensitive data. But it's probably is not the first name that comes to mind when you think of IT hardware. That’s not for lack of trying. Since 2017, Iron Mountain has invested more than $2 billion in building and buying data centers. It has a total of 18 around the world, and those data centers are powered by 100% renewable energy.Now it’s making inroads into the broader data-center supply chain with the acquisition of ITRenew, which specializes in IT asset disposal. With ITRenew, Iron Mountain sees opportunities to enhance the value of its environmental, social and governance offerings.To read this article in full, please click here
Windows Server 2022 was released this summer ready to take on production workloads with a host of new features. What’s hot in the latest edition of Windows Server? Let’s take a look.New network protocols It’s no surprise that a major focus for Microsoft in Windows Server is performance. Most people using Windows Server are using it to host critical business services and applications that directly support either employees or customers. In either case time is money, and the platform your critical systems run on needs to be both stable and efficient.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Microsoft has included some notable networking improvements to Windows Server 2022. For starters, the Quick UDP Internet Connection (QUIC) protocol developed by Google has been added and enhances UDP connections in a number of ways including encryption, reduced latency, connection reuse, version control, and extension frames. UDP also gets some love in the form of UDP Segmentation Offload (USO) and UDP Receive Side Coalescing (UDP RSC), each of which moves a lot of the work to assemble UDP packets off CPUs and onto network adapters that support the protocols.To read this article in full, please click here
Messaging services vendor Interop Technologies runs three data centers to provide services to customers and to run its own back-office systems. Interop also provides turnkey hardware/software solutions that run at customer sites. Pandemic-related hardware shortages, particularly those of servers and storage, have put a severe crimp in the way it does business."When you go to procurement, you get so much push-back," said Joshua Collazo, the company's director of infrastructure. "This is back ordered, that is back ordered."Before the pandemic, the company was able to jump on opportunities quickly. "That's gone away," he said. "Ad-hoc has gone the way of the dodo for us."To read this article in full, please click here
The timedatectl command allows you to both query and change the system clock and its settings on Linux systems.To display the current settings, use the command by itself—with no arguments. You should see something like this:[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] $ timedatectl Local time: Thu 2021-12-16 11:12:31 EST Universal time: Thu 2021-12-16 16:12:31 UTC RTC time: Thu 2021-12-16 16:12:31 <; real time clock Time zone: America/New_York (EST, -0500) System clock synchronized: yes NTP service: active RTC in local TZ: no The fields shown include the local time, universal time (the same around the globe), RTC (the real-time clock, usually an integrated circuit), and the time zone (America/New York” is the Eastern time zone). NTP is network time protocol for clock synchronization between computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks. In this case, the RTC it is not set to the local time zone.To read this article in full, please click here
As employees return to the office, IT teams can apply the lessons they learned supporting remote workers to transform their networks.Technologies such as SD-WAN and secure-access service edge (SASE) could continue to be useful. Network-as-a-service, (NaaS), is still in its early stages but could provide agility when it comes to acquiring network equipment. But, as the chip shortage and broader supply-chain issues continue to plague the tech industry, IT must be prepared to make compromises and prioritize needs in order to complete essential network projects.Brandon Butler, a research manager at IDC covering enterprise networking, joins Juliet to discuss what enterprise networking trends he predicts to see in 2022.To read this article in full, please click here
Data-center giant Equinix has expanded its bare-metal services to offer CPU, GPU, and AI processors on its Equinix Metal service offering.The service now includes AMD’s Milan generation of Epyc processors, Ampere’s Arm-based Altra, and Intel’s Ice Lake generation of Xeon processors.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] In November, Nvidia and Equinix announced an expanded collaboration to bring Nvidia’s LaunchPad AI platform, which includes instant, short-term access to AI infrastructure, to nine Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers globally. Enterprise accounts can test AI apps on LaunchPad, then deploy and scale on Equinix Metal or Nvidia DGX Foundry, which are also running at Equinix. To read this article in full, please click here
“Why should an I&O leader care about diversity and inclusion? Why do you need to be involved in this at all? What good will it do you?"The answer to her questions, Debra Logan, a vice president and Gartner fellow told a virtual conference this week, is about building better infrastructure and operations (I&O) teams.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] "I’m not asking you to have faith," she said. "I’m not asking you to do it for non-business reasons. I’m not asking you to do it because someone else told you, or because you feel it’s the right thing to do. I want you to do it because it will solve the problems that keep you up at night.”To read this article in full, please click here
While cloud companies such as AWS are offering enterprise customers new ways to get applications off the mainframe and into the cloud, IBM moved this week to keep them on the Big Iron.IBM rolled out a portal it calls the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Center which offers an assortment of tools, training, resources and ecosystem partners to help IBM Z clients accelerate the modernization of mainframe applications, data and processes to work with hybrid-cloud architecturesHow to build a hybrid-cloud strategy “The rise of hyperscalers has led many organizations to consider an application migration approach to public cloud alone, but in many cases it can be a one-way street and lock-in to one public cloud, which may have implications on cost, governance and security," wrote Ross Mauri General Manager for IBM Z in a blog about the announcement. “The IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Center helps clients leverage existing investments, rather than committing to a costly one-size-fits-all migration strategy.”To read this article in full, please click here
Five years ago, AMD was hanging on by a thread. Sales had dropped below $1 billion per quarter. Its client and server CPUs were no longer competitive with Intel’s. Its Opteron server-CPU market share was less than one percent. Its GPU products were a little better but Nvidia had the mindshare.Then two things happened: Dr. Lisa Su ascended to the CEO position, and it developed the Zen microarchitecture, a clean-sheet, from-scratch redesign of the x86 architecture.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] The result? Epyc server processors now account for somewhere between 10% market share, as per Mercury Research, and 16%, as per Omdia. The AMD Ryzen desktop processor is the CPU of choice for gamers. And in Q3 of 2021, AMD reported sales of $4 billion, more in one quarter than AMD did in all of fiscal 2015 ($3.9 billion).To read this article in full, please click here
Five years ago, AMD was hanging on by a thread. Sales had dropped below $1 billion per quarter. Its client and server CPUs were no longer competitive with Intel’s. Its Opteron server-CPU market share was less than one percent. Its GPU products were a little better but Nvidia had the mindshare.Then two things happened: Dr. Lisa Su ascended to the CEO position, and it developed the Zen microarchitecture, a clean-sheet, from-scratch redesign of the x86 architecture.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] The result? Epyc server processors now account for somewhere between 10% market share, as per Mercury Research, and 16%, as per Omdia. The AMD Ryzen desktop processor is the CPU of choice for gamers. And in Q3 of 2021, AMD reported sales of $4 billion, more in one quarter than AMD did in all of fiscal 2015 ($3.9 billion).To read this article in full, please click here