There was a time when Intel was all-x86, all the time, everywhere.Not anymore.Last week Intel held its annual Architecture Day with previews of multiple major upcoming architectures beyond x86. For once, it’s not hyperbole when they say these are some of the “biggest shifts in a generation.”CEO Gelsinger shakes up Intel
And it’s not just architectures or just more and faster cores, it’s new designs, whole new ways of doing things. Instead of just packing more cores onto a smaller die, Intel is switching to a new hybrid architecture that adds low-energy-draw cores, similar to what some ARM chip makers have been doing for years on mobile devices.To read this article in full, please click here
Network-acceleration processors are becoming as popular as CPUs, and the latest big buy is Marvell Technology acquiring Innovium, a provider of networking solutions for cloud and edge data centers.Marvell already has an extensive portfolio of Ethernet-switching processors, and it recently acquired Inphi, a developer of dedicated high radix, performance-optimized switch silicon to help move vast amounts of data around data centers. Now comes the Innovium purchase.Innovium’s Teralynx switching architecture is said to deliver ultra-low latency, high performance, power-optimized telemetry--critical in cloud-scale data centers. The Teralynx family of switches range from 1T/s to 25.6T/s of programmable switches with support for 10G to 800G while offering lower latency and the largest on-chip buffers, resulting in the best application performance.To read this article in full, please click here
All good things must come to an end, and that includes the 3G network that has been around since the late aughts. Telcos are supporting and building out vastly superior 5G networks, and they don’t want to spend time and money maintaining older technologies that aren’t used much.Removing older 3G towers makes space for 5G equipment and simplifies network management. Plus, some 3G spectrum can be used for 4G data, although 3G can’t be used for 5G, and 4G still has some years left.How to deploy 802.1x for Wi-Fi using WPA3 enterprise
Verizon is cutting off 3G on Dec. 31, 2022; AT&T is turning off its 3G network in February 2022; and T-Mobile has multiple dates in 2022 for the various networks it manages since it is a mix of T-Mobile and Sprint legacy networks as a result of their merger.To read this article in full, please click here
You may know that passwords are hashed on Linux systems, and the hashes are stored in the restricted access /etc/shadow file. But did you know that you can also determine the hash method that was used and report the number of days since a password was last changed from this file as well?To look at a user record in the /etc/shadow file, run a command like this:$ sudo grep nemo /etc/shadow
You should see a line that looks something like this:nemo:$6$FVYIIgcEcObSsUcf$FsSBlV9soVt.Owbd4xnvhlZzjx73ZBQQBT0WMyah6qcdnH91tBf9C4EaYbRtr7jKGETP/TwBNjyrDFqhvK0NV1:18698:7:90:7:::
Viewing and configuring password aging on Linux
In spite of how long that line is, it's quite easy to parse. The first two fields in the lines of this colon-separated file store:To read this article in full, please click here
There's a lot in networking that never measures up to the hype, so maybe it's good that this is balanced sometimes by areas where the hype falls far short of reality. Managed services is one of those things.It always seems to be bubbling just below the surface of attention, and yet it may be the most important topic in networking today. I had a chance to chat with 59 enterprises that were involved with or launching managed-service projects and another 118 who had no current managed-service projects. I'll summarize what I found here.SD-WAN buyers guide: Key questions to ask vendors
All of these enterprises had been aware of managed services for at least 20 years, and all but 31 had considered them at one point or another. Interestingly, 141 of the 177 total enterprises believe that MPLS VPNs are a form of managed service, and when I dug into this, the response was that “managed services” are about reducing the user's management burden. VPNs do that, so they're a sort-of-managed service.To read this article in full, please click here
A private 5G platform designed to offer the latest-generation licensed wireless technology to enterprise users as a service was announced today by Japanese telecom giant NTT.The company said its private 5G-as-a-service platform, which it calls P5G, would use CBRS and other licensed spectrum in the U.S. to provide businesses with their own 5G networks. The company said also that its platform is highly flexible, working with a wide variety of software standards and networking partners to ensure availability around the country.To read this article in full, please click here
Just months after it was considering buying DXC Technology, Atos is reportedly looking to sell some of its legacy business operations, including its data-center and communications businesses. If true, it’s a further sign that the on-prem consulting business is falling out of favor.Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Atos is exploring a sale of its legacy information technology business, including some outsourcing operations. One day later, Atos CEO Elie Girard said during its earnings call with analysts that the company is definitely looking to make some kind of changes to its businesses.To read this article in full, please click here
Enterprise networks are focused on buying full-stack offerings that include key software components such as management, automation and AI but also routing, switching and security rather than a piecemeal approach.That trend is being driven by a post-COVID rethinking of network architecture but also the need to simplify the network and access to cloud resources, says Juniper Networks’ executive vice president and chief product officer Manoj Leelanivas. SD-WAN buyers guide: Key questions to ask vendors
Juniper Networks
Manoj LeelanivasTo read this article in full, please click here
ITRenew and Vapor IO are teaming up on an enterprise service that's designed to bring performance and affordability to edge computing. ITRenew, which I've written about before, specializes in acquiring used data-center gear from hyperscale vendors, refurbishing it, and selling it to data-center operators for much less than new equipment would cost.Up until now, ITRenew focused on enterprise data-center customers. Now it's eyeing the edge through its partnership with Vapor IO, which specializes in colocation, networking and interconnection services.To read this article in full, please click here
After two decades of failure and endless jokes, the Intel Itanium is officially no more. Intel has finally stopped shipping its doomed-from-the-start 64-bit processor, two years after saying it would cease shipments.Really, the end came some time ago. The last Itaniums were the 9000 series “Kittson,” which shipped in 2017. It’s a bane of technology firms to support technologies they would much rather ditch but can't due to customer investment, and for years Intel was obligated to support the paltry market that existed for Itanium.To read this article in full, please click here
One surprisingly easy command for grabbing a portion of every line in a text file on a Linux system is cut. It works something like awk in that it allows you to select only what you want to see from files, enabling you to pull fields (regardless of the delimiter used), characters or bytes. To check on cut, you can ask about its version like this:$ cut --version
cut (GNU coreutils) 8.32
Copyright (C) 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Written by David M. Ihnat, David MacKenzie, and Jim Meyering.
Selecting by field
To illustrate how the cut command works, we'll first run commands using a sample "cities" file that contains details of the largest cities in the US in a tab-separated format. The lines in this file look something like what is shown below:To read this article in full, please click here
COVID-19 kicked off one of the most disruptive economic periods since World War II, and companies scrambled to shift business processes to the cloud to meet escalating digital demands. In fact, companies digitized many activities at a rate 20% to 25% faster than previously thought possible, according to research from McKinsey & Company.That acceleration has impacted the IT workforce: 85% of IT hiring managers say their hiring needs have changed, according to a survey by colocation provider INAP. This creates an opportunity for IT professionals who want to move ahead in their careers. Getting trained in key technologies can be a steppingstone not only to better pay but also to leadership jobs with more responsibilities.To read this article in full, please click here
It's one thing to cook up a great new initiative, but making it happen requires powers of persuasion, solid partnerships, and access to genuine technical insight.
Juniper Networks continues to grow its enterprise cloud-security family with a new product that promises to protect application workloads in any cloud or on-premises environment.The company rolled out Juniper Cloud Workload Protection package--a lightweight software agent that the company says controls application execution and monitors application behavior to help businesses spot and fix anomalies.Backup lessons from a cloud-storage disaster
The idea is to provide protection from attackers looking to exploit application vulnerabilities, said Kate Adam, senior director of security product marketing for Juniper Networks. To read this article in full, please click here
A startup called Pliops has emerged from stealth mode with a new way to do data processing. Rather than load data into main memory as is traditionally done, the Pliops technology offloads data and the application to a PCI Express card, and data is processed where it is stored, thus freeing up the CPU for other tasks.It's called computational storage. The concept has been around for a while, but like so many technological ideas, it was ahead of its time. The technology needed to catch up to the concept. It could never be done with mechanical hard drives, and SSDs, too, needed to make gains. Recently, Samsung and Xilinx partnered to deliver a compute-on-storage SSD device that uses a Xilinx FPGA to offload the processing work.To read this article in full, please click here
The continued growth of cloud applications, wireless technology and the COVID-19-driven enterprise hybrid workplace is making flexible networking a must.As a result the networking industry as a whole is set to experience the highest growth in years, according to Extreme Networks’ president and CEO Ed Meyercord.The 10 most powerful companies in enterprise networking 2021
Extreme Networks
Extreme CEO Ed MeyercordTo read this article in full, please click here
Intel is pledging to introduce a faster generation of processors every year through 2025 by embracing new technology that enables smaller and smaller transistors and so more powerful chips.By 2024, the transistors will be so small they will no longer be measured in nanometers as they are today, but in angstroms, which are a tenth as big, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger announced this week. And the chips built around the transistors will be primarily defined by how much they improve in performance per watt over the prior generation.The roadmap Gelsinger set down is as follows:
Intel 10nm SuperFIN: In production now. This is Intel’s “Tiger Lake” generation
Intel 7: In production under the name “Adler Lake,” with 10-15% more performance/watt over the prior generation.
Intel 4 (Intel 7nm): Q2 2021 tapeout, with 20% greater performance/watt than the prior generation. “Meteor Lake” for the client, “Grand Rapids” for the Xeon.
Intel 3: Ready for manufacture in the second half of 2023.
Intel 20A: This ushers in the angstrom era. It is expected to ramp in 2024.
2025 and beyond: Intel 18A is in development for early 2025 based on expected refinements to the manufacturing process that will deliver another Continue reading
A vast majority of Linux systems these days are using systemd – a suite of programs aimed at managing and interconnecting different parts of the system. Systemd started replacing the init process back in 2014 and is now the first process that starts when most Linux systems boot. To get a quick peek, you can run a command like this, which verifies that process 1 is indeed systemd. On this system, two additional systemd processes are currently also running.$ ps -C systemd
PID TTY TIME CMD
1 ? 00:00:59 systemd <===
1244 ? 00:00:00 systemd
54429 ? 00:00:00 systemd
To see a little more detail, try the command below. The blank within the quotes is meant to prevent related processes like systemd-journald from showing up in the list.To read this article in full, please click here
Iceotope Technologies will offer HPE ProLiant servers in Iceotope’s self-contained liquid cooled chassis, which can run in enterprise data centers and is ruggedized to operate in extreme edge scenarios as well.The Ku:l chassis combines Iceotope's immersion liquid-cooling technology in Avnet racks and EcoStruxure management technology from Schneider Electric. It supports standard server boards in a 1U immersion cooling tray from Iceotope.Chip shortage will hit hardware buyers for months to years
In an enterprise data center, the Ku:l chassis can add function without without adding load to the existing cooling systems since it is entirely self-contained. At the same time it is rugged enough for extreme edge environments that might damage standard IT equipment. The chassis provides zero-touch operation with advanced out-of-band management for complete remote control of the entire system.To read this article in full, please click here
Did you know that you can ask your Linux system to tell you what upgrades are available for the packages installed on it? You might be surprised by how many you’ll see, especially if you’re using the current release and don’t have your system set up for frequent or automatic updates.Updates play an important role in keeping your Linux systems secure and performing well. Since most packages are updated as fixes or improvements to the code become available, it’s hard to predict how many will show up on any particular day. (Note: Updates should be done when your system is not performing other important tasks.)Finding installed packages on Fedora Linux systems
Fedora and related systems
To check what updates are currently available for your Fedora or related system, use a command like this:To read this article in full, please click here