We probably wouldn’t have a Digital Age without silicon.The second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust (oxygen is No. 1), silicon is cheap and has the ability to conduct electricity and/or act as an insulator. Converted into silicon wafers, it powers the computers, smartphones and other electronic devices we use to work and, importantly, to avoid work. So clearly silicon is indispensable.Or maybe not. Our insatiable demand for more and more data, along with the need to store it, is pushing the limits of what silicon can deliver in terms of speed, density, and security. In a bid to find a worthy successor to silicon-based memory devices, MIT physicists are zeroing in something called antiferromagnets.To read this article in full, please click here
The continuous influx of open-source software (OSS) into enterprise IT departments is, in many ways, an enormous boon to both vendors and users. For the former, the ability to use open source components means getting rid of a great deal of duplicative effort—rather than having to design every part of, say, an IoT sensor and monitoring product from scratch, a vendor can adopt a well-understood, well-supported open source library for its networking stack, and focus more of its attention on the sensing and data analysis features that will set the product apart from its competitors.For end-users, one of the chief advantages is—at least in theory—the improved security that’s part of the usual sales pitch for open source software. The idea here is that the open nature of a piece of software—and the fact that anyone can look at it to discover and correct security flaws—means that it’s generally going to be more secure than a proprietary equivalent.To read this article in full, please click here
With increasingly mobile workforces, it’s important to effectively backup corporate data that resides on laptops, which requires a unique set of features not found in traditional backup systems used for desktops attached to corporate LANs.Laptops have all the functionality of desktops, but are readily lost or stolen, have limited bandwidth for connectivity to corporate resources, and can spend unpredictable spans of time disconnected or turned off. So it’s important to find backup options that meet these challenges, which can also include ransomware attacks.Backup lessons from a cloud-storage disaster
Backing up laptops properly also makes upgrading them much easier, especially in the world of remote work. A good backup system can restore a user’s profile and data, and makes replacing a laptop much simpler for both the IT department and the person whose laptop is being replaced. With the right system in place, all you have to do is ship them a new laptop. They can restore their own profile and data without IT intervention, saving time, effort, and a lot of money.To read this article in full, please click here
If you run into problems building, testing or running complex bash scripts, don't lose heart. There are many ways you can help ensure that your scripts will work flawlessly. In this post, we'll examine some ways you can lessen the likelihood of errors and how to go about doing some simple but very effective troubleshooting.Through a combination of robust logic that tests for possible problems and some troubleshooting to help detect errors, your scripts are likely to be ready for showtime very quickly.Summarizing your command-line usage on Linux
Building the outer edges first
One way to avoid syntactical errors in scripts is to start your for and while loops, case statements and if/then commands using the outer logic first. If you start your script logic using a syntactical "skeleton", you won't forget to end it properly.To read this article in full, please click here
Moving compute and storage resources to edge locations can reduce latency and bandwidth needs, improve performance and save money. At the same time, widespread edge computing deployments can introduce significant management challenges. Servers can be hard enough to maintain when they’re in an on-prem data center. What if they’re deployed in the middle of nowhere?Energy companies know all too well the challenges of remote computing.“When we drill a well, it’s always in the middle of nowhere,” says Dingzhou Cao, senior advisor for data science at independent shale producer Devon Energy, a Fortune 500 company based in Oklahoma City, Okla.To read this article in full, please click here
As companies accelerate out of pandemic disruption, how can IT meet increasing demands — and reap unprecedented benefits? In a series of virtual roundtables, dozens of IT leaders offered key insights about the road ahead.
The growth in online banking has been – and will continue to be – rapid. From a valuation of $11.43 billion in 2019, the projections are that it will reach $31.81 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 13.6%.For the incumbent banking system, this rapid growth poses a real and ongoing challenge, as it has opened the door to unconventional disruption and new competition. Non-banking companies are now able to bring different business models and expertise in customer experience to the financial services sector. New products and services are being adopted enthusiastically by consumers, and indeed, there is the rise of entirely new forms of currency and payments that are changing how we think about money.To read this article in full, please click here
Oracle is not the first name in cloud computing, but never let it be said Larry and company don’t try. It is making a big push with its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) by offering Arm processor instances and new initiatives with the open-source community.The new instances are powered by Altra, Ampere’s 64-bit Arm processor, and are priced at 1 cent per core hour, which Oracle claims is the lowest price/performance available when compared to any x86 instance on a per-core basis.To read this article in full, please click here
The Center for Internet Security has updated its set of safeguards for warding off the five most common types of attacks facing enterprise networks—web-application hacking, insider and privilege misuse, malware, ransomware, and targeted intrusions.In issuing its CIS Controls V8 this month, the organization sought to present practical and specific actions businesses can take to protect their networks and data. These range from making an inventory of enterprise assets to account management to auditing logs.In part the new version was needed to address changes to how businesses operate since V7 was issued three years ago, and those changes guided the work. “Movement to cloud-based computing, virtualization, mobility, outsourcing, work-from-home, and changing attacker tactics have been central in every discussion,” the new controls document says.To read this article in full, please click here
Juniper Networks is releasing the latest version of its Apstra intent-based networking software that includes new monitoring features and configuration templates as well as better integration with VMware’s NSX virtualization and security platform.In January, Juniper bought Apstra and its Apstra Operating System (AOS), which was developed from the start to support IBN features. Once deployed, AOS—now just called Apstra—keeps a real-time repository of configuration, telemetry and validation information to ensure the network is doing what customers want it to do. Apstra also includes automation features to provide consistent network and security policies for workloads across physical and virtual infrastructures.To read this article in full, please click here
Ampere, the chip startup building Arm-based server processors and led by former Intel exec Renee James, has updated its product roadmap and announced new customers.The biggest news is that the company is designing its own custom cores for release in 2022. Ampere Altra processors are already on the market but use the Neoverse core from Arm. When it introduces the next generation Ampere built on a 5nm process next year, it will be with a homegrown core optimized around cloud workloads."If you go back to the objectives we had, which were delivering predictable, high performance, scalability and power efficiency, we really need to develop our own cores ... to be able to actually focus in on the exact way that the cloud wants single-threaded performance," Jeff Wittich, chief product officer for Ampere, told Network World.To read this article in full, please click here
If you need to check the contents of a compressed text file on Linux, you don't have to uncompress it first. Instead, you can use a zcat or bzcat command to extract and display file contents while leaving the file intact. The "cat" in each command name tells you that the command's purpose is to display content. The "z" tells you that it works with compressed files.Which of the two commands to use depends on the type of compressed file you are examining. If the file was compressed with gzip or zip, you would use the zcat command. If the file was compressed with bzip2, you would use the bzcat command. On some systems, zcat might be called gzcat.To read this article in full, please click here
Just six months after unveiling its first AI inferencing processor, Mythic AI has announced a new round of funding for $70 million in Series C investment to begin mass production of its chips and to develop its next generation of hardware and software products.In November, the company announced the M1108 Analog Matrix Processor (AMP) aimed at edge AI deployments across a wide range of applications, including manufacturing, video surveillance, smart cities, smart homes, AR/VR, and drones.Now see "How to manage your power bill while adopting AI"
For a company that is nine years old and has zero sales, it’s got some heavy hitters behind it. The new investment round was led by led by venture fund giant BlackRock and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Other investors include Alumni Ventures Group and UDC Ventures.To read this article in full, please click here
Erosion of the traditional network perimeter and the transition to work-from-anywhere have conspired to bring an unprecedented threat level to endpoint devices, users, and applications, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins told the online audience at the virtual RSA Conference 2021.Such threats are exacerbated by the fact that over 3,500 vendors offer security products and services that many customers patchwork together, creating complexity that makes it hard for many to build an effective security position, Robbins said.Backup lessons from a cloud-storage disaster
Against that backdrop, Cisco announced a number of security moves to further integrate and upgrade its own overarching offerings with new features and services.To read this article in full, please click here
Financial traders rely heavily on computer financial simulations for making buying and selling decisions. Specifically, “Monte Carlo” simulations are used to assess risk and simulate prices for a wide range of financial instruments. These simulations also can be used in corporate finance and for portfolio management.But in a digital world where other industries routinely leverage real-time data, financial traders are working with the digital equivalent of the Pony Express. That’s because Monte Carlo simulations involve such an insanely large number of complex calculations that they consume more time and computational resources than a 14-team, two-quarterback online fantasy football league with Superflex position.To read this article in full, please click here
If you’ve never used Gimp—a free image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows and other operating systems—you might be quite surprised by its capabilitiesI use it for everything from Facebook posts when the available backgrounds don’t work well for what I want to say to political buttons that I design and press out using a button-making machine.Converting and manipulating image files with Linux commands
Gimp can do everything from resizing and cropping images to adding text, changing colors or distorting images in artistic ways. You can use it to draw with its pencil or paintbrush and layer additional images. It’s quite a versatile tool. Yet I only recently noticed that it can also be used to manipulate PDF files, not just the many types of image files that most people use it to create, modify or enhance.To read this article in full, please click here
A shortage of all sorts of processors and other components could affect the availability and price of IT hardware for the next 12 to 18 months, according to CEOs of major tech companies including Intel, IBM, Extreme, Cisco and Juniper.COVID-19 triggered an explosion of the global remote workforce, which created an extraordinary demand for new tech gear. It also forced the shutdown of processor plants, and restarting them and renewing supply chains to their pre-pandemic state will be a lengthy process, according to industry executives and analysts. Beyond the pandemic, a recent fire at a large chip plant in Japan didn’t help.To read this article in full, please click here
Pure Storage is upgrading to its Portworx Enterprise software that improves the scale of Kubernetes while simplifying the process of supporting multiple platforms.Portworx Enterprise 2.8 features new integrations across Pure’s line of products and services and with VMware Tanzu, VMware’s container-orchestration software. It comes with dynamic storage provisioning on Pure’s FlashArray and FlashBlade hardware and offers unified visibility and support via Pure1, Pure’s AI-drive operations software.
Read about backup and recovery:
Backup vs. archive: Why it’s important to know the difference
How to pick an off-site data-backup method
Tape vs. disk storage: Why isn’t tape dead yet?
The correct levels of backup save time, bandwidth, space
This allows volumes and file systems to be provisioned using Kubernetes without the need to directly interface with the backing storage arrays. That means containerized workloads can run seamlessly across the cloud, bare metal infrastructure, Pure Storage arrays, and even storage solutions from other vendors.To read this article in full, please click here
A well-crafted resume will attract recruiters, HR pros and hiring managers, but getting it just right is a daunting task. To jump start the process, Insider Pro has assembled this collection of real resumes revamped by professional resume writers. (Watch this space for new templates.)
With more employees preparing to return to company offices at least part of the time, businesses have turned their attention to ensuring the safety of workers—given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In some cases, Internet of Things (IoT) and networking technologies are playing a key role in these efforts.In fact, organizations might make decisions on when and how to bring workers back based on how well they can monitor them and their behavior using these tools.To read this article in full, please click here