Ryan Riffle is the network manager for an insurance firm with just under 2,000 employees. The company operates a primary data center, plus another for disaster recovery, to serve two major offices in the south-central US and smaller branches around the country. Three years ago, the company installed a software-defined network based on VMware NSX technology, and now more than 99% of the network operates in a virtual environment.The flexibility of the software-defined network provides a lot of benefits. Riffle says the company was able to improve its security posture with micro-segmentation for business applications at the virtual layer. (The company does not allow use of its name for the appearance of endorsing any product or vendor.) What’s more, there is no longer a need to have physical third-party appliances that had to be managed differently from the virtual server environment. They were able to remove physical devices, including a hardware firewall, routers and load balancers.To read this article in full, please click here
5G technology can offer high bandwidth, low-latency wireless connections, but how available is it, and what types of service does it support?The acknowledged global leader in 5G tech is Huawei is caught in a political attack from the U.S. that calls for banning the use of its gear in U.S. service-provider networks. How will that affect rollouts?What are the characteristics of the frequency bands 5G can emplo,y and how can that affect the business applications it’s best suited for.In this video “Making the move to 5G” technology consultant Jack Gold addresses these questions and more.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has issued fixes for five security glitches that can be found in a wealth of its networked enterprise products – from switches and routers to web cameras and desktop VoIP phones. The problems center around vulnerabilities in the implementation of the Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) that could let remote attackers take over the products without any user interaction. While no public exploit has been found, an attacker simply needs to send a maliciously crafted CDP packet to a target device located inside the network to take advantage of the weakness, Cisco stated.Cisco’s CDP is a Layer 2 protocol that runs on Cisco devices and enables networking applications to learn about directly connected devices nearby, according to Cisco. It enables management of Cisco devices by discovering networked devices, determining how they are configured, and letting systems using different network-layer protocols learn about each other, according to Cisco.To read this article in full, please click here
VMware is going through an annual ritual it calls “workforce rebalancing,” which has resulted in a few hundred employees being let go including with four senior executives, which might be concerning as executive churn is often a sign of trouble.On Jan. 25, the California Employment Development Department disclosed that VMware had cut 159 people in the Palo Alto office earlier in January. For a company of more than 22,000, that’s nothing, although there were likely cuts in other offices around the world as well.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] “We can confirm that there have been a limited number of changes to our workforce this month,” a VMware spokesperson said via email. “This is a part of regular workforce rebalancing that ensures resources across VMware’s global businesses and geographies are aligned with strategic objectives and customer needs. We have an active employee support program to ensure, where possible, impacted employees will be redeployed to open roles within VMware. We continue to recruit in areas of strategic importance for the company.To read this article in full, please click here
VMware is going through an annual ritual it calls “workforce rebalancing,” which has resulted in a few hundred employees being let go including with four senior executives, which might be concerning as executive churn is often a sign of trouble.On Jan. 25, the California Employment Development Department disclosed that VMware had cut 159 people in the Palo Alto office earlier in January. For a company of more than 22,000, that’s nothing, although there were likely cuts in other offices around the world as well.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] “We can confirm that there have been a limited number of changes to our workforce this month,” a VMware spokesperson said via email. “This is a part of regular workforce rebalancing that ensures resources across VMware’s global businesses and geographies are aligned with strategic objectives and customer needs. We have an active employee support program to ensure, where possible, impacted employees will be redeployed to open roles within VMware. We continue to recruit in areas of strategic importance for the company.To read this article in full, please click here
Multi-cloud strategies and hybrid IT environments bring a set of challenges that technology leaders might not have expected.
If Wendy’s, Burger King and McDonald’s can find a way to make it clear how they are different despite each offering hamburgers and french fries, why is it, five years into the hottest networking disruption in decades, companies are having so much trouble differentiating their SD-WAN products? (And, before anyone jumps in regarding their menu, yes, I realize the menu of these fast food giants has greatly evolved over the years, but the food with which they made their mark remains burgers and fries.) I understand that there are now 60+ vendors offering SD-WAN-like products, but even before the market exploded in terms of providers and adoption, even the top five vendors’ messages are the equivalent of a vanilla milkshake. When asked about some of our biggest challenges as a company and as an industry, I typically talk about the need to do some SD-WAN washing. In fact, I often share the story of how I attended a presentation at a conference and as I was sitting there, I closed my eyes and listened closely. My takeaway from the 60-minute discussion: “Wow, if I didn’t already know which vendor was presenting, I couldn’t tell who it was – everyone Continue reading
Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to power your home with clean energy, and yet, many Americans don’t know how to make the switch. Luckily, you don’t have to install expensive solar panels or switch utility companies to support a cleaner, sustainable future. If you’re interested in supporting clean energy and saving money on your power bill, consider Arcadia.Arcadia is a platform that makes it easy for homeowners and renters to choose clean, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. You can visit Arcadia’s website and input your ZIP code to see how clean energy compares to traditional sources in your area. To power your home with clean energy, all you have to do is connect your utility bill, and you can choose between wind and community solar farms in your area, or you can use Arcadia’s Smart Rate to find the lowest price available. In fact, you’ll even save money on your power bill if clean energy is cheaper in your area. To read this article in full, please click here
If you’re new to Linux or have simply never bothered to explore the command line, you may not understand why so many Linux enthusiasts get excited typing commands when they’re sitting at a comfortable desktop with plenty of tools and apps available to them. In this post, we’ll take a quick dive to explore the wonders of the command line and see if maybe we can get you hooked.First, to use the command line, you have to open up a command tool (also referred to as a “command prompt”). How to do this will depend on which version of Linux you’re running. On RedHat, for example, you might see an Activities tab at the top of your screen which will open a list of options and a small window for entering a command (like “cmd” which will open the window for you). On Ubuntu and some others, you might see a small terminal icon along the left-hand side of your screen. On many systems, you can open a command window by pressing the Ctrl+Alt+t keys at the same time.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco says it will offer a Kubernetes-based “container-as-a-service” for its HyperFlex hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) environment.The turnkey system, called HyperFlex Application Platform (HXAP), is Kubernetes at its core and includes all manner of integrated tools such as container networking, storage, a load balancer and more to let customers install, manage, and maintain a complete platform for cloud-native application development, Cisco stated.See predictions about what's big in IT tech for the coming year. HyperFlex is Cisco’s HCI that offers computing, networking and storage resources in a single system.To read this article in full, please click here
When we gaze at the crowded eye-chart of technologies commonly associated with digital transformation, few of the markets we follow have been frothier over the last two years than SD-WAN and cybersecurity.The rate of change is remarkable by any long-range indicator: revenue growth rates, investment, acquisition and consolidation activity, and innovation speed. Clearly the essential elements of an extended software-defined network deployment and its critical security posture are inexorably intertwined in the future fabric of a cloud-native, Hybrid IT application delivery world.To read this article in full, please click here
Imagine this. You’ve finally completed your brand new app that’s going to revolutionize the way we live. You’ve even come up with a catchy name that meshes perfectly with your app and no other company has laid claim to. Unfortunately, someone from the ’90s already built a .com website with the domain name you want to use. What’s worse, that website isn’t even in use anymore!You don’t have to be a mobile app developer to relate. Perhaps you’re a freelance coder with a generic name who wants to showcase your portfolio, or you might be an agency specializing in tech clients. Whatever the case, you need a domain extension that illustrates what you’re all about, and it needs to be available. So why not use “.tech”? Right now, you can get your own .tech domain extension starting at just $7.99 per year. To read this article in full, please click here
Cloud services that provide both network and security intelligence are gaining popularity because they are easy to consume and they improve agility. Similarly, a model known as SD-Branch is providing network and security functionality at the WAN edge on a single platform.Both of these trends have contributed to the development by Gartner of a network architecture known as the secure-access service edge or SASE, which “converges network (for example, software-defined WAN) and network security services (such as [secure web gateways], [cloud access security brokers] and firewall as a service).” SASE (pronounced “sassy”) would primarily be delivered as a cloud-based service, Gartner says.To read this article in full, please click here
Steve Jobs rather famously said he hated the enterprise because the people who use the product have no say in its purchase. Well, Apple's current management has adopted the enterprise, ever so slowly, and is now shipping its first server in years. Sort of.Apple introduced a new version of the Mac Pro in December 2019, after a six-year gap in releases, and said it would make the computer rack-mountable for data centers. But at the time, all the attention was on the computer’s aesthetics, because it looked like a cheese grater. The other bit of focus was on the price; a fully decked Mac Pro cost an astronomical $53,799. Granted, that did include specs like 1.5TB of DRAM and 8TB of SSD storage. Those are impressive specs for a server, although the price is still a little crazy.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco is looking to better protect myriad edge-attached IoT devices with new security software that promises to protect industrial assets in one of the most disparate of network environments.The company rolled out what it called an overarching security architecture for Industrial IoT (IIoT) environments that includes existing products but also new software called Cisco Cyber Vision, for the automated discovery of industrial assets attached to Cisco’s extensive IIoT networking portfolio. More about edge networkingTo read this article in full, please click here
There are a lot of tools for looking at memory usage on Linux systems. Some are commonly used commands like free and ps while others are tools like top that allow you to display system performance stats in various ways. In this post, we’ll look at some commands that can be most helpful in identifying the users and processes that are using the most memory.Here are some that address memory usage by process.Using top One of the best commands for looking at memory usage is top. One extremely easy way to see what processes are using the most memory is to start top and then press shift+m to switch the order of the processes shown to rank them by the percentage of memory each is using. Once you’ve entered shift+m, your top output should reorder the task entries to look something like this:To read this article in full, please click here
Hybrid cloud environments can deliver an array of benefits, but in many enterprises, they're becoming increasingly complex and difficult to manage. To cope, adopters typically turn to some type of management software. What soon becomes apparent, however, is that hybrid cloud management tools can be as complex and confounding as the environments they're designed to support.A hybrid cloud typically includes a mix of computing, storage and other services. The environment is formed by a combination of on-premises infrastructure resources, private cloud services, and one or more public cloud offerings, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure, as well as orchestration among the various platforms.To read this article in full, please click here
IBM and Google may be competitors in the cloud platform business, but that doesn't prevent them from working together. Google is partnering with IBM to offer "Power Systems as a service" on its Google Cloud platform.IBM’s Power processor line is the last man standing in the RISC/Unix war, surviving Sun Microsystems’ SPARC and HP’s PA-RISC. Along with mainframes it’s the last server hardware business IBM has, having divested its x86 server line in 2014.IBM already sells cloud instances of Power to its IBM Cloud customers, so this is just an expansion of existing offerings to a competitor with a considerable data center footprint. Google said that customers can run Power-based workloads on GCP on all of its operating systems save mainframes — AIX, IBM i, and Linux on IBM Power.To read this article in full, please click here
A Congressional committee is weighing in on a spat between the FCC and parts of the automotive industry over a plan to appropriate a piece of wireless spectrum set aside for connected cars and instead designate it for Wi-Fi.The dispute centers on Dedicated Short Range Communications or DSRC, a point-to-point communication standard designated to let vehicles close to each other on roadways share information to improve safety. The go-to example is using it to warn a driver near-instantly if the car ahead suddenly slams on its brakes.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] DSR and its 75MHz of spectrum in the 5.9GHz band has been a relatively obscure technology until late last year when the FCC started considering that 45MHz of that spectrum should be made available for unlicensed wireless use such as Wi-FiTo read this article in full, please click here
Global IT spending could reach $3.865 trillion in 2020, up 3.4% over 2019, according to newly released data from IT research firm Gartner. In comparison, 2019 saw just 0.5% growth over 2018 levels. Spending is expected to continue to climb into 2021, surpassing the $4 trillion mark with 3.7% growth.Spending on hardware – including edge devices and data center hardware – will be deemphasized, while investments in software and services, including cloud, will see an increase, the firm predicts. READ MORE: Data centers in 2020 will feature greater automation, cheaper memory To read this article in full, please click here