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 de-emphasized, 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
One of Britain’s principal mobile networks, O2, has just announced that it intends to deploy Open Radio Access Network technology (O-RAN) in places.O-RAN is a wireless industry initiative for designing and building radio network solutions using “a general-purpose, vendor-neutral hardware and software-defined technology,” explains Telecom Infra Project, the body responsible, on its website.TIP is the trade body that, along with Intel and Vodafone, conceived of the technology alternative – an attempt at toppling the dominance of Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia, which provide almost all mobile telco infrastructure now.To read this article in full, please click here
Amongst Cisco’s dump of 27 security advisories today only one was rated as critical – a vulnerability in its Firepower firewall system that could let an attacker bypass authentication and execute arbitrary actions with administrative privileges on a particular device.The Firepower Management Center (FMC) vulnerability – which was rated at 9.8 out of 10 – comes from improper handling of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) authentication responses from an external authentication server. With it, an attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending crafted HTTP requests to an affected device and gain administrative access to its web-based management interface.To read this article in full, please click here
VMware says it plans to acquire AI-based network management and analytics firm Nyansa for an undisclosed amount.VMware said the Nyansa technology will be targeted at boosting monitoring and troubleshooting for LAN/WAN deployments within its SD-WAN package – VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud. More about SD-WAN: How to buy SD-WAN technology: Key questions to consider when selecting a supplier • How to pick an off-site data-backup method • SD-Branch: What it is and why you’ll need it • What are the options for security SD-WAN?
Founded in 2013, Nyansa’s primary technology is a cloud-based network management package called Voyance that employs AI to automate the discovery of devices on the network and identify unusual behavior. Nyansa says it’s being used to watch-over some 20 million client devices operating across roughly 200 networks. Its customers include Tesla, Uber, Lululemon, GE Healthcare and Stanford University.To read this article in full, please click here
Digital transformation is a catch-all phrase that describes the process of using technology to modernize or even revolutionize how services are delivered to customers. Not only technology but also people and processes commonly undergo fundamental changes for the ultimate goal of significantly improving business performance.Such transformations have become so mainstream that IDC estimated that 40% of all technology spending now goes toward digital transformation projects, with enterprises spending in excess of $2 trillion on their efforts through 2019.To read this article in full, please click here
Yes, your container infrastructure needs some type of backup. Kubernetes and Docker will not magically build themselves after a disaster. As discussed in a separate article, you don’t need to back up the running state of each container, but you will need to back up the configuration used to run and manage your containers.Here’s a quick reminder of what you’ll need to back up.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
Configuration and desired-state information
The Dockerfiles used to build your images and all versions of those files
The images created from the Dockerfile and used to run each container
Kubernetes etcd & other - K8s databases that info on cluster state
Deployments - YAML files describing each deployment
Persistent data created or changed by containers
Persistent volumes
Databases
Dockerfiles
Docker containers are run from images, and images are built from Dockerfiles. A proper Docker configuration would first use some kind of repository such as GitHub as a version-control system for all Dockerfiles. Do not create ad hoc containers using ad hoc images built from ad hoc Dockerfiles. All Dockerfiles should be stored in a repository that allows you to pull historical Continue reading
This week's Patch Tuesday marked the end of the line for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 (and 2008 R2). No more fixes will be issued for the two aged operating systems, unless you purchase a pricey extended service license.On the Windows 7 front, Microsoft has done a good job getting Windows 10 deployed through its aggressive (perhaps too aggressive) upgrade program. According to StatCounter, Windows 10 now accounts for 65% of the worldwide desktop Windows market share, and Windows 7 is down to 27%.
RELATED: What to know before upgrading to Windows Server 2019To read this article in full, please click here
Google Cloud announced the general availability of Archive, a long-term data retention service intended as an alternative to on-premises tape backup.Google pitches it as cold storage, meaning it is for data which is accessed less than once a year and has been stored for many years. Cold storage data is usually consigned to tape backup, which remains a surprisingly successful market despite repeated predictions of its demise.Of course, Google's competition has their own products. Amazon Web Services has Glacier, Microsoft has Cool Blob Storage, and IBM has Cloud Storage. Google also offers its own Coldline and Nearline cloud storage offerings; Coldline is designed for data a business expects to touch less than once a quarter, while Nearline is aimed at data that requires access less than once a month.To read this article in full, please click here
Enterprise tech crossed a significant line as the decade ended. For the first time, enterprises spent more annually on cloud infrastructure services than on data-center hardware and software, according to Synergy Research Group.Synergy reports that total spending on cloud infrastructure services in 2019 will reach $97 billion, a 38% increase over the prior year. Ten years ago, that spending was near zero. Total spending on data center hardware and software, on the other hand, is expected to hit $93 billion in 2019, an increase of only 1% when compared to 2018.To read this article in full, please click here
Digital transformation has increased the importance of the network, particularly the edge, where customers, employees, cloud applications and IoT devices connect to the enterprise. The legacy static and non-differentiated network edge of years past is no longer sufficient for many reasons, so as companies embark on digital-transformation plans, their networks must evolve.Networking pros should be looking at, among other things, improving security and embracing software-defined networking (SDN) that supports propagating changes quickly across the network in order to accommodate the many challenges digital transformation creates.To read this article in full, please click here
Cumulus Networks has announced a partnership with HPE that will see its NetQ management software run on HPE's network storage products.Under the deal, HPE's StoreFabric M-Series Ethernet switches will run Cumulus's Linux operating system and NetQ, a move that Cumulus said in a statement will deliver “a flexible networking fabric that is predictable, scalable, and reliable."[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
Combining the M-Series switches with Linux and NetQ will offer enterprises a high-bandwidth, low-latency way to connect primary, secondary, hyperconverged, NAS, or object-storage systems, and is an ideal way to build an Ethernet Storage Fabric (ESF), the company added.To read this article in full, please click here
Capital markets are in transition, unicorns are falling and geopolitical instability abounds. That adds up to an 'interesting' climate for tech startups.
Communications networks without a centralized infrastructure will become more popular this year as folks become increasingly aware of data collection from governments and tech companies, says telecommunications provider Telenor Group.The company refers to fully encrypted mesh and peer-to-peer apps as the technology that will enable these consumer-level “off-the-grid, build-it-yourself” links. Mesh apps will also be useful in disasters where traditional networks fail.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
“Communicating without a central coordinating network is appealing to people for many reasons, and in 2020, we expect to see more go that route, especially in conflict situations, to mobilize for protests, and simply to stay below the radar,” the company says on its website.To read this article in full, please click here
Aruba has taken steps to bolster the security and manageability of its branch-office networking package for customers with lots of branch sites.The HPE company enhanced its SD-Branch software with identity-based attack detection and intrusion prevention, and improvements to its SD-WAN Orchestrator to make it easier to deploy security features on a large scale.See predictions about what's big in IT tech for the coming year.
Aruba’s SD-Branch software runs on its branch gateways and includes a variety of integrated features like a firewall that support LAN, WAN, Wi-Fi networks, and segmentation as well integration with the company’s ClearPass policy-management software and its cloud-based package Aruba Central. The package can integrate its data with partner security platforms such as Check Point, Palo Alto Networks, and Z-Scaler.To read this article in full, please click here
Global expansion is a common goal for many enterprises. In some verticals, like manufacturing, running production lines globally is an established practice. However, deploying international sales, service, and engineering teams is becoming the norm for many other sectors including high tech, finance, retail, and more.A global enterprise footprint creates a unique set of challenges that do not occur in regional businesses. Users in a remote office will need to securely access data-center applications, cloud applications, or both. Depending on the distance between the remote location and the application—and the sensitivity of the application to high latency, packet loss, and jitter—an expensive set of technologies and capabilities will be needed to optimize the user experience.To read this article in full, please click here
The next big wave of Wi-Fi technology, 802.11ax, is going to become more commonplace in enterprise installations over the course of the coming year, just as the marketing teams for the makers of Wi-Fi equivalent will have you believe. Yet the rosiest predictions of revolutionary change in what enterprise Wi-Fi is capable of are still a bit farther off than 2020, according to industry experts.The crux of the matter is that, while access points with 802.11ax’s Wi-Fi 6 branding will steadily move into enterprise deployments in, the broader Wi-Fi ecosystem will not be dominated by the new standard for several years, according to Farpoint Group principal Craig Mathias.To read this article in full, please click here
It has been almost a year since I first wrote about Stateless, Inc., a startup devoted to bringing software-defined interconnects (SD-IX) to colocation data centers. At that time, the company was just announcing its plans to reinvent the means to connect workloads across data centers, hyperscale clouds and on-premises footprints using SD-IX. The intent was to give colo service providers a simpler way to quickly deploy network services for their tenants. Those plans have come to fruition and the company has announced the general availability (GA) of its Luxon SD-IX platform.To read this article in full, please click here
IT generally requires a good reason to disrupt a smooth working environment, which is why some hardware sits deployed for decades. Even though Windows Server 2016 is relatively young, there’s a decent argument to be made for upgrading a Server 2016 environment to Server 2019, the most recent release.There’s a longer span between Windows Server releases than the desktop version of the software because of slower migration habits on the server side, and this means bigger changes between releases. Windows Server 2016 was the first server OS built on the Windows 10 kernel, and some of the changes were rather rough. Windows Server 2019 is markedly faster, and it has a number of changes under the hood, from security to hybrid cloud integration. Here’s a rundown of what’s new and what are the most compelling arguments for upgrade.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco this week issued software to address multiple critical authentication exposures in its Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) software for its Nexus data center switches.DCNM is a central management dashboard for data-center fabrics based on Cisco Nexus switches and handles a number of core duties such as automation, configuration control, flow policy management and real-time health details for fabric, devices, and network topology.To read this article in full, please click here
5G promises not just super-fast connections and more bandwidth than Wi-Fi and 4G LTE but also better connectivity, low latency, and support for thousands of devices in one location, all of which are attractive manufacturing facilities, but it will be a while before it becomes the norm there, experts say.According to Gartner, smart factories are major opportunities for 5G. While some use cases can be achieved with existing 4G LTE, most require the low latency and high reliability offered by 5G.To read this article in full, please click here