How you freeze and "thaw out" a screen on a Linux system depends a lot on what you mean by these terms. Sometimes “freezing a screen” might mean freezing a terminal window so that activity within that window comes to a halt. Sometimes it means locking your screen so that no one can walk up to your system when you're fetching another cup of coffee and type commands on your behalf.In this post, we'll examine how you can use and control these actions. [ Two-Minute Linux Tips: Learn how to master a host of Linux commands in these 2-minute video tutorials ]
How to freeze a terminal window on Linux
You can freeze a terminal window on a Linux system by typing Ctrl+S (hold control key and press "s"). Think of the "s" as meaning "start the freeze". If you continue typing commands after doing this, you won't see the commands you type or the output you would expect to see. In fact, the commands will pile up in a queue and will be run only when you reverse the freeze by typing Ctrl+Q. Think of this as "quit the freeze".To read this article in full, please click Continue reading
What's lurking in the shadows of YOUR organization? What you don't know can hurt you. Insider Pro columnist Mike Elgan looks at how your business is at risk and offers six steps to minimize it.
Dell EMC has updated its PowerMax line of enterprise storage systems to offer Intel’s Optane persistent storage and NVMe-over-Fabric, both of which will give the PowerMax a big boost in performance.Last year, Dell launched the PowerMax line with high-performance storage, specifically targeting industries that need very low latency and high resiliency, such as banking, healthcare, and cloud service providers.The company claims the new PowerMax is the first-to-market with dual port Intel Optane SSDs and the use of storage-class memory (SCM) as persistent storage. The Optane is a new type of non-volatile storage that sits between SSDs and memory. It has the persistence of a SSD but almost the speed of a DRAM. Optane storage also has a ridiculous price tag. For example, a 512 GB stick costs nearly $8,000.To read this article in full, please click here
IBM has rolled out a new generation of mainframes – the z15 – that not only bolsters the speed and power of the Big Iron but promises to integrate hybrid cloud, data privacy and security controls for modern workloads.On the hardware side, the z15 mainframe systems ramp up performance and efficiency. For example IBM claims 14 percent more performance per core, 25 percent more system capacity, 25percent more memory, and 20 percent more I/O connectivity than the previous iteration, the z14 system. [ Check out What is hybrid cloud computing and learn what you need to know about multi-cloud. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
IBM also says the system can save customers 50 percent of costs over operating x86-based servers and use 40 percent less power than a comparable x86 server farm. And the z15 has the capacity to handle scalable environments such as supporting 2.4 million Docker containers on a single system.To read this article in full, please click here
As interest in Software-Defined Wide-Area Networks (SD-WAN) picks up among companies of all sizes, it’s becoming clear that one of the key drivers for the technology is security. The reason? SD-WAN lets companies deploy strong security features at the network edge and easily apply security policies throughout the network.To read this article in full, please click here
For those of you migrating from MPLS to SD-WAN, here’s a truism that all too often is forgotten: don’t overlook your security architecture.Failure to consider security as part of SD-WAN deployments is a major cause of security breaches. Last year, enterprises with completed SD-WAN implementations were 1.3 times more likely to experience a branch office security breach than those without one, says Shamus McGillicuddy, Research Director at analyst firm Enterprise Management Associates.To read this article in full, please click here
It’s not just speeds and feeds anymore, it's intelligent software, integrated security and automation that will drive the networks of the future.That about sums up the networking areas that Keerti Melkote, HPE's President, Intelligent Edge, thinks are ripe for innovation in the next few years.He has a broad perspective because his role puts him in charge of the company's networking products, both wired and wireless.Now see how AI can boost data-center availability and efficiency
“On the wired side, we are seeing an evolution in terms of manageability," said Melkote, who founded Aruba, now part of HPE. "I think the last couple of decades of wired networking have been about faster connectivity. How do you go from a 10G to 100G Ethernet inside data centers? That will continue, but the bigger picture that we’re beginning to see is really around automation.” To read this article in full, please click here
Since founding Aruba Networks in 2002 and then staying on when Hewlett Packard bought the firm in 2013, Keerti Melkote has seen firsthand the evolution of the wireless industry.From the initial rush to bring laptops using Wi-Fi to the enterprise and the advent of Apple iPad – which Melkote says was a defining moment for enterprise mobility because of the device’s popularity and its need for pervasive enterprise Wi-Fi connectivity – the wireless world has changed dramatically.
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And as HPE's President, Intelligent Edge, Melkote is in a position to set the future course for the company’s wired and wireless strategy. He recently talked with Network World Senior Editor Michael Cooney to lay out HPE’s networking challenges and strategies as it negotiates one of the most technologically and competitively challenging markets.To read this article in full, please click here
The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the industry consortium behind the development of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) specification, announced this week it has finalized the technical specifications for USB4, the next generation of the spec.One of the most important aspects of USB4 (they have dispensed with the space between the acronym and the version number with this release) is that it merges USB with Thunderbolt 3, an Intel-designed interface that hasn’t really caught on outside of laptops despite its potential. For that reason, Intel gave the Thunderbolt spec to the USB consortium.Unfortunately, Thunderbolt 3 is listed as an option for USB4 devices, so some will have it and some won’t. This will undoubtedly cause headaches, and hopefully all device makers will include Thunderbolt 3.To read this article in full, please click here
We all know that blocking incoming sunlight helps cool buildings and that indoor thermal conditions can be improved with the added shade. More recently, though, scientists have been experimenting with ways to augment that passive cooling by capturing any superfluous, unwanted solar heat and expelling it, preferably into outer space, where it can’t add to global warming.Difficulties in getting that kind of radiative cooling to work are two-fold. First, directing the heat optimally is hard.“Normally, thermal emissions travel in all directions,” says Qiaoqiang Gan, an associate professor of electrical engineering at University at Buffalo, in a news release. The school is working on radiative concepts. That’s bad for heat spill-over and can send the thermal energy where it’s not wanted—like into other buildings.To read this article in full, please click here
A security group discovered a vulnerability in three models of Supermicro motherboards that could allow an attacker to remotely commandeer the server. Fortunately, a fix is already available.Eclypsium, which specializes in firmware security, announced in its blog that it had found a set of flaws in the baseboard management controller (BMC) for three different models of Supermicro server boards: the X9, X10, and X11.[ Also see: What to consider when deploying a next-generation firewall | Get regularly scheduled insights: Sign up for Network World newsletters ]
BMCs are designed to permit administrators remote access to the computer so they can do maintenance and other updates, such as firmware and operating system patches. It’s meant to be a secure port into the computer while at the same time walled off from the rest of the server.To read this article in full, please click here
Exactly six years ago today—Sept. 5, 2013—Network World published my very first TechWatch blog post. It addressed the introduction of Samsung's Galaxy Gear and the problem with smartwatches.Since then, I’ve written hundreds of blog posts on a dizzying array of technology topics, ranging from net neutrality to phablets to cloud computing to big data to the internet of things (IoT)—and many, many more. It’s been a great ride, and I will be forever grateful to my amazing editors at Network World and everyone who’s taken the time to read my work. But all good things must come to an end, and this will be my last TechWatch post for Network World.To read this article in full, please click here
Even in the planning stages of a deployment, IoT security is one of the chief stumbling blocks to successful adoption of the technology.And while the problem is vastly complicated, there are three key angles to think about when laying out how IoT sensors will be deployed in any given setup: How secure are the device themselves, how many are there and can they receive security patches.Physical access
Physical access is an important but, generally, straightforward consideration for traditional IT security. Data centers can be carefully secured, and routers and switches are often located in places where they’re either difficult to fiddle with discreetly or difficult to access in the first place.To read this article in full, please click here
Intel announced this week it has begun shipping its 10nm Agilex FPGAs to early-access customers, including Microsoft, featuring the Compute Express Link (CXL), a cache and memory coherent CPUs-to-anything interconnect that has an industry consortium of more than 60 members. The company first announced the chips in April.The Agilex FPGA is the product of the Altera group, which Intel bought in 2015 for $16.7 billion. It sold FPGAs under the Stratix brand name, but this line is the first to come out under Intel ownership. CXL replaces OmniPath Connect, a fabric Intel developed but no one else supported. The company ended support for OmniPath earlier this month in favor of CXL, which has wide industry support.To read this article in full, please click here
Like most people, I think of Bluetooth as a useful but consumer-oriented technology that lets me make easy wireless connections from my smartphone to various headsets, portable speakers, automobile, and other devices. And, of course, billions of people rely on Bluetooth for exactly those capabilities. But according to Chuck Sabin, senior director of market development for the Bluetooth SIG, the technology is growing into a key role in the industrial internet of things (IIoT).To read this article in full, please click here
One difficulty designing IoT implementations is the large number of moving parts. Most IoT setups are built out of components from many different manufacturers – one company’s sensors here, another’s there, someone else handling the networking and someone else again making the backend.To help you get a ballpark sense of what any given implementation will demand from your network, we’ve come up with a basic taxonomy for rating IoT endpoints. It’s got three main axes: delay tolerance, data throughput and processing power. Here is an explainer for each. (Terminology note: We’ll use “IoT setup” or “IoT implementation” to refer to the entirety of the IoT infrastructure being used by a given organization.)To read this article in full, please click here
Data centers running artificial intelligence (AI) will be significantly more efficient than those operating with hand-edited algorithm schedules, say experts at MIT. The researchers there say they have developed an automated scheduler that speeds cluster jobs by up to 20 or 30 percent, and even faster (2x) in peak periods.The school’s AI job scheduler works on a type of AI called “reinforcement learning” (RL). That’s a trial-and-error-based machine-learning method that modifies scheduling decisions depending on actual workloads in a specific cluster. AI, when done right, could supersede the current state-of-the-art method, which is algorithms. They often must be fine-tuned by humans, introducing inefficiency.To read this article in full, please click here
Real IT users evaluate network access control solutions: Cisco Identity Services Engine, Aruba ClearPass and ForeScout CounterACT. (Download the 27-page comparison.)
Linux just turned 28 years old. From its modest beginnings as an interesting project to the OS that now empowers all 500 of the top 500 supercomputers, along with a huge variety of tiny embedded devices, its place in today's computing world is unparalleled.I was still working with SunOS at the time that Linux was announced — a couple years before it evolved into the System V based Solaris. The full ramifications of what it would mean to be "open source" weren't clear at the time. I was in love with Unix, and this clearly related newborn was of some interest, but not enough to draw me away from the servers I was managing and articles I was writing in those days.To read this article in full, please click here
This week’s internet of things roundup takes a trip to the airport to learn how IoT can ease security line angst and then jets off for Paris and India.