Cisco this week celebrated the second anniversary of its purchase of SD-WAN vendor Viptela and reiterated its expectation that 2019 will see the technology change enterprise networks in major ways.In a blog outlining trends in the SD-WAN world, Anand Oswal, Cisco senior vice president, engineering, in the company’s Enterprise Networking Business described how SD-WAN technology has changed the network for one of its customers, test and measurement systems vendor National Instruments. To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco seeks to enhance container deployment with a service to let enterprise customers run containerized applications across both Cisco-based on-premises environments and in the Microsoft Azure cloud.Customers can now further simplify deploying and managing Kubernetes clusters on-premises and in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) with one tool, using common identify and control policies, reducing manual tasks and ultimately time-to-market for their application environments, wrote Cisco’s Kip Compton, senior vice president of the company’s Cloud Platform and Solutions group in a blog about the work. To read this article in full, please click here
Eleven zero-day vulnerabilities in WindRiver’s VxWorks, a real-time operating system in use across an advertised 2 billion connected devices have been discovered by network security vendor Armis.Six of the vulnerabilities could enable remote attackers to access unpatched systems without any user interaction, even through a firewall according to Armis.
About IoT:
What is the IoT? How the internet of things works
What is edge computing and how it’s changing the network
Most powerful Internet of Things companies
10 Hot IoT startups to watch
The 6 ways to make money in IoT
What is digital twin technology? [and why it matters]
Blockchain, service-centric networking key to IoT success
Getting grounded in IoT networking and security
Building IoT-ready networks must become a priority
What is the Industrial IoT? [And why the stakes are so high]
The vulnerabilities affect all devices running VxWorks version 6.5 and later with the exception of VxWorks 7, issued July 19, which patches the flaws. That means the attack windows may have been open for more than 13 years.To read this article in full, please click here
While the public image of agriculture remains a bit antiquated, the industry is actually an increasingly sophisticated one, and farmers have been particularly enthusiastic in their embrace of IoT. Everything from GPS-guided precision for planting, watering and harvesting to remote soil monitoring and in-depth yield analysis is available to the modern farmer.What’s more, the technology used in agriculture continues to evolve at speed; witness the recent partnership between Quantified Ag, a University of Nebraska-backed program that, among other things, can track livestock health via a system of IoT ear tags, and Cradlepoint, a vendor that makes the NetCloud Manager product.To read this article in full, please click here
Google this week said it would for the first time natively support VMware workloads in its Cloud service, giving customers more options for deploying enterprise applications.The hybrid cloud service called Google Cloud VMware Solution by CloudSimple will use VMware software-defined data center (SDCC) technologies including VMware vSphere, NSX and vSAN software deployed on a platform administered by CloudSimple for GCP.RELATED: How to make hybrid cloud work
“Users will have full, native access to the full VMware stack including vCenter, vSAN and NSX-T. Google Cloud will provide the first line of support, working closely with CloudSimple to help ensure customers receive a streamlined product support experience and that their business-critical applications are supported with the SLAs that enterprise customers need,” Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud wrote in a blog outlining the deal. To read this article in full, please click here
This is the part-one of a two-part blog series that will explore the return on investment that can be achieved by deploying a business-driven SD-WAN. In this installment, I will discuss how enterprise IT organizations can make the business case for moving from a traditional router-centric WAN architecture to a business-first networking model with SD-WAN.According to a survey conducted by Frost and Sullivan in 2018[1], 72 percent of respondents considered SD-WAN as a priority for their organization. Only a small percentage, six percent, indicated that they have no intention to deploy SD-WAN in the near term.To read this article in full, please click here
Managing log files on Linux systems can be incredibly easy or painful. It all depends on what you mean by log management.If all you mean is how you can go about ensuring that your log files don’t eat up all the disk space on your Linux server, the issue is generally quite straightforward. Log files on Linux systems will automatically roll over, and the system will only maintain a fixed number of the rolled-over logs. Even so, glancing over what can easily be a group of 100 files can be overwhelming. In this post, we'll take a look at how the log rotation works and some of the most relevant log files. [ Two-Minute Linux Tips: Learn how to master a host of Linux commands in these 2-minute video tutorials ]
Automatic log rotation
Log files rotate frequently. What is the current log acquires a slightly different file name and a new log file is established. Take the syslog file as an example. This file is something of a catch-all for a lot of normal system messages. If you cd over to /var/log and take a look, you’ll probably see a series of syslog files like this:To read Continue reading
Networking has gone through various transformations over the last decade. In essence, the network has become complex and hard to manage using traditional mechanisms. Now there is a significant need to design and integrate devices from multiple vendors and employ new technologies, such as virtualization and cloud services.Therefore, every network is a unique snowflake. You will never come across two identical networks. The products offered by the vendors act as the building blocks for engineers to design solutions that work for them. If we all had a simple and predictable network, this would not be a problem. But there are no global references to follow and designs vary from organization to organization. These lead to network variation even while offering similar services.To read this article in full, please click here
NVM Express Inc., the developer of the NVMe spec for enterprise SSDs, announced that its NVMe-oF architecture has entered a final 45-day review, an important step toward release of a formal specification for enterprise SSD makers.NVMe-oF stands for NVMe over Fabrics, a mechanism to transfer data between a host computer and a target SSD or system over a network, such as Ethernet, Fibre Channel (FC), or InfiniBand. NVM Express first released the 1.0 spec of NVMe-oF in 2016, so this is long overdue.To read this article in full, please click here
Just days after AT&T hooked up with IBM and Microsoft for cloud service connectivity, Verizon announced a software-defined interconnect (SDI) service to help the carrier's customers connect Equinix colocation data centers.These two companies have a history. In 2017, Equinix acquired 29 Verizon data centers in the U.S and Latin America for $3.6 billion. So like AT&T, Verizon left data centers to the experts and focused on building connections to them. [ Read also: How to plan a software-defined data center network ]
As more enterprises move workloads into colocation facilities run by providers like Equinix, fast, secure connections between the enterprise and the colocation become a must. Verizon's SDI service is designed to provide fast, reliable connectivity between customer and the colocation data center.To read this article in full, please click here
Security arrangements for smart-city IoT technology around the world are in an alarming state of disrepair, according to a report from Forrester Research that argues serious changes are needed in order to avoid widespread compromises.Much of what’s wrong has to do with a lack of understanding on the part of the people in charge of those systems and a failure to follow well-known security best practices, like centralized management, network visibility and limiting attack-surfaces.
More on IoT:
What is the IoT? How the internet of things works
What is edge computing and how it’s changing the network
Most powerful Internet of Things companies
10 Hot IoT startups to watch
The 6 ways to make money in IoT
What is digital twin technology? [and why it matters]
Blockchain, service-centric networking key to IoT success
Getting grounded in IoT networking and security
Building IoT-ready networks must become a priority
What is the Industrial IoT? [And why the stakes are so high]
Those all pose stiff challenges, according to “Making Smart Cities Safe And Secure,” the Forrester report by Merritt Maxim and Salvatore Schiano. The attack surface for a smart city is, by default, enormous, given the volume of Internet-connected hardware involved. Continue reading
In part 1 of this 3-part series on how to conduct a wide-area network assessment and determine necessary updates, we looked at foundational issues including current challenges and objectives. Part 2 examined considerations around applications and bandwidth. In this third and final installment we’ll look at two issues that are critical for any organization: resiliency and security.To read this article in full, please click here
As faithful readers of TechWatch (love you, Mom) may know, the rollout of many companies’ ambitious drone delivery services has not gone as quickly as promised. Despite recent signs of progress in Australia and the United States—not to mention clever ideas for burger deliveries to cars stuck in traffic—drone delivery remains a long way from becoming a viable option in the vast majority of use cases. And the problem affects many areas of drone usage, not just the heavily hyped drone delivery applications.To read this article in full, please click here
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Companies are racing to a new technological paradigm but are using yesterday’s tech to do it.I know. Shocking.A survey of more than 300 storage professionals by storage vendor NGD Systems found only 11% of the companies they talked to would give themselves an “A” grade for their compute and storage capabilities.Why? The chief reason given is that while enterprises are rapidly deploying technologies for edge networks, real-time analytics, machine learning, and internet of things (IoT) projects, they are still using legacy storage solutions that are not designed for such data-intensive workloads. More than half — 54% — said their processing of edge applications is a bottleneck, and they want faster and more intelligent storage solutions.To read this article in full, please click here
The internet of things (IoT) is shaping up to be a more significant threat to the Domain Name System (DNS) through larger IoT botnets, unintentional adverse effects of IoT-software updates and the continuing development of bot-herding software.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
Apple calls CarPlay “the ultimate co-pilot.” BMW calls it the “smart and fast way to conveniently use your iPhone features while in your car. ... You can control your iPhone and use apps with the touchscreen display, the iDrive Controller or voice commands.”However you describe it, though, Apple’s CarPlay system suddenly finds itself in the center of what could be a defining conversation about the future of the internet of things (IoT).You see, the German luxury carmaker’s plans to charge $80 a year to access CarPlay have suddenly become the talk of the internet, from tech blogs to car sites. The hue and cry makes CarPlay the perfect illustration of the promise—and the pitfalls—of the IoT.To read this article in full, please click here
Most companies like to keep their specialty software to themselves, but IBM is making a move to expand its Spectrum Discover metadata management software to support competitive storage products.Spectrum Discover is modern metadata management software that provides data insight for petabyte-scale unstructured storage. It was designed for IBM Cloud Object Storage and IBM Spectrum Scale, a clustered file system, to rapidly ingest, consolidate and index metadata for billions of files and objects.Its metadata layer enables storage administrators, data stewards and data scientists to efficiently manage, classify, and gain insights from massive amounts of unstructured data while helping to mitigate risk and accelerate large-scale analytics.To read this article in full, please click here
Waste heat is the scurge of computing. In fact, much of the cost of powering a computer is from creating unwanted heat. That’s because the inefficiencies in electronic circuits, caused by resistance in the materials, generates that heat. The processors, without computing anything, are essentially converting expensively produced electrical energy into waste energy.
It’s a fundamental problem, and one that hasn’t been going away. But what if you could convert the unwanted heat back into electricity—recycle the heat back into its original energy form? The data center heat, instead of simply disgorging into the atmosphere to be gotten rid of with dubious eco-effects, could actually run more machines. Plus, your cooling costs would be taken care of—there’s nothing to cool because you’ve already grabbed the hot air.To read this article in full, please click here
When it comes to connecting internet of things (IoT) devices, there is a wide variety of networks to choose from, each with its own set of capabilities, advantages and disadvantages, and ideal use cases. Good ol’ Wi-Fi is often seen as a default networking choice, available in many places, but of limited range and not particularly suited for IoT implementations.According to Aerohive Networks, however, Wi-Fi is “evolving to help IT address security complexities and challenges associated with IoT devices.” Aerohive sells cloud-managed networking solutions and was acquired recently by software-defined networking company Extreme Networks for some $272 million. And Aerohive's director of product marketing, Mathew Edwards, told me via email that Wi-Fi brings a number of security advantages compared to other IoT networking choices.To read this article in full, please click here
In part 1 of this 3-part series on how to conduct a wide-area network assessment and prepare for WAN updates, we looked at foundational issues such as current challenges and objectives. In this installment, we’ll examine considerations around applications and bandwidth.As with part 1, my source for information was Mike Lawson, Manager of SD-WAN/NFV Solutions Architecture for CenturyLink. Lawson is in the trenches with network architects and customers every day; as such, he understands the issues that lead companies to upgrade WAN services to newer technologies such as software-defined WAN (SD-WAN).To read this article in full, please click here