It started as a Ph.D. thesis project at one of the world’s premier institutions of technology research and higher education. Now it’s back to benefit a new generation of students and researchers.An advanced yet easy-to-use wireless network from Cisco Meraki – with origins in research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – has solved one of the university’s most intractable problems: providing robust Wi-Fi access in a challenging radio frequency environment.From research to productThe Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT is home to cutting-edge research in the areas of robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine vision, networking, and more. In 2006, researchers developed a novel plug-and-play Wi-Fi networking system that they spun out into a company called Meraki.To read this article in full, please click here
In the era of e-commerce, top consumer brands depend on superior customer service to win sales in the store and showroom. In few industries is this more important than automotive, where technology is changing the relationship between consumers and the cars they drive or ride in, offering an expanding array of options for mobility beyond simple ownership.One carmaker has risen to the challenge with a mix of smart tech and stellar customer service that created one of the most satisfied groups of automotive customers.To read this article in full, please click here
SoulCycle is a company on the move. Growing from a single sublet studio on New York’s Upper West Side in 2006, the company now has 90 locations and counting across North America. Devotees range from NBA basketball players to Hollywood celebrities, and everyone in between.To read this article in full, please click here
Manufacturers know better than most businesses the expense of replacing legacy equipment. With high costs for the industrial machines, programmable logic controllers, IT gear, and other systems needed to build everything from consumer packaged goods to cars and electronics, many manufacturers choose to milk their capital expenditures as long as possible. That can mean waiting years before replacing old equipment.One manufacturer, however, has found a way to replace legacy IT equipment while saving time and money, thanks to cloud-managed network appliances from Cisco Meraki.A legacy of innovationJapanese scale maker Teraoka Seiko has been in business for more than 85 years. While the company still makes scales, it has since expanded its business to include self-checkout cashiers, point-of-sale (POS) systems, and many other related devices and appliances. Although the technology has changed over the decades, the company’s commitment to innovation and its international focus has remained constant.To read this article in full, please click here
If wireless networks transfer 1,000 times more data, does that mean they will use 1,000 times more energy? It probably would with the old 4G LTE wireless technologies— LTE doesn’t have much of a sleep-standby. But with 5G, we might have a more energy-efficient option.More customers want Earth-friendly options, and engineers are now working on how to achieve it — meaning 5G might introduce the first zero-carbon networks. It’s not all certain, though.[ Related: What is 5G wireless? And how it will change networking as we know it ]
“When the 4G technology for wireless communication was developed, not many people thought about how much energy is consumed in transmitting bits of information,” says Emil Björnson, associate professor of communication systems at Linkoping University, in an article on the school’s website.To read this article in full, please click here
IBM continues to adopt new tools and practices for its mainframe customers to keep the Big Iron relevant in a cloud world.First of all, the company switched-up its 20-year mainframe software pricing scheme to make it more palatable to hybrid and multicloud users who might be thinking of moving workloads off the mainframe and into the cloud.[ 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. ]
Specifically IBM rolled out Tailored Fit Pricing for the IBM Z mainframe which offers two consumption-based pricing models that can help customers cope with ever-changing workload – and hence software – costs.To read this article in full, please click here
IBM continues to adopt new tools and practices for its mainframe customers to keep the Big Iron relevant in a cloud world.First of all, the company switched-up its 20-year mainframe software pricing scheme to make it more palatable to hybrid and multicloud users who might be thinking of moving workloads off the mainframe and into the cloud.[ 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. ]
Specifically IBM rolled out Tailored Fit Pricing for the IBM Z mainframe which offers two consumption-based pricing models that can help customers cope with ever-changing workload – and hence software – costs.To read this article in full, please click here
The city of Las Vegas’ pilot program with NTT and Dell, designed to crack down on wrong-way driving on municipal roads, is just part of the big plans that Sin City has for leveraging IoT tech in the future, according to the city's director of technology Michael Sherwood., who sat down with Network World at the IoT World conference in Silicon Valley this week.The system uses smart cameras and does most of its processing at the edge, according to Sherwood. The only information that gets sent back to the city’s private cloud is metadata – aggregated information about overall patterns, for decision-making and targeting purposes, not data about individual traffic incidents and wrong-way drivers.To read this article in full, please click here
Rick Hamilton, Senior Vice President, Blue Planet Software
Rick Hamilton, senior vice president of Blue Planet, a division of Ciena, explains how partnering with Brillio brings the next generation of network capabilities to enterprises—just when they need it most.In February 2019, we announced that Blue Planet was evolving into a more independent division, helping us increase our focus on innovative intelligent automation solutions that help our enterprise and service provider customers accelerate and achieve their business transformation goals. To read this article in full, please click here
Without a doubt, 5G — the fifth generation of mobile wireless technology — is the hottest topic in wireless circles today. You can’t throw a stone without hitting 5G news. While telecommunications providers are in a heated competition to roll out 5G, it’s important to reflect on current 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) business solutions as a preview of what we have learned and what’s possible.This is part one of a two-part blog series that will explore the SD-WAN journey through the evolution of these wireless technologies.Mobile SD-WAN is a reality
4G LTE commercialization continues to expand. According to the GSM (Groupe Spéciale Mobile) Association, 710 operators have rolled out 4G LTE in 217 countries, reaching 83 percent of the world’s population. The evolution of 4G is transforming the mobile industry and is setting the stage for the advent of 5G.To read this article in full, please click here
It's quite a mouthful, but Non-Volatile Memory Express over Fabrics (NVMeoF) is shaping up to become perhaps the most disruptive data center storage technology since the introduction of solid-state drives (SSD), promising to bring new levels of performance and economy to rapidly expanding storage arrays.NVMe over Fabrics is designed to deliver the high-speed and low-latency of NVMe SSD technology over a network fabric. There are currently three basic NVMe fabric implementations available: NVMe over Fibre Channel, NVMe over remote direct memory access, and NVMe over TCP.To read this article in full, please click here
Like Microsoft's Satya Nadella, HPE CEO Antonio Neri is a technologist with a long history of leading initiatives in his company. Meg Whitman, his former boss at HPE, showed her appreciation of Neri’s acumen by promoting him to HPE Executive Vice President in 2015 – and gave him the green light to acquire Aruba, SimpliVity, Nimble Storage, and Plexxi, all of which added key items to HPE’s portfolio.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has added support for Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) to its million-plus ISR/ASR edge routers, in an effort to reinforce branch and core network malware protection at across the SD-WAN.Cisco last year added its Viptela SD-WAN technology to the IOS XE version 16.9.1 software that runs its core ISR/ASR routers such as the ISR models 1000, 4000 and ASR 5000, in use by organizations worldwide. Cisco bought Viptela in 2017.
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?
The release of Cisco IOS XE offered an instant upgrade path for creating cloud-controlled SD-WAN fabrics to connect distributed offices, people, devices and applications operating on the installed base, Cisco said. At the time Cisco said that Cisco SD-WAN on edge routers builds a secure virtual IP fabric by combining routing, segmentation, security, policy and orchestration.To read this article in full, please click here
Global server shipments are not expected to return to growth momentum until the third quarter or even the fourth quarter of 2019, according to Taiwan-based tech news site DigiTimes, which cited unnamed server supply chain sources. The one bright spot remains cloud providers like Amazon, Google, and Facebook, which continue their buying binge.Normally I’d be reluctant to cite such a questionable source, but given most of the OEMs and ODMs are based in Taiwan and DigiTimes (the article is behind a paywall so I cannot link) has shown it has connections to them, I’m inclined to believe them.Quanta Computer chairman Barry Lam told the publication that Quanta's shipments of cloud servers have risen steadily, compared to sharp declines in shipments of enterprise servers. Lam continued that enterprise servers command only 1-2% of the firm's total server shipments.To read this article in full, please click here
Red Hat Summit 2019 is off to an exciting start. The conference, running from today until Thursday in Boston, is already tickling attendees’ fancies by announcing some very exciting developments.The first is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 — available now for everything from bare-metal servers and Linux containers to public and private clouds. [ Two-Minute Linux Tips: Learn how to master a host of Linux commands in these 2-minute video tutorials ]
RHEL 8 introduces Application Streams, which allow languages, frameworks, and developer tools to be updated frequently without impacting the core resources that have made Red Hat Enterprise Linux an enterprise benchmark. This feature brings quick developer innovation and production stability into the OS.To read this article in full, please click here
A new survey has found that a growing number of IT professionals have too many data sources to even count, and they are spending more and more time just wrestling that data into usable condition.Ivanti, an IT asset management firm, surveyed 400 IT professionals on their data situation and found IT faces numerous challenges when it comes to siloes, data, and implementation. The key takeaway is data overload is starting to overwhelm IT managers and data lakes are turning into data oceans.[ Read also: Understanding mass data fragmentation | Get daily insights Sign up for Network World newsletters ]
Among the findings from Ivanti's survey:To read this article in full, please click here
Frank O. Miller, Chief Technology Officer, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Ciena
Big bang OSS transformation projects are slow, expensive, and disruptive. Why not consider taking a ‘brick-by-brick’ approach that delivers value faster and sets you up for future success? asks Frank Miller, CTO, Ciena EMEA.When I’m talking with service providers, network automation is always high on their agenda. As well as dramatically reducing operational costs by automating manual processes, it can help you access bandwidth on demand, and provision new customer services in a fraction of the time it previously took. There are also major benefits in terms of discovering your network resources dynamically. An accurate view of available infrastructure enables you to more holistically plan and implement strategic initiatives that keep you ahead of the traffic demand curve.To read this article in full, please click here
The Internet of Things (IoT) is everywhere and its use is growing fast. IoT is used by local governments to build smart cities. It’s used to build smart businesses. And, consumers are benefitting as it’s built into smart homes and smart cars. Industry analyst first estimates that over 20 billion IoT devices will be connected by 2020. That’s a 2.5x increase from the more than 8 billion connected devices in 2017*. Manufacturing companies have the highest IoT spend to date of industries while the health care market is experiencing the highest IoT growth. By 2020, 50 percent of IoT spending will be driven by manufacturing, transportation and logistics, and utilities.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco is looking to give traditional or legacy wide-area network users another reason to move to the software-defined WAN world.The company has rolled out an integrated hardware/software package called SD-WAN Cloud onRamp for CoLocation that lets customers tie distributed multicloud applications back to a local branch office or local private data center. The idea is that a cloud-to-branch link would be shorter, faster and possibly more secure that tying cloud-based applications directly all the way to the data center.
More about SD-WANTo read this article in full, please click here
The latest news from Dell Technologies World is a high-end machine learning server for the data center that has four, eight, or even 10 Nvidia Tesla V100 GPUs for processing power.The Dell EMC DSS 8440 is a two-socket server with two of the new Xeon Scalable processors and is specifically designed for machine learning applications and other demanding workloads. Each Tesla is capable of more than 100 teraflops, so the 10 GPU machine is one petaflop of processing power. Dell claims the DSS 8440 is almost on par with performance by the DGX-1, which is also Tesla-powered.[ Read also: What is quantum computing (and why enterprises should care) ]
Obviously this is not a machine for beginners. That would be Dell EMC’s 740 and 7425 servers, which support up to three GPUs, and the 4140, which supports up to four GPU cards.To read this article in full, please click here