Xilinx isn’t about to sit on its hands in the FPGA battle with Intel. The last major independent FPGA chip maker is supplementing its partnership with AMD by teaming with three of the largest cloud vendors in China as well as Amazon Web Services (AWS).At its developer forum in Beijing, Xilinx announced that Alibaba Cloud, Huawei, and server vendor Inspur will begin to offer data center platforms based on Xilinx’s FPGA-as-a-service model, mostly targeting artificial intelligence (AI) inference workloads.[ Learn how server disaggregation can boost data center efficiency. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
Separately, Xilinx announced a partnership with AWS to begin previewing FPGA instances in its Chinese regional hub in Beijing. You have to figure that will eventually make its way to the U.S., but there is nothing concrete as of yet.To read this article in full, please click here
Microsoft is recommending that those who have downloaded Windows Server 2019 should not install it until the company has resolved an isolated issue with Windows 10, which runs on the same code base.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
My humble beginnings
Back in the early 2000s, I was the sole network engineer at a startup. By morning, my role included managing four floors and 22 European locations packed with different vendors and servers between three companies. In the evenings, I administered the largest enterprise streaming networking in Europe with a group of highly skilled staff.Since we were an early startup, combined roles were the norm. I’m sure that most of you who joined as young engineers in such situations could understand how I felt back then. However, it was a good experience, so I battled through it. To keep my evening’s stress-free and without any IT calls, I had to design in as much high-availability (HA) as I possibly could. After all, all the interesting technological learning was in the second part of my day working with content delivery mechanisms and complex routing.To read this article in full, please click here
Nmap, the "network mapper" has long been used on corporate networks to collect information on desktop systems and servers. The tool provides information on the systems and services that are running (i.e., open ports). It can also help to identify rogue systems and vulnerabilities. Nmap makes it easy to detect changes as well as new systems on the network. Typical uses include:
host discovery -- probing by IP address and providing information on the systems that respond
port scanning -- identifying services that are available for use
version detection -- identifying applications and their versions
OS detection -- determining the operating system along with some hardware characteristics
Sysadmins have been installing nmap on Linux for more than 20 years. Originally released in 1997, nmap has since that time become available for Windows and other Unix variants as well. In fact, it's considered a standard security tool and is a free and open source security scanner. It's typically used in corporate settings for collecting information on systems and doing security analysis.To read this article in full, please click here
Space may not be the final frontier for the Internet of Things, but evidence is mounting that it could be the technology’s next golden opportunity. While we’re still a ways away from the IoT in space becoming a commercially viable mainstream technology, a variety of companies are pushing the envelope in two significant ways.First, companies are working to realize the promise of satellite-powered networks that would bring the Internet of Things everywhere on earth. Second, vendors — and NASA — are exploring actual IoT applications and use cases beyond Earth’s atmosphere, in satellites and rockets.To read this article in full, please click here
OEM Lenovo and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform developer Scale Computing have partnered to offer an out-of-the-box HCI platform specifically for edge computing deployments.Dubbed the Scale Computing HC3 Edge Platform on Lenovo Servers, the solution is an integration of Scale's HC3 software platform — what it calls “a data center in a box” — on Lenovo server hardware. HC3 brings together compute, storage, and virtualization into a comprehensive system with automated management.The Lenovo/Scale solution provides "edge infrastructure that has the capacity to run various IT and OT workloads, is space-conscious, and can be managed at each individual location by generalists," said Wilfredo Sotolongo, vice president and general manager of IoT for Lenovo's data center group, in a statement.To read this article in full, please click here
The next advance in Wi-Fi, 802.11ax, is fast approaching. As we seek to raise the performance bar yet again for the sixth generation of Wi-Fi, the traditional techniques used in 802.11n and 802.11ac – wider RF channels, more MIMO antennas, higher QAM modulation – have been pushed almost to the limit, and it’s time to look for new ideas.802.11ax introduces techniques for ‘massive parallelism,’ especially OFDMA, multi-user MIMO, and ‘BSS coloring.’ All of these require the access point to make control decisions that have a significant effect on network performance, a new emphasis for Wi-Fi that will move access point networks closer to cellular base station infrastructure in terms of functionality.To read this article in full, please click here
It’s a measure of how big and meaningful a particular technology trend is when big companies that weren’t necessarily in on the ground floor start making a major push for relevance in the market. A couple years ago, every tech company in the world couldn’t wait to tell you about how into the cloud they were, and the same thing is happening to IoT. The pivots, they are a-comin’.This month, some of the heavy hitters moving to make themselves more appealing to the burgeoning IoT market are content delivery networks (CDN) like Akamai and Limelight, both of which were eager to trumpet their edge credentials.
More on IoT:To read this article in full, please click here
As we explore the new features appearing in 802.11ax, the list is unbalanced. Some would say there’s a pig in the python. One feature – OFDMA – seems much more significant than the others. First, a brief background, then a view of its implications.A Quick Review of OFDMAOFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) is an extension of the OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) architecture. OFDM takes an RF channel, such as the 20 MHz channel often used in Wi-Fi, and instead of using a single carrier-frequency modulated by AM, FM, or other means, sets out a number of sub-carriers. 802.11ac used 52 data-carrying sub-carriers in a 20 MHz RF channel, while 802.11ax has 234.To read this article in full, please click here
ORLANDO – IBM has rolled out a multi-cloud management system that promises to help customers manage, move and integrate apps across multivendor cloud infrastructures.IBM’s new Kubernetes-based Multi-cloud Manager runs on the company’s year-old IBM Cloud Private platform but lets customers manage and integrate workloads on clouds from other providers such as Amazon, Red Hat and Microsoft. That means better automation, quicker spin-up of services and better pricing when using the IBM platform, said IBM’s Robin Hernandez, Director, IBM Private Cloud Offering Management.RELATED: How to make hybrid cloud work
Hernandez says at the heart of the Multi-cloud Manager is a dashboard interface for managing thousands of Kubernetes applications and huge volumes of data regardless of where in the organization they are located.To read this article in full, please click here
Private cloud is a well-defined term that government standards groups and the commercial cloud industry have pretty much agreed upon, and while some think its use is waning, recent analysis indicates that spending on private cloud is still growing at a breakneck pace.A study by IDC projects that sales from private-cloud investment hit $4.6 billion in the second quarter of 2018 alone, which is a 28.2 percent increase from the same period in 2017.[ Also see How to plan a software-defined data-center network and Efficient container use requires data-center software networking.]
So why are organizations attracted to private cloud?To read this article in full, please click here
Private cloud is a well-defined term that government standards groups and the commercial cloud industry have pretty much agreed upon, and while some think its use is waning, recent analysis indicates that spending on private cloud is still growing at a breakneck pace.A study by IDC projects that sales from private-cloud investment hit $4.6 billion in the second quarter of 2018 alone, which is a 28.2 percent increase from the same period in 2017.[ Also see How to plan a software-defined data-center network and Efficient container use requires data-center software networking.]
So why are organizations attracted to private cloud?To read this article in full, please click here
Microsoft co-founder, philanthropist, space enthusiast, owner of the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers and the NFL's Seattle Seahawks, Paul Allen, has died. He was 65.Allen’s family issued a statement today through by Vulcan Inc., Allen’s privately held company, on behalf of the Allen Family, Vulcan and the Paul G. Allen network.“It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of our founder Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and noted technologist, philanthropist, community builder, conservationist, musician and supporter of the arts. Mr. Allen died on Monday afternoon, October 15, 2018, from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in Seattle.”To read this article in full, please click here
Whether you’re just getting your small business off the ground or growing an already successful venture, onboarding and maintaining your employees’ tech gadgets are important steps. Unfortunately, IT can be expensive — and out of the question for many small businesses. Even if you can afford to purchase reliable Apple devices for your growing staff, it can be hard to find the time to keep them updated without a specialist. That’s where Jamf Now comes into play: it’s a cloud-based solution that delivers Apple management and security with just a few minutes of setup.To read this article in full, please click here
Entropy sucks. But industrial predictive maintenance can help it suck a little less for factories, oil rigs, aircraft engines, and even data centers. The key is to leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning to help companies “accurately determine when a manufacturing plant, machine, component, or part is likely to fail, and thus needs to be replaced.”That, in a nutshell, is the point behind a fascinating new Google Cloud blog post by Prashant Dhingra, Machine Learning Lead, Advanced Solutions Lab, laying out “A strategy for implementing industrial predictive maintenance.”To read this article in full, please click here
Chinese smartphone giant Huawei Technologies Co. announced at its Huawei Connect 2018 show in Shanghai an update to its Ascend artificial intelligence (AI) chips with a new set of cloud services, software, tools, training, and framework.The company is putting itself in direct competition with the main AI chip developers in the U.S., namely Nvidia, Intel, and Qualcomm, but also ARM, IBM, to some degree Google, and even fellow Chinese tech giant Alibaba.Chairman Eric Xu introduced the Ascend 910 and Ascend 310 chips along with the Compute Architecture for Neural Networks (CANN), a chip operators library and automated operators development toolkit, and MindSpore, an inference framework for devices, edge networks, and cloud training.To read this article in full, please click here
I was recently reading some responses to a question posted on the Spiceworks community forum that asked, “How do you dispose of old hard drives?" While there were some typically humorous responses, such as use them as target practice, smash them with a hammer, or drill a hole through them, I assume those comments were in jest. If not, those respondents are missing out on a great opportunity to get money back for their used equipment.It also reminds me of the need for safe, secure IT asset disposition (ITAD) services. It’s imperative to find an ITAD provider that offers data sanitization and destruction services that protect your company’s data integrity and privacy, handles your gear in an environmentally responsible way, and can also save your company money.To read this article in full, please click here
So far, so good. That’s the report from Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as it rolled out the first-ever changing of the cryptographic key that helps protect the internet’s address book – the Domain Name System (DNS) on Oct. 11.The change is central to ICANN’s project to upgrade the top pair of cryptographic keys used in the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) protocol — commonly known as the root zone key signing key (KSK) — which secures the internet's foundational servers. This so-called root KSK rollover from the 2010 KSK to the 2017 KSK was supposed to take place almost a year ago but was delayed until Oct. 11 of this year because of concerns it might disrupt internet connectivity to significant numbers of web users.To read this article in full, please click here
Management has always struggled how to optimize and oversee IT resources, tasks and operations. This challenge is becoming more complex due to “digital disruption”. As a result less tech-savvy companies are more likely to fall behind the competition and not able to attract top talent.Most of the times it is not that managers do not see the dangers of digital disruption coming. They do understand the challenges as well as the opportunities, and they know the competition sees them as well. Unfortunately, top management decisions often tend to focus on who is responsible for IT and where IT should be located, rather than the how.Generally, the assumption is that the right people will do the right work, either internally or in another company. However, this assumption is flawed. In that regard, an important reminder is that digital transformation is more about how companies do things, and less about who or where those tasks are performed. Digital disruption changes entire industries so fast that companies lack a structured process or the capabilities to handle it. IT management should offer not only the resources (people and equipment), but also the processes and capabilities to eliminate the risks, tackle the problems Continue reading
In the world of wireless, the term Wi-Fi is synonymous with wireless access in general, despite the fact that it is a specific trademark owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance, a group dedicated to certifying that Wi-Fi products meet the IEEE’s set of 802.11 wireless standards.These standards, with names such as 802.11b (pronounced “Eight-O-Two-Eleven-Bee”, ignore the “dot”) and 802.11ac, comprise a family of specifications that started in the 1990s and continues to grow today. The 802.11 standards codify improvements that boost wireless throughput and range as well as the use of new frequencies as they become available. They also address new technologies that reduce power consumption.To read this article in full, please click here