Growing the Cloudflare Apps Ecosystem

Starting today we are announcing the availability of two key pilot programs:

• Cloudflare Apps with Workers
• Cloudflare Workers Service Providers

Why now? Over the course of past few months we've seen accelerating interest in Workers, and we frequently field the question on what we are doing to combine our growing ecosystem around Workers, and our unique deliverability capability, Cloudflare Apps. To meet this need, we have introduced two programs, Apps with Workers and Workers Service Providers. Let’s dig into the details:

First, we are announcing the upcoming availability of Cloudflare Apps, powered by embeddable Workers. This will allow any developer to build, deploy and in the near future package Workers to distribute to third parties, all using the Cloudflare Apps platform. It will be, in effect, the world's first serverless Apps platform.

Today, it's easy develop Workers using with our UI or API. The ability to App-ify Workers opens up a whole new promise to those who prefer to deal in clicks and not code. For our Apps developers, Apps with Workers allows for more complex Apps offerings running on Cloudflare, and for our customers the next generation in Apps. So, while we are actively putting the finishing touches on Continue reading

Security and Analytics

Cisco Buys Duo Security for $2.35 Billion

Acquiring the two-factor authentication startup boosts Cisco’s cloud security portfolio and its intent-based networking strategy.

Become a VMware NSX Expert Today

If you’ve wanted to learn about VMware NSX, a L2-L7 networking and security virtualization platform entirely in software, and didn’t know where to start, this is the guide for you. Already an NSX user, and want to improve on your skills? This is also a great resource to becoming an NSXpert!

Reintroducing the VMware NSX Networking and Security Portfolio

VMware NSX is a network virtualization and security platform that offers a rich, full-stack of L2-L7 networking services such as routing, switching, load balancing, and firewalling to connect, protect, automate, and manage workloads across private, public and hybrid cloud environment as well as branch and cloud edge environments.

The VMware NSX portfolio consists of a complete set of networking and security offerings designed to address customer use-cases supporting workloads based on virtual machines (VMs), containers, and bare-metal.

Here are the core components of the NSX portfolio:

• NSX Data Center is the flagship NSX platform designed to connect and protect workloads in and across data center environments.
• NSX Cloud extends the networking and security capabilities of NSX to workloads running natively in public clouds such as AWS and Azure.
• NSX Distributed IDS/IPS is a fully distributed software intrusion Continue reading

Worth Reading: The Next Stop on the Metro

5G technology really will herald the arrival of a range of truly exciting and revolutionary new services – for consumers, for businesses, for industry and for public services. And with these new services come major opportunities for service providers keen to diversify their service portfolios and create new ways to generate revenue. —Moshe Shimon @ECI

Las Marías of Azacualpa: Internet for Raising Women’s Voices

Azacualpa Yamaranguila, a village in the Intibuca region in Honduras, is celebrating. And not for nothing. Last Saturday was a historic day as they accessed the Internet for the very first time. For many of us, the Internet is taken for granted, but for the Lenca people it started like a dream 6 months ago when the Internet Society Honduras’ Chapter gave them the idea of connecting their village to the Internet. This idea became a reality thanks to the collective effort of the community and the support of Beyond the Net.

Las Marías

The party is for everyone but it focuses on them: Las Marías. With great curiosity, the women of the community came to the celebration early.

When I arrived after a 4-hour trip from Tegucigalpa, they were already there, dressed in colorful clothing. They were selling their products, taking care of their children, and anxiously awaiting the inauguration of the first community network of Azacualpa.

It was also the first anniversary of the radio ‘La Voz de las Mujeres’ (‘The Voice of the Women’) and María Santos, one of the heroes of the day and a leader of the community, was the first Continue reading

Computing should be based on light, not electricity, scientists say

Light-carrying, miniature wires are potentially more efficient for computing than other forms of interconnects, including copper and larger optical systems, say experts.However, there’s been a problem in getting such a nanowire system to work, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explains in an article published on Science Daily.“There hasn't been a controlled method for selectively sending light down along nanoscale wires,” says James Cahoon, a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Optical technology has either used much larger structures or wasted a lot of light in the process.” Creating light uses power, defeating the object, for one thing.To read this article in full, please click here

Computing should be based on light, not electricity, scientists say

Light-carrying, miniature wires are potentially more efficient for computing than other forms of interconnects, including copper and larger optical systems, say experts.However, there’s been a problem in getting such a nanowire system to work, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explains in an article published on Science Daily.“There hasn't been a controlled method for selectively sending light down along nanoscale wires,” says James Cahoon, a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Optical technology has either used much larger structures or wasted a lot of light in the process.” Creating light uses power, defeating the object, for one thing.To read this article in full, please click here

Webex Has A Perception Problem

It seems I’m not alone

Cisco pays cool $2.3 billion for hot security company Duo

Cisco today laid out $2.35 billion in cash and stock for network- identity, authentication and security company Duo.According to Cisco, Duo helps protect organizations against cyber breaches through the company’s cloud-based software that verifies the identity of users and the health of their devices before granting access to applications with the idea of preventing breaches and account takeover.[ Learn who's developing quantum computers.] A few particulars of the deal include:To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco pays cool $2.3 billion for hot security company Duo

Cisco today laid out $2.35 billion in cash and stock for network identity, authentication security company Duo.According to Cisco, Duo helps protect organizations against cyber breaches through the company’s cloud-based software that verifies the identity of users and the health of their devices before granting access to applications with the idea of preventing breaches and account takeover.A few particulars of the deal include: Cisco currently provides on-premises network access control via its Identity Services Engine (ISE) product. Duo's software as a service-based (SaaS) model will be integrated with Cisco ISE to extend ISE to provide cloud-delivered application access control. By verifying user and device trust, Duo will add trusted identity awareness into Cisco's Secure Internet Gateway, Cloud Access Security Broker, Enterprise Mobility Management, and several other cloud-delivered products. Cisco's in-depth visibility of over 180 million managed devices will be augmented by Duo's broad visibility of mobile and unmanaged devices. Cisco said that Integration of its network, device and cloud security platforms with Duo Security’s zero-trust authentication and access products will let customers to quickly secure users to any application on any networked device. In fact, about 75% of Duo’s customers are up and running in less than Continue reading

Cisco pays cool $2.3 billion for hot security company Duo

Cisco today laid out $2.35 billion in cash and stock for network identity, authentication security company Duo.According to Cisco, Duo helps protect organizations against cyber breaches through the company’s cloud-based software that verifies the identity of users and the health of their devices before granting access to applications with the idea of preventing breaches and account takeover.A few particulars of the deal include: Cisco currently provides on-premises network access control via its Identity Services Engine (ISE) product. Duo's software as a service-based (SaaS) model will be integrated with Cisco ISE to extend ISE to provide cloud-delivered application access control. By verifying user and device trust, Duo will add trusted identity awareness into Cisco's Secure Internet Gateway, Cloud Access Security Broker, Enterprise Mobility Management, and several other cloud-delivered products. Cisco's in-depth visibility of over 180 million managed devices will be augmented by Duo's broad visibility of mobile and unmanaged devices. Cisco said that Integration of its network, device and cloud security platforms with Duo Security’s zero-trust authentication and access products will let customers to quickly secure users to any application on any networked device. In fact, about 75% of Duo’s customers are up and running in less than Continue reading

Applying AI to Network Analytics

Why IoT for seniors is a lot tougher than it looks

We’ve all heard the promises about how the Internet of Things (IoT) is perfectly positioned to provide healthcare, entertainment, and a wide variety of other services to the aging populations of many industrialized nations. The need is real because the population of countries like Japan, Italy, Greece, and Germany are getting older fast, resulting in a dearth of youngsters able (and willing, of course) to take care of their parents’ generation.The idea — bolstered by a European Commission on the topic — is that autonomous devices, robots, built-in sensors, medical and fitness wearables, voice-activated assistants, specially tuned smart homes, and other IoT innovations will fill in the gaps, helping meet the needs of seniors without requiring legions of younger workers. But when I saw a recent CNBC story about Google’s Nest home automation unit exploring the senior citizen market, it made me laugh out loud.To read this article in full, please click here

Worth Reading: The Jargon

One enduring and complex piece of jargon is the use of “free” in relation to software. In fact, the term is so ambiguous that different terms have evolved to describe some of the variants—open source, FOSS, and even phrases such as “free as in speech, not as in beer.” But surely this is a good thing, right? —Mike Bursell @Opensource.com

Network Break 195: Google Goes For Hybrid Cloud; Gigamon Buys Security Startup

Kontron Acquires Inocybe, Will Compete Against Lumina Networks

Inocybe’s SDN controller will run on Kontron white-box hardware. And Kontron also gets Inocybe’s enterprise customer base.

AWS Cloud Share Slips as Competitors Claw at Its Lead

The worldwide IaaS market grew 29.5 percent in 2017 to total $23.5 billion, up from $18.2 billion in 2016, according to Gartner.

Headcount: The Latest in Hirings, Firings, and Retirings — August 1, 2018

Nutanix President Sudheesh Nair exits to become CEO of a startup; CenturyLink's VP of SDN leaves; Ariel Dan promoted to Cloudify CEO.

CenturyLink Gives Customers a Direct Link to IBM Cloud

This cloud collaboration is part of a bigger partnership between the two firms. CenturyLink already supports other IBM services such as its business resiliency and managed cloud platform.