CenturyLink SD-WAN Biz Remains Small, but Is Growing

Most customers are buying SD-WAN services together with MPLS though the former is showing stronger overall growth.

FBI Takes On Russian Hackers, Seizes VPNFilter Malware Domain

The move essentially redirects the malware’s attacks to an FBI-controlled server.

20 hot jobs ambitious IT pros should shoot for

What should your next role in IT be? Maybe a security management expert? Or a change management guru?“Factors such as the proliferation of network-connected devices, adoption of cloud services and exponential rise in security threats are affecting hiring trends,” according to a survey released today by researchers at IDC and sponsored by Cisco about what IT roles will be hot in the future.[ Click here to download a PDF bundle of five essential articles about IoT in the enterprise. ] “Despite the central role that technology and the technology workforce play in this digital era, certain key roles stand out from the pack in terms of importance and opportunity. Not all roles are equal in the future,” wrote Mark Leary an intelligence analyst with Cisco Services in a blog post about the study.To read this article in full, please click here

Top 5 Recommendations for the IT Professional at DockerCon 2018

DockerCon 2018 is right around the corner and it’s not just a conference for developers! We’ve created experiences and activities designed with the IT professional in mind.

Registration is open so secure your spot and begin planning your conference experience.

“What gets me excited about Docker is how liberating their platform is for technologists. As a technologist, Docker gives me the freedom, flexibility, and makes it extremely easy to run and deploy apps on modern infrastructure.” – Arjuna Rivera, I2 Labs Leader, Lockheed Martin

DockerCon is the premier container industry event, where you’ll see examples of Docker best practices that you can implement within your company, gain hands-on experience of the Docker container platform, including Kubernetes, security, networking and storage, plus learn how to bring the Docker container platform in to your organization to modernize applications and streamline your deployment and maintenance operations.

Networking is key benefit to a conference and at DockerCon we’ve made it easy to find peers in our Hallway Track. Whether you’re looking for somebody to help answer your questions, or you have wisdom to share with others, the Hallway Track is like your own custom breakout session.

Here are our top 5 recommendations for Continue reading

Destructive ‘VPNFilter’ Attack Network Uncovered

Worth Reading: How much of the Internet is QUIC?

First, we investigated the QUIC-capable infrastructure in IPv4 on its common UDP port 443, from which we built a ZMap module to rapidly enumerate QUIC hosts. We exercised QUIC’s version negotiation feature within our module, which yields QUIC support as well as the supported QUIC versions. —Jan Rüth @APNIC

The future of storage is here

Sometime in the past couple of years, Gartner introduced a term called “Shared Accelerated Storage” (SAS) to describe what’s next for the industry after all-flash arrays. I’m not sure when they first used the term, but it was the very first bullet in its 2017 Storage Hype Cycle, indicating its relative newness as a market category.In its Hype Cycle, Gartner has a rather long and complicated definition of what SAS is. The easy way to think about it is that it brings the benefits of network-based systems and direct-attached systems together by leveraging a number of new technologies, most notably Nonvolatile Memory Express— or NVMe, as its more commonly known.  To read this article in full, please click here

Community Networks Can Bridge the Digital Divide, But Some Still Need to Be Convinced

Community networks can help bring connectivity to many of world’s population still without it, but some governments, ISPs, and some potential users need to be convinced of their benefits, connectivity experts said.

Community networks can bring huge economic, educational, and social opportunities to areas without Internet access, Raul Echeberria, the Internet Society’s vice president for global engagement, said Wednesday.

With nearly half the world’s population still lacking Internet access, “this is creating a huge gap of opportunities,” he said during a community networking roundtable discussion hosted by the Internet Society.

Through community network projects such as a year-old network in the mountainous region of Tusheti in the nation of Georgia, the Internet Society has seen the proof that existing technologies can bring Internet service to some of the most remote areas on Earth, Echeberria said.

After a year of operation, the Georgian network is providing new economic opportunities to inn keepers and other tourism-related businesses in the region, said Ucha Seturi, director of the community network project there. Demand for Internet service is growing, he added.

With the technology questions largely solved, a key piece of the puzzle for community networks is getting the buy-in of the unserved communities and Continue reading

Thanks, Arista! We’ll Leave a Light on for You

Wow.  Just, wow.  Here we were at Pica8, ten days away from announcing a screamingly simplified white box switching architecture for enterprise campus networks – one that makes legacy switch stack and chassis switch replacement with disaggregated white box switches ridiculously easy — when Arista suddenly pops up and says that the success white box switches are having in the data center is now well and truly annoying to them, so they are starting to plan a future expedition to the enterprise campus in search of replacing lost revenue.

But after blowing straight past total market validation for us – we already have a number of ongoing enterprise campus network deployments inside some of Cisco’s oldest and largest accounts – Arista then went on to articulate the changes they envision for their future campus network switching push and, in doing so, came very close to a one-to-one mapping with what we’ve just announced as an orderable solution with our new PicaPilot switch orchestration software (see link below). (I really must order a case of champagne for my friends over there.)

Just how close is the mapping?  Well, let’s start with solving the urgent requirement to simplify Continue reading

Thanks, Arista! We’ll Leave a Light on for You

Wow.  Just, wow.  Here we were at Pica8, ten days away from announcing a screamingly simplified white box switching architecture for enterprise campus networks – one that makes legacy switch stack and chassis switch replacement with disaggregated white box switches ridiculously easy — when Arista suddenly pops up and says that the success white box switches are having in the data center is now well and truly annoying to them, so they are starting to plan a future expedition to the enterprise campus in search of replacing lost revenue.

But after blowing straight past total market validation for us – we already have a number of ongoing enterprise campus network deployments inside some of Cisco’s oldest and largest accounts – Arista then went on to articulate the changes they envision for their future campus network switching push and, in doing so, came very close to a one-to-one mapping with what we’ve just announced as an orderable solution with our new PicaPilot switch orchestration software (see link below). (I really must order a case of champagne for my friends over there.)

Just how close is the mapping?  Well, let’s start with solving the urgent requirement to simplify Continue reading

Lumina Networks Raises $10M With Investments From Both Verizon and AT&T

It will spend some of its funding to expand its business in Europe and in Japan.

6 Lessons Network Security Teams Can Learn from Star Wars

AI boosts data center availability, efficiency

Artificial intelligence is set to play a bigger role in data-center operations as enterprises begin to adopt machine-learning technologies that have been tried and tested by larger data-center operators and colocation providers.Today’s hybrid computing environments often span on-premise data centers, cloud and collocation sites, and edge computing deployments. And enterprises are finding that a traditional approach to managing data centers isn’t optimal. By using artificial intelligence, as played out through machine learning, there’s enormous potential to streamline the management of complex computing facilities.Check out our review of VMware’s vSAN 6.6 and see IDC’s top 10 data center predictions. Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. AI in the data center, for now, revolves around using machine learning to monitor and automate the management of facility components such as power and power-distribution elements, cooling infrastructure, rack systems and physical security.To read this article in full, please click here

Data center management: What does DMaaS deliver that DCIM doesn’t?

Data-center downtime is crippling and costly for enterprises. It’s easy to see the appeal of tools that can provide visibility into data-center assets, interdependencies, performance and capacity – and turn that visibility into actionable knowledge that anticipates equipment failures or capacity shortfalls.Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) tools are designed to monitor the utilization and energy consumption of both IT and building components, from servers and storage to power distribution units and cooling gear.[ Learn how server disaggregation can boost data center efficiency and how Windows Server 2019 embraces hyperconverged data centers . | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] DCIM software tackles functions including remote equipment monitoring, power and environmental monitoring, IT asset management, data management and reporting. With DCIM software, enterprises can simplify capacity planning and resource allocation as well as ensure that power, equipment and floor space are used as efficiently as possible.To read this article in full, please click here

AI boosts data center availability, efficiency

Artificial intelligence is set to play a bigger role in data-center operations as enterprises begin to adopt machine-learning technologies that have been tried and tested by larger data-center operators and colocation providers.Today’s hybrid computing environments often span on-premise data centers, cloud and collocation sites, and edge computing deployments. And enterprises are finding that a traditional approach to managing data centers isn’t optimal. By using artificial intelligence, as played out through machine learning, there’s enormous potential to streamline the management of complex computing facilities.Check out our review of VMware’s vSAN 6.6 and see IDC’s top 10 data center predictions. Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. AI in the data center, for now, revolves around using machine learning to monitor and automate the management of facility components such as power and power-distribution elements, cooling infrastructure, rack systems and physical security.To read this article in full, please click here

Data center management: What does DMaaS deliver that DCIM doesn’t?

Data-center downtime is crippling and costly for enterprises. It’s easy to see the appeal of tools that can provide visibility into data-center assets, interdependencies, performance and capacity – and turn that visibility into actionable knowledge that anticipates equipment failures or capacity shortfalls.Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) tools are designed to monitor the utilization and energy consumption of both IT and building components, from servers and storage to power distribution units and cooling gear.[ Learn how server disaggregation can boost data center efficiency and how Windows Server 2019 embraces hyperconverged data centers . | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] DCIM software tackles functions including remote equipment monitoring, power and environmental monitoring, IT asset management, data management and reporting. With DCIM software, enterprises can simplify capacity planning and resource allocation as well as ensure that power, equipment and floor space are used as efficiently as possible.To read this article in full, please click here

AI boosts data-center availability, efficiency

Artificial intelligence is set to play a bigger role in data-center operations as enterprises begin to adopt machine-learning technologies that have been tried and tested by larger data-center operators and colocation providers.Today’s hybrid computing environments often span on-premise data centers, cloud and collocation sites, and edge computing deployments. And enterprises are finding that a traditional approach to managing data centers isn’t optimal. By using artificial intelligence, as played out through machine learning, there’s enormous potential to streamline the management of complex computing facilities.Check out our review of VMware’s vSAN 6.6 and see IDC’s top 10 data center predictions. Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. AI in the data center, for now, revolves around using machine learning to monitor and automate the management of facility components such as power and power-distribution elements, cooling infrastructure, rack systems and physical security.To read this article in full, please click here

Data-center management: What does DMaaS deliver that DCIM doesn’t?

Data-center downtime is crippling and costly for enterprises. It’s easy to see the appeal of tools that can provide visibility into data-center assets, interdependencies, performance and capacity – and turn that visibility into actionable knowledge that anticipates equipment failures or capacity shortfalls.Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) tools are designed to monitor the utilization and energy consumption of both IT and building components, from servers and storage to power distribution units and cooling gear.[ Learn how server disaggregation can boost data center efficiency and how Windows Server 2019 embraces hyperconverged data centers . | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] DCIM software tackles functions including remote equipment monitoring, power and environmental monitoring, IT asset management, data management and reporting. With DCIM software, enterprises can simplify capacity planning and resource allocation as well as ensure that power, equipment and floor space are used as efficiently as possible.To read this article in full, please click here

AI boosts data-center availability, efficiency

Artificial intelligence is set to play a bigger role in data-center operations as enterprises begin to adopt machine-learning technologies that have been tried and tested by larger data-center operators and colocation providers.Today’s hybrid computing environments often span on-premise data centers, cloud and collocation sites, and edge computing deployments. And enterprises are finding that a traditional approach to managing data centers isn’t optimal. By using artificial intelligence, as played out through machine learning, there’s enormous potential to streamline the management of complex computing facilities.Check out our review of VMware’s vSAN 6.6 and see IDC’s top 10 data center predictions. Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. AI in the data center, for now, revolves around using machine learning to monitor and automate the management of facility components such as power and power-distribution elements, cooling infrastructure, rack systems and physical security.To read this article in full, please click here

Data-center management: What does DMaaS deliver that DCIM doesn’t?

Data-center downtime is crippling and costly for enterprises. It’s easy to see the appeal of tools that can provide visibility into data-center assets, interdependencies, performance and capacity – and turn that visibility into actionable knowledge that anticipates equipment failures or capacity shortfalls.Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) tools are designed to monitor the utilization and energy consumption of both IT and building components, from servers and storage to power distribution units and cooling gear.[ Learn how server disaggregation can boost data center efficiency and how Windows Server 2019 embraces hyperconverged data centers . | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] DCIM software tackles functions including remote equipment monitoring, power and environmental monitoring, IT asset management, data management and reporting. With DCIM software, enterprises can simplify capacity planning and resource allocation as well as ensure that power, equipment and floor space are used as efficiently as possible.To read this article in full, please click here