IDG Contributor Network: How edge computing makes voice assistants faster and more powerful

Voice is becoming a pervasive way to manage and interact with everyday tech devices, going from initial adoption in phones and smart speakers toward smartwatches, cars, laptops, home appliances and much more.Cloud platforms take most of the praise for enabling voice assistant services such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Microsoft Cortana – neglecting due credit to the increasing role that edge computing plays in enabling voice interfaces. A substantial amount of processing and analysis occur on devices themselves to allow users to interface with them by simply talking.Keyword detection Voice-enabled devices are not constantly recording audio and sending it to the cloud to determine if someone is giving them an instruction. That would not only be a privacy concern, but also a waste of energy, computing and network resources. Having to send all words to the cloud and back also introduces latency and slows the responsiveness of the system. Today’s voice interfaces typically use keyword or “wake-word” detection, dedicating a small portion of edge computing resources (i.e. computing done on the device itself or “at the edge”) to process microphone signals while the rest of the system remains idle. This is a power-efficient approach particularly important Continue reading

Marvell revs up Ethernet to 400Gbps with new ‘Alaska’ chips

Marvell Semiconductor is the first semiconductor to ship networking chips supporting the 802.3cd standard that will pump up Ethernet ports to 400Gbps max.The 802.3cd standard is designed to eventually replace the current physical Ethernet ports, which run at 25Gbps to 100Gpbs, with ports that will run at 50Gbps, 200Gbps, and 400Gbps.And Marvell is the first chip vendor out of the gate with support for the standard in its Alaska C 88X7120 transceivers. The chips aren’t fully cooked, but they are sampling to customers. Sampling is to semiconductors what beta testing is to software.To read this article in full, please click here

Marvell revs up Ethernet to 400Gbps with new ‘Alaska’ chips

Marvell Semiconductor is the first semiconductor to ship networking chips supporting the 802.3cd standard that will pump up Ethernet ports to 400Gbps max.The 802.3cd standard is designed to eventually replace the current physical Ethernet ports, which run at 25Gbps to 100Gpbs, with ports that will run at 50Gbps, 200Gbps, and 400Gbps.And Marvell is the first chip vendor out of the gate with support for the standard in its Alaska C 88X7120 transceivers. The chips aren’t fully cooked, but they are sampling to customers. Sampling is to semiconductors what beta testing is to software.To read this article in full, please click here

Weekend Reads 030918: Botnet Avalanche, DNS Security, and IoT Privacy

It’s been a busy few weeks in cybercrime news, justifying updates to a couple of cases we’ve been following closely at KrebsOnSecurity. In Ukraine, the alleged ringleader of the Avalanche malware spam botnet was arrested after eluding authorities in the wake of a global cybercrime crackdown there in 2016. @Krebs on Security

Reflection amplification is a technique that allows cyber attackers to both magnify the amount of malicious traffic they can generate, and obfuscate the sources of that attack traffic. For the past five years, this combination has been irresistible to attackers, and for good reason. —Carlos Morales @Arbor

For years, we’ve been pioneering the use of DNS to enforce security. We recognized that DNS was often a blind spot for organizations and that using DNS to enforce security was both practical and effective. Why? Because DNS isn’t optional. It’s foundational to how the internet works and and is used by every single device that connects to the network. If you’re considering using DNS for security, it’s important to understand the facts so you can combat the fiction. —Kevin Rollinson @Cisco

Attackers have seized on a relatively new method for executing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks of unprecedented disruptive power, using Continue reading

Enhanced Layer 7 Routing for Swarm in Docker Enterprise Edition Beta

 The beta release of Docker Enterprise Edition has seen incredible activity. The highlight of the upcoming Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker EE) release is the integration of Kubernetes and bringing all of the advanced security, RBAC and management capabilities of Docker EE to Kubernetes. At the same time, we have been working to improve Swarm, delivering the only container platform that allows you to run both orchestrators in the same cluster. In this blog post, we’ll highlight some the key new capabilities around application-layer (Layer 7) routing and load balancing for Swarm-deployed applications. These enhancements come from the new Interlock 2.0 architecture which provides a highly scalable and highly available routing solution for Swarm. The new architecture brings some additional features to the platform, including path-based routing and SSL termination.

Path-Based Routing

Layer 7 load balancing allows traffic going to host domains like acme.com to be distributed across specific containers in your environment. With path-based routing, traffic headed to sub-domains within acme.com (eg. acme.com/app1 or acme.com/app2) can be separately routed to different sets of containers. This can be especially useful for optimizing application performance by driving different requests to different groups of containers.

Read Continue reading

A Collaborative Effort for pretty Easy privacy (p≡p)

Since the 2013 Snowden revelations of mass surveillance, the level of trust in Internet services has plunged. While discussions around privacy protection have advanced considerably, little progress has been achieved in designing operational tools that can be used on a daily basis by citizens around the world without a need to reconfigure their digital communications or change their behavior online. At the Internet Society, we believe such solutions need to be developed in a collaborative and multistakeholder fashion to be effective.

In July 2017, the Internet Society Switzerland Chapter (ISOC-CH) and the Swiss p≡p foundation teamed up to provide a practical solution, namely to implement privacy-enhancing standards at the basic level of Internet protocols and document them in the work of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the main organization creating voluntary standards to maintain and improve the usability and interoperability of the Internet.

In the framework of a two-year Beyond the Net project with funding from Internet Society (‘Implementing Privacy via Mass Encryption’), we will formalize and help in standardizing the pretty Easy privacy (p≡p) protocols, which can be deployed automatically via encrypted means in order to provide the user with a secure and trustworthy Continue reading

Cisco’s intent-based networks now available for the WAN

If you read my Valentine’s Day post, you know I love intent-based networks (IBN), as the technology is the biggest change in networking in decades.Cisco wasn’t the first vendor to offer an IBN solution, but they’ve certainly been the most vocal about the need and has been the network industry's biggest evangelist. Also read: Getting grounded in intent-based networking The value proposition of IBN is to simplify networking dramatically with the long-term vision of having a fully autonomous network. With IBN, the operations of the network are driven by business intent to ensure policies are adhered to and application performance remains optimized.To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco’s intent-based networks now available for the WAN

If you read my Valentine’s Day post, you know I love intent-based networks (IBN), as the technology is the biggest change in networking in decades.Cisco wasn’t the first vendor to offer an IBN solution, but they’ve certainly been the most vocal about the need and has been the network industry's biggest evangelist. Also read: Getting grounded in intent-based networking The value proposition of IBN is to simplify networking dramatically with the long-term vision of having a fully autonomous network. With IBN, the operations of the network are driven by business intent to ensure policies are adhered to and application performance remains optimized.To read this article in full, please click here

Short Take – Side Channel Attack

Do you know what a side channel attack is? Do you know how it relates to you as a Network Engineer? In today’s Network Collective Short Take, Russ White helps explain what a side channel attack is, how it works, and some of the challenges that are inherent in defending against it.

Russ White

The post Short Take – Side Channel Attack appeared first on Network Collective.

CEO Succession at the Internet Society – Open Call for CEO Candidates

As I discussed in my notes to the community during the last months, at our last board meeting Kathy Brown, ISOC’s (Internet Society’s) President & CEO, informed the Board of Trustees that she will not seek another extension of her contract. Consequently, the board formed a CEO Search Committee, which is a subset of the board. The CEO Search Committee selected Perrett Laver as the search firm that will support the committee and the board during the whole process. Please, read my last note for further background information.

Per our plan, we are launching the Open Call for Candidates today, Friday, 9 March 2018.

The deadline for applications is 23:59 UTC on Friday, 6 April 2018.

If you would like to download the Candidate Pack or apply for the position, please visit the Perrett Laver web site using the following link:

https://candidates.perrettlaver.com/vacancies/726/ceo/

Per the web page above, if you would like to have a conversation with Perrett Laver regarding the role, please email the lead researcher on this search, Daniel Flynn:

[email protected]

The search firm will generate a short list of candidates so that the CEO Search Committee can make a final decision and select one. Continue reading

Cisco attacks SD-WAN with software from Viptela, Meraki acquisitions

Cisco this week took the wraps off new software packages it claims will help customers manage their biggest networking blind spot: the software-defined wide area network or SD-WAN.The SD-WAN is typically made of diverse networks and technologies that many times are outside the control of IT.  Add to that the increased use of multi-cloud services and other advances, and the traditional complexity of the WAN has been increased, Cisco stated.+RELATED: SD-WAN: What it is and why you'll use it some day; How to negotiate a Cisco Enterprise Agreement that works for you+To read this article in full, please click here

Advancing Federal Data Center Modernization

Cisco attacks SD-WAN with software from Viptela, Meraki acquisitions

Cisco this week took the wraps off new software packages it claims will help customers manage their biggest networking blind spot: the software-defined wide area network or SD-WAN.The SD-WAN is typically made of diverse networks and technologies that many times are outside the control of IT.  Add to that the increased use of multi-cloud services and other advances, and the traditional complexity of the WAN has been increased, Cisco stated.+RELATED: SD-WAN: What it is and why you'll use it some day; How to negotiate a Cisco Enterprise Agreement that works for you+To read this article in full, please click here

Linux Interfaces on Software Gone Wild

Continuing the Linux networking discussion we had in Episode 86, we focused on Linux interfaces in Episode 87 of Software Gone Wild with Roopa Prabhu and David Ahern.

We started with simple questions like “what is an interface” and “how do they get such weird names in some Linux distributions” which quickly turned into a complex discussion about kernel objects and udev, and details of implementing logical interfaces that are associated with ASIC front-panel physical ports.

Macau: Cloudflare Data Center 127

Cloudflare's 127th data center is now live in Macau, helping make over 7 million Internet facing applications safer and faster. This is our 44th data center in Asia.

Cloudflare 將在澳門啟用全球第127個數據中心, 幫助超過 7,000,000 客戶的互聯網資產運行得更快、更安全。澳門也是我們在亞洲的第44個數據中心。

O 127º centro de dados da Cloudflare agora está em funcionamento em Macau, ajudando a tornar mais de 7 milhões de aplicações voltadas para a Internet de forma mais segura e rápida. Estamos felizes em compartilhar que este é o nosso 44º centro de dados na Ásia.

CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 image by kidchen915

Blending Chinese and Portuguese culture, just last year, Macau welcomed over 30 million visitors. Visit Macau to experience its unique and extravagant entertainment scene, see scenic spots such as the Ruins of St Paul, Senado Square, attempt the world's highest bungy jump from Macau Tower, or enjoy the foodie paradise Macau delivers!

有著與眾不同的中國及葡萄牙文化融合景觀，澳門至去年為止已經吸引了三千萬遊客來一睹她的風采。你可以拜訪著名的娛樂景觀，像是聖保祿大教堂遺址，議事亭廣場，挑戰澳門的美食，亦可以選擇從全世界最高的高空彈跳地點ㄧ澳門旅遊塔上一躍而下。

Combinando cultura chinesa e portuguesa, o ano passado, Macau recebeu mais de 30 milhões de visitantes. Recomendamos que visite Macau para experimentar a cena de entretenimento única e extravagante, explore os pontos cénica, como ruínas de São Paulo, Praça do Senado, e ainda, tente o "bungee jumping" mais alto do mundo deste da Torre de Macau, ou aproveite Continue reading

Join us at OCP Summit 2018!

Like a kid waiting to open a birthday present, there’s a special kind of excitement buzzing around the Cumulus Networks office. As March 20th-21st draws closer and closer, you can feel the energy going up. Why is that you ask? It’s because that’s the date of OCP Summit 2018, of course! In just a few weeks, we’ll be on our way to the San Jose Convention Center to join up with the OCP community and discuss all the nerdy goodness we can about open networking. We’re looking forward to meeting as many great minds and innovators as we can (and fortunately, it’s not too late for you to sign up!) As members of the Open Compute Project, we cannot wait for this event.

Hold on, what’s OCP?

For those unfamiliar with this amazing project, Open Compute Project (OCP) was started by Facebook in 2009 with the goal to create the world’s most energy efficient data center — one that could scale at any level at the lowest possible cost. Their four core tenets focus on increasing efficiency, improving scalability, maintaining openness and making an impact. A small team of engineers remained dedicated to these tenets and, 2 Continue reading

Voting open for 2018 Internet Society Board of Trustees elections

The 2018 Internet Society Board of Trustees elections have begun!

Electronic ballots were emailed today to all voting representatives. They will have until Monday, 9 April at 15:00 UTC to cast their ballots.

In this year’s election cycle, Organization Members are asked to elect one Trustee to the Board. So voting representatives may vote for only one of the candidates on the Organization Members ballot.

Similarly, in this year’s election cycle, Chapters are asked to elect one Trustee to the Board. So voting representatives may vote for only one of the candidates on the Chapters ballot.

All new Trustees will serve three-year terms commencing in June.

Additional details on the elections, as well as information on all of the candidates can be found here:

https://www.internetsociety.org/board-of-trustees/elections/

To facilitate dialogue between OMAC members and candidates for the Organization Members election, and between Chapter leaders and candidates for the Chapters election, the Elections Committee has again launched an online Candidate Forum. In response to feedback from members, we moved the Forum from the Connect platform to a Mailman mailing list.

Everyone subscribed to the OMAC list was subscribed automatically to the ISOC Organization Members Candidate Forum list. Everyone subscribed to the Continue reading

Tenable’s Lumin Helps CISOs Measure and Quantify Cyber Risk

The company says the average customer detects upwards of 9,000 high- or critical-severity vulnerabilities every month.

BrandPost: What is Programmable Infrastructure?

In an increasingly mobile world, network providers are grappling with a data explosion. Millions of mobile users are running video and other applications that require significant bandwidth.At the same time, those providers are saddled with legacy systems and protocols that leave them bloated and slow. Even to add simple services, they have to contend with hundreds of manual processes for set up, revisions, and tear down of even the simplest services.With challenges like that, anticipating and responding to dynamic traffic levels and service requests is nearly impossible. These legacy networks simply cannot handle the growing and unpredictable demands on providers, and the problem is only going to worsen.To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: What Is Programmable infrastructure?

In an increasingly mobile world, network providers are grappling with a data explosion. Millions of mobile users are running video and other applications that require significant bandwidth.At the same time, those providers are saddled with legacy systems and protocols that leave them bloated and slow. Even to add simple services, they have to contend with hundreds of manual processes for set up, revisions, and tear down of even the simplest services.With challenges like that, anticipating and responding to dynamic traffic levels and service requests is nearly impossible. These legacy networks simply cannot handle the growing and unpredictable demands on providers, and the problem is only going to worsen.To read this article in full, please click here