IDG Contributor Network: Holographic Wi-Fi visually maps environments

Wi-Fi’s explosive growth is gaining even more momentum.Recently the Wi-Fi Alliance launched a certified program for “meter-level accuracy for indoor device location data” using its technology. Now, that location add-on tool is about to be joined by a kind of three-dimensional, Wi-Fi-derived holographic imaging. Both use the ubiquitous Wi-Fi data network we’ve come to know and love.Holographic Wi-Fi is a way to create three-dimensional images of spaces. It’s achieved by coupling Wi-Fi radio with graphical holograms.+ Also on Network World: Wi-Fi expanding to indoor location services + Some uses for the technology could be tracking products as they’re manufactured and move along in the production process, as well as searching for victims buried in collapsed buildings, say researchers from the Technical University of Munich who are developing the system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Holographic Wi-Fi visually maps environments

Wi-Fi’s explosive growth is gaining even more momentum.Recently the Wi-Fi Alliance launched a certified program for “meter-level accuracy for indoor device location data” using its technology. Now, that location add-on tool is about to be joined by a kind of three-dimensional, Wi-Fi-derived holographic imaging. Both use the ubiquitous Wi-Fi data network we’ve come to know and love.Holographic Wi-Fi is a way to create three-dimensional images of spaces. It’s achieved by coupling Wi-Fi radio with graphical holograms.+ Also on Network World: Wi-Fi expanding to indoor location services + Some uses for the technology could be tracking products as they’re manufactured and move along in the production process, as well as searching for victims buried in collapsed buildings, say researchers from the Technical University of Munich who are developing the system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Workflow Enhanced Networking (WEN)

Software Defined Networking (SDN) offered lots of hope, a centralized control-plane, programmable network functions and authenticated network nodes. Once we all stopped laughing and rolling around the floor with rib ache, the reality of SDN dawned quickly. It was a nice academic thought and set of experiments, but for the masses, the original meaning of SDN has changed significantly. The software giants with mountains of cash will drive technology like this early and possibly pave the way for the rest of us eventually, but for the masses of enterprises that vendors serve and that have more immediate requirements, SDN isn’t something that’s had massive adoption. The question of ‘why’ is a pretty obvious place to start and you don’t have to look too far before you find answers.

I will not get in to the overlay and underlay arguments here. These have been done to death already. Lots of organizations and vendors offer various takes on the middle-ground, far left and far right. This isn’t a product pitch either.

This post is around the “next onwards step” as opposed to changing the world. I also ‘feel’, this is the natural pull as opposed to the industry push we’ve come to Continue reading

Have to choose between VMware NSX and Cisco ACI? You’re Not Alone

I keep getting questions along the lines of “should I go with VMware NSX or should I deploy Cisco ACI” every single week, and as you know it’s hard to answer anything but it depends without spending hours on the topic.

That’s exactly what we plan to do in Zurich next Tuesday (May 16th) in a DIGS workshop that will run in parallel with the Data Center & Cloud Day (part of the SIGS Technology Conference).

Colombo, Sri Lanka: Six million Internet properties now faster for six million Internet users

We are excited to add four new data centers this week to Cloudflare's growing network, beginning with Colombo, Sri Lanka. This deployment is our 112th data center globally, and our 38th in Asia.

Faster Performance

CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 image by Pavel Dobrovsky

Six million Internet properties using Cloudflare are now even faster across the island country of Sri Lanka. Previously, local visitors to Cloudflare customers were served out of our Singapore or Dubai data centers.

Latency (ms) decreases 4x to Cloudflare customers. Source: Cedexis

Sri Lanka added over one million Internet users in the past year alone. At ~30% Internet penetration, there is considerable room to grow.

Next Three Cities

Our deployments to be revealed later this week will provide additional redundancy to existing facilities in North America and Africa.

If you enjoy the idea of helping build one of the world's largest networks, come join our team!

Low-cost Android phones to get iPhone features with new Qualcomm chips

Low-cost smartphones like the Moto G5 introduced a few months ago are shipping with soon-to-be-outdated chips from Qualcomm, which has announced successor chips.Qualcomm on Monday introduced the Snapdragon 630 and 660, which are massive upgrades to chips used in low-cost smartphones introduced over the last six months or so.And in a few months, you'll be able to buy low-cost smartphones with these new chips, with prices starting at US$200. The handsets will feature LTE download speeds equivalent to that in the iPhone 7 and have graphics processors capable of capturing 4K video.Additionally, the low-cost smartphones will charge up faster than ever. The chips support Qualcomm's Quick Charge 4, and smartphones can charge up to 50 percent in just 15 minutes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

German firms will streamline online login with a European bent

Several German firms are taking a stab at a single login process for accessing different online services -- an approach that could compete with U.S. offerings. The companies, which include automaker Daimler, insurance provider Allianz and Deutsche Bank, among others, announced the joint effort on Monday. Their goal: to create a platform that revolves around a “master key” for users that can access sites and services across industries.The platform will not only make online registration simpler, but also more secure, they said. To do so, the companies will incorporate top standards in data security, and comply with local European Union data protection laws.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

German firms will streamline online login with a European bent

Several German firms are taking a stab at a single login process for accessing different online services -- an approach that could compete with U.S. offerings. The companies, which include automaker Daimler, insurance provider Allianz and Deutsche Bank, among others, announced the joint effort on Monday. Their goal: to create a platform that revolves around a “master key” for users that can access sites and services across industries.The platform will not only make online registration simpler, but also more secure, they said. To do so, the companies will incorporate top standards in data security, and comply with local European Union data protection laws.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Liveblog: Deploying Containerized OpenStack: Challenges & Tools Comparison

This is a liveblog for an OpenStack Summit session on containerized OpenStack and a comparison of the tools used for containerized OpenStack. The speaker is Jaivish Kothari, from NEC Technologies. Two other speakers were listed on the title slide, but were apparently unable to make it to the Summit to present.

Kothari provides a brief overview of the session, then jumps into a discussion of deployment tools. As illustrated by one of his slides, there’s a huge collection of tools that are used to deploy OpenStack; some are “pure” deployment tools, others are configuration management tools. In this presentation, Kothari says he will focus specifically on OpenStack deployment tools, like Juju (Canonical), Fuel (Mirantis), Crowbar (Dell), and PackStack/TripleO (Red Hat), but I’m not sure how this relates to containerized OpenStack (per the session title).

According to Kothari, some of the challenges in “traditional” (non-containerized) deployment tools are best understood by looking at the challenges in deploying OpenStack:

• Difficulty related to deployment (conflicts due to services configuration, deployment still prone to failures)
• Ongoing lifecycle management of OpenStack components

This whole first section of the presentation was setting up the argument that containerizing your OpenStack control plane will help address these challenges. Continue reading

Liveblog: Kuryr Project Update

This is a liveblog of an OpenStack Summit session providing an update on the Kuryr project. The speakers are Antoni Segura Puimedon and Irena Berezovsky. Kuryr, if you recall, was a project aimed at making OpenStack Neutron functionality available to Docker containers; it has since expanded to also offer Cinder and Manila storage to Docker containers, and has added support for both Docker Swarm and Kubernetes as well.

According to Puimedon, the latest release of Kuryr has a diverse base of contributors, with over 45 active contributors.

So, what will be in the Pike release? For the Kubernetes-specific support:

• This will be the first release
• Support for Kubernetes Services (this leverages LBaaS v2)
• Client- and server-side SSL support
• RDO packaging

What’s planned for Pike, but may not actually make it? (Again, this is for Kubernetes support.)

• Token support
• Resource pools
• Improved support for Services defined as LoadBalancer type

On the Docker side, the following new features and enhancements will arrive in Pike:

• Support for Swarm mode
• IPv4 and IPv6 networking
• TLS support between Docker and the libnetwork plugin

On the Fuxi side, Kuryr is adding support for Manila shares.

At this point, Berezovsky takes over to discuss the release Continue reading

VMware’s Distro of OpenStack Comes Free for vSphere Customers

The biggest use case for VIO is to create developer clouds.

New Windows build brings more new features

It was just a week ago when Microsoft issued an update to Windows 10 for Insiders to test, and now, four build numbers later, it has another for testing with some new features added.Microsoft is currently full-on in development of “Redstone 3,” the next major update to its operating system. It has said it plans to issue two major updates per year to the OS, with the Creators Update in March being the most recent. The next update is planned for September.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nokia NFVi Report Webinar Q&A: Why Nokia’s OCP-compliant AirFrame and SDN Solutions form the perfect NFVi Foundation

Thanks to all who joined us for the Nokia NFVI Report Webinar, Why Nokia’s OCP-compliant AirFrame and SDN Solutions form the perfect NFVi Foundation. Read the full Q&A.

Getting a jump on private LTE networks

Vendor partnerships usually don't raise too many eyebrows or pulse rates around here, but when I came across an announcement by Lemko and Federated Wireless promoting a joint effort on the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) it did get my attention.CBRS, if you aren't familiar, refers to shared 3.5 GHz spectrum recently opened by the FCC for commercial applications, and everyone from the big carriers to the likes of Cisco and Google are throwing their weight behind it. One possible application would be LTE services, which could come in the form of extended carrier networks, new cable service provider networks, and even private enterprise networks for IoT or other connectivity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FCC hit with DDoS attacks after John Oliver takes on net neutrality

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission's website slowed to a crawl after comic and political commentator John Oliver urged viewers to flood the agency with comments in support of net neutrality, in what appeared to be a repeat of a 2014 incident.With the FCC headed toward a repeal of net neutrality rules it passed in early 2015, Oliver on Sunday echoed his "Last Week Tonight" commentary on the topic from three years ago. (Note to viewers: The link to Oliver's new diatribe is not safe for work.) As in 2014, the FCC's website seemed to buckle under the load late Sunday and early Monday, but the cause may have been more sinister than a flood of people expressing their support for net neutrality rules.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FCC hit with DDoS attacks after John Oliver takes on net neutrality

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission's website slowed to a crawl after comic and political commentator John Oliver urged viewers to flood the agency with comments in support of net neutrality, in what appeared to be a repeat of a 2014 incident.With the FCC headed toward a repeal of net neutrality rules it passed in early 2015, Oliver on Sunday echoed his "Last Week Tonight" commentary on the topic from three years ago. (Note to viewers: The link to Oliver's new diatribe is not safe for work.) As in 2014, the FCC's website seemed to buckle under the load late Sunday and early Monday, but the cause may have been more sinister than a flood of people expressing their support for net neutrality rules.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dell takes Intel’s cue on PCs, puts enterprise on top of the agenda

For the umpteenth time, Dell Technologies has reiterated that PCs are important to the company, and it won't quit the market.But PCs occupied only a few minutes of CEO Michael Dell's opening keynote at Dell EMC World in Las Vegas on Monday. PCs are the engine that keep enterprises chugging, he said.Instead, Dell spent time educating attendees about the new Dell Technologies and its products. It's been less than a year since the US$67 billion Dell-EMC merger was finalized, and a lot of focus was on answering burning questions about the company's future.Dell did say the company would offer the PC-as-a-service worldwide by the end of the year, with more details about the program to be shared on Tuesday. HP and Microsoft are offering PC-as-a-service options, allowing customers to buy devices and support and pay on a monthly basis. That option reduces the hardware acquisition and support costs for companies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dell takes Intel’s cue on PCs, puts enterprise on top of the agenda

For the umpteenth time, Dell Technologies has reiterated that PCs are important to the company, and it won't quit the market.But PCs occupied only a few minutes of CEO Michael Dell's opening keynote at Dell EMC World in Las Vegas on Monday. PCs are the engine that keep enterprises chugging, he said.Instead, Dell spent time educating attendees about the new Dell Technologies and its products. It's been less than a year since the US$67 billion Dell-EMC merger was finalized, and a lot of focus was on answering burning questions about the company's future.Dell did say the company would offer the PC-as-a-service worldwide by the end of the year, with more details about the program to be shared on Tuesday. HP and Microsoft are offering PC-as-a-service options, allowing customers to buy devices and support and pay on a monthly basis. That option reduces the hardware acquisition and support costs for companies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

African Regional Internet & Development Dialogue Tackles the World of Education

Worth Reading: Be careful what you wish for

After a few minutes of hyperventilating into an empty Dunkin Donuts bag, though, I calmed down enough to appreciate that the guy is trying to provide exactly what I’ve been complaining about the lack of for quite some time now: some kind of logical progression, a path to follow to go from Point BootCamp to Point GotAJob. It’s a helpful roadmap that lays clearly lays out the (many, oh so many) technologies we should be aware of as we work toward professional web dev status. —The New Stack

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