Data centers decline as users turn to rented servers

Data centers are declining worldwide both in numbers and square footage, according to IDC -- a remarkable change for an industry that has seen booming growth for many years.Users are consolidating data centers and increasingly renting server power. These two trends are having a major impact on data center space.[ Further reading: The march toward exascale computers ] The number of data centers worldwide peaked at 8.55 million in 2015, according to IDC. That figure began declining last year, and is expected to drop to an expected 8.4 million this year. By 2021, the research firm expects there to be 7.2 million data centers globally, more than 15% fewer than in 2015.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Data centers decline as users turn to rented servers

Data centers are declining worldwide both in numbers and square footage, according to IDC -- a remarkable change for an industry that has seen booming growth for many years.Users are consolidating data centers and increasingly renting server power. These two trends are having a major impact on data center space.[ Further reading: The march toward exascale computers ] The number of data centers worldwide peaked at 8.55 million in 2015, according to IDC. That figure began declining last year, and is expected to drop to an expected 8.4 million this year. By 2021, the research firm expects there to be 7.2 million data centers globally, more than 15% fewer than in 2015.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Software-Defined Data Center: How to Get Started

Firewall Reviews From the Frontlines

IDG Contributor Network: DevOps—The path to sustainable competitive advantages

A fundamental shift is happening in software development, and the way applications are built and brought to market is changing rapidly. As IT infrastructure has moved to the cloud and the age of the customer has made digital experiences pivotal in creating competitive advantages, DevOps has emerged. IT has refocused from managing servers to supporting lines of business managers and developers in their quest to provide integrated experiences across devices and touchpoints.+ Also on Network World: How DevOps can redefine your IT strategy + This shift can be compared to Henry Ford's innovation of the assembly line. Ford was able to set up a process that could produce more reliable cars faster and at lower costs. Similarly, the future of digital experiences belongs to the companies that can standardize and optimize their app delivery process. Companies that are able to align DevOps stratigeis and tools to deliver digital experiences faster and better than their competition have an advantage that will be difficult to replicate.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: When phone systems attack

A telephony denial of service (TDoS) attack is a specific type of DDoS attack that originates from or is directed towards a telephone system with the intent of bringing down the targeted system. These attacks commonly focus on commercial businesses and may often include ransomware requests. In reality, these attacks can affect anyone, including our nation’s 911 infrastructure, because even it is not isolated from or immune from these types of attacks. And based on its mission, in many ways, it is more fragile.Unintentional TDoS attack Just last year, 911 centers across the country, including a site in Phoenix, Arizona, were the targets of allegedly unintentional 911 TDoS attacks when some malicious JavaScript code was published on a web page. The code, once loaded on a smartphone browser, would cause some devices to automatically dial 911 repeatedly without user intervention and without the user’s knowledge. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: When phone systems attack

A telephony denial of service (TDoS) attack is a specific type of DDoS attack that originates from or is directed towards a telephone system with the intent of bringing down the targeted system. These attacks commonly focus on commercial businesses and may often include ransomware requests. In reality, these attacks can affect anyone, including our nation’s 911 infrastructure, because even it is not isolated from or immune from these types of attacks. And based on its mission, in many ways, it is more fragile.Unintentional TDoS attack Just last year, 911 centers across the country, including a site in Phoenix, Arizona, were the targets of allegedly unintentional 911 TDoS attacks when some malicious JavaScript code was published on a web page. The code, once loaded on a smartphone browser, would cause some devices to automatically dial 911 repeatedly without user intervention and without the user’s knowledge. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How we made our DNS stack 3x faster

Cloudflare is now well into its 6th year and providing authoritative DNS has been a core part of infrastructure from the start. We’ve since grown to be the largest and one of the fastest managed DNS services on the Internet, hosting DNS for nearly 100,000 of the Alexa top 1M sites and over 6 million other web properties – or DNS zones.

CC-BY 2.0 image by Steve Jurvetson

Today Cloudflare’s DNS service answers around 1 million queries per second – not including attack traffic – via a global anycast network. Naturally as a growing startup, the technology we used to handle tens or hundreds of thousands of zones a few years ago became outdated over time, and couldn't keep up with the millions we have today. Last year we decided to replace two core elements of our DNS infrastructure: the part of our DNS server that answers authoritative queries and the data pipeline which takes changes made by our customers to DNS records and distributes them to our edge machines across the globe.

The rough architecture of the system can be seen above. We store customer DNS records and other origin server information in a central database, convert the Continue reading

NETCONF Agent(s) on Cisco IOS XE 16.x

Evgeny made an interesting observation while testing the NETCONF client on IOS XE 16.x (see also this comment on my blog):

The most interesting part: for unknown reason IOS-XE gives different answers about capabilities on ports 830 and 22.

Einar quickly explained the mysterious behavior:

Network Notes: OSI Reference

Hell has nine layers .... so does the OSI model. I know, I know, you have been taught that the OSI model has seven layers. See the illustration below for the proof. continue reading

Tech Timeline: The iPad first goes on sale

The iPad made it possible to leave your laptop at home and still stay productive. You could write emails, watch movies, and surf the web all through a 9.7-inch touch screen display. It wasn't the first tablet, but it was one of the most popular. Apple sold 300,000 units on the first day and that hit a million in the first month. The cheapest model started at $499 and came with 16 GB of memory. Yikes! To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tech Timeline: The iPad first goes on sale

The iPad made it possible to leave your laptop at home and still stay productive. You could write emails, watch movies, and surf the web all through a 9.7-inch touch screen display. It wasn't the first tablet, but it was one of the most popular. Apple sold 300,000 units on the first day and that hit a million in the first month. The cheapest model started at $499 and came with 16 GB of memory. Yikes! To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US dismantles Kelihos botnet after Russian hacker’s arrest

The arrest last week of a Russian man in Spain was apparently for his role in a massive spam botnet and not related to an ongoing investigation into foreign tampering with last year's U.S. election.The botnet, called Kelihos, has enslaved hundreds of thousands of computers, and distributed spam and malware to users across the globe. However, the U.S. has taken action to dismantle the illegal operation, the Department of Justice said on Monday.The arrest of 36-year-old Peter Yuryevich Levashov, the botnet's alleged operator, was at first thought to be related to the ongoing U.S. investigation of presidential election-related hacking, but the DOJ said on Monday that wasn't the case.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US dismantles Kelihos botnet after Russian hacker’s arrest

The arrest last week of a Russian man in Spain was apparently for his role in a massive spam botnet and not related to an ongoing investigation into foreign tampering with last year's U.S. election.The botnet, called Kelihos, has enslaved hundreds of thousands of computers, and distributed spam and malware to users across the globe. However, the U.S. has taken action to dismantle the illegal operation, the Department of Justice said on Monday.The arrest of 36-year-old Peter Yuryevich Levashov, the botnet's alleged operator, was at first thought to be related to the ongoing U.S. investigation of presidential election-related hacking, but the DOJ said on Monday that wasn't the case.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Security Threats Keep Network Teams Busy

Microsoft Acquires Container Software Company Deis

The Deis platform combines features and technologies from Google, Docker, and CoreOS.

39% off Vastar Professional Breathalyzer Digital Breath Alcohol Tester – Deal Alert

The Vastar breathalyzer is used to measure the concentration of alcohol in the human body. With a sensitive semi-conductor sensor, it takes only 5 seconds to show whether you can drive or not after drinking. It will show you high accuracy test results (up to 0.01mg/l). Four units of measurement can be converted (%BAC , ‰BAC, mg/l, mg/100ml). This breathalyzer is space-saving, lightweight and portable. Just put it in your pocket.  With the current 39% off deal you can pick it up for just $18.99, a significant discount from its typical $32.99 list price.  See the Vastar breathalyzer on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Raspberry Pi 3 gets Microsoft Cortana with Windows 10 Creators Update

You will very soon be able to use Microsoft's Cortana voice assistant with the Raspberry Pi 3 and make cool devices that can accept voice commands.But for that, you'll need to upgrade the popular developer board, which can run Windows 10 IoT Core, to the Creators Update of the OS.You'll be able to use Cortana on Raspberry Pi similar to the way it works on PCs. You'll be able to ask for weather, time, traffic, or stock prices.Users will also able to build smart devices using Raspberry Pi 3 that will be able to accept Cortana's commands. But the devices will need to be based on Windows 10 IoT Core, not Linux-based OSes.Customized commands can be programmed for devices and could be related to reminders, look-ups, mapping, events, news, dictionary, and other "skills." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Latest Shadow Brokers exploit dump poses little threat

A group of hackers that has been trying to sell exploits and malware allegedly used by the U.S. National Security Agency decided to make the data available for free over the weekend.The security community was expecting the password-encrypted archive that the Shadow Brokers group unlocked Saturday to contain previously unknown and unpatched exploits -- known in the industry as zero-days. That was not the case.As researchers started to analyze the exploits inside, it became clear that while some of them were technically interesting, the large majority were for old and publicly known vulnerabilities. Some appeared to have actually been sourced from public information and affect software versions that are several years old.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Latest Shadow Brokers exploit dump poses little threat

A group of hackers that has been trying to sell exploits and malware allegedly used by the U.S. National Security Agency decided to make the data available for free over the weekend.The security community was expecting the password-encrypted archive that the Shadow Brokers group unlocked Saturday to contain previously unknown and unpatched exploits -- known in the industry as zero-days. That was not the case.As researchers started to analyze the exploits inside, it became clear that while some of them were technically interesting, the large majority were for old and publicly known vulnerabilities. Some appeared to have actually been sourced from public information and affect software versions that are several years old.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here