Why Cisco needs SD-WAN vendor Viptela

Cisco, the acquisition machine, is at it again. It’s been about three months since the company plunked down $3.7 billion for AppDynamics, so I’m sure all that cash was burning a hole in Chuck Robbins pockets and making another acquisition seem long overdue. Well, speculation about who Cisco might buy next ended yesterday when the company announced its intent to acquire SD-WAN vendor Viptela for $610 million. The price tag seems fairly modest for a company that was valued at $875 million about a year ago. Even at the lower price, Viptela investors should be satisfied with the return, given the total investment in the company was about $110 million. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

T-Mobile Targets 2019 for First 5G Markets, Nationwide in 2020

The company calls competitor’s 5G plans merely “hot spots.”

Quick Take – Viptela Acquired By Cisco

Greg and Ethan record a quick podcast take on Cisco's acquisition of Viptela.

The post Quick Take – Viptela Acquired By Cisco appeared first on Packet Pushers.

These new super fast Intel SSDs provide a bridge to Optane

If you can't afford Intel's super fast Optane SSDs but need a massive speed boost, the company's latest DC P4600 and DC P4500 SSDs may fill the need.The new SSDs are based on conventional 3D NAND and targeted at data centers. The SSDs will be used in servers or storage arrays to serve up quick video streams, voice-assistant AI responses, and even pull out information from databases.These SSDs are a reliable upgrade for those who don't want to mess with Optane, which is based on brand-new memory technology. According to Intel's rough estimate, the P4500 and P4600 drives provide two times faster read and write performance compared to predecessors, the DC P3520 and P3600 drives.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dataset of scraped Tinder pics poof from Kaggle after Tinder complains

Tinder was ticked after 40,000 profile photos were scraped to create the People of Tinder dataset, accused the person behind the script of violating its terms of service, and asked Kaggle to remove the dataset from the platform. Nevertheless, it was downloaded hundreds of time before the take-down which now results in a 404 error.The People of Tinder dataset was created by Stuart Colianni; it consisted of 40,000 images from Tinder users in the San Francisco Bay Area – half were of women and half were of men. He intends to use the dataset with Google’s TensorFlow’s Inception to create a neural network capable of distinguishing between male and female images.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dataset of scraped Tinder pics poof from Kaggle after Tinder complains

Tinder was ticked after 40,000 profile photos were scraped to create the People of Tinder dataset, accused the person behind the script of violating its terms of service, and asked Kaggle to remove the dataset from the platform. Nevertheless, it was downloaded hundreds of time before the take-down which now results in a 404 error.The People of Tinder dataset was created by Stuart Colianni; it consisted of 40,000 images from Tinder users in the San Francisco Bay Area – half were of women and half were of men. He intends to use the dataset with Google’s TensorFlow’s Inception to create a neural network capable of distinguishing between male and female images.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: What Pepsi’s failed ad can teach us about data privacy

By now, you've probably seen the ad that Pepsi released to the world and then quickly withdrew when it became obvious how tone deaf it was.I don't have anything to say about the ad that hasn't been said already, but I do want to examine the conditions that led to an ad of such obliviousness to be released. Why? Because Pepsi’s failed attempt to promote itself may have some lessons for those anxious to keep their company from experiencing a similar calamity when it comes to the release of personal data. I’d like to use this post to explore how the Privacy By Design approach to improving organizational awareness about data protection may offer a way to avoid such pitfalls.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: What Pepsi’s failed ad can teach us about data privacy

By now, you've probably seen the ad that Pepsi released to the world and then quickly withdrew when it became obvious how tone deaf it was.I don't have anything to say about the ad that hasn't been said already, but I do want to examine the conditions that led to an ad of such obliviousness to be released. Why? Because Pepsi’s failed attempt to promote itself may have some lessons for those anxious to keep their company from experiencing a similar calamity when it comes to the release of personal data. I’d like to use this post to explore how the Privacy By Design approach to improving organizational awareness about data protection may offer a way to avoid such pitfalls.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Riding the virtual SAN gravy train

Being the first mover in establishing a new technology in the enterprise is important, but it is not more important than having a vast installed base and sales force peddling an existing and adjacent product set in which to sell a competing and usually lagging technology. —The Next Platform

The post Worth Reading: Riding the virtual SAN gravy train appeared first on rule 11 reader.

MEF Launches Certification Program Targeting LSO, SDN, NFV

Certified engineers know the world is changing.

Android gets patches for critical flaws in media handling, hardware drivers

Android is getting security fixes for more than 100 vulnerabilities, including 29 critical flaws in the media processing server, hardware-specific drivers and other components.Android's monthly security bulletin, published Monday, was split into two "patch levels," which are represented as date strings on the "About" page of Android devices.The 2017-05-01 security patch level covers fixes for vulnerabilities that are common to all Android devices while the 2017-05-05 level covers additional fixes for hardware drivers and kernel components that are present only in some devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Android gets patches for critical flaws in media handling, hardware drivers

Android is getting security fixes for more than 100 vulnerabilities, including 29 critical flaws in the media processing server, hardware-specific drivers and other components.Android's monthly security bulletin, published Monday, was split into two "patch levels," which are represented as date strings on the "About" page of Android devices.The 2017-05-01 security patch level covers fixes for vulnerabilities that are common to all Android devices while the 2017-05-05 level covers additional fixes for hardware drivers and kernel components that are present only in some devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Containers and virtual machines: Which is best for you?

If you want to stop someone from driving a car, you can take away the keys. Quick, easy and effective. Alternatively, removing the wheels and engine will work, too.A container is an OS extension that takes away keys, leaving the OS intact. A virtual machine (VM) reworks the architecture, separating the car from the wheels and engine. Taking the keys is easy, but the driver might have spares, and a car can be hot-wired in about a billion ways. Removing the wheels and engine is a lot of trouble, but the car won’t move without them. And when you mount snow tires, that removable wheel architecture is handy.Time-sharing computers Containers and VMs go back to the beginning of time-sharing, an outstanding advance in mid-twentieth century computing. A single time-sharing computer supports multiple users running multiple tasks at the same time. Each user thinks they control the entire machine.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: CIOs: Stop talking about tech, start talking about value

Remember scrambling like mad for new technology?I know people who camped out overnight to secure their place in line for the latest version of a smartphone. Others significantly overpaid or added their names to pre-order lists months in advance—just to make sure they had the most up-to-date device. When the iPad2 was released back in 2011, some stores sold out within 10 minutes even though it was estimated that 60 percent of consumers purchasing the tablet already owned the original version launched only the year before. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: CIOs: Stop talking about tech, start talking about value

Remember scrambling like mad for new technology?I know people who camped out overnight to secure their place in line for the latest version of a smartphone. Others significantly overpaid or added their names to pre-order lists months in advance—just to make sure they had the most up-to-date device. When the iPad2 was released back in 2011, some stores sold out within 10 minutes even though it was estimated that 60 percent of consumers purchasing the tablet already owned the original version launched only the year before. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple now has more cash than the U.K. and Canada, combined!

Apple has long been known keeping a big rainy day fund. But according to Lee Pinkowitz, a Georgetown University professor of finance quoted in the Wall Street Journal, “they’re saving for a millennial flood."The numbers are truly astonishing. The company has some $250 billion—a quarter of a trillion!—in cash, cash equivalents, and short- and long-term securities, including corporate paper, U.S. Treasury bond and money-market funds, the Journal said. Add it up, and it’s more than the total foreign-currency reserves held by many countries— including plenty of pretty big countries, like Mexico and Indonesia. In fact, as the Journal notes, it’s more than the foreign reserves of the U.K. and Canada … combined.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

33% off Mass Effect Andromeda For Amazon Prime Members – Deal Alert

Mass Effect: Andromeda takes you to the Andromeda galaxy, where you will lead our fight for a new home in hostile territory as the Pathfinder -- a leader of military-trained explorers. Prime members right now get 33% off this title for PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Microsoft’s new Windows 10 S will take on Chrome OS

Microsoft hopes a new Windows 10 operating system called Windows 10 S will usurp Chromebook's domination in education and provide a better way for students to learn.The new version of Windows, announced at an event in New York Tuesday, is targeted at teachers, students, artists and creators. It's got features very similar to that of Chrome OS in Chromebooks, which dominates the education market.It has a traditional Windows 10 desktop look, and will only run applications downloaded from the Windows App store. That means all applications will be verified and secure.Windows 10 acts like a "container" that will run secure apps. A version of Microsoft's Office Suite will also come to Windows 10 S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Myth of Pure Cloud

Despite the movement to cloud, data centers will still be around for the foreseeable future.

Review: Acer R11 Chromebook—Average Chromebook, awesome emulation laptop

I'm not much of a ChromeOS user these days. Almost every aspect of Google's services has been removed from my life (Google Search, GMail, etc.), and, well, I just don't have much need for a system centered entirely around Google at this point.But I had the chance to use the Acer Chromebook R11 (the CB5-132T-C9KK model), so I decided to see just how useful it could be for someone like me—someone who really doesn't use Google other than for YouTube and the occasional Hangouts video chat (for the friends I can't seem to persuade to use anything else).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here