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10 Ways IT Can Prepare For Reduced Holiday Staff

Living In A Software-Defined World

Most hackable holiday gifts

Whether you are looking for a steal of deal on the latest and greatest gadgets or shopping to fulfill a loved one’s wish list, have you considered if the gadget is one of the most hackable?If not, then Intel Security has considered it for you and released its second annual McAfee Most Hackable Holiday Gifts list.The company first surveyed people to find out what average consumers plans to purchase and what they know about securing their new devices; the findings included that the average consumer lacks “awareness about the potential risks associated with emerging connected devices, such as drones (20%), children’s toys (15%), virtual reality tech (15%), and pet gifts (11%).”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Supplier management: The biggest threat to SD-WANs—and what you can do about it

You know the adage about a cup being half full or half empty? Maybe the author had software-defined WANs (SD-WANs) in mind. Their ability to select between internet services is critical to delivering stable, predictable performance. But with multiple providers at each site, carrier management becomes a nightmare for SD-WANs. The answer might be Global Managed Internet Providers, also called Virtual Network Operators (VNOs).Multiple Paths: The key to SD-WAN availability One of the biggest limitations of any SD-WAN is the dependence on the internet. Over the years, internet performance has improved dramatically. A look at the internet loss metrics from Stanford’s PINGer project show median loss rates across the globe have steadily declined since 1999, improving by 88 percent. Yet for all of its improvement, the internet remains an unmanaged network. Latency and loss rates may outperform private data services on some days, but enterprises look for data services to perform well every day.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Most hackable holiday gifts

Whether you are looking for a steal of deal on the latest and greatest gadgets or shopping to fulfill a loved one’s wish list, have you considered if the gadget is one of the most hackable?If not, then Intel Security has considered it for you and released its second annual McAfee Most Hackable Holiday Gifts list.The company first surveyed people to find out what average consumers plans to purchase and what they know about securing their new devices. The findings included that the average consumer lacks “awareness about the potential risks associated with emerging connected devices, such as drones (20%), children’s toys (15%), virtual reality tech (15%) and pet gifts (11%).”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Supplier management: The biggest threat to SD-WANs—and what you can do about it

You know the adage about a cup being half full or half empty? Maybe the author had software-defined WANs (SD-WANs) in mind. Their ability to select between internet services is critical to delivering stable, predictable performance. But with multiple providers at each site, carrier management becomes a nightmare for SD-WANs. The answer might be Global Managed Internet Providers, also called Virtual Network Operators (VNOs).Multiple Paths: The key to SD-WAN availability One of the biggest limitations of any SD-WAN is the dependence on the internet. Over the years, internet performance has improved dramatically. A look at the internet loss metrics from Stanford’s PINGer project show median loss rates across the globe have steadily declined since 1999, improving by 88 percent. Yet for all of its improvement, the internet remains an unmanaged network. Latency and loss rates may outperform private data services on some days, but enterprises look for data services to perform well every day.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network managers should be checking their list twice

Make sure it is a holly jolly time of the yearAs IT Ops teams begin preparation for the upcoming holiday season, which in retail is the busiest time of the year for web traffic, the team at BigPanda along with some other vendors have prepared a checklist of the key factors IT Ops teams need to consider to ensure their IT infrastructure is ready.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network managers should be checking their list twice

Make sure it is a holly jolly time of the yearAs IT Ops teams begin preparation for the upcoming holiday season, which in retail is the busiest time of the year for web traffic, the team at BigPanda along with some other vendors have prepared a checklist of the key factors IT Ops teams need to consider to ensure their IT infrastructure is ready.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 11.21.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.BetterWorks Program AutopilotKey features: BetterWorks Program Autopilot helps enterprise customers automate goal setting and performance management program administration. Automated program reminders, timely communications and usage dashboards all ensure engagement and adoption without administrative overhead. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 11.21.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.BetterWorks Program AutopilotKey features: BetterWorks Program Autopilot helps enterprise customers automate goal setting and performance management program administration. Automated program reminders, timely communications and usage dashboards all ensure engagement and adoption without administrative overhead. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 11.21.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.BetterWorks Program AutopilotKey features: BetterWorks Program Autopilot helps enterprise customers automate goal setting and performance management program administration. Automated program reminders, timely communications and usage dashboards all ensure engagement and adoption without administrative overhead. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 reasons to divorce the cloud

For some companies, using cloud services isn’t what they hoped or expected it to be. Reason’s like these might be enough to make them leave. 1. Your costs went out of the control. This can be significant. Prices go up and go down. A new product gets introduced that might be more financially attractive—but only if you started from that point and not if you include the added cost of migration (documentation, security and other audit) not to mention re-budgeting and rate of return over the lifecycle of the data flows. 2. Security was tougher than you thought. You were probably smart and already had extensive key control, but perhaps your cloud vendor wanted it done their way. Asset control, the cost of embedding security control planes and audit infrastructure that duplicates data center standards created a duopoly of security infrastructure—perhaps both equal but not the same—adding to costs of control, training, documentation, audit and more. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pandora FMS wins open-source management shootout

Doing more with less remains an ongoing challenge for IT execs. Making sure everything keeps humming along to meet service-level agreements can be challenging for resource-stretched IT departments. For all but the smallest shops, effective monitoring requires tools that provide a meta view of the entire infrastructure with drill-down capabilities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

2016 – the year 5G wireless testing really took off

The concept of 5G wireless has been around for a long time, but only recently have meaningful moves taken place to bring the new technology to customers.5G stakeholders – which include silicon giants such as Qualcomm and Intel, infrastructure players like Ericsson and Nokia, and, of course the major wireless carriers – have been unsurprisingly bullish on the technology’s rapid advance, announcing numerous breakthroughs and field trials over the past several months. We’ve constructed a timeline of these 5G trials, embedded below, to give you a visual sense of how much action has been taking place.+ MORE: Read our 5G FAQ +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What we talk about when we talk about 5G wireless

So what is 5G, exactly, anyway? Well, if you’re asking about “exactly,” it doesn’t exist yet. Oh, that helps me a lot. Sorry. But the best answer to your question is probably that 5G is sort of a catch-all name to describe the next generation of carrier wireless technology that’s going to be slinging tweets and videos and connected home signals from the internet to your smartphone or your smartwatch or, really, any smart object you’ve got handy. So why’s it better than 4G? Haven’t we had enough Gs? Oh, not hardly. You see, 5G – like 4G, and the rest of the Gs, in fact – is entirely a marketing term, meant to give an overview of a certain generation of carrier wireless tech. Most of what we’ve got in this country that we refer to as 4G is called LTE, although regular LTE isn’t quite 4G, according to standards groups, and LTE Advanced.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best open source management tools

Open source holds up to commercial productsOpen source software provides an attractive alternative to more costly commercial products, but can open source products deliver enterprise-grade results? To answer this question we tested four open source products: OpenNMS, Pandora FMS, NetXMS and Zabbix. All four products were surprisingly good. We liked Pandora FMS for its ease of installation and modern user interface. In general, we found configuration to be easier and more intuitive with Pandora than the other contenders. NetXMS came in a close second with a nice user interface, easy to configure rules and a solid user manual. Overall, we found all four products suitable for enterprise use, particularly in small-to-midsize environments. (Read the full review.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

2016 – the year 5G wireless testing really took off

The concept of 5G wireless has been around for a long time, but only recently have meaningful moves taken place to bring the new technology to customers.5G stakeholders – which include silicon giants such as Qualcomm and Intel, infrastructure players like Ericsson and Nokia, and, of course the major wireless carriers – have been unsurprisingly bullish on the technology’s rapid advance, announcing numerous breakthroughs and field trials over the past several months. We’ve constructed a timeline of these 5G trials, embedded below, to give you a visual sense of how much action has been taking place.+ MORE: Read our 5G FAQ +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ultimate guide to setting up a small business Wi-Fi network

A peek inside a typical small business today will likely reveal lots of wireless devices, with little, if any, wired hardware in evidence. Problems could occur, however, if the small business deploys consumer-centric access points targeted at home users.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

First Speakers in Building Network Automation Solutions Online Course

Like with the Next-Generation Data Center course, the live sessions in the Building Network Automation Solutions course include guest speakers, Q&A discussions, and solutions to sample challenges that you’ll be able to use to complete your homework assignments.

The guest speakers for the January 2016 course include: