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Category Archives for "Networking"

USB Consoling Myself With Opengear’s ACM7004-5

Have you ever tried using the USB Console port on your network hardware? Me neither, and that’s mainly because the instructions typically begin with Download and install the USB console driver for your operating system, at which point I exhale deeply and get out my USB serial adapter instead. I think Opengear must have heard me sighing because the ACM7004-5 Remote Site Gateway device they’ve sent me to look at has four USB console ports built in.

Opengear ACM7004-5 Front

Opengear ACM7004-5

The compact ACM7004-5 packs more power than its diminutive stature might at first suggest. Taking a look at the back panel reveals a densely-packed set of ports offering a total of four switched GigabitEthernet ports, four serial console ports (RJ-45) and four USB ports:

og7004-back

As with the other small Opengear devices I’ve tested, this model comes with a single rackmount bracket so it can be attached within a rack with relative ease. It’s only about five inches wide, so it’s not too hard to find a free space to locate it. If you aren’t blessed with a rack, there are small rubber feet that can be stuck on the underside. The power port is interesting; I find myself shouting for Continue reading

PowerNSX: PowerShell cmdlets to automate NSX

Looking to automate NSX for vSphere? Unsure where to start? Look no further than PowerNSX.

NSX, PowerShell, PowerNSX

PowerNSX is a PowerShell module that abstracts the VMware NSX for vSphere API to a set of easily used PowerShell functions. It aims to focus on exposing New, Update, Remove and Get operations for all key NSX functions as well as adding additional functionality to extend the capabilities of NSX for vSphere management beyond the native UI or API.

PowerNSX works closely with VMware PowerCLI, and PowerCLI users will feel quickly at home using PowerNSX. Together these tools provide a comprehensive command line environment to manage your VMware NSX for vSphere environments.

PowerNSX continues to be updated and feature requests are welcome via the issues tracker on the projects GitHub page. Remember that VMware does not support this module, and PowerNSX comes with no warranties express or implied. Please test and validate PowerNSXs functionality before using in a production environment.

What’s in the box?

So what does your free download of PowerNSX give you?

At a glance:

  • Over 210 cmdlets providing CRUD operations for a majority of NSX for vSphere’s capability. This command-line environment (programmatic language) allows for projects and applications of all sizes!

Worth Reading: High Speed Optical Networking

The alchemists of our age, scientists and engineers, have transformed chemical compounds like gallium-arsenide, indium-phosphide, and silicon into miniaturized lasers, light detectors, and thin tubes of glass that combine to communicate information over long distances at unimaginably fast speeds. The raw power and extraordinarily efficient cost performance of high-speed optical networking underlies our global internet economy. We are surrounded by countless consumer, industrial, financial, and social applications that depend on reliable and inexpensive communications – spanning interactions among people, between people and machines, and increasingly, among the machines themselves. —ECI

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Microsoft is replacing the CMD prompt with PowerShell

One of the last vestiges of the old MS-DOS days, the Command Prompt, is looking like an endangered species. The latest Windows 10 preview build puts the Windows PowerShell, first introduced on Windows Server, front and center. Build 14791, believed to be the basis for the Redstone 2 upgrade coming early next year, replaces the Command Prompt window in many key areas of the operating system. Command Prompt is still there, just not as accessible. Microsoft is putting the emphasis on PowerShell as the main command shell going forward.Dona Sarkar, head of the Windows Insider Program, mentioned this change in her blog post discussing Build 14791. She notes that it is still possible to stick with Command Prompt if you wish: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FlokiBot: A Flock of Bots?

In early October, Flashpoint released an analysis of an underground forum advertisement for a new malware family known as FlokiBot. It took some time before a sample was found in the wild, but a researcher known as hasherezade flagged one on VirusTotal in early November. […]

FlokiBot: A Flock of Bots?

In early October, Flashpoint released an analysis of an underground forum advertisement for a new malware family known as FlokiBot. It took some time before a sample was found in the wild, but a researcher known as hasherezade flagged one on VirusTotal in early November. She also wrote an analysis of its dropper here. This […]

In wearables, IDC says the little things are going to be very big

There’s no denying it: Despite years of hype, wearable computing technology has yet to make a big impact on enterprise IT. But if you believe the last IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Wearables and AR/VR predictions, that’s finally about to change. And ironically, two of the smallest categories of wearables seem poised to make the biggest difference.Smartwatches and ear-worn wearables Among the 10 predictions in the report, IDC predicts smartwatches—yes, those things that strap on your wrist to monitor your fitness activities, and not much else—will find favor among enterprises in pilot programs designed to “augment or replace enterprise-use smartphones in 2017 to communicate time-sensitive data.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Vendors push the ‘private instance on a public cloud’ proposition

A decade or so ago, a few visionaries decided that a new way of delivering technology was valuable. Pioneers at both the software end of the spectrum (Salesforce and NetSuite) and the infrastructure end (Amazon Web Services) came up with solutions that, rather than being delivered on premises, could be consumed on-demand and via the internet. While it seems natural enough now, back in the day this was a revolutionary concept.And unsurprisingly, the way people have reacted to this “cloud thing” has changed over time. I have sat in many conference keynote sessions where industry leaders told of the risks, the utter devastation, that would occur should cloud actually reach an adoption tipping point. Much doubt was cast on the model, and customers were advised to keep with the status quo.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Oracle to buy DNS, cloud infrastructure provider Dyn

Oracle plans to acquire internet performance and DNS provider Dyn in an effort to pump up its cloud-based offerings and challenge infrastructure and platform service leaders like Amazon and Microsoft.Dyn, in the news last month when it was targeted in a massive distributed denial-of-service attack, operates a global network that makes 40 billion traffic optimization decisions each day for more than 3,500 enterprise customers, including Netflix and Twitter.Dyn monitors and optimizes internet applications and cloud services with the goal of delivering deliver faster access and reduced page-load times. Dyn's services will give Oracle a one-stop shop for enterprise customers looking for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS), Oracle said in a press release Monday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Which Job-Related Factors Alienate Cybersecurity Pros?

When it comes to cybersecurity jobs, it is truly a seller’s market.  According to ESG research published early this year, 46% of organizations report a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills (note: I am an ESG employee).  Additionally, a more recent research report from ESG and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) indicates that 46% of cybersecurity professionals are solicited by recruiters to consider another job at least once each week!The data indicates that there aren’t enough cybersecurity professionals around and those that are employed are in high demand.  This puts a lot of pressure on CISOs and human resources people to make sure to keep their existing cybersecurity staff happy so they don’t walk out the door when they are barraged by headhunters’ calls. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Which Job-Related Factors Alienate Cybersecurity Pros?

When it comes to cybersecurity jobs, it is truly a seller’s market.  According to ESG research published early this year, 46% of organizations report a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills (note: I am an ESG employee).  Additionally, a more recent research report from ESG and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) indicates that 46% of cybersecurity professionals are solicited by recruiters to consider another job at least once each week!The data indicates that there aren’t enough cybersecurity professionals around and those that are employed are in high demand.  This puts a lot of pressure on CISOs and human resources people to make sure to keep their existing cybersecurity staff happy so they don’t walk out the door when they are barraged by headhunters’ calls. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Which job-related factors alienate cybersecurity pros?

When it comes to cybersecurity jobs, it is truly a seller’s market.  According to ESG research published early this year, 46% of organizations report a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills (note: I am an ESG employee).  Additionally, a more recent research report from ESG and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) indicates that 46% of cybersecurity professionals are solicited by recruiters to consider another job at least once each week! The data indicates that there aren’t enough cybersecurity professionals around and those that are employed are in high demand.  This puts a lot of pressure on CISOs and human resources people to make sure to keep their existing cybersecurity staff happy so they don’t walk out the door when they are barraged by headhunters’ calls. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Renowned tech investor Harry Weller of NEA passes away at 46

There was sad news over the weekend in the venture capital community, as New Enterprise Associate General Partner Harry Weller died in his sleep at the age of 46. Weller, who was not known to have had any illness, is survived by his wife and two sons."A renowned technology investor, champion of innovation and true partner to entrepreneurs, many knew Harry to be bold, brilliant and passionate," NEA says on a tribute to Weller on its website." To those who knew him best, he was equally remarkable for his kind heart and generous spirit. Harry was a deeply devoted father, husband and friend."MORE: Notable deaths in 2016 in technology, science & inventionsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Renowned tech investor Harry Weller of NEA passes away at 46

There was sad news over the weekend in the venture capital community, as New Enterprise Associate General Partner Harry Weller died in his sleep at the age of 46. Weller, who was not known to have had any illness, is survived by his wife and two sons."A renowned technology investor, champion of innovation and true partner to entrepreneurs, many knew Harry to be bold, brilliant and passionate," NEA says on a tribute to Weller on its website." To those who knew him best, he was equally remarkable for his kind heart and generous spirit. Harry was a deeply devoted father, husband and friend."MORE: Notable deaths in 2016 in technology, science & inventionsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

98.01% of sites on Cloudflare now use IPv6

It's 2016 and almost every site using Cloudflare (more than 4 million of them) is using IPv6. Because of this, Cloudflare sees significant IPv6 traffic globally where networks have enabled IPv6 to the consumer.

The top IPv6 networks are shown here.

The chart shows the percentage of IPv6 within a specific network vs. the relative bandwidth of that network. We will talk about specific networks below.

Why IPv6? Because fast internet.

IPv6 is faster for two reasons. The first is that many major operating systems and browsers like iOS, MacOS, Chrome and Firefox impose anywhere from a 25ms to 300ms artificial delay on connections made over IPv4. The second is that some mobile networks won’t need to perform extra v4 -> v6 and v6 -> v4 translations to connect visitors to IPv6 enabled sites if the phone is only assigned an IPv6 address. (IPv6-only phones are becoming very common. If you have a phone on T-Mobile, Telstra, SK Telecom, Orange, or EE UK, to name a few, it’s likely you’re v6-only.)

How much faster is IPv6? Our data shows that visitors connecting over IPv6 were able to connect and load pages in 27% less time than visitors connecting Continue reading

Facebook working with fact-checkers to weed out fake news

Returning to the controversy over fake news on the social networking site, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said over the weekend that the company was working with fact-checking organizations to put in place third-party verification of the authenticity of news on its site. Facebook has been criticized for fake news on its site, which is claimed to have tilted the recent U.S. presidential elections in favor of Republican candidate Donald Trump. Zuckerberg warned in his post late Friday that the website needs to be careful not to discourage sharing of opinions or to mistakenly restrict accurate content. “We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties,” he wrote.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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