Carriers are going virtual to give enterprises more freedom

Starting carrier services like routing and security is getting faster and easier thanks to a new way of deploying them that doesn’t require specialized equipment at customer’s sites.The new approach, called virtualized business services, lets various carrier services run on standard infrastructure at either customer sites or service-provider facilities. Because the services are virtual, companies can order and change them quickly, and they won’t get locked into whatever capabilities come with a particular device.On Monday, Orange Business Services launched its virtualized network services program, called Easy Go Network. It joins AT&T, Verizon and other operators that are selling or developing such programs. Easy Go Network is available as a month-to-month subscription and its launch follows a year-long customer trial. Orange Business Services claims more than 3,000 multinational organizations as customers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Carriers are going virtual to give enterprises more freedom

Starting carrier services like routing and security is getting faster and easier thanks to a new way of deploying them that doesn’t require specialized equipment at customer’s sites.The new approach, called virtualized business services, lets various carrier services run on standard infrastructure at either customer sites or service-provider facilities. Because the services are virtual, companies can order and change them quickly, and they won’t get locked into whatever capabilities come with a particular device.On Monday, Orange Business Services launched its virtualized network services program, called Easy Go Network. It joins AT&T, Verizon and other operators that are selling or developing such programs. Easy Go Network is available as a month-to-month subscription and its launch follows a year-long customer trial. Orange Business Services claims more than 3,000 multinational organizations as customers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

68% off Anker Astro E1 Ultra Compact High Speed Portable Charger – Deal Alert

This inexpensive smartphone charger from Anker is the size of a candy bar, and has enough juice to recharge any smartphone, including the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, at least 1-2 times over. It's discounted 68% to just $16, making it a good stocking-stuffer idea. The Astro E1 currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 4,300 people on Amazon (84% rate 5 stars: See reviews), and it's listed there as a #1 best-seller. See the attractively priced Anker Astro E1 charger now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

$13 million: That’s an early termination fee

Let’s call it a tiny little consolation prize for anyone who’s ever had to pay a carrier early-termination fee: U.S. Cellular had to pony up $13 million last quarter to buy its way out of a stadium naming rights agreement with the Chicago White Sox.From a Chicago Tribune report: Mortgage provider Guaranteed Rate recently bought the naming rights, and the ballpark's name officially changed earlier this week to Guaranteed Rate Field, from U.S. Cellular Field. The stadium originally was called Comiskey Park until U.S. Cellular bought the naming rights in 2003 in a deal that had been scheduled to run through 2028.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: New Relic delivers its infrastructure monitoring—and with that provides a broad platform

There’s an interesting thing happening in the IT monitoring space that is a reflection on broader trends happening in enterprise IT.Whereas in the past there was a fairly distinct line between application monitoring and infrastructure monitoring, that line is rapidly reducing. And the former application monitoring vendors are moving into the infrastructure space, while vendors that were focused on monitoring the status of servers and the like are increasingly giving the application side of the house more attention.+ Also on Network World: New Relic aims to be your dashboard of the future + The trend is, of course, a direct response to the DevOps movement—the idea that developers and operations teams need to work more closely (or, at the ultimate level, be essentially the same people). DevOps as an approach enables organizations to move faster, reduce their deployment times, innovate and reduce the risks involved in experimentation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Young tech entrepreneurs inspired by hearts, minds, stomachs, and not necessarily in that order

There's nothing quite like an empty stomach to get the old creative juices flowing, as participants at last week's Babson College Rocket Pitch event explained during their 3-minute pitches before peers, investors and assorted people like myself.(I captured a handful of the presentations via Facebook Live, as seen in the saved video at the bottom of this post, for your viewing enjoyment...)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple just removed hundreds of fake shopping apps from the App Store

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, the iOS App Store is seeing a deluge of fake shopping apps branding themselves with designer names in hopes of trapping gullible buyers. Apple is now stepping in to remove the counterfeit apps, which are sneaking in by changing the content after Apple’s approval or by resubmitting apps under different names and credentials after being outed as fraudulent.After reports of apps using reputable companies’ names to shill their fake wares in the App Store surfaced in the New York Times and New York Post, Apple removed hundreds of offenders. But hucksters keep coming back: The Times found that an app called Overstock Inc. was trying to convince shoppers that it was Overstock.com by selling clothes and Ugg boots. Apple killed the app, only to see it return the next day, because sketchy developers are finding new ways to bypass the company’s traditionally tough app review process.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple just removed hundreds of fake shopping apps from the App Store

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, the iOS App Store is seeing a deluge of fake shopping apps branding themselves with designer names in hopes of trapping gullible buyers. Apple is now stepping in to remove the counterfeit apps, which are sneaking in by changing the content after Apple’s approval or by resubmitting apps under different names and credentials after being outed as fraudulent.After reports of apps using reputable companies’ names to shill their fake wares in the App Store surfaced in the New York Times and New York Post, Apple removed hundreds of offenders. But hucksters keep coming back: The Times found that an app called Overstock Inc. was trying to convince shoppers that it was Overstock.com by selling clothes and Ugg boots. Apple killed the app, only to see it return the next day, because sketchy developers are finding new ways to bypass the company’s traditionally tough app review process.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft postpones Windows anti-exploit tool’s retirement

Microsoft last week announced that it would support the Enterprise Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) through July 2018, a year-and-a-half extension for the anti-exploit utility.At the same time, the Redmond, Wash. company dismissed EMET as a behind-the-times tool, and again urged customers to upgrade to Windows 10, arguing that the new operating system is much more secure than previous editions when supplemented by EMET."EMET hasn't kept pace," wrote Jeffrey Sutherland, a Microsoft principal program manager lead, in a post to a company blog Nov. 3. "Its effectiveness against modern exploit kits has not been demonstrated, especially in comparison to the many security innovations built into Windows 10."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft postpones Windows anti-exploit tool’s retirement

Microsoft last week announced that it would support the Enterprise Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) through July 2018, a year-and-a-half extension for the anti-exploit utility.At the same time, the Redmond, Wash. company dismissed EMET as a behind-the-times tool, and again urged customers to upgrade to Windows 10, arguing that the new operating system is much more secure than previous editions when supplemented by EMET."EMET hasn't kept pace," wrote Jeffrey Sutherland, a Microsoft principal program manager lead, in a post to a company blog Nov. 3. "Its effectiveness against modern exploit kits has not been demonstrated, especially in comparison to the many security innovations built into Windows 10."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Six big projects that went open-source

More code, more projectsMaking big software and hardware projects open-source is an increasingly popular thing to do, whether you’re a big company, a small company, or even the government. Here’s a sampling of the latest major projects to hit the open-source realm. Enjoy.Facebook’s VoyagerImage by FacebookTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: The Value of a Degree

This post is not a “People with degrees are better than others” post and is written from my perspective as a network architect. I do believe though that the skills I will describe here are applicable to all networking/IT jobs and will be even more relevant further down the road. Here is some of the value I see in a degree based on that you get a degree in a relevant discipline at a good university and that you have the willingness to learn. —Daniel’s Networking Blog

The post Worth Reading: The Value of a Degree appeared first on 'net work.

When DR fails

Someone hacked into my main server. I have a small organization, and the server was an old Apple Xserve 10.6.7 chosen because it’s not the usual host. Now it’s time to scratch security through obscurity off the list.So let’s do a rudimentary recover. Forensics will have to wait.I went to a hosting company to spin up httpd and mail. They’re already my registrar. Pretty big organization.And they don’t have 24/7 support.Since this happened on a Saturday, I was already in trouble. I chose one of their hosting plans. It costs a rudimentary $60 for a web server plus mail. It uses the famous CPanel hosting.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

When DR fails

Someone hacked into my main server. I have a small organization, and the server was an old Apple Xserve 10.6.7 chosen because it’s not the usual host. Now it’s time to scratch security through obscurity off the list.So let’s do a rudimentary recover. Forensics will have to wait.I went to a hosting company to spin up httpd and mail. They’re already my registrar. Pretty big organization.And they don’t have 24/7 support.Since this happened on a Saturday, I was already in trouble. I chose one of their hosting plans. It costs a rudimentary $60 for a web server plus mail. It uses the famous CPanel hosting.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BT’s SD-WAN With Nuage Will Launch in Early 2017

Launch for Nuage's different SD-WAN is set for early 2017.

Diamonds could be building blocks for quantum computers

Diamonds are among the most expensive gems in the world, but they could also serve as a building block for quantum computers.Because diamonds are structurally sound, researchers believe they could eliminate some of the challenges involved in making stable quantum computers.The potential of quantum computers is enormous -- they could bring massive gains in computational power and ultimately replace today's PCs and servers.But universal quantum computers are still decades away, partly because of the complexity involved in building such systems. Quantum computers are considered notoriously unstable, but researchers working on ways to resolve existing material, programming, and hardware challenges.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Q3 2016 Earnings Highlights and Expectations

Here's a quick recap of how the public companies that we cover performed in the third quarter of 2016.

Open-O: Here Comes the Sun (Code Release)

It’s the MANO open source group’s first code release.

Microsoft patent hints at a more human-like Cortana

A newly discovered Microsoft patent hints that Microsoft is developing more personalized, "human-like" responses for Cortana, so she sounds less generic and speaks to the user directly using personal information.  The patent describes how user-specific information and contextual information is retrieved by querying a user profile database and one or more services, which generates a personalized greeting based on user-specific information, such as user inferences and interests, and the contextual information to generate the personalized greetings for presentation by the digital assistant on the client device. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windstream Buys Earthlink For $1.1B

The combined company could be an SD-WAN powerhouse.