Spanning Tree Best Practices

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is a control plane mechanism for Ethernet. It is used to create a Layer 2 topology (a tree) by placing the root switch on top of the tree. Since classical Ethernet works based on data plane learning and Ethernet frames don’t have TTL for loop prevention, loops are prevented by the […]

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Keystone Keynotes

My distaste for keynotes is well known. With the possible exception of Justin Warren (@JPWarren) there may not be a person that dislikes them more than I do. I’ve outlined my reasons for it before, so I won’t go into much depth about it here. But I do want to highlight a few recent developments that are doing a great job of helping me find new things to dislike.

Drop The “Interviews”

When you walk into a keynote ballroom or arena and see two comfy chairs on stage, you know what’s coming. As someone told me recently, “This is when I know the next hour is going to suck.” The mock interview style of keynote speech is not good. It’s a thinly-veiled attempt to push an agenda. Perhaps it’s about innovation. Or transformation. Or some theme of the conference. Realistically, it’s mostly a chance for a keynote host (some form of VP) to provide forced banter with a celebrity that’s being paid to be there.

These “interviews” are rarely memorable. They seem self serving and very plastic. The only ones that even stand out to me in recent memory are the ones that went off the Continue reading

Broadband Provider Wow Tests Juniper’s Cloud CPE

Juniper's Cloud CPE is also used by Verizon.

Google rebrands Apps for Work as G Suite, adds intelligent features

Google rebranded and enhanced its productivity suite Thursday with new intelligent capabilities that help it better compete with Microsoft Office 365.G Suite is the new name for the group of applications that include Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. It's a group of apps that the company is trying to push on organizations looking to make their employees more productive, with an emphasis on collaboration capabilities.Docs, Sheets, and Slides are each getting new features aimed at making it easier to create files quickly with the help of Google intelligence. In addition, Google Calendar is getting an update to make it easier to schedule meetings, and Drive has a new feature making it easier for teams to use.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bounty for iOS jailbreak exploit jumps to $1.5 million

The value for zero-day exploits targeting Apple's iOS software is jumping. On Thursday, a company called Zerodium began offering as much as US $1.5 million for them.Zerodium is the same company that offered $1 million last year for an exclusive iOS zero-day exploit that can remotely jailbreak a device. However, that bounty was only temporary, and it was eventually awarded last November.Zerodium's new $1.5 million bounty is asking for a remote jailbreak exploit targeting iOS 10. The bounty will be offered all year long, Chaouki Bekrar, the company's CEO, said in an email. The company's original offer was a maximum of $500,000.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bounty for iOS jailbreak exploit jumps to $1.5 million

The value for zero-day exploits targeting Apple's iOS software is jumping. On Thursday, a company called Zerodium began offering as much as US $1.5 million for them.Zerodium is the same company that offered $1 million last year for an exclusive iOS zero-day exploit that can remotely jailbreak a device. However, that bounty was only temporary, and it was eventually awarded last November.Zerodium's new $1.5 million bounty is asking for a remote jailbreak exploit targeting iOS 10. The bounty will be offered all year long, Chaouki Bekrar, the company's CEO, said in an email. The company's original offer was a maximum of $500,000.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft is leaving the consumer mobile market

The weak effort from Microsoft surrounding the Windows Mobile line has made it pretty clear that the handset business isn't a priority. Now we have a clear statement from a Microsoft executive that the company is indeed giving up on mobile, at least for a time. The new president of Microsoft France gave an interview with a French publication where he said the company was indeed giving up on mobile. Vahé Torossian was introduced recently as the new president of the company's French subsidiary. He was previously corporate vice president of the Worldwide Small, Mid-market Solutions & Partners Group.And in an interview with Le Point, Torossian reiterated the current strategy Microsoft is pursuing: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‘Cloud washing’ gives way to true cloud services

When CompTIA technology analyst Seth Robinson was researching his new report on the state of cloud computing in July some of the results were puzzling. The 500 business and IT executives who participated reported that their use of SaaS applications had declined since the last time CompTIA completed the survey in 2014. The data ran contrary to claims from every consultant, research firm and tech pundit.The head-scratching stat: 45 percent of CompTIA respondents said they used cloud productivity software, down from 63 percent in 2014; 51 percent consumed cloud email, compared to 51 percent in 2014; and only 35 percent consumed cloud analytics/business intelligence software, a decline from 53 percent two years ago. In all, 12 of the 14 applications CompTIA listed posted declines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: A digital rumor should never lead to a police raid

If police raided a home based only on an anonymous phone call claiming residents broke the law, it would be clearly unconstitutional. Yet EFF has found that police and courts are regularly conducting and approving raids based on the similar type of unreliable digital evidence: Internet Protocol (IP) address information. In a whitepaper released today, EFF challenges law enforcement and courts’ reliance on IP addresses, without more, to identify the location of crimes and the individuals responsible. —EFF

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Which is cheaper: Containers or virtual machines?

The emergence of application containers has come with questions about where this technology fits in the enterprise technology landscape, and more specifically how it compares to virtual machines.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Are containers VM killers?A new report from 451 Research has some provocative findings on just how advantageous containers could be, not just for developers and operators, but for the finance team too.“451 Research believes containers are better placed, at least theoretically, to achieve lower TCO (total cost of ownership) than traditional hardware virtualization,” 451 Researchers Owen Rogers and Jay Lyman write. “In fact, we have found that double-digit resource savings are achievable even with relatively simple implementations.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US carriers will look to LTE-U tests to protect Wi-Fi

The biggest U.S. carriers planning to deploy controversial LTE-Unlicensed technology expect to use gear that’s been tested for coexistence with Wi-Fi, their executives said Wednesday.Speakers from Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA said they expect all the LTE-U devices they use to be vetted through a test plan created by the Wi-Fi Alliance. They also anticipate that gear based on a related technology, LAA (Licensed Assisted Access), will be certified through tests for that system.That’s good news for anyone worried about LTE networks using some of the same frequencies that carry Wi-Fi traffic. The WFA test plan, despite being developed with input from those carriers and other LTE-U backers, was harshly criticized before its completion last week. Backers of LTE-U, including Verizon and Qualcomm, have demonstrated their own coexistence tests. When it released the plan, WFA warned that anything but the full test suite would be inadequate to ensure that LTE-U devices would be fair to Wi-Fi.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: To improve IT efficiency, start with the org chart

IT is a peculiar appliance and has resisted change in the form of overall transparency and/or standardization, perhaps in part due to its unique nature.Generally speaking, IT does not have a great track record in welcoming parties to the decision-making process and even resists efforts to increase transparency. Because IT displaces or eliminates other forms of resource consumption, trying to apply efficient IT principles can invite the threshold question of ‘Why?’ Some people think, “If I can avoid an airplane trip, ride in my car, overnight delivery or firing up a printing press, isn’t that enough?”+ Also on Network World: America’s data centers are getting a lot more efficient +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: To improve IT efficiency, start with the org chart

IT is a peculiar appliance and has resisted change in the form of overall transparency and/or standardization, perhaps in part due to its unique nature.Generally speaking, IT does not have a great track record in welcoming parties to the decision-making process and even resists efforts to increase transparency. Because IT displaces or eliminates other forms of resource consumption, trying to apply efficient IT principles can invite the threshold question of ‘Why?’ Some people think, “If I can avoid an airplane trip, ride in my car, overnight delivery or firing up a printing press, isn’t that enough?”+ Also on Network World: America’s data centers are getting a lot more efficient +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google will shore up one of its biggest cloud weaknesses next year

Google is making a major change to its cloud platform infrastructure that will help shore up one of the company's biggest weaknesses relative to competitors like Microsoft and Amazon.On Thursday, Urs Hölzle, the company's senior vice president of technical infrastructure, unveiled eight forthcoming regions around the world for the company's cloud services. The regions are all slated to launch in 2017 and will be comprised of multiple data centers for companies looking to run high-availability applications.Having a broad distribution of cloud infrastructure is important to Google's competitive chances. More and more countries are requiring that some types of data are stored in particular geographic locations. And even with high-speed networks, a large distance between where an application is hosted and where its users are located will lead to a slowdown.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft Plans to Build an AI Supercomputer in Azure

Satya Nadella talked big about AI, now his team gets to deliver.

24% off Sphero 2.0, The App-Enabled Robotic Ball – Deal Alert

Sphero 2.0 is the app-enabled ball that does it all. Intelligent and well-rounded, Sphero lets you play, learn, and explore. Create obstacle courses, turn your living room into a video game with augmented reality apps, upgrade family game night with multiplayer fun, or learn to program with their free SPRK lessons. This virtually unstoppable companion is waterproof, pet-proof, and ready for any adventure. It averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 300 people (read reviews) and its list price of $130 is currently discounted 24% to $99. At sub-$100, maybe a fun option to kick off the inevitable holiday shopping you're trying not to think about.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Clarient Taps VMware Cloud Foundation on IBM for its Hub

Clarient’s Hub will be running on bare metal servers.

Microsoft opens up its ‘million dollar’ bug-finder

Microsoft is previewing a cloud-based bug detector, dubbed Project Springfield, that it calls one of its most sophisticated tools for finding potential security vulnerabilities.Project Springfield uses "whitebox fuzzing," which uncovered one-third of the "million dollar" security bugs during the development of Windows 7. Microsoft has been using a component of the project called SAGE since the mid-2000s to test products prior to release, including fuzzing both Windows and Office applications. [ From Docker containers and Nano Server to software-defined storage and networking improvements, Windows Server 2016 is packed with great additions: Get the scoop on Windows Server 2016 from InfoWorld. | Stay up on key Microsoft technologies with the Windows Report newsletter. ] For this project, SAGE is bundled with other tools for fuzz testing, featuring a dashboard and other interfaces that enable use by people without an extensive security background. The tests are run using Microsoft's Azure cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft opens up its ‘million dollar’ bug-finder

Microsoft is previewing a cloud-based bug detector, dubbed Project Springfield, that it calls one of its most sophisticated tools for finding potential security vulnerabilities.Project Springfield uses "whitebox fuzzing," which uncovered one-third of the "million dollar" security bugs during the development of Windows 7. Microsoft has been using a component of the project called SAGE since the mid-2000s to test products prior to release, including fuzzing both Windows and Office applications. [ From Docker containers and Nano Server to software-defined storage and networking improvements, Windows Server 2016 is packed with great additions: Get the scoop on Windows Server 2016 from InfoWorld. | Stay up on key Microsoft technologies with the Windows Report newsletter. ] For this project, SAGE is bundled with other tools for fuzz testing, featuring a dashboard and other interfaces that enable use by people without an extensive security background. The tests are run using Microsoft's Azure cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google to Hire 1,000 People to Boost Its Cloud Business

Cloud becomes a top priority for Google.