The Next Step: Brocade

I am happy to announce that I am now a Product Manager at Brocade. This is a big move for me, and one I am very excited about. I will get to work on the future of networking with a lot of smart people .

Why Brocade?

It’s simple really:

He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tangata! He tangata! He tangata!

What is the most important thing in the world?
It is people! It is people! It is people!

Brocade has hired a lot of very clever people. This includes several Tech Field Day delegates, such as @joshobrien77, @Cloudtoad and @DavidJohnGee. I want to learn & grow, and being surrounded by great people is one of the best ways to do that.

Of course there’s more to it than just people. The problem with attending events like Network Field Day is that it’s addictive. You spend a week talking with smart people about the future. Big discussions, about what’s wrong with the current state, and what the future could be.

Then you return to a job where you’re working with networks that haven’t changed operation in over a decade. Adding VLANs to a 3750 and editing Check Point firewall rules Continue reading

Featured Article: Performance – Still Fueling the NFV Discussion

In the transition to NFV, there are many performance bottlenecks to consider.

Salesforce Community Cloud gets recommendation tool to boost engagement

After launching its Community Cloud last August for companies trying to engage their customers online, Salesforce has now given the platform a major update.Community Cloud, designed to let companies create their own “LinkedIn-style” communities for customers, partners and employees, has a new Targeted Recommendations feature aimed at promoting user engagement in these sites.Powered by algorithms that analyze both structured and unstructured data, the new feature is designed to bring community members the most relevant content, including posts, resources, files and groups. Community managers can suggest content with specific information or post an announcement into the feed and direct it at a specific group, member type or individual. Within a fitness-related community, for example, one could offer a coupon for running shoes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PayPal hypes its mobile strengths ahead of IPO

As PayPal prepares for its upcoming IPO as an independent eBay spinoff, it wants to make at least one thing clear: It’s got mobile covered.Over the past couple years, the payments company has re-engineered its back-end technology to become a strongerplatform for merchants, letting them incorporate a wider range of features into their payments services and improve the checkout process for customers. Many of the changes have been aimed squarely at improving the payment process on mobile devices.Roughly one-third of transactions processed by PayPal now come from mobile devices, PayPal President and incoming CEO Dan Schulman said Thursday during an event in San Francisco. In 2010, mobile was responsible for only about 1 percent of the company’s transactions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PayPal hypes its mobile strengths ahead of IPO

As PayPal prepares for its upcoming IPO as an independent eBay spinoff, it wants to make at least one thing clear: It’s got mobile covered.Over the past couple years, the payments company has re-engineered its back-end technology to become a strongerplatform for merchants, letting them incorporate a wider range of features into their payments services and improve the checkout process for customers. Many of the changes have been aimed squarely at improving the payment process on mobile devices.Roughly one-third of transactions processed by PayPal now come from mobile devices, PayPal President and incoming CEO Dan Schulman said Thursday during an event in San Francisco. In 2010, mobile was responsible for only about 1 percent of the company’s transactions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ETRI Picks UBIqube’s MSActivator for NFV MANO

Seeking NFV MANO, ETRI turns to Tail-f competitor UBIqube.

Patent shows Apple’s interesting mobile Wi-Fi hotspot idea

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published an Apple patent application today that suggests the company has explored a new kind of mobile hotspot technology that is easier to set up, provides a more reliable connection, and has a longer battery life.The patent application, first reported by Apple Insider, is for a small, cylindrical Wi-Fi hotspot device consisting of two pieces: one containing the networking hardware, the other a battery pack. Screw the two pieces together and you have a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Debunked: Your SSD won’t lose data if left unplugged after all

If you’re in a panic because the Internet told you that your shiny new SSD may lose data in “just a few days” when stored in a hot room, take a chill pill—it’s apparently all a huge misunderstanding, according to the man who wrote the original presentation all the fear is based on.In a conversation with Kent Smith of Seagate and Alvin Cox, the Seagate engineer who wrote the presentation that set the Internet abuzz, PCWorld was told we’re all just reading it wrong.“People have misunderstood the data that they’re looking at,” Smith said. Cox agreed saying there’s no reason to fret. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Weighing your options with Microsoft’s Windows servers

In the course of this year, almost 10 million antiquated Windows Server 2003 servers will have their applications and data removed and deployed on new servers, and the old servers will be shut down and disposed of. It is a natural assumption that the destination servers will be Server 2012, but that's not necessarily the case, nor should it be.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 10 (FREE!) Microsoft tools to make admins happier You have three choices from Microsoft: Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2, and the Azure cloud service. Here are the pros and cons of each.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP sells majority stake of China server, storage business to Tsinghua Holdings

Hewlett-Packard has sold a majority stake in its China server and storage business to Tsinghua Holdings as they launch a joint venture they expect will boost sales of HP enterprise hardware products in the country.Tsinghua will buy 51 percent of the joint venture, called H3C, for US$2.3 billion. H3C will include HP’s China-based server, storage and technology services assets, as well H3C Technologies, an HP networking equipment subsidiary in China.The transaction comes ahead of HP’s plan to split its enterprise and PC and printing business into separate companies, which is expected to happen by the end of the year. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise will sell software and enterprise hardware, while HP Inc. will sell printers, PCs, mobile devices, monitors and accessories.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Open Networking Summit 2015 Puts SDN & NFV in the Spotlight

Open Networking Summit 2015 is almost here.

The 7 things we’re looking for at Google I/O 2015

Don’t call it a developer conference… …when it’s really Google Prom. OK, it’s also a developer conference, but isn’t that what you picture if I say the words “Google Prom?” I/O generally features at least a couple fairly major announcements from Google, and the 2015 edition isn’t expected to disappoint. Here are the seven things we’re looking for this time around.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The 8 things we’re looking for at Google I/O 2015

Don’t call it a developer conference… …when it’s really Google Prom. OK, it’s also a developer conference, but isn’t that what you picture if I say the words “Google Prom?” I/O generally features at least a couple fairly major announcements from Google, and the 2015 edition isn’t expected to disappoint. Here are the seven things we’re looking for this time around.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco bypassed Russia sanctions to continue sales: report

Cisco reportedly skirted sanctions in order to sell networking equipment to Russia’s military.In an investigative piece published this week, Buzzfeed alleges Cisco knowingly sold gear through straw companies fronting for Russian government and military institutions in violation of American sanctions. Cisco denies any wrongdoing and any knowledge of the scheme, allegedly perpetrated by its Russian operations, according to Buzzfeed.Cisco says some of the bogus customer names were errors, Buzzfeed reports.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Netgear and ZyXEL confirm NetUSB flaw, are working on fixes

Networking device manufacturers ZyXEL Communications and Netgear have confirmed that some of their routers are affected by a recently disclosed vulnerability in a USB device-sharing service called NetUSB.ZyXEL will begin issuing firmware updates in June, while Netgear plans to start releasing patches in the third quarter of the year.The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2015-3036, is located in a Linux kernel module called NetUSB that’s commonly used in routers and other embedded devices. The module is developed by a Taiwan-based company called KCodes Technology and allows routers to share USB devices with other computers via the Internet Protocol (IP).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Yandex tries to improve privacy features of its new browser

Russian Internet company Yandex has released a beta version of its new browser that the company says is more privacy-friendly than an earlier build.Unlike an alpha version released last year, the Yandex.Browser beta doesn’t send usage statistics to the company by default. However, other information will still be shared, so it remains to be seen whether the privacy safeguards will be compelling enough to attract a substantial number of users, as the company hopes.Yandex, which runs Russia’s most popular search engine, decided to make this beta version more privacy friendly than the alpha in response to feedback from users in Germany, Canada and the U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple restores iCloud after global disruption hinders services

Apple says it has resolved a widespread iCloud issue that caused service disruptions for 40 percent of its users—that comes out to at least 128 million people, based on a company customer count.Several services, including iCloud Mail, had been running slower for some people, Apple said in an early status report. Apple later updated iCloud’s status page to reflect that all services were working normally. The service issue lasted for around seven hours, starting at approximately 2:15 a.m. ET and ending around 9:30 a.m. ET, according to the service’s status page.Apple didn’t provide details on what caused the disruption or how many people were affected. However, the company said in a 2013 earnings report that 320 million people use iCloud, which lets them back up and sync information stored on Apple devices via the company’s cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fabric exposes bangs and bashes to the head

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Inside Google’s Loon and Wing

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No, I do not believe this steak was cooked by an iPhone, but I’ll bite anyway

Generally speaking, I’m pretty good at skipping past ads in my Twitter stream, but this one grabbed my attention with a clickbait headline that proved harder to resist than a perfectly grilled slab of beef.“Would you believe this steak was cooked by an iPhone?”Not for a nanosecond, of course, despite the multitude of stories connecting fire and iPhones over the years.But I couldn’t escape the attendant curiosity: What in the name of Steve Jobs might allow a marketing professional – no, make that even a marketing professional -- to suggest such a preposterous feat might be possible.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here