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

Ethernet’s Roadmap: David Chalupsky

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Register Now for the HP DemoFriday on HP SDN Applications!

Registration is now open for the HP DemoFriday! Learn how your organization can enhance optimization & visibility with HP SDN applications.

Adopt a “Whole Stack” View to NFV (Part 2)

Service creation requires a new, layered model of networking that incorporates policy & service abstraction. Meet the "whole stack" concept.

Virtualized

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Adopt a “Whole Stack” View to NFV

Service creation requires a new, layered model of networking

IBM Goes Full OpenStack for Cloud Services

IBM rolls out OpenStack to its public cloud.

The path to enterprise IoT may not be as steep as you think

The tech challenges that accompany IoT projects shouldn't deter companies from attempting to find meaning in data gathered from connected devices. The solutions may be closer than they think.The IT behind the Internet of Things, including sensors, databases and analytics software, has been around for a while. The challenge is getting these disparate systems and components to work together, said Phil Regnault, a senior vice president with Hitachi Consulting, on a panel at MIT's CIO Symposium. MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 12 most powerful Internet of Things companies Data analysis tools and data storage, technologies that are key to IoT, are extremely affordable, according to Richard Soley, executive director of the Industrial Internet Consortium. "There's no excuse for not using this technology today," he said. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, May 12

Senators block vote extending NSA dragnet powersFour U.S. senators ground the chamber’s business to a halt Wednesday in an effort to prevent voting on a bill that would extend a law that’s legitimized the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of telephone and business records. The relevant section of the Patriot Act expires at the end of the month, and to stop it from being renewed, a bipartisan group took control of the Senate floor in a filibuster mid-Wednesday.Hack hits health care target, reaps data on 1.1 millionTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, May 12

Senators block vote extending NSA dragnet powersFour U.S. senators ground the chamber’s business to a halt Wednesday in an effort to prevent voting on a bill that would extend a law that’s legitimized the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of telephone and business records. The relevant section of the Patriot Act expires at the end of the month, and to stop it from being renewed, a bipartisan group took control of the Senate floor in a filibuster mid-Wednesday.Hack hits health care target, reaps data on 1.1 millionTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon adds groceries, meals to one-hour Prime Now delivery service

Amazon.com has expanded its Prime Now one-hour deliveries to include groceries, meals and baked goods from local stores in New York, in a move that will soon be extended to other cities.The deliveries will be available in some Mahattan neighborhoods starting Thursday, and then expand across the island in the coming weeks. The Prime Now website lists 11 zip codes where residents can use the service. Amazon will add local stores in other cities soon, it said.The first batch of stores are D’Agostino, Gourmet Garage and Billy’s Bakery, and Eataly and Westside Market will be the next, according to Amazon.Prime Now and the Android or iOS apps people use to shop were announced in December last year. The service is also available in Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Dallas and Miami. It can be used from 6 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week. Two-hour delivery is free and one-hour delivery costs US$7.99. As the name implies, users first have to sign up for a regular Prime membership to use the service, which is priced at $99 a year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Stupidities of Switch Programming (written in June 2013)

In June 2013 I wrote a rant that got stuck in my Evernote Blog Posts notebook for almost two years. Sadly, not much has changed since I wrote it, so I decided to publish it as-is.

In the meantime, the only vendor that’s working on making generic network deployments simpler seems to be Cumulus Networks (most other vendors went down the path of building proprietary fabrics, be it ACI, DFA, IRF, QFabric, Virtual Chassis or proprietary OpenFlow extensions).

Arista used to be in the same camp (I loved all the nifty little features they were rolling out to make ops simpler), but it seems they lost their mojo after the IPO.

Lenovo’s profit hit by acquisitions of Motorola, IBM server business

Lenovo’s recent acquisitions have taken a bite out of the company’s earnings, with its net profit in the first quarter dropping 37 percent despite strong PC sales.The Chinese company paid US$2.9 billion for Motorola Mobility and $2.1 billion for IBM’s x86 server business. Prior to the acquisitions, Lenovo typically reported strong earnings on continued PC demand in its home market.The impact of the acquisitions was not unexpected. The Chinese PC maker has said its net profit will fall in the short-term, following the acquisitions last year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lenovo’s profit hit by acquisitions of Motorola, IBM server business

Lenovo’s recent acquisitions have taken a bite out of the company’s earnings, with its net profit in the first quarter dropping 37 percent despite strong PC sales.The Chinese company paid US$2.9 billion for Motorola Mobility and $2.1 billion for IBM’s x86 server business. Prior to the acquisitions, Lenovo typically reported strong earnings on continued PC demand in its home market.The impact of the acquisitions was not unexpected. The Chinese PC maker has said its net profit will fall in the short-term, following the acquisitions last year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Using Check Point Identity Awareness with NAT

Check Point Identity Awareness is problematic in environments that have multiple customers, overlapping private address space, and NAT. It can be done, if you understand the traffic flows, the connections needed, and how to combine several features. Here’s how I did it.

Background: Typical Check Point Management Flows

A quick reminder of the traditional flows used for Check Point firewall management:

Check Point Management Clients (e.g. SmartDashboard, SmartLog) connect to the management server to configure policies, view logs, etc.

Policies are compiled and pushed from the management server to the firewall(s). Logs are sent from the firewall back to the management server. All good.

Identity Awareness: Additional Connections

Identity Awareness lets you define rules based upon user identities, rather than IP addresses. So you can say “This AD group is allowed to connect directly to the SQL Server.” Much nicer Continue reading

US proposes tighter export rules for computer security tools

The U.S. Commerce Department has proposed tighter export rules for computer security tools, a potentially controversial revision to an international agreement aimed at controlling weapons technology.On Wednesday, the department published a proposal in the Federal Register and opened a two-month comment period.The changes are proposed to the Wassenaar Arrangement, an international agreement reached in 1995, aimed at limiting the spread of “dual use” technologies that could be used for harm.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

RadioShack, US states reach agreement on sale of customer data

RadioShack has reached agreement with U.S. states over the sale of customer data, by consenting to limit the number of email addresses to be sold, and giving customers the opportunity to be removed from the list.A coalition of 38 U.S. states, led by Texas, objected to the sale of personally identifiable information by the bankrupt electronics retailer, citing its online and in-store privacy policies. The customer data, which was withdrawn from an earlier sale of assets that included RadioShack stores, was included in a second auction this month.The bulk of the consumer data will be destroyed, and no credit or debit card account numbers, social security numbers, dates of birth or phone numbers will be transferred to General Wireless Operations, the winner of both auctions, said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement Wednesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here