For enterprise storage, persistent memory is here to stay

It's hard to remember a time when semiconductor vendors haven't promised a fast, cost-effective and reliable persistent memory technology to anxious data center operators. Now, after many years of waiting and disappointment, technology may have finally caught up with the hype to make persistent memory a practical proposition.High-capacity persistent memory, also known as storage class memory (SCM), is fast and directly addressable like dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), yet is able to retain stored data even after its power has been switched off—intentionally or unintentionally. The technology can be used in data centers to replace cheaper, yet far slower traditional persistent storage components, such as hard disk drives (HDD) and solid-state drives (SSD).To read this article in full, please click here

For enterprise storage, persistent memory is here to stay

It's hard to remember a time when semiconductor vendors haven't promised a fast, cost-effective and reliable persistent memory technology to anxious data center operators. Now, after many years of waiting and disappointment, technology may have finally caught up with the hype to make persistent memory a practical proposition.High-capacity persistent memory, also known as storage class memory (SCM), is fast and directly addressable like dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), yet is able to retain stored data even after its power has been switched off—intentionally or unintentionally. The technology can be used in data centers to replace cheaper, yet far slower traditional persistent storage components, such as hard disk drives (HDD) and solid-state drives (SSD).To read this article in full, please click here

Cloud adoption drives the evolution of application delivery controllers

Migrating to a cloud computing model will obviously have an impact on the infrastructure that’s deployed. This shift has already been seen in the areas of servers, storage, and networking, as those technologies have evolved to a “software-defined” model. And it appears that application delivery controllers (ADCs) are on the precipice of a similar shift.In fact, a new ZK Research study about cloud computing adoption and the impact on ADCs found that, when looking at the deployment model, hardware appliances are the most widely deployed — with 55% having fully deployed or are currently testing and only 15% currently researching hardware. (Note: I am an employee of ZK Research.)To read this article in full, please click here

Self-learning sensor chips won’t need networks

Tiny, intelligent microelectronics should be used to perform as much sensor processing as possible on-chip rather than wasting resources by sending often un-needed, duplicated raw data to the cloud or computers. So say scientists behind new, machine-learning networks that aim to embed everything needed for artificial intelligence (AI) onto a processor.“This opens the door for many new applications, starting from real-time evaluation of sensor data,” says Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems on its website. No delays sending unnecessary data onwards, along with speedy processing, means theoretically there is zero latency.To read this article in full, please click here

Self-learning sensor chips won’t need networks

Tiny, intelligent microelectronics should be used to perform as much sensor processing as possible on-chip rather than wasting resources by sending often un-needed, duplicated raw data to the cloud or computers. So say scientists behind new, machine-learning networks that aim to embed everything needed for artificial intelligence (AI) onto a processor.“This opens the door for many new applications, starting from real-time evaluation of sensor data,” says Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems on its website. No delays sending unnecessary data onwards, along with speedy processing, means theoretically there is zero latency.To read this article in full, please click here

Ansible + ServiceNow Part 1: Opening and Closing Tickets

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As a Network Engineer, I hated filling out tickets. Anytime a router would reboot or a power outage took place at a remote site, the resulting ticket generation took up about 50% of my day. If there had been a way to automate ticket creation, I would have saved a lot of time. The only thing unique to provide would have been case-specific comment sections needing additional information about the issue.

While ticket creation was a vital activity, automating this was not an option at the time. This is surprising because my management was always asking me to include more information in my tickets. Tickets were often reviewed months later and sometimes never got created or did not have much relevant information included.

Fast forward to today, companies are now data mining from tickets with a standard set of facts that are pulled directly from the device during ticket creation, such as network platform, software version, uptime, etc.  Network operations (NetOps) teams now use massive amounts of ticket data to make budget decisions.

For example, if there were 400 network outages due to power issues, NetOps could then make a case to spend $40,000 on battery backups, having proved Continue reading

Why I’m helping Cloudflare build its partnerships worldwide

Cloudflare has always had an audacious mission: to help build a better Internet. From its inception, the company realized that a mission this big couldn’t be taken on alone. Such an undertaking would require the help of an extraordinary group of partners. Early in the company’s history, Cloudflare built strong relationships with many hosting providers to protect and accelerate internet traffic. And through the years, Cloudflare has continued to build some amazing Enterprise partnerships and strategic alliances.

As we continue to grow and foster our partner ecosystem, we are excited to announce Cloudflare’s next iteration of its Partner Program—to engage and enable an equally audacious set of partners that want to help build a better Internet, together.

I recently joined Cloudflare to run Global Channel Sales & Partnerships after spending over nine years at Google Cloud in various indirect and direct leadership roles. At Google, I witnessed the powerful impact that a strong partner ecosystem could have on solving complex organizational and societal problems. By combining innovative technologies provided by the manufacturer, with deep domain expertise provided by the partner, we delivered valuable industry solutions to our customers. And through this process, we helped our partners build valuable businesses, accelerate Continue reading

Cloudflare Partners: A New Program with New Partners

Cloudflare Partners: A New Program with New Partners

Many overlook a critical portion of the language in Cloudflare’s mission: “to help build a better Internet.” From the beginning, we knew a mission this bold, an undertaking of this magnitude, couldn’t be done alone. We could only help. To ultimately build a better Internet, it would take a diverse and engaged ecosystem of technologies, customers, partners, and end-users. Fortunately, we’ve been able to work with amazing partners as we’ve grown, and we are eager to announce new, specific programs to grow our ecosystem with an increasingly diverse set of partners.

Today, we’re excited to announce the latest iteration of our partnership program for solutions partners. These categories encompass resellers and referral partners, OEM partners, and the new partner services program. Over the past few years, we’ve grown and learned from some amazing partnerships, and want to bring those best practices to our latest partners at scale—to help them grow their business with Cloudflare’s global network.

Cloudflare Partners: A New Program with New Partners
Cloudflare Partner Tiers

Partner Program for Solution Partners

Every partner program out there has tiers, and Cloudflare’s program is no exception. However, our tiering was built to help our partners ramp up, accelerate and move fast. As Matt Harrell highlighted, we Continue reading

Announcing the New Cloudflare Partner Platform

Announcing the New Cloudflare Partner Platform
Announcing the New Cloudflare Partner Platform

When I first started at Cloudflare over two years ago, one of the first things I was tasked with was to help evolve our partner platform to support the changes in our service and the expanding needs of our partners and customers. Cloudflare’s existing partner platform was released in 2010. It is a testament to those who built it, that it was, and still is, in use today—but it was also clear that the landscape had substantially changed.

Since the launch of the existing partner platform, we had built and expanded multi-user access, and launched many new products: Argo, Load Balancing, and Cloudflare Workers, to name a few. Retrofitting the existing offering was not practical. Cloudflare needed a new partner platform that could meet the needs of partners and their customers.

As the team started to develop a new solution, we needed to find a partner who could keep us on the right path. The number of hypotheticals were infinite and we needed a first customer to ground ourselves. Lo and behold, not long after I had begun putting pen to paper, we found the perfect partner for the new platform.

The IBM Partnership

IBM was looking for a partner Continue reading

BrandPost: What to do when yesterday’s technology won’t meet today’s support needs

You probably already know that end user technology is exploding and are feeling the effects of it in your support organization every day. Remember when IT sanctioned and standardized every hardware and software instance in the workplace? Those days are long gone. Today, it’s the driving force of productivity that dictates what will or won’t be used – and that can be hard on a support organization.Whatever users need to do their jobs better, faster, more efficiently is what you are seeing come into the workplace. So naturally, that’s what comes into your service desk too. Support organizations see all kinds of devices, applications, systems, and equipment, and it’s adding a great deal of complexity and demand to keep up with. In fact, four of the top five factors causing support ticket volumes to rise are attributed to new and current technology.To read this article in full, please click here

Where Does Nvidia Go In The Datacenter From Here?

We have to admit that it is often a lot more fun watching an upstart carve out whole new slices of business, or create them out of what appears to be thin air, in the datacenter than it is to watch how it will respond to intense competitive pressures and somehow manage to keep growing despite that.

Where Does Nvidia Go In The Datacenter From Here? was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at .

BrandPost: Achieve Compliant, Cost-effective Hybrid Cloud Operations

Enterprises are introducing cloud services to improve productivity, increase business agility, and accelerate the pace of innovation. But adopting this new paradigm while delivering the right level of visibility and control can overtax resources and impact existing governance, risk, compliance, and cost strategies. In addition, organizations often lack a holistic view of their security posture and state of controls to satisfy internal and/or external regulators.This guide will help you discover ways to fine-tune oversight and operations of your hybrid cloud solution.Click here to download the white paper.To read this article in full, please click here