5 reasons to buy refurbished Cisco equipment

It’s a pretty common scenario. You’re considering implementing Cisco hardware in your infrastructure, and you talk to a vendor who pushes a shiny, new, cutting-edge solution on you.It’s impressive, this bleeding-edge solution — it has all sorts of bells and whistles (whether your business plan can make smart use of them or not) and it comes with a nice, healthy price tag.So, you’re left with a really difficult question. Should you stretch your already thin budget with a solution that may actually be overkill for your needs? Or do you have options[ Read also: 80/20 rule of network equipment: Stay on budget and innovate. | Get daily insights: Sign up for Network World newsletters. ] 5 things to consider when buying network hardware Keep these five factors in mind as you consider how to proceed with your Cisco hardware solutions because that vendor who thinks you should buy new probably doesn’t want you to know them.To read this article in full, please click here

5 reasons to buy refurbished Cisco equipment

It’s a pretty common scenario. You’re considering implementing Cisco hardware in your infrastructure, and you talk to a vendor who pushes a shiny, new, cutting-edge solution on you.It’s impressive, this bleeding-edge solution — it has all sorts of bells and whistles (whether your business plan can make smart use of them or not) and it comes with a nice, healthy price tag.So, you’re left with a really difficult question. Should you stretch your already thin budget with a solution that may actually be overkill for your needs? Or do you have options[ Read also: 80/20 rule of network equipment: Stay on budget and innovate. | Get daily insights: Sign up for Network World newsletters. ] 5 things to consider when buying network hardware Keep these five factors in mind as you consider how to proceed with your Cisco hardware solutions because that vendor who thinks you should buy new probably doesn’t want you to know them.To read this article in full, please click here

Service Providers Race Toward Network Automation, Incredible Hulk Style

When asked what superhero they want their future network to be associated with, respondents’ No. 1 pick was the Hulk.

Verizon Sees Fixed 5G Opportunity Where AT&T Does Not

Verizon and AT&T have very different viewpoints on offering fixed 5G service. But both operators admit that there are lots of unknowns when it comes to 5G.

History of Networking: Tony P on BIER

Nokia Stumbles Out of the Blocks, But Is Upbeat on 5G, Rival Woes

CEO Rajeev Suri noted that "longer term, there might be opportunities." Nokia could potentially benefit from the woes of its competitors Huawei and ZTE.

Your Data Center Needs a Network Time Machine

Big Switch’s data center monitoring fabric will add support for public cloud environments including AWS and Azure later this year.

Cisco reinforces storage with new switches, mgmt. software

Cisco this week fortified its storage family with two new 32G Fibre Channel switches and software designed to help customers manage and troubleshoot their SANS.The new switches, the 48-Port MDS 9148T and 96-Port MDS 9396T feature a technology called Auto Zone that automatically detects any new  storage servers or devices that log into a SAN and automatically zones them without having to do manual configuration.[Check out REVIEW: VMware’s vSAN 6.6 and see IDC’s top 10 data center predictions . | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] The idea is to eliminate the cycles spent in provisioning new devices and avert errors that typically occur when manually configuring complex zones. Even when a host or storage hardware is upgraded or a faulty facility is replaced, the switch automatically detects the change and zones them into the SAN, Cisco said.To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco reinforces storage with new switches, mgmt. software

Cisco this week fortified its storage family with two new 32G Fibre Channel switches and software designed to help customers manage and troubleshoot their SANS.The new switches, the 48-Port MDS 9148T and 96-Port MDS 9396T feature a technology called Auto Zone that automatically detects any new  storage servers or devices that log into a SAN and automatically zones them without having to do manual configuration.[Check out REVIEW: VMware’s vSAN 6.6 and see IDC’s top 10 data center predictions . | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] The idea is to eliminate the cycles spent in provisioning new devices and avert errors that typically occur when manually configuring complex zones. Even when a host or storage hardware is upgraded or a faulty facility is replaced, the switch automatically detects the change and zones them into the SAN, Cisco said.To read this article in full, please click here

The Cybersecurity Tech Accord Fits Squarely in the Collaborative Security Approach

Last week at RSA, more than 30 global companies came together to sign the Cybersecurity Tech Accord “to protect and empower civilians online and to improve the security, stability and resilience of cyberspace.”  It is an example of collaboration, which demonstrates the commitment and focus of the signatory companies to take action in order to tackle the significant security threats we are currently facing. It is this type of collective action we have promoted as part of our collaborative security

The Tech Accord is a positive step by large corporations across the globe involved in security to come together in the name of collaboration and make security commitments that resonate with the demands of Internet users everywhere. Per the Accord’s website, there are four main tenets of the Tech Accord:

• Stronger defense
  The companies will mount a stronger defense against cyberattacks. As part of this, recognizing that everyone deserves protection, the companies pledged to protect all customers globally regardless of the motivation for attacks online.
• No offense
  The companies will not help governments launch cyberattacks against innocent citizens and enterprises, and will protect against tampering or exploitation of their products and services through every stage of technology development, design Continue reading

BrandPost: Analysys Mason Case Study of Windstream: Intelligent Multi-layer/Multi-domain Network Automation with SDN

Windstream made its SDN move by implementing Ciena’s Blue Planet to automate how it delivers wavelength services across its multi-vendor optical network -- setting the stage for the provider to virtualize network functions to enhance service activation and delivery times. Operational efficiency and customer experience are crucial to Windstream's success in the USA, but its heterogeneous network footprint can make network service provisioning and device configuration complex and costly. Building a programmable SDN-based network with Ciena's Blue Planet software is helping Windstream simplify operations, move to DevOps-centric processes, and create an extensible platform for new services.To read this article in full, please click here

PQ 147: Connecting Security And GDPR Compliance (Sponsored)

The post PQ 147: Connecting Security And GDPR Compliance (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Worth Reading: Monitoring and Observability

So what is observability? Should we accept what many are stating — that it’s basically monitoring, only on steroids? Bigger, better, faster; the new Chuck Norris of DevOps tools. So better buy some observability, right? —Peter Waterhouse @The New Stack

Learn Docker Plaform best practices with Free Hands-On Labs and Workshops at DockerCon 2018

According to a recent stackoverflow report, the Docker Platform is in the top 10 skills to learn if you want to advance in a career in tech. So where do I go to start learning Docker you may ask?  Well the good news is that we now have free workshops and hands-on Labs included as part of your DockerCon 2018 ticket.

The conference workshops will focus on a range of subjects from migrating .NET or Java apps to the Docker platform to deep dives on container monitoring and logging, networking, storage and security. Each workshop is designed to give you hands-on instructions and guidance on key container notions and mentoring by Docker Engineers and Docker Captains. The workshops are a great opportunity to zoom in a specific aspects on the Docker platform. Here is the list of free workshops available (click on the links to see the full abstracts):

• Migrating a .Net App to Docker EE by Elton Stoneman and Steven Follis (Docker)
• Migrating a Java App to Docker EE by Sophia Parafina and Eric Smalls (Docker)
• Introduction to Istio by Lee Calcote (SolarWinds) and Girish Ranganathan
• Monitoring and Logging by Brian Christner and John Harris (Docker)
• Docker Storage Concepts Derrick Miller Continue reading

AI Software Writing AI Software For Healthcare?

At the World Medical Innovation Forum this week, participants were polled with a loaded question: “Do you think healthcare will become better or worse from the use of AI?”

Across the respondents, 98 percent said it would be either “Better” or “Much Better” and not a single one thought it would become “Much Worse.” This is an interesting statistic, and the results were not entirely surprising, especially given that artificial intelligence was the theme for the meeting.

This continual stream of adoption of new technologies in both clinical and post clinical settings is remarkable. Today, healthcare is a technology operation. …

AI Software Writing AI Software For Healthcare? was written by James Cuff at The Next Platform.

Using Ansible and Ansible Tower with shared roles

Roles are an essential part of Ansible, and help in structuring your automation content. The idea is to have clearly defined roles for dedicated tasks. During your automation code, the roles will be called by the Ansible Playbooks.

Since roles usually have a well defined purpose, they make it easy to reuse your code for yourself, but also in your team. And you can even share roles with the global community. In fact, the Ansible community created Ansible Galaxy as a central place to display, search and view Ansible roles from thousands of people.

So what does a role look like? Basically it is a predefined structure of folders and files to hold your automation code. There is a folder for your templates, a folder to keep files with tasks, one for handlers, another one for your default variables, and so on:

tasks/ 
handlers/ 
files/ 
templates/ 
vars/ 
defaults/ 
meta/

In folders which contain Ansible code - like tasks, handlers, vars, defaults - there are main.yml files. Those contain the relevant Ansible bits. In case of the tasks directory, they often include other yaml files within the same directory. Roles even provide ways to test your automation code - in Continue reading

EQUALS in Tech Awards: Recognizing Women’s Empowerment Initiatives

Celebrating the work of women who are making a difference in their communities by using the Internet is something that at the Internet Society we care about. Women are building businesses, learning new professions, sharing, and collaborating online. Women are creating new opportunities for themselves and their families by taking advantage of what the Internet has to offer.

And it’s important to continue recognizing the work of these women.

EQUALS in Tech Awards is an opportunity to do so. By providing a platform for outstanding initiatives, the awards are a key piece in increasing the visibility of projects that use the power of technology to empower women and girls all across the globe.

This year’s EQUALS in Tech Awards is looking for initiatives from all stakeholders that improve women’s access to technology, promote female leadership in the tech sector, and build relevant digital skills for women and girls. Research that produces reliable evidence to tackle the digital gender divide will be also recognized.

The awards are organized annually by the EQUALS Global Partnership, an multistakeholder initiative which seeks to achieve gender equality in the digital age.

The Internet Society is proud to be vice-chair of this global movement. As such we work side by side with over 60 other organizations, companies Continue reading

Swim In Data At The Edge, Don’t Drown In It In the Datacenter

Analytics systems have been downing in data for years, and the edge is going to flood it unless the architecture changes. There is so much data that is going to be generated at the edge of the network that it can’t be practically moved back to the datacenter for processing in a timely enough fashion to be useful in a way that the gathering of the information was done in the first place.

That is the premise behind our expanding coverage of edge computing and what is evolving into a distributed, multi-tier data processing complex – you can’t really call …

Swim In Data At The Edge, Don’t Drown In It In the Datacenter was written by Jeffrey Burt at The Next Platform.

Google’s Partner Interconnect connects SMBs to its data centers

If you are a large-scale enterprise, Google has a service called Dedicated Interconnect that offers 10Gbps connections between your data center and one of theirs. But what if you are a smaller firm and don’t need that kind of bandwidth and the expense that goes with it?Google now has you covered. The cloud giant recently announced Google Cloud Partner Interconnect, a means of establishing a direct connection between a SMB data center, with emphasis on the medium-sized business, and Google's hybrid cloud platform. The company did this in concert with 23 ISP partners around the globe.To read this article in full, please click here

Google’s Partner Interconnect connects SMBs to its data centers

If you are a large-scale enterprise, Google has a service called Dedicated Interconnect that offers 10Gbps connections between your data center and one of theirs. But what if you are a smaller firm and don’t need that kind of bandwidth and the expense that goes with it?Google now has you covered. The cloud giant recently announced Google Cloud Partner Interconnect, a means of establishing a direct connection between a SMB data center, with emphasis on the medium-sized business, and Google's hybrid cloud platform. The company did this in concert with 23 ISP partners around the globe.To read this article in full, please click here