Automation: Easy Button vs Sentient Voodoo Magic Button

Automation has become this “all-encompassing thingy” much like SDN. It’s a software industry problem and it’s critical more now than ever that we do not slip backwards by trying to drag a broken idea forwards.

This post contains nothing new and should act as polish on common sense. If you’re on the look-out for removing pain and getting stuff done with the power of automation, read on.

If your processes and operating handbook for your team or organisation is in disarray, it will not come too much as a surprise when your automation team implements something inherently broken. Naturally the technology, shortly followed by the team will take a boat load of blame. Whilst artificial intelligence and machine learning is promising, unless you have a team of subject matter experts or have very deep pockets, automation today is simple and the patterns are hard wired. Even decision making logic has been should be pre-thought. Automation platforms do not today think creatively and do not possess sentient capabilities. If they did, I would be on a beach right now drinking mojitos, smoking cigars and wondering what to do with my time on this rock (the answer by the way would be Continue reading

On the ‘net: Spectre, Meltdown, and Flexible Scaleout

The recent Meltdown and Spectre attacks illustrate the problematic nature of modern computing systems. While the earlier Rowhammer attack could read or attack one process running in a virtual environment from another process running on the same processor, the Meltdown and Spectre attacks are of a completely different class, enabling a process to read large amounts of information from another process’ memory space. @GestaltIT

Context-Aware Micro-segmentation – Remote Desktop Session Host Enhancements for Citrix

In a previous post by my colleague, Stijn, discussed the new changes to how NSX for vSphere 6.4 handles Remote Desktop Session Host, RDSH, systems with the Identity-based Firewall and context-aware micro-segmentation.

RDSH is an underlying technology from Microsoft that many vendors take advantage of to provide overlay management and application deployment technologies for.  In this post, we’re going to discuss how NSX 6.4 and the new changes to support RDSH hosts works with Citrix XenApp systems.

Citrix XenApp can provide multiple users the ability to connect to a single system to access their applications using the RDSH technology.  These users can be of the same type, for example all HR users, or of multiple types, HR and Engineering users.  NSX has supported User Identity based firewalling for Virtual Desktops since the 6.0 release, but it did not address RDSH in which multiple user sessions are connecting to the same host  This meant less flexibility in controlling what users could access data center application servers without isolating one set of users to one RDSH server.  This model created a very rigid architecture for XenApp customers to follow, which brought about the use of Continue reading

VMware’s Honore’ LaBourdette Discusses ‘Hybridity’ & the Next Wave of Telco Virtualization

Honore’ LaBourdette With 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) dominating industry conversation, telcos and other communications service providers (CSPs) are embracing network function virtualization and the cloud, with a software-defined architecture. But to truly participate in the cloud economy, compete effectively with OTT rivals, and be positioned to capture the rich opportunities presented by 5G and... Read more →

Video Series: Modernizing .NET Apps for Developers

MTA for Devs

 Docker Enterprise Edition (EE)  is the container platform for modernizing your existing applications, and running them in the cloud or on-premises. You can take monoliths and run them in containers with no code changes, and that gets you portability, security and efficiency.

Running in Docker is also a great starting point for modernizing the application architecture. You can breaking down the monolith into smaller, independent components which makes it easier to deploy updates, manage scale and introduce new technologies.

This new video series covers app modernization, for .NET developers and architects. It walks through the evolution of a monolithic ASP.NET 3.5 app to a distributed application running across multiple containers, using the Docker platform to plug everything together and adding features with great open-source software from the Docker ecosystem.

This is not a full re-architecture to microservices – for large .NET apps that would be a 12 month project. This series uses a feature-driven approach, taking key features out of the monolith to fix performance issues, add new functionality and support fast application updates.

Part 1 introduces the series, talks about what “modernization” means and then gets started – this is a very demo-heavy video series, where you’ll see lots Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: AI, machine learning and your access network

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are two of the latest networking buzzwords being thrown around the industry. The problem is many enterprise network managers remain confused about the real value of these vastly useful technologies.Emerging network analytics services, powered by AI and machine learning promise to transform traditional infrastructure management models by simplifying operations, lowering costs, and giving unprecedented insights into the user experience – improving the productivity of both IT professionals and their users.For network staff, the concept and value of these technologies is extremely powerful if applied to the right problems.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: AI, machine learning and your access network

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are two of the latest networking buzzwords being thrown around the industry. The problem is many enterprise network managers remain confused about the real value of these vastly useful technologies.Emerging network analytics services, powered by AI and machine learning promise to transform traditional infrastructure management models by simplifying operations, lowering costs, and giving unprecedented insights into the user experience – improving the productivity of both IT professionals and their users.For network staff, the concept and value of these technologies is extremely powerful if applied to the right problems.To read this article in full, please click here

Worth Reading: Three strategies for navigating moral disagreement

We in America and Western Europe, and by now many other places in the world, have this idea of people as fundamentally rational. On this account, our profound cognitive abilities are designed to help us discover objective truths about the world through logical argument and empirical observation. Contemporary research in cognitive science, psychology and related fields paints a much different picture. —Musa Al-Gharbi @Heterodox Academy

The Future of Online Privacy and Personal Data Protection in Africa

African experts are gathered for two days (19-20 February 2018) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to contribute to the development of the African Privacy and Personal Data Protection Guidelines. The meeting, facilitated by the African Union Commission (AUC) and supported by Internet Society, explored the future of privacy and data protection and provided some practical suggestions that African states can consider in implementing the Malabo convention provisions related to online privacy. The guidelines are aimed at empowering citizens, as well as establishing legal certainty for stakeholders through clear and uniform personal data protection rules for the region.

The expert meeting comes amidst growing concern across the world on the need to prepare for the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will be enforced on 25 May 2018. The expert meeting is rather focused on creating general principles for African member states in developing good practices now and in the future. The project, a partnership of the AUC and the Internet Society, comes as a follow up to the recommendations of the Africa Infrastructure Security Guidelines, developed in 2017 to assist speed up their adoption and subsequent ratification of the Malabo Convention.

Both the Heads of States Summit in January Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Data center migration in 7 steps

When it comes to cloud migration, what kind of adopter are you? Did you jump on the cloud bandwagon early? Are you lagging behind, without having tried to virtualize anything yet? Or are you in the mainstream, with a mix of clouds and some systems on premises?In our cloud migration practice, we have found that each of these groups faces its own challenges. Early adopters are often unable to support their ambitious deployments, having discovered the limits of first-generation cloud systems. Laggards may realize the need to transform, but find themselves blocked by costs, resources and time. Most enterprises are in the mainstream. They have cobbled together a hybrid IT environment, but struggle with managing it all and moving forward.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Data center migration in 7 steps

When it comes to cloud migration, what kind of adopter are you? Did you jump on the cloud bandwagon early? Are you lagging behind, without having tried to virtualize anything yet? Or are you in the mainstream, with a mix of clouds and some systems on premises?In our cloud migration practice, we have found that each of these groups faces its own challenges. Early adopters are often unable to support their ambitious deployments, having discovered the limits of first-generation cloud systems. Laggards may realize the need to transform, but find themselves blocked by costs, resources and time. Most enterprises are in the mainstream. They have cobbled together a hybrid IT environment, but struggle with managing it all and moving forward.To read this article in full, please click here

Linux command history: Choosing what to remember and how

Linux history — the record of commands that you’ve used on the command line — can simplify repeating commands and provide some very useful information when you’re trying to track down how recent system or account changes might have come about.Two things you need to understand before you begin your sleuthing, however, are that the shell’s command memory can be selective and that dates and times for when commands were run are optional.Basic Linux history Let’s first look at how dates and times are recorded when commands are entered on the command line. By default, they are not. The history command simply provides a list of previously used commands. That’s all that is saved in the history file. For bash users, this information all gets stuffed into the .bash_history file; for other shells, it might be just .history.To read this article in full, please click here

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