Cisco continues its CSR efforts, invests $50M in Destination: Home

Cisco is well known for many things. It’s the world’s largest networking vendor, it has typically been the bell weather for IT spending, as it’s often predicted upticks or downticks in spending before other vendors, and its ability to catch market transitions has been remarkable, which is why it has a market leading position in so many technology areas adjacent to the network.I’ve always felt that one of the more under-appreciated attributes of Cisco is the work its corporate social responsibility (CSR) group does in trying to solve some of the globe’s biggest problems. Cisco has been very active at the World Economic Forum held annually in Davos, Switzerland, where world leaders, celebrities, and business leaders gather to discuss issues such as ending hunger and creating greater equality.To read this article in full, please click here

Worth Reading: Magical thinking on Internet security

Most of us expect Internet security spending to increase from $70B to $140B by the end of this decade. But even at $70B, our spending is in the same order of magnitude as our losses. —Paul Vixie @Far Sight Security

Data Center Network Equipment Revenue Hit $13.7B in 2017

Bare metal switch revenue was up 60 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2017. And it’s projected to reach $3.6 billion in 2022, with cloud deployments as the primary driver.

ONF Operator Members are Tired of Vendor Inertia

Step up or get out of the way, say the operator board members of ONF, including AT&T, China Unicom, Comcast, Google, Deutsche Telekom, NTT Group, Telefonica, and Turk Telekom.

Video Series: Modernizing Java Apps for Developers Part 3

Moving a monolithic application to a modern cloud architecture can be difficult and often result in a greenfield development effort. However, it is possible to move towards a cloud architecture using Docker Enterprise Edition with no code changes and gain choice , security and operational agility in the process.

Part 3 of the series begins the modernization process. I’ll take one aspect of the current application and break it out into a microservice. As written, the application writes to the database directly, but direct writes to the database can easily overwhelm the application by a large number of requests.

One solution is to implement a messaging queue. As in the part 2, I’ll follow several guidelines:

1. Leave existing code in place.
2. Design the new code as a separate and reusable application
3. Deploy the microservice locally using Docker Enterise Edition
4. Test the code

In this part of the modernization process, I add a message queue comprised of a REST interface that writes to a Redis database. The user data is held in Redis until it’s requested by a worker service that does the write to the database. The message queue uses Spring Boot to implement both the REST interface and the Redis database functions. Continue reading

Intent-Based Management Will Revolutionize the Storage Industry

Looking into the world of manufacturing and how its modernizing can help to understand the intricacies of intent-based approaches and how they can be applied to storage.

IDG Contributor Network: Are client-troubleshooting WiFi sensors really necessary?

Troubleshooting WiFi problems has been the bane of the network engineer’s existence for nearly a decade. So often these problems go undiagnosed that clients have even since stopped reporting them. Bad WiFi chalked up as just part of everyday life.Yet the role enterprise WLAN plays has literally become a critical part of an ever-growing ecosystem of both end user and IoT devices. Add to that the technology advancements in 802.11 and the task of maintaining a reliable WiFi network has become nearly out of reach of the average WLAN engineer. To solve this conundrum WLAN vendors, have a long history of attempting to solve the problem with hardware sensors and detailed active site surveys.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Are client-troubleshooting WiFi sensors really necessary?

Troubleshooting WiFi problems has been the bane of the network engineer’s existence for nearly a decade. So often these problems go undiagnosed that clients have even since stopped reporting them. Bad WiFi chalked up as just part of everyday life.Yet the role enterprise WLAN plays has literally become a critical part of an ever-growing ecosystem of both end user and IoT devices. Add to that the technology advancements in 802.11 and the task of maintaining a reliable WiFi network has become nearly out of reach of the average WLAN engineer. To solve this conundrum WLAN vendors, have a long history of attempting to solve the problem with hardware sensors and detailed active site surveys.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Are client-troubleshooting WiFi sensors from Satan?

Troubleshooting WiFi problems has been the bane of the network engineer’s existence for nearly a decade. So often these problems go undiagnosed that clients have even since stopped reporting them. Bad WiFi chalked up as just part of everyday life.Yet the role enterprise WLAN plays has literally become a critical part of an ever-growing ecosystem of both end user and IoT devices. Add to that the technology advancements in 802.11 and the task of maintaining a reliable WiFi network has become nearly out of reach of the average WLAN engineer. To solve this conundrum WLAN vendors, have a long history of attempting to solve the problem with hardware sensors and detailed active site surveys.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Are client-troubleshooting WiFi sensors from Satan?

Troubleshooting WiFi problems has been the bane of the network engineer’s existence for nearly a decade. So often these problems go undiagnosed that clients have even since stopped reporting them. Bad WiFi chalked up as just part of everyday life.Yet the role enterprise WLAN plays has literally become a critical part of an ever-growing ecosystem of both end user and IoT devices. Add to that the technology advancements in 802.11 and the task of maintaining a reliable WiFi network has become nearly out of reach of the average WLAN engineer. To solve this conundrum WLAN vendors, have a long history of attempting to solve the problem with hardware sensors and detailed active site surveys.To read this article in full, please click here

Reaction: The importance of diversity of sources

If you are like the rest of the world in the way you consume news, you are probably reading this because you followed a link in social media. If this is true, I have a request: set up an RSS reader, and start following technical and social content through feeds rather than exclusively through social networks. Why?

On Wednesday, Digg announced that it will be shutting down Digg Reader on March 26. The RSS reader, for me and likely many others, was a godsend after the 2013 shuttering of Google Reader. The rest of Digg is safe, rest assured, and the site gave no reason for discontinuing Digg Reader, but it’s likely as simple as “that’s not how people consume the internet anymore.”

Don’t get me wrong—I believe social media networks are important. Social media networks are a great place to keep up with people and products, with larger movements discovered by neural networks and put on your RADAR through a news feed.

But social media networks should not be the only place you learn about network engineering—or anything else of importance in your life. It is a bit like when I used to have a collection of Continue reading

AT&T Plans 60,000 dNOS-Powered White Boxes to Support 5G

The white box routers are part of a “radical realignment” of AT&T's network architecture and means the carrier will no longer rely on proprietary silicon and feature roadmaps from traditional vendors.

IDG Contributor Network: Filter this

Few of us think about filters until we take our car in for its 50,000-mile service. Looking at the service invoice, there’s an air filter, oil filter, fuel filter, cabin air filter, transmission filter…Sheesh, how many filters does this thing have?!We may also think about them at family dinners. All of us have at least one relative who could use a filter. I’m looking at you, Aunt Sondra.But most of the time, filters are out of sight, out of mind. Most people are gobsmacked when they discover we carry a dozen or more around in our pockets – and they’re not for pocket lint, Snapchat or Instagram.The basics of RF filters Filters, like antennas, are an increasingly important part of the networking mix.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Filter this

Few of us think about filters until we take our car in for its 50,000-mile service. Looking at the service invoice, there’s an air filter, oil filter, fuel filter, cabin air filter, transmission filter…Sheesh, how many filters does this thing have?!We may also think about them at family dinners. All of us have at least one relative who could use a filter. I’m looking at you, Aunt Sondra.But most of the time, filters are out of sight, out of mind. Most people are gobsmacked when they discover we carry a dozen or more around in our pockets – and they’re not for pocket lint, Snapchat or Instagram.The basics of RF filters Filters, like antennas, are an increasingly important part of the networking mix.To read this article in full, please click here

Telemedicine Company Deploys Cradlepoint for SD-WAN and SD-Perimeter Management

Visio Health used Cradlepoint to create plop-and-go connectivity at healthcare sites using its diagnostic telemedicine carts. Cradlepoint NetCloud offers IoT network and device management, optimized WAN path selection, and a perimeter-secured overlay network.

Sri Lankan Shutdown of Web-Based Services Creates Huge Social Costs

A recent week-long shutdown of several popular Web-based services in Sri Lanka was intended to clamp down on mob violence, but the government action had several unintended consequences.

The shutdown, ordered by President Maithripala Sirisena’s administration, affected Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Web-based calling service Viber. The services shut down on March 7 and were restored on March 14 and 15.

The government’s tried to cut off communications between organizers of violent mobs, but the shutdown had a huge impact on a wide swath of Internet users, said Sagarika Wickramasekera, president of Internet Society’s Sri Lanka chapter.

Because of the loss of social media and calling services, “those who had loved ones in the violence-ridden areas had to go through stressful period of time without any contact with them,” she said.

Facebook-based volunteer groups, civil society activists and other social movements lost contact with their audiences, she added. “This reduced the circulation of validated content and education hence the peace and harmony,” Wickramasekera added. “People had to rely on rumors.”

Businesses and other organizations use WhatsApp and Viber as productivity tools, and their customer communications were disrupted. Small businesses and home-based workers “who were totally depended on social media marketing Continue reading

El cierre de Sri Lanka de los servicios basados en la web genera enormes costos sociales

Un reciente cierre de varios servicios populares basados en la Web en Sri Lanka tuvo como objetivo frenar la violencia de la mafia, pero la acción del gobierno tuvo varias consecuencias imprevistas.

El cierre, ordenado por la administración del presidente Maithripala Sirisena, afectó a Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram y el servicio de llamadas basado en la web Viber. Los servicios se cerraron el 7 de marzo y fueron restaurados el 14 y 15 de marzo.

El gobierno intentó cortar las comunicaciones entre los organizadores de turbas violentas, pero el cierre tuvo un gran impacto en una amplia franja de usuarios de Internet, dijo Sagarika Wickramasekera, presidente del Capítulo Internet Society’s Sri Lanka.

[Read the March 14 statement of the ISOC Sri Lanka Chapter.]

Leer la nota en inglés

Para obtener más información sobre los cierres de Internet y su costo social y económico, consulte por favor:

• Internet Society Policy Brief: Internet Shutdowns
• Internet Society Perspectives on Internet Content Blocking
• Internet and Human Rights Resource Center

The post El cierre de Sri Lanka de los servicios basados en la web genera enormes costos sociales appeared first on Internet Society.

Linux Foundation Creates Deep Learning Foundation and AI Project

The founding members of LF Deep Learning are Amdocs, AT&T, B.Yond, Baidu, Huawei, Nokia, Tech Mahindra, Tencent, Univa, and ZTE.

Most insurance carriers not ready to use IoT data

You might think that the Internet of Things (IoT) was custom made for the insurance industry. After all, what could be more useful to all those actuarial tables than detailed, real-world information from billions of IoT sensors in a wide variety of devices? In fact, we’re already seeing the beginnings of insurance uses of IoT, including auto insurance companies that give discounts for drivers willing to have their vehicles—and their driving habits—tracked.But according to a new IoT and the State of the Insurance Industry Study from LexisNexis, the message hasn’t penetrated very far into the famously conservative field. Top-line results from the survey reveal a clear disconnect between what insurance companies think about IoT and what they’re actually doing about it.To read this article in full, please click here

Infoblox Integration in Ansible 2.5

The Ansible 2.5 open source project release includes the following Infoblox Network Identity Operating System (NIOS) enablement:

• Five modules
• A lookup plugin (for querying Infoblox NIOS objects)
• A dynamic inventory script

For network professionals, this means that existing networking Ansible Playbooks can utilize existing Infoblox infrastructure for IP Address Management (IPAM), using Infoblox for tracking inventory and more. For more information on Infoblox terminology, documentation and examples, refer to the Infoblox website

Let’s elaborate on each of these Ansible 2.5 additions. All of the following examples (and many more) are provided in the network automation community project, under the infoblox_ansible Github repo. The integrations for Ansible require that the control node (where Ansible is being executed from) have the infoblox-client installed. It can be found here and installed with pip issuing the pip install infoblox-client command.

Ansible Infoblox Modules

There are five new modules included with Ansible 2.5. They can be currently found in the development branch of the documentation:

• nios_host_record - configure host records
• nios_network - configure networking objects
• nios_network_view - configure networking views
• nios_dns_view - configure DNS views
• nios_zone - configure DNS zones

Here is an example playbook on configuring a IPv4 network using the Continue reading