I’m Planning to Change the World

Earlier this week, the Internet Society published the booklet Enabling Digital Opportunities in the Middle East. Using research created by the Internet Society, ESCWA, and Wamda, it shows what positive and practical steps can be taken to increase digital opportunity and spread its benefits to all of society. Layal Jebran is one person who’s helping to make a difference.

Layal Jebran is the type of person who can give an interview on the phone while giving directions to her friends while walking through the streets of New York City looking for Thai food. She’s the type of person who can start multiple companies while traveling the world giving motivational speeches and accepting awards. To call the 29-year-old woman, a multitasker would be an understatement. In the startup world, she’s more like a superhero.

“I started as an activist when I was 12 years old,” Jebran said. “And my first startup happened my second year in college.”

That successful startup used the Internet to connect freelance advisers to clients who needed them in the Middle East, but like many entrepreneurs, Jebran didn’t stop there. Lyl Big Designs led to other projects, and she continued developing several different ideas Continue reading

Stuff The Internet Says On Scalability For November 3rd, 2017

Hey, it's HighScalability time: 


Luscious visualization of a neural network as a large directed graph. It's a full layout of the ResNet-50 training graph, a neural network with ~3 million nodes, and ~10 million edges, using Gephi for the graph layout, to output a 25000x25000 pixel image. (mattfyles)

 

If you like this sort of Stuff then please support me on Patreon. And take a look at Explain the Cloud Like I'm 10, my new book for complete cloud newbies. Thanks for your support! It means a lot to me.

 

  • 96.4%: adversarial algorithm fools Google's image recognition; 70%+: GOOG and FB influence over internet traffic; 99%: bird reduction on farms using tuned laser guns; 52.45%: people playing my indie game have pirated it; 371,642: open-source projects depend on React; 6: words needed to ID you in email: 2x: node.js speed increase with Turbofan; 3: students who discovered 'Dieselgate'; 215KWh: energy consumed per bitcoin xaction, enough for a car to travel 1,000 miles; 33%: increase in Alphabet's quarterly profits; $1 billion: Amazon's ad business; 1 pixel: all it takes to Continue reading

Modernizing Java Apps with Docker

Modernizing Traditional Applications or MTA was one of the themes at DockerCon EU 2017. Traditional applications are typically built a number of  years ago but are critical to business operations. The developer and operational skill set to maintain the application may be hard to find. The code base can be difficult to maintain, if it is available at all. The team that wrote the original app may not even be around. The applications go into maintenance mode, which may mean they are patched regularly for vulnerabilities. Any revisions to the code can take significant number of hours to test and deploy, so updates are infrequent. It can also hold back infrastructure improvements as dependency management becomes a huge pain point.

Java Apps Docker

Any modern application needs a faster delivery time that can adapt to change in the market conditions. The pipeline from pushing the code to a source code repository to the application delivery should be efficient, automated, secure and fast. The application should be able to scale to demand, typically done by horizontal scaling across multiple instances. Portability of the application across different infrastructure becomes key in that case. In case of a failure, MTTR should be short and Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: How VDI can help organizations be more secure

I don’t envy corporate IT teams today. For every automation or convergence that’s made your jobs easier, you’ve been handed dozens of difficult cybersecurity concerns upon which the fate of your company rests (no pressure).When my team at Wyse introduced thin clients 22 years ago, it was a different world. What’s interesting to see is that, while Server-based computing and Digital workspaces (I’ll refer to them as VDI for ease of reading) has fallen in and out of popularity over the past few years, organizations need it today more than ever.Modern security use cases for VDI There are several use cases for VDI that didn’t exist until the modern era of workforce transformation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: VMWare acquires VeloCloud – what will this mean for SD-WAN?

VMWare announced on November 2 that it intends to acquire VeloCloud Networks. The value of the proposed acquisition has not yet been announced, and VMWare expects it to close in Q4 of its FY18 which ends on February 2, 2018.This acquisition appears to be receiving a more positive message overall in the market than Cisco’s acquisition of Viptela earlier this year. In Viptela’s case, being acquired by Cisco immediately raised questions about where this product would fit alongside the existing IWAN and Meraki products, its impact on the ecosystem of IWAN-related products (Glue Networks, LiveAction, etc.) and what the final product mix would look like. Many of these questions have subsequently been answered, but the immediate reaction was one of uncertainty and concern.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: VMWare acquires VeloCloud – what will this mean for SD-WAN?

VMWare announced on November 2 that it intends to acquire VeloCloud Networks. The value of the proposed acquisition has not yet been announced, and VMWare expects it to close in Q4 of its FY18 which ends on February 2, 2018.This acquisition appears to be receiving a more positive message overall in the market than Cisco’s acquisition of Viptela earlier this year. In Viptela’s case, being acquired by Cisco immediately raised questions about where this product would fit alongside the existing IWAN and Meraki products, its impact on the ecosystem of IWAN-related products (Glue Networks, LiveAction, etc.) and what the final product mix would look like. Many of these questions have subsequently been answered, but the immediate reaction was one of uncertainty and concern.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Oracle’s digital twin simplifies design process for complex IoT systems

Car designers do it with wind tunnels. Architects do it models. But how do you test the design of a complex IoT system?It isn’t easy with potentially thousands of sensors sending millions of readings continuously. How do you check to make sure that your IoT design will work properly in real life? Check to make sure that different error conditions are handled properly, and corrective action taken on time?Simulated IoT devices can eliminate the guesswork from designing complex systems.Background Dr. Michael Grieves at the University of Michigan first proposed the idea of a “digital twin”. A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical device to make sure that the design performs as intended. He defined Digital Twin Prototype (DTP) as an asset’s information. Such as a 3D model of the device, its Bill of Materials and Processes to fully describe the asset and how it should work. These digital proxies generate sensor readings and communicate just as their physical counterparts and help IoT designers with:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware and VeloCloud: A Hedge Against Hyperconvergence?

VMware announced on Thursday that they are buying VeloCloud. This was a big move in the market that immediately set off a huge discussion about the implications. I had originally thought AT&T would buy VeloCloud based on their relationship in the past, but the acquistion of Vyatta from Brocade over the summer should have been a hint that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, VMware swooped in and picked up the company for an undisclosed amount.

The conversations have been going wild so far. Everyone wants to know how this is going to affect the relationship with Cisco, especially given that Cisco put money into VeloCloud in both 2016 and 2017. Given the acquisition of Viptela by Cisco earlier this year it’s easy to see that these two companies might find themselves competing for marketshare in the SD-WAN space. However, I think that this is actually a different play from VMware. One that’s striking back at hyperconverged vendors.

Adding The Value

If you look at the marketing coming out of hyperconvergence vendors right now, you’ll see there’s a lot of discussion around platform. Fast storage, small footprints, and the ability to deploy anywhere. Hyperconverged solutions are also starting to focus on Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: VMware’s VeloCloud acquisition: an argument for SD-WAN services?

The recent news around VMware’s acquisition of SD-WAN provider VeloCloud is puzzling from a lot of angles but particularly in what it says about SD-WAN services.Let’s make a deal VeloCloud is a leader, and some would say the leader, in the SD-WAN market. The company has been in the space since its founding in 2012 and has raised $84 million in private funding, according to CrunchBase. It claims around 1,000 enterprise customers (1,000).The VeloCloud acquisition will help VMware compete with Cisco, who acquired SD-WAN provider Viptela for $610 million in May. VeloCloud isn’t VMware’s first virtual networking acquisition. Back in 2012, the company acquired Nicira, which became the basis for its NSX network virtualization offering. Integrating the two technologies creates an interesting end-to-end solution. VeloCloud’s approach of coupling appliances with aspects of a cloud service, will play well with VMware’s premise-oriented strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: VMware’s VeloCloud acquisition: an argument for SD-WAN services?

The recent news around VMware’s acquisition of SD-WAN provider VeloCloud is puzzling from a lot of angles but particularly in what it says about SD-WAN services.Let’s make a deal VeloCloud is a leader, and some would say the leader, in the SD-WAN market. The company has been in the space since its founding in 2012 and has raised $84 million in private funding, according to CrunchBase. It claims around 1,000 enterprise customers (1,000).The VeloCloud acquisition will help VMware compete with Cisco, who acquired SD-WAN provider Viptela for $610 million in May. VeloCloud isn’t VMware’s first virtual networking acquisition. Back in 2012, the company acquired Nicira, which became the basis for its NSX network virtualization offering. Integrating the two technologies creates an interesting end-to-end solution. VeloCloud’s approach of coupling appliances with aspects of a cloud service, will play well with VMware’s premise-oriented strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What will it take? Building a future so the Internet brings opportunity to Europe.

Wondering how the Internet will impact your future in Europe? You’re not the only one.

We are only beginning to understand the full value that the Internet can bring to tomorrow’s world.

So how can we make certain the Internet of the tomorrow will help to do things like create jobs, ensure every citizen has access to municipal services, and close the divide between urban and rural areas?

A series of global talks now known as the Internet Society’s Regional Internet Development Dialogues are intended to help answer those questions and more.

The next one is in Brussels, Europe on November 7th 2017 and you’re invited:

Internet of Opportunity: Will the Internet Benefit all Europeans?

By bringing together people from very different backgrounds, these dialogues are meant to create a way for people to hear views and opinions outside of their comfort zone – and also to build understanding and unexpected partnerships.

The full day event, which is open to everyone who feels they have a stake in the Internet’s future, will bring together policy and decision makers, business leaders, and Europeans who want to make sure people can build a prosperous future.

Now is your chance to tell some Continue reading

6 IoT skills that will future-proof your career

What can you do to ensure your technical skills remain relevant and in demand even as technology evolves?For years, I've suggested that sysadmins and other technology professionals who want to stay ahead of the curve focus on: Developing skills for the next wave of technology innovations Routinely picking up some in-demand skills Investing some of their time in side projects that may not pay off right away While that still seems to be excellent advice, it appears a specific focus on the Internet of Things (IoT) should be added to the list. Earlier this year, Gartner predicted that 20.4 billion IoT devices will be connecting in 2020. That's just over two years from now, and that's a lot of devices. Srini Vemula, global product management leader at SenecaGlobal, believes this influx of new IoT devices will lead to tens of thousands of new jobs in the IoT economy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Future-proofing your career with IoT

What can you do to ensure your technical skills remain relevant and in demand even as technology evolves?For years, I've been suggesting that sysadmins and other technology professionals who want to stay ahead of the curve focus on: developing skills for the next wave of technology innovations routinely picking up some in-demand skills investing some of their time in side projects that may not pay off right away While this still seems to be excellent advice, it appears that a specific focus on IoT should be added to the list. Earlier this year, Gartner predicted that 20.4 billion IoT devices will be connecting in 2020. That's just over two years from now and that's a lot of devices. Srini Vemula, global product management leader at SenecaGlobal, believes that this influx of new IoT devices will lead to tens of thousands of new jobs in the IoT economy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Good to Great: Hallmarks of High-Tech Leadership

Good to Great: Hallmarks of High-Tech Leadership

You are probably expecting me to write another monthly blog on exciting innovative technology. Today I digress and reflect on recent awards and accolades Arista has received and how we got here. At Arista, we have worked very hard to become a great company. Building a good company takes constant hard work and heavy lifting. Making a great company is an even harder work-in-progress, demanding tenacity, especially in high technology, where disruptions are daunting and challenges are frequent. 

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