Ireland the best place to set up a data center in the EU

A report from a data center consulting group BroadGroup says Ireland is the best place, at least in Europe, to set up a data center. It cites connectivity, taxes and active government support among the reasons.BroadGroup’s report argued Ireland’s status in the EU, as well as its “low corporate tax environment,” make it an attractive location. It also cites connectivity, as Ireland will get a direct submarine cable system from Ireland to France—bypassing the U.K.—in 2019. The country also has a high installed base of fibre and dark fibre with further deployment planned.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Five Questions: Windows Automation

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For #AskAnsible posts, we interview Ansible experts on IT automation topics and ask them to share their direct experiences building automation solutions.

In this post, I’ve asked Matt Davis five questions about Ansible for Windows automation.

Matt Davis is a Senior Principal Software Engineer for Ansible, focused on Ansible's Windows support. He has over 20 years experience in software engineering, architecture and operations at companies large and small. An avid musician, maker and home hacker, Matt lives with his wife and daughter in Beaverton, Oregon. You can follow him on Twitter at @mattdavispdx.

1. How is Ansible for Windows different than System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) or Powershell Desired State Configuration (DSC)?

Matt: SCCM is generally considered a legacy workstation-flavored management technology, dating from the mid 1990s (though many places use it for server management, too). It requires agents on the managed hosts, which must be installed, configured and kept up-to-date. SCCM executes many operations locally and asynchronously from the server, so it's often difficult to orchestrate interdependent changes across hosts, and to reason about the overall system state at any point in time as part of larger deployments.

DSC is a much more modern management technology, supporting both an Continue reading

Choosing Windows for your organization should get you fired

In the wake of yet another ransomware attack—this time named NotPetya—I have a special message specifically for those of you working in organizations that continue to run Microsoft Windows as the operating system on either your servers or your desktops: You are doing a terrible job and should probably be fired.  I know. That’s harsh. But it’s true. If you haven’t yet replaced Windows, across the board, you absolutely stink at your job. For years, we’ve had one trojan, worm and virus after another. And almost every single one is specifically targeting Microsoft Windows. Not MacOS. Not Linux. Not DOS. Not Unix. Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Choosing Windows for your organization should get you fired

In the wake of yet another ransomware attack—this time named NotPetya—I have a special message specifically for those of you working in organizations that continue to run Microsoft Windows as the operating system on either your servers or your desktops: You are doing a terrible job and should probably be fired.  I know. That’s harsh. But it’s true. If you haven’t yet replaced Windows, across the board, you absolutely stink at your job. For years, we’ve had one trojan, worm and virus after another. And almost every single one is specifically targeting Microsoft Windows. Not MacOS. Not Linux. Not DOS. Not Unix. Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Choosing Windows for your organization should get you fired

In the wake of yet another ransomware attack—this time named NotPetya—I have a special message specifically for those of you working in organizations that continue to run Microsoft Windows as the operating system on either your servers or your desktops: You are doing a terrible job and should probably be fired.  I know. That’s harsh. But it’s true. If you haven’t yet replaced Windows, across the board, you absolutely stink at your job. For years, we’ve had one trojan, worm and virus after another. And almost every single one is specifically targeting Microsoft Windows. Not MacOS. Not Linux. Not DOS. Not Unix. Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Choosing Windows for your organization should get you fired

In the wake of yet another ransomware attack—this time named NotPetya—I have a special message specifically for those of you working in organizations that continue to run Microsoft Windows as the operating system on either your servers or your desktops: You are doing a terrible job and should probably be fired.  I know. That’s harsh. But it’s true. If you haven’t yet replaced Windows, across the board, you absolutely stink at your job. For years, we’ve had one trojan, worm and virus after another. And almost every single one is specifically targeting Microsoft Windows. Not MacOS. Not Linux. Not DOS. Not Unix. Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DreamWorks: The animation studio’s powerful network

If you don’t know what DreamWorks is, you probably haven’t been to the movies for a couple decades. It’s a digital film studio that turns out critically acclaimed CGI animated movies like Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda, averaging about two a year since the turn of the century, and a major contributor to the cause of keeping kids occupied for a couple of hours.The creation of CGI movies is enormously demanding from a network standpoint. Animation and rendering require very low input latency and create huge files that have to be readily available, which poses technological challenges to the DreamWorks networking team.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: What Cisco's new programmable switches mean for you + Trend: Colocation facilities provide tools to manage data center infrastructureTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DreamWorks: The animation studio’s powerful network

If you don’t know what DreamWorks is, you probably haven’t been to the movies for a couple decades. It’s a digital film studio that turns out critically acclaimed CGI animated movies like Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda, averaging about two a year since the turn of the century, and a major contributor to the cause of keeping kids occupied for a couple of hours.The creation of CGI movies is enormously demanding from a network standpoint. Animation and rendering require very low input latency and create huge files that have to be readily available, which poses technological challenges to the DreamWorks networking team.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: What Cisco's new programmable switches mean for you + Trend: Colocation facilities provide tools to manage data center infrastructureTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DreamWorks: The animation studio’s powerful network

If you don’t know what DreamWorks is, you probably haven’t been to the movies for a couple decades. It’s a digital film studio that turns out critically acclaimed CGI animated movies like Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda, averaging about two a year since the turn of the century, and a major contributor to the cause of keeping kids occupied for a couple of hours.The creation of CGI movies is enormously demanding from a network standpoint. Animation and rendering require very low input latency and create huge files that have to be readily available, which poses technological challenges to the DreamWorks networking team.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: What Cisco's new programmable switches mean for you + Trend: Colocation facilities provide tools to manage data center infrastructureTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Reaction: The End of MPLS?

Jason Wells, over on LinkedIn, has an article up about the end of MPLS; to wit—

MPLS, according to Akkiraju, is old-hat and inefficient – why should a branch office backhaul to get their cloud data, when Internet connections might be faster – and 100X cheaper? Cisco, in acquiring Viptela, has brought Akkiraju, his company, and his perspective back into the fold, perhaps heralding the beginning of the end of Cisco’s MPLS-based offerings (or at least the beginning of the end of the mindset that they should still have an MPLS-based offering).

To being—I actually work with Aryaka on occasion, and within the larger SD-WAN world more often (I am a member of the TAB over at Velocloud, for instance). This is decidedly not a post about the usefulness or future of SD-WAN solutions (though I do have opinions there, as you might have guessed). Rather, what I want to point out is that we, in the networking industry, tend to be rather sloppy about our language in ways that are not helpful.

To understand, it is useful to back up a few years and consider other technologies where our terms have become confused, and how it has impacted our Continue reading

Life as an IT contractor

The upside of life as an IT contractor is alluring. You get to be your own boss, accept only the jobs you want, and work flexible hours. With each assignment comes the opportunity to learn new skills and gain exposure to different environments.But there are obvious sacrifices – job security and paid vacations, for starters. As an IT contractor, you’re also often responsible for your own benefits (healthcare, retirement), paying taxes, and marketing yourself for the next gig.Tech pros who successfully balance the pros and cons of contracting play an important role in the IT world. They provide manpower when workloads spike and can bring key expertise or niche skills to a team. In recent years, companies have increasingly relied on a contingent workforce to augment their full-time staff. According to new survey data from IT staffing and services firm TEKsystems, 26% of IT hiring managers expect to increase headcount for contingent workers in the second half of 2017 (another 46% report that headcount will remain the same for temporary workers, and 13% say it will decrease).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware Evolve Transform Security is Coming to A City Near You!

Modern IT professionals face significant security challenges. As digital transformation continues to connect applications, users, and data in the cloud, perimeter security models that once offered businesses protection are no longer sufficient. Critical visibility into users and endpoints is missing, enforcing policies is difficult, and, in the meantime, cyberattacks are more sophisticated and costly than ever.

What do IT teams need to defend today’s applications, users, and data from potentially brand-damaging attacks?

That’s the question VMware experts will be tackling during our VMware EVOLVE Transform Security events, coming to a city near you. During these half-day, in-person events, you will learn how a ubiquitous software layer can help support the security challenges of the modern business. 

VMware experts will guide you through how to:

  • Secure application infrastructure and better align security controls to apps
  • Secure identity and endpoints to control access and enforce data loss prevention
  • Streamline governance, risk management and compliance to limit cyber-attack vectors

Reserve your spot at an upcoming Transform Security-focused VMware EVOLVE event in your city:

The post VMware Evolve Transform Security is Coming to A City Near You! appeared first on Network Virtualization.