IDG Contributor Network: How mainframes change our lives

When people think about uses for mainframes, they often think of the financial and public sectors. And while it’s true that many banks and government agencies would have a hard time getting through their countless interactions swiftly and efficiently without the processing power of Big Iron. But mainframes handle more than just our interactions with governments and our money — they are used in many industries that influence and improve our daily lives in ways we often don’t even think about. Let’s take a look at several walks of life and businesses where we depend on mainframes every day, even if we don’t think about it.Power: don’t get dressed in the dark Our modern world runs on electricity, and electricity providers run on mainframes. Only Big Iron is dependable enough to regulate power generation and output, as well as monitor and analyze power usage across countless households within each provider’s power grid. Mainframes help automate power generation to be self-sufficient and reliable, ensuring people can wake up to their alarm clock or work late shifts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PitchBook moves to a microservices infrastructure – scaling the business through scalable tech

PitchBook is a data company. Its reason for being is to provide a platform that tracks a plethora of different aspects of both private and public markets. Want to know about what’s happening in venture capital, private equity or M&A? Chances are PitchBook can give you the answer. The company is a subsidiary of Morningstar and has offices in Seattle, New York, and London.But here’s the thing, though. PitchBook was founded in 2007 when cloud computing was pretty much just beginning and there was no real awareness of what it meant. In those days, enterprise IT agility meant leveraging virtualization to gain efficiencies. Now don’t get me wrong, moving from a paradigm of racking and stacking physical servers to being able to spin up virtual servers at will is a big deal, it’s just that since 2007, there has been massive further innovation in the infrastructure space.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PitchBook moves to a microservices infrastructure – scaling the business through scalable tech

PitchBook is a data company. Its reason for being is to provide a platform that tracks a plethora of different aspects of both private and public markets. Want to know about what’s happening in venture capital, private equity or M&A? Chances are PitchBook can give you the answer. The company is a subsidiary of Morningstar and has offices in Seattle, New York, and London.But here’s the thing, though. PitchBook was founded in 2007 when cloud computing was pretty much just beginning and there was no real awareness of what it meant. In those days, enterprise IT agility meant leveraging virtualization to gain efficiencies. Now don’t get me wrong, moving from a paradigm of racking and stacking physical servers to being able to spin up virtual servers at will is a big deal, it’s just that since 2007, there has been massive further innovation in the infrastructure space.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Juniper’s Cloud-Grade networking aims to deliver network agility

There should be no question in anyone’s mind that the cloud era has arrived. Businesses are adopting the cloud at an unprecedented rate and by 2020, the number of cloud workloads will be on par with the number of on-premises ones.Businesses of all sizes are turning to the cloud to help them become digital by increasing the level of agility. To be an agile business, though, the entire network stack—from the network through applications must be agile.+ Also on Network World: Juniper heads to the clouds with Unite + However, organizations are also more cost conscious than ever, so whatever solution is deployed must save money in addition to making the network more dynamic. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Juniper’s Cloud-Grade networking aims to deliver network agility

There should be no question in anyone’s mind that the cloud era has arrived. Businesses are adopting the cloud at an unprecedented rate and by 2020, the number of cloud workloads will be on par with the number of on-premises ones.Businesses of all sizes are turning to the cloud to help them become digital by increasing the level of agility. To be an agile business, though, the entire network stack—from the network through applications must be agile.+ Also on Network World: Juniper heads to the clouds with Unite + However, organizations are also more cost conscious than ever, so whatever solution is deployed must save money in addition to making the network more dynamic. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Moby Summit June 2017 Recap

On June 19 2017, 90 members of the Moby community gathered at Docker headquarter in San Francisco for the second Moby Summit.  This was an opportunity for the community to discuss the progress and future of the Moby project, two months after it was announced.

We started the day with an introduction by Solomon Hykes, and a look at the website redesign: the Moby project website now has a blog, an event calendar, a list of projects, and a community page with links to various community resources. The website code is open source, issues and PRs to make it better are welcome.

Then each team gave an update on their progress: Linuxkit, containerd, InfraKit, SwarmKit and LibNetwork, as well as the three new Moby Special Interest Groups, Linuxkit Security, Security Scanning & Notary and Orchestration Security. All these talks have been recorded and you can find the videos and slides below.

In the afternoon, we split into 5 Birds Of Feathers (BOF) sessions: runc/containerd, LinuxKit, InfraKit, Security, and Security Scanning. You can find links to the BOF Notes at the end of this post.

We ended the day with a recap of the BOF sessions, and Continue reading

U.S. Military Sees Future in Neuromorphic Computing

The novel architectures story is still shaping out for 2017 when it comes machine learning, hyperscale, supercomputing and other areas.

From custom ASICs at Google, new uses for quantum machines, FPGAs finding new routes into wider application sets, advanced GPUs primed for deep learning, hybrid combinations of all of the above, it is clear there is serious exploration of non-CMOS devices. When the Department of Energy in the U.S. announced its mission to explore novel architectures, one of the clear candidates for investment appeared to be neuromorphic chips—efficient pattern matching devices that are in development at Stanford (NeuroGrid), The

U.S. Military Sees Future in Neuromorphic Computing was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

Time to consider a move to IPv6

Organizations should consider migrating their network infrastructure and devices over to IPv6. It may be a challenge to persuade leadership to prioritize it over other projects such as cloud computing or big data migrations, but it is essential to start planning for a migration.Many service providers, such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T, have already started using IPv6 addresses and are presently encouraging other organizations across the United States to do the same. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has encouraged organizations to move forward with these migrations for over a decade, and with more devices connecting to the internet, the need has increased. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Time to consider a move to IPv6

Organizations should consider migrating their network infrastructure and devices over to IPv6. It may be a challenge to persuade leadership to prioritize it over other projects such as cloud computing or big data migrations, but it is essential to start planning for a migration.Many service providers, such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T, have already started using IPv6 addresses and are presently encouraging other organizations across the United States to do the same. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has encouraged organizations to move forward with these migrations for over a decade, and with more devices connecting to the internet, the need has increased. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Machine Learning and the Language of the Brain

For years, researchers have been trying to figure out how the human brain organizes language – what happens in the brain when a person is presented with a word or an image. The work has academic rewards of its own, given the ongoing push by researchers to better understand the myriad ways in which the human brain works.

At the same time, ongoing studies can help doctors and scientists learn how to better treat people with aphasia or other brain disorders caused by strokes, tumors or trauma that impair a person’s ability to communicate – to speak, read, write and

Machine Learning and the Language of the Brain was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

Ohio government websites defaced by pro-ISIS hackers

Hackers proclaiming to be pro-ISIS defaced 10 Ohio government websites on Sunday as well as the government websites for Howard County, Maryland, and Brookhaven, Long Island.“Hacked by Team System DZ,” the defacements read. “Anti: Govt all word.”The pro-ISIS message continued: You will be held accountable Trump, you and all your people for every drop of blood flowing in Muslim countries. I Love Islamic state. Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections via Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel A screenshot of the defaced Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections website was posted on Facebook and Twitter by Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel. He added, “OH Dept of Corrections website right now, this is what you see. Wake up freedom-loving Americans. Radical Islam infiltrating the heartland.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ohio government websites defaced by pro-ISIS hackers

Hackers proclaiming to be pro-ISIS defaced 10 Ohio government websites on Sunday as well as the government websites for Howard County, Maryland, and Brookhaven, Long Island.“Hacked by Team System DZ,” the defacements read. “Anti: Govt all word.”The pro-ISIS message continued: You will be held accountable Trump, you and all your people for every drop of blood flowing in Muslim countries. I Love Islamic state. Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections via Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel A screenshot of the defaced Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections website was posted on Facebook and Twitter by Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel. He added, “OH Dept of Corrections website right now, this is what you see. Wake up freedom-loving Americans. Radical Islam infiltrating the heartland.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tools that increase IT efficiency pave the way for digital transformations

Inflexible IT architectures can be a barrier to organizational change. As companies embark on digital transformations aimed at improving their business, the pressure is on IT to reduce complexity and increase the efficiency of enterprise systems and applications. Fave Raves is an annual feature from Network World that invites IT pros to share hands-on assessments of products they love. Several tools that enable organizations to simplify their infrastructure and automate key tasks ranked among the favorites in 2017 and recent years. Here’s what IT pros had to say, in their own words. For more enterprise favorites, check out the full Fave Raves collection.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tools that increase IT efficiency pave the way for digital transformations

Inflexible IT architectures can be a barrier to organizational change. As companies embark on digital transformations aimed at improving their business, the pressure is on IT to reduce complexity and increase the efficiency of enterprise systems and applications. Fave Raves is an annual feature from Network World that invites IT pros to share hands-on assessments of products they love. Several tools that enable organizations to simplify their infrastructure and automate key tasks ranked among the favorites in 2017 and recent years. Here’s what IT pros had to say, in their own words. For more enterprise favorites, check out the full Fave Raves collection.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here