Read all about IT: CEOs see IT as more important than ever

As IT rises up the list of business priorities, CEOs are more likely to read about new technologies than they are to ask their CIOs for information.That's one of the findings in a new survey by Gartner, in which 31 percent of business leaders questioned put IT among their top three priorities. It's the highest-ever ranking in the survey for IT, which was trumped only by profits and growth, cited by 58 percent.The 388 business leaders questioned -- mostly CEOs, with a smattering of CFOs and COOs -- are twice as likely to want to build up in-house IT capabilities (57 percent) as to outsource it (29 percent), which ought to be good news for CIOs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 8 may launch 2 months after the iPhone 7s

Apple's iPhone 8 will introduce a completely new design to Apple's iPhone lineup, a welcome change in light of the fact that the current iPhone form factor hasn't really changed much since the iPhone 6 was released more than two and a half years ago. From what we've gathered thus far from the Apple rumor mill, the iPhone 8 will, without a doubt, be the most advanced iPhone ever released by a wide margin. Design wise, the iPhone 8 will likely incorporate an edge to edge OLED display with 4mm bezels surrounding said display.As exciting as that is, the downside is that the iPhone 8 release date may be pushed back quite a bit. Over the past few weeks, we've seen some conflicting information regarding Apple's timetable for releasing the iPhone 8. While some reports have said Apple is pushing hard for a September launch, other scattered reports said the iPhone 8 release might be pushed back anywhere from four to eight weeks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Modern monitoring is a big data problem

Why did VMware acquire Wavefront? The start of the answer to this question comes with an understanding of what Wavefront is (or was). Wavefront was started by former Google engineers who set out to build a monitoring system for the commercial market that had the same features and benefits as the monitoring system that Google had built for itself.Due to the massive scale of Google, such a system would have to have two key attributes: The ability to consume and process massive amounts of data very quickly. In fact, the Wavefront website make the claim, "Enterprise-grade cloud monitoring and analytics at over 1 million data points per second." The ability to quickly find what you want in this massive ocean of data So, it is clear that the folks at Wavefront viewed modern monitoring to be a big data problem, and it is clear that some people at VMware were willing to pay a fair amount of money for a monitoring system that took a real-time and highly scalable approach to monitoring.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Modern monitoring is a big data problem

Why did VMware acquire Wavefront? The start of the answer to this question comes with an understanding of what Wavefront is (or was). Wavefront was started by former Google engineers who set out to build a monitoring system for the commercial market that had the same features and benefits as the monitoring system that Google had built for itself.Due to the massive scale of Google, such a system would have to have two key attributes: The ability to consume and process massive amounts of data very quickly. In fact, the Wavefront website make the claim, "Enterprise-grade cloud monitoring and analytics at over 1 million data points per second." The ability to quickly find what you want in this massive ocean of data So, it is clear that the folks at Wavefront viewed modern monitoring to be a big data problem, and it is clear that some people at VMware were willing to pay a fair amount of money for a monitoring system that took a real-time and highly scalable approach to monitoring.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Rollout’s ROX helps developers roll out new mobile app features

It seems like a lifetime ago when the primary way we interacted with applications was through a web browser (let alone via an installed application—let’s not even go there). Today, the mobile application is increasingly the way people communicate, socially mediate, post pictures and do the myriad other things that technology allows.And as the usage of mobile applications has increased, organizations increasingly look to up the sophistication of these applications. Where market opportunity exists, vendor soon follow—and vendors are sprouting up on a daily basis to help organizations increase the complexity, effectiveness and optionality of their mobile apps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AMD’s new Polaris-based Radeon Pro Duo is slower than its predecessor

AMD's new Radeon Pro Duo graphics packs two of the company's fastest GPUs, but surprisingly, is slower than its 2016 predecessor.The Pro Duo, announced on Monday, is based on the Polaris architecture. It provides 11.45 teraflops of single-precision performance, which is a downgrade from the 16 teraflops of performance offered by last year's Pro Duo, based on the Fiji architecture.Performance usually goes up with each new GPU generation, but AMD opted to lower the power draw and the number of processing cores in the Pro Duo; as result, the product generates less heat. The Pro Duo draws 250 watts of power, compared to 350 watts by its predecessor.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

John’s Network Oops – As Seen On Reuters

In my response to The Network Collective’s group therapy session where the participants ‘fessed up to engineering sins, I promised to share my own personal nightmare story, as seen on Reuters. Grab a bag of popcorn, a mug of hot chocolate and your best ghost story flashlight, and I will share a tale which will haunt you for years to come. If you have small children in the room, this may be a good time to send them outside to play.

John Tells A Scary Story

At one point in my career I was a network engineer for a national mobile provider in the USA. The mobility market is a high-stakes environment, perhaps more so than most industry outsiders might expect. Users have surprisingly high expectations and are increasingly reliant on the availability of the network at all times of day or night.

High-Stakes Networking

Mobile networks are typically not just for consumers but are also used by a large number of private entities including fleet management companies, fire/burglar alarm systems, shipping companies and emergency services, so even a minor outage can potentially be a problem. These commercial organizations all had customized private connectivity to the mobile provider and thankfully we had a contractually-identified Continue reading

Parallel Programming Approaches for Accelerated Systems Compared

In high performance computing, machine learning, and a growing set of other application areas, accelerated, heterogeneous systems are becoming the norm.

With that state come several parallel programming approaches; from OpenMP, OpenACC, OpenCL, CUDA, and others. The trick is choosing the right framework for maximum performance and efficiency—but also productivity.

There have been several studies comparing relative performance between the various frameworks over the last several years, but many take two head to head for compares on a single benchmark or application. A team from Linneaus University in Sweden took these comparisons a step further by developing a custom tool

Parallel Programming Approaches for Accelerated Systems Compared was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

IDG Contributor Network: The big news at DockerCon 2017 was no big news

The biggest news from DockerCon 2017, the semi-annual conference on Linux containerization, was the lack of big news. After the last two years of feverish development, there are signs one of the hottest trends in tech might be slowing down.“I’m not sure,” said one software developer loitering just outside of the Austin Convention Center. That was the most common response to my question, “What was the biggest news at DockerCon this year?” I must have asked 30 people that question over my two days at the event. An informal, unscientific polling of my Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook connections has been similar.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

More Windows PCs infected with NSA backdoor DoublePulsar

The number of Windows computers infected with NSA backdoor malware continues to rise since Shadow Brokers leaked the hacking tools on April 14.DoublePulsar infection rate climbing Two different sets of researchers scanning for the DoublePulsar implant saw a significant bump in the number of infected Windows PCs over the weekend.For example, Dan Tentler, CEO of the Phobos Group, suggested that Monday would not be a good day for many people, as his newest scan showed about 25 percent of all vulnerable and publicly exposed SMB machines are infected.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

More Windows PCs infected with NSA backdoor DoublePulsar

The number of Windows computers infected with NSA backdoor malware continues to rise since Shadow Brokers leaked the hacking tools on April 14.DoublePulsar infection rate climbing Two different sets of researchers scanning for the DoublePulsar implant saw a significant bump in the number of infected Windows PCs over the weekend.For example, Dan Tentler, CEO of the Phobos Group, suggested that Monday would not be a good day for many people, as his newest scan showed about 25 percent of all vulnerable and publicly exposed SMB machines are infected.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bring Your Own Authentication is upending online security practices

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.Seeing the success of the Bring Your Own Device movement, a cadre of leading companies are starting to explore if a similar approach can be used to address the authentication challenge. If BYOD essentially makes the device a proxy for the work environment, can that same device serve as a proxy for customers online?This new movement, known as Bring Your Own Authentication (BYOA), holds the same promise of reimagining the way we think of authentication, putting the consumer (and device) front and center in the interaction, and relegating passwords to the background or eliminating them completely. But there are challenges to overcome in order for mass adoption.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bring Your Own Authentication is upending online security practices

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.Seeing the success of the Bring Your Own Device movement, a cadre of leading companies are starting to explore if a similar approach can be used to address the authentication challenge. If BYOD essentially makes the device a proxy for the work environment, can that same device serve as a proxy for customers online?This new movement, known as Bring Your Own Authentication (BYOA), holds the same promise of reimagining the way we think of authentication, putting the consumer (and device) front and center in the interaction, and relegating passwords to the background or eliminating them completely. But there are challenges to overcome in order for mass adoption.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bring Your Own Authentication is upending online security practices

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

Seeing the success of the Bring Your Own Device movement, a cadre of leading companies are starting to explore if a similar approach can be used to address the authentication challenge. If BYOD essentially makes the device a proxy for the work environment, can that same device serve as a proxy for customers online?

This new movement, known as Bring Your Own Authentication (BYOA), holds the same promise of reimagining the way we think of authentication, putting the consumer (and device) front and center in the interaction, and relegating passwords to the background or eliminating them completely. But there are challenges to overcome in order for mass adoption.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows laptops running on ARM chips is a terrible idea

Last week, Qualcomm revealed that the first Windows 10 laptops using its Snapdragon 835 processors are due to hit the market late in 2017. That’s a big deal because up until now, Windows 10 has run only on x86 chips from Intel and AMD, and the Snapdragon chips use an ARM-based architecture optimized for mobile use.Windows 10 on ARM: Thinner, lighter, more connected Here’s how PC World described these new machines, which are being jointly developed by Microsoft and Qualcomm:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here