Apple said to be targeting a stake in Toshiba’s memory chip business

Apple is the latest company to be linked with a possible bid for an investment in Toshiba's sizable computer memory business, which is up for sale.The iPhone-maker is prepared to make a direct investment of several billion dollars in Toshiba Memory for a stake of "several tens" of percent, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported in its lunchtime news. The report said Apple is also considering a joint bid with Foxconn Technology, which manufactures the iPhone. Toshiba is a major supplier of components for the iPhone.Apple could not immediately be reached for comment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Giant FCC spectrum auction raises $19.8 billion, sets up 5G services

An FCC auction of repurposed television spectrum has raised $19.8 billion and will pave the way for mobile carriers to offer faster and more reliable service across the country.The 70MHz in new spectrum available will allow carriers to provide fast 5G service in coming years, FCC officials have said. It was the world's first two-sided auction allowing TV stations to indirectly sell spectrum to mobile carriers and other users of wireless spectrum.The auction should speed up networks that have slowed as U.S. residents move to "data-hungry smartphones," the FCC said in a press release. About 70 percent of U.S. residents now have smartphones, the agency said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco runs out two “critical” security warnings for IOS, Apache Struts (again)

Cisco today issued two “critical” security advisories, one for Cisco IOS and Cisco IOS XE Software, the other for the ongoing discovery of problems with Apache Struts2.The IOS vulnerability is in the Cisco Cluster Management Protocol (CMP) processing code in Cisco IOS and Cisco IOS XE Software which could let an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a reload of an affected device or remotely execute code with elevated privileges, Cisco stated.+More on Network World: Cisco targets digital business transformation with new certifications+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco runs out two “critical” security warnings for IOS, Apache Struts (again)

Cisco today issued two “critical” security advisories, one for Cisco IOS and Cisco IOS XE Software, the other for the ongoing discovery of problems with Apache Struts2.The IOS vulnerability is in the Cisco Cluster Management Protocol (CMP) processing code in Cisco IOS and Cisco IOS XE Software which could let an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a reload of an affected device or remotely execute code with elevated privileges, Cisco stated.+More on Network World: Cisco targets digital business transformation with new certifications+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to keep your Verizon email account from being killed off

If you're a Verizon customer who uses the carrier's email service, you very well might have an imminent decision to make about your Verizon.net address or risk losing access to your account and associated data.Verizon has been notifying customers on a rolling basis in recent months that it plans to shutter its email service so that the company can focus on higher priorities. The Verizon.net email domain can be traced back to 2000, when Verizon formed, and the company stopped issuing new Verizon.net email addresses in late 2015.While attempting to reconfigure my wireless plan today to avoid a possible data overage charge, I noticed on my main Verizon Wireless account page that I had received a series of increasingly urgent messages from the service provider in recent weeks —"Act now or lose email access" was the latest. I actually never use my Verizon email, so hadn't been checking messages and really don't care if mine dies off. Verizon is giving me a cut-off date of April 19.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to keep your Verizon email account from being killed off

If you're a Verizon customer who uses the carrier's email service, you very well might have an imminent decision to make about your Verizon.net address or risk losing access to your account and associated data.Verizon has been notifying customers on a rolling basis in recent months that it plans to shutter its email service so that the company can focus on higher priorities. The Verizon.net email domain can be traced back to 2000, when Verizon formed, and the company stopped issuing new Verizon.net email addresses in late 2015.While attempting to reconfigure my wireless plan today to avoid a possible data overage charge, I noticed on my main Verizon Wireless account page that I had received a series of increasingly urgent messages from the service provider in recent weeks —"Act now or lose email access" was the latest. I actually never use my Verizon email, so hadn't been checking messages and really don't care if mine dies off. Verizon is giving me a cut-off date of April 19.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BrandPost: The Time Is Now For An Application-Driven WAN Edge Powered By The Latest In Silver Peak SD-WAN Innovation

While much of the market is focused on the promise of an SD-WAN to lower connectivity costs, I believe SD-WAN, when done right, can offer significant incremental value beyond the favorable economics of broadband connectivity.A complete SD-WAN solution must assure consistent application performance and resiliency, make the WAN edge more application-driven, improve network security, and overall, dramatically simplify the WAN architecture for geographically distributed enterprises. It should also enable enterprises to create a thin branch where network functions such as routing, firewalls, WAN optimization along with SD-WAN are delivered as a single integrated solution.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Canonical CEO Jane Silber to Step Down in 3 Months

Canonical is putting its focus on cloud and IoT.

The emergence of software-defined application delivery technology – and what it can do for your network

The emergence of software-defined application delivery technology – and what it can do for your network

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.The flexibility of the cloud has driven IT to look closely at opportunities to replicate that agility in their own infrastructure and operations. Automation initiatives have optimized many layers of the computing stack, but application delivery services remain a last-mile problem as network teams find themselves hamstrung by inflexible legacy architectures.While virtual appliances for load balancing, long thought of as the answer for software-driven infrastructure, have existed since the advent of virtualization, they inherit most of the architectural challenges of legacy solutions, including limited scalability, lack of central management and orchestration, and performance limitations. Instead, what is needed is an application delivery architecture based on software-defined principles that logically separates the control plane from the data plane delivering the application services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The emergence of software-defined application delivery technology – and what it can do for your network

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.The flexibility of the cloud has driven IT to look closely at opportunities to replicate that agility in their own infrastructure and operations. Automation initiatives have optimized many layers of the computing stack, but application delivery services remain a last-mile problem as network teams find themselves hamstrung by inflexible legacy architectures.While virtual appliances for load balancing, long thought of as the answer for software-driven infrastructure, have existed since the advent of virtualization, they inherit most of the architectural challenges of legacy solutions, including limited scalability, lack of central management and orchestration, and performance limitations. Instead, what is needed is an application delivery architecture based on software-defined principles that logically separates the control plane from the data plane delivering the application services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Avaya plan deploys network virtualization, segmentation to guard business jewels

Avaya has rolled out products it says will help enterprise customers more easily segment traffic between widely dispersed networked resources and effectively protect corporate data.The two central components of what the company calls its Data Center Everywhere plan include a new hardware-independent operating system for the company’s switches – the Virtual Service 8000 non-Avaya products such as x86, or ARM platforms – that lets customers deploy virtualized network functions anywhere in the network.+More on Network World: Cisco, Mitel, NEC and others are targeting Avaya’s customers as the networking company goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Avaya plan deploys network virtualization, segmentation to guard business jewels

Avaya has rolled out products it says will help enterprise customers more easily segment traffic between widely dispersed networked resources and effectively protect corporate data.The two central components of what the company calls its Data Center Everywhere plan include a new hardware-independent operating system for the company’s switches – the Virtual Service 8000 non-Avaya products such as x86, or ARM platforms – that lets customers deploy virtualized network functions anywhere in the network.+More on Network World: Cisco, Mitel, NEC and others are targeting Avaya’s customers as the networking company goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Avaya plan deploys network virtualization, segmentation to guard business jewels

Avaya has rolled out products it says will help enterprise customers more easily segment traffic between widely dispersed networked resources and effectively protect corporate data.The two central components of what the company calls its Data Center Everywhere plan include a new hardware-independent operating system for the company’s switches – the Virtual Service 8000 non-Avaya products such as x86, or ARM platforms – that lets customers deploy virtualized network functions anywhere in the network.+More on Network World: Cisco, Mitel, NEC and others are targeting Avaya’s customers as the networking company goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Comcast-IBM Deal Gives Enterprises Direct Link to Cloud Services

Comcast already works with AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Unpatched vulnerability exposes Magento online shops to hacking

An unpatched vulnerability in the Magento e-commerce platform could allow hackers to upload and execute malicious code on web servers that host online shops.The flaw was discovered by researchers from security consultancy DefenseCode and is located in a feature that retrieves preview images for videos hosted on Vimeo. Such videos can be added to product listings in Magento.The DefenseCode researchers determined that if the image URL points to a different file, for example a PHP script, Magento will download the file in order to validate it. If the file is not an image, the platform will return a "Disallowed file type" error, but won't actually remove it from the server.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The AI revolution: Is the future finally now?

The AI revolution: Is the future finally now?

 Over the last several decades, the evolution of artificial intelligence has followed an uncertain path – reaching incredible highs and new levels of innovation, often followed by years of stagnation and disillusionment as the technology fails to deliver on its promises.Today we are once again experiencing growing interest in the future possibilities for AI. From voice powered personal assistants like Google Home and Alexa, to Netflix’s predictive recommendations, Nest learning thermostats and chatbots used by banks and retailers, there are countless examples of AI seeping into everyday life and the potential of future applications seem limitless . . . again.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware cloud design decisions: LACP part 1

Recently I’ve been helping a customer who’s working on a VMware cloud design. As is often the case, there are a set of consulting SME’s helping with the various areas; an NSX/virtualization consultant, the client’s tech team and a network guy (lucky me).

One of the interesting challenges in such a case is understanding the background behind design decisions that the other teams have made and the flow-on effects they have on other components. In my case, I have a decent background in designing a VMware cloud and networking, so I was able to help bridge the gap a little.

My pet peeve in a lot of cases is the common answer of “because it’s ‘best-practice’ from vendor X” and a blank stare when asked: “sure, but why?”. In this particular case, I was lucky enough to have a pretty savvy customer, so a healthy debate ensued. This is that story.

Disclaimer: What I’m going to describe is based on network switches running Cumulus Linux and specifically some down-in-the-weeds details on this particular MLAG implementation. That said, most of the concepts apply to similar network technologies (VPC, other MLAG implementations, stacking, virtual-chassis, etc.) as they operate in very Continue reading

Cloudflare Rate Limiting – Insight, Control, and Mitigation against Layer 7 DDoS Attacks

Today, Cloudflare is extending its Rate Limiting service by allowing any of our customers to sign up. Our Enterprise customers have enjoyed the benefits of Cloudflare’s Rate Limiting offering for the past several months. As part of our mission to build a better internet, we believe that everyone should have the ability to sign up for the service to protect their websites and APIs.

CC-BY 2.0 image by Benjamin Child

Rate Limiting is one more feature in our arsenal of tools that help to protect our customers against denial-of-service attacks, brute-force password attempts, and other types of abusive behavior targeting the application layer. Application layer attacks are usually a barrage of HTTP/S requests which may look like they originate from real users, but are typically generated by machines (or bots). As a result, application layer attacks are often harder to detect and can more easily bring down a site, application, or API. Rate Limiting complements our existing DDoS protection services by providing control and insight into Layer 7 DDoS attacks.

Rate Limiting is now available to all customers across all plans as an optional paid feature. The first 10,000 qualifying requests are free, which allows customers to start using Continue reading