6 of the most effective social engineering techniques

Social engineering is the strongest method of attack against the enterprise’s weakest vulnerability, its people. Criminal hackers recognize this fact. In 2015, social engineering became the No. 1 method of attack, according to Proofpoint’s 2016 Human Factor Report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

How Google research can make the internet faster

Raise your hand if you think webpage load times are great -- not too slow at all.No one? Well, Google may have just made big strides to increase load time for websites, while not compromising anything in the process. So how did the tech giant do that?In IT Blogwatch, we hit refresh. So what is going on? DL Cabe gives us some background:Google...released a brand new, open-source JPEG encoder called Guetzli that can do two...neat things...it can decrease JPEG file size by 35% without a noticeable decrease in quality, and...it can increase the quality of an image without increasing file size at all. But what does that mean, exactly? Rafael Fariñas explains:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How Google research can make the internet faster

Raise your hand if you think webpage load times are great -- not too slow at all.No one? Well, Google may have just made big strides to increase load time for websites, while not compromising anything in the process. So how did the tech giant do that?In IT Blogwatch, we hit refresh. So what is going on? DL Cabe gives us some background:Google...released a brand new, open-source JPEG encoder called Guetzli that can do two...neat things...it can decrease JPEG file size by 35% without a noticeable decrease in quality, and...it can increase the quality of an image without increasing file size at all. But what does that mean, exactly? Rafael Fariñas explains:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NFS For Network Engineers

Without beating the ‘old drum’ without reason, sometimes you have to ask does the drum still need beating. Quick 5 minute articles like this one are always worth asking that question. As system administrators make the journey to SREs or ‘Site Reliability Engineers’, network engineers are also on the same trajectory. We might start from an expected Liam Neeson story point (I have some very specific skills etc), but it’s time to become a better Dad and just stop letting them take your daughter. Sometimes we just need to understand why it’s good to understand certain technology and in this case dream boat (I watched ‘The Accountant’ night, what an excellent film), NFS provides us with the ability to write and test code on remote machines for automation use cases. Sure, it’s just a network based file share, but the power of what it allows us to do is far more interesting.

Needless to say, on the same theme as the last blog post, this is another one that is anchored around StackStorm. With our trusty platform, when we create components for a pack like a actions and sensors, it’s important to have access to an IDE or set of Continue reading

The future of networking: It’s in a white box

Whether it’s food, beverages or automobiles, I want options and don’t want to be told what to do. I feel the same way about networking equipment. I’ve resented the fact that select vendors have had too much control in dictating choices over the years. I don’t think users should be told what, when and how they should buy, deploy and upgrade their network equipment. Luckily, those days are numbered thanks in part to the good work of the Open Compute Project, whose mission is to design and enable the delivery of the most efficient server, storage and data center hardware designs for scalable computing. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The future of networking: It’s in a white box

Whether it’s food, beverages or automobiles, I want options and don’t want to be told what to do. I feel the same way about networking equipment. I’ve resented the fact that select vendors have had too much control in dictating choices over the years. I don’t think users should be told what, when and how they should buy, deploy and upgrade their network equipment. Luckily, those days are numbered thanks in part to the good work of the Open Compute Project, whose mission is to design and enable the delivery of the most efficient server, storage and data center hardware designs for scalable computing. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Data the key ingredient for restaurant chain success

Businesses have more data than ever about their operations, supply chains and customers. The problem is often they can’t see it, don’t know where it is, and don’t have an easy want to pull it all together and analyze it. So, they are unable to make smart decisions and can lose thousands of dollars a year. It’s a challenge restaurant franchisors such as CraftWorks Restaurants and Breweries Inc. face. CraftWorks has found a solution, though—OnDemand software from ArrowStream. + Also on Network World: 8 big data predictions for 2017 + OnDemand does the “dirty work” of collecting data from food distributors, cleaning the data, analyzing it and putting the information front and center for supply chain restaurant managers, said Jeff Dorr, chief customer officer of ArrowStream. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ultimate guide to strategic tech partners

The IT vendor landscape is constantly in flux, with mergers, acquisitions, new technology developments and the growth of the cloud having a huge impact on which companies might be the most strategic partners for organizations looking to enhance their technology infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Ultimate guide to strategic tech partners

The IT vendor landscape is constantly in flux, with mergers, acquisitions, new technology developments and the growth of the cloud having a huge impact on which companies might be the most strategic partners for organizations looking to enhance their technology infrastructure. Consider some of the major technology merger and acquisition activities just over the past year: Microsoft acquired LinkedIn, Oracle acquired NetSuite, Broadcom acquired Brocade, HPE is buying Nimble Storage, and Dell acquired EMC.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Ultimate guide to strategic tech partners

The IT vendor landscape is constantly in flux, with mergers, acquisitions, new technology developments and the growth of the cloud having a huge impact on which companies might be the most strategic partners for organizations looking to enhance their technology infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Review: Manage desktops remotely with these 5 tools

Remote monitoring and management (RMM) can be a great way to keep tabs on workstations, servers, and other IT infrastructure and also automate some maintenance and remediation tasks. This can help save time and resources in the IT department.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

New products of the week 3.20.17

New products of the weekImage by SolarWindsOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Asavie Industrial IoT Accelerator KitImage by asavieTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 3.20.17

New products of the weekImage by SolarWindsOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Asavie Industrial IoT Accelerator KitImage by asavieTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 3.20.17

New products of the weekImage by SolarWindsOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Asavie Industrial IoT Accelerator KitImage by asavieTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bdrive secures files in the cloud with fingerprints and fragmentation

Maximum privacy seems to be the goal for the new enterprise authentication and cloud storage services Bundesdruckerei is showing at Cebit this week.The 250-year-old state printer has moved far beyond its origins as a printer of banknotes and, later, passports, offering all sorts of secure digital authentication services.At the exhibition in Hanover, Germany, this week it's showing Bdrive, a way for businesses to securely and reliably store important files in the cloud.Unlike services such as Dropbox, Bdrive doesn't store the files themselves, just metadata about them. The task of storing the files is left to other public cloud storage services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‘Candy-bar’ phones will get smartphone features with new Qualcomm chip

The Nokia 3310 phone, a replica of its iconic namesake, took Mobile World Congress by storm last month. It was a surprising show of enthusiasm for so-called candy-bar phones, which remain popular in developing countries because of their rock-bottom prices.Qualcomm believes there's an untapped opportunity in such feature phones and believes it can bring smartphone-like capabilities to these handsets. So it made the 205 Mobile chip, which will bring LTE capabilities, better graphics, and more responsiveness to candy-bar phones.There is a big need for a chip like the 205, especially when you look at the limited features of the new Nokia 3310. The Nokia 3310 offers only 2G connectivity capabilities for texting and calling, while newer candy-bar phones with the 205 chip will be LTE capable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

GelTouch adds a new dimension to touch-sensitive controls

The problem with a lot of touch-sensitive controls is that the communication is one-way: They can feel you, but you can't feel them. With touch-screen displays it's easy enough, as the button does what it says on the screen. Not all buttons are designed to be looked at as they are pushed, though. Take video-game controllers or car entertainment systems, for example, or some industrial controls. The user's attention is typically elsewhere when these are operated. Manufacturers can mold raised blobs into the surface to show where to press, perhaps even using the shape of the blob to identify the button's function, but that means that, unlike a touch-screen, the number and function of the buttons is fixed from the moment the device leaves the factory.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why Didn’t We Have Leaf-and-Spine Fabrics a Decade Ago?

One of my readers watched my Leaf-and-Spine Fabric Architectures webinar and had a follow-up question:

You mentioned 3-tier architecture was dictated primarily by port count and throughput limits. I can understand that port density was a problem, but can you elaborate why the throughput is also a limitation? Do you mean that core switch like 6500 also not suitable to build a 2-tier network in term of throughput?

As always, the short answer is it depends, in this case on your access port count and bandwidth requirements.

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