BrandPost: Why Cross-Domain Capabilities Matter for Automation: Two Business Scenarios

The digital economy has IT up against the wall. Lines of business are focused on boosting innovation and enhancing the customer experience through digital transformation initiatives, but network complexity can be a significant obstacle for IT. According to one study, 75% of CIOs admit that the network is impacting their organization’s ability to achieve business goals, with an estimated 35% of all network downtime attributed to human error.This problem has understandably led IT to embrace automation in each technology domain, including the network, as a means of accelerating service delivery. But automating service delivery within each domain alone isn't enough. There must be seamless automation across the entire data center, or the ability to perform consistently and efficiently will suffer serious setbacks. It’s this growing need for agility and operational efficiency that ultimately validates the business case for introducing open, cross-domain automation capabilities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Announcing the New NSX Community at VMUG!

If you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together.

The premise behind this saying is the reason why VMware and VMUG are excited to announce the creation of the NSX community at VMUG.  The education, certification, and adoption of new technologies can be met with fear and uncertainty as legacy traditions get challenged.  By building a community, we can provide strength in numbers that can facilitate learning and help people develop a mindset of embracing the people, process, and tooling challenges that come with VMware NSX.

This new community will be dedicated to network and security virtualization.  It will serve as a robust resource for individuals who are motivated to learn more about VMware NSX and its tremendous impact on the data centers of today and tomorrow.  VMware NSX is at the core of next-generation enterprise solutions for IT automation, micro-segmentation, application availability, and cross-cloud architecture.  The community will offer an opportunity for Q&A with NSX experts and product managers, special community content, discussions with peers, and much more.

VMUG logo

The launch of the NSX community at VMUG comes ripe with inherent benefits, but in order to show our Continue reading

Apple said to drop Imagination’s IP in favor of own graphics chips

Apple will soon stop using intellectual property from Imagination Technologies Group for graphics processing units for its iPhone and other devices, as it is working on a separate, independent graphics design for its products, the chip technology company said Monday.But the U.K. company is not giving up without a fight as it doubts Apple can develop a brand new GPU without infringing Imagination’s intellectual property.Apple held an 8.5 percent share of the issued share capital of Imagination as of April 30 last year. The iPhone maker said in a filing in March last year that it had discussions with Imagination about a possible acquisition, though it did not have plans to make an offer at that time. Apple is Imagination's largest customer and it described the iPhone maker as "essential to the business of the Group" in its annual report for 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Information security in an insecure world

If I could give only one piece advice for CTOs and IT teams, it would be this: Data security is not just an IT task—it comes down to people and processes. As a startup CTO, you’re often going to lead the charge when it comes to information security for your firm.  According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, U.S. companies and government agencies suffered a record 1,093 data breaches in 2016—a 40 percent increase over 2015. We’ve all seen the headlines and the high-profile victims, but attackers don’t discriminate when it comes to security breaches. Any company can become a victim, leading to losses of your data, your customers’ data, financial information, proprietary product information, and, ultimately, a loss of goodwill in the market. As more processes move online and into the cloud, companies increasingly feel this burden of staying secure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Information security in an insecure world

If I could give only one piece advice for CTOs and IT teams, it would be this: Data security is not just an IT task—it comes down to people and processes. As a startup CTO, you’re often going to lead the charge when it comes to information security for your firm.  According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, U.S. companies and government agencies suffered a record 1,093 data breaches in 2016—a 40 percent increase over 2015. We’ve all seen the headlines and the high-profile victims, but attackers don’t discriminate when it comes to security breaches. Any company can become a victim, leading to losses of your data, your customers’ data, financial information, proprietary product information, and, ultimately, a loss of goodwill in the market. As more processes move online and into the cloud, companies increasingly feel this burden of staying secure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Securing the smart home

Editor’s Note: First in a series of articles on the best ways to deploy and secure smart home technologyLast fall, we saw the rise of the weaponized smart device as the Mirai botnet compromised webcams and other Internet-connected things. Then in February, VIZIO agreed to pay a $2.2 million fine to the FTC for collecting the viewing histories of 11 million smart TV users without their knowledge or consent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

10 hidden features in the new Windows 10 Creators Update

Microsoft’s big Windows 10 refresh, the Creators Update, is slated for release on April 11, bringing new features, enhancements and applications. The ones that have been getting the most attention revolve around the user interface (tweaks to the Start Menu), new capabilities for Cortana, and 3D design (the Paint 3D app).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

New products of the week 4.3.17

New products of the weekImage by MicroStrategyOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.JumpStartImage by cloudjumperTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WikiLeaks’ Assange gets relief from left victory in Ecuador

The win in Ecuador’s presidential elections of leftist government candidate Lenin Moreno will likely have provided relief to WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, who had been threatened with eviction from the country’s embassy in London by the opposition candidate.The election in the South American country had aroused interest in part because the conservative opposition candidate, Guillermo Lasso, had said that if elected he would evict Assange within 30 days of assuming  power, because it was costing the country too much to keep him at the embassy.The embassy is being constantly monitored by U.K. police ever since Assange slipped into it in 2012 and was granted asylum by the Ecuador government. Police say they will arrest Assange if he comes out of the embassy to meet an extradition request from Sweden in connection with an investigation into a sexual assault. Assange supporters are concerned that he may be moved from Sweden to the U.S. to face charges in connection with several leaks of confidential U.S. government information.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WikiLeaks’ Assange gets relief from left victory in Ecuador

The win in Ecuador’s presidential elections of leftist government candidate Lenin Moreno will likely have provided relief to WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, who had been threatened with eviction from the country’s embassy in London by the opposition candidate.The election in the South American country had aroused interest in part because the conservative opposition candidate, Guillermo Lasso, had said that if elected he would evict Assange within 30 days of assuming  power, because it was costing the country too much to keep him at the embassy.The embassy is being constantly monitored by U.K. police ever since Assange slipped into it in 2012 and was granted asylum by the Ecuador government. Police say they will arrest Assange if he comes out of the embassy to meet an extradition request from Sweden in connection with an investigation into a sexual assault. Assange supporters are concerned that he may be moved from Sweden to the U.S. to face charges in connection with several leaks of confidential U.S. government information.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Linux Migration: Corporate Collaboration, Part 3

In discussing support for corporate communication and collaboration systems as part of my Linux migration, I’ve so far covered e-mail in part 1 and calendaring in part 2. In this post, I’m going to discuss the last few remaining aspects of corporate collaboration: instant messaging/chat, meetings and teleconferences, and document sharing.

Teleconferences and meetings

The topic of teleconferences and meetings is closely related to calendaring—it’s often necessary to access your calendar or others’ calendars when coordinating meetings or teleconferences—so I encourage you to read part 2 to get a better feel for the challenges around calendaring/scheduling. All the same challenges from that post apply here. GNOME Calendar, although it offers basic Exchange Web Services (EWS) support, does not support meeting invitations, looking up attendees, free/busy information, etc. This makes it completely unusable for setting up meetings. Evolution provides the backend support that GNOME Calendar uses but may be better suited as a frontend; I haven’t tested this functionality so I don’t know. This EWS provider for Lightning does support free/busy information, inviting attendees, etc., so it may be a good option (I’m still testing it).

The second aspect of teleconferences/meetings is the actual conduct of the meeting itself. Hosting Continue reading

iPhone 8 Rumor Rollup: Button in the rear, true tone in front, inside Jony Ive’s head

Yeah, yeah, Samsung introduced the edge-to-edge and physical-home-buttonless Galaxy S8 Android smartphone this week. Now back to iPhone 8 (or iPhone X) rumors and design concepts...BUTTON ON THE BACK A site called iDrop News (we have "obtained exclusive information from a source with intimate knowledge of Apple’s manufacturing facility") got iPhone 8 buzzers buzzing by posting concept designs of the next flagship Apple smartphone ("the iPhone Edition") with the Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the back of the device, beneath the Apple logo. The idea seems to be that the bezel-less front won't allow for the fingerprint scanner there.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Government domain seizure notice on Kodi TV was April Fools’ prank

On Friday March 31 and part of April 1, visitors to kodi.tv saw a US government domain seizure notice as grabbed by the Wayback Machine. It featured logos of the Department of Justice, National Intellectual Property Rights and Homeland Security Investigations above the following message: This domain name has been seized by ICE - Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court under the authority of 18 U.S.C 981 and 2323.Willful copyright infringement is a federal crime that carries penalties for first time offenders of up to five years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine forfeiture and restitution (17 U.S.C 506, 18 U.S.C 2319). Intentionally and knowingly trafficking in counterfeit goods is a federal crime that carries penalties for first time offenders of up to ten years in federal prison, a $2,000,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution (18 U.S.C 2320)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here