Don’t Leave Features Lying Around

Many years ago, when multicast was still a “thing” everyone expected to spread throughout the Internet itself, a lot of work went into specifying not only IP multicast control planes, but also IP multicast control planes for interdomain use (between autonomous systems). BGP was modified to support IP multicast, for instance, in order to connect IP multicast groups from sender to receiver across the entire ‘net. One of these various efforts was a protocol called the Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol, or DVMRP. The general idea behind DVMRP was to extend many of the already well-known mechanisms for signaling IP multicast with interdomain counterparts. Specifically, this meant extending IGMP to operate across provider networks, rather than within a single network.

As you can imagine, one problem with any sort of interdomain effort is troubleshooting—how will an operator be able to troubleshoot problems with interdomain IGMP messages sources from outside their network? There is no way to log into another provider’s network (some silliness around competition, I would imagine), so something else was needed. Hence the idea of being able to query a router for information about its connected interfaces, multicast neighbors, and other information, was written up in draft-ietf-idmr-dvmrp-v3-11 (which Continue reading

Skype for Business admins get tool to diagnose call problems

IT administrators managing fleets of Skype for Business users could have an easier time diagnosing and fixing problems. Microsoft unveiled the beta of a new Call Analytics Dashboard on Monday, which is supposed to provide admins with a diagnosis of issues that users are having on a call.There are several different issues that could arise and cause a degradation in call quality, which is why these analytics are helpful. If a user complains about a call only working intermittently, it can be hard to diagnose whether that’s an issue with their network connection, headset, Microsoft’s infrastructure, or something else.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Faster Networks + Cheaper Messages => Microservices => Functions => Edge

When Adrian Cockroft—the guy who helped put the loud in Cloud through his energetic evangelism of Cloud Native and Microservice architectures—talks about what’s next, it pays to listen. And you can listen, here’s a fascinating forward looking talk he gave at microXchg 2017: Shrinking Microservices to Functions. It’s typically Cockroftian: understated, thoughtful, and full of insight drawn from experience.

Adrian makes a compelling case that the same technology drivers, faster networking and cheaper messaging, that drove the move to Microservices are now driving the move to Functions.

The payoffs are all those you’ve no doubt heard about Serverless for some time, but Adrian develops them in an interesting way. He traces how architectures have evolved over time. Take a look at my gloss of his talk for more details.

What’s next after Functions? Adrian talks about pushing Lambda functions to the edge. A topic I’m excited about and have been interested in for sometime, though I didn’t quite see it playing out like this.

Datacenters disappear. Functions are not running in an AWS region anymore, code is placed near the customer using a CDN at CDN endpoints. Now you have a fully distributed, at the edge, low Continue reading

This augmented reality app will help you to furnish your home

Will that new couch fit in my living room? How about that table, is it too big for the space? In the old days you would have to break out a tape measure to see if furniture fits or just imagine it’s coloring in the room. But thanks to advancements in augmented reality, you can now see exactly it will look like in your home before you buy it. Home décor retailer Pottery Barn has released a new app named 3D Room View that will implant a virtual three-dimensional image select furniture pieces on a smartphone or tablet screen, allowing the customer to get an augmented reality view of what the couch, seat, table, lamp or chair will look like in the room.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Not the sort of publicity Avaya was seeking

No doubt many a soccer fan has been inspired to pick up a fancy call center package or some sweet, sweet SDN technology after catching a San Jose Earthquakes soccer match at Avaya Stadium, but the company found its brand splattered all over headlines it would rather have avoided after an ugly incident at the field on Sunday. My Google Alert on Avaya, used mainly to help keep track of the company's product announcements and business drama (Chapter 11 filing, networking business sale to Extreme, etc.), started blowing up this morning:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Not the sort of publicity Avaya was seeking

No doubt many a soccer fan has been inspired to pick up a fancy call center package or some sweet, sweet SDN technology after catching a San Jose Earthquakes soccer match at Avaya Stadium, but the company found its brand splattered all over headlines it would rather have avoided after an ugly incident at the field on Sunday. My Google Alert on Avaya, used mainly to help keep track of the company's product announcements and business drama (Chapter 11 filing, networking business sale to Extreme, etc.), started blowing up this morning:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 burning questions with new IETF Chair and Cisco Fellow Alissa Cooper

When the Internet Engineering Task Force meets this week in Chicago it will have a new chair – Cisco Fellow Alissa Cooper. Cooper will be the first woman to hold the position as the standards-setting body continues its work to improve all things internet technology-related.The Stanford and Oxford graduate comes to the job having worked with Cisco since 2014 in its collaboration business and the IETF since 2008.Jonathan Rosenberg, Cisco Fellow and Vice President, CTO for Cisco's Collaboration Business [who has authored many of the internet standards that define modern telecoms, including the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)], and Cooper’s boss wrote that “Alissa has a long history of contributions to the IETF, serving most recently as the area director for the set of working groups that produce real-time communications protocols like SIP. Alissa, who was recently appointed to Cisco’s top technical rank of Cisco Fellow, takes the IETF reins in an exciting time. Areas like IoT, SDN, and NFV are requiring significant attention and making big impacts on the industry.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 burning questions with new IETF Chair and Cisco Fellow Alissa Cooper

When the Internet Engineering Task Force meets this week in Chicago it will have a new chair – Cisco Fellow Alissa Cooper. Cooper will be the first woman to hold the position as the standards-setting body continues its work to improve all things internet technology-related.The Stanford and Oxford graduate comes to the job having worked with Cisco since 2014 in its collaboration business and the IETF since 2008.Jonathan Rosenberg, Cisco Fellow and Vice President, CTO for Cisco's Collaboration Business [who has authored many of the internet standards that define modern telecoms, including the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)], and Cooper’s boss wrote that “Alissa has a long history of contributions to the IETF, serving most recently as the area director for the set of working groups that produce real-time communications protocols like SIP. Alissa, who was recently appointed to Cisco’s top technical rank of Cisco Fellow, takes the IETF reins in an exciting time. Areas like IoT, SDN, and NFV are requiring significant attention and making big impacts on the industry.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Organizations need strategic and proactive threat intelligence programs

In 2015, ESG did an in-depth research project on cyber threat intelligence usage at enterprise organizations (i.e. more than 1,000 employees). The goal of this project was to determine how large firms were using threat intelligence, what challenges they faced, how they were addressing these challenges and what their strategies were moving forward.The research revealed that many threat intelligence programs were relatively immature—40 percent of threat intelligence programs had been in place fewer than two years at that time. Cybersecurity professionals were also asked to identify the top objectives for their organization’s threat intelligence program. The top results were as follows:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Organizations need strategic and proactive threat intelligence programs

In 2015, ESG did an in-depth research project on cyber threat intelligence usage at enterprise organizations (i.e. more than 1,000 employees). The goal of this project was to determine how large firms were using threat intelligence, what challenges they faced, how they were addressing these challenges and what their strategies were moving forward.The research revealed that many threat intelligence programs were relatively immature—40 percent of threat intelligence programs had been in place fewer than two years at that time. Cybersecurity professionals were also asked to identify the top objectives for their organization’s threat intelligence program. The top results were as follows:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook Pushes The Search Envelope With GPUs

An increasing amount of the world’s data is encapsulated in images and video and by its very nature it is difficult and extremely compute intensive to do any kind of index and search against this data compared to the relative ease with which we can do so with the textual information that heretofore has dominated both our corporate and consumer lives.

Initially, we had to index images by hand and it is with these datasets that the hyperscalers pushed the envelope with their image recognition algorithms, evolving neural network software on CPUs and radically improving it with a jump to

Facebook Pushes The Search Envelope With GPUs was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Linux Action Show ends after 10-year run

What follows is all about Linux podcasts—something I’ve spent a fairly ridiculous amount of time on over the last decade or so. So, this post is basically inside baseball—for Linux podcasts. You’ve been warned.--------------------------------------------------This past Sunday, Jupiter Broadcasting announced the Linux Action Show—one of the longest-running podcasts in the Linux world, which has aired almost continuously since June 10, 2006—is coming to an end and closing down production.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Webinar recap: Docker 101 for federal government

Docker is driving a movement for IT teams across all industries to modernize their applications with container technology. Government agencies, like private sector companies face similar pressures to accelerate software development while reduce overall IT costs and adopting new technologies and practices like cloud, DevOps and more.

This webinar titled “Docker 101 for the Federal Government” features Andrew Weiss, Docker Federal Sales Engineer and breaks down the core concepts of Docker and how it applies to government IT environments and unique regulatory compliance requirements. The presentation highlights how Docker Enterprise Edition can help agencies build a secure cloud-first government.

Docker Federal

Watch the on-demand webinar to learn how Docker is transforming the way government agencies deliver secure, reliable, and scalable services to organizations and citizens.

Here are the questions from the live session:

Q: Is Docker Datacenter available both hosted and as a cloud offering?

A: Docker Datacenter is now a part of Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) – providing integrated container management and security from development to production. Docker EE provides a unified software supply chain for all apps—commercial off the shelf, homegrown monoliths to modern microservices written for Windows or Linux environments on any server, VM or cloud. Docker EE Continue reading

Microsoft’s Docs.com is sharing dangerously sensitive personal files and information

If you use Microsoft’s Docs.com to store personal documents, stop reading this and make sure you aren’t inadvertently leaking your private information to the world.Microsoft sets any documents uploaded to the document sharing site as public by default—though it appears that many users aren’t aware of it. That means anyone can search Docs.com for sensitive personal information that wasn’t manually set private. PCWorld found social security numbers, health insurance ID numbers, bank records, job applications, personal contact details, legal correspondence, and drivers license numbers with just a few minutes of searching.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s Docs.com is sharing dangerously sensitive personal files and information

If you use Microsoft’s Docs.com to store personal documents, stop reading this and make sure you aren’t inadvertently leaking your private information to the world.Microsoft sets any documents uploaded to the document sharing site as public by default—though it appears that many users aren’t aware of it. That means anyone can search Docs.com for sensitive personal information that wasn’t manually set private. PCWorld found social security numbers, health insurance ID numbers, bank records, job applications, personal contact details, legal correspondence, and drivers license numbers with just a few minutes of searching.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fortinet CISO on securing critical infrastructure: ‘We can no longer bring a knife to a gunfight’

Earlier this year Fortinet hired its first chief information security officer (CISO). The timing makes sense, as the company has grown into a leading security vendor with an integrated, security fabric vision that few competitors can match.As Fortinet continues to expand its presence in the federal and critical infrastructure markets, CISO Philip Quade brings the credentials and background needed to help lead the strategy. Prior to joining Fortinet, Quade was the NSA director’s special assistant for cyber and chief of the NSA Cyber Task Force. Before that, he was chief operating officer of the Information Assurance Directorate at the NSA.I recently talked with Quade regarding his new role and the challenges the United States and businesses in general face with respect to security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fortinet CISO on securing critical infrastructure: ‘We can no longer bring a knife to a gunfight’

Earlier this year Fortinet hired its first chief information security officer (CISO). The timing makes sense, as the company has grown into a leading security vendor with an integrated, security fabric vision that few competitors can match.As Fortinet continues to expand its presence in the federal and critical infrastructure markets, CISO Philip Quade brings the credentials and background needed to help lead the strategy. Prior to joining Fortinet, Quade was the NSA director’s special assistant for cyber and chief of the NSA Cyber Task Force. Before that, he was chief operating officer of the Information Assurance Directorate at the NSA.I recently talked with Quade regarding his new role and the challenges the United States and businesses in general face with respect to security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here