The new Mirai strain has gone far beyond Deutsche Telekom

The latest strain of Mirai, the malware that’s been infecting internet routers from Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, has spread to devices in at least 10 other countries, according to security firm Flashpoint.The company has detected the new Mirai strain infecting internet routers and modems across the globe, including in the U.K., Brazil, Iran and Thailand.It’s still unclear how many devices have been infected, but Flashpoint estimates that as many as five million devices are vulnerable. “If even a fraction of these vulnerable devices were compromised, they would add considerable power to an existing botnet,” Flashpoint said in a Tuesday blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Netbox IPAM/DCIM – What all Network Engineers beg for!

We found it!!!

Have you ever sat at your desk, hoping on a miracle, that somebody somewhere will develop a fully comprehensive application for tracking network information???  I know I have, along with millions of other fellow network professional’s I have to assume.  What exactly am I referring to?  IP addresses, vlans, VRF’s, Rack Elevations and on and on and on.  We all have to keep up with this information, for most it is located in spreadsheets; some in notepads; others try to lock it all away in the vast empty space we call a brain.

So, the stage is set.  Yes, there are claims of applications that can keep track of what your CORE router IP address is and what vlan you assigned to one of your customers, or even where in the bloody rack it sits in relation to your other devices.  Some can even keep track of which VRF routing table your management lies in along with which physical port it connects to.  Going a little further, maybe the application claims to give you a basic map layout to which you can refer to…

BUT, very few paid applications actually combine most of these functions into one and very Continue reading

Netbox IPAM/DCIM – What all Network Engineers beg for!

We found it!!!

Have you ever sat at your desk, hoping on a miracle, that somebody somewhere will develop a fully comprehensive application for tracking network information???  I know I have, along with millions of other fellow network professional’s I have to assume.  What exactly am I referring to?  IP addresses, vlans, VRF’s, Rack Elevations and on and on and on.  We all have to keep up with this information, for most it is located in spreadsheets; some in notepads; others try to lock it all away in the vast empty space we call a brain.

So, the stage is set.  Yes, there are claims of applications that can keep track of what your CORE router IP address is and what vlan you assigned to one of your customers, or even where in the bloody rack it sits in relation to your other devices.  Some can even keep track of which VRF routing table your management lies in along with which physical port it connects to.  Going a little further, maybe the application claims to give you a basic map layout to which you can refer to…

BUT, very few paid applications actually combine most of these functions into one and very Continue reading

Pushing Back Against Cheap and Deep Storage

It is not always easy, but several companies dedicated to the supercomputing market have managed to retune their wares to fit more mainstream market niches. This has been true across both the hardware and software subsets of high performance computing, and such efforts have been aided by a well-timed shift in the needs of enterprises toward more robust, compute and data-intensive workhorses as new workloads, most of which are driven by dramatic increases in data volumes and analytical capabilities, keep emerging.

For supercomputer makers, the story is a clear one. However, on the storage side, especially for those select few

Pushing Back Against Cheap and Deep Storage was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

40% off WeMo Wi-Fi Smart Plug, Works with Amazon Alexa – Deal Alert

Did you forget to turn off the window A.C.? How about that curling iron? Want the living room lamp to turn on when the sun goes down—automatically? The Wemo Switch gives you control of your lamps and small appliances whenever you want, wherever you choose, with tons of options for scheduling and automation. Paired with Amazon Alexa, you can control your lamps and appliances with just the power of your voice. When Wemo works with Nest Thermostat, you can set your lights to turn off automatically when you leave the house, and on when you get home again. No central hub or subscription is required. Wemo also has an on/off switch on the unit, in case the Wi-Fi goes down. Compatible with Apple iOS 8 or higher and Android 4.1 or higher. With a list price of $49.99, this 40% discount puts the WeMo Smart Plug at just $29.95.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A year after separation, HP and HPE are still trying to shed rust

Five years ago, then Hewlett-Packard CEO Leo Apotheker was derided for an abrupt plan to spin off the PC division from the mothership. It happened anyway in 2015, when the idea seemed more logical.The spin-off led to the creation of HP, which focuses on PCs and printers, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which focuses on enterprise hardware and the cloud. Now a year after the split, the companies are still trying to shed off the rust as they try to stand on their own legs.Growing pains have afflicted both companies as they try to find their identities. HP and HPE both had to change their business focuses and also shed excess fat, announcing layoffs last month within days of each other.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New partner programs for AWS are aimed at growing Alexa, IoT, and more

While Amazon Web Services touts the self-service capabilities of its cloud, the company also works with a large number of channel partners to help companies migrate to and use its services. The cloud provider announced a suite of updates to its partner programs at its Global Partner Summit keynote in Las Vegas on Tuesday. The updates are focused on helping customers get increased use of Amazon’s cloud services and getting partners to invest further in AWS. The keynote was an opportunity for the cloud provider to make a hard sell to the companies that will help businesses adopt Amazon’s cloud services. Partners shouldn’t hedge their investment in the public cloud, but should instead commit to supporting one provider deeply and aggressively, AWS CEO Andy Jassy said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tips for building SD-WANs

The substantially high cost of MPLS circuits ($200-$400/Mbps/month) compared to easily deployed, lower cost broadband Internet (with a price tag of $1/Mbps/month) has triggered a shift in enterprise architectures to the software defined WAN. SD-WAN provides the flexibility to choose the most optimal transport and dynamically steer traffic over a mix of MPLS circuits, the public Internet, or even wireless LTE circuits.  The access transport selection depends on a variety of factors, including the type of application, traffic profile, security requirements, QoS and network loss and latency. When implemented correctly, SD-WAN truly has significant advantages: Faster service deployment, increased flexibility, unified management and improved application performance, to name a few. But, while familiarity about SD-WAN has increased over the last year, a survey by Silver Peak and IDG shows only 27% of small- to mid-sized enterprises have shifted to SD-WAN.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tips for building SD-WANs

The substantially high cost of MPLS circuits ($200-$400/Mbps/month) compared to easily deployed, lower cost broadband Internet (with a price tag of $1/Mbps/month) has triggered a shift in enterprise architectures to the software defined WAN. SD-WAN provides the flexibility to choose the most optimal transport and dynamically steer traffic over a mix of MPLS circuits, the public Internet, or even wireless LTE circuits. 

The access transport selection depends on a variety of factors, including the type of application, traffic profile, security requirements, QoS and network loss and latency. When implemented correctly, SD-WAN truly has significant advantages: Faster service deployment, increased flexibility, unified management and improved application performance, to name a few. But, while familiarity about SD-WAN has increased over the last year, a survey by Silver Peak and IDG shows only 27% of small- to mid-sized enterprises have shifted to SD-WAN.

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

Tips for building SD-WANs

The substantially high cost of MPLS circuits ($200-$400/Mbps/month) compared to easily deployed, lower cost broadband Internet (with a price tag of $1/Mbps/month) has triggered a shift in enterprise architectures to the software defined WAN. SD-WAN provides the flexibility to choose the most optimal transport and dynamically steer traffic over a mix of MPLS circuits, the public Internet, or even wireless LTE circuits.  The access transport selection depends on a variety of factors, including the type of application, traffic profile, security requirements, QoS and network loss and latency. When implemented correctly, SD-WAN truly has significant advantages: Faster service deployment, increased flexibility, unified management and improved application performance, to name a few. But, while familiarity about SD-WAN has increased over the last year, a survey by Silver Peak and IDG shows only 27% of small- to mid-sized enterprises have shifted to SD-WAN.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Isolation technologies create an “air gap” to eliminate the risk of malware

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.

Like the threat landscape itself, web gateways have changed over the years. Back in the 1990s, organizations primarily used them to prevent employees from wasting time surfing the web – or worse, from visiting gambling, adult and other unauthorized websites. Today web gateways do much more than enforce regulatory compliance and HR policies. Whether they are implemented on-premise or as cloud-based services, organizations rely on web gateways to thwart Internet-borne threats delivered through users’ browsers.

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

Isolation technologies create an “air gap” to eliminate the risk of malware

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.Like the threat landscape itself, web gateways have changed over the years. Back in the 1990s, organizations primarily used them to prevent employees from wasting time surfing the web – or worse, from visiting gambling, adult and other unauthorized websites. Today web gateways do much more than enforce regulatory compliance and HR policies. Whether they are implemented on-premise or as cloud-based services, organizations rely on web gateways to thwart Internet-borne threats delivered through users’ browsers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Isolation technologies create an “air gap” to eliminate the risk of malware

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.Like the threat landscape itself, web gateways have changed over the years. Back in the 1990s, organizations primarily used them to prevent employees from wasting time surfing the web – or worse, from visiting gambling, adult and other unauthorized websites. Today web gateways do much more than enforce regulatory compliance and HR policies. Whether they are implemented on-premise or as cloud-based services, organizations rely on web gateways to thwart Internet-borne threats delivered through users’ browsers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HPE Takes On The High End With SGI Expertise

SGI has always had scalable technology that should have been deployed more broadly in the academic, government, and enterprise datacenters of the world. But fighting for those budget dollars at the high end of the market always came down to needing more feet on the street, a larger global footprint for service and support, and broader certification of software stacks to exploit that SGI iron.

Now that Hewlett Packard Enterprise owns SGI – or more precisely, owns its operations in the United States and will finish off its acquisition, announced in August, probably sometime in the middle of next

HPE Takes On The High End With SGI Expertise was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Spooked by Trump, Internet Archive looks to make a copy of itself … in Canada

The folks who run the indispensable Internet Archive Wayback Machine, among other services, have seen the future of a Trump Administration and it scares them enough to spur the creation of the Internet Archive of Canada … just in case.From the organization’s blog post today: The history of libraries is one of loss.  The Library of Alexandria is best known for its disappearance.Libraries like ours are susceptible to different fault lines: Earthquakes, legal regimes, institutional failure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows could get design language overhaul

Microsoft is reported to be working on a new design language, which affects how the UI looks and functions, that will eventually be rolled into one of the major Windows 10 updates coming out next year. Windows Central said Microsoft is working on what it called Microsoft Design Language 2 (MDL2), or Project NEON. A design language is a term that refers to a language for how controls, fonts and iconography in the desktop and mobile versions of Windows 10 are controlled. It manages things such as switches, toggles, pickers and dialog windows. You know and hate MDL1 already. It was Metro, introduced in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7. It introduced the flat, dull UI instead of the more 3D-looking skeuomorphism that iOS and Android were adopting. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here