IDG Contributor Network: How a rebirth at the edge will change the cloud

For enterprise IT, the cloud has finally reached the tipping point. It is no longer a question of whether cloud is part of the strategic plan for most organizations, but simply when and how they will realize the move to cloud.If you’re an IT leader, however, you may not want to get too comfortable with your cloud strategy.Despite having just fully arrived in the cloud era, we are about to move on—at least according to Peter Levine of Andreessen Horowitz.As 2016 wrapped up, Levine gave a talk in which he made his provocative prediction: Cloud computing is coming to an end.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tech stance against immigration ban aims to protect employees

The 97 tech firms who have joined forces to oppose President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration say they are looking to protect their employees as well as their business interests."The order makes it more difficult and expensive for U.S. companies to recruit, hire, and retain some of the world's best employees," the court brief reads. "It disrupts ongoing business operations. And it threatens companies' ability to attract talent, business, and investment to the United States."INSIDER 12 habits of successful tech CEO The list of firms who signed onto the friend-of-the-court brief includes Airbnb, Apple, Facebook, GitHub, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter and Yelp. The move comes in response to the executive order signed on Jan. 27 that temporarily bars citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, as well as all refugees, from entering the United States.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump’s ban becomes an H-1B fight

The U.S. technology industry warned President Donald Trump that his immigration order will hurt the U.S. economy by making it more difficult for businesses to attract overseas workers. The administration's seven-country ban is, for the tech industry, a blinking caution sign to the world's highly skilled population delivering this message: Come here at your own risk.Tech firms see the market for highly skilled workers as being "globally competitive," and any changes to immigration rules may inhibit their ability to recruit overseas. Most of these companies hire Indian nationals, who account for as many 70 percent of the H-1B visa holders.[ To comment on this story, visit Computerworld's H-1B & IT Outsourcing Facebook group. ] Two hundred and fifty-one H-1B visa applications for people born in the seven banned countries were approved in fiscal year 2015 for computer-related jobs, according to a Computerworld analysis of government immigration data for that year. If new and renewed H-1B visas are counted for multiple years, the number will rise. The seven countries where the immigration ban would apply are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

60% off YOCOU 5-Channel Cable Management System, 6-piece – Deal Alert

Twisted, tangled cords and wires are an eyesore. Organize your space with this simple 6-piece cable management system that works for power cords, charging cables, USB cords, phone chargers, audio cables, headphones, or any other wire up to 1/4-inch diameter. The cord organizers are made of a soft, flexibile material, will not damage your desk and cables, also you can remove it easily without damage or residue. The bundle includes four 5-channel clips (two black and two white), one single-slot clip and one double-slot clip as well. Its list price of $20 is discounted to $8. See it on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5G starts with chips like IBM and Ericsson’s silicon antenna

A piece of silicon less than three inches across may speed up the arrival of 5G mobile networks in the next few years.IBM Research and Ericsson have developed a compact antenna array that can aim high-frequency radio signals at mobile devices and shoot them farther than they otherwise could reach, the companies said. Silicon integration makes it thin and energy efficient so it’s more commercially viable.Carriers expect 5G networks to deliver cellular data speeds in the gigabits per second, far faster than what today’s LTE services offer. They also expect benefits like less power consumption, lower latency and the ability to serve a lot more devices at the same time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Millennials can thrive by adding mainframe skills

As older IT workers retire, the industry is in danger of losing critical mainframe technology skills. But tapping millennials to fill these critical roles is helping to keep innovation alive."Credit cards, insurance companies, banks, government systems -- for any kind of large batch systems that use transactions like that, the mainframe is still the best at what it does from a processing speed and security perspective. That's why it lives on. And it sustains within large enterprises because there's no comparable cloud derivative, for one, and there's often millions of lines of proprietary, unique code that would be unreasonable to rework for another type of platform," says Chris O'Malley, president and CEO, Compuware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

14 Python libraries too good to overlook

Hidden gems: 14 Python libraries too good to overlookImage by InfoWorldWant a good reason for Python's smashing success as a language? Look no further than its massive collection of libraries, both native and third party. With so many libraries out there, though, it's no surprise some get crowded out and don't quite grab the attention they deserve. Plus, programmers who work exclusively in one domain don't always know about the goodies that may be available to them through libraries created for other kinds of work.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

7 musts for any successful BYOD program

A mobile workforceImage by PexelsToday, employee mobility and office BYOD programs are critical for enterprise productivity. Mobile devices add new security challenges, bypassing many of the security controls you have in place. Mobile devices, mobile apps and the networks they use are now essential to satisfy customers, collaborate more effectively with suppliers, and keep employees productive anytime and anywhere.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

7 musts for any successful BYOD program

A mobile workforceImage by PexelsToday, employee mobility and office BYOD programs are critical for enterprise productivity. Mobile devices add new security challenges, bypassing many of the security controls you have in place. Mobile devices, mobile apps and the networks they use are now essential to satisfy customers, collaborate more effectively with suppliers, and keep employees productive anytime and anywhere.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to protect your privacy with a VPN on Android

Using a VPN on Android can help you access content that’s blocked in your region and help maintain your anonymity around the web. There are plenty of apps that offer VPN services for free and as a paid service, but which of them are worth your time?I tested six of the most popular VPN all-in-one apps (with Speedtest and the speedof.me HTML5 test) on Android to see how they stack up. You can also go your own way and use Android’s built-in VPN tool. With a few tweaks, you can make it a little easier to use, too.Why use a VPN? A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is basically a way to funnel all your web traffic through a remote server. This makes it look like you’re in a different location and obscures your real IP address. VPNs encrypt the traffic passing through them, making it harder for anyone else to listen in on your connection, even if you connect to an unsecured Wi-Fi network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to protect your privacy with a VPN on Android

Using a VPN on Android can help you access content that’s blocked in your region and help maintain your anonymity around the web. There are plenty of apps that offer VPN services for free and as a paid service, but which of them are worth your time?I tested six of the most popular VPN all-in-one apps (with Speedtest and the speedof.me HTML5 test) on Android to see how they stack up. You can also go your own way and use Android’s built-in VPN tool. With a few tweaks, you can make it a little easier to use, too.Why use a VPN? A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is basically a way to funnel all your web traffic through a remote server. This makes it look like you’re in a different location and obscures your real IP address. VPNs encrypt the traffic passing through them, making it harder for anyone else to listen in on your connection, even if you connect to an unsecured Wi-Fi network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

7 job boards that focus on remote tech jobs

(Insider Story)

Criminals release fewer new types of malware last year, double down on ransomware

Cybercriminals have been producing fewer new kinds of malware last year -- but that's because they're so busy raking in the money from their ransomware attacks.The number of unique malware samples discovered last year was 60 million, down 6.25 percent from last year's 64 million, according to a report released this morning by SonicWall."This is the first time I've seen that the number of unique malware samples actually decreased," said Dmitriy Ayrapetov, director of product management at SonicWall, which produced the report, based on data collections from more than a million sensors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Criminals release fewer new types of malware last year, double down on ransomware

Cybercriminals have been producing fewer new kinds of malware last year -- but that's because they're so busy raking in the money from their ransomware attacks.The number of unique malware samples discovered last year was 60 million, down 6.25 percent from last year's 64 million, according to a report released this morning by SonicWall."This is the first time I've seen that the number of unique malware samples actually decreased," said Dmitriy Ayrapetov, director of product management at SonicWall, which produced the report, based on data collections from more than a million sensors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DCNM ISSU: Disaster or Triumph? Let’s Find Out.

If you’ve recovered from the shock of hearing me say something positive about Cisco’s Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) product, then you’ll want to hold on tightly to your underbritches as I tell you that I just used DCNM ISSU to perform disruptive software upgrades on eight of the switches in my ethernet fabric, and–spoiler alert–it was actually a fairly pleasant experience!

DCNM ISSU

DCNM offers management of ISSU (In-Service Software Upgrade). ISSU usually implies some kind of hitless (to the revenue ports) upgrade, historically made possible on the Nexus 7000, for example, by having dual supervisor modules and using Non-Stop Forwarding (NSF) to keep the forwarding plane intact while the supervisors failover. With the single-CPU layer-2 Nexus 5600 switches, however, the data plane can be told to continue forwarding frames while the control plane reboots with new code, allowing for an upgrade to take place without interruption.

Disruptive Upgrades

Unfortunately it’s not always possible to perform a non-disruptive upgrade. The code version I was installing included a fix to the linecard BIOS, so the linecards had to be reloaded as well as the main CPU. In other words, the switch has to be rebooted after the upgrade, and there’s Continue reading

Report: IRS-related phishing scams seen running rampant

If this year is anything like last we are in the midst of phishers’ attempts to trick taxpayers, employers and tax preparers into giving up information that will allow attackers to file bogus tax returns and collect IRS refunds, according to PhishLabs’ annual phishing report.The latest Phishing Trends and Intelligence Report, which has data about January 2016, says that the IRS phishing sites spotted in that one month totaled more than the IRS phishing attempts seen during all of the previous year. While the numbers for this January aren’t in yet, PhishLabs researchers expect yet another spike.That’s because last year, 40 businesses that phishers asked for their employees’ W2 forms actually sent them to the scammers, says Crane Hassold, a senior security threat researcher at PhishLabs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Report: IRS-related phishing scams seen running rampant

If this year is anything like last we are in the midst of phishers’ attempts to trick taxpayers, employers and tax preparers into giving up information that will allow attackers to file bogus tax returns and collect IRS refunds, according to PhishLabs’ annual phishing report.The latest Phishing Trends and Intelligence Report, which has data about January 2016, says that the IRS phishing sites spotted in that one month totaled more than the IRS phishing attempts seen during all of the previous year. While the numbers for this January aren’t in yet, PhishLabs researchers expect yet another spike.That’s because last year, 40 businesses that phishers asked for their employees’ W2 forms actually sent them to the scammers, says Crane Hassold, a senior security threat researcher at PhishLabs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A New Twist On Adding Data Persistence To Containers

Containers continue to gain momentum as organizations look for greater efficiencies and lower costs to run distributed applications in their increasingly virtualized datacenters as well as for improving their application development environments. As we have noted before, containers are becoming more common in the enterprise, though they still have a way to go before being fully embraced in high performance computing circles.

There are myriad advantages to containers, from being able to spin them up much faster than virtual machine instances on hypervisors and to pack more containers than virtual machines on a host system to gaining efficiencies …

A New Twist On Adding Data Persistence To Containers was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Intel Atom SoC bricking more than Cisco products

Looks like the culprit in the recent Cisco debacle is the Intel Atom “System on Chip” (SoC) that Cisco used in it’s gear. My sources within Cisco won’t give up the goods, but many seem to be pointing to Cisco, although a single source at Cisco seemed to indicate there was another player included in this issue but wouldn’t comment. The real footing of these Intel accusations come from Intel itself. Back in Janurary 2017, they updated their spec document documenting an issue with the LPC clock on the Atom s2000, with no workaround and a system that is unable to boot, this depicts a grim outlook for our networking devices.

The news gets worse though, according to a recent article from The Register Cisco isn’t the only one experiencing issues.

For now, only time will tell what other devices are going to come out Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: 5 things to know about Cisco and AppDynamics

On Jan. 24, I attended a Cisco Spark event in San Francisco. The day started with a keynote by Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Collaboration. He also ended the day at event receptions. However, my afternoon meeting with Rowan was abruptly canceled with little explanation.As it happens, Rowan had to skip out during his own event to spend $3.7 billion to acquire AppDynamics. Although the news broke before the day’s end, nothing was mentioned at the Cisco Spark event, which was laser-focused on its new Spark Board.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here