Microsoft extends the lifecycle of Windows Server and SQL Server

In recent years, Microsoft has made enormous efforts to get people to migrate off products that had reached their end of life. In 2014, it was Windows XP. In 2015, it was Windows Server 2003. This year it was SQL Server 2005. So, knowing what the company went through to make people migrate makes this latest bit of news somewhat baffling. Microsoft has quietly announced the addition of a third tier to its product lifecycle, expanding the lifespan of both Windows Server and SQL Server by an additional six years. Microsoft usually offers two tiers of lifecycle support covering a 10-year lifespan. The first five years, known as Mainstream support, include new features as well as security and non-security updates. The last five years, covering Extended support, has security and non-security updates, but no new features are added to the product. After that, all support ceases. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft extends the lifecycle of Windows Server and SQL Server

In recent years, Microsoft has made enormous efforts to get people to migrate off products that had reached their end of life. In 2014, it was Windows XP. In 2015, it was Windows Server 2003. This year it was SQL Server 2005. So, knowing what the company went through to make people migrate makes this latest bit of news somewhat baffling. Microsoft has quietly announced the addition of a third tier to its product lifecycle, expanding the lifespan of both Windows Server and SQL Server by an additional six years. Microsoft usually offers two tiers of lifecycle support covering a 10-year lifespan. The first five years, known as Mainstream support, include new features as well as security and non-security updates. The last five years, covering Extended support, has security and non-security updates, but no new features are added to the product. After that, all support ceases. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BrandPost: As Workplace Collaboration Evolves, Wireless Audio Conferencing Plays a Key Role

The nature of the workplace is changing dramatically. Project teams are typically more geographically dispersed and more mobile. And yet, in some ways they remain more connected than ever. More than 8 in 10 managers in a 2016 Millward Brown survey, conducted on behalf of Sennheiser, said meetings aimed at flexibly bringing together experts from different sites helped their business, in terms of saving time and other factors. While the cloud and mobile technologies have made it easier for team members to collaborate virtually using group chat and similar tools, audio conferencing remains one of the most effective ways for teams to communicate. The challenge is that legacy conferencing technology has not kept pace with the changing needs of organizations. Who doesn’t have a horror story of a conference call featuring team members huddled around a speaker phone, straining to hear remote team members speaking over a poor-quality connection? Other times, it can be difficult to simply find a room with the proper conferencing setup.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Network Time Protocol

Of these most important Internet protocols, NTP (Network Time Protocol) is the likely least understood and has the least attention and support. Until very recently, it was supported (part-time) by just one person — Harlen Stenn — “who had lost the root passwords to the machine where the source code was maintained (so that machine hadn’t received security updates in many years), and that machine ran a proprietary source-control system that almost no one had access to, so it was very hard to contribute to”. —CircleID

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Video: ONUG Fall 2016 – Part 1- People, Place and Stuff

I did a video blog and published it to Youtube.

The post Video: ONUG Fall 2016 – Part 1- People, Place and Stuff appeared first on EtherealMind.

IT Spending Expected To Pick Up In 2017

Paper in a digital world: Time to eliminate the inefficiency and waste

Every day we are reminded that we live in a digital age. We read the news on our smart phones. We read books on our Kindles. We do our banking online. Yet we’re still drowning in paper.  In 2016, humans created more than half a billion tons of paper, and U.S. offices use more than 12.1 trillion sheets of paper a year. It’s no wonder that more than a quarter of all landfill waste is paper. Not only is this an environmental tragedy, but it is also a monument to inefficiency because paper does not give enterprises the business intelligence and insight they need to succeed. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Paper in a digital world: Time to eliminate the inefficiency and waste

Every day we are reminded that we live in a digital age. We read the news on our smart phones. We read books on our Kindles. We do our banking online. Yet we’re still drowning in paper.  In 2016, humans created more than half a billion tons of paper, and U.S. offices use more than 12.1 trillion sheets of paper a year. It’s no wonder that more than a quarter of all landfill waste is paper. Not only is this an environmental tragedy, but it is also a monument to inefficiency because paper does not give enterprises the business intelligence and insight they need to succeed. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

snaproute Go BGP Code Dive (14): First Steps in Processing an Update

In the last post on this topic, we found the tail of the update chain. The actual event appears to be processed here—

case BGPEventUpdateMsg:
  st.fsm.StartHoldTimer()
  bgpMsg := data.(*packet.BGPMessage)
  st.fsm.ProcessUpdateMessage(bgpMsg)

—which is found around line 734 of fsm.go. The second line of code in this snippet is interesting; it’s a little difficult to understand what it’s actually doing. There are three crucial elements to figuring out what is going on here—

:=, in go, is a way of appending the information in a data structure with more information. So, for instance, if you do something like this—

a-string = "this is a"
a-string := " string"

The result, in a-string, is this is a string. Whatever else this snippet is doing, then, it is taking something out of the data structure, and appending it to the bgpMsg structure. What, precisely, is it taking from the data structure?

The * (asterisk) is a way to reference a pointer within a structure. We’ve not talked about pointers before, so it’s worth spending just a moment with them. The illustration below will help a bit.

Each letter in the string “this is a string” Continue reading

6 strategies for becoming a digital business

If your company’s digital transformation has stalled, gone off-track or hasn’t even started, it’s time to kick it into high gear. According to a Forrester Research report, “by 2020, every business will become either a digital predator or digital prey.” To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Gates, Bezos, others launch energy tech VC fund

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son are investors in a new clean energy technology venture firm launched Monday.Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a US$1 billion venture capital fund, will focus on "next generation technologies to provide reliable, affordable, zero-carbon energy, food, and products to the world," according to its website.Other investors include Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Chairman John Doerr.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft Ventures launches AI-focused fund

Microsoft Ventures has launched an artificial intelligence investment fund, signaling its parent company's growing focus on the emerging technology.The VC arm of Microsoft has also funded Element AI, an incubator to help organizations embrace an AI-first strategy, Nagraj Kashyap, corporate vice president of Microsoft Ventures, said Monday in a blog post."AI holds great promise to augment human capabilities and improve society by tackling some of the world’s biggest problems," Kashyap wrote. "We’ll make investments in startups that are responsibly harnessing the promise of AI to empower people and businesses."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Survey: Despite costly attacks, 85% of business leaders confident in preparedness

Eighty-five percent of organizations believe they have the right controls in place to protect against such attacks. Yet, 40 percent of them have been victims of cyber attacks within the last six months.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Survey: Despite costly attacks, 85% of business leaders confident in preparedness

Eighty-five percent of organizations believe they have the right controls in place to protect against such attacks. Yet, 40 percent of them have been victims of cyber attacks within the last six months.That’s the finding of a recent survey sponsored by BAE Systems.Why the disconnect?[Related: 3 ingredients of a successful attack] It’s one thing to believe you have the right protections in place; it’s another thing to test those beliefs. The survey of 600 business leaders across five countries found that “only 29% of organizations tested their attack response in the last month. On average, organizations last tested their cyber attack response 5 months ago.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

8 big data predictions for 2017

Market research and advisory firm Ovum estimates the big data market will grow from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $9.4 billion by 2020. As the market grows, enterprise challenges are shifting, skills requirements are changing, and the vendor landscape is morphing. The coming year promises to be a busy one for big data pros. Here are some predictions from industry watchers and technology players.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

8 big data predictions for 2017

Market research and advisory firm Ovum estimates the big data market will grow from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $9.4 billion by 2020. As the market grows, enterprise challenges are shifting, skills requirements are changing, and the vendor landscape is morphing. The coming year promises to be a busy one for big data pros. Here are some predictions from industry watchers and technology players.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Vodafone Uses Nokia Gear to Test Cloud RAN

Operator says test proved cloud RAN can provide same level of service as traditional networks.

ITC Judge Finds Arista Infringed 2 More Cisco Patents

The companies spar in federal court this week, too.

Should journalists be worried about the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act?

With previous anti-First Amendment statements by President-elect Donald Trump, there has been some worry by journalists that writing something the soon-to-be President doesn’t like may result in unpleasant consequences. Yet that is not the same thing as reporting “fake” news or spreading disinformation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Should journalists be worried about the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act?

With previous anti-First Amendment statements by President-elect Donald Trump, there has been some worry by journalists that writing something the soon-to-be President doesn’t like may result in unpleasant consequences. Yet that is not the same thing as reporting “fake” news or spreading disinformation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here