The Changing Landscape of Selling in the Age of SDN

There are massive waves of technology upheaval taking place in the marketplace, causing disruption and providing a challenge to technology salespeople who are used to selling in the traditional ways. Cloud, Automation, Mobility, Adaptive Security and the Internet of Things are just a few of the major changes affecting the landscape right now. And while these technologies are certainly challenging in their own right, there is one technology that stands on it’s own, not only in terms of how technology decisions are made, but also how technology is bought.

That technology is Software Defined Networking (SDN). SDN is causing a fundamental shift in the way that technology is procured. There is a major shift away from buying point products and technologies which only meet a specific need and instead looking at the bigger picture with an aim of technology procurement fitting into a larger ecosystem that is providing broader solutions, enabling shorter ROI and better business agility.

Application-Centricity Creates New Stakeholders

The buying process used to be relatively straightforward, and different technology groups within an organization could procure technology within their own silo with little regard to how it fit within the broader ecosystem. Often times, the technology implemented would dictate and limit what applications could Continue reading

Raspberry Pi 3 gets low-bandwith LTE with add-on chip

Raspberry Pi 3 today has only Wi-Fi connectivity, but soon it will also be able to handle low-throughput cellular communications and let users control devices over long distances.Altair has completed testing of its ALT1160 Category 1 LTE chip on Raspberry Pi, and is now making it available, a company representative said. That's significant, as it will bring much-needed, long-range communications to the popular board computer.The LTE chip is ready for sale by Altair and its partners, a company representative said. The chip will be included in various third-party add-on LTE expansion boards and sensor modules for Raspberry Pi; otherwise, Altair will take volume orders for the chip. Each chip will cost roughly $15 to $20, though prices are coming down, said Eran Eshed, co-founder of Altair.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Raspberry Pi 3 gets low-bandwith LTE with add-on chip

Raspberry Pi 3 today has only Wi-Fi connectivity, but soon it will also be able to handle low-throughput cellular communications and let users control devices over long distances.Altair has completed testing of its ALT1160 Category 1 LTE chip on Raspberry Pi, and is now making it available, a company representative said. That's significant, as it will bring much-needed, long-range communications to the popular board computer.The LTE chip is ready for sale by Altair and its partners, a company representative said. The chip will be included in various third-party add-on LTE expansion boards and sensor modules for Raspberry Pi; otherwise, Altair will take volume orders for the chip. Each chip will cost roughly $15 to $20, though prices are coming down, said Eran Eshed, co-founder of Altair.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Non-Cellular Low-Power Networks Will Dominate IoT Connections, Report says

But narrowband-IoT and LTE-M networks will see strong growth in 2018 and beyond.

Save on Steam Gaming Gear With These Active Discounts – Deal Alert

Save 60% on Steam Link The Steam Link allows existing Steam gamers to expand the range of their current gaming set up via their home network. Just connect your Steam PC or Steam Machine to your home network, plug into a TV, and stream your games to the Link at 1080p. It's a #1 best seller on Amazon where it averages 4 out of 5 stars from 800 people, and its typical list price of $50 has been discounted to $20.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A10 Makes a ‘Cloud-Native’ Application Delivery Controller

Being in the cloud doesn't make you cloud-native, A10 says.

UK’s internet surveillance law receives royal approval

Britons hoping that a quaint historical tradition might stop a Draconian internet surveillance law in its tracks were disappointed on Tuesday morning, when the Queen gave her approval to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.In theory, the Queen has the power of veto over all U.K. legislation as bills do not become law until they receive royal assent.In practice, though, it's just a formality: no reigning British monarch has rejected a piece of legislation since 1707. Besides, given the post-Brexit backlash against anyone than Parliament deciding British law, it would have been a daring move for a hereditary head of state.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UK’s internet surveillance law receives royal approval

Britons hoping that a quaint historical tradition might stop a Draconian internet surveillance law in its tracks were disappointed on Tuesday morning, when the Queen gave her approval to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.In theory, the Queen has the power of veto over all U.K. legislation as bills do not become law until they receive royal assent.In practice, though, it's just a formality: no reigning British monarch has rejected a piece of legislation since 1707. Besides, given the post-Brexit backlash against anyone than Parliament deciding British law, it would have been a daring move for a hereditary head of state.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

2016 Linux predictions: Which ones came true?

Roughly one year ago, I made a series of predictions about what would happen in the Linux world during 2016. Let’s take a look at just how wrong I was.1. We still won’t be using WaylandAh, Wayland. The eternally yearned for replacement for Xorg that never seems to ship by default on any (major) Linux distribution. I predicted that the status quo would remain the same—that the world would remain Wayland-less throughout 2016.I was wrong.On Nov. 22, 2016, Fedora 25 shipped—and with Wayland as the default display server.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Thoughts on AWS re:Invent Day 1

As I wrap up Day 1 of AWS re:Invent 2016 in Las Vegas (can I consider today to be day 1?), I wanted to capture a quick summary of thoughts about the sessions, the content, the attendees, and the event (not necessarily in that order).

First, here are some links to the liveblogs I posted from today’s sessions:

Liveblog: Scaling to Your First 10 Million Users
Liveblog: Hybrid Architectures, Bridging the Gap to the Cloud
Liveblog: Getting the Most Bang for Your Buck with EC2

Overall, the sessions have been pretty decent so far. Some portions of some of the sessions feel more like a sales pitch than an educational session, but I’m sure that’s the case at other events as well (yes, I’m talking about VMworld). I’m not yet sure if the nature of what AWS does/offers lends itself to subjectively feel more like a sales pitch or not. Case in point: how does a presenter suggest to attendees—for solid technical reasons—that they should consider using a service like Route 53 or DynamoDB or SQS (or any one of a dozen other services) without it also sounding like a sales pitch?

From an attendee perspective, I’ve been “badge Continue reading

Worth Reading: Hacking WiFi for $25

US and Chinese security researchers have discovered that it is possible to detect a user’s private information by studying the radio signals emitted to provide Wi-Fi internet coverage and how they interact with a person’s body movements. Researchers from Shanghai Jaio Tong University, the University of Massachusetts Boston and the University of South Florida have developed the WindTalker system, which can analyse sophisticated contemporary Wi-Fi networks and sneakily detect and record passwords by looking at the directions that radio waves travel to provide wireless internet coverage. —International Business Times

The post Worth Reading: Hacking WiFi for $25 appeared first on 'net work.

Goodbye SIEM, hello SOAPA

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems have been around for a dozen years or so. During that timeframe, SIEMs evolved from perimeter security event correlation tools to GRC platforms to security analytics systems. Early vendors such as eSecurity, GuardedNet, Intellitactics and NetForensics are distant memories. Today’s SIEM market is now dominated by a few leaders: LogRhythm, McAfee (aka: Nitro Security), HP (aka: ArcSight), IBM (aka: QRadar) and Splunk.Of course, there is a community of innovative upstarts that believe SIEM is a legacy technology. They proclaim that log management and event correlation can’t keep up with the pace of cybersecurity today, thus you need new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms and neural networks to consume, process, and analyze security data in real time. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Goodbye SIEM, hello SOAPA

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems have been around for a dozen years or so. During that timeframe, SIEMs evolved from perimeter security event correlation tools to GRC platforms to security analytics systems. Early vendors such as eSecurity, GuardedNet, Intellitactics and NetForensics are distant memories. Today’s SIEM market is now dominated by a few leaders: LogRhythm, McAfee (aka: Nitro Security), HP (aka: ArcSight), IBM (aka: QRadar) and Splunk.Of course, there is a community of innovative upstarts that believe SIEM is a legacy technology. They proclaim that log management and event correlation can’t keep up with the pace of cybersecurity today, thus you need new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms and neural networks to consume, process, and analyze security data in real time. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

American Airlines soars into the IBM cloud

IBM today announced that American Airlines, considered by some metrics to be the largest airline in the world, would be using its cloud platform.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: How to compare cloud costs between Amazon, Microsoft & Google +A press release announcing the deal provided scant details of how AA will use IBMs cloud. American “will move select enterprise applications to IBM’s Cloud,” is about the all it said, adding that AA has chosen IBM as its cloud provider but not saying the agreement is exclusive.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Goodbye SIEM, Hello SOAPA

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems have been around for a dozen years or so.  During that timeframe, SIEMs evolved from perimeter security event correlation tools, to GRC platforms, to security analytics systems.  Early vendors like eSecurity, GuardedNet, Intellitactics, and NetForensics, are distant memories, today’s SIEM market is now dominated by a few leaders: LogRhythm, McAfee (aka: Nitro Security), HP (aka: ArcSight), IBM (aka: QRadar), and Splunk.Of course, there is a community of innovative upstarts that believe that SIEM is a legacy technology.  They proclaim that log management and event correlation can’t keep up with the pace of cybersecurity today, thus you need new technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms, and neural networks to consume, process, and analyze security data in real-time. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Coming to SD-WAN: The Build vs. Buy Decision

Earlier this month, I attended Networking Field Day 13, where we heard from VeloCloud on their SD-WAN solution. Their presentation and case study got me thinking about how most businesses will consume SD-WAN and where business customers may fall on the “Buy” vs. “Build” spectrum.

At the outset of the NFD13 presentation, VeloCloud CEO Sanjay Uppal recapped some stats: VeloCloud has been around for just about 4 years, and at this point has around 600 enterprise customers and is deployed to about 50,000 sites. If VeloCloud was a product line from an encumbent networking vendor with stats like that, they would be declaring it as a very successful mainstream product. I point this out as I think it demonstrates that SD-WAN solutions and vendors are moving out of “startup” mode and into a mainstream solution.

One of the things that has set VeloCloud apart from many of their competitors since their inception has been their focus on building a true multi-tenant solution from the beginning, as well as their choice to partner with service providers to provide a solution for managed SD-WAN. Strong API capabilties and flexible zero-touch provisioning features support this as well. This is what really caught my attention Continue reading

Actionable network intelligence from DDI fuels digital transformation

Success in the digital era requires a significant rethink of IT strategy. Technology approaches have historically focused on the compute platforms, but in today’s digital world where billions of devices are being connected and the cloud and mobility have become the norm, IT strategies must become network-centric.In a digital organization, the network will evolve from being a tactical resource into a high-value, strategic asset that will have a direct impact on the success of new business initiatives.However, if the network is to become the foundation for the digital enterprise, it must evolve to do the following: Ensure the availability, flexibility and scalability of digital services. Provide security that cuts across silos and eases operations. Automate compliance tasks. Unlock meaningful insights to transform the organization. Provide full visibility and operational efficiency to make the network a competitive differentiator. Accomplishing the above requires IT to find a way to control and automate processes. This can be achieved through the use of actionable network intelligence (ANI) that ensures network and service availability, improves risk management and operational efficiencies, and transforms the network into a competitive advantage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Actionable network intelligence from DDI fuels digital transformation

Success in the digital era requires a significant rethink of IT strategy. Technology approaches have historically focused on the compute platforms, but in today’s digital world where billions of devices are being connected and the cloud and mobility have become the norm, IT strategies must become network-centric.In a digital organization, the network will evolve from being a tactical resource into a high-value, strategic asset that will have a direct impact on the success of new business initiatives.However, if the network is to become the foundation for the digital enterprise, it must evolve to do the following: Ensure the availability, flexibility and scalability of digital services. Provide security that cuts across silos and eases operations. Automate compliance tasks. Unlock meaningful insights to transform the organization. Provide full visibility and operational efficiency to make the network a competitive differentiator. Accomplishing the above requires IT to find a way to control and automate processes. This can be achieved through the use of actionable network intelligence (ANI) that ensures network and service availability, improves risk management and operational efficiencies, and transforms the network into a competitive advantage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Docker for AWS Public Beta

Today, we’re announcing that Docker for AWS is graduating to public beta, just in time for AWS re:Invent. Docker for AWS is a great way for ops to setup and maintain secure and scalable Docker deployments on AWS. With Docker for AWS, IT ops teams can:

• Deploy a standard Docker platform to ensure teams can seamlessly move apps from developer laptops to Dockerized staging and production environments, without risk of incompatibilities or lock-in.
• Integrate deeply with underlying infrastructure to ensure Docker takes advantage of the host environment’s native capabilities and exposes a familiar interface to administrators.
• Deploy the platform to all the places where you want to run Dockerized apps, simply and efficiently
• Make sure the latest and greatest Docker versions are available for the hardware, OSs, and infrastructure you love, and provide solid upgrade paths from one Docker version to the next.

To try the latest Docker for AWS beta based on the latest Docker Engine betas, click the button below:

Docker for AWS works fully within AWS free tier, giving you the ability to try it out at no cost (just create a 1-manager, 1-worker swarm). Installation takes a few minutes, and will give you a fully functioning swarm, Continue reading

Senators plan last-ditch push to curb US law-enforcement hacking power

Unless Congress takes 11th-hour action, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies will gain new authority this week to hack into remote computers during criminal investigations.Proposed changes to Rule 41, the search and seizure provision in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, would give U.S. law enforcement agencies the authority to cross jurisdictional lines and hack computers anywhere in the world during criminal investigations.The rules, in most cases, now prohibit federal judges from issuing a search warrant outside their jurisdictions. The changes, approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in April at the request of the Department of Justice, go into effect on Thursday unless Congress moves to reverse them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here