Nvidia’s Pascal GPUs reach the cloud via IBM and Nimbix

Google, Amazon, and Facebook can magically recognize images and voices, thanks to superfast servers equipped with GPUs in their mega data centers.But not all companies can afford that level of resources for deep learning, so they turn to cloud services, where servers in remote data centers do the heavy lifting.Microsoft has made such cloud services trendy with Azure and is one of the few companies offering remote servers with GPUs, which excel in machine-learning tasks. But Azure uses older Nvidia GPUs, and it now has competition from Nimbix, which offers a cloud service with faster GPUs based on the Nvidia's latest Pascal architecture.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung embroiled in South Korean political scandal

South Korean investigators on Tuesday raided the offices of Samsung Electronics, as part of a probe into alleged political corruption at the highest levels of that country’s government.The administration of President Park Guen-hye – who is South Korea’s first female president, and the daughter of former President Park Chung-hee – has been rocked by allegations of influence peddling centered on a mysterious figure said to have influenced policy decisions in exchange for cash.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Samsung apologizes for the exploding Note7 with a full-page ad | Phenomenal Note7 Phablet Flame-out Timeline +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nov 2016 Patch Tuesday: Microsoft released 14 security updates, 6 rated critical

In addition to releasing 14 security updates on Election Day Patch Tuesday, six of which are rated critical, the Microsoft Security Response Center responded to requests for better access to security update information; Microsoft’s solution was to release a preview of its new Security Update Guide, “a single destination for security vulnerability information.”MSRC added, “Instead of publishing bulletins to describe related vulnerabilities, the new portal lets our customers view and search security vulnerability information in a single online database.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nov 2016 Patch Tuesday: Microsoft released 14 security updates, 6 rated critical

In addition to releasing 14 security updates on Election Day Patch Tuesday, six of which are rated critical, the Microsoft Security Response Center responded to requests for better access to security update information; Microsoft’s solution was to release a preview of its new Security Update Guide, “a single destination for security vulnerability information.”MSRC added, “Instead of publishing bulletins to describe related vulnerabilities, the new portal lets our customers view and search security vulnerability information in a single online database.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Internet is Hostile: Building a More Resilient Network

In a recent post we discussed how we have been adding resilience to our network.

The strength of the Internet is its ability to interconnect all sorts of networks — big data centers, e-commerce websites at small hosting companies, Internet Service Providers (ISP), and Content Delivery Networks (CDN) — just to name a few. These networks are either interconnected with each other directly using a dedicated physical fiber cable, through a common interconnection platform called an Internet Exchange (IXP), or they can even talk to each other by simply being on the Internet connected through intermediaries called transit providers.

The Internet is like the network of roads across a country and navigating roads means answering questions like “How do I get from Atlanta to Boise?” The Internet equivalent of that question is asking how to reach one network from another. For example, as you are reading this on the Cloudflare blog, your web browser is connected to your ISP and packets from your computer found their way across the Internet to Cloudflare’s blog server.

Figuring out the route between networks is accomplished through a protocol designed 25 years ago (on two napkins) called BGP.

BGP allows interconnections between Continue reading

Reaction: Issue a press release

Ladies and gentlemen, start your crystal balls—it is close to the end of the year, that favorite time of prognosticators and analysts everywhere to tell us what is going to be “hot” and “not” next year. But before you drop out of a good conversation with your family, or sitting around the dinner table eating one more piece of pie, let me ask—have you ever checked on last year’s predictions?

Here is a favorite of mine: “Books will soon be obsolete in schools.” So up to the minute, right? So in touch with the reality of today. Only it’s not. This is Thomas Edison in 1913. While I wasn’t alive back then to read the papers, I can assure you I’ve heard many other folks make the same prediction in the intervening years. The way these sorts of predictions normally work is this:

  • Choose a technology that seems directly related to an existing way of doing things. The current way of doing things, or the current technology, needs to be widespread, recognizable, and somehow seen as “fundamental.” In the modern networking world, routers would be an equivalent.
  • Choose a date that is just far enough ahead to seem Continue reading

Voting with Docker: A little break from the election

You may have heard, there’s an election for president (and many other posts) going on in the US today. For those who already voted, who want a break from voting, or just want to create a new quiz for their friends, we have the Docker Example Voting App. And we’ve even created a poll to help you figure out the best quiz to make.

The voting app was created to showcase a number of features of Docker:

  1. Polyglot development environments: The app has Python, Node.js, and .NET code, as well as Redis and Postgres services.
  2. Easy deployment of a multi-service app with Docker Compose.
  3. Easy Docker Networking.

All this using a simple $ docker-compose up.

The Example Voting App has been really popular at Docker events like the Docker 3rd birthday, and in our Docker Labs repository, which has a lot of example applications and tutorials. And recently, Docker Captain Alex Ellis ported the app to Windows Containers using:

  • IIS
  • ASP.NET
  • .NET 4.5.1
  • Microsoft SQL Server (2016)

So if you want a break from the election, check out our poll Continue reading

Sponsored Post: Loupe, New York Times, ScaleArc, Aerospike, Scalyr, Gusto, VividCortex, MemSQL, InMemory.Net, Zohocorp

Who's Hiring?

  • The New York Times is looking for a Software Engineer for its Delivery/Site Reliability Engineering team. You will also be a part of a team responsible for building the tools that ensure that the various systems at The New York Times continue to operate in a reliable and efficient manner. Some of the tech we use: Go, Ruby, Bash, AWS, GCP, Terraform, Packer, Docker, Kubernetes, Vault, Consul, Jenkins, Drone. Please send resumes to: [email protected]

  • IT Security Engineering. At Gusto we are on a mission to create a world where work empowers a better life. As Gusto's IT Security Engineer you'll shape the future of IT security and compliance. We're looking for a strong IT technical lead to manage security audits and write and implement controls. You'll also focus on our employee, network, and endpoint posture. As Gusto's first IT Security Engineer, you will be able to build the security organization with direct impact to protecting PII and ePHI. Read more and apply here.

Fun and Informative Events

  • Your event here!

Cool Products and Services

  • A note for .NET developers: You know the pain of troubleshooting errors with limited time, limited information, and limited tools. Log management, exception tracking, Continue reading

How to crack the coding challenge

Even for the most seasoned software engineer or developer with a background education in computer science or engineering, completing a coding challenge or a technical screening can be nerve-wracking. Now, imagine you’re a self-taught developer -- the anxiety levels skyrocket.But formal education in computer science, software programming and/or engineering is not mandatory, and in the current IT talent war, the need for those credentials is diminishing further. Many self-taught coders are just as competent as those with a formal degree. The trick is getting past the unconscious biases levied against those without a degree.“From talking to self-taught programmers, I’ve found that one of their biggest sources of fear is the knowledge that they don’t have a degree. Non-traditional candidates are really intimidated by technical screenings, coding interviews, because they’ve been made to feel they’re not qualified without that computer science degree. But I don’t feel that’s true,” says Gayle Laakmann McDowell, founder of technical career consulting firm CareerCup and author of Cracking the Coding Interview.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DDN Turns The Crank On “Wolfcreek” Storage

In the high performance computing arena, the stress is always on performance. Anything and everything that can be done to try to make data retrieval and processing faster ultimately adds up to better simulations and models that more accurately reflect the reality we are trying to recreate and often cast forward in time to figure out what will happen next.

Pushing performance is an interesting challenge here at the beginning of the 21st century, since a lot of server and storage components are commoditized and therefore available to others. The real engineering is coming up with innovative ways of putting

DDN Turns The Crank On “Wolfcreek” Storage was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

5 screen-sharing apps offer easy collaboration

5 collaboration apps worth a lookImage by ThinkstockThe modern office has changed drastically in the last 10 years, which means the way we collaborate has evolved as well. Whether your company has remote workers, international offices or employees who are always on the road, you need fast and easy ways to stay connected. There are plenty of apps that promise to help you collaborate with colleagues, whether you need basic messaging, video chat, remote access or screen-share capabilities. We previously wrote about these 15 apps for collaboration, but here are five more worthy contenders to consider.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung apologizes for the exploding Note7 with a full-page ad

In an effort to show full contrition for the Note7 debacle, Samsung took out a full-page ad in three newspapers Tuesday to apologize.The ad appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. The letter is attributed to Gregory Lee, the president and CEO of Samsung Electronics North America. Rurik Bradbury Samsung is really sorry that its phones are blowing up. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Adobe fixes flaws in Flash Player and Adobe Connect

Adobe Systems has released scheduled security patches for its widely used Flash Player software as well as the Adobe Connect web conferencing platform, which is  popular in enterprise environments.The Flash Player security updates fix nine critical vulnerabilities that could be exploited remotely to execute malicious code on computers. All of them were privately reported by researchers through Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative, an exploit acquisition program.Users should upgrade to Flash Player 23.0.0.207 for Windows and Mac and to Flash Player 11.2.202.644 for Linux. The Flash Player builds bundled with Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11 will be upgraded automatically through those browsers' update mechanisms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here