5 Tales from the Docker Crypt

(Cue the Halloween music)

Welcome to my crypt. This is the Docker crypt keeper speaking and I’ll be your spirit guide on your journey through the dangerous and frightening world of IT applications. Today you will learn about 5 spooky application stories covering everything from cobweb covered legacy processes to shattered CI/CD pipelines. As these stories unfold, you will hear  how Docker helped banish cost, complexity and chaos.

Tale 1 – “Demo Demons”

Splunk was on a mission to enable their employees and partners across the globe to deliver demos of their software regardless of where they’re located in the world, and have each demo function consistently. These business critical demos include everything from Splunk security, to web analytics and IT service intelligence. This vision proved to be quite complex to execute. At times their SEs would be in customer meetings, but their demos would sometimes fail. They needed to ensure that each of their 30 production demos within their Splunk Oxygen demo platform could live forever in eternal greatness.

To ensure their demos were working smoothly with their customers, Splunk uses Docker Datacenter, our on-premises solution that brings container management and deployment services to the enterprise via an integrated platform. Images are Continue reading

How AWS has turned into Amazon’s crutch

When Amazon announced its earnings last week, Wall Street was disappointed, with the company’s stock tumbling 5%. But if Amazon didn’t have its cloud business, Wall Street may have been even more bearish. By non-Wall Street standards, the online ecommerce giant had a nice quarter: Revenues of $32. 7 billion were up 29% from the same quarter last year and the company turned a $575 billion profit. The revenues and earnings were less than consensus estimates and Amazon gave vague guidance on future performance heading into the always-busy holiday shopping season. Amazon AWS continued its healthy growth across sales, operating income and Trailing Twelve Month (TTM) Net Sales  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: The real unified communications

A few weeks back, I wrote a post contending that, as traditionally defined, the term unified communications has no meaning. Since then, I have had many interesting conversations with people who have varying opinions on the subject. This post is to pass along some of what I have learned.Un-unified In alignment with my contention, most of the conversations on the subject have confirmed that when someone in a work situation needs to communicate with someone who is not within earshot, they typically use tools that are very, well, un-unified. If we need to talk to someone, we call. We still email as much as any other modality. Second to that, we text and increasingly group message. If we need to share or collaborate on information that is in a document, we webchat. Begrudgingly, we occasionally video chat. A few people do use a single tool for these functions, but more often we choose between a set of tools—applications that are specialized to the task at hand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Major Roadblocks on the Path to Machine Learning

In part one of this series last week, we discussed the emerging ecosystem of machine learning applications and what promise those portend. But of course, as with any emerging application area (although to be fair, machine learning is not new), there are bound to be some barriers.

Even in analytically sophisticated organizations, machine learning often operates in “silos of expertise.” For example, the financial crimes unit in a bank may use advanced techniques to catch anti-money laundering; the credit risk team uses completely different and incompatible tools to predict loan defaults and set risk-based pricing; while treasury uses still other

Major Roadblocks on the Path to Machine Learning was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

Adapting the network for the rise of containers

They say necessity is the mother of invention. That statement has been true in networking for decades now, as many of the innovations in the network have been driven by changes in compute.For example, Ethernet became the de facto standard to consolidate all of the various LAN protocols that once existed. Another example is the virtual switch. That was invented to solve the hair pinning problem associated with moving traffic between two virtual machines on the same host.+ Also on Network World: Which is cheaper: Containers or virtual machines? + There’s another major compute shift going on that will drive the need for network evolution, and that’s the rise of containers. If you’re not familiar with containers, think of them as a lightweight runtime environment that includes an application and all of its dependencies, including configuration files, binaries and libraries. Containers are similar to virtual machines except they share a single operating system and kernel, so it’s much lighter weight. A VM can be a few to tens of gigabytes in size,where a container is likely to be just a few megabytes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Shadow Brokers leaks list of NSA targets and compromised servers

The Shadow Brokers hacker group is back, releasing message 5 - trick or treat. This time, instead of releasing Equation Group exploit tools, the group dumped a list of servers allegedly compromised by the NSA-linked Equation Group.As usual, the Shadow Brokers included a slaughtered-English rambling message that primarily focused on the upcoming elections. One portion reads: TheShadowBrokers is having suggestion. On November 8th, instead of not voting, maybe be stopping the vote all together? Maybe being grinch who stopped election from coming? Maybe hacking election is being the best idea? #hackelection2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Shadow Brokers leaks list of NSA targets and compromised servers

The Shadow Brokers hacker group is back, releasing message 5 - trick or treat. This time, instead of releasing Equation Group exploit tools, the group dumped a list of servers allegedly compromised by the NSA-linked Equation Group.As usual, the Shadow Brokers included a slaughtered-English rambling message that primarily focused on the upcoming elections. One portion reads: TheShadowBrokers is having suggestion. On November 8th, instead of not voting, maybe be stopping the vote all together? Maybe being grinch who stopped election from coming? Maybe hacking election is being the best idea? #hackelection2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Shadow Brokers leak list of NSA targets and compromised servers

The Shadow Brokers are back, releasing message 5 - trick or treat. This time, instead of releasing Equation Group exploit tools, the group dumped a list of servers allegedly compromised by the NSA-linked Equation Group.As usual, the Shadow Brokers included a slaughtered-English rambling message which primarily focused on the upcoming elections. One portion reads: TheShadowBrokers is having suggestion. On November 8th, instead of not voting, maybe be stopping the vote all together? Maybe being grinch who stopped election from coming? Maybe hacking election is being the best idea? #hackelection2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trend Micro’s Enterprise Play

I spent a few days with Trend Micro last week at its Insight event here in Boston.  While Trend is a $1 billion + global cybersecurity vendor, too many cybersecurity professionals still think of Trend as an Asian-based AV player.   This perception is completely antiquated however, as Trend now offers: A tightly-integrated next-generation endpoint security suite.  There’s a lot of industry rhetoric out there proclaiming Trend as a legacy AV vendor.  Don’t believe it!  Yes, Trend Micro’s endpoint security product has been around forever but the company has continuously enhanced it technology to keep up with the latest requirements.  Most recently, Trend added machine learning for pre- and post-execution prevention/detection of 0-day malware which puts in on par with the next-generation endpoint security crowd.  Oh, and Trend also offers its own EDR functionality as well.  Armed with its new product, Trend’s layered endpoint defense should meet the security efficacy and operational efficiency requirements of even the most demanding enterprises. A strong network security defense portfolio.  Now that the dust has settled from Trend’s acquisition of TippingPoint a year ago, the company also has robust products for network security.  After HP let Continue reading

Trend Micro’s Enterprise Play

I spent a few days with Trend Micro last week at its Insight event here in Boston.  While Trend is a $1 billion + global cybersecurity vendor, too many cybersecurity professionals still think of Trend as an Asian-based AV player.   This perception is completely antiquated however, as Trend now offers: A tightly-integrated next-generation endpoint security suite.  There’s a lot of industry rhetoric out there proclaiming Trend as a legacy AV vendor.  Don’t believe it!  Yes, Trend Micro’s endpoint security product has been around forever but the company has continuously enhanced it technology to keep up with the latest requirements.  Most recently, Trend added machine learning for pre- and post-execution prevention/detection of 0-day malware which puts in on par with the next-generation endpoint security crowd.  Oh, and Trend also offers its own EDR functionality as well.  Armed with its new product, Trend’s layered endpoint defense should meet the security efficacy and operational efficiency requirements of even the most demanding enterprises. A strong network security defense portfolio.  Now that the dust has settled from Trend’s acquisition of TippingPoint a year ago, the company also has robust products for network security.  After HP let Continue reading

53% off Etekcity Wireless Bluetooth 4.0 NFC-Enabled Audio Adapter – Deal Alert

The Roverbeats Unify enables Bluetooth 4.0 capability on traditional audio systems lacking Bluetooth functionality. Just connect it to your system's A/V, RCA, or 3.5mm jack input. The Unify is the first Bluetooth receiver to have a 200mAh battery, allowing it to provide up to 10 hours of continuous high quality music playback. And with NFC capability, the Unify can quickly connect with any other NFC enabled device in the matter of seconds. The adapter gives you wireless control up to 33 feet. It currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 1,100 people (read reviews), where its typical list price of $36 has been significantly reduced to just $17.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How FC Barcelona leverages technology for athletes’ performance

A little over a year ago, I wrote how FC Barcelona, perhaps the world’s most iconic soccer team, offers very little in the way of technological enhancements to fans at its home pitch, called Camp Nou.+ Also on Network World: FC Barcelona's soccer stadium foregoes technology + Well, it turns out there’s a lot more to the story of how the famed club uses technology. First, Barça is finally adding tech enhancements, including more than 1,000 Wi-Fi access points, as well as video security cameras, touchscreens, contactless ticketing, new mobile apps and much more. The club is also working on a dramatic new stadium at Camp Nou, scheduled to be ready for the 2021-2022 season, designed to further embrace a technologically enhanced fan experience.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Robots and AI won’t cost you your job anytime soon

MIT Technology Review's EmTech conference is all about looking to the future of tech and what's more futuristic than artificial intelligence? If you are up to date with the latest news on AI, or maybe you've just watched a few episodes of HBO's Westworld, you might be wondering how soon your job will be replaced by a robot. But if the presentation at MIT 's EmTech conference this year is any indication, while artificial intelligence is at an impressive point, we're still far off from robot domination.To emphasize that point, Dileep George, co-founder of Vicarious, an organization working on next-generation AI algorithms, showed video of robots falling over in silly situations in his presentation, Artificial Intelligence at Work. The footage not only got some laughs, it also highlighted the vast limitations of current robotics. According to George, it's not that we don't have the hardware to create intelligent robots, it's that we don't have the software to make robots intelligent enough to do something as simple as fall down correctly. Instead, most robots unnaturally tense up and fall to the ground from a mere push.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

17 essential tools to protect your online identity, privacy

Make no mistake: Professional and state-sponsored cybercriminals are trying to compromise your identity -- either at home, to steal your money; or at work, to steal your employer’s money, sensitive data, or intellectual property.Most users know the basics of computer privacy and safety when using the internet, including running HTTPS and two-factor authentication whenever possible, and checking haveibeenpwned.com to verify whether their email addresses or user names and passwords have been compromised by a known attack.[ Watch out for 11 signs you've been hacked -- and learn how to fight back, in InfoWorld's PDF special report. | Discover how to secure your systems with InfoWorld's Security Report newsletter. ] But these days, computer users should go well beyond tightening their social media account settings. The security elite run a variety of programs, tools, and specialized hardware to ensure their privacy and security is as strong as it can be. Here, we take a look at this set of tools, beginning with those that provide the broadest security coverage down to each specific application for a particular purpose. Use any, or all, of these tools to protect your privacy and have the best computer security possible.To Continue reading

17 essential tools to protect your online identity, privacy

Make no mistake: Professional and state-sponsored cybercriminals are trying to compromise your identity -- either at home, to steal your money; or at work, to steal your employer’s money, sensitive data, or intellectual property.Most users know the basics of computer privacy and safety when using the internet, including running HTTPS and two-factor authentication whenever possible, and checking haveibeenpwned.com to verify whether their email addresses or user names and passwords have been compromised by a known attack.[ Watch out for 11 signs you've been hacked -- and learn how to fight back, in InfoWorld's PDF special report. | Discover how to secure your systems with InfoWorld's Security Report newsletter. ] But these days, computer users should go well beyond tightening their social media account settings. The security elite run a variety of programs, tools, and specialized hardware to ensure their privacy and security is as strong as it can be. Here, we take a look at this set of tools, beginning with those that provide the broadest security coverage down to each specific application for a particular purpose. Use any, or all, of these tools to protect your privacy and have the best computer security possible.To Continue reading

Is your IT staff ready for IoT?

The city of Kansas City, Mo., blazed a new technology trail in May when it launched its first streetcar line with public Wi-Fi that spreads across two square miles, covering more than 50 square blocks. It also marked the debut of the city's first-generation smart city corridor for new technologies, many of which will run wirelessly over one of the largest free public Wi-Fi zones in the country.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Why don’t developers have a ‘spellchecker’ for security’?

Despite all the news coverage about successful cyberattacks, developers are still writing code full of security vulnerabilities.Of course, nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes, and as software projects get more and more complex, it can be easy to mix potential problems.But that doesn't explain why so much software is full of the most basic errors.According to a report released this month by Veracode, 61 percent of all internally-developed applications failed a basic test of compliance with the OWASP Top 10 list on their first pass. And commercially developed software did even worse, with a 75 percent failure rate.These are basic, well-known problems, like SQL injections and cross-site scripting.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here