Cisco bolsters Spark collaboration with Worklife acquisition

Cisco today said it bought Heroik Labs which does business as Worklife and sells collaborative software that helps companies more effectively run and manage online meetings.“With the Worklife team onboard, we see an opportunity to build on the virtual meeting experience that the Cisco Spark platform currently provides, and enhance meeting productivity across the board. For example, we can start offering additional tools, tightly integrated into Cisco Spark, to help users track calendars, create agenda templates, and collaborate on note-taking in real-time during a meeting,” wrote Rob Salvagno vice president of Cisco’s Corporate Business Development in a blog announcing the buy. “Worklife’s technology and talent builds on the success of Cisco’s previous collaboration software acquisitions such as Collaborate.com, Assemblage, Tropo, Acano and Synata.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cybersecurity Canon book review: There Will Be Cyberwar

Given it’s national cybersecurity awareness month, I hope all cybersecurity professionals are familiar with the Cybersecurity Canon. For those who are not, the goal of the cybersecurity canon is as follows: To identify a list of must-read books for all cybersecurity practitioners—be they from industry, government or academia—where the content is timeless, genuinely represents an aspect of the community that is true and precise, reflects the highest quality and, if not read, will leave a hole in the cybersecurity professional’s education that will make the practitioner incomplete.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cybersecurity Canon book review: There Will Be Cyberwar

Given it’s national cybersecurity awareness month, I hope all cybersecurity professionals are familiar with the Cybersecurity Canon. For those who are not, the goal of the cybersecurity canon is as follows: To identify a list of must-read books for all cybersecurity practitioners—be they from industry, government or academia—where the content is timeless, genuinely represents an aspect of the community that is true and precise, reflects the highest quality and, if not read, will leave a hole in the cybersecurity professional’s education that will make the practitioner incomplete.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cybersecurity Canon Book Report: There Will Be Cyberwar

Given that it’s national cybersecurity awareness month, I hope that all cybersecurity professionals are familiar with the Cybersecurity Canon.  For those that are not, the goal of the cybersecurity canon is as follows:To identify a list of must-read books for all cybersecurity practitioners – be they from industry, government or academia -- where the content is timeless, genuinely represents an aspect of the community that is true and precise, reflects the highest quality and, if not read, will leave a hole in the cybersecurity professional’s education that will make the practitioner incomplete.                To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Consumer PCs: Ailing, but not dead yet

Personal computer shipments again contracted in the third quarter, research firms said this week, as consumers continued to refuse to buy replacements for their aged machines. IDC pegged the PC downturn at 4% for the quarter ending September 30, while rival Gartner said shipments shrank 6% from the same period the year before. Gartner blamed consumers for the two-year slump, the longest decline in the industry's history. "According to our 2016 personal technology survey, the majority of consumers own, and use, at least three different types of devices in mature markets," said Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa in a statement. "Among these devices, the PC is not a high priority device for the majority of consumers, so they do not feel the need to upgrade their PCs as often as they used to."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US bans Samsung Galaxy Note7 from all flights

The U.S. government has issued an emergency ban of Samsung's exploding Galaxy Note7 devices from all airline flights, urging users to take advantage of the company's exchange and refund offers.Owners of Galaxy Note7s may not transport the devices on their person, in carry-on baggage, or in checked luggage, Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration said. The smartphones also cannot be shipped as air cargo under the ban, which goes into effect Saturday at noon Eastern Time.Passengers who attempt to evade the ban by packing their phone in checked luggage are "increasing the risk of a catastrophic incident," the agencies said in a press release. Anyone violating the ban could face criminal prosecution and fines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

7 chronic browser bugs plaguing the web

Web browsers are amazing. If it weren’t for browsers, we wouldn’t be able to connect nearly as well with users and customers by pouring our data and documents into their desktops, tablets, and phones. Alas, all of the wonderful content delivered by the web browser makes us that much more frustrated when the rendering isn’t as elegant or bug-free as we would like.When it comes to developing websites, we’re as much at the mercy of browsers as we are in debt to them. Any glitch on any platform jumps out, especially when it crashes our users’ machines. And with design as such a premium for standing out or fitting in, any fat line or misapplied touch of color destroys the aesthetic experience we’ve labored to create. Even the tiniest mistake, like adding an extra pixel to the width of a line or misaligning a table by a bit, can result in a frustrating user experience, not to mention the cost of discovering, vetting, and working around it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 tools for making sense of system logs

Log management software helps IT managers understand and act on the flood of log data spewing from IT systems — to investigate security problems, prevent outages and improve the online customer experience. In essence, logs are a specialized source of business intelligence, while also providing an audit trail for regulatory compliance.Five of the top log management software products are Splunk, LogRhythm, AlienVault, HPE ArcSight Logger and SevOne, according to online reviews by enterprise users in the IT Central Station community. Those users say that the most important criteria to consider when choosing log management software are speed, stability, ease of use, and robust search capabilities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

5 tools for making sense of system logs

Log management software helps IT managers understand and act on the flood of log data spewing from IT systems — to investigate security problems, prevent outages and improve the online customer experience. In essence, logs are a specialized source of business intelligence, while also providing an audit trail for regulatory compliance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Get ready for the bot revolution

For today's overworked, time-strapped IT employees, bots are more than simply apps that perform automated tasks, like delivering weather reports or taking pizza orders. Rather, they're a respite from endless help-desk calls, constant software updates and tedious server maintenance jobs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Top 10 jobs in IT and engineering

Best jobs in IT and engineeringImage by ThinkstockMany jobs fall under the umbrella of tech these days, each with its own unique focus and skillset. CareerCast looked at the wage potential, growth outlook and relevance to the constantly evolving job market to determine the best jobs in tech market. With a growing interest in analytics, data, cloud, hardware and software in the enterprise, technology jobs are at the forefront of job satisfaction and growth, making it a great time to get into the industry if you have the right skillset. If you're looking to get into tech, or make a change, or want to see how your current role ranks, here are the top 10 jobs in IT and technology, according to CareerCast's data. Data scientistImage by ThinkstockTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to avoid being the next Yahoo

It’s no longer about whether or not you’ll get attacked, it’s about knowing what the repercussions are and if you have the right controls to minimize or completely eliminate the fallout. In order to be able to do this effectively, you need be attuned with your network controls and architecture. Asking the right questions can get you there and also ensuring that network architects are aligned with business and security goals.VArmour CEO Tim Eades offers a few questions decision makers should be asking to ensure they keep their organizations from being the next Yahoo.If we were subject to a data breach, how would our controls and processes appear when described on tomorrow’s front page news?  Why is this important?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How Does NetBeez Rate For Troubleshooting?

Continuing from my previous NetBeez post, I’d like to share some more detail on the charting and reporting capabilities of the product, and my experience using NetBeez to troubleshoot some real network issues.

Incidentally, as advertising slogans go, this one is surprisingly effective; I was surprised at how many people do actually approach and say “Ok go on then, tell me about your beez?”

Hands On Operations

I have been able to spend some time digging around the interface in anger, as it were, and seeing whether the NetBeez tools might raise an alert that otherwise wasn’t caught by other systems. To that end, I have one happy story, but also a number of things I found I wanted to be able to do, but couldn’t. These are things I might not have thought about had I not actually been using them for real, rather than just with test data.

Charts

The actual charts are quite nicely put together, although getting there can be a little cumbersome unless linked directly from an alert or something. For example, here is the top of the list of Resources within one of my Target test sets:

If I click on the PING Continue reading

BrandPost: Visualizing a business-agile WAN

Businesses striving to achieve new levels of agility and the flexibility to pursue new opportunities are often running up against the restraints of legacy network infrastructure. It can be difficult to envision the pathway to the future.IDG Research Services surveyed more than 100 business and IT decision makers to explore the drivers and obstacles impacting network connectivity strategies. Most are eager to modernize their networks but feel constrained by financial considerations and the fear of getting locked into proprietary solutions.Overcoming network burdensThe typical enterprise today must absorb or outsource a huge burden of installing, configuring, and running wide area network (WAN) hardware that includes switches, routers, load balancers, VPNs, accelerators and firewalls.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BrandPost: Evolving communications in a dynamic Software Defined world

In today’s business world, nothing is static. Business is constantly in motion, reconfiguring operations to take advantage of new opportunities and responding to customer needs. For an enterprise with multiple sites, that means that what works today from a networking perspective may not be adequate tomorrow.Meeting the needs of branch offices and remote sites depends on high-speed, powerful wide area network (WAN) capabilities. But for many organizations, the ability to meet peak demands means they would have to invest in capabilities that will at other times be underutilized.Enterprise IT managers are dealing with virtually insatiable demands for broadband. IDC data shows that more than 53% of enterprises expect to support a 20% yearly increase in WAN bandwidth, but within the constraints of flat budgets for connectivity and managed services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Comparing Dynamic Routing Protocols

The 25 Gigabit Ethernet Rollout

A dozen extensions to TCP/IP that optimize internet connections

Do you remember when we used multi-protocol routing for IPX, AppleTalk, and TCP/IP running on the same network? In the 1980s and early 1990s many enterprises had multiple protocols running on the physical network infrastructure as “ships in the night”. Cisco routers became highly adept at multi-protocol routing and the company grew in prominence as a result. Then in the early 1990s, TCP/IP won out and the internet took shape as the global network we enjoy today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

A dozen extensions to TCP/IP that optimize internet connections

Do you remember when we used multi-protocol routing for IPX, AppleTalk, and TCP/IP running on the same network? In the 1980s and early 1990s many enterprises had multiple protocols running on the physical network infrastructure as “ships in the night”. Cisco routers became highly adept at multi-protocol routing and the company grew in prominence as a result. Then in the early 1990s, TCP/IP won out and the internet took shape as the global network we enjoy today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Opening Up The Server Bus For Coherent Acceleration

When IBM started to use the word “open” in conjunction with its Power architecture more than three years with the formation of the OpenPower Foundation three years ago, Big Blue was not confused about what that term meant. If the Power architecture was to survive, it would do so by having open specifications that would allow third parties to not only make peripherals, but also to license the technology and make clones of Power8 or Power9 processors.

One of the key technologies that IBM wove into the Power8 chip that differentiates it from Xeon, Opteron, ARM, and Sparc processors is …

Opening Up The Server Bus For Coherent Acceleration was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.