The Dockerizing of VMworld 2016

Containers have landed…in VMs in the enterprise.

Screen Shot 2016-08-22 at 9.16.50 AM.pngDocker’s adoption continues to grow in the enterprise. There have been over 5 billion images pulls, and 60% of users are running Docker in production environments. Today Docker is run everywhere – from development to production; in the cloud, on virtual machines and bare-metal servers. Enterprise application teams around the world are seeing the value of Docker containers and how they help them containerize their existing applications to save money and better utilize infrastructure resources.

To get the latest with Docker and vms stop by our Docker booth #2362 at VMworld. Containers and vms are different but are complementary when it comes to application deployment. With their ability to optimize infrastructure resources, accelerate deployment and provide additional security, Docker containers bring some serious benefits to virtualized workloads within enterprise environments. Additionally, a Dockerized workload gains portability as containers move from VMs or bare metal systems, on prem or in the cloud. That same platform serves as the foundation for your new microservices applications as well.

 

The Docker booth experience you won’t want to miss:

Live demos – Three live  demos will be featured in the booth, including:

  1. Deploy your very first Docker container with a quick hands Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: How bad is enterprise software? Really, really bad. But it’s not quite that simple.

There is a bit of a standing joke in the technology industry that revolves around enterprise software, the software that the largest organizations in the world use to run their core processes. While these solutions are robust and secure, the joke tends to be it's at the expense of the users, who often complain about poor user experience, inflexibility and essentially having to change the way they work within the business to suit the software. While user-centric design might be a huge buzzword in management circles, for those poor users of enterprise software, it seems to be a foreign concept.

+ Also on Network World: Where do mobile apps fit in the world of enterprise software? +

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: How bad is enterprise software? Really, really bad. But it’s not quite that simple.

There is a bit of a standing joke in the technology industry that revolves around enterprise software, the software that the largest organizations in the world use to run their core processes. While these solutions are robust and secure, the joke tends to be it's at the expense of the users, who often complain about poor user experience, inflexibility and essentially having to change the way they work within the business to suit the software. While user-centric design might be a huge buzzword in management circles, for those poor users of enterprise software, it seems to be a foreign concept.+ Also on Network World: Where do mobile apps fit in the world of enterprise software? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Baidu Takes FPGA Approach to Accelerating SQL at Scale

While much of the work at Baidu we have focused on this year has centered on the Chinese search giant’s deep learning initiatives, many other critical, albeit less bleeding edge applications present true big data challenges.

As Baidu’s Jian Ouyang detailed this week at the Hot Chips conference, Baidu sits on over an exabyte of data, processes around 100 petabytes per day, updates 10 billion webpages daily, and handles over a petabyte of log updates every 24 hours. These numbers are on par with Google and as one might imagine, it takes a Google-like approach to problem solving at

Baidu Takes FPGA Approach to Accelerating SQL at Scale was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

33% off ThermoPro TP07 Remote Wireless Digital Cooking Thermometer – Deal Alert

The TP-07 Digital Wireless Thermometer is a perfect choice to accurately monitor your meat remotely. Stop going back and forth from indoors to outdoors to check up on your meat, and instead monitor it from 300 feet away! Does your recipe call for your meat to be at a specific temperature? Not to worry, this unit allows you to set your desired temperature, so you're enjoying the meat the way you prefer. If you're new to cooking or unsure of meat temperatures, don't worry our system includes programmed USDA approved temperatures for all kinds of meats at different doneness levels.  This device averages 4.5 out of 5 stars (read reviews). Its typical list price of $45.99 has been reduced by 33% to $30.59.  See the discounted ThermoPro Digital Wireless Thermometer now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VIRL on Packet Cloud—Some thoughts

For the last couple of days I’ve been messing with Cisco’s VIRL on Packet’s bare metal service. I don’t do enough labbing now to spend multiple thousands of dollars building a lab in my house, and I want something that I can use from anywhere without opening a lot of holes in my home network when I’m on the road, so the Packet service seems like something useful to get running.

Forthwith, some observations and hints for those who might be thinking about doing this. Some of this might be obvious to other folks, I know, but—maybe me writing them down here will be somehow helpful, and save other folks some time.

An observation—this all feels a little (okay, maybe a lot) clunky’ish. There’s a lot of steps, it takes a long time to set up, etc. There are a lot of moving parts, and they interconnect in interesting ways. Maybe this will all get better over time, but for now, if you’re going to do this, plan on spending at least a half a day, probably more, just getting all the pieces to work.

Some places I ran into trouble, and things I needed to configure that I had Continue reading

Chicagoans: TECHunplugged Is Coming October 27, 2016

TECHunplugged is a one-day event where end users, influencers and vendors come together to talk shop. At the Chicago event on October 27, 2016, I’ll be speaking on the following big idea.

How The Network Automation War Might Soon Be Won

Here’s the abstract I proposed to the TECHunplugged team.

Automation in the virtualization world is a long-established feature. A plethora of excellent tools exist to help stand up server infrastructure, operating systems, and applications. This has helped bring much of the IT stack together in a way that makes system deployment a repeatable, predictable task. By contrast, network automation is a struggling, emergent technology. Why is it that the automation of network provisioning has proven so challenging?

Ethan Banks, 20 year IT veteran and co-host of the Packet Pushers podcasts, will explain the network automation challenge from a practitioner’s point of view. He’ll also discuss recent advances in network automation tooling from both the open source and commercial software worlds. Network automation might feel rather behind other IT silos, but there’s significant progress that will change network operations sooner rather than later.

To set context, I’ll explain why automating the network is so hard.

IDG Contributor Network: IoT early warning system helps save people from mudslides

Necessity is the mother of invention.So, it’s no surprise that the best solutions are designed close to where they’re most needed. How do you empower people in remote parts of the world to develop their own solutions? How can their best solution be shared globally with others to maximize the benefit?Responding to disasters in El Salvador Floods and mudslides regularly devastate El Salvador. Villagers can identify impending floods and mudslides, but they are unable to warn others in time. Rugged terrain, lack of power and cellular networks present a formidable communication challenge. Reacción, a team of El Salvadorian experts in electronics, community development and disaster relief, decided to do something about it. Working with local villagers and global experts, they developed an IoT-based early warning system for disasters that’s now shared globally.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Inside AMD’s development of the Zen CPU

AMD knew it needed to make radical changes in its Zen CPU chip to become a force in the PC and server markets again.So when the chip designers sat down four years ago to etch out the Zen design, they had two things in mind: to drive up CPU performance as much as possible and to keep power efficiency stable.The company ultimately settled for a 40 percent improvement in Zen over its predecessor, Excavator."We had a hard time convincing the team we were going for 40 percent," said Mike Clark, a senior fellow at AMD. "It was a very aggressive goal, and we knew we had to do it to be competitive."AMD first promoted the 40 percent CPU improvement goal when it introduced Zen in 2015 during an overhaul of its chip roadmap. The company recently demonstrated chips to prove it has achieved the goal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Inside AMD’s development of the Zen CPU

AMD knew it needed to make radical changes in its Zen CPU chip to become a force in the PC and server markets again.So when the chip designers sat down four years ago to etch out the Zen design, they had two things in mind: to drive up CPU performance as much as possible and to keep power efficiency stable.The company ultimately settled for a 40 percent improvement in Zen over its predecessor, Excavator."We had a hard time convincing the team we were going for 40 percent," said Mike Clark, a senior fellow at AMD. "It was a very aggressive goal, and we knew we had to do it to be competitive."AMD first promoted the 40 percent CPU improvement goal when it introduced Zen in 2015 during an overhaul of its chip roadmap. The company recently demonstrated chips to prove it has achieved the goal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

19% of shoppers would abandon a retailer that’s been hacked

Nearly a fifth of shoppers would avoid at a retailer that has been a victim of a cybersecurity hack, according to a survey.The 2016 KPMG Consumer Loss Barometer report surveyed 448 consumers in the U.S. and found that 19% would abandon a retailer entirely over a hack. Another 33% said that fears their personal information would be exposed would keep them from shopping at the breached retailer for more than three months.The study also looked at 100 cybersecurity executives and found that 55% said they haven't spent money on cybersecurity in the past yearand 42% said their company didn't have a leader in charge of information security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

19% of shoppers would abandon a retailer that’s been hacked

Nearly a fifth of shoppers would avoid at a retailer that has been a victim of a cybersecurity hack, according to a survey.The 2016 KPMG Consumer Loss Barometer report surveyed 448 consumers in the U.S. and found that 19% would abandon a retailer entirely over a hack. Another 33% said that fears their personal information would be exposed would keep them from shopping at the breached retailer for more than three months.The study also looked at 100 cybersecurity executives and found that 55% said they haven't spent money on cybersecurity in the past yearand 42% said their company didn't have a leader in charge of information security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Linux at 25: How Linux changed the world

I walked into an apartment in Boston on a sunny day in June 1995. It was small and bohemian, with the normal detritus a pair of young men would scatter here and there. On the kitchen table was a 15-inch CRT display married to a fat, coverless PC case sitting on its side, network cables streaking back to a hub in the living room. The screen displayed a mess of data, the contents of some logfile, and sitting at the bottom was a Bash root prompt decorated in red and blue, the cursor blinking lazily.I was no stranger to Unix, having spent plenty of time on commercial Unix systems like OSF/1, HP-UX, SunOS, and the newly christened Sun Solaris. But this was different.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Who gets to telecommute once Zika’s bite comes closer?

Florida’s announcement Tuesday that a locally transmitted Zika case turned up Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, moves reported cases of the virus a little closer to Georgia. That’s where Maria Stephens, who is pregnant, works as a senior data research analyst.Stephens was initially skeptical about Zika and paid little attention to the headlines about it.“I don't really respond to dramatization and felt that things were possibly being blown out of proportion,” said Stephens. “I'm a statistician at heart and only listen to numbers, so when my quant-minded OB-GYN shared the figures with me, this threat became a lot more real."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Who gets to telecommute once Zika’s bite comes closer?

Florida’s announcement Tuesday that a locally transmitted Zika case turned up Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, moves reported cases of the virus a little closer to Georgia. That’s where Maria Stephens, who is pregnant, works as a senior data research analyst.Stephens was initially skeptical about Zika and paid little attention to the headlines about it.“I don't really respond to dramatization and felt that things were possibly being blown out of proportion,” said Stephens. “I'm a statistician at heart and only listen to numbers, so when my quant-minded OB-GYN shared the figures with me, this threat became a lot more real."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best Android phones: What should you buy?

Choosing a new Android phone isn’t easy. The Android universe is teeming with options, from super-expensive flagship phones, to affordable models that make a few calculated compromises, to models expressly designed for, say, great photography. Chances are that whichever phone you buy, you’ll keep it for at least two years. So choosing the best Android phone for you isn’t a decision you should take lightly. But we can make things easier. Everyone has different priorities and needs, so we’ve made some picks for the best Android phone in several categories. At the bottom of this article, we also list all our recent Android phone reviews—in case you have your eye on a model that doesn’t make our cut.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here