IDG Contributor Network: Does ‘share-nothing’ NoSQL signal the end to system resources sharing?

Driven by the need to partition databases into independent data sets to facilitate concurrent data access, NoSQL databases have been at the forefront of the “share-nothing” resource movement. But if NoSQL’s share-nothing philosophy is correct, then how do you explain the explosive growth and acceptance of Linux containers that share resources on the same host and the clusters and data center operating systems that run over them?On the surface, these two movements appear to be at odds, but a deeper look shows merits for both.+ Also on Network World: Containers: Most developers still don’t understand how to use them +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Is Wi-Fi finally ‘fast enough?’

Wi-Fi has become so ubiquitous over the past decade and a half that we talk about it – and complain about it – like it’s part of the weather. Be honest, average user – the first thing you think when your connection starts acting up is “damn it, what’s wrong with the Wi-Fi now?” But the degree to which Wi-Fi is likely to be the limiting factor for any given connection is shrinking. Wi-Fi has evolved quickly over the past few years, so much so that it can seem like wireless is outstripping wired networks in terms of raw capability. + ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD:Why one Cisco shop is willing to give Wi-Fi startup Mist a shot +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft delays its Azure Stack software until mid-2017

Azure Stack, Microsoft's system for building private clouds that run the same software it uses in its public cloud, has been delayed until the middle of 2017, the company announced Tuesday.Microsoft has changed its strategy and will provide Azure Stack through integrated systems built by hardware partners, rather than allowing companies to deploy the software on any compatible hardware they choose. Microsoft has been pushing Azure Stack as a differentiator of its cloud platform compared to many of its competitors in the public cloud arena -- especially Amazon. The change came about because the company wants to give businesses prevalidated hardware to simplify deployments of Azure Stack, according to Mike Schutz, the general manager of product marketing for Microsoft's Server and Tools division. At launch, Microsoft will be working with Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Dell, and Lenovo. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft delays its Azure Stack software until mid-2017

Azure Stack, Microsoft's system for building private clouds that run the same software it uses in its public cloud, has been delayed until the middle of 2017, the company announced Tuesday.Microsoft has changed its strategy and will provide Azure Stack through integrated systems built by hardware partners, rather than allowing companies to deploy the software on any compatible hardware they choose. Microsoft has been pushing Azure Stack as a differentiator of its cloud platform compared to many of its competitors in the public cloud arena -- especially Amazon. The change came about because the company wants to give businesses prevalidated hardware to simplify deployments of Azure Stack, according to Mike Schutz, the general manager of product marketing for Microsoft's Server and Tools division. At launch, Microsoft will be working with Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Dell, and Lenovo. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Prime Deal: 46% off Segway miniPRO Personal Transporter, Now Shipping – Prime Deal Alert

Forget hoverboards. The Segway miniPRO is a smarter, stronger and safer personal transporter, UL 2272 Certified for the highest standards of electrical and fire safety requirements established by Underwriter Laboratories. The miniPRO has large air-filled tires suitable for almost any terrain. Its innovative knee bar makes steering easy and precise, and its powerful lithium-ion battery will take you up to 14 miles on a single charge at speeds of up to 10 miles per hour. Automatic head and tail-lights produce maximum visibility night or day, personalized from a spectrum of 16 million color variations. It comes with a full-featured app, available for iOS and Android, that lets you personalize your miniPRO, activate anti-theft features, control your miniPRO remotely, and much more. It's available to ship now, and its initial list price of $1,299 has been reduced to $699. See or buy it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pokemon Go maker addresses Google account access scare

It looks like it's safe to go back into the Pokemon Gyms and PokeStops, as Pokemon Go maker Niantic has addressed concerns that it has unfettered access to Google accounts of those who signed up for the popular mobile game via their iOS devices.(Those who have signed up for Pokemon Go via the Pokemon Trainer Club weren't threatened with the security/privacy issue, but it has proven difficult for some to get through the crowded Trainer Club servers.)Niantic, looking to assuage fears that it can read/send from your Gmail account and dip into your Google Docs, has issued the following statement: Permissions update We recently discovered that the Pokémon GO account creation process on iOS erroneously requests full access permission for the user’s Google account. However, Pokémon GO only accesses basic Google profile information (specifically, your User ID and email address) and no other Google account information is or has been accessed or collected. Once we became aware of this error, we began working on a client-side fix to request permission for only basic Google profile information, in line with the data that we actually access.  Google has verified that no other information has been received or Continue reading

Moto G4 and G4 Plus: Phones continue to get better and cheaper

iPhones and cable TV have a lot in common: Consumers tend to buy more than they need. iPhones and the Android flagship phones have more features than an individual consumer will use—like cable TV has a lot of channels that an individual consumer won’t watch. Given the choice, consumers might shave their consumption of both and save a few hundred dollars to a thousand dollars a year.Compare the prices of Apple’s entry-level iPhone SE to the Moto G4 Plus. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but an insightful one, nevertheless. The comparison is in a way apples to oranges. The iPhone SE has Apple’s powerful brand, an NFC chip for payments, and a glass and metal design. The G4 Plus, on the other hand, lacks the NFC chip and is has a mostly plastic exterior design. But the G4 Plus has a larger higher-resolution screen and its storage can be expanded with a microSD cards with as much as 128GB. Depending on the configuration of the Chinese-manufactured devices, the G4 Plus costs $150 to $200 less than the iPhone SE.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DockerCon 2016: Videos from Microsoft, Cisco and IBM’s Sessions

Major thank you to our Diamond sponsor Microsoft and Platinum sponsors Cisco and IBM! Your continued support of DockerCon helps us organize an awesome conference for the Docker community.

We are excited to share with you the recordings from their sessions in the Ecosystem track. Microsoft’s session with Steve Lasker covered the container workflow. IBM’s Jason McGee and Chris Rosen talk about how to create production ready containers with IBM and Docker and Balaji Sivasubramanian discuss how Cisco covers the solution addressing the needs of enabling product-grade containerized applications.


 

Workflows for Developing, Debugging and Deploying Containerized Applications by Steve Lasker, Microsoft


Watch @Microsoft’s @SteveLasker discuss #container + orchestration + workflow dev at #DockerCon 2016
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Enabling Production Grade Containerized Applications through Policy Based Infrastructure by Balaji Sivasubramanian, Cisco


#DockerCon: @balajisiva explains how @Cisco uses @Docker for #containerized apps in production
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Production Ready Containers from IBM and Docker by Jason R McGee and Chris Rosen, IBM


#DockerCon: @jrmcgee & @ChrisRosen188 on running #containers in production with @Docker and @IBM
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Lack of VC funding forces startups to think lean

Startups are typically at the mercy of venture capitalist funding, but as of the first quarter of 2016, VCs are pulling back on how quickly they hand over that much-needed funding. According to a report from Dow Jones VentureSource, funding for U.S. startups fell 25 percent from the previous quarter -- marking the largest quarterly decline since the dot-com bust in 2000.It's bad news for startups. As these small companies feel the pressure, they're forced to budget cuts, layoffs and buy-outs as a way to stay afloat amid limited funding. Startups will need to get strategic, says Al Stevenson, a principal with WinterWyman Executive Search's Technology practice.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Offshore and cloud service providers upset IT outsourcing’s top tier

The most recent top 25 list of IT service providers from outsourcing analyst firm HfS Research leads with a couple of the usual suspects, with IBM and Accenture in the No. 1 and 2 spots, with 7.8 percent and 5.1 percent market shares, respectively.[ Related: 10 outsourcing trends to watch in 2016 ]But not far behind are India’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), at No. 5, offshore-centric Cognizant in 8th, and as-a-service Amazon Web Services (AWS) already in the No. 12 spot. HfS is calling it a “full-scale assault” on the traditional providers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A look at how well Ubuntu Linux’s Unity desktop runs natively on Windows 10

When Microsoft introduced the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) the common refrain was that you could use it to run Linux's beloved Bash tool but full Linux desktops were out.Turns out that wasn’t exactly true.It didn’t take long for people to note you could run an X server for windowed Linux applications. From there, it was only a short hop to running the Linux desktop on Windows without using a virtual machine.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Surprise! Facebook is using Office 365 now

Facebook's staff of 13,000 employees are now Microsoft Office 365 users, the social networking giant announced Tuesday. "Do you want to know why we chose Office 365? It's because of Microsoft," Facebook CIO Tim Campos said in a video. "Microsoft got cool again." This is a big customer win for Microsoft because tech companies are often the core domain of Google's productivity suite. The news comes as Google has been pushing harder to try and pick up enterprise customers from Microsoft with offers aimed at getting them way from long-term contracts with the company. Office 365 met the company's needs for an office suite that is cross-platform, mobile, and secure, Campos said during a presentation at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Stealthy cyberespionage malware targets energy companies

Security researchers have discovered a new malware threat that goes to great lengths to remain undetected while targeting energy companies.The malware program, which researchers from security firm SentinelOne have dubbed Furtim’s Parent, is a so-called dropper -- a program designed to download and install additional malware components and tools. The researchers believe it was released in May and was created by state-sponsored attackers.The goal of droppers is to prepare the field for the installation of other malware components that can perform specialized tasks. Their priority is to remain undetected, gain privileged access, and disable existing protections. These are all tasks that Furtim’s Parent does well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Stealthy cyberespionage malware targets energy companies

Security researchers have discovered a new malware threat that goes to great lengths to remain undetected while targeting energy companies.The malware program, which researchers from security firm SentinelOne have dubbed Furtim’s Parent, is a so-called dropper -- a program designed to download and install additional malware components and tools. The researchers believe it was released in May and was created by state-sponsored attackers.The goal of droppers is to prepare the field for the installation of other malware components that can perform specialized tasks. Their priority is to remain undetected, gain privileged access, and disable existing protections. These are all tasks that Furtim’s Parent does well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

One year after its demise, Windows Server 2003 is hanging around

Microsoft officially ended support for Windows Server 2003 a year ago, and there was a major push to get people off the aging operating system and onto something new all through 2014 and 2015. But the zombie OS lives on mostly because people feel no urgency to get rid of it.Spiceworks, the helpdesk and monitoring provider, released a survey focused on virtualization but with a few OS tidbits as well.Virtualization use According to Spiceworks' 2016 State of IT report, more than 76 percent of organizations today use virtualization, and another 9 percent expect to adopt it in the coming years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

One year after its demise, Windows Server 2003 is hanging around

Microsoft officially ended support for Windows Server 2003 a year ago, and there was a major push to get people off the aging operating system and onto something new all through 2014 and 2015. But the zombie OS lives on mostly because people feel no urgency to get rid of it.Spiceworks, the helpdesk and monitoring provider, released a survey focused on virtualization but with a few OS tidbits as well.Virtualization use According to Spiceworks' 2016 State of IT report, more than 76 percent of organizations today use virtualization, and another 9 percent expect to adopt it in the coming years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft and IBM in a deal to push Surface devices to enterprises

Microsoft says its Surface devices generate revenue of US$1 billion every quarter, and hopes to raise that number by putting the devices on more corporate desktops.The company is partnering with IBM, one of the world's largest software makers, to write applications specifically for Surface devices. The goal is to tailor Surface devices to meet the needs of financial, consumer goods and retail organizations.The deal is significant for Microsoft, which wants to make Surface devices more attractive to enterprises. IDC expects enterprise PC upgrades to pick up in the second half of this year, and Surface devices with tailored software could appeal to companies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Chef broadens its offering to cover all IT automation needs

Chef and Puppet are often held up as the two big names in the first generation of IT automation. About the same time that virtualization was growing to dominance, these two companies, and the open source initiatives they're involved with, sprung up to allow IT operators to automate their server setup and deployment.The rationale for these players was obvious: Since servers were no longer physical items that needed to be set up in person every time, it made sense that organizations could develop "recipes" for their servers, thus eliminating repetitive setup tasks and speeding up the deployment of servers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Salesforce expands encryption options with ‘bring your own key’

Salesforce.com is stepping up its efforts to woo security-conscious businesses by adding "bring your own key" encryption to its Salesforce Shield cloud services.Introduced a year ago, Shield offers encryption, auditing and event-monitoring functions to help companies build cloud apps that meet compliance or governance requirements. Encryption is based on keys generated by Salesforce using a combination of an organization-specific "tenant secret" and a Salesforce-maintained master one. Originally, secrets and keys in Shield were generated and managed through Salesforce's built­-in key-management infrastructure, accessed through a point-and-click interface.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here