Universal Scaling and Complexity

The universal scaling law is a model designed to help engineers understand transaction based systems, particularly databases and applications. What could a transaction based system have to do with network design? After all, networks aren’t really transaction based, are they? Or maybe they are…

complexity-modelLet’s ignore the data flowing through the network for a moment (though the universal scaling law might provide an interesting way to look at packets or flows per second as transactions), and focus just on the control plane. When we look at the control plane, we find a routing protocol or a centralized controller that accepts information about changes in the network topology (and other data points), and builds a model of the network topology which can be used to forward traffic. Questions we can ask about the state being handled by the control plane include things like: How many changes are there? What is the rate at which this information arrives? How many changes might be present in the system at any given time? How many devices participate in the control plane?

If these all sound like questions about state, one of the three “legs” of the complexity model (state, optimization, surface), that’s because they Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: The shift in open source: A new kind of platform war

For many years, open source software seemingly lay at the fringe of the tech industry. A subculture that many didn’t understand and that seemingly threatened the broader industry. It is amazing how much has changed.Today, open source software, especially Linux, is so pervasive that you probably interact with it every day. From supercomputers to GoPros and nearly every data center in the world, open source software is the default platform.+ More on Network World: Open source: Career-maker, or wipeout? +Not only does almost every company (and government agency) leverage open source software in some capacity, but even vendors who fought it tooth and nail have finally turned around. Microsoft’s embrace of open source software under Satya Nadella is a great example of the massive change in perception that has been slowly creeping over the industry over the past 20 years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In-Memory Breathes New Life Into NUMA

Hyperscalers and the academics that often do work with them have invented a slew of distributed computing methods and frameworks to get around the problem of scaling up shared memory systems based on symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) or non-uniform memory access (NUMA) techniques that have been in the systems market for decades. SMP and NUMA systems are expensive and they do not scale to hundreds or thousands of nodes, much less the tens of thousands of nodes that hyperscalers require to support their data processing needs.

It sure would be convenient if they did. But for those who are not hyperscalers, …

In-Memory Breathes New Life Into NUMA was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Cisco WLC roaming troubleshooting scripts

As it often happens, everything begins with a call from a customer with a problem. The problem is related to WiFi roaming in a warehouse with clients disconnecting from RDP sessions. The clients are industrial PCs installed on forklifts that move quite fast (and dangerously). Second rule of troubleshooting: measure As the first rule is […]

Worth Reading: RDAP

RDAP was given official standards status last year by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and was quickly adopted by all the RIRs. But the IETF didn’t just design RDAP for IP network registrations and ASNs. RDAP was also designed to model the data in Domain Name Registries (DNRs) and has extension mechanisms for other registry types. Extensions have already been defined for ENUM registries (which are DNRs for telephone numbers), and work is beginning on using it for routing registries as well. -via APNIC

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Cisco engineers’ careers depend on the evolution of CCNA certification

Every decade or so the IT industry goes through some kind of major transformation. Each wave of IT brings with it new technologies that drive the need for new skills and make other skills less relevant.For example, I started my career at the very tail end of the mainframe era, so I knew a little IBM 3270 but my skills were deeply rooted in Unix and Windows. The company I worked for had a large team of IBMers that ate, breathed and lived Big Blue. None of those people accepted the fact that the world was changing and that it was time to learn new skills. Fast forward five years, and only a couple of the mainframe people were still employed at the company, and the Unix and Windows teams had grown by orders of magnitude.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 most in-demand Internet of Things skills

Most in-demand Internet of Things skillsImage by PixabayThe Internet of Things (IoT) is in the midst of an explosion, as more connected devices proliferate. But there's not enough talent with the right skills to manage and execute on IoT projects. In fact, insufficient staffing and lack of expertise is the top-cited barrier for organizations currently looking to implement and benefit from IoT, according to research from Gartner."We're seeing tech companies around the globe getting organized and creating IoT strategies, but where they're struggling is they don't have the processes and talent in-house to make these things happen," says Ryan Johnson, categories director for global freelance marketplace Upwork. By tracking data from Upwork's extensive database, Johnson and his team have identified the top 10 skills companies need to drive a successful IoT strategy.Data is sourced from the Upwork database and is based on annual job posting growth and skills demand, as measured by the number of job posts mentioning these skills posted on Upwork from October 2014 to December 2015.1. Circuit design - 231 percentConnected devices require companies to adjust and adapt chip design and development to account for new system requirements. For example, applications Continue reading

How to manage workers in the gig economy

The gig economy continues its rapid growth, with nearly 35 percent of today's workforce consisting of nonemployee workers as of 2015. The fast-paced growth of these non-traditional workers has businesses scrambling to develop strategies to manage them -- and much of the responsibility has fallen on the desks of HR workers. However, there are efficient ways to manage these atypical workers without overburdening the HR department with more paperwork.Enter PEO, or Professional Employer Organization, a growing trend in which businesses partner with a third-party service to outsource a lot of the maintenance work that can come with employees. The theory is that PEO systems can free up HR to spend time on developing company culture, fostering engagement and moving the company forward. "PEO systems allow small and midsize companies to access technology that would normally be cost prohibitive for companies that are not larger enough to support an IT budget," says Andee Harris, chief engagement officer at HighGround, a human capital management provider and an organization that currently uses a PEO system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nonprofit’s cloud migrations boost business agility

The Muscular Dystrophy Association has jettisoned several manual business processes and legacy technologies in favor of cloud software as the nonprofit organization seeks greater operational efficiencies at a lower cost. The IT modernization, which includes email, CRM, human resources and several other business functions, has galvanized the organization's nearly 800 employees, says CIO Jeannine Houlihan, who joined MDA from Motorola Mobility in 2014. Muscular Dystrophy Association's CIO Jeannine Houlihan.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

You might be using Office 365 without even knowing it

Over the years, Office has expanded from the original desktop applications (and their mobile and Web equivalents) and the Exchange and SharePoint servers that add more business features, into full-fledged services. Many businesses treat Office 365 as an efficient way to get hosted Exchange or a cheaper way to volume licence the Office software. But they’re missing out on the advantages of Office 365 being a cloud service; like the Delve analytics that help people find out what colleagues are working on, or the Microsoft Graph API that lets you extract messages, calendar appointments or tasks to use in custom tools and software. That’s how the new Microsoft Flow service lets you build a workflow that sends a text message every time your boss emails you.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Nvidia brings its Grid virtual desktop to the masses

Nvidia is introducing a new graphics card option for its Grid virtual desktop system, promising to cut the costs of streaming graphics-intensive applications to employees.The new card, the Tesla M10, includes 4 GPUs and 32GB of memory, or enough compute power to stream desktop apps to 64 end users, according to Nvidia.Customers buy the graphics hardware in Grid servers from partners such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell, Cisco Systems and Nutanix, along with virtualization software such as VMware Horizon, Citrix XenApp and Citrix XenDesktop. Nvidia Proponents say running apps centrally and streaming them to end users can reduce hardware and management costs. Users can get by with cheaper PCs that don't have enough compute power to run graphics-heavy programs. It can also make workers more mobile, because the streamed apps can be accessed from anywhere and on almost any client, including a tablet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Extreme Networks bolsters ‘customer intimacy’ to spur growth

Ed Meyercord just wrapped up his first year as the top executive of Extreme Networks, a company that helped launch the gigabit Ethernet market 20 years ago. In this installment of the IDG CEO Interview Series, Meyercord spoke with Chief Content Officer John Gallant about how Extreme is capitalizing on its acquisition of Enterasys Networks and the company’s tighter focus on the mid-tier of the network market. He outlined how Extreme’s hands-on customer service is spurring growth and how having a wired-wireless-software ‘solution’ set is opening up new opportunities among Cisco and HP customers. Ed Meyercord, CEO, Extreme NetworksTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Extreme Networks bolsters ‘customer intimacy’ to spur growth

Ed Meyercord just wrapped up his first year as the top executive of Extreme Networks, a company that helped launch the gigabit Ethernet market 20 years ago. In this installment of the IDG CEO Interview Series, Meyercord spoke with Chief Content Officer John Gallant about how Extreme is capitalizing on its acquisition of Enterasys Networks and the company’s tighter focus on the mid-tier of the network market. He outlined how Extreme’s hands-on customer service is spurring growth and how having a wired-wireless-software ‘solution’ set is opening up new opportunities among Cisco and HP customers. Ed Meyercord, CEO, Extreme NetworksTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 things Apple’s Tim Cook needs to do on his trip to India

Apple CEO Tim Cook is on his first visit to India, a market where the company's revenue has grown but whose market share is still small because of price-sensitive consumers. The trip is important as Apple looks for markets where it can  expand. In April, the company reported its first quarterly revenue decline in 13 years as iPhone sales dropped year over year. Meanwhile, India is the world's third-biggest smartphone market, after China and the U.S. Here are five things Cook will be aiming for in India. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Quip is taking another swing at Excel with better spreadsheet features

Quip, a Silicon Valley startup that's taking on the giants of the productivity software market, announced a major update to its spreadsheet capabilities Wednesday that's aimed at bringing its service more in line with Microsoft Excel. The service's spreadsheets now include features like the ability to merge cells, validate data and filter information in a sheet. With this update, users can also insert spreadsheets into documents so data and commentary can reside in the same place. It's all tied together with Quip's signature chat feature, which lets users discuss what's going on inside a spreadsheet while they're working on it together. These updates are key to helping Quip compete with its biggest rivals in the cloud productivity suite space: Microsoft's Office 365 and Google Apps for Work. Those two services have their own spreadsheet applications, and this update makes Quip's upstart offering more appealing to people who have richer spreadsheet needs. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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