Watching a real butcher work is akin to watching a surgeon. They are experts with their tools, which are cleavers and knives instead of scalpels and stitches. They know how to carve the best cut of meat from a formless lump. And they do it with the expert eye of a professional trained in their trade.
Butcher is a term that is often loaded with all manner of negative connotations. It makes readers think of indiscriminate slaughter and haphazard destruction. But the real truth is that a butcher requires time and training to cut as they do. There is nothing that a butcher does that isn’t calculated and careful.
Why all the discussion about butchers? Because you’re going to see a lot more comparisons in the future when people talk about the pending Dell/EMC acquisition. The real indiscriminate cutting has already started. EMC hid an undisclosed number of layoffs in a Dec. 31 press release. VMware is going to take a 5% hit in jobs, including the entire Workstation and Fusion teams.
It’s no secret that the deal is in trouble right now. Investors are cringing at some of the provisions. The Virtustream spin out was rescinded after Continue reading
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SDN startup adds free entry-level versions of its software-defined networking products to entice new customers.
The world of digital copyright is somewhat tangential to “real” security, but it’s a culture issue that impacts every network engineer in myriad ways. For instance, suppose you buy a small home router, and then decide you really want to run your own software on it. For instance, let’s say you really want to build your own router because you know what you can build will outperform what’s commercially available (which, by the way, it will). But rather than using an off box wireless adapter, like the folks at ARS, you really want to have the wireless on board.
Believe it or not, this would be considered, by some folks, as a pretty large act of copyright infringement. For instance, the hardware manufacturer may object to you replacing their software. Or the FCC or some other regulatory agency might even object because they think you’re trying to hog wireless spectrum, or because you don’t like what the wireless providers are doing. The EFF has a good piece up arguing that just such tinkering as replacing the operating system on a commercially purchased device is at the heart of digital freedom.
One of the most crucial issues in the fight for Continue reading
Webscale players love hardware acceleration, Netronome says.
Proper planning, communication, and training can help ensure a successful network upgrade.
Continuing the IPv6 address selection discussion we have a few days ago, Luka Manojlovič sent me a seemingly workable proposal:
I think we were discussing a borderline problem. In a server environment there won’t be any SLAAC, and we could turn off DHCPv6 client on servers with fixed IP addresses.
Sounds great, but as always, the reality tends to be a bit harsher.
Read more ... Arista plays the Sherman Antitrust card as the Cisco lawsuit approaches a critical juncture.
So I have to admit that I’m the crusty old curmudgeon who is way behind on things like home automation. After a recent issue with my water heater I opted to replace it with one that utilizes heat pump technology. I know a lot of people are installing tankless models and I strongly considered that path. My challenges were as follows–
Given these constraints, I stumbled into the hybrid water heater models. These are big tank models that utilize heat pump technology as a preferred method of moving heat into the water. As demand increases, traditional resistance coils can be invoked to generate heat.
The goal is to be more efficient than tankless models and have the option for rapid recovery. My biggest concern was the added complexity and additional components that could fail. Nonetheless, the energy ratings were very good and there are some rebate programs and tax incentives to offset the cost. I ultimately chose a GE Geospring 80 Continue reading
Howdy. Occasionally the topic of open sourcing a driver, library, or SDK to a commodity product comes up as more developers start working on/deploying said product. Typically, the vendor makes a concession and opens up the documentation to increase adoption and supportability. Sometimes this works. Sometimes, it just pisses off the developers to such an […]
The post Why The Industry Needs An Open Source Framework For Switching Silicon appeared first on Packet Pushers.
Howdy. Occasionally the topic of open sourcing a driver, library, or SDK to a commodity product comes up as more developers start working on/deploying said product. Typically, the vendor makes a concession and opens up the documentation to increase adoption and supportability. Sometimes this works. Sometimes, it just pisses off the developers to such an […]
The post Why The Industry Needs An Open Source Framework For Switching Silicon appeared first on Packet Pushers.