Network infrastructure cost optimization services can save millions

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

If network infrastructure is not your organization’s core competency or you have outsourced the environment, you lack control of equipment and transport services and probably struggle with complex pricing and non-standard billing. Worse yet, if your service provider owns either all or components of the processes, procedures, staffing and tools, it limits the changes you can make.

If that describes your environment, a network infrastructure cost optimization consultation can help you drive infrastructure costs down, capture the network environment processes, identify systemic issues and leverage best practices.

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How to embrace open source tools in the enterprise

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

The model of the future is based on social, mobile, cloud and big data, and IT is realizing that to succeed it must have the right processes, tools and culture. This is where open source is a major benefit.

Once you’ve decided to make open source a key feature of your enterprise IT infrastructure, here are steps you should take:

* Identify critical dependencies: It’s important to determine which components of an open source deployment represent critical dependencies. These are the ones you need to be fully certain about in terms of community size, robustness, feature suggestions and more. When it comes to components that represent dependencies, it’s important to ensure you don’t get locked into something that isn’t the perfect fit.

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OpenStack is redefining the business model for data solutions

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

IT is headed toward being something more akin to a utility service, transformed by OpenStack’s open standardized cloud architecture, which will improve interoperability and render vendor lock-in a thing of the past.

Initially a solution adopted by smaller ISVs lacking the capital to build private clouds, OpenStack-based cloud solutions are shaping up to be the logical choice for large enterprise as industry leaders, including IBM, Cisco, EMC, HP and Oracle, bet on its value for defining the next-generation model for business computing.

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US Navy drone can fly, land on the water and swim

The US Naval Research Lab is developing an unmanned aircraft that can fly, land in the water and swim like a fish.The Navy calls its flying/swimmer FLIMMER and says it is a combination airplane/submarine that at first flies to a location, then lands on the water and submerges. After that it can swim like a fish. +More on Network World: Hot stuff: The coolest drones+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US Navy drone can fly, land on the water and swim

The US Naval Research Lab is developing an unmanned aircraft that can fly, land in the water and swim like a fish.The Navy calls its flying/swimmer FLIMMER and says it is a combination airplane/submarine that at first flies to a location, then lands on the water and submerges. After that it can swim like a fish. +More on Network World: Hot stuff: The coolest drones+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Alibaba’s cloud and mobile businesses soar, but total revenue disappoints

Alibaba Group’s cloud computing and mobile businesses are surging, but its reported revenue in the second quarter missed analysts’ estimates, amid a slowing Chinese economy.In the quarter ended June 30, Alibaba generated over $3.2 billion in revenue, up 28 percent year over year, but short of the $3.39 billion consensus expectation from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.The e-commerce giant raked in a net profit of US$4.9 billion, for a 150 percent increase, but the huge profit increase largely came from its film production arm, Alibaba Pictures. In June, the company reduced its stake in Alibaba Pictures, and “deconsolidated” it from the financial results. This resulted in a major gain for Alibaba’s investment income.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Three critical considerations when optimizing infrastructure for application performance

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

Overprovisioning has been the go-to approach for ensuring infrastructure and application performance. But when performance degradations and unplanned outages occur, even the most experienced teams move into “react-and-guess” mode.

Where to start? Every level of the infrastructure stack comes with its own possible issues, and tracking the culprit down takes time. And with IT infrastructures growing at an exponential pace and workloads to the cloud, the typical approach of overprovisioning and reacting-and-guessing is no longer a viable option.

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Facebook axes a future intern for exposing a privacy flaw

After being accepted for an internship at Facebook, Harvard University student Aran Khanna continued to embrace the same entrepreneurial spirit that helped launch the site on the very same campus over a decade ago. Ironically, his efforts cost him his chance at working at the company.Khanna discovered a privacy flaw in the default settings of Facebook's Messenger app for Android that automatically shared users' detailed location data. To draw attention to the flaw, Khanna launched an Android app called Marauder's Map that mapped Facebook users' locations based on their activity on Messenger in May, according to Boston.com. The app showed that the location sharing was accurate to within a three-foot distance and shared users' location data even with Facebook users they were not Friends with.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

My CCIE Journey – Act II

In fact the title should be “My CCIE Journey – Act III” but I don’t want to use that one because I had a bad experience with the CCIE Voice lab exam There are many (very good) links about that specific subject but I wanted to give my own opinion as well :). Here is […]

HTC to cut work force by 15 percent, amid struggling smartphone sales

Struggling HTC is cutting 15 percent of its work force in an attempt to cut costs and revive its ailing smartphone business.The Taiwanese company announced the lay offs on Thursday, after its second quarter earnings took a dive, for a NT$8 billion (US$257 million) loss.HTC declined to mention the exact number of layoffs. But as of March 31, the company had 15,685 employees, according to its most recent annual report. This means a 15 percent reduction could end up cutting 2,300 jobs.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: HTC is dead in the water +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: The Crisis of Attention

Recently, my father, who has worked in technology education for a long time, texted me a picture from an airport restaurant in which he was eating. In the picture, a waiter stood at a table waiting for a family of six to finish looking at their iPads. Each person had bent his or her head to stare at the iPad screen, ignoring one another and the waiter. via the Washington Free Beacon

The post Worth Reading: The Crisis of Attention appeared first on 'net work.

Don’t look for Google to make big, quick changes after Alphabet pronouncement

The announcement Monday that saw Google reorganize under the banner of new holding company Alphabet was Big News, we all seem to agree, but it’s much less clear exactly what kind of Big News it is.It’s going to keep investors happy by segmenting some of Google’s wilder moonshot projects out of the main earnings figures, according to the Verge. Or maybe, says the Guardian, Google wants to make itself a smaller target for the European regulators it’s currently battling.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco warns customers about attacks installing rogue firmware on networking gear

Installing rogue firmware on embedded devices has long been a concern for security researchers, and it seems that such attacks have started to gain ground with hackers.In an advisory Tuesday, Cisco Systems warned customers that it is aware of a limited number of cases where attackers have replaced the boot firmware on devices running its IOS operating system. IOS runs on most Cisco routers and switches and provides a complex set of networking tools and features.MEET CISCO'S NEW CEO: The Real Chuck RobbinsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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