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Alcatel-Lucent Gives Pre-SDN Enterprises an Intelligent Fabric

QoS inside a VXLAN tunnel is among the proto-SDN features AlcaLu is touting for its OmniSwitch.

Poor WordPress documentation trips developers, yields plug-ins with XSS flaw

Ambiguous WordPress documentation led many plug-in and theme developers to make an error that exposed websites to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.Such attacks involve tricking a site’s users into clicking on specially crafted URLs that execute rogue JavaScript code in their browsers in the context of that website.The impact depends on the user’s role on the website. For example, if victims have administrative privileges, attackers could trigger rogue administrative actions. If victims are regular users, attackers could steal their authentication cookies and hijack their accounts.The vulnerability stems from insecure use of two WordPress functions called add_query_arg and remove_query_arg and was discovered recently by researchers from code auditing company Scrutinizer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Centrify adds extra protection for sensitive accounts with new cloud service

For CIOs worried about access to shared resources in the cloud and the data center, Centrify has launched an identity-management service that aims to improve protection for IT management accountsAs enterprises embrace cloud-based apps, access to privileged accounts used to manage the most sensitive parts of the supporting infrastructure increasingly lie outside the corporate perimeter. In addition, the accounts are frequently shared by both internal IT and third parties such as contractors. The entire scenario makes important accounts more vulnerable to attacks, according to Centrify.To address this issue the company on Tuesday launched CPS (Centrify Privilege Service), a cloud-based identity management offering that can be used to manage access to cloud and on-site systems by remote employees and third parties. It can be used to protect access to shared servers in the data center or in the cloud, along with routers, switches and social media accounts, for example.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Alcatel-Lucent grows switching and virtual networking portfolio

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise this week rolled out a new switch and software enhancements designed to simplify network operations through automation and design flexibility.Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise became independent from Alcatel-Lucent last fall. Alcatel-Lucent is being acquired by Nokia for over $16 billion, but Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is not part of the deal.+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Eyes turn to Ericsson, Juniper+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Alcatel-Lucent grows switching and virtual networking portfolio

As Nokia buy awaits, Alcatel-Lucent grows switching and virtual networking portfolio

As it awaits to be swallowed up by Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent continues to expand its switching and virtual networking portfolio.The company this week rolled out a new switch and software enhancements designed to simplify network operations through automation and design flexibility. This follows last week’s announcement that Nokia would acquire Alcatel-Lucent for over $16 billion to strengthen its presence in fixed and wireless networking.+ MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Eyes turn to Ericsson, Juniper +The new switch is the OmniSwitch 6900-Q32, a campus core and data center top-of-rack device for companies requiring a low latency scalable and programmable fabric.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Coming soon: The app store for virtualization

The constant push to increase productivity and profit has historically led commercial enterprises to drive some of our world's most significant technology advances. It was the enterprise push for further development of desktop computer processing that changed the personal computer from a hobbyist activity to a mission-critical tool. Commercial organizations deployed fiber for dedicated computer networks while the rest of us were just getting used to DSL. And the cellphone? It began its life as tool to keep business sales teams and execs more productive.But something happened during the smartphone revolution. What made the smartphone the critical invention of the 21st century was the ease of application use. Applications became "apps," and with them came their own marketplace, or "app store."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Coming soon: The app store for virtualization

Betting On The Right Horse

HobbyHorse

The annoucement of the merger of Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia was a pretty big discussion last week. One of the quotes that kept being brought up in several articles was from John Chambers of Cisco. Chambers has said the IT industry is in for a big round of “brutal consolidation” spurred by “missed market transitions”, which is a favorite term for Chambers. While I agree that consolidation is coming in the industry, I don’t think market transitions are the driver. Instead, it helps to think of it more like a day at the races.

Tricky Ponies

Startups in the networking industry have to find a hook to get traction with investors and customers. Since you can’t boil the ocean, you have to stand out. You need to find an application that gives you the capability to sell into a market. That is much easier to do with SDN than hardware-based innovation. The time-to-market for software is much lower than the barriers to ramp up production of actual devices.

Being a one-trick pony isn’t a bad thing when it comes to SDN startups. If you pour all your talent into one project, you get the best you can build. If Continue reading

Bahrain

7 troubling similarities between the Apple Watch and Google Glass

Call it heresy, but now that I've had the chance to actually get my hands on the Apple Watch, I keep being struck by the parallels with the much-maligned Google Glass. That doesn't necessarily mean the Apple Watch will fail spectacularly the way Glass did, just that it will face many of the same challenges. Let's take a look at a few of them.(Note that I tried the Apple Watch only at the Apple Store. Actual deliveries don't begin until Friday, April 24. I have spent much more time with Google Glass… just not in public).They're both too expensiveThe Apple Watch starts at $350, but the "nice" ones start at twice that price and soar well into five freaking figures! Even more annoying, if you just want to upgrade the aluminum sport model with a slightly less-cheesy leather band, it'll cost you another $250. Really? $250 for a leather watchband?! In comparison, the $1,500 price tag on Google Glass no longer seems so outrageous.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HTTPS snooping flaw in third-party library affected 1,000 iOS apps with millions of users

Apps used by millions of iPhone and iPad owners became vulnerable to snooping when a flaw was introduced into third-party code they used to establish HTTPS connections.The flaw was located in an open-source library called AFNetworking that’s used by hundreds of thousands of iOS and Mac OS X applications for communicating with Web services. The bug disabled the validation of digital certificates presented by servers when establishing secure HTTPS (HTTP over SSL/TLS) connections.This means that attackers in a position to intercept encrypted traffic between affected applications and HTTPS servers could decrypt and modify the data by presenting the app with a fake certificate. This is known as a man-in-the-middle attack and can be launched over insecure wireless networks, by hacking into routers and through other methods.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HOL Head-of-line blocking

How does Internet work - We know what is networking

Head-of-line blocking (HOL blocking) in networking is a performance issue that occurs when a bunch of packets is blocked by the first packet in line. It can happen specially in input buffered network switches where out-of-order delivery of packets can occur. A switch can be composed of input buffered ports, output buffered ports and switch fabric. When first-in first-out input buffers are used, only the first received packet is prepared to be forwarded. All packets received afterwards are not forwarded if the first one cannot be forwarded. That is basically what HOL blocking really is.If there’s no HOL blocking happening,

HOL Head-of-line blocking

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Tuesday, April 21

New mainframe can’t keep IBM sales from slidingIBM reported a 12 percent drop in revenue for the last quarter despite a big boost from its new z13 mainframe. Profit was down 5 percent to $2.4 billion on revenue of $19.6 billion. IBM said Monday that its cloud, analytics and mobile business increased more than 20 percent from a year earlier, but wasn’t enough to offset declines elsewhere.Google’s Mobilegeddon hits TuesdayIt’s here: the day that webmasters have called Mobilegeddon for its potentially cataclysmic effect on those who did not heed the warnings has arrived. On Tuesday, websites that aren’t sufficiently mobile-friendly will find themselves tumbling far down in Google’s search rankings.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Tuesday, April 21

Mobile worker guilt hits most young workers

Most younger mobile workers feel guilty about using smartphones and smartwatches to do personal tasks while at work and for performing work at home when they should be taking care of their families or other duties.A new survey of 3,500 professionals -- mostly under age 34 -- conducted in the U.S. and five other countries found at least 58% said they have feelings of guilt in this hyper-connected world.ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: How to lure tech talent with employee benefits, perks The survey, conducted by the Harris Poll for MobileIron, also found that 60% said they would leave their job if their boss didn't allow any remote work or restricted their ability to do personal tasks at work. The survey involved workers in the U.S. as well as France, Germany, Japan, Spain and the UK between December 2014 and January 2015.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tech’s ticking time bombs: The components you might (and might not) expect to wear out

Frequent failureImage by ENIAC used over 17,000 vacuum tubes. TexasDex/Wikipedia.The early computers of the vacuum-tube age were marvels of engineering for their time. Today, we can simultaneously appreciate the advances these computers represented, making previously unthinkable computational work possible, and chuckle at what to us seems like their ludicrous size and painfully slow processing speeds.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Rearchitecting L3-Only Networks

One of the responses I got on my “What is Layer-2” post was

Ivan, are you saying to use L3 switches everywhere with /31 on the switch ports and the servers/workstation?

While that solution would work (and I know a few people who are using it with reasonable success), it’s nothing more than creative use of existing routing paradigms; we need something better.

Update 2015-04-22 14:30Z - Added a link to Cumulus Linux Redistribute Neighbor feature.