Converged Cloud-Class Networking – The Next Frontier

Scale-out cloud-applications continue to be the most disruptive force to traditional network architectures in the data center. They demand an open and uncompromised cloud network, unshackled by monolithic and the prehistoric proprietary networks.

Our customers and partners are reshaping this traditional networking industry. Previously burdened by monolithic software and underperforming hardware, the new evolving bifurcation of computing architectures for modern cloud-based applications has resulted in key trends and drivers for this evolution including:

1. Unstructured data is everywhere. Whether from users, applications or machines, it is growing exponentially with no vertical or industry being spared. One current obstacle to working with large data sets is the use of relational databases and desktop statistics/visualization packages that require massively parallel software running on hundreds, or even thousands of servers.
2. New workloads are changing the notion of separate SANs. This impacts the role of networking and IP storage, where virtual machine mobility sustains multiple gigabits of throughput by default with multicore processors.
3. Cloud intensive applications such as content distribution, and new infrastructure technologies such as containers and Hadoop clusters are pushing the envelope of what is possible with massively parallel transactions. These new large-scale data analytics have given birth to converged Continue reading

USB 3.1 cables will see price drops as manufacturers prepare for demand

With the PC industry starting to adopt USB 3.1 technology, prices for cables that can connect to these products are also expected to rapidly fall, according to manufacturers.In March, Apple was among the first to come out with a laptop built with a single USB 3.1 port that used the Type-C connector.The USB 3.1 standard promises data transfer speeds of 10Gbps (gigabits per second), two times faster than USB 3.0. But given that the technology is still new, prices for USB 3.1 cables with Type-C connectors are hovering between US$24 and $29.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Qualcomm turns to China’s Allwinner to grow in low-cost tablet market

Qualcomm hopes to put its chips in more low-cost Android tablets through a partnership with Chinese chip maker Allwinner.As part of the agreement, Allwinner will push Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 410 and 210 chips with integrated LTE into low-cost Android tablets distributed worldwide. Allwinner mainly distributes Wi-Fi-only chips for tablets under US$200, and its LTE lineup will be filled up by Qualcomm Snapdragon chips.The deal offers an opportunity for Qualcomm to grow in the Chinese market, where the company was hit with problems in recent years. Qualcomm in February paid US$975 million to settle a fine imposed by the Chinese government for monopolistic business practices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hola browser extension should be uninstalled, researchers say

Security researchers contend the developer of a popular browser extension has not fixed vulnerabilities they found, and are recommending users should get rid of it.The free extension, from Israel-based Hola, is a peer-to-peer program that routes people’s Internet traffic through other Hola users’ computers. It can let users watch geoblocked content by routing traffic through the authorized region or offer greater anonymity, similar to Tor, when Web browsing. It has been downloaded millions of times.Last week, a group of nine researchers launched a website called ”Adios, Hola!” that describes several flaws affecting the Hola Unblocker Windows client, the extension for Firefox and Chrome, and its Android application.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PC makers disclose plans to bring Windows 10 to PCs

With Microsoft ready to ship Windows 10 on July 29, PC makers are disclosing their plans to make the OS available to customers in new laptops and desktops or as a free OS upgrade from Windows 7 and 8.1.Dell will ship its first PCs pre-loaded with Windows 10 on July 29, said Raymond Wah, vice president of consumer product marketing at the company, during an interview at Computex on Tuesday.The company wants to roll out laptops and desktops as quickly as possible so back-to-school buyers can get hold of the new OS, Wah said. Microsoft is providing a free upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 for one year, which Dell plans to make a snap through customer support and tutorial videos.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ellen Pao will appeal ruling in sex discrimination case

Former venture capitalist Ellen Pao intends to file an appeal against a March decision in a sex discrimination lawsuit.A 12-person jury in a court in San Francisco had found that Pao’s lawsuit against former employer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers failed on all four counts, including the main issue of whether gender had been a consideration in the decision by the venture capital firm not to promote her.The case has captured attention in the U.S. tech industry, where women are a minority. Pao had also charged with discrimination an old and reputed firm, which has invested in some key technology companies in the U.S. The lawsuit has emerged as a symbol of the struggle by women against alleged sexual discrimination in the workplace.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Visualizing software defined network topologies using POX and Gephi

When a researcher uses the Mininet network simulator to create a network of hosts and switches connected to an SDN controller, he or she may wish to be able to see what the simulated network topology looks like.

The POX SDN controller includes a component that will send network topology data to the Gephi data visualization platform, which can the show a graph of nodes and links representing the network topology. In this post, I will show how to set up POX and Gephi so we can see the network topologies created using the topology options in the Mininet command.

While we work through this tutorial we will also see how the POX SDN controller, which does not offer a native Northbound API, can use POX components to provide northbound interfaces.

Prerequisite skills and activities

This tutorial assumes you already have the following. I include links to relevant posts if you need to review any of these requirements.

• You have a basic understanding of Ethernet, IP, and software defined networking.
• You have set up the Mininet 2.2.1 virtual machine on your computer
• You have a basic understanding of how Mininet commands work
• You are familiar with the POX Continue reading

How you might get food delivered through Pinterest

When you search for a recipe on Pinterest, the results soon might include a way to have the ingredients delivered to your door within 45 minutes.That’s not a function built into Pinterest yet, but it could arrive in the future as the company grows its new platform for third-party developers. That platform, announced last month, is designed to let outside developers incorporate their own apps and services into Pinterest’s site to expand how the site can be used.Content on Pinterest is organized into visual bookmarks, or “pins.” Outside partners, such as advertisers, already work with Pinterest to incorporate content like images and product information into their pins. The new developer platform would allow select third parties to integrate services and do it on their own, without Pinterest’s help.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How you might get food delivered through Pinterest

When you search for a recipe on Pinterest, the results soon might include a way to have the ingredients delivered to your door within 45 minutes.That’s not a function built into Pinterest yet, but it could arrive in the future as the company grows its new platform for third-party developers. That platform, announced last month, is designed to let outside developers incorporate their own apps and services into Pinterest’s site to expand how the site can be used.Content on Pinterest is organized into visual bookmarks, or “pins.” Outside partners, such as advertisers, already work with Pinterest to incorporate content like images and product information into their pins. The new developer platform would allow select third parties to integrate services and do it on their own, without Pinterest’s help.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Understanding TSA Math

PHY Basics: How OFDM Subcarriers Work

Have you ever wondered just "how" OFDM subcarriers are able to be spaced so tightly together without any guard band in-between? Most Wi-Fi textbooks will simply state that the spacing of the subcarriers allows the harmonics to overlap, thus canceling out any interference.

OFDM subcarrier spacing creates "nulls" canceling out inter-carrier interference (ICI) without the need for guard bands or expensive bandpass filters

OFDM divides a given channel into many narrower subcarriers. The spacing is such that the subcarriers are orthogonal, so they won’t interfere with one another despite the lack of guard bands between them. This comes about by having the subcarrier spacing equal to the reciprocal of symbol time. All subcarriers have a complete number of sine wave cycles that upon demodulation will sum to zero. 

This tells us that the spacing of the subcarriers is directly related to the useful symbol time (more specifically, the amount of time the transmitter spends performing IFFT). Because of this relationship, the resulting sinc frequency response curves from each subcarrier create signal nulls in the adjacent subcarrier frequencies thus preventing inter-carrier interference (ICI). OFDM is a form of frequency division multiplexing (FDD), which typically requires guard bands between carriers and specialized hardware Continue reading

SecureCRT and Python

Wunderlist hooks up with Microsoft’s Sunrise calendaring app & the next thing you know…

Microsoft's 2015 acquisition spree shows no sign of abating: The latest scuttlebutt is that the company has snapped up Germany's 6Wunderkinder to-do list app maker.As I documented in April ("What's behind Microsoft's not-so-crazy acquisition spree?"), Microsoft was off to its fastest acquisition pace ever this year with 4 deals confirmed and 1 widely rumored to have been signed (and in fact, Microsoft recently confirmed the buyout of that 5th company, Surface pen maker N-trig).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Report: Microsoft acquires startup behind Wunderlist to-do app

Microsoft has acquired 6Wunderkinder GmbH, a German startup that makes the popular Wunderlist to-do list application, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.The deal was worth between $100 and $200 million, and is the latest in a string of acquisitions from the Redmond company aimed at bolstering its cross-platform holdings in the mobile productivity space. 6Wunderkinder’s staff will continue to work out of the firm’s Berlin office, but will report to Microsoft’s headquarters in Washington. The report squares with an earlier article from VentureBeat, which said the deal would be valued below $250 million.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Report: Microsoft acquires startup behind Wunderlist to-do app

Microsoft has acquired 6Wunderkinder GmbH, a German startup that makes the popular Wunderlist to-do list application, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.The deal was worth between $100 and $200 million, and is the latest in a string of acquisitions from the Redmond company aimed at bolstering its cross-platform holdings in the mobile productivity space. 6Wunderkinder’s staff will continue to work out of the firm’s Berlin office, but will report to Microsoft’s headquarters in Washington. The report squares with an earlier article from VentureBeat, which said the deal would be valued below $250 million.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SanDisk enters portable drive market with high-speed SSDs

SanDisk, known for thumb drives, memory cards and internal SSD, has announced its first line-up of pocket-sized, high-capacity external drives.The new line of drives includes four products of varying size, ranging in capacity from 120GB to 1.9TB. The new line includes the Extreme 900 Portable SSD, which uses the new, reversible USB Type-C connector with throughput up to 850MB/s.All of the drives come native with SanDisk SecureAccess software, which uses 128-bit AES encryption to password protect data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

25 burning questions about Windows Server 2003 end of support

You know it well by now: Windows Server 2003 support is ending July 14, 2015. If you're one of the (far too) many still running WS2003, it's time to arm yourself with your action plan because what you don't know can hurt you.ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: What if Windows went open source tomorrow? With help from the IDG Answers community, we collected some of most burning questions enterprises and individuals have about WS2003 end of support -- how it will affect them, how to prepare, what the options are. If you have advice you'd like to share, or lingering questions, add a comment below or join the discussion on IDG Answers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Backup and Restore on the Cisco ASA 9.3

In a recent blog post, I examined some of the new features available in the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) 9.3 code and promised to cover some of these here at the blog. With that said, let's examine the Backup and Restore functionality that is now built in to these devices. The first question we will tackle is what exactly is backup up through this process. The answer is just about everything you could want on your system! Here is the complete list: The Running-configuration The Startup-configuration All security images, including the Cisco Secure Desktop and Host Scan images, Cisco Secure Desktop and Host Scan settings, AnyConnect (SVC) client images and profiles, and AnyConnect (SVC) customizations and transforms Identity certificates (includes RSA key pairs tied to identity certificates; excludes standalone keys) VPN pre-shared keys SSL VPN configurations Application Profile Custom Framework (APCF) Bookmarks Customizations Dynamic Access Policy (DAP) Plug-ins Pre-fill scripts for connection profiles Proxy Auto-config Translation table Web content Version information So you have just made some configuration changes and you are ready to backup your device. Here are some things to keep in mind:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Projecting the Internet of Things’ massive potential impact on business

Often, when we hear about Internet of Things (IoT), we think of it in terms of consumer-oriented scenarios—home security, switching lights on, fitness bands, and so on.But in fact, the IoT has room to completely transform business too. Telematics isn't just consumer-oriented.Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer presented a webinar on digital innovation recently, and in it he provided a synopsis on where he thinks IoT and business is headed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CA names Xbox cofounder its new CTO

Xbox cofounder Otto Berkes may have spent the bulk of his recent years focusing on consumer technology, but his next career move will be set squarely in the enterprise arena, as CA Technologies on Monday announced that it recruited him to serve as its next CTO.Most recently, Berkes was CTO at HBO, where he was responsible for the development of HBO Go as well as all of the company’s technology efforts including media production, internal business systems and technology operations.Before that, Berkes—who has been awarded seven patents and is one of the four original founders of Xbox—spent 18 years at Microsoft, where he held a number of senior-level positions including senior software developer, partner-level architect and general manager.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here