How machine learning ate Microsoft

At the Strata big data conference yesterday, Microsoft let the world know its Azure Machine Learning offering was generally available to developers. This may come as a surprise. Microsoft? Isn't machine learning the province of Google or Facebook or innumerable hot startups?In truth, Microsoft has quietly built up its machine learning expertise over decades, transforming academic discoveries into product functionality along the way. Not many businesses can match Microsoft's deep bench of talent.[ See what hardware, software, development tools, and cloud services came out on top in the InfoWorld 2015 Technology of the Year Awards. | Download the entire list of winners in the handy Technology of the Year PDF. | Stay up on key Microsoft technologies with InfoWorld's Microsoft newsletter. ] Machine learning -- getting a system to teach itself from lots of data rather than simply following preset rules -- actually powers the Microsoft software you use everyday. Machine learning has infiltrated Microsoft products from Bing to Office to Windows 8 to Xbox games. Its flashiest vehicle may be the futuristic Skype Translator, which handles two-way voice conversations in different languages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Salesforce brings more analytics power to mobile business users

Analytics is not a domain everyone’s brain can adapt to easily. Combining statistics, data visualization, operations research, programming savvy and more, the field has relied largely on specialists to make its data-focused interpretations useful in the practical sphere.That, however, is slowly changing. Along with the rise of Big Data, efforts are increasingly emerging to put the power of analytics in the hands of business managers, often using the tools for mobile devices that are popular today.A case in point is Salesforce.com’s Wave Analytics Cloud, which the company updated Thursday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NTT to roll out indoor navigation using smartphone sensors

Japanese mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo wants to go beyond GPS with a more granular smartphone navigation system for complex indoor spaces.DoCoMo has partnered with mapping company Zenrin DataCom to develop the navigation system that makes use of sensors in smartphones. It’s designed to help users find their way through Japan’s dense indoor spaces such as subway complexes or underground malls where GPS signals may not reach.Japan has some of the busiest and largest rail hubs in the world, with multiple floors, overlapping rail lines and subterranean shopping arcades. The new platform uses smartphone motion sensors to track direction when a user walks around. The data is plotted against preloaded maps from Zenrin, which supplies mapping apps for all DoCoMo mobile phones.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP latest to unbundle switch hardware, software

HP has joined the disaggregation party through two partnerships that will produce a branded white box switch capable of running multiple network operating systems.HP has expanded a relationship with Accton Technology to offer two new switches initially, and more later this year. The switches will be low-cost, software-independent white box hardware targeted at Web scale data centers supporting cloud, mobile, social media and big data workloads.Under a second arrangement, HP will offer Cumulus Networks’ Cumulus Linux network operating system on the Accton switches. Cumulus Linux runs on a variety of white box and branded switching hardware based on merchant silicon, and is intended to make the software side of networking hardware independent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP latest to unbundle switch hardware, software

HP has joined the disaggregation party through two partnerships that will produce a branded white box switch capable of running multiple network operating systems.HP has expanded a relationship with Accton Technology to offer two new switches initially, and more later this year. The switches will be low-cost, software-independent white box hardware targeted at Web scale data centers supporting cloud, mobile, social media and big data workloads.Under a second arrangement, HP will offer Cumulus Networks’ Cumulus Linux network operating system on the Accton switches. Cumulus Linux runs on a variety of white box and branded switching hardware based on merchant silicon, and is intended to make the software side of networking hardware independent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The cloud journey continues: HP and Cumulus Networks

Is open networking mainstream?

If the HP announcement of new data center networking solutions with Cumulus Linux is any indication, then we will venture to answer.

Yes.

On Feb. 19, HP announced a partnership with Cumulus Networks for new HP open network switches with Cumulus Linux, the operating system for open networking. HP has designed an efficient supply chain model including a joint venture with Accton, delivery worldwide via HP logistics centers, and HP local sales and support.

Open networking was born when web-scale providers developed proprietary cloud networking that reduced CapEx costs while improving OpEx and enabling automation.  Similarly, hosting companies, service providers and high-tech firms re-architected their data centers realizing similar benefits.  Next, financials, government, and education entities found affordable capacity and new innovation opportunities with their cloud journey.  Today, a broad range of enterprises are adopting open networking for a wide set of use cases – and for automation and rapid service delivery using Linux tools already standardized for servers.

In that context, the new HP open network switch offerings with Cumulus Linux address a range of use cases but the sweet spot is hyper-scale data center operators. Of course HP also offers the servers, storage and Continue reading

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, February 19

Samsung pushes into mobile payments with LoopPay acquisitionSamsung Electronics is stepping up to Apple and Google on the mobile payments front: On Wednesday it said it would buy LoopPay and roll it into its mobile division. The Massachusetts startup’s technology is, like competitors, basically a virtual wallet for payment cards, but it works with existing magnetic card readers in the U.S.Qualcomm getting set to roll out 64-bit mobile chipsQualcomm is readying new chips for mobile devices that are the first to implement its homegrown 64-bit architecture. The design will appear first in high-end Snapdragon chips for premium products, and test units will be shipping by the end of the year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, February 19

Samsung pushes into mobile payments with LoopPay acquisitionSamsung Electronics is stepping up to Apple and Google on the mobile payments front: On Wednesday it said it would buy LoopPay and roll it into its mobile division. The Massachusetts startup’s technology is, like competitors, basically a virtual wallet for payment cards, but it works with existing magnetic card readers in the U.S.Qualcomm getting set to roll out 64-bit mobile chipsQualcomm is readying new chips for mobile devices that are the first to implement its homegrown 64-bit architecture. The design will appear first in high-end Snapdragon chips for premium products, and test units will be shipping by the end of the year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Japan’s curious love for old-school flip-phones continues

Outmoded technology dies hard in futuristic Japan.Telegrams remain popular, the fax machine industry is alive and well and now shipments of feature phones are on the rise.For the first time in seven years, shipments of old-school flip phones increased in 2014 while those of smartphones fell. While it may be a statistical anomaly, Japan’s flip phones are highly evolved devices with unique features that keep them popular.Feature phones notched a 5.7 percent gain last year to 10.5 million units, compared to a 5.3 percent drop in smartphone shipments to 27.7 million, according to MM Research Institute (MMRI), which noted that Apple retains a dominant smartphone share of about 60 percent. The MMRI study followed feature phones, which in Japan consist mainly of flip phones,To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why oh why?

Kubernetes 101 – External access into the cluster

In our last post, we looked at how Kubernetes handles the bulk of it’s networking.  What we didn’t cover yet, was how to access services deployed in the Kubernetes cluster from outside the cluster.  Obviously services that live in pods can be accessed directly as each pod has its own routable IP address.  But what if we want something a little more dynamic?  What if we used a replication controller to scale our web front end? We have the Kubernetes service, but what I would call its VIP range (Portal Net) isn’t routable on the network.  There are a couple of ways to solve this problem.  Let’s walk through the problem and talk about a couple of ways to solve it.  I’ll demonstrate the way I chose to solve it but that doesn’t imply that there aren’t other better ways as well.

As we’ve seen, Kubernetes has a built-in load balancer which it refers to as a service.  A service is group of pods that all provide the same function.  Services are accessible by other pods through an IP address which is allocated out of the clusters portal net allocation.  Continue reading

Performance of Hypervisor-Based Overlay Virtual Networking

Years ago I managed to saturate a 10GE uplink on a vSphere server I tested with a single Linux VM using less than one vCPU. On the other hand, squeezing 1 Gbps out of Open vSwitch using GRE encapsulation was called ludicrous speed not so long ago. Implementing overlay virtual networking in the hypervisor obviously carries a huge performance penalty, right? Not so fast…

The Cisco CNPES Cert, First Exam (600-504) and Course

Do you think of yourself as a network engineer? Cisco’s Network Programmability Engineer Specialist (CPNES) certification represents Cisco’s first crack at a certification focused on network engineering in an SDN world. Today’s post begins to examine this certification by looking at the first of the two required exams: the 600-504 NPENG exam. We’ll look at both the exam and a related video course.

Other posts in this series:

• Introduction to Cisco’s SDN Certifications
• Cisco Network Programmability (SDN) Intro Course

Overview

First, to set the stage, Cisco currently offers four network programmability certifications. Loosely you can think of these as two networking-focused certs, and two development-focused certs, based on job roles. For the two networking-focused certs, one focuses on design, while one (the one discussed here) looks at engineering and implementation.

Figure 1: Overview of Cisco SDN Certifications

Today’s post focuses on the cisco network programmability engineering specialist (CNPES) cert, and specifically the first exam: the 600-504 NPENG exam. Basically, the NPENG exam covers SDN implementation but excludes ACI, while the second required exam, 600-512 NPENGACI, includes ACI.

This list provides the links for more details – for the certification, each of the two exams, and each of Cisco’s two Continue reading

Some notes on SuperFish

What's the big deal?

MPLS VPN and DMVPN Design Challenge

MPLS VPN is used mostly as primary connectivity and DMVPN as a backup in the small medium business. You might see in some cases DMVPN is the only the circuit between remote offices and the datacenter/HQ, or for some applications MPLS VPN might be the primary,DMVPN for the others. As an example high throughput, high… Read More »

The post MPLS VPN and DMVPN Design Challenge appeared first on Network Design and Architecture.

Google worried US could use amended warrant rule to search computers abroad

Google has opposed moves by the U.S. Department of Justice to extend the warrant issuing authority of magistrate judges to searches of computers in districts other than their own.Innocuous as that may sound, Google is concerned that the proposed amendment would likely end up being used by U.S. law enforcement to directly search computers and devices anywhere in the world.There is nothing in the proposed change to the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 that would prevent access to computers and devices worldwide, wrote Richard Salgado, Google’s legal director for law enforcement and information security, in a blog post Wednesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Using Python’s Virtual Environments with Git For More Than Coding

Swedish man pleads guilty to peddling Blackshades malware

A Swedish man pleaded guilty Wednesday to peddling one of the most prevalent spying programs called Blackshades that was widely used by the criminal underground.Alex Yucel, 24, pleaded guilty to one count of distributing malicious software. He could face a maximum of 10 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said. He is expected to be sentenced on May 22.BlackShades, a remote access trojan, was marketed by its developers as a program for legitimate computer monitoring but was mostly used for stealing payment card data, recording a computer’s keystrokes and secretly controlling webcams. It was sold for between US$40 to $100.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tens of thousands of home routers at risk with duplicate SSH keys

A setup mistake has apparently left hundreds of thousands of home routers running the SSH (Secure Shell) remote access tool with identical private and public keys.John Matherly used Shodan, a specialized search engine for querying Internet-connected devices, and found more than 250,000 devices that appear to be deployed by Telefónica de España sharing the same public SSH key.+ ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: Most Memorable Saturday Night Live Techie Skits & Bits +Matherly, who founded Shodan, performed the search after someone posted a shorter version of a public key—called a fingerprint—for their device.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Using Python’s Virtual Environments with Git For More Than Coding