NETWORKING

After some saber-rattling, Cisco has sweetened the pot to acquire optical technology firm Acacia. The amended agreement calls for Cisco to pay $4.5 billion instead of the originally agreed upon $2.6 billion deal. The companies said the amended acquisition should close by the end of the first calendar quarter of 2021, but it is still subject to closing conditions, including Acacia stockholder approval. Upon completion of the acquisition, Acacia CEO Raj Shanmugaraj and company employees will…

Cisco has added support for traditional network environments to the company’s recently available data center-management console. Introduced in October, Cisco’s Nexus Dashboard melds a number of Cisco’s on-premises, cloud and hybrid fabric-management tools into a single interface to administer application lifecycles from provisioning to maintenance and optimization. The idea is that the dashboard provides a central platform for data center-operation applications to simplify the operation and management of the applications while reducing the infrastructure overhead…

Pat Gelsinger’s return to Intel after a 12-year absence has been greeted positively, with the stock jumping 8% on the news Wednesday, analysts lauding it, and apparently even Intel staff approving, indicating he remained popular there despite leaving the firm in 2009. Replacing outgoing CEO Bob Swan with VMware CEO Gelsinger, isn’t a sign of failure on the part of Swan, who took over in early 2018. Intel is expected to meet or exceed Q1…

Intel said it will bring on current VMware leader Pat Gelsinger as its new chief executive officer, effective Feb. 15, 2021.  The 40-year technology industry vet replaces Intel’s Bob Swan, who will remain CEO until that date. For VMware, the company said it was initiating a global executive search process to name a permanent chief and that Zane Rowe, current VMware CFO will become interim CEO. “Pat led the company in expanding our core virtualization…

In times like these, it’s tempting for IT teams and company leadership to get caught up in the latest developments or next month’s trends, especially when it comes to how and where work is done. But organizations that develop a long-term strategy for all scenarios—extended work-from-home, return to the office or hybrid models of any flavor—will come out stronger than ever after the pandemic. Any provider worth your investment should be able to ensure adaptability…

As we embark upon 2021, we have an opportunity to put the challenges of the past year behind us and embrace a new normal that includes providing enterprises and their employees with the ability to connect to business applications from anywhere in a safe and secure manner. With Silver Peak now part of Aruba, our ability to help our enterprises to successfully transform their WAN and security architectures and advance digital transformation has never been…

The Linux expect command takes script writing to an entirely new level. Instead of automating processes, it automates running and responding to other scripts. In other words, you can write a script that asks how you are and then create an expect script that both runs it and tells it that you’re ok. Here’s the bash script: #!/bin/bash echo “How are you doing?” read ans Here’s the expect script that provides the response to the…

IT outsourcing giant Atos has put in a bid to acquire DXC Technology, which would give the French IT giant a big foot in the door to the U.S. market. The rumor first ran last week on Reuters, which put the purchase price at $10.1 billion. Atos issued a rather short statement confirming the talks, but did not confirm the rumored price. It said there was no certainty of an outcome and further announcements would…

The new normal isn’t new anymore. It’s just normal. In today’s off-kilter, work-from-home world, the No. 1 management lesson has been to relearn what we should have known already: One size does not fit all. The first responsibility of IT leaders during the pandemic is to assess the personal situations of the people who report to them and adjust expectations and work arrangements accordingly. This is not a one-and-done task. People’s family, risk, and health…

As the Internet of Things (IoT) explodes in enterprise settings, there’s an opportunity for IT pros to step into new leadership roles. Often, IoT deployments are key to transformational initiatives, so having the skills to head up a significant IoT project can have a beneficial effect on career advancement. Tech Spotlight: IT Leadership The CIO’s next key role: Change agent (CIO) How IT must adapt to the emerging hybrid workplace (Computerworld) How to mandate agility…