NETWORKING

By John Gray, Data Center Product Marketing at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company In the next few years, it is estimated that half of all the data we create will be processed at the edge, near the point where it is produced for collection and analysis. The data center will remain a critical piece of IT infrastructure, but its role is morphing to support rapidly evolving remote locations with full IT stacks of compute,…

The Internet of Things (IoT) is beginning to play a key role in monitoring and maintaining internal IT systems and environments. With many IT pros working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic, IT teams are leveraging networked sensors to gauge the performance and condition of servers, storage systems, network devices, and other technology components. IoT can help organizations not only evaluate how well equipment in data centers is performing and when systems need to…

Have you ever imagined looking up some topic on Wikipedia while you’re working on the Linux command line? What about displaying the results in a different language? Yes, it’s possible. In fact, it’s quite easy. The tool that provides this service is called wikit (Wikipedia IT). To check if wikit is installed on your system, just type “which wikit”. If it is, you will get a response like this: $ which wikit /usr/local/bin/wikit If it’s…

Webex was the reason I decided to join Cisco.   The idea of transforming the workplace and re-imagining what it means to collaborate with others is what initially excited me about the product. As I watched a demo of Webex during a recruiting event at Cisco’s headquarters, I gazed up at the big Webex boards – fitted with all this new technology – and was in awe of how forward-thinking it was. I felt like I…

Microsoft has updated its Azure Stack HCI software, an on-premises version of its Azure cloud services to try and catch up with hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) leaders VMware and Nutanix. Hyperconverged infrastructure is where compute, storage, and networking are all tightly integrated on the same server in a cluster. The tight hardware and software integration makes it easier to deploy than having to configure the parts separately. Azure Stack HCI was launched in 2019 and is…

Hybrid networks, multi-cloud, Internet-of-Things, remote work and digital innovations are all driving more distributed networks and a much more expansive attack surface. The network perimeter that used to be so clearly defined now extends across a spectrum of enterprise facilities, branch offices, homes, other remote locations and multiple clouds.  The reality is that security needs to be on the LAN edge, WAN edge and cloud edge.  All edges must now be secured, but how do…

I’m lucky. I have decent cable internet to my home office. It’s not cable gigabit, which is not the same thing as real fiber gigabit, but at 300Mbps, it’s more than good enough. But, most people aren’t so lucky.  The FCC official broadband definition is a mere 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. Soon to be out of office FCC chairman Ajit Pai would like to have reduced that number to 10 Mbps in…

Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3) has brought significant security improvements to Wi-Fi networks, particularly WPA-3Enterprise, which includes tweaks to make authenticating to the network more secure. One of these is has to do with 802.1x authentication that is used to determine whether Wi-Fi clients will be granted access to the enterprise network. The enterprise mode of WPA has always allowed you to give each user a unique username/password to login to the Wi-Fi or to…

The SolarWinds Orion security breach is unfolding at a rapid pace and the number of vendors and victims continues to grow. Each day brings new revelations as to its reach and depth. Of particular concern is the rate of infection and impact on government systems. In case you missed it, a backdoor was found in the SolarWinds Orion IT monitoring and management software. A dynamic link library called SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll, a SolarWinds digitally-signed component of the…

The SolarWinds Orion security breach is unfolding at a rapid pace, and the number of vendors and victims continues to grow. Each day brings new revelations as to its reach and depth. Of particular concern are the rate of infection and impact on government systems. In case you missed it, a backdoor was found in the SolarWinds Orion IT monitoring and management software. A dynamic link library called SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll, a SolarWinds digitally-signed component of the…