Data center networking trends to watch for 2023

Hybrid and multicloud initiatives will continue to shape enterprise IT in 2023, and the impact on data-center networking will be felt across key areas including security, management, and operations. Network teams are investing in technologies such as SD-WAN and SASE, expanding automation initiatives, and focusing on skills development as more workloads and applications span cloud environments.“The most important core trend in data centers is the recognition that the hybrid cloud model – which combines current transaction processing and database activities with a cloud-hosted front-end element for the user interface – is the model that will dominate over time,” said Tom Nolle, president of CIMI Corp. and a Network World columnist. The industry is seeing a slow modernization of data center applications to support the hybrid-cloud model, Nolle says, “and included in that is greater componentization of those applications, a larger amount of horizontal traffic, and a greater need to manage security within the hosted parts of the application.”To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Dell expands data-protection product line

Dell Technologies has announced new products and services for data protection as part of its security portfolio.Active data protection is often treated as something of an afterthought, especially compared to disaster recovery. Yet it’s certainly a problem for companies. According to Dell’s recent Global Data Protection Index (GDPI) research, organizations are experiencing higher levels of disasters than in previous years, many of them man-made. In the past year, cyberattacks accounted for 48% of all disasters, up from 37% in 2021, and are the leading cause of data disruption.One of the major stumbling blocks in deploying data-protection capabilities is the complexity of the rollout. Specialized expertise is often required, and products from multiple vendors are often involved. Even the hyperscalers are challenged to provide multicloud data-protection services.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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IBM bolsters quantum cryptography for z16 mainframe

While the need for it may be years away, IBM has added additional mainframe protection against future quantum-based security attacks.When Big Blue rolled out the newest iteration of its mainframe – the z16—in April, one of its core design pillars was a promise to protect organizations from anticipated quantum-based security threats. Specifically, the z16 supports the Crypto Express8S adapter to deliver quantum-safe APIs that will let enterprises start developing quantum-safe cryptography along with classical cryptography and to modernize existing applications and build new applications, IBM stated.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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RSA: Intel reference design to accelerate SASE, other security tasks

Intel has introduced a reference design it says can enable accelerator cards for security workloads including secure access service edge (SASE), IPsec, and SSL/TLS.The upside of the server cards would be offloading some application processing from CPUs, effectively increasing server performance without requiring additional server rack space, according to Intel.
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The announcement was made at RSA Conference 2022, and details were published in a blog post by Bob Ghaffardi, Intel vice president and general manager of the Enterprise and Cloud Division.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Intel details IPU roadmap to free up CPUs

Intel is betting that future data-center operations will depend on increasingly powerful servers running ASIC-based, programable CPUs, and its wager rides on the development of infrastructure processing units (IPU), which are Intel’s programmable networking devices designed to reduce overhead and free up performance for CPUs.
Read more: SmartNICs set to infiltrate enterprise networksTo read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Major security vulnerability found in top servers

Security firm Binarly has discovered more than 20 vulnerabilities hiding in BIOS/UEFI software from a wide range of system vendors, including Intel, Microsoft, Lenovo, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, HPE, Siemens, and Bull Atos.Binarly found the issues were associated with the use of InsydeH20, a framework code used to build motherboard unified extensible firmware interfaces (UEFI), the interface between a computer’s operating system and firmware.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
All of the aforementioned vendors used Insyde’s firmware SDK for motherboard development. It is expected that similar types of vulnerabilities exist in other in-house and third-party BIOS-vendor products as well.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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4 questions that get the answers you need from IT vendors

It’s the time of year when most enterprises are involved in a more-or-less-formal technology review cycle, as a preparatory step for next year’s budgeting. They’ve done this for decades, and it’s interesting to me that in any given year, enterprises share roughly three of their top five priorities. It’s more interesting that over three-quarters of enterprises carry over at least two of their top five priorities for multiple years. Why aren’t they getting addressed? They say their top problem is an “information gap.”Buyers adopt network technologies that improve their business, not just their network. They have to justify spending, particularly spending on some new technology that someone inside or outside has suggested. That means that they have to understand how it will improve operations, how they’ll deploy it, and what the cost will be. To do this for a new technology, they need information on how that improvement would happen—and they say they’re not getting it.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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IBM upgrades its Big Iron OS for better cloud, security, and AI support

IBM continues to fine-tune its mainframe to keep it attractive to enterprise users interested in keeping the Big Iron in their cloud and AI-application development plans.The company released a new version of the mainframe operating system—z/OS V2.5—that includes beefed-up support for containers, AI, and security.Chip shortage will hit hardware buyers for months to years
According to IBM, applications are at the heart of transactional and batch workloads running on z/OS. Fundamentally, developing new applications while modernizing existing applications is part of the digital transformation occurring in many enterprises.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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