The Hub and Spoke!

Not many tech firms come from the US state of Utah, but for many years Novell was the bedrock of local area networks. Read the article over at Silicon here .

This AppNote describes how source routing works with the IEEE 802.5 Token-Ring Network. As the first in a series of AppNotes on NetWare's source routing implementation, this document explains basic concepts necessary to understand how source routing works in a generic Token-Ring environment. It covers frame structure, route determination processes, and source-routing bridge operation. Access the AppNote over at Microfous here .

Containers are coming, and network professionals need to switch to telemetry-based management tools.  Read the article over at Network World here . 

INX-ZA recently stated that the Johannesburg Internet Exchange (JINX) has seen no downtime in 22 years, providing uninterrupted services to users since June 1996.   “It is a significant technical achievement and we’re quite proud of it,” INX-ZA manager Nishal Goburdhan told MyBroadband. Read the article over at MyBroadband here .

Please can you vote for me (Ronald Bartels) in the international Cisco awards at the following link: http://cs.co/itblogawards I'm in the analyst section. I'm one of the only ones from South Africa.  My articles are published at the following links:  LinkedIn articles: https://lnkd.in/ddwsnrm   Medium stories: https://lnkd.in/dNN4dqq  

How often do we equate success with talent? All the time. But the reality is, success isn’t created by talent alone. Just like we might see immense talent squandered, we also see underdogs unexpectedly overachieve.  Here are 10 behaviors that we can always control that require zero talent yet have a huge impact on our success.

What is SD-WAN? say GOODBYE to MPLS, DMVPN, iWAN... w/ SDN, Cisco and Viptela Software-Defined WAN (Wide Area Network). What is it? How is it different from DMVPN and iWAN and are we still using MPLS? SD-WAN is changing the game and it took me a bit to WRAP MY HEAD AROUND IT because it is STRANGE!!

YouTube star LadBaby has pulled off a festive upset by winning the race to this year's Christmas number one spot.

In the modern IT environment, organizations need to keep their networks running consistently and reliably. That’s where a strong Network Monitoring solution comes into play. Our free Network Monitoring Buyer’s Guide gathers the top 28 solutions providers for easy comparison, and arms you with key questions to ask yourself and vendors before choosing your solution. This resource is perfect for your next meeting. Get the Buyer's Guide here .

Please can you vote for me (Ronald Bartels) in the international Cisco awards at the following link: http://cs.co/itblogawards I'm in the analyst section. I'm one of the only ones from South Africa. I would also appreciate it if you could mention it to others as it would be awesome if we have a representative from this neck of the Savannah do well.    Siyabonga kakhulu ndoda/nkosikasi My articles are published at the following links: LinkedIn articles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronaldxbartels/detail/recent-activity/posts/ Medium stories: https://medium.com/@ronaldbartels

If you're embarking on an enterprise IoT monitoring project, be sure to allocate enough time to dig deep and exhaustively test your top picks. Read the article over at Network World here . 

See the video to find out how IS Parklands (South Africa) is now benefitting from a Tier III prefabricated data center, that delivers industry leading performance and power density. Moreover, discover how these unmatched performance and efficiency levels are achieved in this modular critical infrastructure, through the Vertiv Knurr server racks, MPE power distribution units and a fully redundant online UPS system.

Lanner’s “NCA-1515” secure network appliance is equipped with an Atom C3000 SoC, 2x mini-PCIe, M.2 with Nano-SIM, and up to 8x GbE ports with one-pair bypass and optional SFP.    Lanner has launched a security-oriented NCA-1515 network appliance with a variety of networking and storage options. The 231 x 200 x 44mm desktop appliance features an Intel Atom C3000 “Denverton” SoC and is designed for vCPE/uCPE and edge security applications. Other desktop network appliances based on the Atom C3000 include Nexcom’s vDNA 1160 , Advantech’s FWA-1012VC , Axiomtek’s NA362 , and Aaeon’s FWS-7360 and FWS-2360 . Read the article on Linux Gizmo here .

Nexcom’s “vDNA 1160” appliance for 5G vCPE and edge computing runs on an Atom C3000 with Intel VT-x, VT-d, and QAT technologies, and has 2x 10GbE SFP+, 6x GbE, 2x USB 3.0, 2x M.2, and SATA. Nexcom calls the vDNA 1160 a “virtualization networks and software-defined appliance” designed for 5G virtual customer premise equipment (vCPE) and edge computing. It joins other high-end network appliances based on the Intel Atom C3000, including Aaeon’s FWS-7360 and Advantech’s FWA-1012VC . As with the Aaeon model, no OS support is listed, but we imagine that like the FWA-1012VC and Aaeon’s earlier C3000 based FWS-2360 , it runs Linux. Read the article over at Linux Gizmo here .

Axiomtek’s “NA362” net appliance features Intel’s Atom C3538 and C3758 chips, and offers 6x GbE, 4x 10GbE SFP+, mini-PCIe, SATA, and up to 128GB DDR4 RAM.  Axiomtek’s NA362 network appliance, which sits on the high end of our embedded coverage, gives you a choice of two new members of Intel’s Atom C3000 “Denverton” family: the quad-core C3538 and octa-core C3758 . Earlier Linux-friendly Denverton products that we’ve covered were COM Express Basic Type 7 modules that tapped the original 16-core, 2.2GHz C3000. These include DFI’s DV970 , Congatec’s Conga-B7AC , and Portwell’s PCOM-B701 . Read the article over at Linux Gizmo here .

Advantech’s “FWA-1012VC” network appliance runs Linux on a quad- or octa-core Atom C3000 with up to 64GB DDR4, SATA III, M.2 and mini-PCIe links for 3G, LTE, and WiFi, and 6x or 8x GbE ports, two of which are optical SFP ports.  Advantech’s FWA-1012VC follows a number of headless networking appliances that run Linux on Intel’s Atom C3000 (“Denverton”) SoC, including Aaeon’s recent FWS-2360 and Axiomtek’s NA362 . The FWA-1012VC stands out from both competitors by offering more wireless expansion options. Read the article over at Linux Gizmo here .

Aaeon unveiled an “FWS-2360” network security appliance based on Intel’s server-class Atom C3000 SoCs. The compact, fanless device offers 6x GbE ports, 1x SATA 6.0Gb/s, 2x USB3.0, up to 32GB ECC RAM, 16GB eMMC, and a 2.5-inch drive bay.  The FWS-2360 network security appliance is the latest in a long line of Aaeon fanless desktop network appliances. Others we’ve encountered include the Apollo Lake-based FWS-2272 , Braswell-powered FWS-2260 , and Bay Trail-driven FWS-2251 and FWS-2250 . Read the article over at Linux Gizmo here .

Aaeon announced a compact “FWS-2272” networking appliance with a Celeron N3350, 2x USB 3.0, 4x GbE, SATA III, mini-PCIE, and 8GB of RAM and eMMC.  Aaeon’s new Apollo Lake based FWS-2272 updates last year’s Bay Trail FWS-2251 with a faster processor, a second USB 3.0 port, and eMMC storage, among other minor upgrades. However, it also drops from 3x mini-PCIe slots to one. The device supports firewall, load balancing, network access control, software define management, vCPE,and UTM applications, says Aaeon. Read the article over at Linux Gizmo here .

Acrosser’s compact “AND-DNV3N2” networking appliance runs Linux on a quad-core, 2.2GHz Atom C3558 and offers a SATA-III bay, 2x mini-PCIe and USB 3.0 ports, and 6x GbE ports, two of which can be outfitted as fiber SFP ports.  Acrosser, which says it is now an Intel IoT Solutions Alliance partner, announced a desktop network appliance available with 6x copper Gigabit Ethernet ports or 4x GbE and 2x fiber-optic SFP ports. Like Advantech’s 6x port FWA-1012VC appliance, the AND-DNV3N2 Micro Box Networking Appliance runs on a quad-core, 2.2GHz Atom C3558 “Denverton” server SoC. (The Advantech model also sells an 8-port variant with an octa-core C3758.) Read the article over at Linux Gizmo here .

Desktop Network Appliance Intel® Celeron® Processor N3350 Onboard LPDDR4 2 GB Memory Gigabit Ethernet x 4 (Intel® i211) 1 Pair Bypass Internal 2.5” SATA HDD Bay x 1 Onboard 8 GB eMMC RJ-45 Console x 1 USB 3.0 x 2 Access the product here .

Download the dummies guide here .

SD-WAN matures, moving out of the early-adopter phase and into the mainstream. That means big changes ahead for the market. Read the article over at Network World here . 

Everything about the next-generation cellular standard 5G is complicated — too complicated for average users, and guaranteed to confuse everyone except engineers once early 5G devices begin to hit shelves over the next few months.ccBut 5G is about to become one of the world’s most important and transformative technologies, so it’s worth understanding right now.  As VentureBeat’s resident 5G expert, Jeremy Horwitz explains here .

Contributed by Richard Whitehead, Chief Evangelist at Moogsoft over at vmblog . In a new world of emergent and automated technologies, artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOPs) stands out as a practical leader of the pack. The benefits of implementation have already enhanced daily tasks like performance analysis, anomaly detection and noise reduction, but 2019 looks to be a stellar year for an industry already able to cut through the buzzwords with real success. With Gartner recently reporting that, "by 2022, 40% of all large enterprises will combine big data and machine learning functionality to support and partially replace monitoring, service desk and automation processes and tasks, up from 5% today," here are two examples of how AIOps will make strides in the industry next year. Overcoming the To-Do List of Decades-Old IT Challenges We've been hearing the same IT-related complaints for the last twenty years, like data management and analysis, and w

Please can you vote for me (Ronald Bartels) in the international Cisco awards at the following link: http://cs.co/itblogawards . I'm in the analyst section. I'm one of the only ones from South Africa. I would also appreciate it if you could mention it to others as well as it would be awesome if we have a representative from this neck of the Savannah do well.  Siyabonga kakhulu ndoda /nkosikazi My articles are published at the following links: LinkedIn articles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronaldxbartels/detail/recent-activity/posts/  Medium stories: https://medium.com/@ronaldbartels  I have also been added to the writing team at IoT for all. Check in to see my articles about the Internet of Things! 

Extract from post by Multapplied . In today’s business environment, you can’t afford to have poor Internet connections. With so many business-critical applications hosted in the cloud, downtime or unreliable connections can cost you dearly. In addition, if your business has multiple locations, you also need to connect all the offices through an external network and the most common solution is using WAN connections. However, WAN connections can be slow and unreliable at times but thankfully, you don’t have to put up with it anymore. By switching to an SD-WAN technology, you can increase uptime while saving on operational cost. What’s SD-WAN SD-WAN stands for Software-Defined Wide-Area Network. While most companies use WAN connections for communications between multiple locations, the solution is often inefficient, costly and inflexible. The ROI on traditional WAN is unsatisfactory, given SD-WAN as an alternative. SD-WAN is a software-defined upgrade or update to t

With news headlines regularly announcing a new data breach, one wonders whether hackers are becoming more skilled and bolder, or whether organisations are not taking the security of the information they process seriously. Unfortunately, what businesses may not realise is that often there is a far more critical cause of vulnerabilities within their organisation, that being the human factor, says Drew van Vuuren. Read the article over at MyBroadband here .

Please vote for me (Ronald Bartels) in this Cisco awards here: http://cs.co/itblogawards . I'm in the analyst section. I'm the only one from the Seffrikan clan. Siyabonga kakhulu ndoda / nkosikasi!   LinkedIn articles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronaldxbartels/detail/recent-activity/posts/ Medium stories:  https://medium.com/@ronaldbartels twitter:  https://twitter.com/redpineapple

LiveAction’s president and CEO, Brooks Borcherding, explains how network visibility can overcome some of the challenges associated with migrating to an SD-WAN. Read the article over at Network World here . 

For enterprises considering an SD-WAN solution, one of the key choices will be who will implement and manage it.  For some enterprises this is a relatively straightforward decision; for others the choice may require more deliberation. In either case, best-practice sourcing dictates that this decision be made up front – to achieve exceptional results, the sourcing strategy, approach and execution following must be tailored to the desired self-managed or fully-managed solution.  Read the article over at Network World here .