Opinion

Opinion

• The case against SDN implementation

  Networking expert and SDN enthusiast Patrick Hubbard plays devil's advocate, arguing against SDN implementation and exploring why it may be a bad idea.  Continue Reading

• Infrastructure convergence offers high availability, improved ops

  When Patrick Hubbard's iPhone falls into a pool, he is reminded about the value of converged infrastructure.  Continue Reading

• SDN monitoring means new transitions for engineers

  SDN network management means tools are transforming from listening mode to active mode.  Continue Reading

• Classic optimization takes back seat as WAN technologies evolve

  The growth of cloud apps and the increased use of Internet over traditional WAN technologies has forced WAN optimization to evolve.  Continue Reading

• The improbable rise of Cisco UCS servers

  Small and medium-sized businesses appear to love Cisco UCS, said Patrick Hubbard. So does this mean convergence is finally succeeding?  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: New Cisco CEO Robbins' strategy praised, panned

  An analyst says incoming Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins' move to prioritize strategies will help the vendor. But there are areas that still need attention.  Continue Reading

• When it comes to system outages, don't prepare for the worst

  Tracking and monitoring for common potential problems is more valuable and cost-effective than planning for massive systems outages -- which may never occur.  Continue Reading

• Data warehousing projects benefit from cloud and Hadoop

  SN blogs: This week, analysts discuss a new way to network a campus LAN and if ACI and NSX can work well together.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: Dell as a data protection provider, good for enterprise

  Dell switches from data protection reseller to innovative vendor; business intelligence heads to the cloud.  Continue Reading

• When, not what, defines today's networking career

  Learning new technologies is a constant challenge, but it is one that IT pros need to overcome to ensure a networking career remains relevant.  Continue Reading

• Networking's humblebrag moment: Can we use all that 802.11ac bandwidth?

  Whenever a new network standard emerges, we wonder how we'd ever use all that capacity -- and soon eat our words. Here we go again with 802.11ac bandwidth in Wave 2.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: OpenStack deployments still lacking

  SN blogs: This week, a research director explains that even though OpenStack is a popular open source framework, it's not seeing as many deployments as one might expect.  Continue Reading

• Time to replace RJ-45 connectors in the data center?

  Ubiquitous RJ-45 connectors reign supreme even in the wake of newer data center technologies. USB 3.1 cables are out there; can they be the next big thing?  Continue Reading

• Minecraft paves the way to grow enterprise SDN, seriously

  Insight from the Minecraft video game points to how enterprise SDN adoption could grow faster with a single interface for monitoring, confirmation and troubleshooting.  Continue Reading

• Cisco vs. VMware vs. BYOC: Bright-box war heats up

  Big vendors like HP are jumping on the bright-box bandwagon, which could represent a new angle in the Cisco ACI-VMware NSX showdown.  Continue Reading

• Grappling with private WAN provisioning delays in the on-demand era

  Long lead times are not a new problem in private WAN provisioning, but enterprises are feeling the pain of those delays more acutely.  Continue Reading

• Avoiding the return of the dreaded opaque network

  Virtualization and storage spark fears of a new era of black box opaqueness for today's network engineers. But hope remains.  Continue Reading

• Why monitoring will require a networking engineer

  Despite the evolution of networking, monitoring has remained the same. And that's one reason why the role of the network engineer will remain critical.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: Lenovo Superfish security breach unnerves customers

  SN blogs: Analysts this week discussed why big data analytics needs to be reassessed and why Lenovo's response to Superfish spawned consumer distaste -- and distrust.  Continue Reading

• Cloud network strategy: One size doesn't fit all

  Your cloud network strategy will depend heavily on the type of cloud architecture you're using and for what purpose.  Continue Reading

• SDN blogs: Overlay networks can be scaled

  In this week's SDN blogs, experts talk about the scalability of overlay networks and ask questions about SD WAN, and an open source SDN website is launched.  Continue Reading

• Identifying the top 10 network-cloud integration challenges

  IT managers face a variety of network-cloud integration challenges. But there are steps they can take to keep those challenges at a minimum.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: Vendors focusing on SD WAN, but WAN optimization still key

  SN blogs: This week, an analyst urged vendors to keep focus on WAN optimization; the rise of big data analytics is forcing firms to see what's next.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: Cybersecurity leadership needs restructuring

  SN blogs: This week, why having two CISOs could benefit cybersecurity strategy; how Google's plans to become an MVNO could be a good thing.  Continue Reading

• Recent flurry of slower Ethernet speeds focuses on strategy, not acceleration

  For the first time, Ethernet innovation isn't about higher speeds. The recent push for 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet show it's all about use cases.  Continue Reading

• NFV and SDN technology benefits drive telecom changes

  NFV and SDN technology could be mainstream options for providers' cloud and network architectures within five years; time to review the benefits.  Continue Reading

• SDN blogs: 2015 year of software-defined WAN?

  In this week's SDN blogs, analysts discuss why SDN is more reliable than traditional networking, why SDN WAN will gain popularity in 2015 and Brocade’s new Vyatta Controller.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: WebRTC browser applications boost enterprise networking

  SN blogs: This week, an analyst discusses why browser-based communication is enhanced with WebRTC applications.  Continue Reading

• Using NetFlow monitoring tactics to solve bandwidth mysteries

  NetFlow eliminated the hassle of network troubleshooting after a school complained about its Internet access.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: Big data initiatives require vision and strategy

  SN blogs: This week, an analyst discusses 10 big data vision and strategy questions; what's the best way to provide Wi-Fi to a campground?  Continue Reading

• Network programmability, SDN blend into virtualization hairball

  The challenge is to forget demarcation lines between networking programmability, SDN and data center virtualization. Columnist Patrick Hubbard says they're becoming something between a giant hairball and a flock of magic unicorns.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: Software infrastructure products to blossom in 2015

  SN blogs: This week, an analyst gives his 2015 IT infrastructure predictions; an engineer discusses when to use a router versus a switch.  Continue Reading

• What buyers need from Wi-Fi access point upgrades

  A recap of SearchNetworking's How to Buy series, which teaches IT professionals what to keep an eye on when buying new products for their networks.  Continue Reading

• SDN blogs: Hybrid WAN the 'killer' SDN use case?

  In this week's SDN blogs, a book review, and one analyst says departments have to stop worrying about draining their budgets before year's end.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: mobile management protection needs improvement

  SN blogs: This week, a security analyst shares his 2015 predictions; a consultant highlights the need for thoughtful IPv6 implementation.  Continue Reading

• New, branded open network hardware model emerges

  Hyperscale data center operators have radically altered their infrastructure with open network hardware that runs a range of operating systems. As this strategy trickles down into the enterprise, vendors are unveiling branded-but-open technology.  Continue Reading

• Hotel Wi-Fi security crumbles in wake of bored IT admin

  What happens when a bored IT admin meets a hotel Wi-Fi network that does not want to cooperate?  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: Managed mobile meshing with IoT, M2M

  SN blogs: An analyst highlights 2014 mobility trends; a T-Mobile data rollover plan wins kudos.  Continue Reading

• How NASA and SDN are alike... Think: network automation

  When NASA launched the Orion this month, it had to suspend automated wind sensors and use human intervention to determine when the winds were right. Turns out, SDN engineers would have much less room to fumble in halting network automation.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: Rapid application development central to mobile users

  SN blogs: This week, analysts discuss Progress Software's use of rapid application development and review a tool small businesses can use to protect their data.  Continue Reading

• Bare-metal switch industry is shaking up networking

  As pioneer bare-metal switch vendors gain momentum, the networking industry is changing. Software and hardware vendors are innovating.  Continue Reading

• DevOps or SDN? You'll need them both to work together

  There's no point in choosing between DevOps and SDN. SDN is actually the perfect toolset for DevOps, with its unified vision and control over the entire network. Meanwhile, DevOps lends itself to the hybridized IT model necessary for SDN.  Continue Reading

• If packet sniffing won't work in SDN, then what?

  Patrick Hubbard explains why Wireshark and other packet-sniffing tools aren’t ready for virtualized Layer 4-7 networks. Monitoring application server NICs could be the answer.  Continue Reading

• Teamwork: The new threat intelligence strategy

  SN blogs: This week, an analyst said sharing threat intelligence information is a new security strategy; data analytics as a service offers all enterprises a competitive edge.  Continue Reading

• App store-style network applications will drive SDN adoption

  IT engineers want their network services to flow as easily as the apps they buy in the app store -- and that trend may drive SDN adoption.  Continue Reading

• SN blogs: Focus on a big data security strategy

  SN blogs: This week, analysts explain Etherchannel and why having big data analytics at the center of your security strategy is important.  Continue Reading

• OpenFlow as a network control protocol goes deeper than data center

  OpenFlow can be transformed into a network control protocol that pushes past Layer 2 to transform the WAN and optical transport layer of the network.  Continue Reading

• Open Networking Summit 2014: Let's talk scalability and SDN use cases

  Plexxi's Michael Bushong says the Open Networking Summit 2014 should move beyond the SDN buzz and into the technical nitty-gritty.  Continue Reading

• SDN and NFV: Show me the business benefits

  SDN and NFV offer exciting new features, such as network automation, but are we able to prove the business benefits of this new technology?  Continue Reading

• Between Cisco and VMware SDN, which will network engineers choose?

  In the Cisco vs. VMware SDN battle, Cisco ACI may win out among network engineers, who are more comfortable with the hardware-centric approach.  Continue Reading

• Bare metal switches: Will merchant silicon take over networking?

  New vendors are pushing network architectures that decouple software from hardware and run on bare metal switches with merchant silicon. Have we reached the x86 era in networking?  Continue Reading

• VMware NSX will change the network admin role: Are you ready?

  VMware NSX could bring network virtualization under the management of system admins, or it could alter the network admin role. Which will it be?  Continue Reading

• Your next job may be 'network programmer': What you'll need to know

  SDN brings flexibility to networking, but this will require engineers to gain new skills in order to fill the emerging role of network programmer.  Continue Reading

• User-, app-centric security key in enterprise security architecture

  Today's enterprise security architecture must become contextually aware in order to support the growth of mobile devices and cloud-based applications.  Continue Reading

• Juniper Contrail's open source SDN will change the enterprise network

  Glen Kemp discusses Juniper's open source SDN controller and the impact the OpenContrail project and NFV may have on enterprise customers.  Continue Reading

• Bucking SDN controller interoperability will stifle innovation

  There's been lots of work on SDN southbound apps, but vendors are ignoring SDN controller interoperability and threatening progress as a result.  Continue Reading

• Large file transfer doesn't have to be risky or eat WAN bandwidth

  Moving large files across organizations doesn't have to violate security policies or consume pricey bandwidth. Better options exist.  Continue Reading

• Will SDN pose network security vulnerabilities? It depends

  With a centralized control plane and easy-to-use APIs, does SDN introduce new network security vulnerabilities? New SDN security strategies can help.  Continue Reading

• VMware network virtualization will spell trouble for Cisco, eventually

  The VMware network virtualization platform won't end the Cisco-VMware relationship, but it could hurt Cisco in the data center over the long term.  Continue Reading

• Agile vs. Waterfall development: Embracing each method appropriately

  The pros and cons of Agile and Waterfall development are telling. Handle development processes thoughtfully to benefit from both.  Continue Reading

• Using big data for SDN: How analytics will enable programmability

  Using big data for SDN is important for centralized control and programmability, but do the tools exist to mine data and then apply it to the network?  Continue Reading

• The new virtualization engineer: Breaking down siloes in your skills

  As siloes break down in the IT organization, there is demand for a new job role—the virtualization engineer, who manages across converged resources.  Continue Reading

• IETF SDN standards emerge: Southbound protocols, NFV, service chains

  The new IETF SDN standards group, I2RS, will work on southbound programming protocols, NFV and network service chains. And that''s just the start.  Continue Reading

• Traffic analytics in the new IT landscape: NetFlow vs. sFlow

  Traffic monitoring and analytics are imperative today for network hardware. But Is NetFlow or sFlow better for you?  Continue Reading

• SDN promises centralized management, but we've heard this all before

  SDN's promises of evolutionary changes to the industry sound eerily familiar to networking security expert Michele Chubirka. Should we believe them?  Continue Reading

• Defining a strategy for using virtual switches in your network

  As you plan a strategy to up the number of virtual switches in your network, brush up on distributed and non-distributed virtual switch choices.  Continue Reading

• For how long can U.S. SaaS companies dodge taxes by operating abroad?

  U.S. software companies are shifting operations abroad and selling more of their products as SaaS to take advantage of income tax savings.  Continue Reading

• Don't fear cloudsourcing; it's the lesser of IT outsourcing evils

  IT engineers grumble about cloudsourcing, but outsourcing IT services and apps to the cloud could prevent the dreaded systems integrator takeover.  Continue Reading