Ease your guilty conscience with GiveGab, a social network for volunteers

Maybe you’re a natural do-gooder, or perhaps your altruistic inclinations are spurred more by work or school requirements than your own fuzzy feelings toward humanity. Either way, finding volunteer opportunities is a little more difficult than just showing up at your local soup kitchen. Not to worry: Internet to the rescue!

GiveGab is an under-the-radar social network for volunteers that has been quietly partnering with colleges and nonprofits across the country over the last two years. Quietly is the key word: GiveGab has been focused on growing its network organically and without a lot of fuss. After all, volunteering is serious business.

GiveGab asks about your skills and experience to better match you to volunteer opportunities.

“I like to say we’re like LinkedIn for volunteering [because] LinkedIn has similar functionality to Facebook but a completely different context,” says GiveGab CEO Charlie Mulligan. “I think [GiveGab] falls in the middle: We’re not about really trivial things like Facebook and we’re not super serious like LinkedIn. We’re in between.”

Like LinkedIn (or Facebook or basically all other social networks), when you sign up for GiveGab you build out a profile. On GiveGab, your profile acts as a volunteer resume—you can search for nonprofits or they can search for you based on interests and skills.

After launching as a desktop-only network only recently optimized for smartphones—did I mention the slow growth?—GiveGab is building a mobile app and rolling out premium services for universities, nonprofits, and businesses looking to connect with volunteers.

The forthcoming app will put a ton of new tools in the hands of volunteers. If you’re looking for a way to give back, GiveGab will list upcoming volunteer events, send reminders, and add social elements so you can see which nonprofits your friends are involved with. A gamification feature will make volunteering more fun—you can win virtual trophies for various skills or tasks completed.

GiveGab lets you search by city and date for volunteer opportunities in your area.

There are countless ways to find volunteer opportunities—or at least, that’s what it seems like. Nonprofits are always in need, right? Yes and no. Many charitable organizations have specific days/times you can help out, or big events during the year when they need volunteer staffers to pitch in. It’s hard to find that information in a centralized location. GiveGab hopes to be that hub, plus with all the social features you expect from a platform today.

“There’s a huge need for this,” Mulligan says. “Every year in the U.S., about 25 percent of the adult population volunteers, but 86 percent says they intend to volunteer. That is a massive gap. Even though there are all these databases and opportunities being added, over the last 20 years, the 25 percent volunteer rate has remained the same. We think the reason why is because most places are simply a database: ‘You should volunteer, here are some places.’”

GiveGab is starting with college students first, because they often do charitable work to fulfill course requirements, as part of sorority or fraternity obligations, or to pad their resumes. The network has about 15,000 users right now and is expecting to make a major push during the fall semester. More than 200 universities are using GiveGab to pair their students with local charities. Mulligan says the mobile app will be more centered on the volunteers than universities and nonprofits.

“The site itself is designed to help nonprofit groups primarily—it helps people who manage volunteers,” Mulligan says. “The mobile app is focused mainly on the consumer. The social features and the fun gamification-type features are the things we think really hit home with younger people.”

Other social networks have experimented with charitable features, but the results have been mixed. Facebook’s Causes, which is one of the platform’s largest apps, is focused more on petitions and fundraising than volunteering. Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes in 2010 launched Jumo, a social network for charities, but the site didn’t offer users any real way to interact with the nonprofits they followed. Jumo was “acquired” (died) in 2011.

It’s easy to be a social slacktivist, but tougher to venture out into your community. If GiveGab can combine an index of volunteer opportunities with fun, social features, the network could be a real success. Hey, if Waze can turn traffic reports into a game, anything is possible.

Caitlin writes about all things social media. She is addicted to the 24-hour news cycle and Mission burritos.
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Secure your small-business network without spending a dime

You have a target on your back. In 2012, 31 percent of cyberattacks were aimed at small businesses, and that staggering number is 100 percent attributable to inadequate—or nonexistent—security measures at many of these firms, which might as well be an open invitation to hackers.

Now, we’re not going to hit you with another eat-your-veggies imperative to secure the computers and networks at your business. We understand that it’s all too easy to view security as a discretionary expense.

But what if we told you that there were security controls in the tools you already own that could vastly improve your protection if you just used them? And that you could fill any gaps in protection with free security programs that are every bit as effective as their commercial counterparts?

Below are several ways to fend off cyberthreats. The only investment is your time.

The quickest—and cheapest—way to beef up your defenses is to understand and employ the security measures you already have at your disposal.

Start with the simple things. Make sure that all your user accounts are protected with strong passwords and that only those employees who need administrative privileges have administrator accounts on their PCs.

Windows’ Local Group Policy Editor lets you administrate policies, restrictions, and more for groups of users and computers.

Next, take a look at the Local Group Policy Editor in Windows. This power tool gives you granular control over groups of users and computers, so it makes sense that Microsoft placed the utility where people can’t easily find it. (One way to find it is to type group in the search field in either Windows 7 or Windows 8. ‘Edit Group Policy’ should appear as one of the top few options available.) From the Editor, you can set password and account lockout policy, firewall policy, software restrictions, and more. Spend a couple of hours learning about the Local Group Policy Editor, and wield its power judiciously.

Zero-day attacks make for ominous headlines, but the reality is that known vulnerabilities are a much bigger threat. Most attackers don’t have the skill or the devotion to ferret out new security holes. Once a vendor releases a patch, though, lazy attackers can reverse-engineer it to identify the vulnerability it fixes and figure out how to exploit that flaw.

The longer you go without implementing an applicable patch, the more at risk you are. You should have automatic updates turned on in Windows, as well as in any other applications you use that offer such a function. If you can’t take advantage of this feature, you’ll have to make a serious effort to stay informed about new updates and test and apply them as soon as they’re available.

Once you’ve exhausted all the resources you have on hand, it’s time to explore outside options. Some of the best security tools available are free and can go toe-to-toe with features offered in big-brand security suites. Here are a few to get you started.

Microsoft Security Essentials: Windows 8 includes Windows Defender, but prior versions of the operating system didn’t come with antimalware protection. If you need to protect computers running Windows XP or Windows 7, you can download Microsoft Security Essentials to get comprehensive real-time protection gratis.

Cain and Abel: Using network-packet sniffing, dictionary attacks, and a variety of other methods, Cain and Abel captures and cracks passwords. You can use this handy utility to reveal vulnerabilities, determine whether your policy requirements are secure enough, and recover passwords, which is its primary function.

Cain and Abel can reveal weak passwords that leave you open to security breaches.

Aircrack and Kismet: Want to know how secure your wireless network really is? Try Aircrack or Kismet. Aircrack captures wireless network traffic and attempts to crack your WEP or WPA encryption. Kismet is a wireless-network detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection system. Both tools are free, and both are highly rated by those who use them.

Nikto: If your business has a Web server, you might want to put Nikto to use. An open-source Web-server scanner, Nikto can help you identify weaknesses that may expose your server to exploits. It scans for outdated servers, specific vulnerabilities, and known configuration errors to help you protect your server from attack.

For a complete list of the best security utilities, visit SecTools.org, which maintains a regularly updated list of the top 125 as rated by the user community. The list includes both open-source and commercial software, but you’ll see that many of the most respected tools don’t cost a thing.

If implementing these free options has whetted your appetite, consider investing in some pay software to bolster your complimentary security measures. We recommend the following three open-source tools. All are still available as free versions, but subscriptions are required to unlock their full power.

Nessus is a vulnerability scanner that examines and monitors your network and PCs for more than 50,000 vulnerabilities and potential configuration errors that may expose your systems to compromise. It also includes specific scans to help ensure compliance with regulatory and industry frameworks such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) or PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard).

The Nessus vulnerability scanner is available as a free download, but you need a subscription to unlock all its capabilities.

Metasploit is a penetration-testing platform that lets you test exploits against your network and computer-security defenses and applications, to determine what impact they might have and to identify weaknesses you should address.

Snort is an intrusion detection and prevention platform that monitors network traffic to find and identify suspicious or malicious activity.

Cybercrime is costly, but defending against it doesn’t have to be. Basic protections are built into the operating system and applications you use every day, and if you support them with free and open-source tools, you can protect your PCs and data without so much as bruising your budget. Who says you can’t put a price on peace of mind?

Tony is principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, providing analysis and insight on tech trends. He is a prolific writer on a range of technology topics, has authored a number of books, and is a frequent speaker at industry events.
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6 mistakes to avoid when setting up your small business wireless network

Mobile devices are now as essential to workplaces as copy machines and coffee makers. That means a fast, reliable wireless network is essential as well. But building one isn’t as simple as plugging in your ISP-supplied router and connecting your smartphone. In fact if you’ve never done it before, putting together a Wi-Fi network robust enough to support your business can be pretty tricky. To shorten the learning curve, we’ve highlighted some common pitfalls and how to avoid them.

It’s common to start with an entry-level wireless router when setting up your network. But as the business grows and high-throughput appliances such as NAS or IP cameras get added into the mix, many consumer grade routers get overloaded by the heavy usage.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to tell ahead of time if an off-the-shelf wireless router is up to the task of running your small business network. If you do experience unexplained slowness, one solution is to set up a standalone network switch and wireless access point. Offloading some clients to the access point will reduce burden on your router’s processor, while a new gigabit ethernet switch will increase your local network’s speed.

Another mistake small businesses frequently make is relying on only one access point regardless of the network load. The ubiquity of smartphones, tablets and laptops in the workplace means you could easily have dozens of wireless devices with just 8 to 10 employees, so it’s best to err on the side of over-coverage. Installing multiple access points up front reduces the risk of productivity killing bottlenecks.

You can also reduce the burden on your wireless network by migrating ethernet-ready devices such as desktop PCs and printers to wired networking whenever feasible.

The physical location of a Wi-Fi access point is critical, as you will quickly find if you place one in an alcove, beside large metallic fixtures or cupboards, or next to thick concrete beams. “Line of sight” barriers like these will weaken your Wi-Fi signal.

Because there are generally more obstructions—such as cubicle walls and furniture—near the floor, an elevated location works better than a lower one. A simple way to assess possible locations is to visualize the wireless signals emanating from the access point in a straight line. Parts of the office that are blocked by three or more obstructions will likely experience weak or nonexistent signals.

It’s easy to be seduced by the 300Mbps or 450Mbps speeds 802.11n wireless routers promise. However, these are theoretical and don’t account for real-world conditions or the substantial protocol overheads inherent to wireless networks.

In our review of the Asus RT-N66U router, for example, the router offered a performance of just 226Mbps at 9 feet, dropping to 43.1Mbps at 65 feet. What’s more, the figures are applicable only for a single client–this bandwidth would be divided among any additional devices operating on the same frequency band. If you need to routinely transfer large files across your local network, consider setting up a wired Gigabit network.

When you need to get your network up and running quickly, it’s tempting to start using your router without bothering to change the default channel. But unless you live far from civilization, it’s likely this channel is already in use by a neighbor, which can cause interference that degrades your wireless performance.

To avoid this, change the channel on your device when you set it up. It’s not difficult as there are only three non-overlapping channels: 1, 6, and 11. Of course, locations that are swamped with multiple Wi-Fi networks may need to experiment with overlapping channels for the best results. Some wireless access points detect nearby Wi-Fi networks and offer information about the channels they use as well as their signal strengths, which helps tremendously.

If your router offers simultaneous dual band, make sure your 5GHz radio is enabled. This allows laptops that support 5GHz to be offloaded onto this less-cluttered band, freeing up the 2.4GHz band for other devices such as smartphones and tablets. Also, the 5GHz band’s shorter range allows for the use of additional APs in high-density deployments with less risk of interference.

Paul has a lifelong affinity for checking out all sorts of tech gadgets, enterprise gear, and everything in between. With half a decade in the IT industry under his belt, He is especially interested in how technology can be practically leveraged to help businesses do more.
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'Backscatter' network could support the Internet of Things

Researchers in America say they have created a wireless communication system that allows devices to communicate with each other without relying on batteries or wires for power and could play a vital role in the Internet of Things.

The communication technique—dubbed "ambient backscatter" by the University of Washington scientists—allows devices to communicate with each other by reflecting or absorbing preexisting radio signals from TV and mobile transmissions.

UWShyam Gollakota

The energy-saving breakthrough could be particularly well suited to a home-based Internet of Things scenario where devices are usually within a few meters of each other.

The team has built small, battery-free devices with antennas that can detect, harness, and reflect a TV signal, which is then picked up by other similar devices.

"We can repurpose wireless signals that are already around us into both a source of power and a communication medium," said lead researcher Shyam Gollakota, a University of Washington assistant professor of computer science and engineering. "It's hopefully going to have applications in a number of areas including wearable computing, smart homes and self-sustaining sensor networks."

The researchers published their results at the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Data Communication 2013 conference in Hong Kong, taking place in Hong Kong recently. They received the conference's best paper award for their research.

"Our devices form a network out of thin air," said co-author Joshua Smith, a UW associate professor of computer science and engineering. "You can reflect these signals slightly to create a Morse code of communication between battery-free devices."

According to the university, smart sensors could be built and placed permanently inside nearly any structure, then set to communicate with each other. It is claimed that the sensors could be placed in a bridge to monitor the health of the concrete and steel, then send an alert if one of the sensors picks up a hairline crack. The technology can also be used for communication—text messages and emails, for example—in wearable devices.

UWJoshua Smith

The researchers tested the ambient backscatter technique with credit card-sized prototype devices placed within several feet of each other. For each device the researchers built antennas into ordinary circuit boards that flash an LED light when receiving a communication signal from another device.

Groups of the devices were tested in a variety of settings in the Seattle area, including inside an apartment building, on a street corner and on the top level of a car park. These locations ranged from less than half a mile away from a TV tower to about 6.5 miles away.

They found that the devices were able to communicate with each other, even the ones farthest from a TV tower. The receiving devices picked up a signal from their transmitting counterparts at a rate of 1kbps when up to 2.5 feet apart outdoors and 1.5 feet apart indoors. This is enough to send information such as a sensor reading, text messages and contact information.

The researchers were able to demonstrate how one payment card can transfer funds to another card by leveraging the existing wireless signals around them.

The researchers say they plan to continue advancing the capacity and range of the ambient backscatter communication network.

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Will software-defined networking kill network engineers' beloved CLI?

SDN (software-defined networking) promises some real benefits for people who use networks, but to the engineers who manage them, it may represent the end of an era.

Ever since Cisco made its first routers in the 1980s, most network engineers have relied on a CLI (command-line interface) to configure, manage and troubleshoot everything from small-office LANs to wide-area carrier networks. Cisco's isn't the only CLI, but on the strength of the company's domination of networking, it has become a de facto standard in the industry, closely emulated by other vendors.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Teach your router new tricks with DD-WRT. | Get expert networking how-to advice from InfoWorld's Networking Deep Dive PDF special report. | Subscribe to InfoWorld's Data Center newsletter to stay on top of the latest developments. ]

As such, it's been a ticket to career advancement for countless network experts, especially those certified as CCNAs (Cisco Certified Network Associates). Those network management experts, along with higher level CCIEs (Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts) and holders of other official Cisco credentials, make up a trained workforce of more than 2 million, according to the company.

A CLI is simply a way to interact with software by typing in lines of commands, as PC users did in the days of DOS. With the Cisco CLI and those that followed in its footsteps, engineers typically set up and manage networks by issuing commands to individual pieces of gear, such as routers and switches.

SDN, and the broader trend of network automation, uses a higher layer of software to control networks in a more abstract way. Whether through OpenFlow, Cisco's ONE (Open Network Environment) architecture, or other frameworks, the new systems separate the so-called control plane of the network from the forwarding plane, which is made up of the equipment that pushes packets. Engineers managing the network interact with applications, not ports.

"The network used to be programmed through what we call CLIs, or command-line interfaces. We're now changing that to create programmatic interfaces," Cisco Chief Strategy Officer Padmasree Warrior said at a press event earlier this year.

Will SDN spell doom for the tool that network engineers have used throughout their careers?

"If done properly, yes, it should kill the CLI. Which scares the living daylights out of the vast majority of CCIEs," Gartner analyst Joe Skorupa said. "Certainly all of those who define their worth in their job as around the fact that they understand the most obscure Cisco CLI commands for configuring some corner-case BGP4 (Border Gateway Protocol 4) parameter."

At some of the enterprises that Gartner talks to, the backlash from some network engineers has already begun, according to Skorupa.

"We're already seeing that group of CCIEs doing everything they can to try and prevent SDN from being deployed in their companies," Skorupa said. Some companies have deliberately left such employees out of their evaluations of SDN, he said.

Not everyone thinks the CLI's days are numbered. SDN doesn't go deep enough to analyze and fix every flaw in a network, said Alan Mimms, a senior architect at F5 Networks.

View the original article here

Will software-defined networking kill network engineers' beloved CLI?

IDG News Service - SDN (software-defined networking) promises some real benefits for people who use networks, but to the engineers who manage them, it may represent the end of an era.

Ever since Cisco made its first routers in the 1980s, most network engineers have relied on a CLI (command-line interface) to configure, manage and troubleshoot everything from small-office LANs to wide-area carrier networks. Cisco's isn't the only CLI, but on the strength of the company's domination of networking, it has become a de facto standard in the industry, closely emulated by other vendors.

As such, it's been a ticket to career advancement for countless network experts, especially those certified as CCNAs (Cisco Certified Network Associates). Those network management experts, along with higher level CCIEs (Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts) and holders of other official Cisco credentials, make up a trained workforce of more than 2 million, according to the company.

A CLI is simply a way to interact with software by typing in lines of commands, as PC users did in the days of DOS. With the Cisco CLI and those that followed in its footsteps, engineers typically set up and manage networks by issuing commands to individual pieces of gear, such as routers and switches.

SDN, and the broader trend of network automation, uses a higher layer of software to control networks in a more abstract way. Whether through OpenFlow, Cisco's ONE (Open Network Environment) architecture, or other frameworks, the new systems separate the so-called control plane of the network from the forwarding plane, which is made up of the equipment that pushes packets. Engineers managing the network interact with applications, not ports.

"The network used to be programmed through what we call CLIs, or command-line interfaces. We're now changing that to create programmatic interfaces," Cisco Chief Strategy Officer Padmasree Warrior said at a press event earlier this year.

Will SDN spell doom for the tool that network engineers have used throughout their careers?

"If done properly, yes, it should kill the CLI. Which scares the living daylights out of the vast majority of CCIEs," Gartner analyst Joe Skorupa said. "Certainly all of those who define their worth in their job as around the fact that they understand the most obscure Cisco CLI commands for configuring some corner-case BGP4 (Border Gateway Protocol 4) parameter."

At some of the enterprises that Gartner talks to, the backlash from some network engineers has already begun, according to Skorupa.

"We're already seeing that group of CCIEs doing everything they can to try and prevent SDN from being deployed in their companies," Skorupa said. Some companies have deliberately left such employees out of their evaluations of SDN, he said.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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D-Link Day/Night Network Cloud Camera 1150 (DCS-933L)

D-Link knows networking, so the company almost gets it right with the Day/Night Network Cloud Camera 1150. Setup is straightforward, and if your network is built with the latest D-Link products, no setup is required—just plug the camera into an AC outlet and your router and it's ready. Compared with the $200 Y-Cam HomeMonitor Indoor or even the $150 Dropcam HD the $99.99 (list) Cloud Camera 1150 is a good deal. It's a bit under-equipped with a standard-definition sensor, weak night vision mode, and a lack of online DVR service. While there is an online service for viewing the video feed, it doesn't include any cloud-based storage, putting it on par with the $120 Compro Cloud Network Camera (TN50W).

Design and Setup
The plain, white Cloud Camera 1150 has a soap-bar size and shape at 3.6 by 2.3 by 1.2 inches (HWD) without the stand. That stand is one of the few I've seen that's entirely plastic, but it's still wall- or ceiling-mountable with the included screws. It doesn't feel as sturdy as the metal stands that come with the Zmodo 720P HD Wireless Network IP Camera or Dropcam, though.

The camera has far fewer infrared LEDs than other models we've tested, with just four, instead of a nice ring array to nearly invisibly illuminate the area for the camera's IR-sensitive mode when it's dark. D-Link only guarantees night vision to about 15 feet while Y-Cam promises 50 feet. On the other hand, the Compro TN50W we tested has no LEDs at all, so D-Link is ahead of that one.

According to the company, setup is "zero configuration" if you already have a relatively recent D-Link Cloud Router and a mydlink account. My D-Link router is officially ancient at four years old, so I went through the full setup. This involves installing software on a Mac or Windows PC, rather than just a quick scan of a QR code with a mobile app (like that found on the Zmodo) or going to a website to enter a code from the camera (like with the Y-Cam HomeMonitor).

The setup leads you through connecting the camera, via Ethernet, to a router (D-Link includes a ribbon-thin 10baseT cable for this purpose), plugging in the power, then waiting for an LED on the back to turn solid green. The wizard auto-detects the camera's MAC and IP addresses. You can assign a password to the camera at this point, which is highly recommended. Switch the camera to wireless mode using either the simple Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), or by finding an available Wi-Fi network SSID to connect to.

Finally, you have to sign up for the mydlink cloud service, if you don't have an account already. Download the mydlink Lite apps for your phone or tablet, and get ready for some surveiling.

Features and Performance
The D-Link Cloud Camera 1150 appears no-frills on the surface, but there's some power underneath if you bother to access it (more on that in a minute). Many won't, and will feel they've got their money's worth since that surface works just fine for the most part. I ran into some glitches, however.

To view the camera in a browser on mydlink.com, you need to install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). I was also told by the wizard to perform a firmware upgrade. It's not exactly a fast setup, but it worked despite the constant Java errors I had with my Chrome browser. Thankfully, Java worked in IE 10.

Once in the mydlink.com interface, you can activate and adjust the motion detection and audio detection under the settings tab. Motion detection has a nice screen that lets you define an area of the image for detection (so the ceiling fan or dogs don't set it off, for example). A slider bar lets you increase or decrease the motion sensitivity. You can also schedule motion detection for individual days of the week. No matter how I set the sensitivity, I got far too many email alerts and false positives.

The audio detection settings are unique among the surveillance cameras I've tested. Mydlink displays a decibel level graph of what the camera currently hears up to 90db, so you can make an educated guess on what setting to use. This model supports listening to live audio with the video, but there's no two-way audio—you can't talk to the camera's subjects from a mobile app or remote computer, for instance.

Whenever a motion or audio event is detected, you get a time-stamped email with a still 640-by-480-pixel (VGA) image attached. The camera doesn't just support SMTP email; you can easily input settings for Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail, as well. It automatically sends the alerts to the email address you signed up with, so using a different address here can mean double the alerts.

Utterly unique to the Cloud Camera 1150 is a wireless extender mode. This lets you extend the range of your home wireless network, and could come in especially handy if you get multiple D-Link Cloud Cameras. Don't set it too far away, though; that could actually hurt wireless network performance.

Many of the above settings can also be modified from the mydlink Lite app on a phone or tablet. Generally, however, the apps are just for accessing the live camera feed, and perhaps taking a still image here or there.

Where's all this under-the-hood power I mentioned? In the mydlink settings, click the "Advanced Settings" button. You'll need the special password you assigned the camera (it may not be the same as your mydlink account password). This gives you access, via your browser, to the internal settings of the camera itself, everything from changing the password, to changing video quality, setting up dynamic DNS, creating mail accounts for alerts, or altering the extender mode to have its own SSID.

In Advanced Settings, you can set up alerts to email a video clip rather than a still image, and there are also options for sending video or stills to an FTP site. That's as close as the Cloud Camera comes to an online "DVR" service for surveillance footage, though the company claims it will work seamlessly with D-Link network-attached storage devices to store video.

The camera uses the H.264 codec, so the video looks good, but it only records up to 640 by 480 resolution, which just doesn't cut it compared with the 720p images on cameras from Zmodo and Dropcam.

Conclusion
We've yet to see a Wi-Fi surveillance camera that has just the right mix of performance, setup, and features to match the Logitech Alert 750n Indoor Master System. The 750n remains our Editors' Choice even though it's more expensive and isn't wireless (using HomePlug instead). D-Link's home surveillance solution needs to improve quality, remove the Java requirement for browser access, and consider some functional online storage (and not just a live feed or email/FTP uploads) to measure up.

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VMware sets its sights on network virtualization

VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger used his opening keynote speech at the company's annual VMworld conference to emphasize plans to virtualize networks with the aim of achieving the success in virtualizing servers.

Networking "is the most important topic we will discuss today," Gelsinger said to the audience of VMware administrators at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in a speech that was webcast. "We're moving to a world where the network is just like the compute, where we will be able to spin up network services just like we can spin up [virtual machine] services."

[ Doing server virtualization right is not so simple. InfoWorld's expert contributors show you how to get it right in this 24-page "Server Virtualization Deep Dive" PDF guide. | Track the latest trends in virtualization in InfoWorld's Virtualization Report newsletter. ]

At the conference, the company launched NSX, its new hypervisor for network virtualization.

VMware was founded in 1998 to re-introduce the concept of software virtualization to the world of commodity x86 servers (IBM, among other companies, had long offered software virtualization for time-sharing mainframes).

By placing software, such as a server OS, on top of a hypervisor, which sits between the hardware and the hardware's OS, IT shops could move these virtual machines more easily from physical server to physical server, which entailed costs savings by consolidating servers and increased agility of operations.

VMware in fiscal year 2012 generated around $4.6 billion in revenue, and the industry has become saturated with virtual machines, both from VMware and competitors such as Microsoft. By 2010, the number of virtual machines had outnumbered the number of physical ones, Gelsinger said.

Now, the company is looking to solve the next bottleneck in IT operations, which it identifies as network provisioning.

"Increasingly, the barrier to flexibility is becoming the network. While we can spin up a VM in seconds, [network] configurations can take weeks or months in response," Gelsinger said. NSX, which acts as a unifying layer to controlling network resources such as routers and switches, aims to solve this problem. "What ESX was to server virtualization, NSX is to network virtualization," Gelsinger said.

To help explain NSX, Gelsinger brought on stage VMware chief architect for networking Martin Casado, who was one of the creators of OpenFlow, the protocol that spawned the idea of SDN (software defined networking), which is, in part, another name for network virtualization. Casado was also the CTO of OpenFlow software provider Nicira, which VMware purchased in 2012, and which provides the basis for much of NSX.

Casado said, that when first thinking about OpenFlow, he wanted to "change the network architecture in a way so that you can have the properties in networks that you have in compute, when it comes to thing like operational simplicity, software evolve-ability, programmability."

"Virtual networks look like physical networks, but they have the operational model of a VM -- you can create them dynamically, configure them programmatically, snapshot them, and move them around," Casado said. "This is really taking the virtualization operations model and bringing it to networking."

NSX is part of a larger architecture that VMware has been developing over the past few years, one that it calls the SDDC (software defined data center). With SDDC, all of an organization's infrastructure is virtualized, allowing data center administrators to easily automate operations.

During his keynote, Gelsinger also introduced a number of other technologies, in addition to NSX, that would provide additional elements to SDDC. The company has begun work on its own products to virtualize storage, for instance, with the beta introduction of the Virtual Storage Area Network, which allows an administrator create a virtual SAN out of server hard drives.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com

View the original article here

VMware sets sites on network virtualization

IDG News Service - VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger used his opening keynote speech at the company's annual VMworld conference to emphasize plans to virtualize networks with the aim of achieving the success in virtualizing servers.

Networking "is the most important topic we will discuss today," Gelsinger said to the audience of VMware administrators at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in a speech that was webcast. "We're moving to a world where the network is just like the compute, where we will be able to spin up network services just like we can spin up [virtual machine] services."

At the conference, the company launched NSX, its new hypervisor for network virtualization.

VMware was founded in 1998 to re-introduce the concept of software virtualization to the world of commodity x86 servers (IBM, among other companies, had long offered software virtualization for time-sharing mainframes).

By placing software, such as a server OS, on top of a hypervisor, which sits between the hardware and the hardware's OS, IT shops could move these virtual machines more easily from physical server to physical server, which entailed costs savings by consolidating servers and increased agility of operations.

VMware in fiscal year 2012 generated around US$4.6 billion in revenue, and the industry has become saturated with virtual machines, both from VMware and competitors such as Microsoft. By 2010, the number of virtual machines had outnumbered the number of physical ones, Gelsinger said.

Now, the company is looking to solve the next bottleneck in IT operations, which it identifies as network provisioning.

"Increasingly, the barrier to flexibility is becoming the network. While we can spin up a VM in seconds, [network] configurations can take weeks or months in response," Gelsinger said. NSX, which acts as a unifying layer to controlling network resources such as routers and switches, aims to solve this problem. "What ESX was to server virtualization, NSX is to network virtualization," Gelsinger said.

To help explain NSX, Gelsinger brought on stage VMware chief architect for networking Martin Casado, who was one of the creators of OpenFlow, the protocol that spawned the idea of software defined networking (SDN), which is, in part, another name for network virtualization. Casado was also the chief technology officer of OpenFlow software provider Nicira, which VMware purchased in 2012, and which provides the basis for much of NSX.

Casado said, that when first thinking about OpenFlow, he wanted to "change the network architecture in a way so that you can have the properties in networks that you have in compute, when it comes to thing like operational simplicity, software evolve-ability, programmability."

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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VMware sets sites on network virtualization

VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger used his opening keynote speech at the company’s annual VMworld conference to emphasize plans to virtualize networks with the aim of achieving the success in virtualizing servers.

Joab JacksonVMware CEO Pat Gelsinger, on stage at VMworld 2013

Networking “is the most important topic we will discuss today,” Gelsinger said to the audience of VMware administrators at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in a speech that was webcast. “We’re moving to a world where the network is just like the compute, where we will be able to spin up network services just like we can spin up [virtual machine] services.”

At the conference, the company launched NSX, its new hypervisor for network virtualization.

VMware was founded in 1998 to re-introduce the concept of software virtualization to the world of commodity x86 servers (IBM, among other companies, had long offered software virtualization for time-sharing mainframes).

By placing software, such as a server OS, on top of a hypervisor, which sits between the hardware and the hardware’s OS, IT shops could move these virtual machines more easily from physical server to physical server, which entailed costs savings by consolidating servers and increased agility of operations.

VMware in fiscal year 2012 generated around US$4.6 billion in revenue, and the industry has become saturated with virtual machines, both from VMware and competitors such as Microsoft. By 2010, the number of virtual machines had outnumbered the number of physical ones, Gelsinger said.

Now, the company is looking to solve the next bottleneck in IT operations, which it identifies as network provisioning.

“Increasingly, the barrier to flexibility is becoming the network. While we can spin up a VM in seconds, [network] configurations can take weeks or months in response,” Gelsinger said. NSX, which acts as a unifying layer to controlling network resources such as routers and switches, aims to solve this problem. “What ESX was to server virtualization, NSX is to network virtualization,” Gelsinger said.

To help explain NSX, Gelsinger brought on stage VMware chief architect for networking Martin Casado, who was one of the creators of OpenFlow, the protocol that spawned the idea of software defined networking (SDN), which is, in part, another name for network virtualization. Casado was also the chief technology officer of OpenFlow software provider Nicira, which VMware purchased in 2012, and which provides the basis for much of NSX.

Casado said, that when first thinking about OpenFlow, he wanted to “change the network architecture in a way so that you can have the properties in networks that you have in compute, when it comes to thing like operational simplicity, software evolve-ability, programmability.”

“Virtual networks look like physical networks, but they have the operational model of a VM—you can create them dynamically, configure them programmatically, snapshot them, and move them around,” Casado said. “This is really taking the virtualization operations model and bringing it to networking.”

NSX is part of a larger architecture that VMware has been developing over the past few years, one that it calls the software defined data center (SDDC). With SDDC, all of an organization’s infrastructure is virtualized, allowing data center administrators to easily automate operations.

During his keynote, Gelsinger also introduced a number of other technologies, in addition to NSX, that would provide additional elements to SDDC. The company has begun work on its own products to virtualize storage, for instance, with the beta introduction of the Virtual Storage Area Network (VSAN), which allows an administrator create a virtual SAN out of server hard drives.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for the IDG News Service.
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How Amazon (and you) might use its private Wi-Fi network

A report that Amazon has tested a wireless network actually sheds new light on plans by satellite communications company Globalstar to extend the Wi-Fi spectrum.

The extension, if approved by the FCC, would create a new, uncluttered, high-performance Wi-Fi channel in upper reaches of the 2.4-GHz band, a channel Globalstar apparently intends as the basis of a managed service with cellular-like quality and roaming.

Amazon's wireless testing was revealed last week in a Bloomberg news story, "Amazon Is Said to Have Tested a Wireless Network," by Olga Kharif and Danielle Kucera. The tests were run near Amazon's Lab126 research facilities in Cupertino, California, according to Bloomberg's sources. The lab designs Amazon's Kindle devices.

"The trial underlines how Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce company, is moving beyond being a Web destination and hardware maker and digging deeper into the underlying technology for how people connect to the Internet," according to the Bloomberg story. "That would let Amazon create a more comprehensive user experience, encompassing how consumers get online, what device they use to connect to the Web and what they do on the Internet."

But the tests suggest that Amazon doesn't intend or even want to be a traditional wireless network provider. Instead, the online retail giant seems to be exploring the potential of a branded, managed Wi-Fi service that mirrors the features of cellular service: seamless roaming, minimal interference, improved security, and consistent high performance.

The Bloomberg report notes that the test network used spectrum controlled by satellite communications company Globalstar, based in Milpitas, California. In November 2012, the company petitioned the FCC to allow it to use part of its satellite spectrum to offer terrestrial data services, an offering it dubbed Terrestrial Low Power Service.

TLPS adds a big chunk of new capacity: 22 MHz to the currently available 72 MHz of 2.4 GHz spectrum, according to Jarvinian Wireless Innovation Fund, a Cambridge, Mass., research and investment firm focused on spectrum issues. Jarvinian claims credit for the TLPS idea and the engineering work behind it, and has been working closely with Globalstar.TLPS would essentially add a fourth non-overlapping channel, dubbed Channel 14, to the upper reaches of the 2.4 GHz band used for unlicensed Wi-Fi transmissions. The channel actually would combine Globalstar's adjacent licensed spectrum with a small amount of unlicensed spectrum.

But because this fourth channel is actually licensed to Globalstar, the company plans to use it in something like a wholesale, managed wireless service that would offer greater range and performance than conventional public Wi-Fi hotspots, and be available to end users through carriers or through brands, such as Amazon, operating as virtual network operators.

The Bloomberg story does take note of these plans. "Globalstar is seeking regulatory approval to convert about 80 percent of its spectrum to terrestrial use....Globalstar met with FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn in June, and a decision on whether the company can convert the spectrum could come within months."

If given a green light, "Globalstar is considering leasing its spectrum, sharing service revenues with partners, and other business models, one of the people said. With wireless spectrum scarce, Globalstar's converted spectrum could be of interest to carriers and cable companies, seeking to offload ballooning mobile traffic, as well as to technology companies."

Earlier this year, then-FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski repeated his pledge to continue expanding spectrum in both licensed and unlicensed bands.

In June, Wi-Fi vendor Ruckus Wireless, in Mountain View, California, announced it had completed a round of tests with Globalstar. The trial combined unlicensed spectrum from the upper edge of the 2.4 GHz Industrial Scientific Medical (ISM) band and Globalstar's licensed Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) spectrum. Ruckus used its Smart Wi-Fi brand access points and controllers, targeted at carrier-based Wi-Fi services, and a selection of existing smartphones with built-in Wi-Fi radios that had been given and over-the-air firmware update to run on the new channel.

According to Ruckus, the test showed that the new spectrum could achieve up to five times the range and four times the capacity "over traditional Wi-Fi." Unfortunately, the Ruckus statement was not more specific about the meaning of "traditional Wi-Fi," which could refer to 802.11n or even 802.11g, or about "capacity." Capacity refers to the network's ability to handle larger numbers of users and greater amounts of traffic. [One discussion of Wi-Fi capacity is found in "Aerohive Design & Configuration Guide: High-density Wi-Fi," by Andrew von Nagy, an Aerohive employee.] The increased range is important especially if higher data rates are sustained over those longer distances.

In a June interview posted at EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet.com, Jarvinian Managing Director John Dooley was quoted as saying "Even in an indoor environment made difficult or unusable by spectral congestion, usable connections [in the Ruckus-Globalstar tests] were established at 3-5 times the distance of public WiFi." The tests also showed more uniform high speeds across longer ranges, according to that post.

The Ruckus statement also said the Globalstar test network did not interfere with nearby conventional Wi-Fi networks. That lack of interference is important. In filing its comments on Globalstar's FCC petition, the Consumer Electronics Association argued that "Globalstar's....proposal presents significant risk to unlicensed operations in the 2.4 GHz band and potentially threatens the economic value, consumer benefit, growth, and potential for innovation of those unlicensed operations." Other industry groups have also raised concerns. [See "Globalstar's plan for an extra Wi-Fi band draws fire."] 

But Amazon apparently sees potential in offering its customers, ever more untethered with smartphones and tablets, a premium Wi-Fi experience that's superior to what public Wi-Fi today can offer.

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Social network use offers clues for security, Gartner says

Keeping people from social media is like keeping people from breathing, according to Gartner research director, Rob McMillan.

McMillan made the comparison at the Gartner Security Summit in Sydney, Australia recently, where he highlighted the importance of embracing social media from a security perspective instead of shying away from it or even trying to prohibit its use.

"Social is the most popular form of Cloud service on the planet," he said. "Blocking access just encourages people to overcome security controls."

By opening up to social media, McMillan said it helps companies "learn new tricks."

"We have to understand how social works and develop capabilities in monitoring, data analysis, mitigation and remediation," he said.

Another useful outcome from embracing social media is that it forces IT professionals to consider employees and customers as part of the broad security team.

However, McMillan warns that all of this cannot be managed "just by buying more technology."

"The social risk is not just about social media, and we've already seen many companies affected by social risk events," he said.

Beyond the social media discussion is big data, which McMillan said can enable true context aware security risk management.

While there are numerous tools that can help a business to take advantage of big data, he warns that the work does not stop there.

"All of the data and analysis in the world won't help if you do not know how to use the results to identify flaws in emerging risks," he said.

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EU researchers get 2T bps capacity thanks to network upgrade

European Union researchers using the GEANT network will, from Wednesday, be able to access capacity of up to 2 terabits per second.

GEANT is the superfast pan-European research network that helped discover the Higgs Boson particle at the CERN Large Hadron Collider near Geneva. It was also the only Internet connection to Egypt during the so-called Arab Spring revolution in 2011, according to the European Commission.

The upgrade to the network began in September 2012 and was coordinated by DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe), which leads the project consortium of 41 partners.

Using the Infinera DTN-X optical transmission platform deployed on the GEANT backbone—more than 5300 miles of fiber—and 35 Juniper MX series universal routers, testers were able to activate 2T bps of long-haul superchannel optical capacity in June. The test route was between Amsterdam and Frankfurt, as this was deemed to be one of the busiest in Europe.

This superchannel is now permanently available to users of Europe’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), including 32,000 universities, 22,000 primary and secondary schools, research institutes, libraries, museums, national archives and hospitals. This will allow data transfer at speeds of up to 100G bps throughout the core GEANT network. The 24 European points of presence can be configured statically or dynamically, offering bandwidth on demand.

Speeds like this will enable faster collaboration on research projects and meet the increasing demand for data transfer capacity. The amount of data that needs to be distributed, analyzed, stored and accessed is increasing exponentially as more global research projects come online, according to the Commission, which has to date provided  $402 million in funding for the GEANT network.

“We need high speed and high capacity to keep in the global research race. The data side of the research equation is almost as important as the research itself today,” said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes in a statement. “With this upgrade, this project is essentially future proofing GÉANT until 2020,” she said.

Jennifer Baker reports on the European Union: Commission, Parliament, technology policy, regulation, and competition.
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