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Riverbed rolling script language and SDK everywhere
Riverbed Technologies has announced its intention to open up its APIs and make its kit more consistently scriptable across all devices.
The announcement today of FlyScript is as much the launch of a strategy as a finished product, but Riverbed sees it as an important move in two ways: ultimately, FlyScript will support the …
Ethernet switch pitch less of a b*tch as 2012 comes to a close
The Ethernet switch market picked up a tiny bit as last year came to a close, according to various box counters, and the prognosticators at Infonetics Research and IDC were projecting that 2013 would see stronger growth as the move to 10 Gigabit Ethernet begins in earnest in the data center and companies start contemplating …
Heavenly networker Pertino pockets $20m to take on Cisco Meraki
If you want to take on Cisco Systems in the nascent cloud networking-as-a-service market, you are going to need money. Lots of money. And so plucky upstart Pertino Networks, which just uncloaked from stealth mode last month, has gathered up some new investors and hit up its existing ones to fill up its war chest.
Todd …
Mellanox to open up its Ethernet networking stack
Switch and adapter maker Mellanox Technologies will take its own switching and management software open source, and allow companies to run their own open switching and routing code atop its physical switches.
Why? Simple: Mellanox is trying to differentiate itself from its competitors in the Ethernet switch and router rackets, …
Let software take the strain off your data centre
Software-defined networking (SDN) may not yet be at the top of your data centre to-do list but if you want the benefits of private cloud, it should be soon.
Our recent Regcast, during which HP discussed SDN and “virtual application networking” (the concept name for how it sees SDN and virtual networks developing), provides a …
Upstart Aerospoke flings NoSQL ninja star into data-centre rings
A NoSQL startup is upping its game with a feature update allowing biz types to share data across multiple data centres.
Aerospike has released Enterprise Edition 2.6 with the addition of star topologies. The architecture allows one data centre to simultaneously replicate information to multiple data centres – a move the company …
Microwaves thrash fibre on speed... if you like two-nines uptime
“Time? They ain’t making any more of it, so you gotta get in and get out, or you’ll get your f*****g face ripped off,” screamed an old Chicago Merc floor trader at my grad school class during a field trip.
I nodded, like the rest of the class, figuring he knew what he was talking about and also not wanting to provoke this human …
Mellanox pumps up channel for InfiniBand, Ethernet pushes
Switch and server adapter maker Mellanox Technologies gave Wall Street a bit of a shock with some cable issues and a big revenue shortfall in its most recent quarter and a projected one for the current quarter after one of its OEM customers bought more product in the latter part of 2012 than they could sell even into the first …
Drilling into a half-decent gigabit small-biz switch... from D-Link
Review I have a confession to make, dear readers. While I'm aware that this admission opens me up to virtually unlimited heckling from the Cisco-indoctrinated crowd, the truth of the matter is that D-Link switches have served me in good stead for over a decade. After having spent the past month reviewing D-Link's DGS-3420-28TC, I've …
Linaro Linux-on-ARM effort sets sights on network gear
The non-profit Linaro software engineering effort , established two summers ago to whip the Linux kernel and add-ons to create the Linux platform for mobile devices, is setting its sights on myriad networking devices.
The proliferation of and tinkering with ARM processor designs is what makes for powerful technology, just like …
From stage to stream: The unseen tech at the BRIT Awards 2013
Feature If you think you know all about the O2 Arena having visited it when it was called the Millennium Dome, then think again.
When the site was sold to entertainment biz AEG in 2004, it was gutted and turned into a concert venue; all that remains of the original structure is the tent. Today, its owners claim it’s the busiest live …
HP brings wired and wireless nets under single SDN umbrella
Wireless networks are becoming as important as wired ones for companies, and if you want to manage both and provide both wireless and wired functionality, it makes sense to mash up a hybrid switch that has physical and ethereal ports and is all managed by the same software stack. If you can slap a "software-defined networking" …
Virtual Instruments plans probe 'n' sniff tools for Ethernet networks
Fibre Channel networking probester Virtual Instruments is going to expand into Ethernet-based file network probing and analysis, according to the 451 analysis group. The analysts also reckon an IPO is coming but said that Ethernet switching speed freak Arista is set on entering Ethernet network analysis too, giving VI real …
Intel pits QDR-80 InfiniBand against Mellanox FDR
As Joe Yaworski, fabric product marketing manager at Intel, put it to El Reg, the next frontier of system innovation will be in fabrics. As we see it, that frontier may also be the front line of the InfiniBand war between Mellanox and Intel – with one upcoming battle being the former's 56Gb/sec interconnects versus Intel's new …
Arista wants to DANZ for high freaky traders
Arista Networks, the brainchild of serial entrepreneur Andy Bechtolsheim, is chasing a new market by reversing the polarity on its Ethernet switches, turning them into packet sniffers that feed into network analyzer equipment instead of packet shufflers.
As is the case with most hardware these days, the trick is all in the …
Traceroute reveals Star Wars Episode IV 'crawl' text
A bored, snowbound network admin has made something lovely: a traceroute that produces the text of the opening crawl to Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope.
Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert Ryan Werber, who blogs at Beagle Networks, says that during Boston's recent blizzards he decided to have some fun with DNS.
The result, …
F5 Networks scarfs up LineRate Systems for SDN smarts
Another software-defined networking startup has been scarfed up before it got rolling very far on its own. In this case, network-acceleration and load-balancing juggernaut F5 Networks has acquired LineRate Systems, whose founders have spent the better part of the last decade figuring out how to shape traffic way up in the stack …
Mellanox shoots higher and lower with long-haul switches
InfiniBand and Ethernet switch maker Mellanox Technologies, recently hammered because it missed its latest quarterly results big-time and gave a weak forecast for the first quarter, is sticking to its switched-fabric knitting and expanding its product portfolio, making good on its promise to flesh out a series of long-haul …
Superbowl blackout was a stuff-up, not Anonymous
When there was a power outage during the Superbowl, it only took minutes for someone to claim responsibility on behalf of “Anonymous”.
There’s never a guarantee that anyone claiming to speak for the collective is actually doing so; and in any case, the reality turns out to be boring. According to the Wall Street Journal, the …
Ethernet at 40: Its daddy reveals its turbulent youth
Feature When Bob Metcalfe, the prime mover behind the invention of Ethernet, recently visited the site of that invention, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), The Reg had the opportunity to sit down with him to discuss the history of Ethernet, its advantages over Token Ring, and IBM's perfidy.
Metcalfe was in town to promote a two- …
Intel stuffs more dough down Big Switch Network's trousers
Intel has come in late in the Series B round of funding for SDN upstart Big Switch Networks, and has crammed another $6.5m into its pockets.
Why? Simple: Chipzilla's Intel Capital venture arm knows that its parent company is counting on the switching business to help keep its Data Center and Connected Systems Group growing …
Dell: May the Force 10 (Gigabit Ethernet) be with your CAT6 cables
By acquiring Force 10 Networks back in July 2011, privatizing IT giant Dell moved itself from a maker of low-end switches to a contender for a slice of the top-end market for 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet switches that are ever so slowly becoming the backbone of data centers. But you have to keep up with the times, and that means …
IBM rounds out 10GE/40GE RackSwitches with a switch hitter
Big Blue is rounding out its RackSwitch top-of-rack switches in conjunction with the launch of entry and midrange Power7+ servers earlier this week.
IBM is kicking out two new switches, the RackSwitch G8264CS and G8264T, both of which offer a base number 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports and then additional uplinks or so-called " …
Bug kills Intel gig-E controllers
Star2Star CTO Kristian Kielhofner has identified a buggy implementation the Intel 82574L Ethernet controller that makes some kit subject to a “packet of death” that hangs the port receiving the packet.
His lengthy description of the discovery of the bug is at his personal blog, here, but it boils down to this: with the right …
Oracle ponies up $2.1bn for Acme Packet to bully its way into unified comms
If Oracle sees a good idea and a pile of money sitting underneath it, and that idea is adjacent to something Oracle is already doing, then cofounder and CEO Larry Ellison gets out a bigger pile of money and pounces. And that is precisely what Oracle has done with its first big deal of 2013 as it snaps up unified communications …
Cisco revs up Nexus switches to 40GE with fresh ASICs
Cisco has vowed to push 40GE Ethernet switches into the mainstream while also improving its 10GE/40GE Nexus boxes.
The transition to 10GE networking is well under way, and the convergence of server and storage traffic onto switches continues apace, albeit at a slower rate than Cisco Systems had hoped.
Despite this, the …
NEC uncloaks freebie virtual switch for Hyper-V
Japanese server and switch provider NEC jumped out in front of other players in the market with an OpenFlow controller for managing forwarding tables and network workflow in virtualized switches, and now it has coded up its own virtual switch that runs inside of Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor.
Like server virtualization rival …
Cisco unwraps Unified Access boxes in East London
Cisco took its life in its hands today by choosing the heart of East London to take the wraps off two shiny boxes to be sold under its Unified Access architecture banner.
Senior vice president for enterprise, Rob Soderberry unveiled the Catalyst 3850 unified access switch at the opening of CiscoLive, saying it combined the best …
WTF is... Weightless?
Weightless, the would-be world standard that allows devices to talk to devices without human intervention, reaches its first major release milestone this spring.
Version 1.0 of the technology specification is set to be published in March or April and then it will be able to begin making the much-hyped but yet to be delivered ‘ …
Juniper to build its own software-defined networking stack
Juniper Networks is not, it turns out, all that enthusiastic about the OpenFlow technology that is at the heart of a lot of software-defined network (SDN) strategies these days. But don't be confused. That does not mean that Juniper doesn't believe in SDN or has not been quietly putting together its own SDN battle plan to take …
WTF is... WebRTC?
Feature Last week’s release of Firefox 18.0 saw the not-for-profit browser gaining “preliminary” support for a technology called WebRTC. Folk downloading the browser afresh or updating from a previous release may have been keener on Firefox’s new support for Apple’s “retina” displays or the browser’s promised JavaScript performance leap …
Soz, switch-fondlers: Doesn't look like 2013 is 10Gb Ethernet's year
It is becoming increasingly unlikely that 2013 will be the year that sees widespread adoption of 10 gigabit Ethernet. Of course we'll be told it will be, just as we have been told for years that wholesale shift is right on the horizon. The reason? It's not a question of technological capability – the technology for 10GbE has …
IBM borgs StoredIQ for big data build-out
Everybody is crazy about storing any kind of data their employees and systems generate in the hopes that they can turn all that big data into money.
But the dirty little secret is that this hoarding tendency has risks as well as rewards. Keeping some kinds of data is as financially harmful as not processing other kinds. And that …
Ethernet sales fizzle, but self-aware networks set to explode
The switching and server markets are loosely coupled, just like the machines themselves in the data center. When one goes up or down, the other tends to either lead or follow, depending on the technology transitions underway in both markets at any given time. The server market is in a bit of a slump, and the Ethernet switch …
Samba 4 arrives with full Active Directory support
The team behind the Samba Project has released version 4.0 of its open source Windows interoperability software suite, the first version to offer full compatibility with Microsoft's Active Directory protocols.
The Samba stack is by far the most popular solution for networking non-Microsoft platforms with Windows machines, but …
Pica8 bundles up OpenFlow controller, switches for SDN newbies
Ethernet switch maker Pica8 was one of the vendors that first jumped onto the OpenFlow software-defined networking bandwagon. But with all the major switch makers making noise about how they are doing SDN, Pica8 has to do something. Its rivals are setting up SDNs using open source OpenFlow virtual switches or controllers or by …
Chinese state media accuses Cisco and other US giants of spying
State mouthpieces in China have published a series of articles attacking Cisco, accusing the networking giant of being complicit in US attacks on its infrastructure.
The first coverage seems to have appeared as the cover story in China Economic and Information Technology Magazine, and doesn't mince words in laying into Cisco, …
How IT will evolve to photonics
Replacing electronics with photonics will one day be an important way to run IT while consuming far less power than is the case today. But while that idea looks great on paper, the research is still young.
The Internet’s voracious appetite for electricity needs some near-term solutions, so asThe Register followed-up the our …
Cisco to acquire Meraki for $1.2bn
Cisco has acquired cloud rival Meraki.
Meraki attracted much attention in around 2006, thanks to Google investing in the then-startup and its products that made it possible to dole out a few megabytes of free WiFi from its access points. That functionality was popular among early adopters who liked the idea of free WiFi and were …
Forget what vendors think: What’s YOUR vision for the data centre?
Research Given the chance, any IT vendor or service provider will launch into their company’s vision for the future... your future.
If it’s Salesforce.com or Google, that will be a future in which you wave goodbye to all of your servers, storage and networking kit.
If it’s IBM, HP or Microsoft, their crystal ball will envision you …
Cisco sets ex-CIA spook to hunt down leaking staffer
Updated Cisco appears to be rather annoyed that one of its staff has been leaking memos to the press, and its vice president of global labs (and former CIA operative) Michael Quinn has sent a chilling email to staff warning he will hunt down the culprit.
"The person or persons whom felt it was cool or correct to share this internal memo …
Juniper in shock dump of biggest supplier
Juniper Networks has dumped its biggest manufacturer Plexus from a huge contract to make switches and network gear.
Juniper had said that it was cutting the number of suppliers it uses and Plexus announced yesterday that it was one of the firms getting the axe.
"This is very surprising news to us given our recent communications …
