infrastructure

Cisco is reminding us that the heart and soul of its business is still the humble router. In this case, maybe a not-so-humble router.

On Tuesday the company announced the CRS-3, its next-generation Internet router for the world's largest Internet service providers. Cisco may have overhyped the announcement just a tad. After a two-week countdown to an announcement that it said would "forever change the Internet," the company unveiled what looks like an upgrade to its existing "core" router called the CRS-1.

While the hype machine may have failed to deliver something truly revolutionary, Cisco'… Read more

Critical infrastructure networks around the world are subject to repeated cyberattacks from foreign governments and other high-level adversaries that can be damaging and costly, according to a report McAfee released Thursday.

Attacks that lead to down time can cost more than $6 million per day, and more than $8 million at oil and gas companies, the report, "In the Crossfire--Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Cyberwar," found.

Meanwhile, respondents said they worry about attacks on critical infrastructure in their countries coming from the U.S. and China more than any other potential aggressors.

For the report, which was … Read more

In an interview this week, Greg Ness, a senior director at network automation vendor Infoblox, outlines the problems lurking in today's network architectures and processes in the face of dynamic distributed computing models like cloud computing and data center virtualization.

The interview focuses on the concepts behind Infrastructure 2.0, and how vendors and enterprises are working together to address the many opportunities and challenges they present.

Take a look at the core TCP/IP and Ethernet networks that we all use today, and how enterprise IT manages those services. Not long ago, I wrote an article that described … Read more

Recently I heard the chief information officer of a large technology company observe that the consolidation and convergence of IT infrastructure is forcing a consolidation and convergence within his own department. He observed that because platforms are converging around server virtualization projects and a future rollout of virtual desktops, narrowly focused IT administrative groups must also converge. In the future, IT competency will be in systems and services delivery rather than in stove-piped areas of expertise like servers, networks, and storage. Furthermore he believes that the IT jobs market will value "converged' administrators.

As a final point, he observed … Read more

I ended my last blog post with "Integrate and prosper." Little did I know that Cisco, EMC, and VMware were about to unveil a Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) early the following week, the biggest cross-vendor integration project yet seen in the world of computing. Yes there were rumors about a Cisco/EMC joint venture that would sell Cisco servers packaged with EMC storage, but none that I heard captured the boldness and scope of VCE.

The core VCE compute platform is called a "Vblock," an integrated, pre-packaged IT solution consisting of server and networking resources from … Read more

For years, Red Hat has happily sold Linux to Unix shops anxious to save money at equivalent or better performance. During this time, the company largely avoided Microsoft, which has tended to compete much higher up the stack. No longer. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer argues that one of Microsoft's biggest opportunities lies in enterprise infrastructure and associated application development.

Red Hat, meet Redmond.

Red Hat wants to own the infrastructure market. The company is nearing its initial $1 billion goal, but has a far more audacious ambition: own half the associated middleware market.

This is a direct challenge to … Read more

IBM launched late Monday a new portfolio of products and services for the enterprise cloud computing market, which the company claims builds on lessons learned from earlier cloud initiatives.

Targeted at providing standardized platforms for specific computing workloads, the products and services, launched under the Smart Business and IBM CloudBurst monikers, aim to change the way IT organizations build and deliver IT services.

"Cloud is an important new consumption and delivery model for IT and business services. Large enterprises want our help to capitalize on what this model offers in a way that is safe, reliable, and efficient for … Read more

Hackers have broken into the air traffic control mission-support systems of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration several times in recent years, according to an Inspector General report sent to the FAA this week.

In February, hackers compromised an FAA public-facing computer and used it to gain access to personally identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, on 48,000 current and former FAA employees, the report said.

Last year, hackers took control of FAA critical network servers and could have shut them down, which would have seriously disrupted the agency's mission-support network, the report said. Hackers took over … Read more

Updated 7:50 a.m. PDT April 24 to specify that the infection was in the U.S.

SAN FRANCISCO--The Conficker worm infected several hundred machines and critical medical equipment in an undisclosed number of U.S. hospitals recently, a security expert said on Thursday in a panel at the RSA security conference.

"It was not widespread, but it raises the awareness of what we would do if there were millions" of computers infected at hospitals or in critical infrastructure locations, Marcus Sachs told CNET News after the session. Sachs is the director of the SANS Internet Storm … Read more