Key Points:
- Servers, storage, desktops, database, call centers, security—name an application, and it's likely running in the cloud, where someone else handles its management and maintenance, and enterprises consume it as a service.
- One important pillar of modern technology is missing from that list: the network. Even as enterprises move the IT stack to the cloud, networking has remained stubbornly on-prem. The concept of network-as-a-service (NaaS) has been around for years as a potential alternative to traditional wide-area networks (WAN).
- Organizations across diverse industries—financial services, retail, healthcare, and others—benefit from simply using network services without worrying about building and maintaining that infrastructure.
- What kind of business still uses on-prem payroll software, or customer relationship management (CRM), or office applications? Somehow, we rarely view networks through that lens, even though fundamentally, “networking” is just another application.
- Today, a new generation of NaaS solutions combines flexibility and affordability with privacy, reliability, and performance. These NaaS solutions are delivered under service-level agreements (SLAs) with guaranteed thresholds for loss, latency, and other attributes.
- Even more importantly, the most sophisticated NaaS providers use novel metadata-based routing techniques and maintain end-to-end encryption. These providers have no visibility into enterprise traffic; all encryption/decryption happens only under the business’ direct control.
You already know that every day at Network Computing brings the how and why behind next-gen networks, data centers, storage systems, communications, and cloud architecture.
That means original reporting from our team of journalists and unique commentary you won’t see anywhere else! But in case you missed them, here are some of our other must-read favorites from this week:
Inside Nvidia's News from SIGGRAPH 2024
Key Points:
- As it does at all events, NVIDIA announced a wide range of innovations highlighting how its platform enables all accelerated computing workloads – from virtual to physical. Advanced AI models for creating 3D objects, digital humans, and simulating robots are among those innovations.
- NVIDIA inference microservices (NIM) is a framework designed to simplify the deployment of generative AI (gen AI). It provides pre-built AI models and containers that can be integrated into apps via application programming interfaces (APIs).
- NVIDIA introduced fVDB, a new deep-learning framework for creating AI-ready virtual representations of the real world. Built on OpenVDB, fVDB is designed for simulating and rendering volumetric data such as water, fire, smoke, and clouds.
- These technologies demonstrate NVIDIA's commitment to enhancing the capabilities and accessibility of AI and simulation across industries, reinforcing its position as a leader in accelerated computing. A detailed look at the news is in the story above.
Exploring the Intersection of Modern Software Engineering and Security
Key Points:
- Modern approaches have changed the ways we think about our security posture, as things such as the increased popularity of remote work have moved the goalposts from securing assets within a physical location to securing data and assets globally with the potential of them being accessed from anywhere at any time.
- While applying things like network access controls can definitely help mitigate potential issues on-premises, this regardless raises one question: why inherently trust anything in the first place? This is where the concept of zero trust comes in.
- However, zero trust is not just a matter of network security; it blends in with software engineering as well, as organizations need to make sure that their software supports zero trust approaches from the get-go.
- With the increasing demand for access and applications to venture outside of a singular computer and user space, we need to take good care to make sure that all systems stay as secure as possible.
DPUs Revolutionizing Data Centers
Key Points:
- The DPU is at the core of a rearchitect of processing power where servers have expanded well beyond a central processing unit (CPU) to a series of specialty processors, each offloading a specific set of tasks so CPU can fly.
- DPUs are devices that give data center operators the ability to revamp operations and realize large resulting benefits in reduced energy costs and server consolidation while boosting server performance. The DPUs help data center servers handle and enhance new and emerging workloads.
- The DPU is a relatively new device that offloads processing-intensive tasks from the CPU onto a separate card in the server. This mini onboard server is highly optimized for network, storage and management tasks. The use of DPUs can, for the above-mentioned reasons, make a data center far more efficient and less expensive to operate, all while boosting performance.
- The emerging DPU processor class has the potential to increase server performance for AI applications. Working as one, the processers can help you supercharge your information processing efforts. Find out how in the story above.
Can the Cloud Impact the Future of Farming?
Key Points:
- Every decision a farmer makes – from the type of fertilizer they use to when to put seeds in the ground – has an impact on the overall success of the season. And the stakes of all those decisions are incredibly high.??
- Precision agriculture machines connected to the cloud can help farmers be more productive with fewer workers. One of the benefits of these machines is they provide real-time data and insights on things like machine job quality, so if a farmer can get a heads-up on machine issues, they can be proactive with maintenance to avoid any downtime.??
- Traditionally, they collected the data manually, a time-consuming process that takes valuable hours away from more pressing work. But today, advanced machines can gather masses of real-time data, sort it automatically, and store it securely in the cloud.
- Today, for tillage, data and the cloud are already making an impact. Farmers can remotely adjust the speed or depth of the tillage tool based on real-time information sent from the machine to the cloud.
Latest Major Tech Layoff Announcements
Original Story by Jessica C. Davis, Updated by Brandon Taylor
Key Points:
- As COVID drove everyone online, tech companies hired like crazy. Now we are hitting the COVID tech bust as tech giants shed jobs by the thousands.
- Updated August 2, 2024 with layoff announcements from Intel Corporation, Bungie, Match Group, and NerdWallet.
- Check back regularly for updates to InformationWeek's IT job layoffs tracker.
Commentary of the Week
Key Points:
- Simply put, today’s connectivity and security requirements in academic, commercial, and public sector environments have outpaced the capabilities of traditional campus networks. A campus Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) approach is emerging, offering more flexibility, simplified management, and enhanced cybersecurity.
- In the past, a campus network gave students and employees easy access to an organization’s applications, data, and computing resources. Now, the overwhelming use of cloud services and SaaS applications requires high-speed, highly available, and secure connections from within an organization to these outside resources.
- “What’s been offered is a lipstick on a pig where they took existing hardware and existing software, put in monitoring and management, and sold it as a service,” said
Nile
’s Co-founder and CPO,
Suresh Katukam
. (Katukam's comments came in a podcast interview with MEF CTO Pascal Menezes.)
-
Sunil Khandekar
, Chief Enterprise Development Officer at?MEF,?sees two enterprise campus NaaS use cases that stand out. One is the use of campus NaaS for multinational companies' remote offices. Another emerging use case is with mid-sized companies that have relied heavily on managed services.
- A campus NaaS offering would align with that approach, offloading network CapEx spending to a provider while also relying on that provider to manage and secure the network and incorporate the latest technologies as they emerge.
Network Computing
's 2024 State of Networking Report
Networking budgets remain strong, with priorities centered on network security, network monitoring/observability, and network resiliency.
Download this Network Computing research report today which explores the current state of network management priorities, practices, challenges, and investments. Learn how the IT leaders responsible for architecting and managing enterprise networks are adapting for the future.
In spite of some economic headwinds and tech industry layoffs, the prognosis for network spending is still quite strong. The 2024 annual state of network management survey found that security, network monitoring, and network resiliency continue to be the focus of network spending and management priorities.
- Over half of organizations reported that they increased their spending on networking in the past twelve months.
- Network spending will likely remain strong through 2025, with 85% of organizations planning to increase or maintain the same level of spending next year.
- While a significant portion of network spending is allocated to keeping the lights on, more than one-third of existing budgets are dedicated to investing in new technologies and innovation.
- Many of the investment and management priorities in 2024 are focused on security, network monitoring and observability, and network resiliency.
- New technologies like SD-WAN, Zero Trust network access, cloud-based security and services (SASE), and Wi-Fi 6 are among the budgeted technologies for organizations surveyed.
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