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Microsoft Surprises And Goes Ubuntu
Microsoft has announced a partnership with Canonical which means it is possible to install Canonical’s Ubuntu on Windows 10.
The software is available to all through the Developer Mode on Windows Settings and it is not a virtual machine. Microsoft will allow native ELF binaries, written for Linux, to run under Windows through a translation layer. It is a bit like the WINE project, which runs native Windows binaries on Linux.
Normally you have to recompile Linux software under Cygwin, or run a Linux virtual machine to get it to run in Windows.
Microsoft claims the new feature offers a considerable advantage in performance and storage space. It also includes the bulk of Ubuntu’s packages, installed via the apt package manager directly from Canonical’s own repositories.
The big question is why. Redmond does not appear to be targeting the server market with this launch but desktop and laptop users. It appears to be mainly of use to developers, who need access to Linux software but for whatever reason wish to keep Windows 10 as their main OS.
Canonical’s Dustin Kirkland said the Windows Subsystem for Linux nearly has equivalent performance to running the software natively under Linux. The only downside is the software is free, but not open source.
General release is scheduled for later this year as part of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, which will also include support for running Windows Universal Apps on the Xbox One, turning any Xbox One into a development system, the ability to disable V-sync for games installed through the Windows software storefront, ad-blocking support by default in Microsoft Edge, and improved stylus support.
Courtesy-Fud
IPv6 Turns 20, Did You Notice?
IPv6 is 20 years old and the milestone has been celebrated with 10 percent adoption across the world for the first time.
The idea that IPv6 remains so far behind its saturated incumbent, IPv4, is horrifying given that three continents ran out of IPv4 addresses in 2015. Unfortunately, because the product isn’t ‘end of life’ most internet providers have been working on a ‘not broken, don’t fix it’ basis.
But 2016 looks to be the year when IPv6 makes its great leap to the mainstream, in Britain at least. BT, the UK’s biggest broadband provider, has already committed to switch on IPv6 support by the end of the year, and most premises will be IPv6-capable by April. Most companies use the same lines, but it will be up to each individual supplier to switch over. Plusnet, a part of BT, is a likely second.
IPv6 has a number of advantages over IPv4, most notably that it is virtually infinite, meaning that the capacity problems that the expanded network is facing shouldn’t come back to haunt us again. It will also pave the way for ever faster, more secure networks.
Some private corporate networks have already made the switch. Before Christmas we reported that the UK Ministry of Defence was already using the protocol, leaving thousands of unused IPv4 addresses lying idle in its wake.
IPv6 is also incredibly adaptable for the Internet of Things. Version 4.2 of the Bluetooth protocol includes IPv6 connectivity as standard, making it a lot easier for tiny nodes to make up a larger internet-connected grid.
Google’s latest figures suggest that more than 10 percent of users are running IPv6 connections at the weekend, while the number drops to eight percent on weekdays. This suggests that the majority of movement towards IPv6 is happening in the residential broadband market.
That said, it is imperative that businesses begin to make the leap. As Infoblox IPv6 evangelist Tom Coffeen told us last year, it could start to affect the speed at which you are able to trade.
“If someone surfs onto your site and its only available in IPv4, but they are using IPv6, there has to be some translation, which puts your site at a disadvantage. If I’ve not made my site available in IPv6, I’m no longer in control over where that translation occurs.”
In other words, if you don’t catch up, you will soon get left behind. It was ever thus.
Courtesy-TheInq
Is HP’s Forthcoming Split A Good Idea?
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HP Has released its financial results for the third quarter and they make for somewhat grim reading.
The company has seen drops in key parts of the business and an overall drop in GAAP net revenue of eight percent year on year to $25.3bn, compared with $27.6bn in 2014.
The company failed to meet its projected net earnings per share, which it had put at $0.50-$0.52, with an actual figure of $0.47.
The figures reflect a time of deep uncertainty at the company as it moves ever closer to its demerger into HP and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The latter began filing registration documents in July to assert its existence as a separate entity, while the boards of both companies were announced two weeks ago.
Dell CEO Michael Dell slammed the move in an exclusive interview with The INQUIRER, saying he would never do the same to his company.
The big boss at HP remained upbeat, despite the drop in dividend against expectations. “HP delivered results in the third quarter that reflect very strong performance in our Enterprise Group and substantial progress in turning around Enterprise Services,” said Meg Whitman, chairman, president and chief executive of HP.
“I am very pleased that we have continued to deliver the results we said we would, while remaining on track to execute one of the largest and most complex separations ever undertaken.”
To which we have to ask: “Which figures were you looking at, lady?”
Breaking down the figures by business unit, Personal Systems revenue was down 13 percent year on year, while notebook sales fell three percent and desktops 20 percent.
Printing was down nine percent, but with a 17.8 percent operating margin. HP has been looking at initiatives to create loyalty among print users such as ink subscriptions.
The Enterprise Group, soon to be spun off, was up two percent year on year, but Business Critical system revenue dropped by 21 percent, cancelled out by networking revenue which climbed 22 percent.
Enterprise Services revenue dropped 11 percent with a six percent margin, while software dropped six percent with a 20.6 percent margin. Software-as-a-service revenue dropped by four percent.
HP Financial Services was down six percent, despite a two percent decrease in net portfolio assets and a two percent decrease in financing volume.
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/is-hps-forthcoming-split-a-good-idea.html
Is Oracle Sliding?
Oracle said weak sales of its traditional database software licenses were made worse by a strong US dollar lowered the value of foreign revenue.
Shares of Oracle, often seen as a barometer for the technology sector, fell 6 percent to $42.15 in extended trading after the company’s earnings report on Wednesday.
Shares of Microsoft and Salesforce.com, two of Oracle’s closest rivals, were close to unchanged.
Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets said that this announcement speaks to the headwinds Oracle is seeing in the field as their legacy database business is seeing slowing growth.
It also shows that while Cloud business has seen pockets of strength it is not doing as well as many thought,
Oracle, like other established tech companies, is looking to move its business to the cloud-computing model, essentially providing services remotely via data centres rather than selling installed software.
The 38-year-old company has had some success with the cloud model, but is not moving fast enough to make up for declines in its traditional software sales.
Oracle, along with German rival SAP has been losing market share in customer relationship management software in recent years to Salesforce.com, which only offers cloud-based services.
Because of lower software sales and the strong dollar, Oracle’s net income fell to $2.76 billion, or 62 cents per share, in the fourth quarter ended May 31, from $3.65 billion, or 80 cents per share, a year earlier.
Revenue fell 5.4 percent to $10.71 billion. Revenue rose 3 percent on a constant currency basis. Analysts had expected revenue of $10.92 billion, on average.
Sales from Oracle’s cloud-computing software and platform service, an area keenly watched by investors, rose 29 percent to $416 million.
Will Blackberry Embrace Android?
June 25, 2015 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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BlackBerry Ltd’s move to embrace Android, although geared towards lifting revenue from its software and device management segment, could inadvertently give its device arm a new lease on life.
“From the standpoint of marketing, this is a great way for BlackBerry to get visibility. It really doesn’t hurt them much, and the upside is high,” said Rob Enderle, who runs technology consulting firm Enderle Group.
Enderle and other financial and tech analysts agree that the move by BlackBerry does present its own set of challenges as the company would have to support two platforms and potentially put some resources into marketing an Android device, but with little to lose most agree it comes with little downside.
“If Android has one significant weakness it is security and that’s just the thing that BlackBerry can fix, so it could play out pretty well and I am actually quite surprised that they did not try this sooner,” said Enderle, adding that BlackBerry has to deliver a compelling device in order for the gambit to work.
Reuters reported last week that BlackBerry was considering a move to test run Android on its upcoming slider device, as part of a bid to convince potential corporate and government clients that its device management system, BES12, is truly able of manage and secure not just BlackBerry devices, but also devices powered by Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
“In order for BES12 to succeed it has to be viewed by all as platform agnostic, and what better way to demonstrate that other than by doing it yourself,” said Ramon Llamas, an analyst with technology research firm IDC.
BlackBerry, which once dominated the smartphone market, has seen its market share drop to under 1 percent, as the iPhone and a slew of Android devices from Samsung have captured market share. John Chen, a turnaround expert brought in to fix its slide, is now pivoting BlackBerry to focus more on its well-regarded software and device management business.
RedHat And Canonical Discuss Linux 4.0
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Red Hat has been telling everyone its plans to integrate the latest Linux 4.0 kernel into its products.
In a statement, a spokesman told us, “Red Hat’s upstream community projects will begin working with 4.0 almost immediately; in fact, Fedora 22 Alpha was based on the RC1 version of the 4.0 kernel.
“From a productization perspective, we will keep an eye on these integration efforts for possible inclusion into Red Hat’s enterprise portfolio.
“As with all of our enterprise-grade solutions, we provide stable, secure and hardened features, including the Linux kernel, to our customers – once we are certain that the next iterations of the Linux kernel, be it 4.0 or later, has the features and maturity that our customer base requires, we will begin packaging it into our enterprise portfolio with the intention of supporting it for 10 years, as we do with all of our products.”
Meanwhile, Canonical Head Honcho Mark Shuttleworth has confirmed that Linux Kernel 4.0 should be making its debut in Ubuntu products before the end of the year.
In an earlier note to The INQUIRER, Shuttleworth confirmed that the newly released kernel’s integration was “likely to be in this October release.”
The news follows the release of version 4.0 of the Linux kernel in a flurry of what T S Eliot would describe as “not with a bang but a whimper”.
Writing on the Linux Kernel Mailing List on Sunday afternoon, Linux overlord Linus Torvalds explained that the new version was being released according to schedule, rather than because of any dramatic improvements, and because of a lack of any specific reason not to.
“Linux 4.0 was a pretty small release in linux-next and in final size, although obviously ‘small’ is relative. It’s still over 10,000 non-merge commits. But we’ve definitely had bigger releases (and judging by linux-next v4.1 is going to be one of the bigger ones),” he said.
“Feature-wise, 4.0 doesn’t have all that much special. Much has been made of the new kernel patching infrastructure, but realistically that wasn’t the only reason for the version number change. We’ve had much bigger changes in other versions. So this is very much a ‘solid code progress’ release.”
Come to think of it, it is very unlikely that T S Eliot would ever have written about Linux kernels, but that’s not the point.
Torvalds, meanwhile, explained that he is happier with releasing to a schedule rather than because of any specific feature-related reason, although he does note that there have been four billion code commits, and Linux 3.0 was released after the two billion mark, so there’s a nice symmetry there.
In fact, back in 2011 the version numbering of the Linux kernel was a matter of some debate, and Torvalds’ lacklustre announcement seems to be pre-empting more of the same.
In a subsequent post Torvalds jokes, “the strongest argument for some people advocating 4.0 seems to have been a wish to see 4.1.15 – because ‘that was the version of Linux Skynet used for the T-800 Terminator.’”
Oracle Launches OpenStack Platform With Intel
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Oracle and Intel have teamed up for the first demonstration of carrier-grade network function virtualization (NFV), which will allow communication service providers to use a virtualized, software-defined model without degradation of service or reliability.
The Oracle-led project uses the Intel Open Network Platform (ONP) to create a robust service over NFV, using intelligent direction of software to create viable software-defined networking that replaces the clunky equipment still prevalent in even the most modern networks.
Barry Hill, Oracle’s global head of NFV, told The INQUIRER: “It gets us over one of those really big hurdles that the industry is desperately trying to overcome: ‘Why the heck have we been using this very tightly coupled hardware and software in the past if you can run the same thing on standard, generic, everyday hardware?’. The answer is, we’re not sure you can.
“What you’ve got to do is be smart about applying the right type and the right sort of capacity, which is different for each function in the chain that makes up a service.
“That’s about being intelligent with what you do, instead of making some broad statement about generic vanilla infrastructures plugged together. That’s just not going to work.”
Oracle’s answer is to use its Communications Network Service Orchestration Solution to control the OpenStack system and shrink and grow networks according to customer needs.
Use cases could be scaling out a carrier network for a rock festival, or transferring network priority to a disaster recovery site.
“Once you understand the extent of what we’ve actually done here, you start to realize just how big an announcement this is,” said Hill.
“On the fly, you’re suddenly able to make these custom network requirements instantly, just using off-the-shelf technology.”
The demonstration configuration optimizes the performance of an Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 processor designed specifically for networking, and shows for the first time a software-defined solution which is comparable to the hardware-defined systems currently in use.
In other words, it can orchestrate services from the management and orchestration level right down to a single core of a single processor, and then hyperscale it using resource pools to mimic the specialized characteristics of a network appliance, such as a large memory page.
“It’s kind of like the effect that mobile had on fixed line networks back in the mid-nineties where the whole industry was disrupted by who was providing the technology, and what they were providing,” said Hill.
“Suddenly you went from 15-year business plans to five-year business plans. The impact of virtualization will have the same level of seismic change on the industry.”
Today’s announcement is fundamentally a proof-of-concept, but the technology that powers this kind of next-generation network is already evolving its way into networks.
Hill explained that carrier demand had led to the innovation. “The telecoms industry had a massive infrastructure that works at a very slow pace, at least in the past,” he said.
“However, this whole virtualization push has really been about the carriers, not the vendors, getting together and saying: ‘We need a different model’. So it’s actually quite advanced already.”
NFV appears to be the next gold rush area for enterprises, and other consortium are expected to make announcements about their own solutions within days.
The Oracle/Intel system is based around OpenStack, and the company is confident that it will be highly compatible with other systems.
The ‘Oracle Communications Network Service Orchestration Solution with Enhanced Platform Awareness using the Intel Open Network Platform’ – or OCNSOSWEPAUTIONP as we like to think of it – is currently on display at Oracle’s Industry Connect event in Washington DC.
The INQUIRER wonders whether there is any way the marketing department can come up with something a bit more catchy than OCNSOSWEPAUTIONP before it goes on open sale.
Juniper Networks Goes OpenStack
Juniper and Mirantis are getting close, with news that they are to form a cloud OpenStack alliance.
The two companies have signed an engineering partnership that the companies believe will lead to a reliable, scalable software-defined networking solution.
Mirantis OpenStack will now inter-operate with Juniper Contrail Networking, as well as OpenContrail, an open source software-defined networking system.
The two companies have published a reference architecture for deploying and managing Juniper Contrail Networking with Mirantis OpenStack to simplify deployment and reduce the need for third-party involvement.
Based on OpenStack Juno, Mirantis OpenStack 6.0 will be enhanced by a Fuel plugin in the second quarter that will make it even easier to deploy large-scale clouds in house.
However, Mirantis has emphasized that the arrival of Juniper to the fold is not a snub to the recently constructed integration with VMware.
Nick Chase of Mirantis explained, “…with this Juniper integration, Mirantis will support BOTH VMware vCenter Server and VMware NSX AND Juniper Networks Contrail Networking. That means that even if they’ve got VMware in their environment, they can choose to use NSX or Contrail for their networking components.
“Of course, all of that begs the question, when should you use Juniper, and when should you use VMware? Like all great engineering questions, the answer is ‘it depends’. How you choose is going to be heavily influenced by your individual situation, and what you’re trying to achieve.”
Juniper outlined its goals for the tie-up as:
– Reduce cost by enabling service providers and IT administrators to easily embrace SDN and OpenStack technologies in their environments
– Remove the complexity of integrating networking technologies in OpenStack virtual data centres and clouds
– Increase the effectiveness of their operations with fully integrated management for the OpenStack and SDN environments through Fuel and Juniper Networks® Contrail SDN Controller
The company is keen to emphasize that this is not meant to be a middle finger at VMware, but rather a demonstration of the freedom of choice offered by open source software. However, it serves as another demonstration of how even the FOSS market is growing increasingly proprietary and competitive.
Cloud Analytics Growth Rate Will Continue
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It’s no secret that cloud computing and data analytics are both rapidly expanding areas within information technology. Put them together, and you get a winning combination that’s expected to grow by more than 26 percent annually over the next five years.
That’s according to market-tracking firm Research and Markets, which recently released a new report on the global cloud analytics market.
Increased adoption of data analytics is one of the major drivers in this market, Research and Markets found. More specifically, many organizations are adopting data analytics in order to better understand consumption patterns, customer acquisition and various other factors believed to increase revenue, cut costs and boost customer loyalty.
HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP are among the dominant vendors in this arena, the company said in a press release.
Big Data is one of the particularly significant trends in the market, Research and Markets said.
“Cloud analytics deals with the management of unorganized data, which helps organizations access important data and make timely decisions regarding their business,” the company said.
The rates of growth in this arena might actually be much higher than those suggested by the report, said analyst Ray Wang, founder of Constellation Research.
In fact, Constellation Research predicts an annual growth rate of closer to 46 percent until 2020, he said.
Early-arriving cloud companies like Salesforce “had great reporting, but they didn’t necessarily have great analytics,” Wang said.
It’s for that reason that challengers such as Actuate have popped up, he noted.
“More and more, because of the size and complication, we’re seeing analytics move to the cloud,” Wang said.
Office 365 Goes Video Streaming
December 3, 2014 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Microsoft unveiled Office 365 Video, a YouTube-like streaming service where enterprises and large organizations can post in-house video content for communication and training.
“Office 365 Video provides organizations with a secure, company-wide destination for posting, sharing and discovering video content,” said Mark Kashman, a senior product manager with the Office 365 team, in a blog posting.
Kashman touted Video as a tool for internal communications, citing the examples of new-employee orientation, management messaging and worker training. Employees will also be able to contribute to a “Community” section, though most companies will probably frown on cat antic clips.
The service rolls out over the next few days to companies that have registered for Office 365′s First Release early distribution program, then through early 2015 to others.
Video will be available only to subscribers of Office 365′s plans for enterprises — E1 through E4 — and universities (A2 through A4). It will not be offered to consumer subscribers or firms with small business-oriented plans like Business Essentials, Business and Business Premium.
Kashman also said Office 365 plans for government agencies will get Video at some point, but he did not proffer a timeline.
The other requirement is SharePoint Online, an off-premises component of the enterprise and academic plans, but missing from the increasingly popular Office 365 ProPlus, the rent-not-buy plan used by organizations that have decided to retain their back-end services, like SharePoint and Exchange, on premises.
Although Office 365 Video has elements of consumer streaming services like Google’s YouTube, it’s strictly an in-house affair: It will be available only to employees, and then only those whom IT administrators have assigned access rights.