Application-first information technology is changing everything — compute, storage, development and operations. The network, however, is arriving a bit late for its application-first makeover. The best networking solution for the agile, multicloud world is going to win a lot of fans. Two heavyweight contenders are VMware Inc.’s NSX network virtualization and Cisco Systems Inc.’s Application ...

Cisco Systems Inc. has been selling networking boxes long enough to earn the legacy label. What does it have to offer today’s customers shifting to cloud-native and multicloud technologies that span the range of computing platforms? With hardware networking set to play a starring role in multicloud, the answer might be, a boatload. Cisco has a huge install base ...

Kubernetes for containers; Kubernetes for data; Kubernetes for multicloud. Is there anything Kubernetes can’t do? In real-life deployments, bare-naked Kubernetes isn’t the super power it’s cracked up to be. The trending method for running distributed software applications needs help from distribution channels and ecosystem tools, according to Stephan Fabel (pictured), director of product management at Canonical ...

The serfs revolt, seize the land from feudal lords, only to find freedom is not what they imagined. Sounds like the plot to a Russian novel. It might also be a parable about enterprise customers wading into open source. They love all the software choices but miss the guidance of proprietary vendors. Working with open-source tools ...

The sparkle and shine on all the new data-analytics software and services can sometimes blind enterprise shoppers. But the number of big-data successes is dishearteningly close to nil, according to some analysts. Experts say technology alone can’t make a business data-driven; a cultural shift is in order, but it’s hard work. Do certain technologies come with ...

Companies are scrounging for duct tape and Silly Putty to hold distributed information technology environments together. There’s much yammering about putting the application first — and it’s mostly on point. But they’d better not forget data. If they leave it in some proprietary storage silo, their cruise around multicloud will hit a speed bump. “Everyone ...

Many assume that serverless computing and functions are a package deal. Functions are serverless; anything serverless must involve functions, right? Actually, no. Google LLC, Red Hat Inc. and others are collaborating on a new open-source project called Knative that democratizes serverless beyond functions. Serverless can be thought of as a kind of user experience, according ...

All application developers would like to wave a wand and make infrastructure disappear. The latest technologies — cloud, serverless computing, etc. — have fans largely because they push some compute, storage and networking hassles off their plates. Will they finally get us to app-only development? “We’re awfully close to having a model where we’ve got ...

More and more vendors are acknowledging that hybrid is here to stay. Even cloud kingpin Amazon Web Services Inc. is making friends with on-premises holdouts with Outposts, an on-premises data center system that’s based on the same hardware AWS uses to run its own cloud. The question is how exactly do customers run applications across different environments? The ...

Business intelligence software has been around for years. Many big-data analytics tools have the goal of providing actionable business insight. But data silos, vast data lakes, and the tricky logistics of hybrid-cloud environments can spell a long, arduous trip to the promised land. Today’s digitally driven enterprise needs piping hot BI on demand to serve ...