Sean Michael Kerner

PayPal CISO Michael Barrett delivered a keynote address at the Interop conference last week, with the message that passwords need to die. His rationale is simple; the modern password system is broken and is being breached with alarming regularity. “When left to their own devices, users will pick poor passwords and then use them all […]

From the ‘What’s in a Number’ files:? Are you confused by the recent spate of Java SE updates? You ain’t seen nothing yet. While Oracle has diligently been updating Java for security flaws (and some features too) in recent months, it has been hard to keep track of version numbers. Oracle is not introducing new […]

From the ‘Linux Desktop Follies’ files: I like Arch and I like Cinnamon, so for me Cinnarch Linux was an obvious fit. Except for the fact that apparently Cinnamon doesn’t work so well with Arch. In early April Cinnarch devs decided to throw in the towel on their distro stating that: “While Cinnamon is a […]

From the ‘big, bigger, biggest’ files: Late Saturday night, Linus Torvalds released what could well be the largest incremental Linux kernel update in history with 3.10 rc 1 “So this is the biggest -rc1 in the last several years (perhaps ever) at least as far as counting commits go, even if not necessarily in actual […]

“We want to obliterate passwords within a few years”Paypal Chief Information Security Officer Michael Barrett (eSecurity Planet) “Openness always wins.” Facebook’s Frank Frankovsky launching the new Open Compute Networking project (Enterprise Networking Planet) “When we asked about SDN, thirty-four percent said they were more likely to see Elvis, Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness Monster than […]

In an exclusive video interview at the Interop conference this week, John D’Ambrosia, Chairman of the Ethernet Alliance, showed off what makes Ethernet work and why it’s not just a best-efforts technology anymore. The IEEE defines standards. The Ethernet Alliance helps make the standards work. “The mission of the Ethernet Alliance is to speed up […]

Rohit Mehra, vice president of network infrastructure at IDC, said that his firm predicts the total enterprise networking market for 2013 to come in at $42.4 billion. The Layer 2-3 switch market represents the lion’s share of that figure at 46.9 percent. The market for Layer 4-7 devices, including application delivery controllers, is growing, though […]

In a panel discussion at Interop this week, vendors and customers discussed some lessons learned along the path of server virtualization. Panelist Mike Leeper, Director of Global Technology at Columbia Sportswear, shared the gory details on how his group went from bare metal to near complete virtualization inside of the last three years. For Leeper, […]

In a roundtable keynote discussion, VMware, Broadcom, and Microsoft heavyweights discuss SDN, network awareness, and the future of the network admin in an SDN world. While some see SDN as a new evolution that threatens existing networks, VMware’s Martin Casado disagrees. Casado is a key figure in the SDN movement. His 2005 Stanford thesis led […]

In a keynote at the Interop conference, Frankovsky took the stage after a string of proprietary hardware vendor executives and made it very clear that he’s cut from a different kind of cloth. “We haven’t heard the words open source yet this morning,” Frankovsky began. That’s a situation that Frankovsky corrected by stressing time and […]

At Interop this week Cisco unveiled a new global IT study that surveys the attitudes of 1,300 IT decision makers in 13 countries. The study provides some interesting insights. Attitudes toward SDN: Skepticism, interest While real-world deployment of SDN is the focus of many of the 300 exhibitors at Interop 2013, the IT pros Cisco […]

From the ‘cool keynotes’ files: LAS VEGAS – The Internet of Everything is literally everywhere. Even in Basketball shoes and basketballs. At the Interop show I just saw 2012 Rookie of the Year Kyrie Irving get on the keynote stage with Rob Soderberry GM of Cisco’s Enterprise Biz unit, shooting hoops. Apparently those sensors can […]