SoftIron Bets On SONiC With Hyperscale Switches

sdxcentral | March 18, 2020

SoftIron today announced the availability of its latest top-of-rack switches that are built to run the open source SONiC network operating system and target hyperscale customers.“Networking is the most neglected integrated thing that exists in IT right now,” said SoftIron CEO Phil Straw in an interview with SDxCentral. “Networking has become this abstract thing that everyone plugs into … but it doesn’t really do anything for you. It provides connectivity; it doesn’t provide any services.” Straw wants to change that, and he says pairing his company’s hardware with the Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) operating system is the way to do it. Initially developed by Arista, Broadcom, Dell, Mellanox, and Microsoft, SONiC was contributed to the Open Compute Project in 2016. SoftIron is now betting that the open source project will give it a tailwind as it expands beyond storage into the networking space.

Spotlight

When you install NAKIVO Backup & Replication on ARM-based NAS devices, an external Transporter is needed to work with VMware vCenters and ESXi hosts. This is to ensure smooth and efficient backup and replication processes for your VMware data.


Other News
Security, Cloud

Climb Channel Solutions Partners with AppOmni, Offering Data Visibility and Security of SaaS Solutions

Globenewswire | July 06, 2023

Climb Channel Solutions, an international specialty technology distributor and wholly owned subsidiary of Climb Global Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLMB) has announced a new partnership with SaaS security provider, AppOmni. With AppOmni, Climb now offers universal security across all SaaS applications with centralized visibility and data access management. This critical addition to Climb's repertoire enables resellers to round out their security solutions, strengthen their customers’ overall security posture, mitigate risks, and ensure compliance with industry regulations. “AppOmni is radically advancing the way businesses implement common security capabilities across their entire SaaS ecosystem. Our technology enables businesses to establish rules for data access, data sharing, and third-party applications that are continuously and automatically validated,” noted Donald Shake, Director, Channels North America at AppOmni. “Organizations from technology, healthcare, government, and finance are eager to deploy AppOmni to protect data across all of their SaaS applications. Through our partnership with Climb, more channel partners and customers can benefit from AppOmni’s comprehensive security model and the team’s security and technical expertise.” Limited-to-zero visibility into the configuration and state of SaaS applications is a major threat for every business. As Gartner forecasts worldwide SaaS spending will reach $195 billion by the end of 2023, the opportunity for solution and technology leaders to protect their clients’ SaaS data with advanced security tooling and expert insights powered by AppOmni is soaring. AppOmni makes it easy for security and IT teams to secure their SaaS data during new implementations and in environments currently operating with SaaS. "Climb is always on the lookout for top notch security solutions for our resellers," says Dale Foster, CEO at Climb Channel Solutions. "Adding AppOmni to our transacting vendors list not only provides cutting-edge security solutions for our valued resellers, but this collaboration opens doors for our resellers to tap into the growing demand for compliance, robust security, and visibility sought by IT and security teams." About Climb Channel Solutions and Climb Global Solutions Climb Channel Solutions is a global specialty IT distributor for emerging technology vendors with solutions for Security, Data Management, Connectivity, Storage & HCI, Virtualization & Cloud and Software & ALM. Climb provides vendors access to thousands of VARs, MSPs, CSPs and other resellers. Climb holds an IT-70 GSA contract vehicle that provides resellers and vendors with a competitive edge within the Public Sector. Climb is a wholly owned subsidiary of Climb Global Solutions, Inc.

Read More

Virtual Desktop Tools, Virtual Server Infrastructure

Estes Express Lines Improves Freight Shipping and Increases Margins with Denodo’s Data Virtualization-enabled Data Fabric

businesswire | July 24, 2023

Denodo, the leader in data management, today announced that Estes Express Lines, the largest privately held freight transportation company in North America, has successfully deployed the Denodo Platform to create a data fabric-enabled Logistics Digital Twin to meet their goals of streamlining freight shipping, boosting profits, and creating a simpler and more pleasant experience for its customers, drivers, and internal business users. Margins in the shipping industry are small and pricing is often based on historical and fairly static pricing models. Due to the significant amounts of data duplication, Estes needed to access all of its internal and cloud-based data sources to deliver real time data consistency, establish a single source of truth, and modernize their data integration efforts to empower business users and improve operational processes. Utilizing the Denodo Platform, Estes Express Lines created a Logistics Digital Twin--a virtual duplicate of every piece of freight passing through their network. This enables the shipping giant to optimize operations and plan pickups, assign deliveries and driver assignments most efficiently, and provide greater visibility to customers. “In support of modernizing Estes’ existing technology, we were able to create an end-to-end replica of every shipment we bring into our network and make that data available in real time. This allows us to provide our customers with best-in-class access to shipment data and to model changes in how we move freight, which has significantly increased the effectiveness of our internal stakeholders, drivers, and equipment,” said Todd Florence, CIO, Estes Express Lines. “Denodo’s Data Fabric reduces manual data entry tasks and ensures everyone is on the same sheet of music, which has saved us 10% in infrastructure and labor costs by eliminating the need to duplicate and store the data into yet another system.” Operating a fleet of more than 8,500 tractors and 34,000 trailers, Estes generates roughly 900,000 quotes and 50,000 shipments a day. The Logistics Digital Twin allows the shipping giant to: Create a chain of custody: a process that tracks the movement of packages by documenting each person who handled it, the date/time it was collected and/or transferred, and when it was delivered, to provide unprecedented insights. Optimize efficiencies and improve margins: by looking at both costing and pricing models to create more efficient and effective quotes and by reducing claims. Integrate customer care with operations and sales: to analyze customer scores and perform sentiment analysis to understand trends, adjust offerings, and create a better customer experience. Model their facilities and routes: to understand where they can add more shipments to improve profitably, find load imbalances, contract appropriately, and plan for spikes. Remove the need for cumbersome data entry: by tying telematics to IoT and data from third parties so information can be leveraged in real-time. “As this recent Wall Street Journal article points out, Estes is a great example of how organizations can break down data silos by logically integrating data across multiple collection points so all parties can benefit from real time information and reduce redundancies,” said Ravi Shankar, Senior Vice President and CMO at Denodo. “Truckers don’t sign up to be data-entry clerks and people need to know where their packages are at any given point. Logical data management solutions like the Denodo Platform are quickly solving cumbersome data management and integration issues and are becoming the backbone of how organizations modernize their technology so they can use data to the fullest.” About Denodo Denodo is a leader in data management. The award-winning Denodo Platform is the leading data integration, management, and delivery platform using a logical approach to enable self-service BI, data science, hybrid/multi-cloud data integration, and enterprise data services. Realizing more than 400% ROI and millions of dollars in benefits, Denodo’s customers across large enterprises and mid-market companies in 30+ industries have received payback in less than 6 months.

Read More

Server Hypervisors, Vsphere

Napatech Leverages Latest Intel Agilex® FPGA to Launch Industry's first 400Gbps SmartNIC Solutions

prnewswire | August 29, 2023

Napatech™ (OSLO: NAPA.OL), a leading provider of programmable Smart Network Interface Cards (SmartNICs) and Infrastructure Processing Units (IPU) used in cloud, enterprise and telecom datacenter networks, today announced the availability of the Napatech's first 400Gbps programmable SmartNIC solutions, leveraging the latest Intel Agilex® 7 FPGAs to deliver best-in-class performance for applications in security, cloud services, network monitoring and recording. Enterprises and OEMs providing high-performance solutions for network monitoring and recording require NICs with a performance level that matches the high PCI Express (PCIe) bandwidth available in the latest servers such as those based on 4th Gen Intel Xeon® Scalable Processors. The new Napatech NT400 SmartNIC platform, based on the Intel® FPGA SmartNIC N6000-PL Platform, addresses this need through a PCIe Gen 4 16-lane host interface which enables full-duplex 2x100Gbps traffic between network ports and host applications. Similarly, for applications like the 5G packet core in telecom infrastructure that require high-bandwidth inline processing of network data, the NT400 platform sustains a total 400G of traffic over tens of millions of flows. The NT400 programmable SmartNIC platform includes two QSFP56 network ports, supporting up to 2x200G traffic with the flexibility to configure 10G, 25G, 40G, 50G, 100G and 200G network links. The SmartNIC hardware is complemented by Napatech's portfolio of production-grade software packages, including Link-Capture™ for use cases such as network monitoring and recording, Link-Virtualization™ that provides a virtualized data plane for cloud services and Link-Inline™ for inline applications such as 5G User Plane Function (UPF). These integrated solutions deliver a true "IT experience" whereby the user just installs the card and the software, immediately achieving seamless acceleration of their application with no requirement to directly program the SmartNIC itself. At the core of the NT400 platform is the Intel Agilex 7 FPGA F-Tile chiplet, which incorporates a configurable, hardened Ethernet protocol stack for supporting rates from 10G to 400G. Napatech chose the Intel Agilex 7 FPGA for a host of reasons, including scalability options that allow support for five different configurations that meet various price, performance, power and feature goals, tailored to specific customer applications and use cases. The F-Tile features are critical in enabling the NT400 to operate within the space and power limitations of standard servers deployed in network appliances, data centers and edge locations. "As the networking landscape continues to evolve, SmartNICs emerge as the predominant growth catalyst in the expansive NIC market, poised to reach $3.3 billion annually by 2025" said Manoj Sukumaran, Principal Analyst for Datacenter Compute and Networking at Omdia. "High bandwidth programmable Ethernet adapters require very fine optimization in hardware and software to ensure deterministic and predictable processing time and making them suitable for real-time networking applications. Napatech is among the very few vendors who could provide highly optimized SmartNICs and software solutions leveraging FPGAs from vendors like Intel, and deliver highly efficient network offload capabilities" he added. "The NT400 platform represents the latest generation within our portfolio of SmartNIC solutions," said Jarrod Siket, Chief Marketing Officer at Napatech. "We will deliver multiple SKUs based on this platform, providing products with memory configurations as well features like time synchronization and management ports that are precisely tuned to the requirements of our customers' applications, all packaged with the applicable production-grade software." "We are delighted to see Napatech choose the Intel Agilex 7 FPGA for their leading-edge SmartNIC solutions," said Mike Fitton, Vice President Programmable Solutions Group and General Manager, Network Business Division at Intel. "The combination of our FPGAs, which deliver high performance, and power efficiency plus a rich feature set for the most demanding applications, together with Napatech's production-grade hardware and software, helps ensure that customers can deliver leading solutions for a wide range of enterprise and telecom applications." About Napatech Napatech is the leading supplier of SmartNIC solutions used in cloud, enterprise, and telecom datacenters. Through commercial-grade software suites integrated with high-performance hardware, Napatech accelerates network infrastructure and security workloads to deliver best-in-class system-level performance while maximizing the availability of server compute resources for applications and services.

Read More

Backup and Disaster Recovery

GRAX Introduces Free Data Backup and Recovery Service for Salesforce

businesswire | September 12, 2023

GRAX, Inc., a leading innovator in Salesforce data management and protection, announces the general availability of GRAX Lite for free Salesforce backup and recovery. GRAX Lite is a game-changing free solution that enables businesses to prevent data loss by safeguarding their Salesforce data. GRAX Lite addresses a critical need in the SaaS data protection market by offering comprehensive free backup software. In an era marked by escalating cyber threats and stringent compliance regulations, GRAX Lite arms businesses with a powerful tool to shield their vital Salesforce data. Built on the principle of data ownership, GRAX Lite gives Salesforce users the power to take back that ownership and control of their valuable Salesforce data with a couple of clicks. "At GRAX, we have always believed that data protection is an unassailable right," said Joe Gaska, Head of Product at GRAX. "With the launch of GRAX Lite, we are breaking down barriers and providing businesses with the tools they need to secure their mission-critical Salesforce data so that they can focus on growing their business." Key capabilities of GRAX Lite for Salesforce Backup and Recovery Effortless Backup and Recovery: GRAX Lite simplifies the backup process allowing users to protect and easily restore their Salesforce data with just a couple of clicks. 100% Data Ownership: GRAX Lite empowers users to retain full ownership of their data by enabling backups into the customer-owned storage service – Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Azure cloud storage environments. Maintain Your Digital Chain of Custody: With GRAX, users retain full control over their data’s Digital Chain of Custody – GRAX runs entirely in the customer-owned cloud. Unlimited backup storage: GRAX Lite enables users to capture all of their data into their cloud of choice, where users can leverage their existing cloud agreements. Daily Automated Backups: Users gain peace of mind with automated incremental backups of Salesforce data, including files and attachments, ensuring no critical information is lost. Granular Control: Swiftly restore individual records, making it simple to bring back data quickly when you need it. User-Friendly Interface: The user-centric design of GRAX ensures that any user can navigate and deploy free Salesforce data protection from the GRAX Platform with ease. GRAX Lite is a testament to GRAX's commitment to data sovereignty and data governance. By providing a free and user-friendly solution for Salesforce backup and recovery, GRAX Lite empowers organizations to take back ownership of their data assets, create a comprehensive backup strategy, and focus on driving business growth. About GRAX GRAX helps organizations adapt faster by making it easier to get strategic value out of their historical SaaS application data. Customers can fully own, access, and reuse all versions of their cloud application data anywhere, anytime by simply backing up or archiving it to their own cloud environment and seamlessly pushing it into their data ecosystem. GRAX delivers unparalleled SaaS data backup, archive, recovery, and reuse functionality in a fully integrated solution, helping leading organizations improve business continuity, regulatory compliance, customer retention, and revenue growth.

Read More