Scott Lowe

APRIL 6, 2017

Intel NUC or SuperMicro E200-8D? Konstantin Ryabitsev has a series going on securing a SysAdmin Linux workstation. Part 1 covers how to choose a Linux distribution, and part 2 discusses some security tips for installing Linux on your SysAdmin workstation. Operating Systems/Applications. Servers/Hardware.

Vmware 60

Vmware Linux Storage Network 60

Scott Lowe

DECEMBER 8, 2016

Jake Bennett discusses strengthening your AWS security posture by protecting application credentials and rotating EC2 and IAM keys. Gert van Dijk has a great article on upgrading your SSH keys to take advantage of new key types and enhanced security. Intel has a tutorial series on Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX).

Vmware 60

Vmware Storage Intel Virtualization 60

Scott Lowe

AUGUST 27, 2021

This is an interesting deep dive into Intel’s “Ice Lake” Xeon SP architecture. Teri Radichel uses some basketball analogies to explain why defensive (proactive) security strategies are more desirable than reactive security strategies. Operating Systems/Applications. A severity score of 9.9

Linux 90

Linux Load Balancer Malware Virtualization 90

Scott Lowe

AUGUST 6, 2021

Travis Downs explores a recent Intel microcode update that may have negatively impacted performance. It’s a good starting point for thinking about operating your own active-active architecture. Operating Systems/Applications. Servers/Hardware. Or, one could just use something like this.

Open Source 105

Open Source Load Balancer WAN Architecture 105

Scott Lowe

NOVEMBER 9, 2018

The Intel Management Engine (ME) has received a bit of attention as a potential security vulnerability; in this article , authors Maxim Goryachy and Mark Ermolov expose some new concerns around the Intel ME and its undocumented Manufacturing Mode. From an unknown author, we have this security rant on Flatpak. Good stuff!

Load Balancer 60

Load Balancer Operating Systems Intel Hardware 60

Scott Lowe

JUNE 8, 2018

AWS adds local NVMe storage to the M5 instance family; more details here. What I found interesting is that the local NVMe storage is also hardware encrypted. Operating Systems/Applications. Mike Foley shares his experience in updating his vSphere hosts to support the new Secure Boot functionality in vSphere 6.7.

Load Balancer 60

Load Balancer Vmware Storage Intel 60

Scott Lowe

MAY 7, 2021

Ben Wilcock shares his experience with an Intel NUC 11. This post by “xssfox” takes an interesting (to me) look at a security hole created through the use of an automated code pipeline deploying to a production website. Marco Lancini discusses security logging in AWS environments. Operating Systems/Applications.

Linux 60

Linux Hardware Network Cloud 60

Scott Lowe

MAY 29, 2020

Bruce Schneier weighs in on the security and privacy implications of Zoom. Some security vulnerabilities with Thunderbolt were recently discovered and disclosed. Looking for some security tools? Jason Price shares a fully fleshed-out example of Kubernetes Pod Security Policies. Operating Systems/Applications.

Linux 60

Linux Virtualization Security Backup 60

Scott Lowe

MARCH 7, 2014

Jointly authored by VMware, Microsoft, Red Hat, and Intel, this new protocol proposal attempts to bring together the strengths of the various network virtualization encapsulation protocols out there today (VXLAN, STT, NVGRE). Via Kevin Houston, you can get more details on the Intel E7 v2 and new blade servers based on the new CPU.

Virtualization 60

Virtualization Hardware Intel Vmware 60

Scott Lowe

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m at Intel Developer Forum (IDF) 2014 this week in San Francisco. Intel has a very large consumer presence: PCs, ultrabooks, tablets, phones, 2-in–1/convertibles, all-in–1 devices. Day 1 Keynote. Here’s a liveblog of the IDF 2014 day 1 keynote. Technical Sessions.

Intel 60

Intel Hardware Linux Virtualization 60

Scott Lowe

MARCH 8, 2016

Cue the round of folks claiming that this is why proprietary network operating systems [NOSes] are the route the networking industry should be taking.). The article specifically calls out SR-IOV as well as Intel Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) support within Open vSwitch (OVS). Operating Systems/Applications.

Vmware 60

Vmware Linux Intel Network 60

Scott Lowe

AUGUST 27, 2021

This is an interesting deep dive into Intel’s “Ice Lake” Xeon SP architecture. Teri Radichel uses some basketball analogies to explain why defensive (proactive) security strategies are more desirable than reactive security strategies. Operating Systems/Applications. A severity score of 9.9

Linux 60

Linux Load Balancer Malware Virtualization 60

Scott Lowe

JUNE 2, 2016

Dmitri Kalintsev examines some options for addressing storage-related connectivity in NSX environments. Drew Conry-Murray shines a light on Intel’s network ambitions. This is something I’ve been watching for a couple of years, since attending my first Intel Developer Forum (IDF). Operating Systems/Applications.

Vmware 60

Vmware Virtualization Linux Windows 60

Scott Lowe

MAY 4, 2017

It’s nice to see some folks attempting to help tackle potential security concerns with containers. Operating Systems/Applications. Ryan Kelly shows readers how to configure Harbor (open source container registry project) to use Amazon S3 for storage. I’ll stay alert for items to include next time! Virtualization.

Vmware 60

Vmware Storage Network Examples 60

Scott Lowe

MAY 3, 2019

AnandTech has some coverage of the latest Intel processor announcements , which totally flew by my radar. Operating Systems/Applications. Personally, I could’ve done without the little product advertisement at the end, but that’s just me. Here’s a good article on packets-per-second limits in EC2.

Vmware 60

Vmware Open Source Intel Applications 60

Scott Lowe

AUGUST 16, 2017

This is my irregularly-published collection of links and articles from around the Internet related to the major data center technologies: networking, hardware, security, cloud computing, applications/OSes, storage, and virtualization. Operating Systems/Applications. Networking. Virtualization. and Gluster.

Vmware 60

Vmware Storage Network Windows 60

Scott Lowe

AUGUST 6, 2021

Travis Downs explores a recent Intel microcode update that may have negatively impacted performance. It’s a good starting point for thinking about operating your own active-active architecture. Operating Systems/Applications. Servers/Hardware. Or, one could just use something like this.

Open Source 60

Open Source Load Balancer WAN Architecture 60

Scott Lowe

MARCH 23, 2017

As opposed to just encrypting data at the transport level (although Acra does that between components of its architecture) or just encrypting data at the storage level (using an encrypted file system or similar), Acra targets encrypting data at the table/row/column level within a database. Operating Systems/Applications.

Open Source 60

Open Source Storage Vmware Network 60

Scott Lowe

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

Adrian’s operational review readiness template is another great post as well. Operating Systems/Applications. Chris Mellor shares an interview with Hazelcast on the performance of Intel Optane PMem. Cilium is good stuff, and the Isovalent team is chock-full of great people. Congrats, Isovalent team! Virtualization.

Linux 60

Linux Vmware Open Source Examples 60

Scott Lowe

DECEMBER 8, 2017

Frank Denneman (with an admittedly vSphere-focused lens) takes a look at the Intel Xeon Scalable Family in a two-part (so far) series. The security of Kubernetes is coming under greater scrutiny, as would be expected as adoption (and attention) increases. Check out this article from Matt Butcher on securing Helm.

Vmware 60

Vmware Linux Network Cloud 60

Scott Lowe

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

Is Intel having second thoughts about software-defined infrastructure? That’s the core question in this blog post , which explores the future of Intel in a software-defined world and the increasing interest in non-x86 platforms like ARM. Operating Systems/Applications. Servers/Hardware. Impressive.

Linux 60

Linux Network Vmware Disaster Recovery 60

Scott Lowe

JULY 22, 2013

In this post, William Lam explores the potential benefits of Intel’s VMCS Shadowing functionality on nested virtualization. Operating Systems/Applications. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies. Cloud Computing/Cloud Management. (I

Vmware 106

Vmware Virtualization Network Linux 106

Scott Lowe

OCTOBER 23, 2013

Intel announced the E5 2600 v2 series of CPUs back at Intel Developer Forum (IDF) 2013 (you can follow my IDF 2013 coverage by looking at posts with the IDF2013 tag ). Although I’m just now catching Kevin’s posts, they were published almost immediately after the Intel announcements—thanks for the promptness, Kevin!).

Vmware 60

Vmware Network Virtualization Storage 60

Scott Lowe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

Jeda Networks describes themselves as a “software-defined storage networking” company. Given my previous role at EMC (involved in storage) and my current role at VMware focused on network virtualization (which encompasses SDN), I was quite curious. If there is a better definition, please let me know.)

Meeting 63

Meeting Storage Hardware Network 63

ForAllSecure

APRIL 22, 2021

It seems everything smart is hackable, with IoT startups sometimes repeating security mistakes first made decades ago. How then does one start securing it? Welcome to the hacker by original podcast from for all secure, it's about challenging our expectations about the people who hack for a living.

Internet 52

Internet Research Security Tools 52

ForAllSecure

APRIL 22, 2021

It seems everything smart is hackable, with IoT startups sometimes repeating security mistakes first made decades ago. How then does one start securing it? Welcome to the hacker by original podcast from for all secure, it's about challenging our expectations about the people who hack for a living.

Internet 52

Internet Research Security Tools 52

Scott Lowe

SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

You may have heard of Intel Rack-Scale Architecture (RSA), a new approach to designing data center hardware. This is an idea that was discussed extensively a couple of weeks ago at Intel Developer Forum (IDF) 2014 in San Francisco, which I had the opportunity to attend. Silicon photonics as a low-latency, high-speed rack-scale fabric.

Intel 105

Intel Architecture Hardware Data Center 105

The Verge

APRIL 24, 2021

The Flex even comes with a Google Security H1 chip, which encrypts sensitive on-device data. This Ideapad Flex 3 Chromebook configuration is powered by Intel’s dual-core Celeron N4020. That’s the bottom of the barrel as Intel processors go, and it comes with just 4GB of memory (LPDDR4-2400, soldered) and 64GB of eMMC 5.1

Windows 63

Windows Video Google Linux 63

Scott Lowe

JULY 22, 2013

In this post, William Lam explores the potential benefits of Intel’s VMCS Shadowing functionality on nested virtualization. Operating Systems/Applications. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies. Cloud Computing/Cloud Management. (I

Vmware 60

Vmware Virtualization Network Linux 60

SecureWorld News

APRIL 30, 2023

One of the most important responsibilities of security professionals is to avoid data breaches. Many advanced security systems cannot prevent a scenario in which a user takes a screenshot from a confidential document and then sends it via Telegram to an unauthorized recipient. What is Data-Centric Audit and Protection?

System 80

System Data Information Security Security 80

Scott Lowe

JUNE 19, 2020

The collection seems a tad heavier than normal in the hardware and security sections, probably due to new exploits discovered in Intel’s speculative execution functionality. This is one of those times when an article belongs in multiple categories—in this case, hardware and security. Operating Systems/Applications.

Linux 60

Linux Intel Hardware Storage 60

CTOvision

MARCH 27, 2017

Editor's note: in this post, Cognitio's Marty Meehan provides context on an economical, scalable and highly secure defense in depth solution leveraging PKWARE's Smartcrypt and QuintessenceLabs. - External security threats grow more sophisticated and unpredictable. The stakes get higher every day.

Data 150

Data Policies Security Applications 150

Scott Lowe

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

This is session COMS002, titled “The Future of Software-Defined Networking with the Intel Open Network Platform Switch Reference Design.” ” The speakers are Recep Ozdag, a PME with Intel, and Gershon Schatzberg, a PLM with Wind River Systems. First, though, Recep takes a few minutes to review some SDN concepts.

Intel 61

Intel Load Balancer Architecture Virtualization 61

Scott Lowe

APRIL 2, 2021

Even worse, this isn’t just limited to Intel chips, but may also affect ARM-based systems like Apple’s M1 CPUs. A while ago I chatted with the folks at Indeni about Cloudrail , a security solution for infrastructure-as-code environments. Operating Systems/Applications. Servers/Hardware.

Vmware 60

Vmware Firewall Storage Comparison 60

Scott Lowe

OCTOBER 8, 2014

I’m going to go out on a limb and make a prediction: In a few years time (let’s say 3–5 years), Intel SGX (Software Guard Extensions) will be regarded as important if not more important than the virtualization extensions. What is Intel SGX, you ask? Operating Systems/Applications. announcement post.

Storage 60

Storage Intel Disaster Recovery Virtualization 60

Scott Lowe

MARCH 10, 2023

Frank Denneman digs into Sapphire Rapids memory configurations (Sapphire Rapids is Intel’s 4th generation Scalable Processor Architecture). William Lam shares news about higher-capacity SODIMMs available for small or ultra small form factor systems. Storage This is a good (albeit slightly dated) overview of EBS volume types.

IPv6 74

IPv6 Linux Tools Network 74

Scott Lowe

MARCH 20, 2020

And while we are on the topic of Yubico: the company recently released this security advisory related to running a self-hosted one-time password (OTP) validation server. Mark Ermolov discusses a vulnerability in the ROM (read-only memory) of the Intel Converged Security and Management Engine (CSME). Servers/Hardware.

Linux 60

Linux Vmware Authentication Storage 60