Thursday 31 January 2019

Brexit-ready BT sits back, watches profit rise in CEO's swansong quarter

That's what happens when you axe the jobs of your nearest and dearest...

BT's exiting chief exec Gavin Patterson is bowing out on a relative high as profits leapt by more than a quarter for the first nine months of this fiscal year, boosted by the cost-cutting programme.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/31/bt_december_2018_trading_update/

Judge denies Oracle's requests to add to JEDI cloud contract sueball

Says named documents are already covered by the record

Oracle's bid to depose two former US government staffers and pull in extra material to support its legal wrangling over the $10bn Pentagon cloud contract has failed.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/31/oracle_jedi_denied_access_government_documents/

Qualcomm has perfect 20-20 vision: Chip sales down 20%, shipments down 20%, licensing down 20%...

This is fine, everything's fine, CEO assures analysts on call. Look, we made $1bn in profit!

Despite revealing its sales fell by 20 per cent in its latest quarter, Qualcomm shares managed to hold in after-hours trading on Wednesday, up a tad over two per cent to $51.40 apiece.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/31/qualcomm_q1_2019_everything_down/

The chips are down: Now Microsoft blames Intel CPU supply shortages for dips in Windows, Office sales

What went well? Services, services, services, services!

Microsoft on Wednesday credited a boost in its web services operations in driving a 12 per cent jump in sales.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/31/microsoft_q2_2019_chips/

US watchdog legal fight against Qualcomm and pushy chip deals closes with argument over how awful lawyers are

FTC calls for end of smartphone modem 'monopoly', Qualy quietly confident of victory

Analysis  It's been a couple of weeks of contradictory arguments in US trade watchdog the FTC's lawsuit against chip designer Qualcomm. So perhaps it was appropriate that the whole thing ended with a meta-contradiction concerning the nature of the legal system itself.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/30/qualcomm_trial_closes/

Wednesday 30 January 2019

Forget snowmageddon, it's dropageddon in Azure SQL world: Microsoft accidentally deleted customer DBs

There's a five minute gap where your transactions are toast

Exclusive  The Azure outage of January 29 claimed some unexpected victims in the form of surprise database deletions for unlucky customers.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/30/azure_sql_delete/

Iceland starts planning for new undersea internet cable to Europe

Route to Ireland via UK will be surveyed, says local ministry

Iceland has made public its plans to build a fourth undersea internet cable to Europe. While one Icelandic news outlet reported that this was because of "security reasons", the truth appears a bit more mundane.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/30/iceland_new_undersea_cable_plans/

While US fires criminal charges at Huawei, UK tells legislators not to worry, everything's fine

We have 'unparalleled arrangements' don't you know

While the US was preparing criminal charges against Huawei and its exec, British government spokespeople were telling Parliament they are quite happy with the UK's "unparalleled arrangements" for finding backdoors in Huawei source code.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/30/huawei_is_ok_ukgov_spokesmen_tell_parliament/

Hybrid, on-prem, off-site... here's your chance to give us a cloud economics reality check

Calling all IT pros – tell El Reg the true cost of those application platforms

Reader Survey  You’ve heard the rhetoric that deploying applications to the cloud, rather than running them on-premises, will always cheaper. If you’re an experienced IT pro, though, you’ll know that such generalisations don’t always reflect reality.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/30/cloud_economics_reality_check/

Tuesday 29 January 2019

Trying to log into Office 365 right now? It's a coin flip, says Microsoft: Service goes TITSUP as Azure portal wobbles

Total Inability To Support Users' Passwords

The day of week ends in "day" so, of course, Microsoft's Office 365 has fallen over, and Azure portal is having a wobble, too.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/29/office_365_outage/

Plusnet vows to shove a sword in members area 'White Screen Of Death'

Affected customers will be able to view their bills. Rejoice!

Plusnet customers suffering from the "White Screen of Death" need fret no more as the Brit broadband pusher has told The Register that its member orifice will be fine and dandy by the end of today.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/29/plusnet_white_screen_of_death/

Fine, we'll do it the Huawei, says Uncle Sam: CFO charged with fraud, faces extradition to US over Iran trade claims

Chinese telco box maker also accused of stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile USA

Huawei and its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou were charged with fraud on Monday by US prosecutors over their alleged sanction-busting dealings with an Iranian subsidiary.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/29/huawei_cfo_charged_fraud_extradition/

Monday 28 January 2019

Openreach to heap faster broadband on UK's media-heavy hubs

Good news if you're in London or Salford (or Glasgow or Manchester)

BT Openreach has declared it is installing yet more full-fibre broadband connections around the country. In an ingenious move, the infraco is putting these into the most media-heavy spots in the nation: London and Salford.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/28/openreach_media_fibre_broadband/

Arrcus looks to 400G future, Tonga stuck on satellite connection, and Linux Foundation's new edge computing effort

Plus more of the week's networking nuggets

Roundup  Relative newcomer Arrcus wants to help networking upstarts follow the industry's juggernauts into the 400Gbps Ethernet world with the latest update to its year-old ArcOS network operating system.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/28/network_roundup/

Friday 25 January 2019

FCC accused of colluding with Big Cable to game 5G legal challenge

House Commerce committee says it has inside knowledge of dodgy regulator antics

US telecoms regulator the FCC has been accused of colluding with companies it is supposed to oversee in order to protect a controversial decision over new 5G networks.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/25/fcc_accused_of_colluding/

Pentagon admits it's now probing conflicts of interest at AWS over $10bn JEDI cloud deal

Earlier investigation would've been 'premature'

The US government has confirmed it is investigating whether Amazon's decision to rehire a former Pentagon staffer poses a conflict of interest to the $10bn JEDI cloud contract.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/25/us_investigates_pentagon_jedi_deal_staffer/

UC Berkeley reacts to 'uni Huawei ban' reports: We unplugged, like, one thing no one cares about

Meanwhile, Canada to sign 5G R&D collab with Nokia

Reports that University of California Berkeley will remove Huawei kit from its networks are overblown, the institute has told The Register.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/25/uc_berkeley_huawei_ban_canada_nokia/

Golly 4G whizz, what a snafu: Vodafone caught using a cheeky bit of Three UK's spectrum

Three: 'A number of customers' would've seen performance choke due to 'error'

Vodafone has fingered a subcontractor after it was presented with evidence showing the mobile firm broadcasting on Three UK's piece of the 1,800MHz band at a cell site at London's Gatwick airport.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/25/three_spectrum_vodafone_allegations/

Security webinar: Discover the AWS blueprint for breaking intrusion kill chains

Defend your cloud data from military-style attacks

Promo  If you think an intrusion kill chain sounds like really bad news, you are absolutely right. A kill chain is a military term for the structure of an attack: target identification, force dispatch, order to attack, and finally destruction of the target.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/25/security_webinar_aws_intrusion_detection/

Thursday 24 January 2019

Office 365 enjoys good old-fashioned Thursday wobble as email drops over in Europe

2018's greatest hits on repeat in 2019 for some lucky Microsoft punters

Office 365 is enjoying a Thursday wobble this morning, at least as far as users in the UK and much of Europe are concerned.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/24/office_365_down/

Wednesday 23 January 2019

Senior UK.gov ministers asked: So, are we going to ban Huawei or what?

All our Five Eyes mates have shown them the door

The British government has been asked to confirm that national telecommunications infrastructure is secure amid growing concerns about Chinese supplier Huawei.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/23/ukgov_quizzed_on_telecoms_security_amid_hotbed_of_huawei_rumours/

Pentagon cloud contract sueball: Oh no, Oracle doesn't need those docs, AWS tells court

Urges it to chuck Big Red's request to depose former Pentagon staffers, too

Oracle's lawsuit over the Pentagon's $10bn cloud contract is cherry-picked "spin", AWS has said in a submission (PDF) aiming to stop Big Red accessing internal documents and deposing two former government staffers.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/23/aws_issues_rebuttal_to_oracles_claims_in_pentagon_cloud_contract_sueball/

Remember Woolworths? Well it still exists in Oz. And Telstra wants NBN Co to help shove fibre in it

3,000 Woolies sites on list

In one of its first major wins in the enterprise market, NBN Co* has confirmed it will pull fibre to Woolworths' properties in support of a Telstra contract with the supermarket giant.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/23/telstra_wants_oz_retailer_to_get_fibred_calls_on_nbn_co_for_the_build/

Tuesday 22 January 2019

France wants in on the No Huawei Club while Canuck infosec bloke pretty insistent on ban

Founder warns that 'mediocre employees' may have to go

French parliament is reportedly mulling a ban on Huawei kit being used in next-generation telco networks, potentially heaping further pressure on the Chinese headquartered giant.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/22/more_huawei_woes/

Friday 18 January 2019

Black Horse slowed down: Lloyds Banking Group confirms problem with 'Faster' payments

Friday morning is an ideal time for transfers to have a glitch, agree customers

Lloyds and Halifax bank customers have been warned not to make repeat transactions as the group grapples with a technical glitch with Faster Payments.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/18/lloyds_halifax_bank_problem/

Lawyers' secure email network goes down, firm says it'll take two weeks to restore

And could wipe users' inboxes during that fortnight of faffery

Barristers and court prosecutors have been left scratching their heads this morning after Egress Technologies' CJSM email system went down – with the firm saying it could take up to a fortnight to fully restore it.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/18/cjsm_secure_email_court_prosecutors_outage/

Lords of the DNS remind admins about Flag Day, Juniper likes Watson and more

PING, PING, PING … it's your networking roundup for the week

Roundup  To cure some persistent security, implementation, and performance problems in the Domain Name System, the lords of the DNS have proclaimed older implementations as end of life.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/18/networking_roundup_week/

At 900k lines of code, ONOS is getting heavy. Can it go on a diet?

'Net greybeard Douglas Comer talks SDN with El Reg

Interview  Software Defined Networking (SDN) has changed the landscape of networking, but along the way it has created its own problems. Doug Comer of Purdue University thinks disaggregating SDN controllers like the Open Source Network Operating System (ONOS) could be a way forward.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/18/doug_comer_on_sdn/

Thursday 17 January 2019

Man drives 6,000 miles to prove Uncle Sam's cellphone coverage maps are wrong – and, boy, did he manage it

Amazing how a big cash payout focuses the mind

A Vermont state employee drove 6,000 miles in six weeks to prove that the cellular coverage maps from the US government suck – and was wildly successful.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/17/vermont_mobile_map/

FCC: Oh no, deary me. What a shame. Too bad, so sad we can't do net neutrality appeal during the US govt shutdown

Not so fast, there, Ajit...

Updated  America's broadband watchdog, the FCC, has asked the courts to postpone an appeal against its net neutrality repeal out of "an abundance of caution" due to the partial US government shutdown.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/17/fcc_net_neutrality_delay/

Oxford University reportedly turns off its Huawei money tap

No more Chinese tech vendor grants for at least three to six months, compsci students told

Oxford University is reportedly suspending all research grants and donations from Chinese tech giant Huawei, according to a Chinese newspaper.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/17/oxford_suspends_huawei_funding/

Wednesday 16 January 2019

Huawei’s elusive Mr Ren: We’re just a 'sesame seed' in a superpower spat

Trump, communism and 5G - a rare glimpse into the founder's past and present

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei does not give interviews, so the two-hour audience the firm granted to US media on Monday was a landmark - and perhaps a recognition of the crisis enveloping the company. Huawei faces a rising tide of headlines about its trustworthiness as a corporate supplier.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/16/huaweis_elusive_mr_ren_were_just_a_sesame_seeding_a_superpower_spat/

There's gold in them thar clouds as Infor guzzles $1.5bn from Koch and Golden Gate

IPO? Maybe 2019. Perhaps 2020. Depends, OK?

Enterprise cloud botherer Infor announced today that shareholders were tipping the best part of $1.5bn into its coffers ahead of a potential IPO.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/16/infor_cloud_investment/

If at first, second, third... fourth time you don't succeed, you're Apple: Another appeal lost in $440m net patent war

Yes, it plans to appeal again

Apple has, for the fourth time now, lost an appeal against a $440m patent-infringement damages award, payable to VirnetX – and pledged to appeal the decision.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/15/apple_virtnetx_fourth_loss/

Tuesday 15 January 2019

Rimini and Oracle's legal eagles return to the ring in front of Supreme Court

Top US justices hear oral arguments in copyright battle

Rimini Street and Oracle were once again at odds in the courtroom yesterday, as the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the pair's long-running copyright battle.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/15/rimini_oracle_supreme_court_hearing/

Huawei's horror show 2019 continues as Taiwanese research institute joins banhammer club

Also: US Commerce Dept blocks export of tech developed by Silicon Valley subsidiary

It's only the third week of January, but 2019 is turning into a horror year for Huawei: the company's phones have now been reportedly banned from a major research institute in Taiwan.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/15/taiwanese_research_institute_joins_ban_huawei_club/

Monday 14 January 2019

A few short packets: Cisco still Switchzilla, a neat Wi-Fi hack and more

Also: AT&T inks open source pact with Nokia, ZTE 5G pass, Equinix expands

Networks roundup  Is it any surprise that Cisco remains the dominant in enterprise infrastructure?…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/14/network_roundup_jan_12_2019/

Friday 11 January 2019

Cloud hardware spend edges ahead of traditional setups for first time in Q3 2018

50.9% of of total IT turnover, according to analyst

Abacus-strummer IDC has clocked that quarterly revenues of IT infrastructure (that's servers, storage, and Ethernet switches) for the cloud have officially squeezed past sales into traditional environments.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/11/cloud_it_infrastructure_spend_beats_traditional_environments_by_a_whisker_idc/

Begone, Demon Internet: Vodafone to shutter old-school pioneer ISP

It was still going?

Exclusive  Vodafone has confirmed it will shutter Demon Broadband, the pioneering Iron Age ISP, as part of its network upgrade plans.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/11/vodafone_to_shutter_demon_internet/

Thursday 10 January 2019

Unexpected final boss for games kit SpatialOS: Unity blasts GDK and possibly games built using it out of the cloud

Brit-based maker of real-time online gaming platform left in legal limbo

Improbable, the UK-based maker of the SpatialOS Game Development Kit (GDK) for the Unity game engine, on Thursday warned that all Unity-based titles integrating its GDK are now violating Unity's Terms of Service.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/10/unity_revised_rules/

Good news: Microsoft's Azure Data Box Disk is here. Bad news: UK South Storage is having a liedown

The cloud giveth and the cloud taketh away

Microsoft Azure's UK South storage region developed a distinct wobble today.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/10/microsoft_uk_south_wobble/

Wanted – have you seen this MAC address: f8:e0:79:af:57:eb? German cops appeal for logs in bomb probe

Plod hope to snare DHL blackmailer with a penchant for homemade explosives

German police investigating a blackmailer's parcel bombing campaign reckon they know the MAC address of a device used by the scumbag, and hope network logs can help unmask the perp.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/10/german_blackmail_investigation/

We're two weeks into 2019, and an email can potentially knacker your Cisco message box – plus other bugs to fix

Process data, crash, restart, process data, crash, restart...

Cisco's security team's holiday season has ended with a bang: 18 patches, but thankfully only one of them rated “critical”.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/10/cisco_critical_patch/

Tuesday 8 January 2019

Fire(cracker) sale at AWS: Up to 50% lopped off container compute engine Fargate

Your move, Microsoft and Google

Amazon has taken an axe to the pricing of its containers-for-dummies service Fargate with costs for the on-demand engine dropping by up to 50 per cent.…



via The Register - Data Centre: Cloud
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/08/amazon_fargate_price_cut/

Big cable trolls big mobile with '10G' trademark application

It stands for 10 gigabits per second connections, so at least it means something

CES 2019  America's cable cabal has used CES to fire up interest in 10Gbps access networks, and in a snipe at the mobile 5G market, the Internet & Television Association (NCTA) has applied to trademark "10G" with the tagline "The Next Great Leap for Broadband".…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/08/big_cable_trolls_big_mobile_with_10g_trademark_application/

Forget your $145m Apple patent payout, WiLAN told – it's $10m or gamble on a new trial

Judge quashes hopes of big comm tech payday

WiLAN has been told by a US judge it can either walk away with $10m in patent-infringement damages from Apple – somewhat lower than the $145m set by a jury – or go to trial again to set the figure.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/08/wilan_apple_lawsuit/

Monday 7 January 2019

Huawei's 5G security scrutiny pain could be Cisco's gain – analysts

Have enterprise networking portfolio, will travel

Cisco could reap the benefits of the Western world's security crackdown on Huawei enterprise networking equipment, analysts from JP Morgan have said.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/07/huawei_security_woes_biz_opportunity_cisco_jp_morgan/

Friday 4 January 2019

Huawei or the highway: Chinese giant whacks marketing drones for tweeting from iPhone

Ooo, that pesky firewall!

Huawei has slapped two employees on the wrist for making promotional tweets using a rival Apple's iPhone.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/04/huawei_fines_staff_for_iphone_gaffe/

Thursday 3 January 2019

Huawei CEO defiant on security claims, vows to be so good, 'no market can keep us away'

Company 'will never present a threat', claims letter to staff

Increasingly in the crosshairs of government paranoia and beset by its place in the US-China trade war, Huawei's rotating chairman Guo Ping has come out swinging in a letter to staff.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/03/huawei_ceo_letter/

Wednesday 2 January 2019

US states join watchdog probing CenturyLink's Xmas data center outage that screwed 911 system

TITSUP network card fingered for dropped calls (that's a Total Inability To Send Usable Packets)

Wyoming is the latest US state to formally probe CenturyLink's network outage, which black-holed 911 calls over Christmas.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/02/centurylink_911_outage_aftermath/

Another greybeard has left us: Packet pioneer Larry Roberts dies at 81

ARPANET handler helped lay foundations of the internet

Obit  One of the internet's founding fathers, ARPANET packet-switching pioneer Larry Roberts, has died aged 81.…


via The Register - Data Centre: Networks
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/02/arpanet_larry_roberts_dies_aged_81/