HP Engineers Extreme Performance with Z By HP

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 15, 2023 by itnerd

HP Inc. announced its new Z by HP high-performance workstation desktop lineup, engineered to change what is possible within complex, data rich workflows. HP is advancing hybrid workforce management with the HP Anyware Remote System Controller, a device that gives IT departments the management capabilities to support high performance devices from anywhere.

The complex workflows in industries spanning media and entertainment, data science, and engineering mean increased time pressure and the need for more compute power to deliver faster results. They also highlight a need to iterate with remote teams and push creative boundaries to deliver more accurate results. The new Z by HP Z4, Z6, Z8, and Z8 Fury desktops, powered by Intel®, deliver the scalable balance of CPU and GPU compute needed to fuel new levels of speed, accuracy, and creativity.

Extreme Workstation Performance

Z by HP innovations start with the customer to deliver the performance benefits needed whether it’s importing and working with large models and assemblies, running complex simulations, or training complex deep learning and machine learning models faster. The latest Z workstation desktops include up to 56 CPU cores and four high-end GPUs in the Z8 Fury G5. The Z4, Z6, Z8, and our all-new Z8 Fury, provide a variety of configurations to meet every workflow challenge for each of these segments. From our best-selling workhorse, the Z4, to the extreme performance of the Z8 Fury, Z by HP has the right workstation for every workflow.

  • The Z8 Fury G5 delivers powerful performance while staying cool and quiet under high-performance workflows with up to 56 cores in a single CPU and unleashing the power of four high-end double-wide GPUs with 2TB of DDR5 memory due to transformative single socket technology. Now you can breeze through even the most complex deep learning, virtual production, and VFX.
  • The HP Z4 G5 tackles advanced workflows from machine learning to advanced video editing with an evolutionary advancement of up to a 24-core CPU, two high-end GPUs, up to 512GB of RAM. The Z4 G5 accelerates a wide range of professional apps to advance intensive workflows and provides plenty of room to expand as workflows evolves.
  • The HP Z6 G5 accelerates graphics-intensive workflows with multiple GPUs based on the increased PCIe expandability of the latest Intel® Xeon® W-3400 processor architecture. With up to 36 processing cores, three high-end graphics cards, and 1TB of DDR5 memory, the Z6 G5 delivers significant performance for users demanding a machine that scales with their increased model and dataset complexity.
  • The HP Z8 G5 is designed for users who demand the most processing compute for CPU-intensive workflows to accelerate rendering with real-time ray tracing, data visualization, and model training while also providing plenty of room to expand as demands change. With a dual-socket workstation, designed to utilize 4th Gen Intel Xeon, it delivers up to 64 system cores in addition to supporting 2x high-end graphics cards with 1TB of DDR5 memory.

Consolidate Workstation Fleet Management

The HP Anyware Remote System Controller provides IT administrators a single dashboard with the ability to launch a kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) session and perform out-out-of-band management tasks such as pre-boot access, BIOS updates and re-imaging from anywhere. Through a single interface, IT administrators can now manage a fleet of devices, access secure system information like model numbers and BIOS versions, receive reports, and develop insights, to optimize their infrastructure to resolve issues before they affect users. HP is designing this hardware and software based on strong security industry standards, completing extensive testing, third-party reviews, and certifications to ensure maximum security.

Pricing and Availability

  • The HP Z4, Z6, Z8, Z8 Fury G5will be available for pre-order starting today on HP.com.
  • The HP Anyware Remote System Controller is expected to be available this spring. Pricing will be available closer to product availability.

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Guest Post: Commvault Platform Release 2023: Continuing to efficiently expand secure data protection for hybrid multi-cloud environments

Posted in Commentary on February 15, 2023 by itnerd

By Ranga Rajagopalan – Senior Vice President Of Product For Commvault

The past year has been amazing — our data protection portfolio has won many accolades of technology leadership from industry analysts like Gartner, Forrester and GigaOm. These wins are no doubt driven by our relentless passion to protect our customers’ data in a difficult world and our fundamental belief that continuous customer collaboration is key to pragmatic innovation.

The next chapter of our 26-year journey of customer-driven innovation is now here — we are excited to announce the General Availability of Commvault Platform Release 2023!

Commvault PR 2023 introduces several new features and additions to strengthen our customers’ security posture, deepen our rich integration with all major hyperscalers and introduce more smart savings through operational efficiencies.

Hundreds of customers have already benefited from these new capabilities during the Technology Preview phase, that started on December 15, 2022.

Harnessing the power of multi-cloud

What differentiates our approach to the ecosystem — and yes, we continue to support the broadest ecosystem when it comes to data protection — is how our integrations are seamlessly built-in and not just clumsily bolted on for a quick mention. Deeper the integrations, greater the synergies enjoyed by our customers.

Commvault PR 2023 carries new deep integrations to make it easier for our customers to protect their data across Microsoft Azure, AWS Cloud, Google Cloud Platform and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Take, for instance, our new integration with Microsoft Azure Restore Points. We worked closely with Microsoft to be the first data protection platform to support Azure Restore Points. While Azure has had incremental snapshot capabilities, this new integration allows for application consistency across disks, while reducing costs with the option to use more cost-efficient storage tiers for backups.

Commvault PR 2023 also introduces integration with Amazon FSx for NetApp which brings the same on-premises NetApp ONTAP policy-based protection to AWS. The new release also introduces support for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) infrequent access and combined storage tiers to help reduce costs for protecting your cloud data.

Enhancing data security

Our trusted approach to data protection is shaped by the fundamental customer direction that data security is an integral and inseparable component of data protection. Building on our robust multi-layered ransomware detection, protection and recovery framework, Commvault PR 2023 introduces new integrations to drive data protection insights into the broader security ecosystem.

An important aspect of data protection is to leverage data awareness to proactively alert IT teams when threats arise. Commvault PR 2023 introduces a new Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) connector that makes it easy to feed alerts, events, and audit data to other platforms through webhooks APIs or even syslog. Leveraging standard protocols ensures we can work with virtually any SIEM or event management system giving security teams better visibility to anomalies and threats in their data.

Driving smart savings

With the uncertainty of a global recession looming, customers in every industry are looking to optimize costs in their budgets to make up for the increased spend for security and mission critical areas. We are continuing to help provide options to lower the cost for data.

New capabilities to use single region snapshots vs. multi-region snapshots for GCP can save 30 per cent of that cost to backup resources. Sometimes improving cost is as simple as reducing the time it takes to protect applications.

Our optimizations for Hadoop, leveraging snapdiff, can take what was hours long backup scans to just minutes thanks to the enhancements in how we scan for changed blocks.

These are just a few of the amazing features we have in Platform Release 2023. You can learn about more of the latest features in our What’s New page for Platform Releases. Connect with our product management team and others in our communities for all the latest news and release information.

Join us live on March 8th, 2023 at our Platform Release 2023 customer webinar. Register here.

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Flashfood Partners With Ren’s Pets Marking First Waste-Reduction App To Provide Discounted Pet Food Offerings To Canadian Pet Parents  

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 15, 2023 by itnerd

Today, Flashfood – a digital marketplace that significantly reduces food waste at the retail level by connecting consumers with discounted food nearing its best before date – has announced its latestpartnership with Canadian retailer Ren’s Pets. The partnership, which will first roll-out to eleven Ren’s Pets Ontario locations beginning today, will enable shoppers to purchase heavily discounted, top-quality pet food, while minimizing food waste. 

With Flashfood, shoppers save up to 50% off high-quality food items nearing their best-by date, now including pet food staples such as kibble, wet food, raw food and treats. Shoppers conveniently browse and buy directly through the Flashfood app on their mobile phone, and then simply pick up their order from a team member at their participating Ren’s Pets store. 

With the app enabling shoppers to benefit from significant cost savings on premium pet food items right from their mobile device, the partnership creates new and simple avenues for Canadian pet owners to cut-back on spending. Through Flashfood, shoppers will be able to purchase leading pet food brands at up to 50% off. 

Since 2016, more than 1.6 million users in Canada have turned to Flashfood to save up to 50% on high quality food items including meat, produce and dairy. To date, Flashfood has diverted over 65 million pounds of food from landfill and has saved shoppers over $150 million.  

Flashfood will launch at the following eleven Ren’s Pets locations in Ontario beginning February 15, 2023:  

  • 20 Brock Road North, Guelph 
  • 1525 Victoria Street North, Kitchener 
  • 400 The Boardwalk, Waterloo 
  • 34 Pinebush Road, Cambridge 
  • 1979 Hyde Park, London 
  • 821 Golf Links Road, Ancaster 
  • 218 Henry Street, Brantford 
  • 3405 Wonderland Road South, London 
  • 2120 Rymal Road East, Hannon 
  • 4315 Walker Road, Windsor 
  • 1330 Exmouth Street, Sarnia 

By the end of March, Flashfood will be available at the remaining 45 Ren’s Pets locations across Ontario and Atlantic Canada.  

To learn more about Flashfood, visit Flashfood.com. To learn about Ren’s Pets, visit: www.renspets.com. 

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Nuspire’s Q4 and Year in Review 2022 Threat Report Signals Continued Surge in Cyber Threat Volume and Severity

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 15, 2023 by itnerd

A new report regarding the cybersecurity threat landscape is scheduled to be released on February 15.

The study was conducted by Nuspire, a leading managed security services provider (MSSP).

New high-level findings include: 

  • Top threats events in 2022
  • A decrease in malware events in Q4 2022, but an increase in exploitation events (surge in network camera attacks and newly announced vulnerabilities)
  • 2022 showed activity rising and the need for response across all sectors

Here’s some other high level findings:

Access Nuspire’s Q4 and Year in Review 2022 Threat Report to view the data and learn key mitigation strategies for protecting your organization’s environment. 

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Uber Introduces Audio Recording Safety Feature Across Canada

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 15, 2023 by itnerd

Today Uber is launching a new in-app safety feature that will allow rideshare drivers and riders across the country to securely record audio during trips in case there is an on-trip incident, encouraging safety while also protecting privacy. 

Drivers and riders can set up the feature in the Safety Toolkit in the app. Once enabled, the feature gives riders and drivers the option to record audio during a trip by tapping the blue shield icon on the map screen and hitting “Start” on the “Record Audio” option. Drivers and riders can start or stop an audio recording at any point during a trip. Unless ended manually by the user during the trip, recording will automatically stop shortly after the trip is completed. 

To protect privacy, once an audio recording is completed, the audio file is encrypted and stored directly on the rider’s or driver’s device. No one will be able to listen to the recording, including Uber, unless a safety incident is reported. If a safety incident is reported through the app, the user will be able to attach the audio file to the report and share it with our specialized safety support team. At that time, the file will be decrypted and a trained safety agent will be able to review the submitted audio. The audio, along with other incident information, can help Uber determine the best course of action. 

Originally launched in Latin America in 2019, the audio recording feature is currently live in more than a dozen countries. It was rolled out as a pilot in Calgary in November 2022. We’ve seen instances where the audio file has helped determine the best course of action after a safety incident, and the majority of riders and drivers in these cities told us this feature helped them feel safer when using Uber.

You can learn more about how it works. Get answers to common questions, and understand how we are balancing safety and privacy, on the Audio Recording information page. 

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Platformer Exposes The Backstory Of Elon Musk Forcing His Tweets Upon Twitter Users

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 15, 2023 by itnerd

Yesterday, I posted a story on Tweets from Elon Musk being forced into your Twitter feeds. And in that story I said this:

I don’t see a fix coming for this soon as this is how Twitter is going to be under Elon. It’s basically become his own echo chamber where only the gratification of his ego matters. 

Well, Platformer who has been 100% accurate when it comes to the inner workings of Twitter under Elon Musk has once again scored the inside story on this. Starting with why this is happening:

At 2:36 on Monday morning, James Musk sent an urgent message to Twitter engineers. 

“We are debugging an issue with engagement across the platform,” wrote Musk, a cousin of the Twitter CEO, tagging “@here” in Slack to ensure that anyone online would see it. “Any people who can make dashboards and write software please can you help solve this problem. This is high urgency. If you are willing to help out please thumbs up this post.”

When bleary-eyed engineers began to log on to their laptops, the nature of the emergency became clear: Elon Musk’s tweet about the Super Bowl got less engagement than President Joe Biden’s.

Biden’s tweet, in which he said he would be supporting his wife in rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles, generated nearly 29 million impressions. Musk, who also tweeted his support for the Eagles, generated a little more than 9.1 million impressions before deleting the tweet in apparent frustration.

In the wake of those losses — the Eagles to the Kansas City Chiefs, and Musk to the president of the United States — Twitter’s CEO flew his private jet back to the Bay Area on Sunday night to demand answers from his team.

So this all started because Elon’s ego was bruised. That’s really pathetic. And it further illustrates that decision making at Twitter is being done by whim and ego rather than facts. Anyway, this is what happened next:

By Monday afternoon, “the problem” had been “fixed.” Twitter deployed code to automatically “greenlight” all of Musk’s tweets, meaning his tweets will bypass Twitter’s filters designed to show people the best content possible. The algorithm now artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000 – a constant score that ensured his tweets rank higher than anyone else’s in the feed. 

Internally, this is called a “power user multiplier,” although it only applies to Elon Musk, we’re told. The code also allows Musk’s account to bypass Twitter heuristics that would otherwise prevent a single account from flooding the core ranked feed, now known as “For You.”

That explains why people opening the app Monday found that Musk dominated the feed, with a dozen or more Musk tweets and replies visible to anyone who followed him and millions more who did not. Over 90 percent of Musk’s followers now see his tweets, according to one internal estimate.

While this has been scaled back somewhat, it is mind blowing that his bruised ego has resulted in this. I encourage you to read this story as it is simply mind blowing what lengths that Elon will go to just to get what he wants.

And while I am at it, I have to point out that these leaks that Platformer is getting in such detail are coming from inside Twitter. That suggests to me that Elon has larger issues than his engagement levels.

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Today Is Patch Tuesday…. And There’s Some Significant Issues That Need Immediate Attention

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 14, 2023 by itnerd

Seeing as today is the second Tuesday of the month, that means it’s Patch Tuesday. The monthly ritual where you install all the latest patches from Microsoft to protect you from getting pwned by hackers. And according to Bleeping Computer, the numbers and criticality of the fixes goes something like this:

Today is Microsoft’s February 2023 Patch Tuesday, and security updates fix three actively exploited zero-day vulnerabilities and a total of 77 flaws.

Nine vulnerabilities have been classified as ‘Critical’ as they allow remote code execution on vulnerable devices.

The three actively exploited zero-day vulnerabilities is eye opening. But the nine flaws of the total of 77 flaws which should warrant your attention as well. To help you to prioritize which ones to focus on (Though if it were me I would focus on all of them, but you might be in an environment where that isn’t possible) , I have this comment from Dor Segal, Senior Security Researcher, Silverfort:

     “Security teams should be aware of a group of six vulnerabilities in Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol (PEAP). An authentication protocol used by organizations to secure wireless and point-to-point connections, PEAP plays a key role in ensuring the legitimacy of machines requesting access to a wireless network.

Three of these (CVE-2023-21689, CVE-2023-21690, CVE-2023-21692) score highly, ranking as critical vulnerabilities with a score of 9.8. When exploited by a threat actor in an environment running NPS, it will allow them to control machines and endpoints remotely and execute malicious code inside a target environment.

Another potential concern with a high score of 8.8 is CVE-2023-21529, targeting Microsoft Exchange Server. With access to user credentials, attackers could use this vulnerability to gain an initial foothold before pivoting into more critical areas of the environment. As well as applying the suggested mitigations, security teams should also apply MFA to all Exchange endpoints.

Being actively exploited in the wild, CVE-2023-21715 allows attackers to bypass Microsoft Office security protections blocking malicious macros. Exploiting this vulnerability requires social engineering a target user into opening an office attachment. While a prompt still appears – if the user allows the file to run – a threat actor can use malicious macros to execute code remotely. Alongside patching, security teams need to reinforce the need for users to be aware of opening files from unexpected sources.”

All of this is good advice that I hope those who are responsible for protecting their IT infrastructure take seriously.

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Twitter Delays API Changes After Significant Outcry

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 14, 2023 by itnerd

In what seems to be another attempt to walk back an attempt by Elon Musk to make money from Twitter any way he can, it appears that Elon’s attempt to charge for API access, which he has sort of done a U-turn on, is now being delayed. I’m basing that on this Tweet:

Fun fact: There has been ZERO enthusiasm when it comes to the changes to Twitter’s API.

The bottom line is this. Elon is trying to make a buck on anything he can. But his “ready, fire, aim” mentality keeps catching him out when his attempts to make money by any means keeps blowing up in his face. You’d think that he’d stop doing this as the humiliation of having to constantly walk stuff he does back would get old after a while. But clearly that’s not the case with Elon. In any case, it will be interesting to see what Twitter does in “a few more days” when it comes to API access. And whether it will quiet all those who are really mad about this.

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For Those Of You Who Like Internet Explorer For Whatever Reason, Microsoft Will Be Disabling It On Your Windows 10 PC TODAY

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 14, 2023 by itnerd

Here’s a heads up for those of you who still run Internet Explorer on your PC despite the risks of doing so. Microsoft as part of “Patch Tuesday” which is today, will be disabling it from your Windows 10 PC. According to Microsoft’s support documentation, a Microsoft Edge browser update will fully disable Internet Explorer in most versions of Windows 10, redirecting users to Edge:

The out-of-support Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application was permanently disabled on certain versions of Windows 10 on February 14, 2023 through a Microsoft Edge update. Note, this update will be rolled out over the span of a few days up to a week, as is standard for Microsoft Edge updates.

All remaining consumer and commercial devices that were not already redirected from IE11 to Microsoft Edge were redirected with the Microsoft Edge update. Users will be unable to reverse the change. Additionally, redirection from IE11 to Microsoft Edge will be included as part of all future Microsoft Edge updates.

IE11 visual references, such as the IE11 icons on the Start Menu and taskbar, will be removed by the June 2023 Windows security update (“B” release) scheduled for June 13, 2023. The optional, non-security preview “C” release on certain Windows 10 versions scheduled for May 23, 2023, will also remove IE11 visual references.

Realistically, Microsoft Windows 10 users should have made the switch to Microsoft Edge by now. After all, security updates stopped last summer. Which means that anyone running it was and is at risk for any number of threats that are floating around. Thus if you’re one of those people, now would be a good time to move to Microsoft Edge, or Firefox, or Chrome. You’ll be a lot safer and you’ll thank me for suggesting that you do so.

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Google Announces That Their Privacy Sandbox Beta Is Coming To Android

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 14, 2023 by itnerd

Via a blog post today, Google announced that their Privacy Sandbox Beta is coming to Android. Specifically, Android 13 devices at first and expanding over time. If you’re one of the users selected for the beta, you’ll receive an Android notification letting you know that you’ve been selected.

Here’s what this means for you via the blog post:

The Privacy Sandbox Beta provides new APIs that are designed with privacy at the core, and don’t use identifiers that can track your activity across apps and websites. Apps that choose to participate in the Beta can use these APIs to show you relevant ads and measure their effectiveness.

You’ll be able to control your Beta participation by going to the Privacy Sandbox section of Settings. From this screen you’ll be able to see and manage the interests that apps can use to show you relevant ads. For example, you could see that Android has estimated that you’re interested in topics like Movies or Outdoors, and you can block any topics if they don’t fit your interests. And if you change your mind about participating in the Beta, you can turn it off or back on in Settings.

If you’re an Android user, I’d keep an eye out for that notification as from my perspective, Google appears to be starting to take privacy seriously.

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