3 Reasons Why Integrators Should Embrace Open Source Systems

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March 5, 2020

The security industry has come a long way in the past decade. As companies strive to make their products more accessible to cater to end-user demands, system designs are changing. One of the most significant advancements we’ve seen is a migration from proprietary systems to systems that have the flexibility to work seamlessly with other equipment, regardless of the manufacturer.

Open source systems are impacting all aspects of physical security, from development to installation. Thanks to the flexibility these systems provide, integrators can create individualized solutions tailored to their client’s unique needs. While the benefits are many, there are three key reasons to embrace open source systems to ensure you are providing your clients with the tools they need, now and in the future.

[Source: Security Sales & Integration]

Open-source, cross-platform and people seem to like it: PowerShell 7 has landed

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 4, 2020

It may be shuttering its events, but the release door at Microsoft has continued flapping with the emission of admin darling PowerShell 7. We first looked at the preview of PowerShell 7 almost a year ago and found little to complain about. Frankly, the same can be applied to today’s release – with improvements in compatibility, some handy new operators and parallelisation, the open-source tool is a viable replacement for the venerable Windows-only PowerShell of old.

Admins seem to like it too, and it is currently hovering at number 38 in the TIOBE Progamming Community Index (an indicator of the popularity of programming languages).

[Source: The Register]

Linux Foundation to Open More Open Source Doors with the Zephyr Project

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 4, 2020

With so much emphasis on open source software and platforms, at times we lose sight of how hardware is continuing to advance, with its own community development and standardization efforts. The Linux Foundation recently announced their Zephyr Project, which is building a secure and flexible real-time operating system (RTOS) for the Internet of Things (IoT) in space-constrained devices, welcomes Adafruit, an interesting company that enables makers to build DIY electronic products.

Adafruit joins member companies including Antmicro, Eclipse Foundation, Foundries.io, Intel, Linaro, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP, Oticon, SiFive, Synopsys, Texas Instruments and more to create an open hardware and software ecosystem using the Zephyr OS.

[Source: IoT Evolution World]

The future of open source licences is changing

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 4, 2020

One of the pillars of software development is: never reinvent the wheel. Why invent a new algorithm or write a piece of code to achieve a particular objective, if something already exists? To adapt a well-known metaphor: new code should ideally be built on the shoulders of giants. Libraries filled with amazing functions, written by world-class software developers, can and should be the basis on which new projects and new pieces of software functionality are engineered.

These are among the concepts that have helped to make open source software development the most efficient way to create new code. As Computer Weekly has previously reported, some open source companies are finding that their business models, based on deriving a revenue stream from managed services, are being eroded by the public cloud providers offering rival hosting services. The result has been amendments to licensing clauses to prevent such services from being able to use the source code freely. Does this spell the end of open source?

[Source: ComputerWeekly.com]

Converting between uppercase and lowercase on the Linux command line

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 3, 2020

Converting text between uppercase and lowercase can be very tedious, especially when you want to avoid inadvertent misspellings. Fortunately, Linux provides a handful of commands that can make the job very easy.

There are many ways to change text on the Linux command line from lowercase to uppercase and vice versa. In fact, you have an impressive set of commands to choose from. This post examines some of the best commands for the job and how you can get them to do just what you want.

The tr (translate) command, for instance, is one of the easiest to use on the command line or within a script.

[Source: Network World]

IBM, David Clark Launch 2020 Call For Code Challenge

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 3, 2020

IBM and David Clark Cause, in partnership with United Nations Human Rights and the Linux Foundation have announced this year’s Call for Code Global Challenge. The 2020 Call for Code is challenging applicants to create innovations based on open source technologies to help halt and reverse the impact of climate change.

Now in its third year, the Challenge encourages and fosters the creation of practical applications built on open source software including Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, and data from The Weather Company. The goal is to employ technology in new ways that can make an immediate and lasting humanitarian impact in communities around the world.

[Source: TFiR]

Spotify Open-Sources Terraform Module for Kubeflow ML Pipelines

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 3, 2020

Spotify has open-sourced their Terraform module for running machine-learning pipeline software Kubeflow on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). By switching their in-house ML platform to Kubeflow, Spotify engineers have achieved faster time to production and are producing 7x more experiments than on the previous platform.

In a recent blog post, Spotify’s product manager Josh Baer and ML engineer Samuel Ngahane described Spotify’s “Paved Road” for machine learning: “an opinionated set of products and configurations to deploy an end-to-end machine learning solution using our recommended infrastructure.”

[Source: InfoQ.com]

Mirantis gros fromage quits to start new ‘private LTE’ biz on open-access spectrum

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 3, 2020

The co-founder of Kubernetes cloud outfit Mirantis, Boris Renski, has left the business to start a new venture focused on 5G-based “private LTE” campus networks. Speaking to The Register about his move, Renski explained a little about the technology and his decision to take a punt on it.

At the heart of his move is the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), which, despite the name, has nothing to do with truckers bellowing “ten-four, good buddy” at each other. Instead it is an open-access chunk of spectrum freshly reallocated from military uses to civilians, around the 3.5GHz band.

[Source: The Register]

Benefits of Kubernetes on bare metal cloud infrastructure

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 3, 2020

Bare metal cloud infrastructure is being introduced to run 5G applications in containers. This is a natural development of the shift the industry is going through from virtualized network functions to cloud native applications. But what are the benefits of running Kubernetes on a bare metal cloud infrastructure compared to a virtualized infrastructure?

In the center of cloud native technology development is CNCF, an open source community driving the adoption of the cloud native paradigm across industries by fostering collaboration between the industry’s top developers, end users and vendors. Since CNCF is such a huge community, the focus on the telecom industry has been limited. But now with the formation of the Telecom User Group (A Special Interest Group) within CNCF, Ericsson has taken a leading role in telecom related discussions in the community.

[Source: Ericsson]

Open source is getting bigger and richer, says SUSE

By

Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 3, 2020

Melissa Di Donato, CEO of open source software company SUSE, was at a tech summit recently where every other attendee was an executive from a proprietary, closed-source software company. “They were all talking about the importance of crowd-sourcing, of community building, so I raised my hand and said: ‘Wait a minute – are you aware there is a whole world out there and it’s called open source? Do you even know what open source is?'”

The other execs were a bit perplexed, she remembers. “These people didn’t realize how much potential the technology has,” she says. “Open source is shaking the world, and it’s coming like an earthquake.” The idea of open-source software goes back decades, but in the past decade or so, and in particular with the advent of cloud computing, it has become a core part of the business technology landscape.

[Source: ZDNet]