I recently wrote a tip that discussed some of what it takes to support VMotion.  Lori MacVittie of F5 wrote a blog entry in which she took me to task for writing an article that had a section that she stated was "inaccurate and misleading".  I have a lot of respect for Lori, but I found her comments to be bewildering and surprising.

In the section that Lori took objection to I mentioned Cisco.  Lori determined that since I mentioned Cisco I was using them as a 'yardstick" for application delivery controllers.  To make her point, she asked  "When writing an article on the state of networking would you use Juniper or Extreme as your measuring stick for switches instead of Cisco?"  I was bewildered by her question because I know that Lori knows that the role of an industry analyst is to analyze competing products and services based on their merit.  If Juniper or Extreme did something particularly well, or particularly badly, I would definitely write about them.   For example, if I thought that Extreme did a particularly good job of making network and port-level capabilities configurable at the individual VM level, I might write about that.  I would not, however, expect that any IT professional reading the article would assume that I was implying that Extreme has the largest share of the switching market.

eBay published their first web API in 2000. It took another 8 years to get to 1,000 APIs on the web; it only took 18 months to get to the next 1,000 APIs.

ProgrammableWeb was founded in 2005, when they tallied 105 APIs. The current count is 2,016 and the rate of new APIs is doubling year over year.

What segments account for these APIs? Social networking sites are high on the list, followed by mapping, financial, reference and shopping. The single most popular API is Google Maps, used in 1,978 mashups.

In a recent conversation with a colleague, we were discussing a topic (that shall remain nameless) and the fact that it has been rehashed at least once every five years for the last 25 (or more) years.  And the each time it comes up, somebody seems to think that it's new.

So this brought up the idea that while the Internet and various social media are chock-full of "data," there's a lot less information, less knowledge, and minimal wisdom.

So we're offering this chance to test your knowledge of the history of IT, and to see if you can stump your colleagues.

On April 6, a Federal court overturned the earlier FCC rulings concerning a case with Comcast and Net Neutrality.  For at least one reference, point, click here.

While a vast amount of the popular press coverage has centered on consumer services, this ruling could send shock waves throughout the Enterprise as the rules have undergone a seismic shift.

At least two areas where we could see a significant impact are emerging cloud services and traditional Internet-based VPNs.

Join us for a discussion on these issues, and let us know how you are viewing this development.

(Just a reminder...  Please be sure to reply to the given comment using the link by the original entry to keep the threads nested.)

Webtorials is preparing a report on Networking Priorities for the Campus and Data Center.

We are now in the data collection phase, and we invite you to share your thoughts.  The survey is really quite brief, and your response will be most helpful in shaping the priorities as products are developed and in seeing how your priorities compare with those of your colleagues.

Respondents will receive a preliminary copy of the results prior to the formal publication of the report.  So please pass along this URL to your colleagues.

If you have not yet completed the survey, you may access it by clicking on this link.

If you have already completed the survey, continue reading to comment further and/or to add additional information.

• Cloud Computing Appliance by Webtorials
• Infinitely Scalable Controller by Aerohive

With 40 G/100 G infrastructure deployments in the datacenter quickly becoming reality, the shrinking loss budgets of optical fiber cabling due to increasing bandwidth demands mean that reliable and efficient initial installations are now more important than ever.

To minimize costly installer/contractor callbacks, network technician troubleshooting time, and unnecessary network downtimes, fiber-handling best practices should always be followed.

Please join me in this discussion with Jason Tarn from Fluke Networks.

Jim Metzler and I are in the process of preparing a special report, "Application Delivery - A Reality Check", and the results of two short surveys are a key component.

In this discussion, we'll share a sneak preview of some of the results from the first of the two surveys.

There's an explosion of "data" availability, and the quantity of information available on the Internet is growing exponentially. But where's the capability to turn his information into "information," "knowledge," and wisdom?