Networking

Microsoft Azure status page on Oct. 7 around 3:30 p.m. ET
Last week, a major Azure Active Directory authentication issue affected users worldwide. A follow-up Exchange/Outlook issue later in the week affected European and Indian Office 365/Microsoft 365 customers. This week, Microsoft’s cloud services issues are continuing, affecting a number of Exchange, Outlook, Teams and SharePoint users.Microsoft was still warning some Office 365/Microsoft 365 customers as this week kicked off of some possible residual Exchange/Outlook issues, including problems accessing the admin center and syncing issues between Outlook mobile and desktop. I asked Microsoft if these issues were related to last week’s Azure Active Directory authentication problems, but was told the company had no comment. (I am hearing the issues were likely not interrelated, for what it’s worth.)On October 7, users, primarily in the U.S., began reporting in the afternoon ET they were having issues accessing their admin center dashboards. Around 2:30 p.m. ET, users took to Twitter and other social channels to report they were unable to access Microsoft 365 services, including Teams, Exchange Online, Outlook.com, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. At the same time, warnings of issues with Azure Active Directory and Azure Networking services popped up on the Azure status page.Around 4:00 p.m. ET, some Office 365/Microsoft 365 customers began reporting their services were recovering. (For my part, I still cannot access my M365 Admin Center, even as of 5:00 p.m. ET.)The Azure team also posted a preliminary root cause analysis around the same time on the issues users experienced accessing Microsoft or Azure services. In that report, Microsoft said between roughly 2 p.m. ET and 3:40 p.m. ET a subset of customers encountered issues connecting to resources that leveraged the Azure network infrastructure across regions. (“Resources with local dependencies in the same region should not have been impacted,” according to company officials.)Microsoft identified “a recent change (that) was applied to WAN (wide-area-networking) resources causing connectivity latency or failures between regions” as the cause. To mitigate, the Azure team rolled back the recent change to a healthy configuration.Earlier today, October 7, the Azure team also noted that some subset of customers experienced traffic routing to “unhealthy backends” with Azure Front Door. Microsoft attributed that issue to a “configuration change (which) was deployed causing the incorrect routing of traffic” and reverted the change to fix the issue.The Microsoft 365 team, for its part, attributed the inability to access services to a “network infrastructure change” which may have impacted multiple Microsoft 365 services, including Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Outlook.com. That same team also said it added this afternoon additional capacity to handle “an observed spike in admin center traffic caused by actions to mitigate a prior incident with similar impact.”After last week’s Azure AD issue — caused by the faulty testing of a change, coupled with a rollback failure — this week’s outage is not a good look for the Microsoft cloud.   More

Brazilians see remote working as a desirable feature of employment, but the ability to work from is not translating into greater access to job opportunities, according to research.
A study carried out with over 20,000 participants globally by software firm Salesforce has found that 53% of Brazilian workers would change jobs if it means they could work from home.
However, 87% are not seeing any change regarding job opportunities despite the increased uptake of remote working: the majority of respondents (71%) have said they see that format of work as restricted to only a parcel of the population. Unemployment in Brazil is currently affecting over 13 million people, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.

Of the Brazilian workers who continued to come into a physical location to perform their duties, 57% of survey respondents believe they could operate from home if their employers provided the right tools to do so.
The majority of participants (75%) said companies should prioritize the training of their workforce and 77% have stated that technology will play a key role in that process.
When it comes to skills Brazilians perceive as important to retain or get a job, 96% cited socio-emotional capabilities such as adaptability and collaboration. In terms of technical skills, participants perceive as important for employers, areas often cited included data analytics (mentioned by 95% of respondents), software development (92%) and data science (91%).
A separate study, published in August by Brazilian business school Foundation Institute of Administration (FIA) has found that 139 companies of all sizes across Brazil has found that 46% of businesses have adopted remote working during the pandemic. Some 36% of the companies that adopted the home office approach are not planning to stick to it after the pandemic, while 34% plan to offer the option of remote working to up to 25% of their workforce and 29% will offer remote working to 50% of all staff.
Of all the companies that have gone remote, 67% struggled with technical aspects, particularly when it comes to staff familiarity with communication tools, cited by 34%, followed by difficulties around remote access to systems (34%) and getting hold of support staff to help with technology issues (28%). More

I’ve worked from four homes and several coffee shops over the last 15 years. Lockdowns simply proved that my infrastructure was as flexible as I’d hoped. Which is a combination of deeply rooted heavyweight capability and flyweight mobility. 
Today, writing is the largest part of my workflow, but I expect to go back to much more audio production as I roll out the novel I’ve been working on for the last 5 years. I’m ready for that.
Office kit

iMac
Apple Inc.
Late 2014 iMac. Planning to upgrade to an Apple Silicon iMac in the next year, assuming it will be more powerful than the iPad Pro. Still love the display even though the rest of the system is less than ideal, especially for 4k video. I’m sure the newest bottom-of-the-line 27″ iMac would be fine for some years to come.
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Apple Magic Trackpad 2
Apple Inc.
I love Apple’s trackpads even more than the Kensington trackballs I used for years, but resisted upgrading to the second iteration until the physical clicking began to wear on my wrist. 
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Fujitsu ScanSnap IX1500

The Fujitsu ScanSnap is one of the best pieces of office hardware I’ve ever owned, and by far the easiest to use scanner. For research I’ll often buy a used copy of a book, remove the binding, and send the sheets through the ScanSnap. It automagically performs OCR, creating a fully searchable and editable PDF. I have an older model, but the IX1500 has the same goodness. My one gripe with it is that Fujitsu stopped updating the driver for my model, but I found a better driver on the Mac App Store, and it still works great after a decade.
Optical. LG Electronics 6X Blu Ray Writer  M-Disc support put this over the top for me.
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Power. My office has 3 battery backup units, and for the last year or so none of them has worked. I don’t need them.
I’m well aware of power issues. That’s why I had 3 BBUs in the first place. But with much of my storage in the cloud, and powerful battery powered computing off-line, I no longer see the point of BBUs. Surge protectors, yes. BBUs, no.

Humanscale Freedom
Humanscale Inc.
My chair is almost as important as my display, and the Humanscale Freedom chair is the best. Unlike the popular, and similarly priced, Herman Miller Aeron chair, which has a dozen or more adjustments that you may never get right, the Freedom adjusts when you sit. You can adjust seat height, arms, lower back support, and headrest. The rest is automatic, thanks to a clever lever system. I’ve had mine for 15 years and it’s still going strong.
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Enacfire E60
Enacfire Inc.
I went through quite a few wireless headphones before I found the Enacfire E60 earbuds that were good quality, easy to use, with long battery life, and cost way less than Apple’s audio. I’m currently testing the Enacfire F1 earbuds, and they seem to be more of the same in an even smaller case.
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USB-C cables. I carry several short – 6″ or so – cables so I can plug in anything that needs plugging in.

Home Office Tours

Add-on storage. I hate paying Apple’s inflated prices for internal storage, so I typically buy the minimum configuration – 64GB then and 128 GB now – and carry an add-on USB SSD. I like the new blade form factors – M.2 – and there are many 3rd party cases for them on Amazon.
The Take
Office is office. Mobile is mobile. I’ve stopped trying to meld the two and the flexibility and redundancy of the approach works well for me. 
Messing with home infrastructure is, for some people, a rewarding hobby, and even a paying job. I’m not one of those people. For me, they’re tools. Checking drivers and troubleshooting network issues is irritating, not fun.
That’s why I’m willing to pay top prices for essential gear, like the SM7B or the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard. For the future I’m expecting great things from Apple Silicon. For one, a 32 inch iMac that can handle multiple 4k video streams. But I’ll cross that bridge when – and if – we get there.
Comments welcome, of course. 

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After several delays, SpaceX has finally launched its 12th Starlink Mission, which brings its internet-beaming satellite constellation to just under the 800 it needs to deliver moderate coverage in North America.  

Networking

With this latest launch at Tuesday, 7:29 am EDT from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, SpaceX has now launched 775 Linux-powered Starlink satellites. But, via CBS News, only 728 Starlink satellites remain in orbit, according to astronomer Jonathan McDowell’s latest Space Report.  
As noted by Space.com, before Tuesday’s successful Starlink launch, SpaceX had scrubbed four attempted launches due to weather and other issues. SpaceX integration and test engineer Siva Bharadvaj said Tuesday was “a happy end to Scrub-tober”.
SEE: Network security policy (TechRepublic Premium)
More importantly for broadband-starved potential customers in the US, this latest batch of 60 Starlink satellites clears the way for a public beta in northern US and possibly southern Canada. 
“Once these satellites reach their target position, we will be able to roll out a fairly wide public beta in northern US and hopefully southern Canada. Other countries to follow as soon as we receive regulatory approval,” tweeted SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. 

Starlink has been running a private beta since July in parts of northern US and while it has had coverage of southern Canada, services there are pending regulatory approval. However, the private beta was largely limited to SpaceX employees, according to TechCrunch. 
One group Musk said SpaceX has prioritized is emergency services. Last week, the Washington state military’s emergency-management unit revealed it had been using seven Starlink end-user terminals for connectivity since early August in fire-ravaged parts of the state.    
In an update after Tuesday’s launch, SpaceX said the way Washington’s first responders deployed Starlink in Malden, just south of Spokane, Washington, is “representative of how Starlink works best – in remote or rural areas where internet connectivity is unavailable”.
The public beta means more would-be Starlink customers, who are looking to ditch sub-par broadband connections, traditional satellite services, and mobile broadband substitutes, will have a chance to test SpaceX’s satellite broadband service. 
SEE: Starlink starts to deliver on its satellite internet promise
Starlink satellites orbit Earth at an altitude of about 500km, or 311 miles, far closer to Earth than traditional conventional satellite broadband services.    
Richard Hall, the emergency telecommunications leader of the Washington State Military Department’s IT division, vouched for Starlink’s broadband throughput, low latency, and ease of setting up the ‘UFO on a stick’ end-user terminals.  
SpaceX in August applied to the Federal Communications Commission to boost the number of end-user terminals it’s permitted to deploy from one million to five million, after 700,000 US residents signed up to be updated about the service’s availability.
SpaceX recently presented the FCC Starlink internet performance tests showing it was capable of download speeds of between 102Mbps to 103Mbps, upload speeds of 40.5Mbps to not quite 42Mbps, and a latency of 18 milliseconds to 19 milliseconds. 
However, SpaceX still has some way to go in ramping up production of the end-user terminals. Currently, it has the capacity to produce “thousands of consumer user terminals per month”. 

The latest launch means SpaceX has now launched 775 Linux-powered Starlink satellites.
Image: SpaceX
More on Elon Musk’s SpaceX and internet-beaming satellites More

When it comes to covering your home or small office — which are often the same things these days — with Wi-Fi, it’s hard to beat mesh networking. Now Eero, an Amazon company, is introducing Eero for Service Providers. This is an all-new hardware and software offering designed to help internet service providers (ISPs) meet customers’ increasing demands for exceptional home Wi-Fi.
This is not just a bundling of a selection of Eero Wi-Fi mesh routers with your existing internet service. It also includes remote network management for your ISP and security and privacy management tools for you.
The bundle starts, of course, with the routers. Besides offering Eero’s existing whole-home mesh Wi-Fi systems to customers, ISPs will also get access to the all-new Eero 6 series. These come with Wi-Fi 6. This new Wi-Fi technology supports faster speeds and more simultaneously connected devices. Eero claims that this is its fastest Wi-Fi network yet. 
There are two models:

The Eero Pro 6, which is a tri-band router that offers a single band and connects via 2.4GHz, but it also offers two bands for 5GHz to allow more devices to connect at the fastest speeds. It can cover up to 2,000 square feet per router. 
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Eero Pro 6’s less expensive brother, the Eero 6, is a dual-band device that can cover up to 1,500 square feet. Both the Pro 6 and Eero 6 have two Ethernet ports and a USB-C port for charging devices.
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These new devices also come with a built-in Zigbee smart home hub. This IEEE 802.15.4 personal-area network standard Internet of Things (IoT) hub lets you manage compatible IoT devices on your networks. This way you don’t need a separate Zigbee hub. 
The new Eero Secure will give both users and ISPs advanced security and privacy subscription service. This blocks malware, spyware, phishing, and other malicious threats. It also comes with built-in, ad blocking, and content filtering
For ISPs, Eero Insight builds on Eero’s existing Remote Network Management software. This combines monitoring user history to predict and address customer problems before they change from annoyances to real problems. It also includes network monitoring tools such as a network topology viewer, historical speed tests and bandwidth usage, RF diagnostics, alerts, audit logs, outage detection, fleet analysis, and network health. 
For users, all this should mean a more reliable internet connection and that’s always good news.
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Image: Asha Barbaschow/ZDNet
Optus Business announced on Tuesday it has picked up a quintet of managed network services contracts totalling AU$233 million from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
The telco said under the terms it would deliver all fixed voice, mobile voice and data, bulk SMS, unified communication, contact centre, and network management services. The ATO has over 24,000 end users across more than 60 locations, it added.
“ATO’s contact centre operations are some of the most advanced in the country, with call volumes peaking to more than 100,000 calls per day,” Optus said.
“These operations are enabled with advanced call routing, an award-winning digital agent (‘Alex’) and the largest pool of voice biometric data in the country to deliver enhanced ATO customer experience outcomes and reduce fraudulent activity.”
Tempting fate, Optus Business managing director Chris Mitchell said security was central to discussion around the deal.
“The ATO and Optus Business will continue to focus on security as a core component to the ongoing design and delivery of services to ensure the continuous protection of the ATO, its data, and its interactions with Australian citizens and businesses,” he said.
The ATO initially selected Optus for its managed network in 2009 when it displaced Dimension Data. The contracts were extended in 2015.
Earlier on Tuesday, Optus announced it was price matching the “upfront retail price” of 5G handsets from competitors.
Not to be left out, Telstra said on Tuesday morning it had conducted a series of tests in Sydney between its network and a “competitor network”, in places where both networks have five bars of coverage. Telstra claimed it won in every test and was around 50% faster.
The unnamed competitor was Optus, as shown on its social posts.
Although Telstra said it had triple-digit speeds in all of its tests, a speed test conducted last week in an area with two bars of 5G coverage received only 91Mbps down and 3.3Mbps up. A test in the same location on LTE received 63Mbps down and 13.4Mbps up.
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Microsoft has released an optional preview update for Windows 10 version 2004 that addresses Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 issues that emerged after September’s Patch Tuesday update. 
The preview update KB4577063 for Windows 10 version 2004, aka the May 2020 Update, bumps up this version to build number 19041.546.

Windows 10

This preview update brings many of the same fixes Microsoft released in last week’s 20H2 Beta preview for Insiders on the Release Preview Channels. Microsoft is expected to release 20H2, or the Windows 10 October 2020 Update, either this month or in November.
SEE: Windows 10 Start menu hacks (TechRepublic Premium)
Two key issues addressed in this optional update for Windows 10 2004 are the WSL 2 bugs and a lingering connectivity issue with WWAN LTE modems.
The update addresses an issue in WSL that generates an ‘Element not found’ error when users try to start WSL. 
The other is a connectivity issue affecting devices with certain WWAN LTE modems, which prompted Microsoft to impose a safeguard hold on August 31, preventing users on Windows 10 1903 and 1909 from upgrading to Windows 10 2004. 
“Addresses an issue with certain WWAN LTE modems that might show no internet connection in the notification area after waking from sleep or hibernation. Additionally, these modems might not be able to connect to the internet,” Microsoft notes. 
With this LTE modem fix, Microsoft is preparing to remove the block on Windows 10 2004 upgrades in mid-October, likely after Microsoft releases the October Patch Tuesday update, which is scheduled for October 13. 
This update adds a notification to Internet Explorer 11 to alert users that support for Adobe Flash ends December 2020. It also addresses an issue that causes games using spatial audio to stop working, and reduces distortions in Windows Mixed Reality head-mounted displays. 
Like the update for 20H2, it ensures new Windows Mixed Reality HMDs meet minimum specification requirements and default to a 90Hz refresh rate and adds support for certain new Windows Mixed Reality motion controllers.
SEE: Seven Windows 10 annoyances (and how to fix them)
Some applications that use Windows APIs to check for internet connectivity were not opening because a network icon was incorrectly displaying ‘No internet access’. That should be fixed now. 
“This issue occurs if you use a group policy or local network configuration to disable active probing for the Network Connectivity Status Indicator (NCSI). This also occurs if active probing fails to use a proxy and passive probes fail to detect internet connectivity,” Microsoft explained.

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Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto
Optus announced on Friday a new routing product named Game Path where NBN users will be able to pay AU$10 a month for fewer hops of their traffic.
The company is targeting gamers, with users needing to run an application in Windows to take advantage of it. The Singaporean-owned telco said Game Path can “reduce lag on average by 30% — which can mean the difference between life and death in a PC game”.
Optus told ZDNet it was not using any traffic prioritisation, explaining that NBN connections would remain TC-4. Instead, traffic will travel over the fastest available path “using proxy technology, choosing the most optimal/lowest latency path for gaming traffic across the internet”.
“It does this by accessing hundreds of POPs all over the world and constantly analysing the fastest path to gaming servers,” a spokesperson said.
“This will create the most benefit when considering international-based servers.”
The company said in the future it might have the ability to make the routing “100% network-based”, but this would depend on what is learnt from the current offer.
“The app is required to identify the real-time communications traffic on the PC and apply the routing via proxy technology,” it said.
“The more people using Game Path, the smarter it will get overtime.”
On Thursday, Optus-owner Singtel announced its current consumer business chief Yuen Kuan Moon would assume the role of group CEO next year when Chua Sock Koong retires.
Earlier that day, Optus also announced it was partnering with Australian National University to develop a national system to detect and extinguish fires using a mixture of satellites, drones, and robotics.
“We hope to develop a system that can locate a fire within the first few minutes of ignition and extinguish it soon afterwards,” ANU vice-chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt said.
“ANU is designing and looking to build highly innovative water gliders with autopilots that will extinguish fires within minutes of them igniting.”
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