Networking

A new research paper by the Productivity Commission has indicated that while working from home is not for everyone, it is likely to stay even after the COVID-19 pandemic.The research paper [PDF] found that prior to the pandemic, about 8% of people regularly worked from home. These people were most likely female, older than those who did not work from home, worked part-time, provided care for children and people with disability, and lived in regional or remote areas. This percentage, however, increased to 40%, even when stay-at-home orders eased in early 2021. “While this percentage may not always remain so high it is inevitable that more Australians will work from home,” Productivity Commission chair Michael Brennan said.The report also showed that the pandemic created a “forced experiment” on workers and firms when it came to working from home, showing many jobs — mainly those occupations that typically use computers and require less public interaction — could work remotely. The report highlighted some benefits that came with working from home included cost and time savings as employees did not have to commute into work, the ability to work effectively from home, and flexibility to combine paid work with other tasks. More control over time, including giving people time to sleep, exercise, and cook nutritious food were also cited as benefits. There are also downsides to working from home, the report said. It pointed out working from home could have long-term effects on career prospects as it reduces opportunities for networking and face-to-face interaction with managers, as well as mental and physical health effects due to increased social isolation and hours of work. The Productivity Commission said it expected workers and firms to negotiate what working-from-home arrangements would look like going forward, dubbing it the “second wave of experimentation” involving some trial and error. A so-called hybrid model where workers split their time between the office and home is also anticipated to be a popular outcome.

“Working from home won’t suit everyone or every business but for many employees working from home arrangements will be a factor in deciding which job to take,” Brennan said.”Some employees have even indicated they would be prepared to take less pay in return for the ability to work from home.”These findings are further echoed by research that Microsoft carried out internally. According to Microsoft ANZ chief operating officer Steven Miller, nearly three-quarters of staff wanted to return to the office to collaborate in-person with co-workers and for social interaction but at the same time, they enjoyed skipping the commute into the office and a healthy work-life balance. He described this feedback as a paradox that many companies will face post-pandemic and something that would need to be considered.”Every leader, every organisation will need to create new operating models across people, places, and process, and those same companies will need to have a better employee experience for all employees, whether that be in the virtual boardroom or on the factory floor, or the retail store. Those companies that attract and retain their better talent will thrive in the next phase of our post-pandemic recovery,” Miller said. The Productivity Commission report also noted the potential role that regulation could play as work-from-home arrangements grow. It raised questions about what health and safety risks could arise when working from home, what responsibilities firms have to address common household risks, and how firms could ensure workers have the “right to disconnect”. It warned that government needed to monitor regulations to “ensure they are safe and fair as well as flexible and efficient, and continue to reflect the reality of many people’s daily work”, but it believes no immediate action needs to be taken. “On balance working from home can unlock significant gains in terms of flexibility and time for employees and could even increase the nation’s productivity,” Brennan said.”Risks can be managed but we should keep an eye on them and be ready to intervene if necessary.”Westpac switches branch legacy phone system for Microsoft Teams CallingWestpac said it will begin rolling out Microsoft Teams Calling at all its branches to support its increasingly remote workforce.The move will see Westpac consolidate its multiple legacy phone and voicemail systems into a single cloud-based platform that will allow voicemails to be transcribed in Teams and access via mobile phone. The move comes off the back of Westpac deploying software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) technology in all branches last year to improve the speed of internet and technology capabilities.”The SD-WAN deployment last year really set the foundation for us to deliver improved digital solutions in branches,” Westpac workplaces services head Paul McKenna said. “MS Teams Calling means our branch employees are able to answer customer calls from anywhere, which is particularly important as employees in some COVID hotspots are working remotely.”Since deploying SD-WAN in branches, Westpac said it has also commenced the rollout of the technology in its corporate sites and will start deployment in international offices next year. Related Coverage More

Cisco
Cisco executives on Wednesday outlined the strategic pillars that will drive forward its business over the next four years, forecasting revenue and earnings growth of 5% to 7% through 2025. At the 2021 Investor Day, the company said it’s targeting a $400 billion total addressable market (TAM) in existing and expansion markets and another $500 billion of potential TAM in adjacent markets. 
Cisco
“It’s clear we’re not opportunity constrained,”  Liz Centoni, Cisco Chief Strategy Officer and GM of applications, said at the event. “There are meaningful opportunities in each of our existing markets with ample room to penetrate even further within each one… The expansion markets are large, and they’re growing with significant opportunities tied to higher CAGRs.”CEO Chuck Robbins said the future of the business will stand on six technology areas: secure, agile networks; hybrid work; security; internet for the future; optimized application experiences; and capabilities at the edge. “Those are the technology areas we think are leading customers in multi-year investment cycles,” Robbins said. 
Cisco
Meanwhile, from a business model perspective, Cisco is in an ongoing effort to increase increase its subscription software revenue. When Robbins took the helm of Cisco in 2015, the company brought in $3.4 billion in subscription software. In fiscal year 2021, it was nearly $12 billion. Eighty percent of Cisco’s software is now sold as a subscription. Meanwhile, Cisco’s $15 billion in FY 21 software revenue makes it one of the 10 biggest software companies in the world, noted CFO Scott Herren. “That’s a very under-appreciated aspect of the transition we’ve made over the years,” he said. 
Cisco

Robbins acknowledged the vision for Cisco’s future is complex. “The technology we build and deliver — it’s a broad portfolio, and it is complicated,” he said. He added, however, “We have probably the most precise execution tied back to our strategy that we’ve had in as long as I can remember.”Robbins highlighted Cisco’s growing business with web scalers and its focus on the cloud as an example of the company’s evolution over recent years. The webscale space now represents 30% of Cisco’s service provider segment. “Four or five years ago, cloud was viewed as a negative headwind for Cisco,” Robbins said. On a later conference call, he added, “This existential threat that was cloud five years ago has now become a driver of not only our overall business [but also] our transformation, which is contributing to the subscription space.” More

Dubbed Grace Hopper, the subsea cable uses new optical fiber switching to boost capacity.
Image: Google
Google has completed the UK leg of its private trans-Atlantic subsea cable connecting the US, the UK and Spain, offering it more secure connections than what’s available on the public internet. Dubbed Grace Hopper after the computer science pioneer who among many other things helped design the COBOL programming language, the subsea cable uses new optical fiber switching to boost capacity. 

Google funded the subsea 16-fibre pair cable that connects New York to Bude, Cornwall, about 250 miles south of London, and Bilbao on Spain’s Atlantic north coast. It will also support Google’s new cloud region in Madrid. SEE: Is remote working good or bad? Big tech companies just can’t seem to decideThe Grace Hopper cable is a milestone for Google as it’s the company’s first self-funded cable to the UK and similarly was the first self-funded cable to Spain. It’s also one of the first new cables to connect the US and the UK since 2003.Google says it signals its ongoing investments in the UK to support users of its core products, such as Google Maps, Search, Gmail, various Workspace apps, and Meet, as well as UK tech firms that use Google Cloud Platform.”Improving the diversity and resilience of Google’s network is crucial to our ability to continue supporting one of the UK’s most vital sectors, as well as its long-term economic success,” says Jayne Stowell, a strategic negotiator for Google Cloud’s global infrastructure.

The other selling point of the subsea cable is that it supports video meetings and other online services that became essential to replacing in-person meetings during the pandemic.  “With the ongoing pandemic fostering a new digital normal, Google-funded subsea cables allow us to plan and prepare for the future capacity needs of our customers, no matter where they are in the world. Grace Hopper will connect the UK to help meet the rapidly growing demand for high-bandwidth connectivity and services,” says Stowell. “The multi-directional switching architecture is a significant breakthrough for uncertain times, and will more tightly integrate the upcoming Google Cloud region in Madrid into our global infrastructure,” she added. Google’s other subsea cables include Curie, between Chile and Los Angeles; Equiano, between Portugal and South Africa; Dunant, which connects the US and France, along with a Havfrue link in Denmark; the recently announced subsea cable called Apricot, connecting Singapore, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia; and the companion Echo subsea cable connecting the US, Singapore, Guam and Indonesia.Across the world undersea cables are becoming part of the geopolitical calculations of many countries. And the Atlantic Council, a US think tank, this week raised an alarm about threats to subsea internet cable infrastructure. “The undersea cables that carry Internet traffic around the world are an understudied and often underappreciated element of modern Internet geopolitics, security, and resilience. It is estimated that upwards of 95 percent of intercontinental Internet traffic is carried over these cables,” the Atlantic Council warned in a paper urging the Biden Administration to bolster protections for this infrastructure. SEE: Video meeting overload is real. Here’s how you can to stop the stress building upThe council has particular concerns about China’s growing influence on private subsea cables through its own internet giants. “Authoritarian governments, especially in Beijing, are reshaping the Internet’s physical layout through companies that control Internet infrastructure, to route data more favorably, to route data more favorably, gain better control of internet chokepoints, and potentially gain espionage advantage,” it notes. “Second, more companies that manage undersea cables are using network management systems to centralize control over active components (such as reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) and robotic patch bays in remote network operations centers), which introduces new levels of operational security risk. Third, the explosive growth of cloud computing has increased the volume and sensitivity of data crossing these cables.” More

Juniper Networks on Tuesday announced updates to its enterprise portfolio that will make it easier for organizations to deploy, operate and troubleshoot campus networks. The enhancements include a new campus fabric management capability that should help enterprises handle the growing number of mobile and IoT devices on their networks. Juniper is also expanding the capabilities of the the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, to offer more proactive problem remediation.Both updates are ultimately about improving the user experience, said Christian Gilby, Juniper’s Senior Director of Product Marketing for the AI-driven enterprise. “It’s about the user device experience, but it’s also about IT experience,” he told ZDNet. “I think that’s been one of the things that the industry has really not paid enough attention to in the past — how do we make it easier for an IT team to manage and operate the network, especially if you look at what’s been going on devices-wise. You’ve got more and more devices coming into the network, and you’ve got to start to automate and leverage AI, so that you can deal with all of those devices.”Juniper is giving customers AI-driven campus fabric management capabilities via Juniper Mist Wired Assurance, the platform used to manage wired access in the campus. With EVPN-VXLAN campus fabric management, customers will be able to segment traffic in critical ways. A health care customer, for example, may have to segment its network to handle a growing number of device types, from patient smartphones connecting to Netflix to heart monitors and infusion pumps. Traditionally, campus networks have used VLANs for fabric management, but that solution doesn’t offer the ability to scale or segregate traffic as today’s device landscape requires. “For example, you don’t want an HVAC system on the same network as point of sale, because historically a lot of those security breaches have happened there,” Gilby said. “So it’s all about how do we secure the network and do it with simplicity.”

The Juniper Mist Cloud gives administrators a simple UI from which they can choose a topology, define networks of interest, identify required physical connections and apply the correct underlying policies.Meanwhile, Juniper is also expanding the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant (VNA) for AI-driven, proactive troubleshooting. Marvis Actions takes insight derived from the Mist AI engine, such as the root cause of a problem, and recommends solutions for IT managers. Juniper is adding new actions, including persistently failing wired/wireless clients, bad cables, access point (AP) coverage holes, bad WAN links and insufficient RF capacity, among others.   One of Juniper’s customers, a large retailer, used the service to analyze its more than 150,000 store access points. It found coverage holes in seven of its stores. “It’s for needle in the haystack kinds of problems, and this is what AI is really well suited to do,” Gilby said.

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The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has charged former Vocus chair Vaughan Garfield Bowen for allegedly performing insider trading after he sold millions of the company’s shares just prior to the announcement it had failed to be acquired for the third time in as many years.Bowen has been charged with two counts of insider trading for disposing of over 5.6 million shares. Bowen allegedly had inside knowledge of EQT Infrastructure withdrawing its proposal to acquire Vocus in June 2019.Bowen is currently an executive director for Uniti Group and was the founder of M2 Group, which merged with Vocus in 2016. Following the merger, Bowen had a stint as Vocus’ chairman in early 2018 [PDF]. EQT Infrastructure had offered to acquire Vocus at AU$5.25 per share in May 2019, but the deal fell through a few weeks later during the deal’s due diligence process.At the time, Vocus had received interest from various potential suitors, but it repeatedly could not seal the deal. In 2017, private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Affinity Equity Partners both submitted separate offers to acquire Vocus, but both of those offers were eventually terminated due to the network provider missing its FY17 net profit guidance.Two years later, EQT Infrastructure put out its offer before quickly rescinding it. Energy provider AGL then presented an offer shortly after, but that was also dropped due to there not being “sufficient certainty of creating value”.Vocus was finally acquired in June of this year after a consortium consisting of Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) and superannuation fund Aware Super bought the network provider for around AU$3.5 billion, or AU$5.50 per share.

MIRA started its chase of Vocus at the start of February, while Aware Super joined the fray later that month after it was spurned by greenfields fibre company Opticomm last year.If found guilty, Bowen could face up to 30 years of imprisonment.Bowen will face a committal mention hearing in the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria in December. RELATED COVERAGE More

Image: Getty Images
Japanese telco KDDI said on Monday it planned to use SpaceX Starlink as a backhaul provider for connecting 1,200 remote towers. Due to the low-Earth orbit of the satellite, KDDI claimed it would offer “an urban mobile connectivity experience” to those in the country. The backhaul is set to be operational some time in 2022. Starlink currently has an experimental licence in Japan for its ground station installed at KDDI’s Yamaguchi Satellite Communication Center, with both companies involved in conducting tests on the solution. Last month, Elon Musk announced that Starlink had shipped 100,000 terminals to customers. Under the project, beta services are currently operating in 11 different countries. SpaceX outlined as part of beta services that users can expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mbps to 150Mbps and latency from 20ms to 40ms in “most locations over the next several months” while the Starlink system continues to be enhanced. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all, the company added. Starlink previously said it expected its global satellite broadband service to be live this month. In May, it was announced that Google and SpaceX signed a deal to put Starlink ground stations in Google data centres. Related Coverage More

The most important program on your PC is your web browser. Oh sure, your bread and butter work may be on QuickBooks, Photoshop, or Premiere Pro, but where do you find information or exchange emails? Answer: Your web browser. Heck, Google has proven that all you really need to do most work is the Chrome web browser on a Chromebook.  And, Microsoft wants you to move to the web-based Windows 365 Cloud PC. And, what do you need to get the most from your web browser? Speed, speed, and still more speed. 

Web browser developers know this, so lately there’s been a lot of effort behind making them ever faster. So, who’s the fastest now?  I put the most popular Windows 10 browsers to the test. Here are our contenders in order of popularity. First comes Google Chrome 93. It’s easily the most popular web browser. Next up is Microsoft Edge 93, which recently switched to using Google’s open-source Chromium web browser. Today, except for Mozilla Firefox, all the web browsers that matter, such as Opera, Vivaldi and Brave, run on top of Chrome’s open-source base Chromium. Firefox, while declining in popularity, is the third-most popular Windows web browser.Believe it or not, Internet Explorer (IE) 11 is still hanging in there, coming in as the next-most popular Windows 10 web browser. However, even on my 2018 browser benchmarks, it was just awful. I took a quick look at it, and I decided that between Microsoft getting ready to retire it and its dreadful performance, I wouldn’t waste time benchmarking it. If you’re still using IE, just stop already. You’ll be better with anything else.Firefox was followed by Opera 78. This was originally a Norwegian-based browser, but it was acquired by a Chinese private-equity company in 2016. Next is Brave 1.29. This open-source browser’s owners claim to do the best job of protecting your privacy. Still, in 2020 they admitted to sharing default autocomplete answers with an affiliate cryptocurrency exchange. Finally, there’s Vivaldi 4.1. This was started by Opera expatriates, who missed the original Opera’s community and look-and-feel. Although all of these browsers, except Firefox, are clone brothers, they do not have the same performance. Each vendor has changed the Chromium code to make them quite different from each other. I benchmarked these browsers on my Windows 10 Beelink GTR7 Mini test PC. This runs Window 10 Pro May 2021 Update, version 21H1. It’s powered by a 4GHz AMD Ryzen 7 3750H processor. The CPU is backed by 16GB DDR4 RAM. For storage, it comes equipped with a 512GB NVMe SSD. It’s connected to the internet via my NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch (GS108) and a Spectrum Gigabit cable connection, which really delivers just over 900 Megabits per second (Mbps) speeds. 

With everything ready and the PC cleaned up of all non-essential software, it was time for testing.JetSteam 2First up was JetSteam 2.0, which is made up of 64 smaller tests. This JavaScript and WebAssembly benchmark suite focuses on advanced web applications. It rewards browsers that start up quickly, execute code quickly and run smoothly. Higher scores are better on this benchmark.Chrome won this competition easily with a score of 114.132. Opera, somewhat to my surprise, came in second with 105.95. Behind it was Edge with 103.774. Next was Vivaldi with 100.437, with a small lead over Brave’s 99.231. The real surprise, though, was Firefox with a dismal 73.208.Speedometer 2.0Speedometer is a newish web browser benchmark. Created by Apple’s WebKit team, it measures the responsiveness of JavaScript-based Web applications. To do this, it uses demo web applications to simulate user actions such as adding to-do items. Once more, higher scores are better on this test. Once more, Chrome comes out comfortably on top with a score of 124. Only Edge came relatively close to Chrome by scoring 109.1. Dropping way back, Chrome and Edge were followed by Opera at 99.3, and Firefox at 90.3. Then, there’s another considerable dropoff in performance to Vivaldi at 80.4 and Brave at 79.3.Kraken 1.1Next up: Kraken 1.1. This benchmark, which is based on the long-obsolete SunSpider, measures JavaScript performance. To this basic JavaScript testing, it added typical use-case scenarios. Mozilla, Firefox’s parent organization, created Kraken. With this benchmark, the lower the score in milliseconds (ms), the better the result.You would think that Firefox should ace this benchmark. It doesn’t. Chrome took first place here with 891.9 ms. Opera came in a distant second with 974.1 ms. Behind it came Edge at 1016.8ms Vivaldi at 1043.8 ms and Brave at 1059.2 ms in a logjam. Then, and only then, does Firefox make a last-place appearance with a pathetic 1279 ms.Octane 2.0Octane 2.0, Google’s JavaScript benchmark, is no longer supported, but it’s still a useful benchmark thanks to its scenario testing for interactive web applications. Octane is not Chrome-specific. For example, it tests how fast Microsoft’s TypeScript compiles itself. In this benchmark, the higher the score, the better.On this Google benchmark, Chrome took the blue ribbon with a score of 39,828. Behind it there’s a pile-up for second place with Opera at 37,789, Vivaldi at 36,417,  Brave with 37,072 and Edge with 37,019. Way, way back in last place, you’ll find Firefox with 20,014.WebXPRT 3.0The latest version of WebXPRT is the best browser benchmark available today. It’s produced by the benchmark professionals at Principled Technology This company’s senior staff were the founders of the Ziff Davis Benchmark Operation, the gold standard of PC benchmarking.WebXPRT uses scenarios created to mirror everyday tasks. These include Photo Enhancement, Organize Album, Stock Option Pricing, Local Notes, Sales Graphs, and DNA Sequencing. Here, the higher the score, the better the browser.On this benchmark, Firefox shines. It was an easy winner with a score of 213. Chrome took second place with 187. Then, there’s a pile-up from third through fifth place: Edge and Opera are in a dead tie for third with 178. They’re followed by Vivaldi at 170 and Brave at 165.HTML 5 web standardYou’d think by 2021, every browser would comply with the HTML 5 web standard, which became a standard in 2014. You’d be wrong. This “test” isn’t a benchmark. It just shows how close each browser comes to being in sync with the HTML 5 standard. A perfect score, which none got, would have been 550.For a real change of pace with web HTML compatibility, four of the browsers — Brave, Chrome, Vivaldi and Edge — scored 528. Opera, with 526, scored just below the quartet.  In last place was Firefox with 513.Final ResultsSo, which is really the fastest? It used to be a real mixed bag in my earlier browser tests, but these days Google Chrome has a solid lead over everyone else. The one exception was Firefox, which usually scored dead last, but did manage to snag a surprise win on the WebXPRT benchmark.I have other problems with Firefox, including both its management and its developers’ indifference to what Firefox users want from the browser. So for me, it’s an easy choice. The best, and largely the fastest, web browser is Chrome. If privacy is your top priority, however, keep looking.  Related Stories: More

Security software provider Fortinet and networking hardware maker Linksys have introduced a new joint security-connectivity package designed to give enterprises a smoother and more efficient way to enable work-from-home networks. The idea is to give remote workers the same level of enterprise-level security and connectivity as they would get from an office location.The companies claim that Linksys HomeWRK for Business | Secured by Fortinet, announced Sept. 13 and planned for release in Q4, is the first enterprise solution to provide continuous secure network connectivity for remote corporate work in a router pre-optimized for business applications and collaboration tools, including Zoom and others. The single device enables the operation of two separate, secure networks within the home, for both business and personal uses, Fortinet and Linksys told ZDNet. Fortinet is a leading global enterprise security software provider; Linksys sells about 70 percent of its routers to consumers and is trying to increase its presence in the B2B market, CEO Harry Dewhirst told ZDNet. “The two biggest issues in remote work are connectivity quality of service and security,” Dewhirst said. “Most homes don’t have high-quality networking (meaning seamless coverage, room-to-room roaming), and they may have VPNs and client software on their devices (for security), but they’re meant for occasional use. They’re not meant for days, weeks, months, years of use. “We see the collaboration between Linksys and Fortinet as something that brings together two best-of-breed solutions to solve the two issues that every company has experienced.”With the rapid increase in remote and hybrid work during the last 18 months, enterprise IT teams are reprovisioning their workforces to operate more effectively from outside the office while protecting their organizations from security threats that include ransomware, malware, and phishing attacks–many of which are introduced by home networks. 

A recent survey from Sungard Availability Services revealed that only about 20 percent of companies are fully confident their infrastructure security can support long-term remote work.”Our goal was two-fold: First, make it very simple for anyone to set up a fast and reliable home Wi-Fi network. Second, we wanted to provide enterprise IT with the ability to secure and manage the business aspects of that work-from-home Wi-Fi network, just as they do with any other device attached to the network,” John Maddison, EVP of products and CMO at Fortinet, said. “The Linksys and Fortinet joint venture is not just a simple OEM agreement of two distinct parties, it’s the start of a completely new market.”Key featuresThe new offering, expected to become available later in 2021, will feature the following:Secure Wi-Fi mesh connectivity: HomeWRK uses Wi-Fi 6 tri-band technology and Linksys’ Velop Intelligent Mesh software in a single router. Enterprise IT teams can distribute the provision-free hardware to employees to replace their existing home router to establish both corporate and personal networks that cover the entire physical location.Enterprise-grade security: Fortinet’s software guards against cyber threats introduced by home networks and automatically blocks suspicious malware, prevents intrusions, and filters harmful content.Zero-touch provisioning: Streamlines the employee onboarding experience with simple plug-and-connect devices that don’t require physical assistance from corporate IT teams to install. The solution also includes a guided app for best placement of nodes at home. Simple remote management: Management console enables enterprise IT managers to monitor and diagnose the performance of all devices connected to the corporate network in real-time via a single portal. The solution is natively integrated with Fortinet management systems to further streamline management for existing Fortinet customers. Employees are also able to manage their personal network via a separate console with visibility and control of all personal devices.Employee privacy protection: Remote employees’ privacy is protected with support for multiple networks. While the corporate network is managed by the IT team, employees maintain complete ownership of the personal network and security settings, allowing all household members to benefit from a fast and secure connection for non-corporate devices, such as laptops and gaming consoles. Corporate and personal networks are separated with no visibility or access to personal information granted to corporate IT teams, Fortinet said.Linksys-Fortinet HomeWRK will be available in the United States in Q4 2021 and globally beginning in Q1 2022 on hardware-as-a-service subscription plans that require no upfront investment for enterprise IT teams, the companies said. Two levels of service give enterprises flexibility in supporting their remote and hybrid workers: Standard includes two nodes with standard Fortinet security, and Advanced includes two nodes with advanced Fortinet security. Additional nodes to extend coverage will be available, the companies said. More