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Cisco Systems, the world’s largest network equipment company, has released its largest switch ever. The Nexus 7000 can move 15 terabytes of data per second, and is designed to connect distant data centers together. According to Forbes, that is fast enough to move the entire Wikipedia in about 40 seconds. The 1-meter tall box will require special cabling and cost US$200,000 a year to maintain and operate.

As companies move their servers and data storage into larger data centers, these types of switches are necessary. The continued growth of web-based applications is also supporting this trend. Networks are a lot like plumbing, but there’s only a finite amount of water on the planet. The amount of data produced and stored continues to grow.

According to a Reuters article, John Chambers, the long-time CEO of Cisco, believes network growth will continues at a fast pace for the next ten years as ISPs and data centers add capacity.

Tech: Teachers discuss various problems with computer classrooms. Students surf the web, check e-mail, and don’t pay attention unless instructors have a strong teaching plan and worthwhile activities. One teacher develops computer games tied to the course material. Others walk the classroom constantly.

Teachers and IT staff need to work together. A proxy server works wonders. I have always wanted a cutoff switch that kills the outbound connection for the students. Some network monitoring packages force the same image to appear on all the screens. One teacher discusses how she uses NetOp to record student computer activity for later use in parent-teacher conferences. Those time-date stamps always help. But as more university students bring in their own computers, we get new issues of ownership and control. Students own their computers, but the university provides the bandwidth.

Tech: InfoWorld: You know you’ve got a browser problem when �?�: July 09, 2004: By Oliver Rist : NETWORKING : SECURITY: “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, otherwise known as Dancing with Big Brother, tells the world to stop using the Web browser you fought long and hard to tie into your operating system. That’s what happened to beleaguered Microsoft when the department’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) recently recommended users switch to alternate browser platforms to avoid the security holes in IE caused largely by ActiveX. And Microsoft isn’t objecting. icrosoft’s own Slate even posted an article advocating Firefox, a Mozilla offshoot, in favor of IE until Microsoft gets its security act together. Naturally, those alternate browser platforms have leaped on this opportunity with enthusiasm. Apple, Mozilla, and Opera jointly announced their development of an extension to their plug-in API that will handle ActiveX scripts differently — and apparently more securely — than IE does. All this work is being done in conjunction with Adobe, Macromedia, and Sun Microsystems, specifically to allow support for the companies’ plug-in versions of PDF, Flash, and Java.”

USA: CNN.com Bill Clinton book preview- Jun 18, 2004: “Clinton also said he met with President-elect George W. Bush and told him that the biggest threat to the nation’s security was Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. According to Clinton, Bush said little in response, and then switched subjects.”

Tech: Yahoo! News - Linux: Not for Everyone: “Still, while Linux vendors sing the praises of their products for across-the-board enterprise I.T. operations, a wholesale switch from Windows to Linux may not be the best move for most businesses. ‘If you are taking about basic infrastructure, such as file and print services, network routing or security, those are encapsulated operations that can move from one platform to another,’ IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky told NewsFactor. ”