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Today’s topics include Oracle and Intel teaming up to take on IBM in the data center, Cisco exposes and helps patch NTP vulnerabilities, IBM announces Data Insight Services in collaboration with Twitter and The Weather Company, and Intel purchases cognitive computer vendor Saffron.
Oracle and Intel are teaming up to take on IBM in the data center. On the opening night of the OpenWorld 2015 show Oct. 25 in San Francisco, executives with both tech giants announced a program designed to entice businesses to move their Oracle Database environments off IBM’s Power systems and onto Oracle Engineered Systems powered by Intel processors. The Exa Your Power program includes a proof-of-concept to show qualified customers how easy and cost-effective it is to migrate their data from IBM Power servers onto Intel-based Oracle Exadata Database Machines.
The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a core element of the Internet infrastructure, quite literally helping the technology world as we know it stay on time. As such, news that multiple vulnerabilities have been found in NTP is somewhat concerning. Fortunately, the flaws were found by security researchers actively seeking to improve security for the Internet. Cisco’s Talos research group found, reported and helped fix eight security vulnerabilities in NTP.
IBM announced new IBM Insight Cloud Services in collaboration with Twitter and The Weather Company. The services are designed to help users cut through the noise of unstructured data, and help turn streaming data into insights. IBM made the announcement at its Insight 2015 conference in Las Vegas. The new cloud-based services use analytic models to simplify the process of combining internal and external data, then find and connect important signals to deliver insights.
Intel is pushing deeper into the cognitive computing space with its acquisition of Saffron Technology, a company whose products are designed to mimic the human brain in how it learns and processes information. Such technology has multiple applications for the giant chip maker; however, in announcing the deal, Intel officials focused on not only what it will mean for servers to have cognitive computing capabilities, but also connected consumer devices that make up the fast-growing Internet of things.