The biggest shock to the virtualization community in months hit this past weekend when the press noted that chip giant Broadcom is in talks to purchase VMware. The former stepchild of Dell and EMC was spun off less than a year ago into a separate company. The news mentioned that Broadcom has been looking to expand their software portfolio and VMware would join CA and Symantec in the Broadcom suite. Community reaction to the news was largely negative, with many analysts weighing in on the potential for disaster for VMware customers. This and more on this week’s Rundown.
0:47 | NetApp Acquires Instaclustr
As we discussed on April 13, NetApp closed their acquisition of Instaclustr this week, marking a big move for the storage giant. The pickup is positioned to help NetApp build on their existing cloud expertise and offer database-as-a-service solutions.The technology suite is being hailed as a CloudOps solution, bringing together developers, finance, and security operations teams in a cloud environment to accelerate cloud workload migrations.
Read More: Instaclustr acquisition paves the way for NetApp as PaaS
4:59 | Cisco’s Drawn and Quartered Results
No matter how you slice it, Cisco’s previous quarter wasn’t the best. The compnay reported revenue of $12.8 billion, which is down from the projection of $13.8 billion. Additionally, Cisco lowered their forecast for the remainder of the year up to 5.5%, which is way off the projected 6% growth. CEO Chuck Robbins attributed the wild numbers to a complex path in front of the company, which also includes a significant issue with the ongoing chip shortage.
Read More: Inside Cisco’s No Good, Horrible Quarter
9:20 | DigitalBridge Makes a Switch at Switch
One of the largest data centers in the US is going to be under new ownership. DigitalBridge, a digital infastructure investment firm, is buying Las Vegas-based Switch for $34.25/share, which works out to be around $11 billion. The transaction will take Switch private once again. DigitalBridge has been on a tear buying up data centers such as Vantage and DataBank. Switch has expanded their offerings in locations like Reno, Grand Rapids, and Atlanta and is currently one of the largest data center providers in the world.
Read More: DigitalBridge to Buy Switch for $11 Billion as Data Center M&A Binge Continues
12:45 | US DoJ Loosens Up on CFAA
If you’re someone that has been on the fence about working in the field of security research because of the fear of prosecution then you might like this news story. The US Department of Justice announced last week that they have changed their policy of bringing charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Now, if an individual or company is performing good-faith security research, investigation, or correction of a security flaw they will no longer be prosecuted under the CFAA. The policy change is meant to encourage others to help plug security holes and find flaws that could be exploited by foreign actors while also making it harder for companies to file charges under the CFAA in an effort to avoid being embarrassed by third parties. The new DoJ policy takes place immediately.
Read More: Department of Justice Announces New Policy for Charging Cases under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
16:34 | The Value for Amazon Graviton3
After announcing the new C7g instances based on their in-house Graviton3 chips at re:Invent last year, AWS has finally put these into production. Graviton3 is an unusual design, with a monolithic CPU die and chiplet-based supporting elements. Stranger still, these chips are packed on a 3-socket motherboard!
Read More: The Value Proposition for Amazon’s Graviron3 Server Chip
21:27 | Broadcom Looking to Buy VMware?
The biggest shock to the virtualization community in months hit this past weekend when the press noted that chip giant Broadcom is in talks to purchase VMware. The former stepchild of Dell and EMC was spun off less than a year ago into a separate company. The news mentioned that Broadcom has been looking to expand their software portfolio and VMware would join CA and Symantec in the Broadcom suite. Community reaction to the news was largely negative, with many analysts weighing in on the potential for disaster for VMware customers.
Read More: Broadcom in talks to buy VMware
27:56 | Mysterious Firm Looks to Buy Stake in ARM China?
Most western companies that operate in China operate as a joint venture with a Chinese company to comply with Chinese regulations. ARM is no different. Last week it was announced that a mysterious company called Lotcap Group signed a letter of intent to buy a 51% stake in ARM China. This news comes after reports that ARM China CEO Allen Wu has refused to step down after the board voted to replace him with two co-executives. SoftBank, which owns 49% of ARM China, has been trying to distance the holding from Wu as they seek to make an IPO for ARM after the failed acquisition of ARM by NVIDIA.
Read More: Mysterious firm seeks to buy majority stake in Arm China
35:08 | The Week Ahead
Cisco Live US Taking Place June 14 though 16, 2022
Cloud Field Day 14 is taking place June 22 through June 24, 2022
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