The US government is worried there might not be enough trained workers to fill the needs of the CHIPS act. President Biden has announced a Workforce Partner Alliance (WFPA) to ensure the gap for skilled workers will be closed as soon as possible. WFPA is designed to reward providers with grants of between $500,000 and $2 million to provide the training for these new chip facilities. Is this something that we can count on? Or will it turn into another boondoggle like ITT Tech? This and more on this week’s Rundown.
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1:19 – CIQ Offers a CentOS Bridge
Last week we talked about SuSe’s Liberty Linux Lite, which offers a lifeline for CentOS 7 users and mentioned that Rocky Linux is another alternative. This week we talked CIQ about their Rocky Linux Bridge, which does pretty much the same thing. But there’s a twist for the biggest enterprise users, in that CIQ offers a site license and will help customers migrate to a future-proof version of Enterprise Linux.
Read More: Navigating the Post-CentOS Era: A Deep Dive into the Linux Revolution
6:12 – CyberRatings Gives Cisco’s Enterprise Firewall a “Caution” Rating
The latest report from CyberRatings has Cisco firewall customers cautionary. That’s because the independent testing firm rated the Cisco Firepower Threat Defense product with a “caution” marking, the only one to receive it. According to the report it’s because the system had a low protection rate and specifically struggled with encrypted traffic analysis and evasion techniques. Cisco denies submitting a firewall to CyberRatings for testing even though CEO Vikram Phatak said he would be happy to provide the model number and software revision.
Read More: Cisco’s enterprise firewall receives ‘caution’ rating from CyberRatings
10:32 – AI Innovation in Oracle HeatWave GenAI
As if the weather wasn’t hot enough, Oracle has decided to start their own HeatWave. This GenAI-focused solution is all about databases, with automated in-database vector stores, scale-out vector processing, and the ability to create context for conversations from unstructured content. The goal is to help Oracle customers build GenAI applications without the need to move data all over the place while also increasing performance over 20x compared to competing solutions from Amazon.
Read More: Oracle HeatWave GenAI: AI Innovation Without Data Movement or Added Expense
17:35 – OpenSSH A Little TOO Open
It’s retro day here on the Rundown, so we’re bringing back an OpenSSH bug in the wild. This exploit, which was patched back in 2006 but was reintroduced in 2020, allows for attackers to exectue arbitrary code on a target system with no need to authenticate. The exploit has been named “regreSSHion” by Qualys, the research company that discovered it. Security analysts are suggesting that this definitely does need to be patched by the likelihood of it being actively exploited in the wild is low due to some technical factors.
Read More: regreSSHion: Remote Unauthenticated Code Execution Vulnerability in OpenSSH server
Read More: “RegreSSHion” vulnerability in OpenSSH gives attackers root on Linux
21:39 – AI Power Draw Dims Net Zero Promises
Although most hyperscale and consumer tech companies promised to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030, the prospects aren’t looking so hot now that AI has taken over their datacenters. Google is the latest, reporting a 48% surge in greenhouse gas emissions over the past five years, and making us wonder how they possibly reach zero. Despite vague claims that AI will help tackle climate change, the industry’s promises seem a lot like vaporware.
Read More:
29:06 – Nokia to Acquire Infinera
Nokia has agreed to purchase optical networking component company Infinera. The deal is valued at $2.3 billion and will see Nokia paying 70% of that in cash. Infinera makes optical components like lasers, transceivers, and more. The company has a substantial marketshare in the optical space. In addition, Nokia is selling their Alcatel Submarine Networks business to the French government for $350 million.
Read More: Google’s greenhouse gas emissions jump 48% in five years
33:27 – CHIPS Act to Train Workers to Avoid Labor Shortages
The US government is worried there might not be enough trained workers to fill the needs of the CHIPS act. President Biden has announced a Workforce Partner Alliance (WFPA) to ensure the gap for skilled workers will be closed as soon as possible. WFPA is designed to reward providers with grants of between $500,000 and $2 million to provide the training for these new chip facilities.
Read More: Nokia to acquire Infinera in $2.3 billion deal to scale up optical network
44:49 – The Weeks Ahead
Networking Field Day Experience at HPE Discover – June 17 – 19
Networking Field Day 35 – July 10 – 11
Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day are now part of The Futurum Group.
The Gestalt IT Rundown is your look at the IT news of the week. Be sure to subscribe to Gestalt IT on YouTube for even more weekly video content.
