#dyn: the core four

[juliaswickcrs]

FREAKS & GEEKS :: THE CORE FOUR ↳ nancy wheeler, alicia henderson, jonathan byers, steve harrington

Joyce handed her the photograph, a grainy, sepia colored snapshot of one of her fondest memories. Alicia even managed a smile at the sight, crinkling the film in her hands. It had been her eleventh birthday, and Steve and Jonathan had decided to build a pillow fort in the Wheeler’s basement, much like the one Mike had built for Eleven. 

Even Nancy had pitched in, the four of them squishing together under the precarious structure, playing monopoly and go fish and listening to cassette tapes in Steve’s dad’s stereo. Rumours had come out the year prior and Alicia couldn't get enough of it. 

“I’d never seen four kids so close,” Joyce interrupted her thoughts with a smile, “Until Will and the party of course.”

They’d never been that close since. Cause that year Steve met Tommy and Carol, and Nancy had found Barb, leaving Jonathan and Alicia to rely on each other like they always did. And Alicia listened to The Chain every day for a year, wondering how it all went wrong.

They’d never even gotten together for Nancy’s Birthday, or Jonathan’s. Whatever spark the four of them had faded by 1979, and completely petered out when Steve started high school.

But this was proof that it had once existed. 

Nancy in her mom’s suede jacket, Alicia in her plastic birthday crown she’d proudly placed on her head, Jonathan in a shirt he’d probably stolen from his dad, and Steve with his messy head of curls and favorite striped shirt.

And now Jonathan had lost his brother, Nancy had lost her best friend, Steve was a jerk, and Alicia was still listening to The Chain.

tag list: @bisexualterror​ @foxesandmagic @iron-parkr @jvstjewels @camiemendess @a-song-of-quill-and-feather @arrthurpendragon @villain-connoisseur @starcrossedjedis​ @drbobbimorse @noratilney @stanshollaand @kingsmakers @elmunson​ @darth-caillic @mystic-scripture @aliverse​ @misshiraeth98 @chrissymunson​ @asirensrage​ @eddiemunscns

#ocappreciation #ochub #stranger things ocs #fyeahstrangerthingsocs #fyeahstocs #oc: alicia henderson #fic: freaks & geeks #dyn: the core four #one of the saddest parts of Alicia's story is this right here #the way her friendship with Steve and Nancy just slowly decayed over time #and how Jonathan was really the only one there for her but even he started to pull away #that slow miserable feeling of knowing that you and your friends drifted apart and there was nothing you could do to stop it #brb just gonna go cry in the corner #this has been sitting in my draft for A YEAR #now you all can enjoy it #and by enjoy it I mean cry with me

[andraews]

....

#wishin my life away; with these things i'll never say > dyn barchie #i hate accidents; except when we went from friends to this > coopaers #head in the clouds but my gravity's centered > reflection #touch my neck; and i'll touch yours > desires #we're so sad; we paint the town blue > core four #i'm always waiting for you to cut to the bone > varchie #the alter is your hips > veronica #i don't want you like a best friend > betty #whenever the world is cruel to me; i've got you to remind me how to forgive > jughead #living just to keep going > character study #thought we built a dynasty forever couldn't break > fred andrews #buried in broken dreams > aesthetic

[ofsweetwater]

tags: //

#tags #man of few words //. inspo #big man on campus //. visage #feels half empty without them //. dyn. cheryl #mother mayhem //. dyn. penelope #nothing is ever enough for the devil himself //. dyn. clifford #commit atrocities in my name //. dyn. claudius #shouldn’t cross that line with you //. dyn. polly #in another life… maybe //. dyn. core four #something in the water //. ooc

[prfectionfaked]

𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗭𝗔𝗕𝗘𝗧𝗛  ' 𝗕𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗬 '  𝗖𝗢𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗥  𝗘𝗗𝗜𝗧𝗦  /  𝟬𝟬𝟰.      𝗙𝗧.  𝗧𝗛𝗘  𝗖𝗢𝗥𝗘  𝗙𝗢𝗨𝗥. personals  do  not  reblog  ;  mutuals  may  interact.

#elizabeth. #dyn : core four. #my edits. #personals do not reblog.

[certifiedskywalker]

Family Dinner - Dyn Jarren (The Mandalorian)

You’re working the late shift at the cantina when you saw the oddest thing. When was the last time that anyone had seen a Mandalorian on your planet? When was the last time that anyone saw a Mandalorian with a baby?

AN: based on two requests I got about The Child and Mando bonding. 

It started whimpering. He heard it first in the cockpit, the moment he activated hyperspace. When he looked over to the cradle, the Child’s little green face was screwed up in a face of total discomfort. First, he thought that it was the pressure and the speed of hyperspace travel. He walker the cradle back into the haul of the ship so it could rest easy. 

The moment he sat back down in the pilot’s chair, he heard a whining cry from behind him. He turned and saw the Child waddling towards him, small, three-fingered hands outstretched. The little creature was reaching out for him, with big eyes full of pain. He felt his face warm from inside his mask and he reached a hand down towards the Child.

“What is it?” The Child grabbed his hand with its own. The little pointed nails of its fingers dug into the glove. “What are you doing?”

The Child cooed in response and pulled one of the gloved fingers into its mouth. Before he could pull his hand away from the small creature, it bit down hard. Whatever teeth it had were strong and he pulled his hand away in a flash. The Child whimpered again, staring up with wide eyes that twinkled under the lights of the cockpit.

“Hungry?” 

The Child whimpered loudly, even waved its hands up in the air as if stress its hunger. He sighed and turned back towards the ship’s display. Another whimper and he pulled the cruiser out of hyperspace. Once they had a stable position, the Mandalorian punched in the coordinates for the nearest planet. 

“I hope you like cantina food,” he sighed. He glanced back and saw that the Child had perched itself in one of the crew chairs. He got out of his seat and pulled the fastening strap along the green creature’s body. “We’ll be there soon.”

You ran the washcloth over the glass until it was sparkling. Well, as much as an aged, slightly cracked cantina glass could sparkle. You set the cup on the counter behind the bar and leaned back. The bottom of your spine dug into the countertop and you looked out over the cantina. Music was swirling through the air, although it was barely audible above the chatter.

“Another,” the Ishi Tib at the end of the bar snapped. You snuck a glance at his drink so you could replicate the order and turned around. As you worked, you heard the hiss of the cantina doors open and shut. The din of conversation died out and you fought the urge to turn around. Moons of working a bartender had taught you to remain collected.

When you turned around, you saw the source of shock. The Mandalorian’s armor shone like a newly born star as he stalked over to the bar. It took all you had to tear your eyes from the sight of him and give the Ishi Tib his drink. Although, he too was enraptured by the newcomer’s eerily silent arrival. Finally, you let your eyes trace the path the Mandalorian had taken, only to find him seated at the bar, slightly hunched over. 

“Can I get you anything?” You asked the man, at least, you thought it was a man. Under a mangled cloak, there were broad shoulders and a coldness that felt overwhelmingly male. Even at your kind question, the person, the man under the helmet merely looked up at you in silence. You blinked in waiting for a reply that never came.

“Well, if you change your mind, let me know,” the bartender said softly. He watched as the worker was called over to another bar patron. Something about you made him feel...secure. Your smile was the soft, almost careful upturning of lips that if he had blinked, he would have missed. Had it not been for the little claws digging into the side of his thigh, he would have ordered something. The Child let out a whimper and the Mandalorian shifted in his seat.

“Wait.”

“What?”

The Mandalorian looked up and saw you. Your features were pointed towards him, your complete focus on his mask. For a moment, his mind went blank; as if under some spell meant to dull his senses. If it weren’t for the slight cry of the Child, he would have stayed silent.

“Was that you?”

“My stomach,” he said quickly. Too quickly to be a smooth cover. You raised your brow at the Mandalorian and crossed your arms over your chest. 

“Okay then, what do you want?”

Karabast...he hadn’t thought this far ahead. He glanced down to the left and saw the big twinkling eyes of the Child glinting in the shadow of his cloak. What does it eat? Another whimper passed over its lips and its little green face screwed up with hunger pangs.

“You must be hungry.” You almost said it teasingly but knew better than to make fun of a Mandalorian. Stories of the strongest warriors, dressed in steel forged by the heat or Mandalore’s core swirled about your head. The last thing you needed in the cantina was an angry soldier reaching for his blaster. 

“Scrimpi and stewed yot beans,” he said cooly. He hoped that the limited variety of cantina food would be enough. You only nodded and headed away, lost in the kitchen adjoining the bar. He watched you go until he felt a poking in the cloth material on his side. 

Carefully, as to not reveal him too much, the Mandalorian pulled the edge of his cloak aside. The green face the Child greeted him with an almost comically small scowl. Behind his helmet, he bit back a smile. The sight was almost too much to keep from chuckling.

“What’s wit da Mando?” You took the steaming plate from the Artiodac chef. His bulbous, white eyes blinked. One focused on you, the other peering out into the main cantina. 

“I don’t know,” you chimed and started towards where the armored figure sat.

“Don’t trust ‘em, ya know,” the Artiodac, Miltard, continued, not seeming to care that you were walking away. “Cold-blooded killers, dey are.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” you called back. 

You heard Miltard continue ranting but the dish of Scrimpi was beginning to burn your palm. Quickly, you ferried the meal over to the Mandalorian who, just as you left him, was hunched over the bar. How could it be that a helmeted man could look so anxious? What could a ‘cold-blooded killer’ be anxious about?

“Here you are,” you drawled as you set the platter in front of him. “Four credits.”

You held out your hand, waiting for the payment and the Mandalorian shifted in his seat. As he pulled the clacking pieces from his pocket, you got lost in a startling realization. He would have to take his helmet off to eat. You could see his face; the face of the warriors you had heard tales of as a child. A strange sort of glee tickled your chest as the credits fell into your palm. 

“Enjoy,” you added, a comment you only meant some of the time. Most of the cantina patrons were not like the Mandalorian. You imagined that there weren’t many people like the Mandalorian in the galaxy; at least any people left. You had heard the rumors about the infighting and raging rebellions on Mandalore. A whole planet of people like him…

You shook your head and went back to cleaning dirty dishes. After every cup cleaned, you would sneak a glance at the Mandalorian. He still hadn’t touched the steaming food before him and his helmet was still on. You frowned at the sight and went back to the mess. When you checked again, you noticed a hunk of meat missing from the platter; but his helmet was still on. 

Slightly annoyed, you turned your bank on the sink and leaned against the counter. You were openly watching him now. His helmet’s visor remained trained on the food on the bar before him until he reached a hand up to the tray. Then, when he scooped a small bite of food, he looked up and scanned around the cantina. You quickly let your gaze dart away when he looked in your direction. When you felt the coldness of his gaze flee, you looked back.

He held the spoon near his lap and, for a moment, you thought he was pouring the food into some nutrient pack. However, a small, three-fingered hand reached out in all of its little green glory and grabbed the spoon. Whatever creature that was bundled in the Mandalorian’s cloak, it was tiny and green. 

You spent the rest of the night watching one of the most infamous warrior races in the galaxy slowly and carefully feeding the little beast living in its armor. 

Spoonful by tiny spoonful, the plate full of food began to disappear. As their meal dwindled down to the last few bites, you wandered back to the kitchen. Miltard looked up to you, clouded eyes squinted.

“That Mando still dere?”

“Yeah,” you said in a breath, “he is...do we have any bread portions?”

“Ye, why you askin’?”

“Hungry,” you said cooly, crossing your arms over your chest. Miltard’s already pointed gaze narrowed further. “You can take it out of my credits.”

Miltard grumbled something under his breath and he reached up on one of the many clutter shelves in the kitchen. His mishappened hands held out four portions to you. Portions were normally given to slaves, but in these early days of the New Republic, there were no slaves to feed. Now, portions were a means to an end when it came to easy meals. They were virtually tasteless but filling for long stints of travel.

“There ya go,” Miltard said gruffly. You dipped your head at him and turned back towards the bar. You scanned over the dwindling patrons sat at the counter only to find the Mandalorian, and his hidden companion were nowhere in sight.

Without thinking or caring about the Mon Calamari asking for a refill, you rushed out the cantina doors. You snapped your head to the left and then the right. To the right, you saw the tattered fabric of a cloak filtering in the wind. You darted over and into the alley. Only, when you turned, you greeted with a dead-end; an empty dead end.

You let out a huff and frowned. It never failed. The day someone exciting, someone mysterious comes into your place of work, you miss the taste of adventure. With a sigh, you turned on your heels and nearly hit your face against a plate of metal.

“Why are you following me?” 

The voice of the Mandalorian was cold, but you weren’t sure if it was the mask’s voice scrambler or the true tone of his words. Somehow, you mustered enough courage to speak.

“You mean ‘us’?” The Mandalorian cocked his head to the side and you frowned.

 “You’re not so slick.”

“What are you-” You raised your hands and showed him the portions. He stopped talking and you felt the confusion seep out from under his helmet. You hoped that he was good at whatever he did, whether it was smuggling or bounty hunting because he sure was not good at reading human kindness. Slowly, you offered the portions to him.

“For the little friend in your cloak.” 

He does not move or reach for the food you held out to him. The hesitation made you smile a bit. He was looking out for the creature’s safety. 

“I won’t tell anyone. Just be careful next time you get dinner.” The Mandalorian took a threatening step towards you and you felt your courage waver. You would have tried to run if it weren’t for a small gurgle that cut through the tension. You let your eyes wander to the Mandalorian’s cloak and saw a little green hand reaching towards the portions.

The Mandalorian sighed and took the portions from your hand. 

“Not a soul,” he said as he pressed the portion packs in the palm of the green hand. The portions disappeared behind the cloak and you swore that you caught the sight of two, large shining eyes staring out at you. A feeling of warmth spread from your chest to your fingertips and you were overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude. It felt like you had seen an old friend or met someone very important despite not knowing the little creature’s name. 

“Not a soul,” you agreed. 

“Thank you. How much-”

“No need,” you interrupted. “Just...keep it safe.” The Mandalorian nodded and started to walk out of the alley. You watched him go and smiled. You had just helped someone having their own little adventure and that was enough for now. Although, you hoped you would see the Mandalorian and the little green beast again; maybe on your own adventure.

#sw #star wars #star wars imagine #star wars imagines #star wars fanfic #star wars fanfiction #the Mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian imagine #the mandalorian imagines #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fanfiction #the child #baby yoda #pedro pascal

[immedtech]

Microsoft's AI future is rooted in its gaming past

The Kinect will never die.

Microsoft debuted its motion-sensing camera on June 1st, 2009, showing off a handful of gimmicky applications for the Xbox 360; it promised easy, controller-free gaming for the whole family. Back then, Kinect was called Project Natal, and Microsoft envisioned a future where its blocky camera would expand the gaming landscape, bringing everyday communication and entertainment applications to the Xbox 360, such as video calling, shopping and binge-watching.

This was the first indication that Microsoft's plans for Kinect stretched far beyond the video game industry. With Kinect, Microsoft popularized the idea of yelling at our appliances -- or, as it's known today, the IoT market. Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana (especially that last one) are all derivative of the core Kinect promise that when you talk to your house, it should respond.

Kinect for Xbox 360 landed in homes in 2010 -- four years before the first Echo -- and by 2011 developers were playing around with a version of the device specifically tailored for Windows PCs. Kinect for Windows hit the market in 2012, followed by an Xbox One version in 2013 and an updated Windows edition in 2014.

None of these devices disrupted the video game or PC market on a massive scale. Even as artists, musicians, researchers and developers found innovative uses for its underlying technology, Kinect remained an unnecessary accessory for many video game fans. Support slowed and finally disappeared completely in October 2017, when Microsoft announced it would cease production of the Kinect. It had sold 35 million units over the device's lifetime.

However, the Kinect lives on today in some of Microsoft's most forward-looking products, including drones and in artificial intelligence applications. Kinect sensors are a crucial component in HoloLens, the company's augmented reality glasses, for example. And just today, Microsoft revealed Project Kinect for Azure, a tiny device with an advanced depth sensor, 360-degree mic array and accelerometer, all designed to help developers overlay AI systems on the real world.

"Our vision when we created the original Kinect for Xbox 360 was to produce a device capable of recognizing and understanding people so that computers could learn to operate on human terms," said Alex Kipman, Technical Fellow for AI Perception and Mixed Reality at Microsoft. "Creative developers realized that the technology in Kinect (including the depth-sensing camera) could be used for things far beyond gaming."

Will Lipman / Engadget

While Kipman's version of events makes it sound like the Kinect's evolution as an AI tool was happenstance, Microsoft has long recognized video games' impact on broader industries, and it's not afraid to use the Xbox platform as a proving ground for new technologies. Just nine days after the first public demonstration of Project Natal in 2009, Microsoft published a presentation called Video Games and Artificial Intelligence, which dives into the myriad ways video games can be used as AI testbeds.

"Let us begin with a provocative question: In which area of human life is artificial intelligence (AI) currently applied the most? The answer, by a large margin, is Computer Games," the presentation's synopsis said. "This is essentially the only big area in which people deal with behavior generated by AI on a regular basis. And the market for video games is growing, with sales in 2007 of $17.94 billion marking a 43 percent increase over 2006."

Today, the video game market is worth more than $100 billion -- a figure that continues to climb year-over-year. Not only is Microsoft putting the ghost of Kinect to work in its newest AI and AR systems, but it's planning to test the limits of its machine learning initiative within the gaming realm. During the Game Developers Conference this year, Microsoft touted some practical applications of its new Windows Machine Learning API -- namely, it wants developers to use dynamic neural networks to create personalized experiences for players, tailoring battles, loot and pacing to individual play styles. Of course, Microsoft will be collecting all of this data along the way, learning from players, developers and games themselves.

Video games are the perfect proving ground for AI systems, as the industry continues to pioneer new technologies. Just take a look at virtual reality, a field that found its momentum in video games and has since exploded onto the mainstream stage. Even Microsoft's digital assistant, Cortana, is named after a character in Halo, one of the company's most beloved gaming franchises. Kinect was doing visual overlay and responding to audio commands years before Snapchat or an Echo came out, and now Microsoft is implementing its systems into HoloLens, the most prominent consumer-facing AR headset on the market.

"With HoloLens we have a device that understands people and environments, takes input in the form of gaze, gestures and voice, and provides output in the form of 3D holograms and immersive spatial sound," Kipman wrote. "With Project Kinect for Azure, the fourth generation of Kinect now integrates with our intelligent cloud and intelligent edge platform, extending that same innovation opportunity to our developer community."

At Microsoft, there's a clear highway from game development to everyday, mainstream applications -- and this road travels both ways. As video games feed the company's AI and AR applications, serving as testing grounds for new technologies, advances in AI feed the game-development process, allowing creators to build smarter, larger, more personalized and more beautiful titles. However, a lot of this technology doesn't end with games. More often than not, video games are just the beginning.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from Microsoft Build 2018!

- Repost from: engadget Post

#ITlive #engadget #Microsoft's AI future is rooted in its gaming past

[terabitweb]

Original Post from Krebs on Security Author: BrianKrebs

A 21-year-old man from Vancouver, Wash. has pleaded guilty to federal hacking charges tied to his role in operating the “Satori” botnet, a crime machine powered by hacked Internet of Things (IoT) devices that was built to conduct massive denial-of-service attacks targeting Internet service providers, online gaming platforms and Web hosting companies.

Kenneth “Nexus-Zeta” Schuchman, in an undated photo.

Kenneth Currin Schuchman pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting computer intrusions. Between July 2017 and October 2018, Schuchman was part of a conspiracy with at least two other unnamed individuals to develop and use Satori in large scale online attacks designed to flood their targets with so much junk Internet traffic that the targets became unreachable by legitimate visitors.

According to his plea agreement, Schuchman — who went by the online aliases “Nexus” and “Nexus-Zeta” — worked with at least two other individuals to build and use the Satori botnet, which harnessed the collective bandwidth of approximately 100,000 hacked IoT devices by exploiting vulnerabilities in various wireless routers, digital video recorders, Internet-connected security cameras, and fiber-optic networking devices.

Satori was originally based on the leaked source code for Mirai, a powerful IoT botnet that first appeared in the summer of 2016 and was responsible for some of the largest denial-of-service attacks ever recorded (including a 620 Gbps attack that took KrebsOnSecurity offline for almost four days).

Throughout 2017 and into 2018, Schuchman worked with his co-conspirators — who used the nicknames “Vamp” and “Drake” — to further develop Satori by identifying and exploiting additional security flaws in other IoT systems.

Schuchman and his accomplices gave new monikers to their IoT botnets with almost each new improvement, rechristening their creations with names including “Okiru,” and “Masuta,” and infecting up to 700,000 compromised systems.

The plea agreement states that the object of the conspiracy was to sell access to their botnets to those who wished to rent them for launching attacks against others, although it’s not clear to what extent the Schuchman and his alleged co-conspirators succeeded in this regard.

Even after he was indicted in connection with his activities in August 2018, Schuchman created a new botnet variant while on supervised release. At the time, Schuchman and Drake had something of a falling out, and Schuchman later acknowledged using information gleaned by prosecutors to identify Drake’s home address for the purposes of “swatting” him.

Swatting involves making false reports of a potentially violent incident — usually a phony hostage situation, bomb threat or murder — to prompt a heavily-armed police response to the target’s location. According to his plea agreement, the swatting that Schuchman set in motion in October 2018 resulted in “a substantial law enforcement response at Drake’s residence.”

As noted in a September 2018 story, Schuchman was not exactly skilled in the art of obscuring his real identity online. For one thing, the domain name used as a control server to synchronize the activities of the Satori botnet was registered to the email address [email protected]. That domain name was originally registered to a “ZetaSec Inc.” and to a “Kenny Schuchman” in Vancouver, Wash.

People who operate IoT-based botnets maintain and build up their pool of infected IoT systems by constantly scanning the Internet for other vulnerable systems. Schuchman’s plea agreement states that when he received abuse complaints related to his scanning activities, he responded in his father’s identity.

“Schuchman frequently used identification devices belonging to his father to further the criminal scheme,” the plea agreement explains.

While Schuchman may be the first person to plead guilty in connection with Satori and its progeny, he appears to be hardly the most culpable. Multiple sources tell KrebsOnSecurity that Schuchman’s co-conspirator Vamp is a U.K. resident who was principally responsible for coding the Satori botnet, and as a minor was involved in the 2015 hack against U.K. phone and broadband provider TalkTalk.

Multiple sources also say Vamp was principally responsible for the 2016 massive denial-of-service attack that swamped Dyn — a company that provides core Internet services for a host of big-name Web sites. On October 21, 2016, an attack by a Mirai-based IoT botnet variant overwhelmed Dyn’s infrastructure, causing outages at a number of top Internet destinations, including Twitter, Spotify, Reddit and others.

The investigation into Schuchman and his alleged co-conspirators is being run out the FBI field office in Alaska, spearheaded by some of the same agents who helped track down and ultimately secure guilty pleas from the original co-authors of the Mirai botnet.

It remains to be seen what kind of punishment a federal judge will hand down for Schuchman, who reportedly has been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome and autism. The maximum penalty for the single criminal count to which he’s pleaded guilty is 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.

However, it seems likely his sentencing will fall well short of that maximum: Schuchman’s plea deal states that he agreed to a recommended sentence “at the low end of the guideline range as calculated and adopted by the court.”

#gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Go to Source Author: BrianKrebs ‘Satori’ IoT Botnet Operator Pleads Guilty Original Post from Krebs on Security Author: BrianKrebs A 21-year-old man from Vancouver, Wash. has pleaded guilty to federal hacking charges tied to his role in operating the “

#Krebs on Security

[megatechcrunch]

The O’Reilly Podcast: Modern day DNS for hybrid cloud, intelligent traffic steering, and DevOps.

Modern-day DNS goes beyond a simple internet “phone book” service to provide dynamic traffic management, flexibility, and performance. In this episode of the O’Reilly podcast, I had a chance to discuss modern-day DNS and its role in building resilient infrastructure with Gary Sloper, VP of global sales engineering at Dyn.

Here are some highlights:

Greater flexibility and resilience in hybrid cloud environments using DNS

As organizations are trying to deliver their content closer to the edge—meaning their end users—they need to intelligently route traffic, and that can be achieved with DNS. In a hybrid cloud environment, DNS can provide flexibility by allow you to route between fixed assets, like a data center, and moveable assets, such as cloud. Within that hybrid strategy, you can utilize DNS, not only for the traditional aspects of what most people think of DNS as—essentially just resolving a query based on a request from a user—but taking advantage of DNS's full capabilities to provide greater flexibilitly and resilency. DNS can make routing decisions and provide flexibility at the apex of the edge.

How DNS can improve infrastructure resilience

In modern operations, DNS allows you to have a global reach, and it provides additional infrastructure before traffic hits your core environment. For example, if a California location goes offline, you can build a policy to say California is undeliverable—don’t route traffic there. You could actually have two or three or four other policies based with DNS to fail over to other locations. So, if California is offline, you can simply route to other locations in the U.S., or if necessary abroad. You'd experience some latency, but you're still not completely offline. That's really important, especially from a failover standpoint. It also can help with load balancing and traffic steering.

You could also use DNS to route traffic away from your legacy data center if you’re working on maintenance or you're aware that your cloud provider has a maintenance window and you want to steer traffic completely away from that node. Having that ability to take control at the DNS layer is really important.

Steering traffic with intelligent DNS for geographically customized content

Traffic steering is beneficial for a lot of verticals. If you're a retail organization, you may want the customers on your sites browsing the catalog in California to see a different micro-site or a particular clothing line that looks different than customers would see in Massachusetts. California customers likely won’t be as interested in winter jackets and accessories because the temperature isn't as cold there. But in Massachusetts, you may want those users to route local to a specific site, where that catalog looks different. You can do that with DNS based on geographic principles. That's a huge advantage, not only for your IT network team, but also from a marketing standpoint. A lot of CMO organizations are evaluating their online presence and considering how to use that to their advantage. DNS, in this example, can allow you to resolve that traffic much faster, instead of all users routing to a specific set of nodes in the cloud or in your data center, and therefore taking longer to resolve that traffic.

This post is a collaboration between O'Reilly and Oracle Dyn. See our statement of editorial independence.

Continue reading Gary Sloper on the evolving role of DNS in building resilient infrastructure.

from All - O'Reilly Media http://ift.tt/2F0VESM

#Blogger

[newstfionline]

How the Internet Kept Humming During 2 Hurricanes

By James Glanz, NY Times, Sept. 18, 2017

At one node of the industrial backbone that keeps the internet running, employees sheltered from the worst of Hurricane Irma in a stairwell of a seven-story building in downtown Miami. When the power had gone out, diesel generators instantly kicked in to keep the lights on and prevent the internet from going down.

In Houston, at another of these nodes, called data centers, Hurricane Harvey pushed waters so high that a live fish flopped in a loading dock, but the physical defenses held.

Yet another data center, west of Houston, was so well prepared for the storm--with backup generators, bunks and showers--that employees’ displaced family members took up residence and United States marshals used it as a headquarters until the weather passed.

“It wasn’t Noah’s ark, but it was darn close,” said Rob Morris, managing partner and co-founder of Skybox, the company that runs the center.

For all their seeming immateriality, the internet and the cloud rely on a vast industrial infrastructure consisting of data centers linked through a sprawling network of fiber optics. The facilities are stacked with servers--boxlike computers that crunch the data for everything from hospitals, law enforcement agencies and banks to news websites, email and weather reports--that cannot be without electricity and cooling for even a fraction of a second.

Yet even as millions of people lost power across Florida, and thousands of homes and businesses were flooded out in Miami and Texas, the heavy digital machinery at the heart of the internet and the cloud held firm.

Though the storm disabled some cellphone towers and local connections, Jeff Eassey, a manager for Digital Realty who hunkered down in the Miami building, said the center never stopped processing and transmitting data. It lost utility power around 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 10, but supplied its own electricity with the generators.

When the storm eased and he walked outside, Mr. Eassey said, he immediately saw the effect that Digital Realty and other data centers had by keeping the servers going. “Everyone was talking on their phones, searching on their phones, and commerce that uses the internet to do their business was up and running,” he said.

A list of Digital Realty’s top customers shows why those operations are so important: Clients include IBM, Facebook, CenturyLink, Oracle, Yahoo, Morgan Stanley, AT&T and JPMorgan Chase, among others.

Inside the centers, the drill during a natural disaster can be overwhelming. One company, EdgeConneX, lost utility power for three days at a Miami data center, two days at a center in Jacksonville, Fla., and two days at an Atlanta location. But Rich Werner, director of operations at the company, said that backup generators turned on and service was never interrupted.

“Data center operations, to me, is 362 days of boredom,” Mr. Werner said. “And then you get these hurricanes coming through, and it’s three days of pulling your hair out.”

There are no legal standards for data centers unless they house servers for clients like government agencies, which require special protections.

But a professional organization, the Seattle-based Uptime Institute, rates the facilities on four tiers of resiliency for events like storms, earthquakes and run-of-the-mill power failures--possibly one reason the internet performed creditably during the hurricanes. The institute’s engineers “go to the site and pull the plug,” said Mark Harris, senior vice president of marketing, “and to be certified, it has to keep running.”

“So when a hurricane or a tornado or an ice storm happens, the entire data center has been designed to withstand these external factors,” he said.

During Harvey and Irma, those measures seemed to work, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Dyn, a web performance company with servers at a Miami data center. “I’m not aware of any core internet services going down,” he said.

One necessity is building above the 500-year floodplain, according to Gary Wojtaszek, president of CyrusOne, whose facilities include a data center in the mostly flooded Galleria area of Houston. The water stopped a few feet short of the building, which ran on backup power for several hours, Mr. Wojtaszek said. He added that “practically every single large oil and gas company in the world” operates servers in its data centers--an indication of how commerce of all kind relies on the facilities.

Depending on local conditions, some centers got off easier than others. In Houston facilities run by Data Foundry, automated systems worked so well that employees pooled resources and watched the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight on pay-per-view, said Edward Henigin, the company’s chief technology officer. When everything is working, he said, “what else are they going to do?”

Everyone in the business says that extensive preparation is critical. James M. Palmieri, Digital Realty’s vice president for data center operations, said that as Irma approached the building in Miami, engineers topped off diesel generators, called Mr. Eassey down from Atlanta to direct operations and waited to see how strong the hurricane would become.

“The storm got worse,” Mr. Palmieri said, adding that at that point, “the real issue is, how do we make sure that our employees are protected?”

Mr. Eassey said that about 14 people in the building--including employees, customers and security personnel--met in a sixth-floor conference room that Friday morning and realized that the worsening conditions, heavy traffic and overcrowded shelters in the area meant it was too late to leave. With reinforced concrete walls and heavy glass, the building was the safest place to be, they decided. The mood was calm.

“Most of these guys are seasoned Miamians,” Mr. Eassey said. “I was the out-of-towner. I would be exaggerating if I said anyone was nervous or panicked.”

The peak of the storm passed over the weekend, and when the power went out, the center was ready with diesel generators and a 10,500-gallon diesel tank on the site.

In Houston’s so-called energy corridor, the Skybox campus stayed above water, Mr. Morris said. Utility power never went down. But the site was stocked with thousands of gallons of diesel fuel, as well as food and water, emergency medical kits, showers, bunk rooms and flares.

The site, which Mr. Morris calls a “modern-day fortress,” began hosting not only employees but several of their families, whose houses were flooded. Then, Mr. Morris said, the building doubled as an emergency response center for the United States marshals. He said that roughly 50 people used or stayed on the campus at one point or another during the storm.

Asked if there were anything in his operations that he would change before the next storm hit, Mr. Morris did not hesitate. “We’ve decided to purchase a washer and dryer to keep on site,” he said.

#data centers #internet nodes #disasters and data centers

[sanblog-blog1]

Key Drivers for Managed DNS Services Market to Ensure Healthy Growth

Global Managed DNS Services Market Information,by Service (Enterprise, Self-service), by Application (Internet, Industry, Institute, Record management) - Global Forecast 2027

Market Scenario: The major growth driver of Managed DNS Services Market includes growing e-businesses which also developing need for largest domain name registry, rising competition in enterprise market and growing DNS infrastructure in the organizations to improve performance and streamline management among others.  Hence the market for Managed DNS Services Market is expected to grow at XX% CAGR (2016-2027).  However, managing growing traffic in DNS and lack of skilled professionals are the factors which are hindering the growth of Managed DNS Services Market. 

Study Objective of Managed DNS Services Market:

·         To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global Managed DNS Services Market.

·         To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth.

·         To Analyze the Managed DNS Services Market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc.

·         To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW).

·         To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective

·         To provide country level analysis of the market for segment by Server type, services, applications and sub-segments.

·         To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market.

·         To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the global Managed DNS Services Market.

Get Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/883

 Key Players: Some of the major players in Global Managed DNS Services Market include VeriSign Inc., Dyn Inc., Neustar, ultraDNS, Akamai, Cloud flare, DNS made easy, Easy DNS, AWS route 53, and Cotendo Advanced DNS among others. Segments: Global Managed DNS Services Market can be segmented as follows: 

Segmentation by Server Type: Primary and Secondary

Segmentation by Services: Enterprise services and Self-services among others.

Segmentation by Applications: Industries (Private, Public), Institutes, and internet applications (routing management, customer portal, record management, others), among others.

Regional Analysis of Managed DNS Services Market: North America dominated the Global Managed DNS Services Market with the largest market share due to simple and affordable bandwidth and strong connectivity, and therefore accounting for $XX million and is expected to grow over $XX billion by 2027. Managed DNS Services Market in Asia-Pacific market is expected to grow at CAGR of XX% from $ XX million in 2016 to $XX million by 2027. The European market for Managed DNS Services Market is expected to grow at XX% CAGR (2016-2027).

Get Browse Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/managed-dns-services-market

The report for Managed DNS Services Market of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.

About Market Research Future:

At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.

Contact:

Akash Anand,

Market Research Future

[phone]

Email: [email protected]

#Managed DNS Services Market

[pankajjj-blog]

Managed DNS Services Market Trends, Statistics, Segments, Graphs Growth Factors Forecast to 2027

Market Synopsis of Managed DNS Services Market

Market Scenario

The major growth driver of Managed DNS Services Market includes growing e-businesses which also developing need for largest domain name registry, rising competition in enterprise market and growing DNS infrastructure in the organizations to improve performance and streamline management among others. Hence the market for Managed DNS Services Market is expected to grow at XX% CAGR (2016-2027). However, managing growing traffic in DNS and lack of skilled professionals are the factors which are hindering the growth of Managed DNS Services Market.

Segments Global Managed DNS Services Market can be segmented as follows:

·         Segmentation by Server Type: Primary and Secondary

·         Segmentation by Services: Enterprise services and Self-services among others.

·         Segmentation by Applications: Industries (Private, Public), Institutes, and internet applications (routing management, customer portal, record management, others), among others.

Request a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/883

Regional Analysis of Managed DNS Services Market: North America dominated the Global Managed DNS Services Market with the largest market share due to simple and affordable bandwidth and strong connectivity, and therefore accounting for $XX million and is expected to grow over $XX billion by 2027. Managed DNS Services Market in Asia-Pacific market is expected to grow at CAGR of XX% from $ XX million in 2016 to $XX million by 2027. The European market for Managed DNS Services Market is expected to grow at XX% CAGR (2016-2027).

Key Players: Some of the major players in Global Managed DNS Services Market include VeriSign Inc., Dyn Inc., Neustar, ultraDNS, Akamai, Cloud flare, DNS made easy, Easy DNS, AWS route 53, and Cotendo Advanced DNS among others.

Study Objective of Managed DNS Services Market:

To     provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for     the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global Managed     DNS Services Market.

To     provide insights about factors affecting the market growth.

To     Analyze the Managed DNS Services Market based on various factors- price     analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc.

To     provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and     sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries-     North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW).

To     provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current     market size and future prospective

To     provide country level analysis of the market for segment by Server type,     services, applications and sub-segments.

To     provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively     analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for     the market.

To     track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures,     strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments,     and research and developments in the global Managed DNS Services Market.

Access Report Details @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/managed-dns-services-market

The report for Managed DNS Services Market of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.

About Market Research Future:

At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.

MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.

Contact:

Akash Anand,

Market Research Future

[phone]

Email: [email protected]

#Managed DNS Services Market #Managed DNS Services Market Report #Managed DNS Services Market Size