Disco Dingo

Disco Dingo is the Ubuntu codename for version 19.04 of the Ubuntu Linux-based operating system. Officially released on April 18, 2019, Disco Dingo follows the Cosmic Cuttlefish (v18.10) release. Unlike the predecessor to Cosmic Cuttlefish, Bionic Beaver, which was a Long-Term Support (LTS) release designed to be supported for five years, both Disco Dingo and Cosmic Cuttlefish will only be supported for nine months.

As a result, the Ubuntu 19.04 Disco Dingo release will be supported through January 21, while Bionic Beaver will continue to be supported until April 2023.

What’s New in Ubuntu 19. 04 Disco Dingo?

Ubuntu 19.04 Disco Dingo offers mostly minor improvements and additions for the Linux server OS compared to earlier releases, with a focus in Disco Dingo on improving performance and Ubuntu’s robustness in serving as an enterprise-grade tool for server deployment and infrastructure development.

Updates in Disco Dingo include GNOME 3.32 with speed improvements and enhancements to the new Yaru theme introduced in Ubuntu Cosmic Cuttlefish, the Linux Kernel 5.0 update, Mesa open source graphics library version 19.0, application permission controls, livepatching for kernel updates without having to perform a system reboot, and more.

What Exactly Is a Disco Dingo?

Disco is a term that refers to a style of music or a club or party that plays disco music. Disco clubs were popular in the 1970s but still hold some appeal with smaller audiences today. A dingo is a wild or partially wild dog indigenous to Australia and easily identified by its tan-colored coat.

The Disco Dingo release of Ubuntu Linux is expected to be followed by the Ubuntu 19.10 Eoan Ermine release, which is on track to debut in October 2019.

CASB – cloud access security broker

 

A cloud access security broker, or CASB, is a type of software developed to help IT departments monitor cloud access and usage by employees and partners. CASBs are deployed to help ensure the company’s cloud services are used securely and properly.

CASBs burst onto the scene in the last few years and have enjoyed significant growth as the cloud market has taken off as well. An October 2018 Gartner report reveals about one in five large enterprises are currently deploying a cloud access security broker to control or govern one or more of its cloud services.

How CASBs Operate

CASBs are deployed either directly on-premises or in the cloud, and are interjected between the corporation’s cloud services and customers accessing these services through the cloud. Cloud access security brokers enforce security policies for customers and handle security functionality like authentication and authorization, encryption, logging and alerting, malware detection and prevention and more.

Whether set up on premises or in the cloud, CASBs are deployed either as a reverse proxy, a forward proxy, or in an “API mode,” with many “multimode” CASBs on the market today offering the ability to choose between these three modes.

Reverse Proxy vs. Forward Proxy vs. API Mode

In the reverse proxy mode, cloud access security brokers can manage user-owned devices without the need for configuration changes or special certificate installation, whereas forward proxies funnel all traffic from managed endpoints directly through the CASB. User-owned devices may not be under the management of CASB control with the forward proxy mode though.

One drawback with both proxy modes of CASBs is that they present a single point of failure, creating the possibility for all of an enterprise’s cloud services to be compromised by a DDoS attack.

In the third method, the CASB doesn’t operate in the data path to the cloud, which keeps it from being a single point of failure. However, not all cloud services offer API support at this time, which frequently creates the need to deploy one of the proxy modes as well.

Leading Cloud Access Security Broker Vendors

Some of the leading cloud access security broker vendors today include Forcepoint CASB, Microsoft Cloud App Security, Cisco Cloudlock, McAfee MVISION Cloud (formerly McAfee Skyhigh Security Cloud), Bitglass Cloud Security, and Netskope.

iPhone 11

The iPhone 11 is a new smartphone from Apple that the company announced on September 10, 2019, and released for sale on September 20, 2019.

The iPhone 11 arrived as the successor to 2018’s iPhone XR and was introduced along with the $999 iPhone 11 Pro and the $1099 iPhone 11 Pro Max. Pricing for the iPhone 11 itself starts at $699.

New Features in the iPhone 11 Models

While the new iPhone 11 looks very similar to the previous year iPhone XR model, it does feature some notable improvements, including a new dual-lens camera that includes an ultra wide-angle camera with a 120-degree field of view and a Night Mode for capturing more detail in low-light conditions, 4K video support at 60 frames per second (fps), improved water resistance (IP68) and a tougher glass display, spatial audio with support for Dolby Atmos and more.

Apple iPhone X (Source: Apple)

iPhone 11 vs. iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max

In terms of differences between the iPhone 11 and the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max versions, the iPhone 11 offers a 6.1-inch LCD screen while the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max feature 5.8-inch (Pro) or 6.5-inch (Pro Max) OLED Super Retina XDR displays, which offer 1,200 nits of brightness and an HDR experience when watching videos.

The iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max also add a telephoto lens along with the wide angle and ultra-wide angle lens of the standard iPhone 11 for an extremely impressive triple lens system. Finally, the iPhone 11 Pro models pack a more powerful (longer-lasting) battery and slightly stronger waterproof protection.

Both iPhone 11 editions feature an A13 Bionic 7-nanometer processor pared with a third-generation Neural Engine as well as support for Gigabit-class LTE, Wi-Fi 6, and the new iOS 13 release. The iPhone 11 models are available in six colors: black, white, red (PRODUCT RED), green, yellow and purple.

software-defined servers

A marketing term coined by HP for its ultra-low power Project Moonshot servers developed for specific data center workloads such as cloud computing and big data. The HP Moonshot software-defined servers use 89 percent less power and 80 percent less space than traditional server systems and reduce complexity by 97 percent.

Benefits of Software Defined Servers

Software-defined servers achieve these feats by sharing a variety of components, including cooling and networking and power supplies, as well as management software such as HP’s Integrated Lights-Out software tools. Software-defined servers derive their name from these shared software management tools, which are able to dynamically assign and efficiently manage workloads across the servers in a system.

application server

Also called an appserver, an application server is a program that handles all application operations between users and an organization’s backend business applications or databases.

An application server is typically used for complex transaction-based applications. To support high-end needs, an application server has to have built-in redundancy, monitor for high-availability, high-performance distributed application services and support for complex database access.

See the Server Types page in the quick reference section of Webopedia for a comparison of server types.

(Many thanks go out to Paul White, Product Marketing Manager EMEA, BEA Systems, for providing this updated definition.)

warm-up time

In computers, systems and electronics the warm-up time is the amount of time that a device or system requires to go from a cold start to operating temperature. Warm-up time is usually measured in seconds or minutes.

link farming

(1) The process of exchanging reciprocal links with Web sites in order to increase search engine optimization. The idea behind link farming is to increase the number of sites that link to yours because search engines such as Google rank sites according to, among other things, the quality and quantity of sites that link to yours. In theory, the more sites that link to yours, the higher your ranking in the search engine results will be because the more links indicate a higher level of popularity among users of the Internet. However, search engines such as Google consider link farming as a form of spam and have been implementing procedures to banish sites that participate in link farming, so the term link farminghas garnered negative connotations across the Internet.

Also see How Web Search Engines Work in the Did You Know . . . ?section of Webopedia.

There are many service providers who promise to help you boost your link popularity by automatically entering you into link exchange programs they operate, often linking your page with Web sites that have nothing to do with your content. But users should be aware of the repercussions of this action as the major search engines penalize sites that participate in link farming, thereby reversing their intended effect. A link farmis a Web page that is nothing more than a page of links to other sites.

(2) In Unix systems, a link farm is a directory tree containing links to files in a master directory tree of files.

Charms

Open source tools that help simplify specific services deployment and management tasks in Canonical’s Juju “automatic service orchestration” project. Juju charms can be written in any executable language, and the charms are regularly reviewed, updated and made available for download in Canonical’s Juju Charms Store.

AF Servo

On a digital SLR camera, an AF (auto-focus) Servo refers to the capability of the camera to continuously focus on a moving subject. When using the camera, you would normally press the shutter button to a halfway point, allow the camera’s auto-focus to engage, then press the shutter button all the way down to capture the subject.

See also auto-focus.

TCP Wrapper

A computer program that provides firewall services to UNIX users on a network by monitoring incoming packets to determine if the external device is authorized to have access. TCP Wrapper monitors and filters incoming requests for the SYSTAT, FINGER, FTP, TELNET, RLOGIN, RSH, EXEC, TFTP, TALK, and other network services.