Xbox Design Lab is a one-stop shop that allows you to create your very own controller. From the controller itself to every external component, Xbox Design Lab is a hugely customizable platform that lets you create controllers for yourself, or as a truly personal gift for the Xbox player in your life.But before you get started, There are a lot of options to choose from let us break down every single one, to help you create the perfect Xbox controller:Choose Your ControllerThe key question before you begin using Xbox Design Lab is: which Xbox controller do you want to design?Xbox Wireless Controller Starting at $69.99 USD, the Xbox Wireless Controller is our standard model, bringing you high performance at an affordable price. With textured triggers and grips, a hybrid D-Pad, and Bluetooth technology that allows you to connect it to multiple devices. Click here to start creating an Xbox Wireless Controller.Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 Starting at $149.99 USD, the Elite Series 2 makes our premium controller better than ever. With refined components, paddle slots offering extra options, adaptable elements like adjustable thumbsticks and hair trigger locks, and rubberized grips as standard, this controller delivers pro-level performance. Click here to start creating an Xbox Eliter Wireless Controller Series 2.Customize ComponentsOnce youve chosen your controller, Xbox Design Lab gives you 10 different customization options, allowing you to make a controller thats uniquely yours. And if you cant quite decide as you go, Xbox Design Lab allows you to preview your controller at any time, as well as save designs to your own personal gallery, allowing you to create multiple options to compare before you pick the final one.BodyApplied to the entire front case, your choice of Body makes a statement. With the Xbox Wireless Controller, choose from a variety of matte finishes, or from a selection of gorgeous patterns, including the swirling Vapor designs, the multi-toned Shift patterns, bold Camo looks, our vibrant Pride design, or special, game-inspired designs like the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 top case and the Fallout top case. With the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, choose from matte finishes, our new Cipher series which adds a transparent case that allows you to see through the case to the components inside, or game-inspired designs.BackYour choice of Back encompasses everything behind the grips on your controller. With all the standard colors available in the Body category, you can choose to match the front of the controller, or create a two-tone pop of color.GripsFor a small extra cost, you can add rubberized back and side grips to your Xbox Wireless Controller, offering an extra level of control in the hand. Rubberized grips come as standard on the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2.BumpersYour choice of Bumper color encompasses the two buttons on the top of the controller, and the case in between them. On the Xbox Wireless Controller, choose from all the standard colors available for the Body and Back. For the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, choose from an array of metallic finishes.TriggersThe Triggers are key to controlling many games, and come with multiple options. With the Xbox Wireless Controller, all the standard colors are available, but Xbox Design Lab also offers a variety of metallic options, allowing you to add a stately point of difference from the rest of the design. On the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, choose from a series of metallic designs that can blend in with your bumpers, or choose a different tone to create a standout design.D-PadOn the Xbox Wireless Controller, choose from all the standard colors available in other categories, or pick a metallic hue. On the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, pick from the classic four-direction D-Pad, or our unique Faceted design for extra control. Both D-Pad choices offer a variety of single-tone metallic finishes, or pick our new multi-toned Chroma designs for a truly standout look.ThumbsticksOn the Xbox Wireless Controller, thumbsticks can take on any of the standard colors available on the rest of the controller. Take more control with the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 pick the color of the metal base, as well as separate colors for both the thumbstick ring and topper.ABXY ButtonsOn the Xbox Wireless Controller, pick from seven different designs for the iconic Xbox buttons, from classic colored looks to different two-tone treatments. With the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, get even more choice with 20 different treatments, including colored variants that allow you to create even more specific looks.View, Menu, Share ButtonsOn the Xbox Wireless Controller, choose from 5 different designs for the central buttons on your controller. With the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, pick from 24 color options to help bring your design to life.EngravingFor that final touch, both controller types allow you to add a 16-character engraving. Add a name, a Gamertag, or a personal message to make the controller truly theirs.Pick a Pre-Made DesignIf youre looking to create a controller to celebrate a particular game, we may already have what you need. Xbox Design Lab is always adding new Inspired By designs that celebrate games on Xbox pick a pre-configured design, make any changes you see fit, and show your fandom. Theres also the Xbox Design Lab Game Collection, which offers extra-special designs for the likes of Fallout and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 all of which can be customized further.Choose Some Elite ExtrasIf youre opting for an Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, Xbox Design Lab offers a number of extra adjustable elements for the premium controller, all of which can be customized to fit your design. The Carrying Case and Charging Pack helps you take your controller anywhere in safety. The Paddle Pack adds a number of easily added extra paddles for the back of your controller, which can be used by adjusting options on your console. The Thumbsticks and D-pad Pack offers both D-Pad options and multiple interchangeable thumbsticks to let you swap how you want to play, game-by-game. And the Everything Pack includes all of the above in a single package. If you already own an Elite Series 2 controller, you can also opt to purchase the additional accessories packs by themselves.Adaptive Thumbstick ToppersWe collaborated with community members, charity organizations, and a hospital involved in adaptive gaming and 3D printing to design complimentary 3D printable files for adaptive thumbstick toppers with Xbox Design Lab. Available to download, these designs can be 3D printed to create thumbsticks that meet multiple accessibility needs and are available for both the Xbox Wireless Controller and Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2. Xbox Design Lab also offers thumbstick topper designs for the upcoming Xbox Adaptive Joystick, coming in early 2025 for select Xbox markets.You now have everything you need to start creating a unique Xbox controller head over to Xbox Design Lab to start experimenting!

London-based startup Gendo has secured 5.1mn amid booming demand for its generative AI software built for architects.British architectural designer George Proud and software engineer Will Jones founded Gendo in 2022. The platform transforms simple inputs like sketches, 2D drawings, or text descriptions into hypereal building designs.It works a bit like Midjourney or DALL-E, except its built by architects for architects. The tool allows you to precisely edit specific details of your design, such as colours, lighting, structural elements, or furniture. The model produces more life-like results than more general AI algorithms. Whats more, Gendo claims it can generate detailed visualisations 100 times faster than conventional software. The tool also comes at a reasonable price point 15 per month for the mid-range package.Register NowWe are huge believers in bespoke generative AI tools that are designed for specific use cases the reception to Gendo has been a huge validator of that belief, said Proud, who serves as the startups CEO.Gendo launched its platform just four months ago, after securing 1mn in pre-seed funding. Early adopters include big names such as Zaha Hadid Architects, KPF, David Chipperfield Architects, and Benoy.Gendo stands out because it makes it easy and affordable to generate professional designs, filling the gap between basic visualisation tools and time-consuming rendering software like Autodesks Forma or Spacemaker.Patrik Schumacher, principal at Zaha Hadid Architects, called Gendos platform a step-change for our discipline. Schumacher was recently appointed to Gendos board, as the startup embarks on its next phase of growth. Gendo said it will use the fresh capital to expand its AI capabilities and the development of customised workflows and licensing models aimed at big design firms.German early-stage funds PT1 and LEA Partners co-led the funding round. The UKs largest pre-seed fund Concept Ventures also chipped in, as did London-based Koro Captial. Story by Sin Geschwindt Sin is a climate and energy reporter at TNW. From nuclear fusion to escooters, he covers the length and breadth of Europe's clean tech ecos (show all) Sin is a climate and energy reporter at TNW. From nuclear fusion to escooters, he covers the length and breadth of Europe's clean tech ecosystem. He's happiest sourcing a scoop, investigating the impact of emerging technologies, and even putting them to the test. Sin has five years journalism experience and holds a dual degree in media and environmental science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Get the TNW newsletterGet the most important tech news in your inbox each week.Also tagged with

German tech darling DeepL has (finally) launched a voice-to-text service. Its called DeepL Voice, and it turns audio from live or video conversations into translated text.DeepL users can now listen to people speaking a language they dont understand and automatically translate it to one they do in real-time.The new feature currently supports English, German, Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Dutch, French, Turkish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Italian.What makes the launch of DeepL Voice exciting is that it runs on the same neural networks as the companys text-to-text offering, which itclaims is the worlds best AI translator.As someone whos just moved to a foreign country, Im keen to try a voice-to-text translator that actually might work. All the ones Ive tried so far arent real-time theres a lag that renders them pretty useless and the translation quality is pretty poor.Register NowFor face-to-face conversations, you can launch DeepL Voice on your mobile and place it between you and the other speaker. It then displays your conversation so each person can follow translations easily on one device.You can also integrate DeepL Voice into Microsoft Teams and video-conference across language barriers. The translated text appears on a sidebar as captions. It remains to be seen whether DeepL Voice will be available on platforms like Zoom or Google Meet anytime soon. The next frontier While this is DeepLs first such offering, its unlikely to be its last. DeepLs founder and CEO, Jarek Kutylowskicalled real-time voice translationthe next frontier for the business.DeepL is already a leader in written translation, but real-time speech translation is an entirely different story, said DeepLs founder and CEO, Jarek Kutylowski.When translating speech as it happens, youre dealing with incomplete input, pronunciation issues, latency and more, all of which can lead to inaccurate translations and poor user experience.Sowe built a solution that would take these into account from the offset and enable businesses to break down language barriers by enabling them to communicate in multiple languages as required, said Kutylowski.Quality will likely be DeepL Voices differentiating factor from the countless other providers of voice-to-text translations. From a technological perspective, DeepLs success lies in the architecture of its neural networks, the input from human editors, and the training data. But Kutylowski also believes it has a key advantage over its competitors: focus.Focus is always an important thing, Kutylowski previously told TNW. Translate isnt the core business of Google its one of the 100 side gigs. The same goes if you consider LLMs and the OpenAIs of this world as our competition; translation is only one thing of what theyre doing and their GPU is doing a tonne of different things. Were focused on one particular area.In May, the DeepL reached a $2bn valuation after securing a new investment of $300mn (277mn). It covers 32 languages and counts over 100,000 business users. Story by Sin Geschwindt Sin is a climate and energy reporter at TNW. From nuclear fusion to escooters, he covers the length and breadth of Europe's clean tech ecos (show all) Sin is a climate and energy reporter at TNW. From nuclear fusion to escooters, he covers the length and breadth of Europe's clean tech ecosystem. He's happiest sourcing a scoop, investigating the impact of emerging technologies, and even putting them to the test. Sin has five years journalism experience and holds a dual degree in media and environmental science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Get the TNW newsletterGet the most important tech news in your inbox each week.Also tagged with

Brought to you by Uniq: Crafted with 28 bidirectional magnets, the Uniq Revix Apple Watch band collection features exceptional durability in a range of materials from premium leather to ultra-soft silicone. Learn more. The new Apple Watch is the thinnest and lightest version of the wearable to date. But how much thinner is Series 10 compared to Series 9 and earlier? And will you notice a difference? Read on for all the details.Apple Watch Series 10features new sizes with the biggest displays in combination with the thinnest design.Interestingly, Apple increased the displays bezel slightly with Series 10. But youre getting more rounded corners that give a softer and sleeker feel.Heres how much thinner Apple Watch Series 10 vs Series 9 and earlierSeries 10 is almost 10% thinner than Series 7-9. Series 10 is an impressive ~50% thinner than Apple Watch Ultra/2Will you notice the difference? You likely will between the thinness, larger screen, and lighter weight. But the best way to know is to try one on at an Apple Store or other retailer.Series 10987Ultra 2Case size46/42mm45/41mm45/41mm45/41mm49mmThickness9.7mm10.7mm10.7mm10.7mm14.4mmWeight35-41 grams for 46mm, 29-34 grams for 42mm (depending on model)39-51 grams for 45mm, 32-42 grams for 41mm (depending on model)39-51 grams for 45mm, 32-42 grams for 41mm (depending on model)39-51 grams for 45mm, 32-42 grams for 41mm (depending on model)61 grams (2.15 oz)Display size416 x 496 pixels, 1220 sq mm (46mm model)396 x 484 pixels, 1143 sq mm (45mm model)396 x 484 pixels, 1143 sq mm (45mm model)396 x 484 pixels, 1143 sq mm (45mm model)410 x 502 pixels, 1185 sq mm display areaApple Watch Series 10 models are also lighter with the thinner design and titanium for the high-end versions instead of steel. However, even the aluminum Series 10 models are lighter than Series 9 and earlier.For the displays, the 46 and 42mm cases offer what Apple says is up to 30% more screen area compared to Series 6. That means you get an additional line of text on the display and for the 46mm Series 10, a display that is ever-so-slightly larger than even the 49mm Apple Watch Ultra/2.Another new feature is the wide-angle OLED display that delivers up to a 40% brighter screen when looking from an angle.What do you think? Does the thinnest and lightest Apple Watch design matter to you? Share your thoughts in the comments!Brought to you by Uniq: Crafted with 28 bidirectional magnets, the Uniq Revix Apple Watch band collection features exceptional durability in a range of materials from premium leather to ultra-soft silicone. Learn more. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

One of the Messages apps most-used features, Tapbacks, got a big upgrade in iOS 18. The standard tapbacks were redesigned, and you can now use any emoji as a tapback. But theres one tapback fix thats become more needed than ever, and I hope Apple addresses it soon.The expansive growth of tapbacks in MessagesI dont know about you, but some of my Messages conversations are absolutely overrun by tapbacks.Certain group chats tend to be the worst offenders.Im on some group threads where practically every message sent gets several tapback reactions from others.Now that any emoji can be a tapback in iOS 18, any message someone sends can be paired with a relevant and/or humorous tapbackexacerbating the problem.Fortunately, the fix could be very easy for Apple.New setting could enable muting tapback alertsiOS already lets you mute any thread of your choosing. It offers two convenient options:You can swipe left on the conversation and hit the bell iconOr open the thread, tap the name/number at the top, and hit the Hide Alerts toggleWhat Id like is for a new toggle to be added.Just one little toggle: Hide Alerts for TapbacksThat way, I can still get notified when actual messages are sent inside a group chat, but tapbacks wont alert me.I wouldnt want to disable tapback alerts everywhere, just for several group chats where constant alerts make it hard to keep up with the conversation.This small addition to Messages info screen would do the trick.Do you have the same problem? Want Apple to add a new toggle for tapback alerts? Let us know in the comments.Best iPhone accessoriesAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

They do not want those DMs made public. Don't SpeakIn one of the many copyright lawsuits it's facing, OpenAI is asking a judge to narrow the scope of discovery to limit insider communications from being aired in public.This latest forte in OpenAI's defense against the Authors Guild,which is alleging on behalf of writers including George R.R. Martin and John Grisham that the company used its members' copyrighted works without permission to train its AI models, shows that the firm really doesn't want its top researchers' documents making the rounds.The Guild recently requested that OpenAI submit extensive documents including text messages and social media DMs not only for the 24 initial "custodians" or insiders who are thought to have relevant pre-trial discovery information, but for eight additional figures as well, includingOpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever and researcher Jan Lieke, both of whom left OpenAI this year.Leaky ShipWhile this counter-suit doesn't seem to be specifically about inside baseball at OpenAI, recent news involving Sutskever highlights why the company may not want its former and current executives' communications leaked.Earlier this week, the sidelined cofounder toldReuters that the abilities of OpenAI's advanced large language models (LLMs) seem to be plateauing as the company seeks more and more training data and computing resources.Sutskever was, notably, the leading proponent of the briefly successful attempt to oust CEO Sam Altman last Thanksgiving, and spent half a year in limbo before ultimately leaving the firm and starting his own venture pursuing safe artificial general intelligence (AGI).Should his texts and DMs come out, even if just regarding copyrighted work, there could be some very embarrassing details in there which could be at least part of whyOpenAI is trying to make sure they never see the light of day.More on OpenAI: OpenAI Buys Porn Domain for Huge SumShare This Article

"The Russians believe that continued operations are safe but they cant prove to our satisfaction that they are."Take a LeakIn September, NASA's inspector general warned in a report that new cracks and leaks affecting the Russian segment of the aging International Space Station continued to be a "top safety risk."The leaks, which have plagued a module connecting the segment's docking port to its service module, have been around for years, as SpaceNews reports, forcing astronauts to keep the module's hatch closed most of the time.And while former astronaut and head of NASA's ISS Advisory Committee Bob Cabana said the leaks are leading to the "possibility of a catastrophic failure" during a recent meeting, as quoted by SpaceNews, Russia's counterparts have continued to downplay the severity of the situation."The Russians believe that continued operations are safe but they cant prove to our satisfaction that they are, and the US believes that its not safe but we cant prove to the Russians satisfaction that thats the case," Cabana said during the meeting.[not seeing anything recent]Hole MilkRoscosmos and NASA also disagreed on the possible cause of the ongoing leaks. Cabana revealed that Russian engineers have pointed to "high cyclic fatigue" caused by micro-vibrations. NASA, however, believes it's more complicated than that, with mechanical stresses, among other factors, slowly degrading the module's material.While Cabana continues to stress the severity of the situation, other NASA officials told the Washington Post last month that the leaks aren't a huge deal."Roscosmos has applied sealant to many of these areas of interest which has further reduced the leak rate," NASA spokesperson Kathryn Hambleton told WaPo at the time.Meanwhile, Roscosmos identified a whopping 50 "areas of concern," according to Hambleton, underlining the scope of the issue.In short, regardless of the disagreement over the leaks' cause or severity, it's yet another sign that the space station, which has been continuously occupied for just over 24 years, is seriously starting to show its age."The station is not young," said NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, who returned to Earth from the station last month, during a briefing last week, as quoted by SpaceNews. "Its been up there for quite a while. You expect some wear and tear, and were seeing that."Share This Article

Nov 16, 2024Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Network SecurityPalo Alto Networks has released new indicators of compromise (IoCs) a day after the network security vendor confirmed that a new zero-day vulnerability impacting its PAN-OS firewall management interface has been actively exploited in the wild.To that end, the company said it observed malicious activity originating from below IP addresses and targeting PAN-OS management web interface IP addresses that are accessible over the internet -136.144.17[.]*173.239.218[.]251216.73.162[.]*The company, however, warned that these IP addresses may possibly represent "third-party VPNs with legitimate user activity originating from these IPs to other destinations."Palo Alto Networks' updated advisory indicates that the flaw is being exploited to deploy a web shell on compromised devices, allowing threat actors to gain persistent remote access.The vulnerability, which is yet to be assigned a CVE identifier, carries a CVSS score of 9.3, indicating critical severity. It allows for unauthenticated remote command execution.According to the company, the vulnerability requires no user interaction or privileges to exploit, and its attack complexity has been deemed "low."That said, the severity of the flaw drops to high (CVSS score: 7.5) should access to the management interface be restricted to a limited pool of IP addresses, in which case the threat actor will have to obtain privileged access to those IPs first.On November 8, 2024, Palo Alto Networks began advising customers to secure their firewall management interfaces amid reports of a remote code execution (RCE) flaw. It has since been confirmed that the mysterious vulnerability has been abused against a "limited number" of instances.There are currently no details on how the vulnerability came to light, the threat actors behind the exploitation, and the targets of these attacks. Prisma Access and Cloud NGFW products are not impacted by the flaw.Patches for the vulnerability are yet to be released, making it imperative that users take immediate steps to secure access to the management interface, if not already.The advisory comes as three different critical flaws in the Palo Alto Networks Expedition (CVE-2024-5910, CVE-2024-9463, and CVE-2024-9465) have come under active exploitation, per the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). At this stage, there is no evidence to suggest that the activities are related.(This is a developing story. Please check back for more updates.)Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE

Nov 16, 2024Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / VPN SecurityA threat actor known as BrazenBamboo has exploited an unresolved security flaw in Fortinet's FortiClient for Windows to extract VPN credentials as part of a modular framework called DEEPDATA.Volexity, which disclosed the findings Friday, said it identified the zero-day exploitation of the credential disclosure vulnerability in July 2024, describing BrazenBamboo as the developer behind DEEPDATA, DEEPPOST, and LightSpy."DEEPDATA is a modular post-exploitation tool for the Windows operating system that is used to gather a wide range of information from target devices," security researchers Callum Roxan, Charlie Gardner, and Paul Rascagneres said Friday.The malware first came to light earlier this week, when BlackBerry detailed the Windows-based surveillance framework as used by the China-linked APT41 threat actor to harvest data from WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, WeChat, LINE, QQ, Skype, Microsoft Outlook, DingDing, Feishu, KeePass, as well as application passwords, web browser information, Wi-Fi hotspots, and installed software."Since their initial development of the LightSpy spyware implant in 2022, the attacker has been persistently and methodically working on the strategic targeting of communication platforms, with the emphasis on stealth and persistent access," the BlackBerry threat research team noted.The core component of DEEPDATA is a dynamic-link library (DLL) loader called "data.dll" that's engineered to decrypt and launch 12 different plugins using an orchestrator module ("frame.dll"). Present among the plugins is a previously undocumented "FortiClient" DLL that can capture VPN credentials."This plugin was found to exploit a zero-day vulnerability in the Fortinet VPN client on Windows that allows it to extract the credentials for the user from memory of the client's process," the researchers said.Volexity said it reported the flaw to Fortinet on July 18, 2024, but noted that the vulnerability remains unpatched. The Hacker News has reached out to the company for comment, and we will update the story if we hear back.Another tool that's part of BrazenBamboo's malware portfolio is DEEPPOST, a post-exploitation data exfiltration tool that's capable of exfiltrating files to a remote endpoint.DEEPDATA and DEEPPOST add to the threat actor's already powerful cyber espionage capabilities, expanding on LightSpy, which comes in different flavors for macOS, iOS, and now Windows."The architecture for the Windows variant of LightSpy is different from other documented OS variants," Volexity said. "This variant is deployed by an installer that deploys a library to execute shellcode in memory. The shellcode downloads and decodes the orchestrator component from the [command-and-control] server."The orchestrator is executed by means of a loader called BH_A006, which has been previously put to use as early as by a suspected Chinese threat group referred to as Space Pirates, which has a history of targeting Russian entities.That said, it's currently not clear if this overlap is due to whether BH_A006 is a commercially available malware or is evidence of a digital quartermaster that's responsible for overseeing a centralized pool of tools and techniques among Chinese threat actors.The LightSpy orchestrator, once launched, uses WebSocket and HTTPS for communication for data exfiltration, respectively, and leverages as many as eight plugins to record webcam, launch a remote shell to execute commands, and collect audio, browser data, files, keystrokes, screen captures, and a list of installed software.LightSpy and DEEPDATA share several code- and infrastructure-level overlaps, suggesting that the two malware families are likely the work of a private enterprise that has been tasked with developing hacking tools for governmental operators, as evidenced by companies like Chengdu 404 and I-Soon."BrazenBamboo is a well-resourced threat actor who maintains multi-platform capabilities with operational longevity," Volexity concluded. "The breadth and maturity of their capabilities indicates both a capable development function and operational requirements driving development output."Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE

Companies are keeping their central data centers, but theyre also moving more IT to the enterprise edge. The result is a re-imagined concept of data center that includes the data center but also subsumes cloud and other edge-computing operations.In this expanded data center model, ITs role hasnt fundamentally changed. It must still implement, monitor and maintain data center operations, no matter where they occur.But since IT staff cant be at all remote locations at once, software and hardware technologies are being called upon to do the job of facilitating end-to-end data center management, no matter where that management is.Technologies to Facilitate Remote Data Center ManagementTo assist IT in managing the expanded data center, tools and technology solutions must do two key things: monitor and manage IT operations, functions and events; and automate IT operations.Here are five technologies that help:System on a chip (SOC). First conceived in the 1970s, system on a chip embeds processing, memory and, today, even security and artificial intelligence on a single chip. The chip powers a device or network endpoint.SOC can appear in a router, sensor, smartphone, wearable, or any other Internet of Things (IoT) device. The original selling point of SOCs was their ability to offload processing from the central data center and reduce latency when processing can be done locally.Related:Now, these SOC routers, devices, and access points come with embedded security that is WPA2/3 compliant and can encrypt data and block DNS attacks or suspicious websites. That security is complemented with AI that aids in threat detection and in some cases, threat mitigation, such as being able to automatically shut down and isolate a detected threat.To use SOC threat detection and mitigation at the edge, IT must:Ensure that the security ruleset on edge devices is in concordance with corporate-wide data center security policies; andEmploy an overarching network monitoring solution that can integrate the SOC-based security with central data center security and monitoring so every security action can be observed, analyzed, and mitigated from a single pane of glass in the central data center.Zero-trust networks. Zero-trust networks trust no one with unlimited access to all network segments, systems, and applications. In the zero-trust scheme, employees only gain access to the IT resources they are authorized for.Users, applications, devices, endpoints, and the network itself can be managed from a central point. Internal network boundaries can be set to allow only certain subsets of users access. An example is a central data center in Pittsburgh with a remote manufacturing plant in Phoenix. A micro network can be defined for the Phoenix plant that can only be used by the employees in Phoenix. Meanwhile, central IT has full network management, monitoring, and maintenance capability without having to leave the central data center in Pittsburgh.Related:Automated operations. Data and system backups can be automated for servers deployed at remote points, whether these backups are ultimately rerouted to the central data center or a cloud service. Other IT functions that can be automated with guidance from an IT ruleset include IT resource provisioning and de-provisioning, resource optimization, and security updates that are automatically pushed out for multiple devices.Its also possible to use remote access software that allows IT to gain control of a users remote workstation to fix a software issue.Edge data centers.Savings in communications can be achieved, and low-latency transactions can be realized if mini-data centers containing servers, storage and other edge equipment are located proximate to where users work. Industrial manufacturing is a prime example. In this case, a single server can run entire assembly lines and robotics without the need to tap into the central data center. Data that is relevant to the central data center can be sent later in a batch transaction at the end of a shift.Related:Organizations are also choosing to co-locate IT in the cloud. This can reduce the cost of on-site hardware and software, although it does increase the cost of processing transactions and may introduce some latency into the transactions being processed.In both cases, there are overarching network management tools that enable IT to see, monitor and maintain network assets, data, and applications no matter where they are. The catch is that there are still many sites that manage their IT with a hodgepodge of different types of management software.A single pane of glass. At some point, those IT departments with multiple network monitoring software packages will have to invest in a single, umbrella management system for their end-to-end IT. This will be necessary because the expanding data center is not only central, but that could be in places like Albuquerque, Paris, Singapore and Miami, too.ITs end goal should be to create a unified network architecture that can observe everything from a central point, facilities automation, and uses a standard set of tools that everybody learns.Are We There Yet?Most IT departments are not at a point where they have all of their IT under a central management system, with the ability to see, tune, monitor and/or mitigate any event or activity anywhere. However, we are at a point where most CIOs recognize the necessity of funding and building a roadmap to this uber management network concept.The rise of remote work and the challenge of managing geographically dispersed networks have driven the demand for network management system (NMS) solutions with robust remote capabilities, reports Global Market Insights, adding, As enterprises increasingly seek remote network management, the industry is poised for substantial growth.