Network World articles from February 2004

Network World archives from February 2004

On again, off again; Savvy companies are mixing and matching onshore IT staffers with offshore developers to save money, speed up projects and keep customers happy.
February 2, 2004... Byline: Elliot Kass On again, off again Savvy companies are mixing and matching onshore IT staffers with offshore developers to save money, speed up projects and keep customers happy. by ELLIOT KASS At Nielsen Media Research,...

Five phases of an ERP implementation: On, on, on/off, off, off.(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Byline: ELLIOT KASS Meta Group analyst Michael Doane sees far reaching implications for the global sourcing approach. He says implementing large-scale enterprise applications, such as ERP and CRM, can be done to great advantage using a...

Career paths; IT pros should view offshoring as an opportunity to shift gears, rather than a threat.
February 2, 2004... Byline: ELLIOT KASS The most vociferous objections to offshore outsourcing come from developers and other IT professionals who feel that their jobs are threatened. What they might not realize is the extent to which they can mitigate the...

Network advances help companies go offshore; Recent advances in network technology are helping to change the dynamics of offshore outsourcing.(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Byline: BY ELLIOT KASS "The offshore provider's networking facilities are a real important consideration - especially in the start-up phase" of an outsourcing relationship, says Nielsen Media Research CIO Kim Ross. "Credible offshore...

Cell tower camouflage artists just want to blend in; It's a flagpole, it's a palm tree . . . no, it's a phone system.
February 2, 2004... Byline: DENISE DUBIE Steve Meyer knows he's done his job right when no one notices his work. That is, when someone passes by one of his palm trees or cacti without realizing they are made of concrete - or that they are cell towers or...

Security auditing tools; Preventsys tracks network compliance.(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 2, 2004... Byline: mandy andress Preventsys tracks network compliance n By Mandy Andress, Network World global Test Alliance he growing number of security policies and regulations companies are required to follow - the Health Insurance...

how we did it.(testing Preventsys Network Audit and Policy Assurance 1.5)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Byline: mandy andress How We Did It We set up the three Preventsys servers on our test network. After logging on with the default user, we created our own administrator, defined our lab network and launched a full network scan. Our...

LIVE COMMUNICATIONS SERVER 2003; MICROSOFT IMPROVES INSTANT MESSAGING, BUT ONLY FOR INTERNAL CLIENTS.(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 2, 2004... Byline: TRAVIS BERKLEY LIVE COMMUNICATIONS SERVER 2003 As instant messaging and presence products have become prevalent in corporations, Microsoft has taken the instant messaging engine out of Exchange 2000 and turned it into a...

Berkley rev How we did it.(testing Microsoft Live Communications Server 2003)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... We installed Windows 2003 Server on two HP ProLiant 360 G3 servers, each with a 2.4-GHz Intel Xeon processor, 1G byte of RAM and 72G bytes of mirrored disk on a SmartArray controller. A primary domain controller and Exchange 2003 were installed...

Demo 2004 reveals tech trends.
February 2, 2004... Byline: Chris Shipley After five months and hundreds of interviews, 70 companies have been selected to introduce products at Demo 2004, to be held Feb. 15-17 in Scottsdale, Ariz. These products run the gamut from building-block...

New specs enrich identity federation.
February 2, 2004... Byline: James Kobielus In dynamic e-business environments, companies want to respond rapidly and effectively to events rather than be overtaken by them. Forward-looking companies design their distributed services on event-driven...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
February 2, 2004... Regarding Howard Anderson's column "The true cost of spam" (www.nwfusion.com, DocFinder: 9522), in which he proposes that all e-mail carry a 1 cent charge: At a penny per e-mail, spammers are still going to be sending thousands of e-mails....

Increased accountability; Give your business units an internal service-level agreement to demonstrate IT performance.
February 2, 2004... Byline: LARRY SHOUP In today's world, IT must do more than simply manage technology; it must deliver quality services in line with business objectives. Internal service-level agreements between IT departments and the business units they...

Is letting go the right way?(DVD Copy Control Association withdraws case)
February 2, 2004... Byline: Scott Bradner T he DVD Copy Control Association says it was just changing tactics when it asked a California state court to dismiss its 4-year-old case against Andrew Bunner, whom the group had sued after he posted a copy of...

The evolution of application layer firewalls; SECURITY: Deep packet inspection.
February 2, 2004... Byline: TIM GREENE First there were packet filters. Then stateful inspection firewalls; then intrusion detection. Now the latest Internet defense technology - deep packet inspection firewalls - is being touted as the best line of defense...

net buzz.
February 2, 2004... Byline: Paul McNamara Vote "nay" on 'Net balloting Someone has to put a stop to this Internet voting madness before its unholy alliance of technological arrogance, greed and political opportunism does real harm to our democracy. ...

short takes.(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... n IBM is scaling up with its latest network-attached storage gateway, which can support at least 224T bytes of storage. The company last week announced the IBM TotalStorage NAS Gateway 500, based on IBM's Power4 processors running the AIX...

Virtual call centers create new jobs.(Interview)
February 2, 2004... With many U.S. jobs being lost to overseas outsourcers, companies creating jobs here are getting attention. Virtual call centers - outsourcing firms that provide phone support using home-based workers - are breaking out of niche markets and...

Feb. 6 marks the first Stop Commuting Day in Barrie, Ontario. A bedroom community 60 miles from Toronto, Barrie was chosen by SuiteWorks as the site of its first telework center, a 120-seat facility that will offer Barrie's 31,500 commuters a local workplace alternative.(Telecommunications Industry)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Feb. 6 marks the first Stop Commuting Day in Barrie, Ontario. A bedroom community 60 miles from Toronto, Barrie was chosen by SuiteWorks as the site of its first telework center, a 120-seat facility that will offer Barrie's 31,500 commuters a...

Switch start-up touts trials, lands funding.(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Byline: JIM DUFFY Hammerhead Systems last week landed $25 million in additional financing to advance the company's vision for Layer 2 multi-service edge switches. New investor Pequot Ventures led the round, which brings Hammerhead's...

Will 'Kebab' skewer IPv6?(internet protocol version 6)
February 2, 2004... Byline: kevin tolly B ehaving more like a glacier than a hot technology, IPv6 has been everyone's "sometime in the future" technology for years. The coming surge in IP-enabled, consumer-class devices (not just your cell phone but your...

Some certifications are hot, some not.
February 2, 2004... Byline: ELLEN MESSMER Network administrators are finding that investing in learning specialized job skills - and validating those skills by passing certification tests - can lead to career advancement even when the economic outlook for...

Enterprise Applications briefs.(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Byline: staff Microsoft last week released a public beta version of its Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004. ISA Server promises improved network security and performance by delivering better application security, simplified...

Appliance streamlines security.(application security gateways)
February 2, 2004... Byline: GREG SMITH The increasing sophistication of application-layer attacks and growth in application traffic volume have led companies to deploy a single-purpose security and acceleration devices in their networks. These include...

Regulation and the 'Net: Where we're headed.
February 2, 2004... Byline: Johna Till Johnson I 've said it before, but the pundits in the 1990s were right: Convergence changes everything. The vanishing distinction between voice and data has precipitated a massive overhaul of technical...

Mirapoint aims messaging appliances at SMBs.(Small and midsize businesses)
February 2, 2004... Byline: CARA GARRETSON Mirapoint last week announced a pair of e-mail gateway appliances designed to give small and midsize businesses and remote offices a high level of messaging security without a heavy administrative burden. The new...

short takes.(Phonom)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... n Phonom, a privately held provider of digital IP telephony services, is deploying Lucent's Accelerate products to provide VoIP calls to customers in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Phonom also will use the Lucent...

Microsoft aims RFID downstream; Inventory tag products aimed at small and midsize retail market.
February 2, 2004... Byline: ANN BEDNARZ Among retailers and manufacturers, it's the big players with deep pockets, such as Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble and Gillette, that typically are associated with wireless inventory-tracking projects based on radio...

CNT spins out end-to-end storage link software.
February 2, 2004... Byline: DENI CONNOR CNT launched unique software last week that lets customers collect, identify and monitor the performance of applications running across the storage-area network, metropolitan-area network and WAN. Called the inVSN...

Cool Tools.
February 2, 2004... Byline: Keith Shaw Iomega stylizes its USB flash drives Techies probably don't see the need to jazz up devices, as we generally see the value of the technology. But to lure others, sometimes you have to make things stylish. Iomega...

Savvis sees C&W as key addition.(Cable & Wireless America)
February 2, 2004... Byline: DENISE PAPPALARDO Savvis Communications sees its acquisition of bankrupt Cable & Wireless America as an opportunity not only to double its customer base but to accomplish something neither company has managed to do alone: turn a...

Vendors push switch standard.(advanced switching interconnect)
February 2, 2004... Byline: PHIL HOCHMUTH A new interconnect standard that defines how components in routers and switches communicate could mean that high-performing, lower-cost network gear could be in store over the next few years. Proponents of the...

Ask Dr. Internet.(XML (Extensible markup language))(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Byline: Steve Blass Steve Blass In last week's column you discussed converting comma-delimited files to XML. What about converting XML to a readable format? At first glance this looks like an easy problem to solve using XML...

Complex Flash programming well worth the effort.
February 2, 2004... Byline: Mark Gibbs L ast week we broached the topic of Macromedia's Flash system and discussed the basics of creating animations. If that were all you could do with Flash, the results would be pretty cool, but add programmability to...

Microsoft pushes security on two fronts.
February 2, 2004... Microsoft sought to advance its Trustworthy Computing Initiative last week, first announcing that it would devote more of its $6.8 billion research and development budget to address security and then revealing changes to its Internet Explorer...

SIP rollouts hit variety of snags.(session initiation protocol)
February 2, 2004... Byline: CAROLYN DUFFY MARSAN Commercial VoIP service rollouts are taking longer than anticipated as early adopters of Session Initiation Protocol experience unexpected interoperability problems with the increasingly important communications...

Security device guards inside information.
February 2, 2004... Byline: John Dix Interest in security has been running high for a few years now, reinforced by the arrival of little treats like the Mydoom worm. And as you would expect, the industry has reacted by delivering a slew of products...

NetScreen, WatchGuard resize appliances.
February 2, 2004... Byline: TIM GREENE NetScreen Technologies and WatchGuard Technologies this week will join the crowd of vendors pushing harder to get midsize businesses to buy their multifunction security appliances. The thinking behind the effort goes...

HP mulls Opteron processor options.
February 2, 2004... Byline: JENNIFER MEARS Business users and analysts are applauding reports that HP might be readying servers based on Advanced Micro Devices' 32-/64-bit Opteron, saying the processor will provide an attractive alternative for companies...

Blame the workman.(blocking web advertising)
February 2, 2004... Byline: mark gibbs After my rant last week about pop-ups, -unders and -outs and the warning about the coming wave of TV-style Web advertising, you provided some interesting feedback. The reward fund I had proposed (I put up the first $100)...

EMC blending product lines; Storage giant advancing 'commonality' of Symmetrix, Clariion gear.
February 2, 2004... Byline: DENI CONNOR Having spent much of the past year bolstering its software portfolio, EMC will return to its bread and butter next week with a series of storage hardware announcements aimed at giving customers greater flexibility,...

Users: Lotus pointed in right direction.
February 2, 2004... Byline: JOHN FONTANA ORLANDO - IBM Lotus users say the software vendor's collaboration strategy appears headed in the right direction but that there are a lot of gaps to fill before the company can succeed at integrating the Notes/Domino...

Industry leaders focus on productivity.(Information Work Productivity Council's forum)
February 2, 2004... Byline: JENNIFER MEARS The Information Work Productivity Council, created nearly two years ago by industry leaders including Cisco, HP, Intel and Microsoft, is holding its first Information Work Forum this week in New York in an effort to...

Extreme drives 10G to wiring closets.(Extreme Networks Inc)
February 2, 2004... Byline: PHIL HOCHMUTH Extreme Networks this week is expected to launch a LAN switch aimed at making it easier for customers to bring more Gigabit ports to the desktop and add 10-Gigabit links into enterprise wiring closets. The Summit...

A new look for Network World Fusion.(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... We have added new features to www.nwfusion.com, and redesigned the site to make it easier to navigate and to better highlight our content. New features include a research center on data centers where you can keep abreast of developments on...

Debate heats up over e-mail quarantine.
February 2, 2004... Byline: ELLEN MESSMER The widespread outbreak last week of the MyDoom mass-mailer worm, which tricked end users into opening infected files, renewed debate over whether companies should ban or at least quarantine e-mail attachments to...

IBM adds remote management.(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Byline: DENISE DUBIE IBM last week unveiled remote management services designed to let customers adopt utility computing in their data centers and pay for the services based on usage. The on-demand model, dubbed IBM's Strategic...

Feds to the rescue?(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Byline: Ellen Messmer A division of the Department of Homeland Security last week announced new threat-alert services to inform IT professionals and the public of computer viruses and other such problems as they arise. According to...

Optimism pervades at quiet ComNet.
February 2, 2004... Byline: DENISE PAPPALARDO AND CARA GARRETSON Snow and ice might have contributed to the ghost town that was ComNet 2004, but the hearty few who attended found interesting sessions and saw announcements from MCI and Sprint. In its day,...

Oracle previews apps suite, unveils data aggregation tool.(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Byline: ANN BEDNARZ Oracle last week used its AppsWorld event in San Diego to preview the next release of its business applications suite and unveil software for consolidating customer information. The two announcements signal a fresh...

Microsoft improves instant messaging, but only for internal clients; Live Communications Server 2003.
February 2, 2004... Byline: TRAVIS BERKLEY, NETWORK WORLD GLOBAL TEST ALLIANCE As instant messaging and presence products have become prevalent in corporations, Microsoft has taken the instant messaging engine out of Exchange 2000 and turned it into a...

Messy process of capitalism.
February 9, 2004... Byline: Linda Musthaler Offshore outsourcing is nothing new; U.S. manufacturers have been sending work overseas for years. What's new about offshore outsourcing is that we're now transferring the work of knowledge workers to places like...

Netilla responds.(Letter to the Editor)
February 9, 2004... Joel Snyder's review of Secure Sockets Layer VPN gateways (www.nwfusion.com, DocFinder: 9633) provides an interesting interpretation of the products' benefits. However, we at Netilla believe the test methodology displays a technical bias...

More VoIP issues bubbling up; BellSouth wrestling with DSL unbundling; are IP interfaces subject to telecom act provisions?(voice over internet protocol, digital subscriber line)
February 9, 2004... Byline: JIM DUFFY Even as the FCC conducts its very public debate over whether to regulate IP phone services, two lesser-known issues have emerged that could have a big effect on availability of VoIP offerings from the RBOCs. The...

Easy-to-use desktop management tool.(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 9, 2004... Byline: PAUL FERRILL NetSupport DNA Last year we looked at NetSupport TCO from NetSupport, which offered basic inventory capabilities and remote control. Since then, the company has launched an enterprise-level successor, NetSupport...

How we did it.(systems management software testing)(Brief Article)
February 9, 2004... Byline: Paul Ferrill We installed each product's desktop management console and server software on a Compaq DL380 server (dual 1.33-GHz processors, 512M bytes of RAM and 36G-byte disk). In every case we used Microsoft Windows 2000 Server...

Installation via NetInstall.
February 9, 2004... Byline: Paul Ferrill Installing software on multiple desktops is more than a trivial task. While tools such as Microsoft SMS and NetSupport DNA include a software distribution function, they don't quite measure up to the features found in...

SMS 2003 focuses on improving security.(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 9, 2004... Byline: PAUL FERRILL Microsoft System Management Server 2003 The last time we looked at Microsoft's System Management Server, it was in the middle of a long beta-test cycle. While the basic features of the product haven't changed,...

Aligo's Omni Mobile Platform wins our test of four tools that mobilize your applications.(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 9, 2004... Byline: BARRY NANCE, NETWORK WORLD GLOBAL TEST ALLIANCE Mobile Middleware Mobilizing your company's core business applications requires more than just a wireless connection between a company Web server and users' handheld devices....

What mobile device should you use?(Brief Article)
February 9, 2004... Byline: BARRY NANCE The last time we looked at mobile middleware (summer 2001), vendors touted the combination of voice recognition and voice synthesis as the next big step for mobile applications. At the time, the painfully small screens...

Nance rev how we did it.(testing mobile middleware products)
February 9, 2004... Byline: Barry Nance Our basic test network consisted of six Fast Ethernet subnet domains connected via Cisco and Perl routers. We set up Internet links through wireless access points, dial-up and T-1 lines. Our client and server platforms...

Adding consulting to business mix.
February 9, 2004... Byline: Jeff Kaplan In the past five months, Avaya and SBC have acquired network consulting firms to improve their network integration and management capabilities, support their network infrastructure upgrades, and better position...

Showtime for geeks.
February 9, 2004... T he Summer Olympics are coming up soon - too soon, some say, for the organizers in Athens, Greece, who appear to need to work 26 hours a day to have everything completed on time for the opening ceremonies in August. Reading about that, I...

Coming soon to your IM client: Spim; INSTANT MESSAGING: A new spin on spam.(instant messaging)
February 9, 2004... Byline: CARA GARRETSON Instant-messaging spam - or spim, as it's often called - is beginning its march into the corporate world. Spim isn't nearly the headache that e-mail spam has become, largely because instant messaging isn't as...

RAIN architecture scales storage.(redundant array of inexpensive nodes)
February 9, 2004... Byline: DAVE THERRIEN Most corporations use relatively isolated and expensive disk subsystems for primary storage, and they protect this data with tape back-up systems that are stored offsite for disaster-recovery purposes. A new...

It could happen to you; Experts explain how cyberinsurance could save the day if your network is violated.
February 9, 2004... Byline: Linda Leung It could happen to you Experts explain how cyberinsurance could save the day if your network is violated. By Linda Leung Imagine that you're in charge of the networks at an e-retailer that rakes in $100...

Brightline adds Java server to Domino.(Brightline Technology)
February 9, 2004... Byline: JOHN FONTANA Brightline Technology is picking up where IBM/Lotus left off by adding a Java application server to Domino that will let users run Java-based programs on the messaging and collaboration server. Brightline...

Oracle plans to announce a price cut for a lower-end version of its database, part of an effort to lure potential customers from Microsoft's SQL Server software, a source says.(Brief Article)
February 9, 2004... Oracle plans to announce a price cut for a lower-end version of its database, part of an effort to lure potential customers from Microsoft's SQL Server software, a source says. The 10g version of Oracle's Standard Edition One database, aimed at...

Another window for spim.(Brief Article)
February 9, 2004... Byline: Cara Garretson Instant-messaging systems aren't the only way spammers can splash unwanted messages across PC users' screens. A utility in Windows XP and Windows 2000 called Windows Messenger Service was designed to let network...

Sometime via the 'Net?
February 9, 2004... I wrote about Internet-based voting after the chad-filled fiasco of the last presidential election. The column was not all that sanguine about the prospects, and events of the last few weeks have reinforced my skepticism. About three...

A few thoughts on trimming your telco bill.
February 9, 2004... Byline: Johna Till Johnson A re you paying less for telecom than you were in 1994? Probably not - even though throughout the '90s the cost of voice and data services dropped an average of 20% year over year. What happened?...

Acquisitions tighten supply-chain market.
February 9, 2004... Byline: Ann Bednarz Supply-chain vendors kicked off the year with a rush of acquisitions, anticipating that customers are ready to act on their pent-up demand for products and services to help eliminate operational waste and improve...

Regulation called a threat to VoIP; Opponents say result would be higher prices, while proponents argue FCC must set rules.(voice over internet protocol)
February 9, 2004... Byline: GRANT GROSS As an early adopter of VoIP services, Mindbridge Software COO Scott Testa has seen the cost benefits of using this alternative to traditional telephone service. The Philadelphia company has been experimenting with...

Desktops without PCs.
February 9, 2004... Byline: John Dix One universally tracked metric is the desktop upgrade cycle. While companies once swapped out machines every three years, today many are holding on to them for five, six or more years. But what if you could walk away from...

How we did it.(testing mobile middleware tools)(Brief Article)
February 9, 2004... Byline: Paul Ferrill We installed each product's desktop management console and server software on a Compaq DL380 server (dual 1.33-GHz processors, 512M bytes of RAM and 36G-byte disk). In every case we used Microsoft Windows 2000 Server...

Riverstone recharges routers.(new software RapidOS 9.4)
February 9, 2004... Byline: JIM DUFFY Riverstone Networks recently unveiled a new hardware module, upgraded Multi-protocol Label Switching routers and a software release aimed at helping service providers deploy multiple services over an Ethernet...

Primary purpose? . . . To deceive.(spam)
February 9, 2004... Byline: Paul McNamara Primary purpose? . . . To deceive The sender doesn't want there to be any mistake about the "primary purpose" of his e-mail, so he spells it out clear as day: "The primary purpose of this e-mail is to deliver...

Service Providers Short Takes.(Brief Article)
February 9, 2004... MCI is developing new services for its data-only wireless network, Skytel, after abandoning plans to sell the unit. Last week MCI announced FleetHawk, a wireless vehicle tracking system for companies that want to follow the path of corporate...

NetScreen upgrades SSL access control.(Secure Sockets Layer)
February 9, 2004... Byline: TIM GREENE NetScreen Technologies is introducing software that promises to let customers more tightly control who gains access to corporate resources via NetScreen's Secure Sockets Layer remote-access gear. With the release of...

Inter-Tel adds intelligence to its VoIP phones.
February 9, 2004... Byline: PHIL HOCHMUTH Inter-Tel this week is scheduled to unveil new IP telephony phones and software aimed at helping users bridge the legacy telephony/VoIP gap while deploying advanced applications to desktops. The Inter-Tel 8690 is...

Red-M last week enhanced its wireless LAN intrusion-detection system.(Brief Article)
February 9, 2004... Red-M last week enhanced its wireless LAN intrusion-detection system. Among other changes, the Red-Detect Server 3.5 now includes a program called CounterMeasures, which is designed to disrupt the connection that a rogue wireless device creates...

Doctor Internet.(installing Eclipse 2.1.2)(Brief Article)
February 9, 2004... Byline: Steve Blass Steve Blass We've heard about the Rich Client Platform capabilities in Eclipse for building desktop applications. We installed the latest release, Eclipse 2.1.2, and successfully built a few of the sample projects....

House builder chooses SSL for net access.(secure sockets layer)
February 9, 2004... Byline: TIM GREENE When national home builder The Ryland Group chose Secure Sockets Layer remote-access equipment to let more workers tie into corporate resources, it also found a way to give business partners restricted access to the...

SMS2003 focuses on improving security; Microsoft System Management Server 2003.(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 9, 2004... Microsoft System Management Server 2003 SMS 2003 focuses on improving security n By Paul Ferrill The last time we looked at Microsoft's System Management Server, it was in the middle of a long beta-test cycle. While the basic...