Network World articles from January 2006

Network World archives from January 2006

Nortel continues its rapid growth in SSL VPN arena; * SSL VPN gateway sales quarterly rankings are in.
January 3, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene Quarterly rankings for SSL VPN gateways are out from Synergy Research and show that Nortel is continuing its rapid growth in this area. The study measures sales for the third quarter of 2005 and translates that...

Bandwidth optimization boosts branch office capacity, insight; * Recommended approach to using bandwidth tools.
January 3, 2006... Byline: Robin Gareiss Providing connectivity to branch offices may not be as easy -- or as affordable -- as it sounds. Determining the right capacity, finding the appropriate carrier or carriers, managing installation and...

Fearless predictions; * What the future might bring for WANs.(Wide area networks)
January 3, 2006... Byline: Steve Taylor, Jim Metzler Now that we have officially closed the books on 2005, we are going to use the first two WAN newsletters of the New Year to look forward to what we might expect in 2006. We predict that the major...

WLAN vendor Vivato pulls the plug.(wireless local area networks)(Vivato Inc.'s reorganization)(Brief article)
January 3, 2006... Byline: John Cox Five years after it was founded, Vivato has closed its doors. The company announced on its Web site that it has ceased operations, and will be looking to sell its assets, including the intellectual property around...

Use both preventive and reactive operations; * Tips for managing data centers both preventively and reactively.
January 3, 2006... Byline: Andreas M. Antonopoulos Network operations centers focus on reactive management of problems. By continuously monitoring the environment, generating alerts and tracking trouble tickets, operations staff can fix problems as they...

A storage wish list - better late than never; * What an IT director might wish for from a storage Santa Claus.(Letter to the editor)
January 3, 2006... Byline: Mike Karp Dear Editor, I am writing to you again this year. I am 8 years old. Still. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in the storage newsletter, it's so." He is an IT...

Hot high-tech jobs for 2006; * A look at the forces that are changing markets, business plans and investment strategies.
January 3, 2006... Byline: Amy Schurr Data growth, globalization, and risk and disaster planning are shaping the hot high-tech executive positions for 2006, according to Christian & Timbers' list, which was released Dec. 20, 2005. The executive...

Survey spotlights user app worries; * Radware polls network managers to find out what their top application delivery concerns are.(Survey)
January 3, 2006... Byline: Denise Dubie Radware took advantage of two recent trade shows to ask attendees about trends in Web application performance going into the new year. At Radware InfoSecurity and Interop New York Radware was able to poll more than...

Online Windows and Office raise security issues; * Technology advances let Microsoft offer new services, but security must be considered.
January 3, 2006... Byline: M. E. Kabay One of my favorite weekly responsibilities is supporting the meeting at Norwich University of the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control. At a recent meeting, we...

Mailbag: How you're using OES; * Readers report on their use of OES.(Open Enterprise Server)
January 3, 2006... Byline: Dave Kearns Welcome to 2006! There were times during 2005 that we didn't think Novell would survive to see the new year, but it did. The financial report that came out in December still wasn't rosy, but the company did try to...

Virtualization moves mainstream, survey shows; * IDC survey on virtualization.(Survey)
January 3, 2006... Byline: Deni Connor A recent IDC survey of 420 IT managers showed that server virtualization has now moved beyond proof of concept. Of those IT managers that have deployed server virtualization, over half are using it in production...

Foundry continues to update switches; * Foundry introduces security, high-density enhancements.(Foundry Networks Inc.)
January 3, 2006... Byline: Jeff Caruso Foundry Networks closed 2005 with a pair of product enhancements that could have been lost in the holiday news slowdown - one is a module for its high-end Layer 2/3 switch, and the other is network intrusion...

Certain messaging technologies still offer competitive advantage; * E-mail no longer offers competitive advantage, but other technologies do.
January 3, 2006... Byline: Michael Osterman The story of technology is one of competitive advantage that eventually becomes competitive disadvantage. For example, the first business to implement electricity had a distinct competitive advantage relative...

Symantec buys IMlogic to secure instant messaging.
January 3, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene Symantec is continuing its security buying-binge with the purchase of IMlogic, maker of software designed to stop viruses that target instant messaging. The latest deal follows purchases late last year of Sygate...

SANS Institute offers patch for Windows Metafile flaw.
January 3, 2006... Byline: Ellen Messmer In an unusual move, the SANS Institute is recommending that Windows users apply a software patch created by a Russian researcher to prevent attackers from compromising Windows desktops through a software flaw...

Blue Coat buys SSL VPN company for $60.8 million.(Blue Coat Systems Inc., Permeo Technologies)(Brief article)
January 3, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene Blue Coat Systems is buying SSL VPN vendor Permeo in hopes of creating a combined VPN/proxy appliance to protect information entering and leaving corporate networks. The $60.8 million stock-and-cash deal will...

Open-source IP PBX upgraded.(SIPfoundry enhancing sipXpbx )
January 3, 2006... Byline: Phil Hochmuth The non-profit VoIP concern SIPfoundry kicked off the new year this week with an update to its sipXpbx, an open-source IP PBX platform. Version 3.0 of sipXpbx includes new features such as a presence server,...

ThinkFree frees Office functionality; * ThinkFree is the latest attempt at substituting for Microsoft Office.
January 4, 2006... Byline: Mark Gibbs There have been several attempts to unseat Microsoft Office, including Sun's StarOffice and Evermore Integrated Office. The former is a locally installed Java-based Microsoft Office-like suite, while the latter is a...

Penguins at the data center door; * Penguins are coming to your data center - and this time, they brought beer.
January 4, 2006... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Remember the freaky penguins from those beer commercials for a certain brand of "ice" beer? (For that matter, remember the whole "ice beer" marketing phase? If not, good.) This particular campaign - with the...

What Micromuse means for IBM; * Analysis of IBM's proposed purchase of Micromuse.(International Business Machines Corp.)
January 4, 2006... Byline: Scott Crawford Once again this year, the holiday season brought forth yet another crop of year-end acquisitions. In the world of management, one of these was among the most significant of 2005: the acquisition of Micromuse by...

Cisco vs. Juniper over app-aware networks; * Application-aware networking is a whale of an opportunity neither Cisco nor Juniper can let slip by.(Cisco Systems Inc., Juniper Networks Inc.)
January 4, 2006... Gregg Chottiner is truly in the trenches of the application-aware networking fight. As CIO of the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), he must make sure that students and professors accessing the largest public...

Did Microsoft live up to last year's resolutions? * Microsoft vs. Dave's resolutions in 2005.
January 4, 2006... Byline: Dave Kearns A happy and prosperous New Year to you all. Now 2005 was certainly prosperous for Microsoft - but was it happy? There were more delays in bringing products to market and further governmental and judicial...

Hot skills and pay scales: Network pros are in demand; * Recent employment and salary surveys.(Survey)
January 4, 2006... Byline: Linda Leung I'd thought I'd start off the New Year with some good news. According to survey results released last month from Robert Half Technology, 13% of the 1,400 CIOs interviewed said they planned to add to their roster of...

Top 10 convergence predictions for 2006; * What 2006 will bring to the world of convergence.
January 4, 2006... Byline: Steve Taylor, Larry Hettick As is our annual habit, today we polish the crystal ball to come up with our top 10 predictions for the coming year in convergence. 1. Enterprise network engineers and applications experts will...

Three proposed resolutions; * Convergence, convergence and convergence.
January 4, 2006... Byline: Dave Kearns It's the time for good intentions and New Year's resolutions. According to one holiday Web site, making resolutions, "dates back to the early Babylonians. Popular modern resolutions might include the promise to lose...

MCI adds security risk management service; * New service from MCI will help network managers quantify, prioritize and remediate security risks across their organizations.
January 4, 2006... Byline: Carolyn Duffy Marsan MCI will offer in January a new service designed to help network managers quantify, prioritize and remediate security risks across their organizations. MCI officials say the service - dubbed NetSec Security...

Why ITIL belongs in outsourcing; * How ITIL fits in outsourcing agreements.(Column)
January 4, 2006... Byline: Dan Twing Last week I referenced a 2004 Enterprise Management Associates study of 48 IT managers where 71% of the participants had begun to use the IT Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This growth trend is not limited to...

Standards, handsets, chickens and eggs; * Some Wi-Fi trends at odds with each other.
January 4, 2006... Byline: Joanie Wexler It seems that a number of Wi-Fi standards, trends, and issues are knocking into one another and potentially stalling the success of some deployments - particularly 802.11a and voice. Consider the following: *...

Sonus VoIP gear used by Vonage.
January 4, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene Sonus Networks equipment helps support the VoIP services delivered by Vonage, the companies say. For the first time Vonage is publicly acknowledging that it uses Sonus gateways along with Cisco gateways to connect...

Liberty elects new officers to management board.(Liberty Alliance appointed George Goodman, Roger Sullivan and Roger Martin)
January 4, 2006... Byline: John Fontana The Liberty Alliance, a consortium of end users and vendors developing identity standards, on Wednesday named new officers to its management board. George Goodman, director of the Platform Capabilities Lab at...

Google says no to PC rumor.
January 4, 2006... Byline: John Fontana Amid rampant rumors and blog chatter, Google said Wednesday it is not developing an inexpensive PC. The rumors of a Google-branded PC that would be marketed to consumers through Wal-Mart stores were fueled by a...

CES 2006: Can you see the future here?
January 4, 2006... Byline: John Cox You can see the future at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. You just have to look carefully and ignore the distractions, not to mention the technotrash, which range from a lineup of NFL quarterbacks...

More fearless predictions; * MPLS and Web services will be big in 2006.(Multiprotocol Label Switching )
January 5, 2006... Byline: Steve Taylor, Jim Metzler In our last newsletter we predicted a quiet year for network service providers, an uncertain year for wide-area file services, and a dynamic year for application optimization. In this newsletter we...

The miracle of the apostrophes; * A document here may not look like the same document there.
January 5, 2006... Byline: M. E. Kabay One of the six fundamental attributes of information that we protect is integrity, one aspect of which is consistency with the originally stored data. When someone goes to the trouble of producing an elegantly...

What Seagate-Maxtor deal means for users; * Analysis of Seagate's acquisition of Maxtor.(Seagate Technology L.L.C.)
January 5, 2006... Byline: Mike Karp A few weeks ago I listed the various storage acquisitions that had taken place during and immediately preceding the holiday season. Little did I know - had my column not been submitted to my editor two weeks prior to...

Managing across silos, planning for 2006; * IT professionals tout benefis of cross-stovepipe management, but for most it's still a goal unreached.(Survey)(Brief article)
January 5, 2006... Byline: Denise Dubie In today's day and technology age, it is common knowledge that in order to optimize network performance, you must also manage the performance of multiple elements across technology silos, such as network, server,...

Report: The Internet is for girls, too.(Brief article)
January 5, 2006... A new report shows that while men continue to pounce more quickly and dive more deeply into new Internet technologies, women are starting to catch up in overall 'Net use. "How Women and Men Use the Internet" is from the Pew Internet &...

Jan. 9, 2006 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.(Blue Coat Systems Inc. acquired Permeo Technologies)(Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista)(Mercury Interactive Corp.'s securities)(Brief article)
January 5, 2006... GOOD: Buyout bang It was good to be a start-up last week, as SSL VPN vendor Permeo fetched $60.8 million in a buyout by Blue Coat Systems and instant messaging management company IMLogic got snapped up by Symantec for an undisclosed...

Novell has forced longtime users to make a tough choice; * NetWare users might follow the path to OES - or they might not.(Open Enterprise Server )
January 5, 2006... Byline: Dave Kearns As we saw in the last newsletter, although many readers appear to be running Open Enterprise Server on the NetWare kernel - or its equivalent, NetWare 6.5 SP4a - a tiny handful are running on the Linux kernel and a...

CA set to acquire Wily Technology; Wily buy to augment CA's application management software portfolio.
January 5, 2006... Byline: Denise Dubie CA Thursday announced it has signed a deal to acquire application management software maker Wily Technology for $375 million in cash. CA will use Wily's Introscope - which provides transactional management...

Retailers buy into hosted applications.
January 5, 2006... Byline: Ann Bednarz Retailers looking to execute quick, affordable IT upgrades turned to hosted software providers last year as they prepared for what turned out to be a stellar holiday season for online shopping. In the last few...

The Gartner Group ranks SSL VPNs; * Gartner analysis puts SSL VPN players into three categores: leader, challenger, visionary.
January 5, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene The Gartner Group, celebrated for its Magic Quadrant rankings of vendors in various markets, has just come out with its report on SSL VPNs for the third quarter of 2005. It's a qualitative analysis of products...

SANS Institute offers patch for Windows Metafile flaw; * Patches from Mandriva, Ubuntu, Gentoo, others* Beware next Sober worm, or not.
January 5, 2006... Byline: Jason Meserve Today's bug patches and security alerts: SANS Institute offers patch for Windows Metafile flaw In an unusual move, the SANS Institute is recommending that Windows users apply a software patch created by a...

Mailbag: Are you the go-to person? * Readers weigh in with their messaging management woes.
January 5, 2006... Byline: Michael Osterman My recent newsletter that recounted the story of an individual who ran into all sorts of problems managing his company's geographically dispersed e-mail systems generated quite a bit of response from readers....

Intel rejiggers its image; * Intel unveils new brand to replace "Intel Inside".
January 5, 2006... Byline: Deni Connor Intel last week adopted new branding that it hopes will redefine the company as a leader in consumer electronics. The Leap Ahead brand will replace its timeworn "Intel Inside" brand. According to a Wall Street...

The power of LANs; * Network World names individuals with most power to shape networks.(local area networks)(John Chambers, John McHugh and Charlie Giancarlo were some of network professionals who were awarded)(Brief article)
January 5, 2006... Byline: Jeff Caruso Though there are thousands of people working in our industry, Network World chose 50 as the most powerful - and among them are several who are helping to shape LANs. In its annual Power Issue, Network World does...

Illinois school latest to launch RFID lab.(Oakton Community College )(Brief article)
January 5, 2006... Byline: Bob Brown This past year was truly "The Year of the RFID Lab" at universities and colleges, right to the very end. An Illinois community college announced plans in late December to open what it says is a unique hands-on...

CES - New WLAN chips take on video, voice.(Consumer Electronics Show, wireless local area networks)
January 5, 2006... Byline: John Cox Chip makers are showcasing their next generation wireless LAN chips at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, with many of the silicon advances focused on dealing with multimedia (see more CES coverage). Though...

Microsoft rushes out patch for WMF flaw.(Windows MetaFile)
January 5, 2006... Byline: John Fontana, Ellen Messmer Amid controversy and customer demand surrounding a flaw in its Windows operating system, Microsoft on Thursday abandoned its announced timetable for supplying a fix and rushed a patch onto its Web...

EMC reports increased revenue, staff cuts.(acquisition of Captiva Software )(Brief article)
January 6, 2006... Byline: Deni Connor On the heels of its acquisition of grid software from Acxium, EMC reported increased revenue and staff reductions intended to re-balance the company and increase revenue and new product introductions. The...

Verizon completes MCI buy.(Verizon Communications Inc.)(Brief article)
January 6, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy Verizon this week completed its $8.5 billion acquisition of MCI and formed a new unit focused on business customers. Verizon is now a $90 billion company with 250,000 employees doing business in 150 countries. The...

Microsoft details patch, efforts to plug WMF vulnerability.(Windows Metafile)
January 6, 2006... Byline: John Fontana Microsoft on Friday hosted a Web conference to detail the patch and the timing of its release for a lingering Windows vulnerability that caused a flap this week among users and security experts. The company on...

10G Ethernet, PoE on '06 shopping list.(Power over Ethernet )
January 9, 2006... Byline: Kevin Tolly One thing is certain in 2006: You'll run out of both time and budget money before you'll run out of new technology to try for your corporate network. At the highest levels, we see a rapid mainstreaming of...

Gigabit Ethernet backplane standard eyed.
January 9, 2006... Ever-increasing volumes of traffic strain the capacities of computing and communications gear. Boosting port speeds from 100Mbps Ethernet to 1Gbps Ethernet - and now to 10Gbps Ethernet - on servers, storage systems, switches and routers,...

File format shifts have users worried; Concerns raised over the cost, training requirements involved with adopting a new standard.
January 9, 2006... Byline: John Fontana As an industrywide tussle rages over standardized word-processing and spreadsheet formats, end users say the real issues are the costs of reformatting archived documents, support and training, and the possibility...

Hosted apps handle holiday rush.(retail trade and their online sales)
January 9, 2006... Byline: Ann Bednarz Retailers looking to execute quick, affordable IT upgrades turned to hosted software providers last year as they prepared for what turned out to be a stellar holiday season for online shopping. In the last few...

When the laptop keeps having wireless trouble.
January 9, 2006... Byline: Ron Nutter I am having a problem regarding wireless connection. I have an Intel Centrino Technology, Pentium M, IBM Thinkpad. My wireless net stops working after some time. I have to repair it again and again. But it creates a...

A quiz about 2006.
January 9, 2006... Byline: Scott Bradner Taking style pointers from William Safire of The New York Times, here's a multiple-choice quiz about the upcoming year. My guesses are at the bottom. Let me know next year how you did. 1. The FCC's...

6 hot technologies for 2006: Microsoft's Group Policy.
January 9, 2006... Byline: John Fontana Microsoft's group policy objects (GPO) let administrators centrally manage, customize and lock down desktop and server settings based on a set of policies maintained in the directory. GPO's promise is less...

New products tackle information overload.
January 9, 2006... Byline: Chris Shipley A funny thing happened on the way to creating next month's Demo 2006 event. I became overwhelmed. Not with the number of companies vying for one of 70 slots. I've spoken to several hundred companies in the past...

6 hot technologies for 2006: virtualization.
January 9, 2006... Byline: Jennifer Mears IT executives who have delayed virtualizing their x86-based servers for fear the technology remains unproved should put that project at the top of their to-do lists for 2006, as the market for virtualizing the...

Ten predictions for the new year.
January 9, 2006... Last month we reviewed our 2005 predictions; now it's time to turn our gaze on the new year. Regulations are driving the corporate adoption of identity technology, so look for consolidation on standards, especially around federation...

Remotely setting up Apple Xserve with a RAID controller.(Brief article)
January 9, 2006... Byline: Steve Blass Our recently purchased Apple Xserve system has a hardware RAID controller but no video card. We found out that the normal system setup procedure requires another Macintosh system. We don't have another Mac, and the...

Assessing the year ahead in telecom.(Column)
January 9, 2006... Byline: Johna Till Johnson The great thing about tracking the telecom industry is that it's never boring. In my last column I highlighted just a few of the seismic shifts that occurred last year. My prediction for 2006? More of the...

In brief: Ethernet Alliance to push new uses for Ethernet.(EMC Corp. (Hopkinton, Massachusetts) contracts with Acxiom Corp.)(Microsoft Corp. introduced Python programming language)
January 9, 2006... An industry group is expected to launch this week with the goal of promoting Ethernet for more than traditional network applications. The Ethernet Alliance says it will push for the technology's use in carrier networks and consumer...

Moving beyond server virtualization; On the desktop, virtualization helping with security, management.(by baker Hill Corp.)
January 9, 2006... Byline: Jennifer Mears Baker Hill, an Experian subsidiary that provides IT services to the banking industry, has used virtualization technology for years. Initially, the firm began using virtualization software from VMware to take...

What will generate the real heat in '06?(voice over IP)
January 9, 2006... Byline: Thomas Nolle OK, it's the time of year when pundits are supposed to talk about the Issues that Alter and Illuminate Our Times. Boring. Instead, let's talk about the issues that will give us indigestion and keep us up at night....

Any patch in a storm? The debate rages anew.
January 9, 2006... Byline: Ellen Messmer, John Fontana As network professionals scramble to repel a series of exploits that target a hole in the Windows Metafile image-rendering engine - a vulnerability some say Microsoft was tardy addressing -...

CareGroup checks out Symantec database security tool.(CareGroup Healthcare System)
January 9, 2006... Byline: Ellen Messmer CareGroup Healthcare System, with six hospitals in the Boston area, for years has let patients from home or elsewhere gain access to their medical records over the Web with the password and ID that their doctors...

6 hot technologies for 2006: IPS.(intrusion-prevention system )
January 9, 2006... Byline: Joel Snyder Fear unites us. We used to be afraid of network problems, such as bandwidth and broken switches. Now we're afraid of the bad guys. Our networks must be connected to the Internet, yet the Internet is a cesspool of...

Cool Tools.(Consumer Electronics Association predicting the sales of consumer electronics)(Royal Consumer Information Products Inc.'s EZVue Vista)(Lexar Media Inc. introduced JumpDrive Mercury )
January 9, 2006... Byline: Keith Shaw Last week's annual Consumer Electronics Show produced a slew of new products and technologies that will cause gadget fans to reach for their wallets in the coming year. The industry remains red hot: The Consumer...

6 hot technologies for 2006: The WAN, MPLS-based IP.(Multiprotocol Label Switching)
January 9, 2006... Unless you've been living under a rock, chances are you've heard about MPLS, the technology virtually every major carrier has selected for its network underpinnings. MPLS has been around since the mid-1990s, and services have been...

Wireless wows 'em at crowded Vegas show.
January 9, 2006... Byline: John Cox LAS VEGAS - "It was very overwhelming." That was how Andrew Hintz, Internet technology director for the California Democratic Party, summed up Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' razzle-dazzle digital lifestyle...

In brief: Business Objects expands services group.(Business Objects S.A. (San Jose, California))(Brief article)
January 9, 2006... Looking to speed up its growth in 2006, Business Objects plans to expand its professional-services group and develop more products tailored to specific vertical industries. To effect these changes, the business intelligence vendor announced...

The myth of the digital lifestyle.(explained by Bill Gates in International Consumer Electronics Show)
January 9, 2006... Byline: Mark Gibbs I was intrigued to hear that at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, Bill Gates delivered a keynote presentation on "the digital lifestyle," a topic Microsoft has been touting for some...

What customers want in this new year.
January 9, 2006... Heightened communication, standards, disaster recovery and virtualization are just a few of the areas IT managers are focused on as they chart their courses for the coming months. Purse strings are still tight, so products and services with...

More conventional wisdom that wasn't wise.(Column)
January 9, 2006... Byline: Paul McNamara Before we drift too deeply into the new year, let's air out more of the e-mail received here during the last one. A recent column about how the growth of e-commerce has unexpectedly increased the volume of...

More from the user wish list.
January 9, 2006... More wishes for 2006 6. Better communication. If Jim Hite could have one wish in 2006, it would be better communication from the departments he serves at Virginia's Prince William County schools, where he is supervisor of network...

The future revealed: Industry expert predicts what's hot,what's not.
January 9, 2006... Byline: Frank Dzubeck I look back at the past year and realize that everything changed and nothing changed in 2005. Mergers and acquisitions in the telecom industry created behemoth new carriers intent on rebuilding themselves into...

In brief: Masergy provides view bandwidth usage.(Masergy Communications Inc.)(Brief article)
January 9, 2006... Service provider Masergy Communications has introduced a service add-on that lets customers of its WAN transport services monitor use of network bandwidth. Masergy Network Analyst provides a view of how bandwidth is being used based on IP...

6 hot technologies for 2006: SOA.(Service oriented architecture )
January 9, 2006... Byline: Denise Dubie If you're looking for a blockbuster change in the way your company develops applications, service-oriented architecture is just the ticket. But it won't be easy, because SOA means long-term dedication, ongoing...

Some things never change...(branch offices amd information management)
January 9, 2006... Byline: Robin Gareiss Like most people, I took some time off after Christmas and tried to make at least some of that time productive. So, I put on my Hazmat gear and devoted an entire day to a long-dreaded task: cleaning my office....

Uplogix Envoy tracks settings, but where's the GUI?(Product/service evaluation)
January 9, 2006... Trite but true: Your company's data is its most important asset. This applies to your databases, data files, e-mail stores and yes, even router configurations. The infrastructure device settings you've meticulously and painstakingly...

Stage is set in Congress as sides prepare for broadband showdown.
January 9, 2006... Byline: Grant Gross and Idg News Service When Congress begins work this year, it will restart a heated debate about how much lawmakers should regulate the Internet and emerging communications technologies - with some advocates saying...