Network World articles from July 2005

Network World archives from July 2005

Covisint drives ahead with ID management.
July 4, 2005... Byline: John Fontana Known for its pioneering integration work in the automotive industry, Covisint now is taking a leadership role in online identity management. The company, which handles more than 325,000 user identities on its...

Opening up to open source.(testing)
July 4, 2005... Byline: Jennifer Mears If you're not testing open source software, or at least figuring out where it could fit in your data center, it's time to start looking. As the Linux operating system matures out of its geeky adolescence, there...

Anti-spam techniques.(Brief Article)
July 4, 2005... We speak with author and anti-spam developer Jonathan Zdziarski about his DSPAM application and Bayesian filtering techniques. Zdziarski also has a book coming out this week called "Ending Spam" published by No Starch Press. Note: If...

Cisco snaps up security firm.
July 4, 2005... Cisco last week said it has agreed to pay $30 million for a year-old start-up called NetSift, which develops deep-packet processing technology that can be used for detecting network attacks as they happen. The privately held company...

Start-up touts e-comm management wares.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Ann Bednarz A start-up founded by three ex-Oracle employees is set to unveil e-commerce monitoring and management software for online businesses after four years in stealth mode. Business Signatures next week plans to...

Cisco's AON: Ultimate vendor lockout or something more?(Application-Oriented Networking)
July 4, 2005... Byline: Kevin Tolly Not satisfied with being the pre-eminent network hardware vendor on the planet, Cisco leaps to the top of the stack with its new Application-Oriented Networking strategy. If the network giant succeeds, competitors...

Consequences of Supreme Court's decision on peer-to-peer; * Analysis of decision on MGM vs. Grokster and StreamCast.(Brief Article)
July 4, 2005... Byline: Steve Taylor, Larry Hettick Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two decisions that we believe will clear up some questions on how converged services are offered but will open the door to other questions. Today, we'll...

Nothing sticky about Wicket; * Wicket Java Web application framework.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs Today I have a Web application topic that I'm really excited about: Wicket (see editorial links below). The site describes Wicket as "a Java Web application framework that takes simplicity, separation of concerns and...

Letters to the editor: Apple software and Juniper.(Letter to the Editor)
July 4, 2005... Shameful engineering Regarding Mark Gibbs' BackSpin column, Shameful engineering : I agree completely with Gibbs. Unfortunately, the lack of error-checking, user-friendly messages and conceptual issues he describes with this piece of...

Peregrine-Mercury deal raises service desk question; * Ramifications of partnership between Peregrine and Mercury.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Lisa Erickson-Harris Last month, Mercury Interactive and Peregrine Systems formed a partnership to focus on synergies among the companies' change management, asset management, and IT governance software. Of course, there is the...

Are you a threat to Microsoft? * Report: Ballmer considers Microsoft users as the company's biggest threat.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns So what's the greatest threat to the stability of Microsoft as the leading software company in the universe? If you answered "Linux," then you'd be in agreement with Steve Ballmer. Way back in 2001, at an...

News briefs: AMD launches anti-trust suit against Intel.
July 4, 2005... * Advanced Micro Devices last week filed a wide-ranging anti-trust suit that accused Intel of maintaining its monopoly in the PC processor market by illegally coercing customers into using its products. The suit identifies 38 companies on...

With telework, it pays to be formal; Businesses miss out on economic savings with informal telework programs.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Ann Bednarz The number of employees working from home continues to rise. Research firm Gartner estimates 12 million U.S. employees today spend at least 8 hours each week working from home, up from 5.7 million in 2000. But...

Java jives with Linux, open source; * Sun makes two Java techs open source.(Brief Article)
July 4, 2005... Byline: Phil Hochmuth With Java and open source technology now as intertwined as they are, it's no surprise that many announcements out of last week's JavaOne conference in San Francisco had either a Linux or an open source slant. ...

Carriers adding pizazz to Ethernet services.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Jim Duffy BellSouth next year plans to turn up metropolitan Ethernet offerings that support multiple service classes per port to enable more reliable voice and video transmission for business customers. The company is but...

Get used to competing for jobs.(research of job market )
July 4, 2005... Byline: Linda Musthaler As high school and college graduation announcements of friends and relatives hit my mailbox this summer, I think about these young people entering their college studies or careers. I take a particular interest...

Tale of the tape: Encrypt data now.(management of data encryption)
July 4, 2005... Data should be encrypted in transit. All you need to remember are those six words. When your company ships a pile of back-up tapes from Point A to Point B, that's "in transit." The data on those tapes should be encrypted. Period. End of...

Sun, CA buys expand offerings.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Ellen Messmer and China Martens Sun last week said it is buying SeeBeyond Technology for $387 million in cash in a move to boost its presence in the business integration software arena. Sun officials say the company is likely...

BMC aims at single management of a customer's entire ID mgmt. needs; * BMC's three-phase approach to identity management.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns In this third of a three-part look at new releases by major players in the identity space, I'd like to focus on BMC and its recent announcement of BMC Identity Management Suite. I recently spent some time on the...

Sixteen doctors and a shared workspace.(Intranets.com Inc., contract)(Column)
July 4, 2005... Byline: James E. Gaskin I'm always intrigued when I see distributed workers find new ways to organize, collaborate and produce value. A group of doctors in the Washington, D.C. area, for example, took Intranets.com's hosted portal...

Celebrating engineering: summer reading.(The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge)(Book Review)
July 4, 2005... Byline: Johna Till Johnson Ah, summer. Sunny days, sultry nights and . . . great books about science and engineering? Why, yes. Every so often I encounter books that are so compelling, engaging and mind bending, I'm driven to share...

Are firewalls expendable? Jericho Forum looks to redefine security schemes.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Ellen Messmer The firewall's fate is up for debate. For more than a decade, firewalls have stood guard at the perimeter of corporate networks to defend against the Internet's perils. But a growing number of security...

Open source has to 'wear a tie'.(Column)
July 4, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs I recently emceed a Webcast titled "Sustaining Open Source Benefits." The interviewees were Ernest Prabhakar, Apple's Darwin product manager on the Mac OS X team who is responsible for open source, Unix marketing and...

Know your core competencies.(Column)
July 4, 2005... Byline: Sandra Gittlen A friend asked me last week for tips on creating her own Web site for a business she was starting. Without blinking, I told her to hire someone. My thinking on this is simple: As new business owners, our main...

Wisdom 9, Grokster 0.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Paul McNamara How do most of us differentiate between Supreme Court decisions that are wise and those that are dumb? Easy enough: The ones we agree with are wise; the others are dumb. So having argued for years that the...

Advertising arrogance or stupidity.(Column)
July 4, 2005... Byline: Scott Bradner I'm told that adware and spyware are the banes of your existence if you happen to use a Windows computer anywhere near the Internet. While that is not yet the case for Mac or Linux users, I can feel your pain,...

NetScaler boosts app acceleration gear.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Phil Hochmuth NetScaler recently upgraded its traffic acceleration device to further speed application response times and reduce WAN bandwidth consumption. AppCompress Extreme is a software upgrade for the NetScaler 9000...

Multivendor Wi-Fi nets most secure, says gov't lab; * Military rolls out its own Wi-Fi solution.(use of Wi-Fi networking by the government)
July 4, 2005... Byline: Joanie Wexler The U.S. Joint Forces Command has taken a multivendor, best-of-breed approach to managing and securing Wi-Fi networks. A Department of Defense agency, the USJFC researches future engineering trends that will...

Notebook security is getting better, even for SMBs; * HP and Lenovo aims security-focused notebooks at SMBs.
July 4, 2005... Byline: Linda Musthaler The notebook PC market reached a new milestone this past May. For the first time ever, notebook PCs outsold desktop PCs in the U.S. over a full month period. According to research firm Current Analysis,...

Letters to the editor: "Mobile malware a risk".(Letter to the Editor)
July 4, 2005... Regarding "Not all agree on 'overhyped' security threats": I would definitely say that mobile malware is a viable risk. Give me one minute with your Pocket PC and I can install keyloggers, Trojans, backdoor/hidden remote control devices...

Letters to the editor: "Mobile malware a risk".(Letter to the Editor)
July 4, 2005... Mobile malware a risk Regarding "Not all agree on 'overhyped' security threats": I would definitely say that mobile malware is a viable risk. Give me one minute with your Pocket PC and I can install keyloggers, Trojans,...

Cisco makes hardware smarter; * Cisco's approach to the intelligent network.(Brief Article)
July 5, 2005... Byline: Denise Dubie Cisco's plans to add intelligent application message processing to its network equipment could displace software vendors also striving to deliver on the intelligent network of the future. According to a recent...

Survey: Top user companies say IP VPN services are unreliable; * Study finds biggest corps are reluctant to use IP VPN services.
July 5, 2005... Byline: Tim Greene A study released last week by a financial firm found that the people buying telecom services for the biggest corporations are reluctant to use IP VPN services because such technologies rely on best-effort Internet...

What's your simple rule for disaster recovery planning? * Please share your golden rule for disaster recovery planning.
July 5, 2005... Byline: Mike Karp When I worked at vendor companies, one of the things that annoyed me most about analysts was that many of them seemed to have a somewhat precarious hold on reality. Often we would ask them specific questions and get...

Buzz grows around server virtualization; * Server virtualization market is hot.(International Business Machines Corp. acquires Meiosys)(Brief Article)(Column)
July 5, 2005... Byline: Deni Connor Server virtualization got a boost last week - IBM acquired Meiosys, and two other start-ups announced new funding and new products. Meiosys is involved in moving applications among physical servers. Since its...

Should you check outgoing e-mail? * Some good reasons to check e-mail leaving your organization.(government investment for data security)
July 5, 2005... Byline: Michael Osterman Inbound message content scanning to eliminate spam and malware is virtually universal. However, outbound content scanning is becoming a hot issue for organizations. While the Securities and Exchange...

AJAX: Rx for Web apps? * Inside Asynchronous JavaScript And XML.
July 5, 2005... Byline: Andreas M. Antonopoulos Companies deploy Web-based enterprise applications because they're easy to support and deliver to a broad range of devices. In the 1990s, browsers became the platform for critical applications such as...

Another day, another set back in court for Novell; * Judge denies Novell's request to stop SCO suit.
July 5, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns It's beginning to seem like at least one issue of the newsletter every other week should be devoted to Novell's adventures in court. It's unfortunate, but the only press the company seems to get these days is when...

NW500 survey: Mobility is here to stay; * Mobile trends in business.(Network World)
July 5, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw Every year Network World conducts a study of 500 network IT executives and asks them what they are going to spend money on in the next year. Included in this survey are questions about handheld devices, especially in...

Controlling TCP congestion; * TCP's Congestion Control mechanism.(Brief Article)
July 5, 2005... Byline: Steve Taylor, Jim Metzler Last time, we discussed how TCP combines a flow control parameter (Advertised Window) and a congestion control parameter (Congestion Window) to determine how many bytes the sending device can transmit...

Summer vacation plans; * Research shows senior execs plan to take more vacation time than usual this year.(Brief Article)
July 5, 2005... Byline: Amy Schurr Research from executive recruitment firm Christian & Timbers shows that senior executives plan to take more vacation time than usual this year. Christian & Timbers polled 220 senior executives last month (june)...

Spotting outliers is elementary; * Elemental Security on outlier analysis.(system and network management)(Column)
July 5, 2005... Byline: M. E. Kabay Recently, I wrote about monitoring outliers as an essential task in system and network management. Dan Spalding, of security compliance management company Elemental Security, sent me a thoughtful response...

Neterion tries to drum up interest in 10G; * Neterion extends offer to try 10 Gigabit Ethernet.(Brief Article)
July 5, 2005... Byline: Jeff Caruso Users need a little push when it comes to 10 Gigabit Ethernet - at least, that's the implication of the latest program from 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapter maker Neterion. Last week, Neterion started up an...

Unitrends unveils hot server restore.(Brief Article)
July 5, 2005... Byline: Deni Connor Backup software vendor Unitrends Tuesday updated its data protection software and appliances. The company's Data Protection Units (DPU) and Data Protection Vaults (DPV) appliances now include the ability to back up...

Micromuse snaps up security information mgmt. vendor.
July 5, 2005... Byline: Denise Dubie Network management vendor Micromuse last week announced plans to acquire GuardedNet, a small security information management company, for about $16.2 million in cash. Micromuse representatives say the deal,...

Putting the who, what, when, where and how into context; * Context in identity transactions.(Column)
July 6, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns I can't seem to get away from the concept of "context." I like to use "context" as a way of looking at identity transactions - the who, what, when, where, how (and perhaps why) of an authentication or...

Court's clarification an important one; * Analysis of Supreme Court's Brand X ruling.
July 6, 2005... Byline: Steve Taylor, Larry Hettick Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling, in the case of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association vs. Brand X, that we believe will affirm how Internet services will be...

Equant adds application-oriented SLAs, consulting services; * Equant aims to improve performance of IP apps.
July 6, 2005... Byline: Carolyn Duffy Marsan Equant is expanding its suite of consulting services geared toward helping corporations improve the performance of key applications running over IP networks, and the top-tier global ISP is backing up these...

Federal agencies need to improve Wi-Fi controls; * NIST to develop updated wireless guidelines.(National Institute of Standards & Technology (US))
July 6, 2005... Byline: Joanie Wexler A study conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office from September 2004 to March 2005 concluded that while federal agencies are benefiting by the flexibility of wireless LANs, few have implemented the...

Government agencies continue to roll with Linux migrations; * Linux wins over Windows in some government camps.(Brief Article)
July 6, 2005... Byline: Phil Hochmuth While there has been debate and conflicting studies on the cost-effectiveness for businesses to migrate from Windows to Linux, government agencies abroad continue to pave the way for large-scale rollouts of open...

Networking skills demand high pay; * Latest results of Foote Partners Hot Technical Skills and Certifications Pay Index.
July 6, 2005... Byline: Linda Leung As the number of organizations that have deployed VoIP grows, so too has the pay for network execs with IP telephony skills. According to Foote Partners' Hot Technical Skills and Certifications Pay Index for...

Israel: High-tech outsourcing in the land of the Bible; * What Israel has to offer as an outsourcing location.
July 6, 2005... Byline: Bill Heldman Previously, we have discussed the movement toward globalism and its profound impact on the world - especially in terms of jobs that relocate from one country to another. In particular, we've talked a lot about...

What you can really take away from Microsoft's latest certification; * Microsoft unveils 'elite' education program.
July 6, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns Evidently there are way too many Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCP) in the world, because the company has just launched a new certification program which it claims is targeted for "professionals [who] have 10...

YellowTip Web Server brings LAMP to Windows easily; * YellowTip provides a single installer of LAMP.(Brief Article)
July 6, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs The combination of Apache, PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin and Zend Optimizer (see editorial links for each) is a pretty powerful setup under Linux (hence the references to LAMP - Linux + Apache + MySQL + PHP/Perl/Python)....

Management is different for SMBs, remote offices; * Management for small businesses and remote branch offices.(small business)(remote branch offices)
July 6, 2005... Byline: Audrey Rasmussen Small and midsized businesses and remote branch offices are challenging environments for those who have to manage them and keep the infrastructure running. Some of the challenges are due to the nature of these...

Cisco readies upgrade for 10000 series; * Cisco's 10000 series router.
July 6, 2005... Byline: Jim Duffy Cisco does not plan to match Juniper's recent broadband remote access server bandwidth volley when it unveils upgrades to its 10000 series aggregation router later this year. Cisco is expected to roll out the next...

Ping Identity gets ball rolling on server to share identities.(service introduction.)(Brief Article)
July 6, 2005... Byline: John Fontana Ping Identity Wednesday opened up the initial beta program for the next version of its PingFederate server, which includes support for the newest standard identity protocols. The server's highlight is support...

Malware changing the way people use 'Net, study says.(Brief Article)
July 6, 2005... Nine out of 10 Internet users say the threat posed by spyware and other malware has forced them to change their online habits. That's according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, whose latest survey is based on telephone...

Inside AMD's complaint against Intel; * AMD takes on Intel.
July 7, 2005... Byline: Deni Connor AMD last week filed an anti-trust suit against Intel in a move that surprised very few in the industry. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, alleges that "for over a decade, Intel...

Supreme Court nixes file sharing; * Consequences of the high court's decision.(rules on file sharing)
July 7, 2005... Byline: Michael Osterman Last week's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding file sharing will likely put a serious dent in the market for peer-to-peer systems that permit users to share files, such as music and video. The...

NW500 survey: More handheld devices, please; * More trends from this year's NW500 study.(Network World)
July 7, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw Today, we continue our analysis of the trends from this year's Network World 500 study, a survey of 500 network IT executives that asks them about their IT spending habits for the next year. In this issue, we'll look...

The Persistence of Memory; * When pages stay on the Web too long.(Salvador Dali talks about his work)(Brief Article)
July 7, 2005... Byline: M. E. Kabay In 1931, the famous Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali painted soft watches folded over a twig, an edge and a face in a bleak and desolate landscape; he called it "The Persistence of Memory." I remembered this...

Latest Astaro Security provides 'enhanced integration' with eDirectory; * Astaro better integrates with eDirectory - finally.(partnership)
July 7, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns Last spring when Novell rolled out "Novell Security Manager powered by Astaro (NSM)," I took the company to task because it appeared that the security appliance was more comfortable with Microsoft's Active Directory...

Whatever happened to users' voices? * Where did the telco user groups go?(services of the user groups)
July 7, 2005... Byline: Steve Taylor, Jim Metzler Over the past 20-or-so-years, consumers of telecommunications services - including corporations, enterprises, government, etc. - have often banded together in formal and informal organizations for the...

All about RAID; * On a level with RAID.(redundant array of inexpensive disks )
July 7, 2005... Byline: Mike Karp RAID in its several forms provides the backbone for most of our high availability, high performance storage. RAID devices have been with us since the late-1980s, and by now are so much a part of our IT lives that many...

Microsoft offers workaround for IE vulnerability; * Patches from Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco, others * Beware fake Microsoft security alert * Are firewalls expendable?
July 7, 2005... Byline: Jason Meserve Workaround for IE vulnerabilityBy Jason Meserve jmeserve@nww.com A little off topic, but since many of our readers where multiple hats, I thought I'd pass this along: Wainhouse Research is running its...

TelCove offers two types of managed IP VPN services; * TelCove unveils two IP VPN services.(Brief Article)
July 7, 2005... Byline: Tim Greene TelCove is coming out with two IP VPN services that can accommodate two different types of customers. One service is based on VPN gear placed at each site and the other is based on VPN gear inside TelCove's network....

Foundry, Level 5 sell nets for high-performance computing; * Foundry and Level 5 team up.(Brief Article)
July 7, 2005... Byline: Jeff Caruso Foundry Networks and Level 5 Networks recently joined forces to promote networks for high-performance computing systems. The partnership is being done through Foundry's HPC Ethernet Alliance Program, which is the...

Karalon tackles network traffic jams; * Karalon's software for traffic management.
July 7, 2005... Byline: Denise Dubie Traffic jams tend to be one of the most irritating occurrences in day-to-day life - and I am not just referring to cars on the highway. Traffic congestion on networks can be the source of many performance...

Sprint rolls out EV-DO.(Brief Article)
July 7, 2005... Byline: Denise Pappalardo Sprint announced Thursday it is rolling out its EV-DO wireless high-speed data service in 34 markets this month. Sprint first announced its EV-DO service plans just over a year ago. The carrier says its EV-DO...

Cisco names Giancarlo as head of development.(appointed Charles Giancarlo as chief development officer.)
July 8, 2005... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Cisco this week promoted Charles Giancarlo to chief development officer. He replaces Mario Mazzola as Cisco's head of engineering, who is retiring. Giancarlo's move to CDO comes a year after he was named chief...

Researchers, vendors, ISPs attack 'Net attackers.
July 8, 2005... Byline: Tim Greene Some of the best Internet minds in the world met Thursday to discuss a wide range of methods to rid the Web of malicious traffic. The Usenix invitation-only workshop, called Steps to Reducing Unwanted Traffic on the...

Lotus overhauls Notes client.
July 11, 2005... Byline: John Fontana Even though Notes/Domino 7.0 isn't due for the next few months, IBM/Lotus has uncharacteristically put in motion its next significant platform overhaul that will fully merge the traditional Notes client with new...

Dell begins dual-core push, upgrades blade servers.
July 11, 2005... Byline: Jennifer Mears While HP, IBM and Sun already have begun shipping systems based on Advanced Micro Devices' dual-core Opteron, Dell this week is set to enter the dual-core fray with a single-processor box aimed at small and...

More might makes right.(political activity of domain networking server)
July 11, 2005... Byline: Paul McNamara In wading through all the commentary this week about the Bush administration's dictate that the U.S. government shall retain ultimate control of the Internet's 13 root servers for as long as it damn well pleases,...

When managment sets the wrong security culture.
July 11, 2005... Byline: Winn Schwartau Fourteen years ago I warned MyBank (which is not one of my clients; I am one of its) about using Social Security numbers as solid identification. The bank's head of security said he would look into it. Since...

Wireless growth strategy; Privately held Moseley grows wireless offerings through shrewd purchases.
July 11, 2005... Byline: John Cox Proxim, a pioneer in wireless LANs, has become the latest acquisition by a company that plans to become the "GE of wireless" - a diversified global conglomerate with an array of wireless products. The buyer of...

IBM offers digital certificates to banks.
July 11, 2005... IBM last week announced it is hoping to encourage banks to make more use of digital certificates through a tie-up with trusted identity company Identrus. Identrus has certified Version 1.5 and higher of IBM's z/OS mainframe operating...

FrankenTiVo.
July 11, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs Arghhhhhhhhhh! Never in a million years would we have guessed that there would be a problem with getting our DirecTV TiVo to dial out for programming updates over our new Vonage VoIP connection. According to...

Why government R&D matters.(Research and Development)
July 11, 2005... Byline: Johna Till Johnson As Mark Twain famously said, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. Want proof? Check out the federal appropriations bill for funding the National Science Foundation in 2006. The...

Two new ways to watch TV via your network; A look at Plextor 's new PVR and Sling Media's Slingbox.
July 11, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw In previous newsletters I've highlighted ways that home network users can watch and/or store TV content through their home net without having to give in to the Microsoft Windows Media PC way of thinking (see...

Users bank on managed security services.
July 11, 2005... Byline: Denise Pappalardo More enterprise business customers are turning to managed security service providers to help them cope with the complexities of network security, especially when it comes to intrusion prevention . MSSP...

News briefs: Ebbers to be sentenced Wednesday.
July 11, 2005... * Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers will learn his fate this week. Ebbers will be sentenced Wednesday for his March conspiracy and fraud conviction in connection with the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Ebbers faces up to 85 years in...

IT execs talk telework, Part 1 of 2; IT professionals on the technological benefits and drawbacks of supporting telework.
July 11, 2005... Byline: Ann Bednarz Forrester Research this spring published a report about how users feel about technology, and remote IT support is one of the topics covered. Just under half (49%) of 435 remote users said they're satisfied with the...