Network World articles from June 2005

Network World archives from June 2005

Out with the old, in with the new data center; Six IT experts give pointers on how one fictitious company can solve its IT problems using new data center principles and technologies.
June 6, 2005... Byline: Beth Schultz Out with the old, in with the new data center Six IT experts give pointers on how one fictitious company can solve its IT problems using new data center principles and technologies. By Beth Schultz Our...

Axentra Net-Box is ambitious, but who is it made for? All-in-one server/router needs better utilities.
June 6, 2005... Byline: Keith SHaw Axentra Net-Box is ambitious, but who is it made for? All-in-one server/router needs better utilities. by KEITH SHAW You might grin a little, you might groan a little, when someone asks for help ...

Some speed bumps in; Netgear offers 802.11a/g speeds, weak interoperability.
June 6, 2005... Byline: Peter Hebenstreit If gaming and multimedia applications have home users balking at bandwidth congestion on their 802.11g networks, the fast lane glow of 802.11a beckons. Netgear's WGU624 (Double 108Mbps Wireless Firewall...

NAS gets exciting (sort of); Maxtor drag-and-drop feature gets us giddy, but where's the backup?
June 6, 2005... Byline: james gaskin NAS gets exciting (sort of) Maxtor drag-and-drop feature gets us giddy, but where's the backup? By James Gaskin by JAMES E. GASKIN Maxtor knows hard disk drives, as its OneTouch external drives have...

Akimbo takes on-demand content to new levels; New Internet video player works well, but where's the compelling content?
June 6, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw Akimbo takes on-demand content to new levels New Internet video player works well, but where's the compelling content? By Keith Shaw With its on-demand Internet video player, Akimbo is testing the axiom,...

The meaning of life (er, storage); Readers wrestle with the floppy question, SATA vs. PATA and a computer Catch-22.
June 6, 2005... Byline: James Gaskin Connection Coach The meaning of Life (er, storage) Readers wrestle with the floppy question, SATA vs. PATA and a computer Catch-22. By James Gaskin Traci from Boston: My company just sent me a new...

Don't ditch the landline yet; Home VoIP is cool, but needs safety and reliability fixes first.(Voice over Internet Protocol)
June 6, 2005... Byline: Deb Radcliff Don't ditch the landline yet Home VoIP is cool, but needs safety and reliability fixes first. By Deb Radcliff Eight million households are using VoIP, according to Synergy Research Group - no doubt, some...

Bit Buckets; It's not just about data any more. Home storage strategies need to take into account everything from photos to music and movies.
June 6, 2005... Byline: James Gaskin Bit Buckets It's not just about data any more. Home storage strategies need to take into account everything from photos to music and movies. By James E. Gaskin by JAMES E. GASKIN Home network users...

bit bucket sides.
June 6, 2005... Byline: James Gaskin Backup 101 Corporate data backup is automatic and reliable and the data is stored off-site for disaster recovery and redundancy. Home data backup is infrequent, untested and one hard disk failure away from useless....

Everything old is new again; Repurpose your PC.
June 6, 2005... Byline: James Gaskin Everything old is new again: Repurpose your PCs by JAMES E. GASKIN Gartner says 133,000 computers per day are retired or replaced. But instead of pitching them into the dump where they leak mercury and lead,...

Content Everywhere; Ways to stream media all around the house.
June 6, 2005... Byline: Rob Garretson Content Everywhere Ways to stream media all around the house. by rob garretson Sure, data backup is important. But everybody knows the killer app for network storage is home entertainment. ...

Sticky Notes.
June 6, 2005... Get ready for high-def DVDs Toshiba touts 45G-byte capacity on new disc. MARTYN WILLIAMS IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau) TOKYO - Toshiba has developed a prototype HD-DVD disc that increases the format's storage capacity by 50%...

Ed note.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
June 6, 2005... Byline: Keith SHaw When I was younger, storing a 10M-byte computer game on my father's PC drove him nuts. "Computer storage space should be saved for more valuable files," he would tell me. I can only imagine what he would think about...

Your reputation precedes you.(Column)
June 6, 2005... Byline: Chris Shipley If you've attended the Demo Conference or follow the DemoLetter blog (www.networkworld.com, DocFinder: 7428), you know that I am a huge advocate of the move to social computing. In very broad strokes, social computing...

Defending the castle.
June 6, 2005... Byline: Daniel Briere The average medieval castle featured layers of defense. Multiple wall rings were constructed so that there was no single intrusion point. However, these walls could be rendered useless by that most unpredictable of...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
June 6, 2005... Why VoIP? In the story "States want VoIP, lack infrastructure" (DocFinder: 7425), Daniel Corcoran of New York's Office for Technology states, "We're getting enormous pressure to do VoIP and we keep asking, 'Why?'" If your PBX is digital...

Rethinking legal privacy framework: a call to arms.(Column)
June 6, 2005... Byline: Johna Till Johnson I noted recently that we need to rethink the broader public policy on information stewardship in the context of 21st century technology. That's no small task. It affects everything from our understanding of...

Broadband service providers keeping secrets?
June 6, 2005... In an astonishingly short time, "broadband" has evolved to mandatory "utility" status for many households - especially those that serve as temporary or permanent "branch offices" for businesses large and small. After electricity and water, the...

AT&T's security head wears many hats.(Interview)
June 6, 2005... Byline: Denise Pappalardo and Ellen Messmer AT&T's Chief Security Information Officer Ed Amoroso recently spoke with Network World senior editors Denise Pappalardo and Ellen Messmer about his job heading up security for one of the largest...

Fireman's Fund lights up apps.
June 6, 2005... Byline: JOHN FONTANA Insurance provider Fireman's Fund Insurance hopes to set its industry ablaze with a project that will turn its mainframe applications into a set of network services that provide real-time transactions over the Web to...

Business market stoked for Ethernet services; ETHERNET SERVICES: Better bandwidth, lower costs.
June 6, 2005... Byline: JIM DUFFY There might be no hotter data service now than Ethernet. The worldwide market for Ethernet services was $2.5 billion in 2004 and is expected to more than double this year, according to Infonetics Research. From there,...

'Death of Microsoft,' compressed GIF at 11.
June 6, 2005... Byline: Scott Bradner Pundit Clayton Hallmark recently wrote a rambling rant (and a good one as anti-Microsoft rants go) with the eye-grabbing title of "BIG NEWS ON MICROSOFT: Slavery to It Is Ending." Not surprisingly, the work popped up...

Study: Networks to get their fill of iSCSI.(Internet Small Computer Systems Interface )
June 6, 2005... Byline: DENI CONNOR IP-based storage-area networks haven't taken off yet, but once they do, Ethernet networks will start feeling the effects. A new IDC study finds that even limited use of the iSCSI protocol to route block-level data...

Briefs.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2005... n HP is putting the finishing touches on an updated release of its HP-UX operating system that will add virtual partitioning capabilities to the company's Itanium-based Integrity servers. The update will make the virtualization technology...

SMI-S 1.1 simplifies storage mgmt.
June 6, 2005... Byline: RAY DUNN When it comes to storage environments, management, complexity, interoperability and serviceability are among the top challenges IT professionals face. Answering this call, the Storage Networking Industry Association...

IBM scales up Xeon server.
June 6, 2005... Byline: JENNIFER MEARS IBM this month is expected to begin shipping a Xeon-based server that can scale up to 32 processors for running high-end databases and enterprise applications or to serve as a platform for server consolidation. ...

Briefs.(Vintela)(Brief Article)
June 6, 2005... n Management vendor Quest Software last week said it would spend $56.5 million in cash to acquire privately held Vintela, which develops software to integrate Microsoft management tools with other platforms. The acquisition brings together two...

Service Providers briefs.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2005... Byline: staff writers Verio, a division of NTT Communications, now offers a Web hosting platform and managed Web hosting services that support IPv6, the next generation of the Internet's main communications protocol. Verio is among the...

Nortel is offering a fix for a vulnerability that could let an attacker crash its VPN routers with a single malformed packet.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2005... Nortel is offering a fix for a vulnerability that could let an attacker crash its VPN routers with a single malformed packet. The denial-of-service vulnerability, reported by Internet security testing company NTA Monitor affects several models...

IronPort aims high with e-mail security appliance.
June 6, 2005... Byline: CARA GARRETSON IronPort Systems this week announced a new version of its e-mail security appliance for large organizations that can process up to 1 million messages per hour. Called the X1000 and priced starting at $90,000,...

Ask Dr. Internet.
June 6, 2005... Byline: Steve Blass Steve Blass We want to connect a desktop database client from a Windows PC directly to a MySQL database server. The server is configured to only accept connections from a specified Web server that uses a shell...

Net-Box is ambitious, but audience is unclear.
June 6, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw You might grin a little, you might groan a little, when someone asks for help installing the Axentra Net-Box. We certainly did both when we tried it on our network. The Net-Box is an all-in-one server/router/firewall...

Nortel switch test.
June 6, 2005... Byline: John Bass We tested three 5520s individually and in a stack configuration. All 5520s were hardware Version 02, firmware Version 4.1.0.9 and software Version 4.1.1.02. All tests were executed using three Spirent Smartbits 6000C...

Aruba corrals foreign wireless LAN clients.
June 6, 2005... Byline: JOHN COX Users can corral foreign wireless LAN clients trying to connect to corporate networks, and grant them limited access to specific resources, using new software from Aruba Wireless Networks and Sygate. The Client...

Neat gadgets and Linux clusters.(Product/Service Evaluation)
June 6, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs Neat Gadget Department: In January we discussed a Wi-Fi hot-spot detector that we thought was pretty good. A more expensive alternative, the Digital Hotspotter Model #HS10 from Canary Wireless, provides more information...

Microsoft to unveil collaboration wares.
June 6, 2005... Byline: JOHN FONTANA Microsoft to unveil collaboration wares Microsoft last week said it has completed development of its next generation instant messaging and real-time collaboration client, Office Communicator 2005, and plans to ship...

Internet security . . . writ very small; Miniature version of the 'Net used to assess security schemes.
June 6, 2005... Byline: ELLEN MESSMER Like a ship in a bottle, the Internet-Simulation Event and Attack Generation Environment is a miniature version of the real thing: It's the vast Internet shrunk to fit onto a high-speed LAN on the floor of a building...

3Com quarantines malicious traffic.
June 6, 2005... Byline: TIM GREENE 3Com this week will introduce software that uses switches as enforcement points to shut down attacks on business networks, making it possible for users to quarantine infected machines that propagate malicious code. ...

'Net Buzz.
June 6, 2005... Byline: Paul McNamara The end of poetic license Combining the clout of copyright law with a few lines of poetry in order to hammer spammers was always seen here as clever - as gimmicks go - despite the obvious challenge of mustering...

News Bits.
June 6, 2005... n Yahoo and Cisco last week announced they are combining their anti-spam technologies to create a new e-mail authentication system. Called DomainKeys Identified Mail, it will draw on Yahoo's DomainKeys authentication technology and Cisco's...

Verizon extending switched Ethernet service.
June 6, 2005... Byline: JIM DUFFY Verizon this month plans to announce enhancements to its switched Ethernet service designed to make it more reliable for enterprise applications. Verizon is expected to add class-of-service features to its switched...

Carr's latest effort to stir the IT pot.
June 6, 2005... Byline: John Dix Nicholas Carr is back, following up his infamous "IT doesn't matter" essay in the Harvard Business Review with a piece in the MIT Sloan Management Review titled "The end of corporate computing." A common theme in both...

MCI offers network protection service.
June 6, 2005... Byline: DENISE PAPPALARDO MCI this week is expected to officially launch its WAN Defense distributed denial-of-service detection and mitigation service aimed at helping keep networks safe from attacks that can bring services to a grinding...

Supercomm looks to build on telecom momentum.
June 6, 2005... Byline: JIM DUFFY AND TIM GREENE MCI this week is expected to officially launch its WAN Defense distributed denial-of-service detection and mitigation service aimed at helping keep networks safe from attacks that can bring services to a...

Companies rush to plug 'data leaks'.
June 6, 2005... Byline: ELLEN MESSMER The threat entails employees leaking sensitive data about customers, finances or intellectual property in violation of security policies and regulatory requirements. Sometimes it's by mistake and sometimes the...

Sun nabs StorageTek in blockbuster.
June 6, 2005... Byline: DENI CONNOR Looking to stem losses and significantly boost its data protection, management and storage wares, Sun last week dug deep and acquired Storage Technology (StorageTek) for $4.1 billion. Sun blamed its StorEdge storage...

HP to release mgmt. barrage; Company to unveil products in its OpenView and ProCurve lines.
June 6, 2005... Byline: DENISE DUBIE HP this week is set to unveil products designed to help customers better manage compliance across their network infrastructure and monitor service-oriented applications from development to deployment. HP will...

Juniper adds IPSec to its SSL platform.(Brief Article)
June 6, 2005... Byline: TIM GREENE Juniper is upgrading its remote access platform to support IPSec or SSL sessions, deciding on the fly which technology is better suited for the current connection. This is the first time a remote access vendor has...

Microsoft seeks to sync up software; New versions of SQL Server, Visual Studio to highlight TechEd conference.
June 6, 2005... Byline: JOHN FONTANA Microsoft this week will use its annual TechEd conference to give IT executives a clearer picture on how it plans to integrate its developer tools and Windows infrastructure in hopes of supplying the uptime and...

Experts fear RFID strain on networks.
June 6, 2005... Byline: JOHN COX Network equipment vendors and industry watchers are sounding the alarm that RFID threatens to overwhelm enterprise networks with operational demands. Addressing the issue are big-name companies such as Cisco and...

Qwest seen having eyes for XO; Source says RBOC sizing up smaller carrier in wake of MCI snub.
June 6, 2005... Byline: CAROLYN DUFFY MARSAN AND JIM DUFFY Qwest is reportedly sizing up XO Communications as a possible takeover target, a source says. Speculation that Qwest might pursue XO and other, smaller service providers surfaced after Qwest...

Death to manuals.(Column)
June 6, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs Well, the flood of comments from the last two weeks of musing on Apple's software deficiencies continues unabated. Many of your comments are very interesting and insightful - thanks to all who replied and forgive me for...

Vendors tout vulnerability mgmt. wares.
June 6, 2005... Byline: ELLEN MESSMER Bolstering network vulnerability remediation and the ability to track down problems more quickly are the focus of a variety of products expected to be announced this week. Vulnerability-management packages have...

Gaining speed, Citrix buys NetScaler.
June 6, 2005... Byline: STACY COWLEY Citrix last week said it would acquire application acceleration hardware vendor NetScaler for about $300 million in cash and stock. NetScaler makes application appliances that handle such tasks as load balancing,...

SIP gets serious; SIP for Business enhances enterprise features and boosts interoperability.(session initiation protocol)
June 13, 2005... Byline: PHIL HOCHMUTH For John Haltom, network director for Erlanger Health systems, communications software based on Session Initiation Protocol is literally a lifesaver. Erlanger, a large Tennessee hospital management group, is...

Net intelligence a balancing act.(different layers of Open System Interconnection model)
June 13, 2005... Byline: Frank Dzubeck When IP was in its infancy, network concerns were focused at Layers 2 (data link) and 3 (network) of the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model. As time went on, enhancements continued to these layers, and then the...

Channel programs' Seven Deadly Sins.(distribution management)(Column)
June 13, 2005... Byline: Ken Presti As an analyst and consultant, I get a great view of how network vendors direct, and often misdirect, their channel programs. Nothing can take the wind out of a good technology's sails - or limit the customers' ability to...

HR and IT seek common ground; Thought Leadership Summit brings together leaders to share strategies.(human relations)
June 13, 2005... Byline: NEAL WEINBERG Human relations types and IT pros wouldn't seem to have much in common. It's your extroverted, people person who wants to make sure everybody at the company is happy vs. your introverted engineer who wants to make...

Inside telephony of the future; A behind-the-scenes look at new apps under development in the vendor test labs.
June 13, 2005... Byline: TIM GREENE VoIP can save money (maybe), simplify network administration (maybe) and improve productivity (maybe), but let's face it, a major reason people are interested is that VoIP has the potential to do some really cool stuff....

VoIP vendors get both messages; Avaya tops slate with advanced voice-recognition and text-to-speech wares.(voice over internet protocol)(Product/Service Evaluation)
June 13, 2005... Byline: Edwin Mier, Robert Tarpley and David Mier VoIP vendors get both messages Avaya tops slate with advanced voice-recognition and text-to-speech wares. By Edwin Mier, Robert Tarpley and David Mier, Network World Lab Alliance...

061305UM test how we did it.(unified messaging package)
June 13, 2005... Byline: Edwin Mier, Robert Tarpley and David Miller Edwin Mier, Robert Tarpley and David Mier Each vendor invited to the unified messaging evaluation was asked to bring a complete IP-PBX, Exchange Server 2000 or above, and at least two...

Salesforce.com battles rivals.
June 13, 2005... Byline: STACY COWLEY As Salesforce.com's star continues to rise, analysts are stepping up their warnings to customers that hosted applications can carry steep costs over the long run, especially for larger organizations. ...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
June 13, 2005... Byline: Readers The pitfalls of IPv6 In the story, "IPv6 addresses demand for space" (www.networkworld.com, DocFinder: 7522), Lumeta's Karl Siil states, "IP address space is becoming scarce under IPv4." I still haven't seen any...

Advanced technologies muddy software licensing.
June 13, 2005... Byline: JENNIFER MEARS AND ANN BEDNARZ Software licensing has never been simple, but the issue is becoming particularly thorny as IT managers deploy new data center technologies such as server virtualization, grid computing and multicore...

Management vendor develops Exchange tool.
June 13, 2005... Byline: JOHN FONTANA E-mail management vendor DYS Analytics later this month will release a desktop performance-monitoring tool that provides corporations with usage statistics and analytical data to help troubleshoot and manage Microsoft...

full letter.(Letter to the Editor)
June 13, 2005... Winn Schwartau's column, "Mad as hell, switching to Mac" (www.networkworld.com, DocFinder: 7526) provoked an avalanche of feedback from readers on both sides of the issue. Here's what some wrote: Mac attack S chwartau makes some...

Multi-function boxes take off; Individual job-specific security devices have fans, but days might be numbered.
June 13, 2005... Byline: TIM GREENE As the number of security technologies grows - firewall, anti-virus, content filtering, intrusion detection and others - some vendors suggest it makes sense to load all these platforms on a single device to save capital...

Tivoli exec tackles security.(Arvind Krishna from Tivoli Software Group tells about International Business Machines Corp. plans)(Interview)
June 13, 2005... Byline: Denise Dubie IBM's on-demand computing strategy incorporates intelligent hardware and smart software working in concert to automate the allocation and provisioning of IT resources. To do this, the company contends IT managers will...

Novell: The old cash cow ain't what she used to be.
June 13, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns Novell's recent quarterly financial announcements brought a good news-bad news mix for NetWare that's almost becoming the permanent snapshot for the company. Once again, for what seems like the 100th quarter in a row,...

Wireless enables assembly lines; 802.11 LANs, RFID and sensors let factories peer into plant processes.(local area networks, radio frequency identifications)
June 13, 2005... Byline: PHIL HOCHMUTH Manufacturers large and small are starting to cut the cords in their respective factories and plants. The installation of wireless sensors, RFID and 802.11-based wireless is helping these firms gain better insight...

Multi-core serves up performance.
June 13, 2005... Byline: BEN WILLIAMS As application performance demands grow, data centers require more computing power in a smaller box so that more servers can fit in a rack. Multi-core processing helps address these needs. Multi-core refers to a...

Facing competition, JBoss updates software.(JBoss Group L.L.C. plans)
June 13, 2005... Byline: JAMES NICCOLAI JBoss is reorganizing its partner program and considering moves into new types of software, including tools for building rich client interfaces, as it prepares to fend off increased competition from other providers...

Microsoft plans mobile push.
June 13, 2005... Byline: JOHN BLAU For its Windows Mobile 5.0 handset software announced in May, Microsoft plans later this year to offer an upgrade that will provide customers push e-mail technology and improved security management. The Messaging and...

A point solution in a broad space.(rules on disposal of consumer report information and records)
June 13, 2005... Byline: Scott Bradner On June 1, Part 682 of Title 16 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations went into effect. These rules concern the disposal of consumer report information and records.They eloquently demonstrate the inability of...

Fedora Linux set for upgrade.
June 13, 2005... Byline: Robert McMillan Red Hat is readying the first major update to its free Fedora Core Linux distribution since November 2004. Expected Monday, Fedora Core 4 will be the first release of the company's Linux operating system to...

Red Hat CEO touts 'very early stage' market; Matthew Szulik on acquisitions, expansion and singing with a choir.(Interview)
June 13, 2005... If anyone can be called an evangelist of the commercial value of open source software, it's Matthew Szulik, CEO of Red Hat. He has guided the company to profitability as other Linux start-ups have gone down in flames around him, all the while...

The accidental tech pundit; IT Doesn't Matter author Nicholas Carr parlays explosive essay into enduring gig.
June 13, 2005... Byline: JOHN FONTANA Two years ago, Nicholas Carr was an IT outsider with a provocative take on the future that unexpectedly touched off an industry firestorm. Today, he's a big-time insider, the quintessential disruptive force,...

Outsourcing HR applications growing up.
June 13, 2005... Byline: ANN BEDNARZ There's more to human resources application outsourcing than finding a service provider to manage a discrete chore such as payroll. These days companies are handing over broad sets of HR functions - from payroll and...

Ask Dr. Internet.(ways for file sharing)(Brief Article)
June 13, 2005... Byline: Steve Blass I live in an apartment with two other people, and we want to network our computers together for the purpose of file sharing. We want the option of adding computers (notebooks) on the network wirelessly, so at any given...

Application Services briefs.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2005... Byline: staff writers Nortel last week announced a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook to let companies with its Media Convergence Servers integrate voice and other forms of communication with the widely used e-mail client. The plug-in, called...

A few pointers for those moving toward convergence.
June 13, 2005... Byline: Johna Till Johnson If you're like a lot of network executives, you've begun to look seriously at deploying a converged infrastructure. And you're probably aware that successfully deploying convergence means more than rolling out an...

Briefs.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2005... n BellSouth last week said it plans to launch a 6M bit/sec downstream broadband service for businesses and homes in the fourth quarter. FastAccess DSL Xtreme 6.0 will provide a fourth option for BellSouth DSL service. The others are FastAccess...

WilTel storage services focus on disaster recovery.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2005... Byline: JIM DUFFY CHICAGO - WilTel last week introduced a portfolio of managed wide-area storage extension services for business continuity and disaster recovery. Announced at Supercomm 2005 in Chicago, the services are based on the...

Enterprise Computing briefs.(Brief Article)
June 13, 2005... Byline: staff writers NSI Software announced last week enhancements to its Double-Take server replication software for Windows. The product now includes a feature called Enterprise View Server Groups that lets administrators organize...