Network World articles from June 2006

Network World archives from June 2006

Security gurus watch reappearance of 'Yapbrowser'; * Patches from Symantec, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, others* Beware proof-of-concept virus affecting StarOffice* E-mail security is an ongoing battle, and other interesting reading.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Jason Meserve Today's bug patches and security alerts: Security gurus watch reappearance of 'Yapbrowser' A Web browser originating in Russia is available for download again after it was taken down last month when security...

Novell news from the field; * One reader explains why he thinks I'm being too hard on Novell.
June 1, 2006... Byline: James E. Gaskin Several readers sent notes claiming that I'm too hard on Novell. They don't argue about my facts as much as my conclusions. One reader, Tim Wessels, is a long-time reseller support engineer in New Hampshire. Tim...

Sweetspot simplifies IPSec deployment; * Sweetspot tokens eliminate the need to install VPN clients on all remote machines.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene A start-up called Sweetspot Solutions has a way to get around deploying IPSec client software on all the remote machines that might want to access a VPN. The company makes a USB token that contains an IPSec...

Group pushes 10 Gigabit EPON; * IEEE study group on 10 Gigabit EPON.(Ethernet passive optical networks)(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Jeff Caruso The IEEE study group looking at increasing support for Ethernet passive optical networks (EPON) has agreed to ask the larger body to allow it to develop a standard. The group recently posted on its Web site a...

Mary Kay makes over its WAN; Cosmetics giant gives its WAN a facelift.(Mary Kay Holding Corp.)(Packeteer Inc.)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Denise Dubie When cosmetics giant Mary Kay started to plan an overhaul of its network, the company also began considering tools that would better manage application traffic over the Internet. The company decided to give its...

June 5, 2006 Cartoon of the Week.
June 1, 2006... All cartoons Related story

June 5, 2006 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)(StarOffice effected by virus )(CA Inc.)
June 1, 2006... Past weeks GOOD: Forget the 'Net and make me invisible DARPA, the organization that brought you the predecessor to the Internet, now has something really amazing up its sleeve: technology that could make things appear invisible....

Vendors tie up with academia for storage research; * Vendors can learn a lot more from academia.(Frank Moss of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Mike Karp As Frank Moss tells it, we can expect companies to an increasing degree to look beyond their own walls for the majority of their intellectual property. Moss, former chairman and CEO at Tivoli, is the new director of...

Novell sells off U.K. consulting arm; * Novell divests itself of Celerant Consulting, which it inherited from CTP.(Company overview)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Dave Kearns A year ago, some major Novell investors recommended that the company divest itself of some products and services. The company has now at least started on that mission with the announcement that Celerant Consulting,...

Why pay-per-e-mail won't work; * One reader's thoughts on why pay-per-e-mail schemes will fail.(Column)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Michael Osterman A reader of my column offered the following argument against a pay-per-e-mail system: "[Pay-per-e-mail schemes] work very well with surface mail, telephone and fax services, but I really can't see them working...

Telecom excise tax repealed; * Also: 'Net neutrality bill approved; Verizon speeds enterprise apps.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy A 3% federal excise tax that has been on the books since 1898 was repealed. The U.S. Treasury abolished the tax law last week, which will likely result in multimillion-dollar refunds for business customers. Colleague...

HP, IBM, MPC and Rackable upgrade servers using new dual-core processors; * Systems vendors put Intel's dual-core Xeon processors in their servers.(Intel Xeon 5100)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Deni Connor HP, IBM, Rackable Systems and MPC last week announced upgrades of their respective servers using Intel's newest Xeon processors. The Intel Xeon 5100 - codenamed Woodcrest - delivers as much as 125% better...

When applications perform badly, is the CYA approach good enough? * Who gets the rap when networked apps perform badly?
June 1, 2006... Byline: Steve Taylor, Jim Metzler Throughout the years, we have done a lot of seminar tours on topics such as wide-area networking and network and application optimization. On these tours, invariably some speaker asks the audience who...

Unsubscribing not so easy; * Spammers make it difficult to get off their lists.(Column)
June 1, 2006... Byline: M. E. Kabay Spammers have never shown any signs of moral development, but many of them have benefited from the technical intelligence of corrupt geeks who support their nefarious activities. Now, when I write about Bad Things,...

New Nokia chief open to partnerships, buyouts; Kallasvuo taking reins of mobile giant today.(Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Byline: John Cox Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo Thursday takes over the top spot at Nokia, as the company enters a time of increasing competition, fast-changing technology, and pressure on revenue and profit. The chairman, president and CEO...

BellSouth expands small business services with data backup and remote access; BellSouth offering Online Backup service and PC 2 Go software to small businesses.(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy BellSouth this week announced that it is offering data file backup and remote access applications for small businesses. Online Backup from BellSouth allows small business customers to choose the data files they wish...

Chicago looking for a Wi-Fi partner.(metro-wide Wi-Fi network)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Denise Pappalardo Chicago is the next big city looking to deploy a metro-wide Wi-Fi network. The city issued a request for proposals earlier this week to construct a citywide Wi-Fi network so its citizens can easily and...

Skype offers more free conferencing.(partnered with Vapps LLC)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene Skype is extending its offer of free services to include audio conferences for up to 500 parties as a way to lure more businesses into Skype use. In conjunction with conferencing service provider Vapps, Skype is...

Tripwire brings Oracle support to change mgmt. tool; Tripwire adds Oracle database change auditing to configuration management product to help ease regulatory compliance efforts.(Tripwire Enterprise 5.5)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Denise Dubie Configuration vendor Tripwire this week announced it had updated its enterprise management product to now support certain flavors of Oracle databases, which the company says will enable network managers to more...

E-mail security is an ongoing battle; IT managers should resolve to deciding how much threat to their e-mail systems is manageable, e-mail experts say.(Inbox e-mail conference)(Discussion)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Linda Leung The IT industry will never eradicate security threats to e-mail systems and organizations should take a holistic approach to securing their communication systems to the level where they believe risk is at a...

Microsoft outlines new Exchange CAL, Beta 2 features; Microsoft details Exchange 2007 client access license option; says Beta 2 will include compliance and data protection.(client access license)(Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 )
June 1, 2006... Byline: John Fontana Microsoft on Thursday said Exchange 2007 would include a new client access license option geared to enterprise users and that Beta 2 of the server will include new e-mail hygiene, compliance, replication and data...

Vista Beta 2: Microsoft bites the security bullet; Testing of Vista Beta 2 shows deployment pain will yield security gain.
June 2, 2006... In our testing of Microsoft's recently released Vista Beta 2 code, we found that in terms of its revamped client-side networking infrastructure and policy-based security controls, it's in lock step with Microsoft's Longhorn server code. ...

How to prepare for a CISO position; Security professionals must know the business to rise through the ranks.(chief information security officers )
June 2, 2006... Chief information security officers and the important work they do increasingly are being recognized in the C suite. Results from the second annual Global Information Security Workforce Study, conducted by global analyst firm IDC and...

Netlink gets a new CEO.(Nextlink Wireless, Robert Beran )(Brief article)
June 2, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy Nextlink Wireless this week said Robert Beran has joined the company as its CEO. Beran replaces Tom Cady, Nextlink president, who is staying on "for the next couple of months" to help Beran transition into his...

Yipes yips over funding.(Yipes Enterprise Services Inc.)(Brief article)
June 2, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy Yipes Enterprise Services this week said it completed its fourth round of funding for $17.5 million. The funding includes a $9 million line of credit from SVB Silicon Valley Bank and additional Series D funding of...

New laptops from Dell, Lenovo.(Dell Precision M90, Lenovo 3000 N100 )(Product/service evaluation)
June 5, 2006... Byline: Keith Shaw We've got notebook fever. The scoop: Dell Precision M90 laptop, starting at about $2,200. What it is: A high-powered notebook for users who need power for applications such as 3-D design, graphic arts or video...

In brief: Fortinet introduces 10Gbps security blade.(forecasting sales of circuit-switched PBX phone systems)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Fortinet last week introduced a 10Gbps security blade for screening high-volume traffic in large organizations. The FortiController 5208 blade can aggregate traffic from smaller Fortinet security blades for uplinks to 10Gbps backbones. The...

Enterasys CEO takes over; Michael Fabiaschi sees going private as an equally interesting opportunity.(Enterasys Networks Inc.'s Michael Fabiaschi interviewed)(Interview)
June 5, 2006... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Most technology CEOs get excited about taking a company public; Enterasys' new CEO Michael Fabiaschi sees going private as an equally interesting opportunity. Fabiaschi comes to Enterasys after private equity firm...

Corralling the zombies.
June 5, 2006... Byline: Mike Rothman Zombies are the No. 1 problem facing network and security professionals today. No, this is not a bad horror movie. Basically, compromised consumer PCs provide the malicious engine behind every major attack we see...

Master data management is key to compliance.
June 5, 2006... Byline: James Kobielus Companies cook the books at their own peril. That's the principal lesson we've learned from Enron and other corporate scandals these past few years. Even when thievery's not the issue, the messier your official...

In brief: Microsoft releases near-final version of Commerce Server 2007.(Microsoft Commerce Server 2007)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Microsoft has released a near-final version of its software for building e-commerce sites and renamed the product Commerce Server 2007, from Commerce Server 2006. In a blog posting on the Microsoft Developer Network recently, Microsoft...

Of rootkits and personal responsibility.(Sony BMG Music Entertainment accused for product liability)
June 5, 2006... Byline: Mark Gibbs Network World's front page last week featured a story titled "Are all rootkits evil?" What triggered this question was the court-ordered settlement handed down the week before that requires Sony BMG Music...

Half a tax is better than one.(Federal Excise Tax)
June 5, 2006... Byline: Johna Till Johnson Great news! You probably heard that the 3% phone tax is finally history - sort of. I'm talking about the Federal Excise Tax, which was enacted in 1898 to pay for the Spanish-American War, and has been charged...

The quest for the Holy Remote.
June 5, 2006... Byline: Mark Gibbs Unless you really planned your home-theater setup, your collection of gear - your television, VCR, DVD player, amplifier and TV tuner - will usually come from a number of manufacturers. Herein lies the problem at the...

Ping broadening scope of identity wares.(PingIdentity )
June 5, 2006... Byline: John Fontana PingIdentity this week is expected to add support for additional identity protocols to its software and introduce a new middleware product to tie Web-based applications into corporate authentication deployments....

Web hosters go green; One customer boasts: 'Site hosted with 100% solar energy.'.
June 5, 2006... Byline: Jennifer Mears About two hours south of Los Angeles in the desert town of Romoland, Calif., sits a 2,000-square-foot building made of sheet metal. Gigantic solar arrays flank each side of the structure that looks out on a dirt...

The beta benefit; Testing buggy products can give your company a competitive edge.(Jim Nauer and his beta testing)
June 5, 2006... In 15 years at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, systems engineer Jim Nauer has been involved in six major beta tests. In each case, Nauer was motivated by the failure of existing technology to meet Case's technology or business...

In brief: Salesforce.com and JotSpot announce partnership.(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Salesforce.com, which offers enterprise applications as online services, and JotSpot, which develops wiki applications, last week announced a partnership to deliver a suite of collaborative services. The JotSpot Tracker, which lets users...

Broadband buyers turning over the reins to MSPs.(Managed service providers )
June 5, 2006... Byline: Carolyn Duffy Marsan Companies purchasing broadband Internet access for branch and home offices increasingly are turning to service providers rather than trying to manage DSL or cable connections themselves. Relying on...

GigaStor probe analyzes WAN traffic with ease; Probe from Network Instruments aims to ease troubleshooting, planning.(Product/service evaluation)
June 5, 2006... Diagnosing network problems without analyzing or even inspecting the traffic related to the problem is always an exercise in speculation and guesswork. The same goes for planning: How can you recommend network changes to accommodate growth...

Here we go again . . . sort of; In network computing, everything old is new again.
June 5, 2006... Byline: Chuck Yoke What do this summer's clothing fashions and the current trend in network computing have in common? Both are examples of Peter Allen's song "Everything Old is New Again." The song, written for the 1979 musical "All...

Test shows Microsoft tightening up Longhorn; But missing features include virtual machine, search optimization and advanced clustering.(Microsoft Windows Vista)
June 5, 2006... The recently released beta 2 version of Microsoft's Longhorn is not yet feature-complete, but encouraging work has been done in the areas of security, management and the underlying technology. The key ingredients still missing are the...

Telecom show wars continue; TIA conference follows USTA's TelecomNext as show wars continue.(Telecommunications Industry Association, United States. Telecom Association)
June 5, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy The telecom industry convenes this week at the second of two major trade shows spawned from the dissolution of the Supercomm conference. Exhibitors such as Cisco and Juniper plan to showcase offerings designed to...

Jabber adds IM, directory integration; JabberNow 1.1 now has more sophisticated archiving features.(instant messaging software, JabberNow 1.1)
June 5, 2006... Byline: John Fontana Instant messaging vendor Jabber has released the next version of its IM appliance with a focus on interoperating with corporate directories and consumer services. JabberNow 1.1 is designed to help customers...

Anti-virus, etc.: Who is going to watch the watchers?
June 5, 2006... Byline: Scott Bradner If you are running a Windows computer and not using some sort of anti-virus package then you are likely not the one really running your computer. It is very likely that some hacker halfway around the world can do...

Devices speed CIFS WAN traffic; Acceleration devices increase data access.(Common Internet File System, wide area networks)
June 5, 2006... Common Internet File System is a remote file access protocol that forms the basis for Windows file sharing. CIFS performs poorly over high-latency WAN links because it's chatty, meaning a large number of back-and-forth transactions are...

Imperva appliance tracks who accesses database.(SecureSphere Database Monitoring Gateway)
June 5, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene Web application firewall vendor Imperva is introducing an appliance to help businesses meet strict auditing requirements by figuring out who accesses database information that must be kept confidential. Called...

VMware pools virtual resources.
June 5, 2006... Byline: Jennifer Mears VMware this week is expected to unveil software designed to let customers group compute resources into a virtual pool that can be allocated to workloads depending on application demands, eliminating the need for...

PGP, RSA announce encryption initiatives.(PGP Corp. introduced NetShare, RSA Security Inc.)
June 5, 2006... Byline: Ellen Messmer Two encryption vendors are expected to disclose new undertakings this week, as PGP announces a product called NetShare, and RSA Security kicks off a standards effort as well as a partnership with Protegrity. ...

NetBeans vs. Eclipse.(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Both NetBeans and Eclipse IDE are usable for Java Enterprise Edition (EE) Web service development. You can download the NetBeans Java EE 5 Tools Bundle and get the NetBeans IDE and the Sun Java System Application Server in one package. With...

Foundry switch targets corporate VoIP.(Foundry Networks Inc. introduced Foundry FastIron SX 800 and 1600 switches)
June 5, 2006... Byline: Phil Hochmuth In July, Foundry is expected to announce new corporate Ethernet gear for business networks, with a focus on VoIP and Power over Ethernet. The Foundry FastIron SX 800 and 1600 switches are chassis-based...

H-1B limits raised, controversy ignited.
June 5, 2006... Byline: Michael Cooney You knew it was coming and you knew it would be controversial. The U.S. Senate last week approved a motion that would increase the number of H-1B visa workers allowed in the United States at any one time from...

In brief: Decru announces encryption key management device.(Lifetime Key Management Appliance)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Decru, a division of Network Appliance, is announcing a device that manages encryption keys within stored data. The Lifetime Key Management Appliance is based on Decru's software-based key-management technology. Sixteen Lifetime Key...

Have identity thieves stolen my judgment?
June 5, 2006... Byline: Paul McNamara As far as scary identity-theft stories go, the one on the front page of last Tuesday's New York Times was sure to leave many readers cowering under their covers . . . especially those living in Arizona. ...

Oracle makes nice with security experts; The company improves its relationship with security researchers by communicating more openly.
June 5, 2006... Byline: Robert McMillan and IDG News Service Oracle once marketed its database as "unbreakable," but security researcher David Litchfield has a lesser opinion of the software. "God forbid that any of our critical national...

Guide to two-factor authentication; It's not who you know; it's what you know plus what you've got.
June 5, 2006... Increased online fraud and new industry regulations are driving companies to search for stronger authentication methods. The problem is there's little agreement on the best authentication method or what constitutes multifactor...

UPS designed to help you go green; CoolAir DC power system relies on flywheel technology rather than lead batteries.(Active Power Inc.)
June 5, 2006... Byline: Deni Connor Flywheel technology, found in everything from potter's wheels to airplane altitude-control systems, has also found a home in UPS systems for data centers. Active Power this week plans to introduce its latest UPS...

Telephone excise tax abolished, millions in refunds expected.
June 5, 2006... Byline: Denise Pappalardo Score one for the little guy - and the not-so-little guy. The U.S. Treasury Department abolished a tax law Thursday, which will likely result in multimillion-dollar refunds for business users. It's not...

Execs express top security concerns.(Converge '06 conference)
June 5, 2006... Byline: Michael Cooney BOSTON - When it comes to protecting corporate assets there seems to be little security managers don't worry about. That the impression of security executives attending this week's Converge '06 conference - also...

Supply chain execs share disaster-planning techniques.
June 5, 2006... Byline: Ann Bednarz CHICAGO -- Without warning, a supply chain executive from Wal-Mart told his operations and administrative staff to pretend that a particular distribution facility had burned to the ground. They had until the end of...

Letters to the editor: "Too much to ask".
June 5, 2006... Too much to ask Regarding Mark Gibbs' BackSpin column on the need for cell phone vendors to start focusing on usability rather than features: As the user of two new but different cell phones, I absolutely agree. One phone is a Razr,...

Unexpected consequences of HIPAA; * HIPAA's roadblock to research, and a solution based in information security.(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996)
June 6, 2006... Byline: M. E. Kabay Although I began programming in 1965 and began working professionally on a compiler project in 1979, I have maintained a lifelong interest in science in general and biology in particular. My original field of study...

When five nines just won't cut it; * Extreme availability.(Nemertes data center research)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Andreas M. Antonopoulos Four major themes emerged in Nemertes' latest data center research, drawn from interviews with 82 data-center managers, CIOs, IT directors and other IT executives from 65 companies. Regardless of size or...

Hospital drops its service provider in favor of building its own optical network; * A glut of optical fiber drives enterprises to use this low-cost alternative.(Presbyterian Hospital Inc.)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Steve Taylor, Jim Metzler For years service providers have been using optical networking as the cornerstone of their long-distance networks. However, until recently enterprises have been slow to adopt optical networking mainly...

A centralized approach to branch office VoIP; * Final in the series of how organizations extend VoIP to the branch.(voice over internet protocol)(Column)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Robin Gareiss This weeks' column concludes our three-week analysis of how organizations extend VoIP to their branch offices. Most commonly, they install IP PBXs at every location; 40% have adopted a distributed architecture....

Take care of your tapes and they will take care of you (and your job); * Tracking tapes continued.(Column)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Mike Karp Last week's rant about tracking off-site tapes kicked off a string of e-mails from several of you. John, Indiana's resident Storage Wise Guy, has dealt with this issue for years, and offers a simple guideline: ...

The problems with mobile messaging; * Mobile messaging is growing in most organizations - what are the gotchas?(Osterman Research survey)(Survey)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Michael Osterman The use of mobile messaging is growing in most organizations. For example, a recent Osterman Research survey found the following penetration and growth of various devices and technologies: *...

Is Novell replacing Astaro with Novell Access Manager? * Novell Access Manager thought to be in the works.
June 6, 2006... Byline: Dave Kearns Rumors and discussion continue to swirl around Novell's BorderManager product. As I mentioned last week, there are rumblings that a new version, 3.9, will be forthcoming after the product had been virtually declared...

Raptor packs more into single-mode fiber; * Raptor Networks Technology advances in single-mode fiber, storage.(Raptor Networks Technology developing Ether-Raptor switches)(Brief article)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Jeff Caruso Start-up Raptor Networks Technology this week said it was able to run Gigabit Ethernet bi-directionally through a small form-factor pluggable, or SFP, optical interface in a multilayer switch. The company also...

Round two; * The telecom industry convenes this week at the inaugural Globalcomm.(Supercomm)(Telecommunications Industry Association and United States Telecom Association)(Brief article)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy The telecom industry convenes this week at the second of the two major trade shows spawned from the dissolution of the Supercomm conference. The inaugural Globalcomm kicks off following the separation of...

How well does SSL VPN support Flash? * VPN Consortium approves SSL VPN gear that support Flash URLs.(secure socket layer virtual private network)(Uniform Resource Identifiers)(Brief article)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene The VPN Consortium has added another compliance test to its suite of tests - this one measuring how well SSL VPN gear supports Flash content. As a practical matter, some businesses use Flash-containing URLs as...

Lancope adds net optimization to security appliance; * Lancope couple security and management.(StealthWatch 5.5 from Lancope Inc.)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Denise Dubie The convergence of network optimization and security management isn't an entirely new thing, but this week Lancope will introduce its new approach to bringing network routing data into its network behavior anomaly...

Offshoring fears are exaggerated; * Study: "Offshoring of Information Technology Jobs: Myths and Realities".(American Sentinel University survey)(Survey)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Amy Schurr Fears of IT job losses stemming from offshore outsourcing are overblown, according to a study from distance educator American Sentinel University. "Offshoring of Information Technology Jobs: Myths and Realities"...

Raritan unveils 64-port KVM switch; * Raritan claims the first 64-port KVM over IP switch.(Dominion KX464)(Dominion KX132)(Brief article)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Deni Connor Raritan rolled out what it claims is the first 64-port KVM-over-IP switch. Since the switch can manage the keyboards, mice and video of more servers, customers can reduce the number of switches, IP addresses...

Microsoft sets e-mail hygiene lineup, pricing.(anti-virus and anti-spam software for e-mail)
June 6, 2006... Byline: John Fontana Microsoft Tuesday offered free trial versions of its forthcoming anti-virus and anti-spam software for e-mail that it obtained last year when it acquired Sybari Software. The company introduced its first...

Microsoft lays out roadmap for interim release of BizTalk, RFID support.(BizTalk Server)(radio frequency identification )
June 6, 2006... Byline: John Fontana Microsoft Tuesday laid out its roadmap for BizTalk Server, including support for RFID technology and integration with Vista and Office, and said the next release of the software will come in the first half of 2007....

VC reveals how network technologies get from universities to vendors to you; Former wireless exec laments lack of basic research at companies.(Rich Redelfs of Foundation Capital)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Bob Brown Noticing a drop-off in the number and impact of enterprise network start-ups in recent years, we've begun exploring network-oriented developments further down the pipeline, such as at universities and other labs. In...

McAfee buys security software maker Preventsys.(Brief article)
June 6, 2006... Byline: Ellen Messmer McAfee announced it has acquired Carlsbad, Calif., start-up Preventsys, which makes risk-management and compliance reporting software, for just under $10 million. The Preventsys Security Risk Management System...

Microsoft adds business intelligence server to Office lineup; Microsoft Office 2007 to focus on business analytics.(Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007)
June 6, 2006... Byline: John Fontana Microsoft on Tuesday added yet another server to its Office 2007 lineup, this one focused on spreading business analytic tools across a corporation. The Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 will go...

Microsoft to let users Go Live with its Longhorn beta; * Would you test Longhorn beta on your production environment?
June 7, 2006... Byline: Dave Kearns The recent Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) produced lots of announcements, some of which should be of definite interest to you the Windows network manager. Most intriguing to me though was a plan by...

Telecom show wars continue; * TIA conference follows USTA's TelecomNext as show wars continue.(Telecommunications Industry Association)(U.S. Telecom Association)
June 7, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy The telecom industry convenes this week at the second of two major trade shows spawned from the dissolution of the Supercomm conference. Exhibitors such as Cisco and Juniper plan to showcase offerings designed to...

Next-generation mgmt. tools indicate more automation to come; * New trends in automated business service management minimize the FUD factor.
June 7, 2006... Byline: Julie Craig Management products have been around for a long time but, to date, haven't made much of a dent in overall IT administration costs. As products improve, infrastructure becomes increasingly complex, with each...

Web favicons add a little polish; * Adding polish to your Web site with favorite icons.
June 7, 2006... Byline: Mark Gibbs I was recently asked about this topic by a reader and I thought that not only might many of you be wondering how to do this on your own Web sites, many more of you who don't want to do it might just be curious as to...

Testing your readiness for the CCIE lab exam; * Cisco's Assessor Lab facility.(Cisco Systems Inc)
June 7, 2006... Byline: Linda Leung A couple of weeks ago, we ran a Q&A with Elaine Lopes, Cisco's CCIE program manager responsible for the exam development process for the CCIE team. At the end of the interview, she mentioned the CCIE Assessor Lab, a...