Network World articles from March 2005

Network World archives from March 2005

It don't come easy; Installing an enterprise search tool takes hard work, but the results speak for themselves.
March 7, 2005... Byline: MICHELE HOPE Monica Lavin is executive director of Web initiatives at Thomas Industrial Network, a 100-year-old company in New York known for its Thomas Register "green books" that catalog information on U.S. industrial...

IT revs up search engines; Companies are using enterprise search tools to unlock key information buried in internal databases and to boost e-commerce.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Michelle Hope IT revs up search engines Companies are using enterprise search tools to unlock key information buried in internal databases and to boost e-commerce. By MICHELE HOPE Internet search has become a staple in...

Why managed services fail.(managed services)
March 7, 2005... Byline: Jeff Kaplan It seems like nearly every IT/network supplier and service provider is adding managed services to its portfolios. Yet almost every supplier and service provider I talk to admits that selling managed services has been...

India, China duke it out.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Howard Anderson Let's look forward 10 years. Who will win the coming battle for Third World dominance - India or China? I recently spent a month in India, visiting its most important IT companies. Right now, India is clearly...

Outsourcing IT; Business leaders eye esternal providers to cut costs, but there are ways to take command of the process while helping achieve corporate goals.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Marc Ferranti Outsourcing IT Business leaders eye external providers to cut costs, but there are ways to take command of the process while helping achieve corporate goals. By marc ferranti Editor's note: This is the...

Virtual Server Software; Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005: Redmond giant's foray into server consolidation.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Tom Henderson Virtual Server Software Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005: Redmond giant's foray into server consolidation n By Tom Henderson, Network World Lab Alliance In our Clear Choice Test, Virtual Server 2005 -...

How we did it.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Tom Henderson How we did it? We installed Virtual Server 2005 and the necessary Windows 2003 software on several host platforms, including a Netframe 1600 server with two, Xeon CPUs and 4GB of RAM, a similarly configured...

Reviving Ma Bell.
March 7, 2005... Reviving Ma Bell Regarding the story "SBC/AT&T seen as only the first act" (www.nwfusion.com, DocFinder: 6122): Michigan Bell became Ameritech, which in turn was bought by SBC. So for those of us in Michigan, SBC snapping up AT&T is...

BFD spots router forwarding failures.(Bidirectional Forwarding Detection)
March 7, 2005... Byline: MATT KOLON IP networks were not designed to repair failures in sub-second intervals, but applications such as VoIP increasingly are driving the need for rapid failure detection and correction. Traditional routing infrastructure has...

Universal Service Fraud: Bailouts for billionaires.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Johna Till Johnson Y ou've got to hand it to those Mafia wiseguys, they know a good scam when they see one. From 1996 through last year, the Gambino crime family bilked the Universal Service Fund out of some $22 million by...

Novell: Long-term memory problems?
March 7, 2005... Byline: dave kearns N ovell's Jack Messman might be one of the last honest businessmen, unafraid to change his mind and his company's direction, but never afraid to tell the truth when he discovers it. On the other hand, he simply...

A personal touch.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Scott Bradner W ell, that didn't take long. Just after the window closed on my column last week about ChoicePoint's identity theft problems came the announcement that Bank of America had a problem of its own. The company...

SMBs driving demand for VoIP services; VoIP: Large companies still prefer to go it alone.(Small and Medium Sized Business)(Voice over Internet Protocol)
March 7, 2005... Byline: JIM DUFFY Large corporations have been slow to embrace hosted or network-based VoIP services despite the hype about lower costs and compelling applications. Today, most of the momentum in business VoIP services - customer...

Court ditches mainframe for Windows system.
March 7, 2005... Byline: JOHN FONTANA Debbie Brasher cut the mainframe cord and she is not looking back. The director of technology for the Superior Court Stanislaus County System in Modesto, Calif., has moved on to a Windows-based infrastructure and a set...

Vendors target IP video hurdles.
March 7, 2005... Byline: JASON MESERVE February 2005 may go down as the beginning of the end for the last technical hurdle blocking widespread adoption of corporate IP videoconferencing - the issue of firewall and network address translation traversal. ...

Application Services Short Takes.(Brief Article)
March 7, 2005... n Messaging and collaboration vendor Stalker Software next month is scheduled to release the CommuniGate Pro Version 4.3 Real-Time Communications server, which includes an enhanced Session Initiation Protocol interface. Stalker has integrated...

Adtran powers phones, access points; New switches add support for Power over Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet uplinks.
March 7, 2005... Byline: TIM GREENE Looking to simplify corporate Gigabit Ethernet and VoIP installations, Adtran is rolling out switches, routers and combination switches with integrated routers that support VoIP handsets and wireless access points all...

Wi-Fi remote-access options expand; AT&T, Sprint and MCI beefing up hot spots, as well as wired Ethernet offerings.
March 7, 2005... Byline: DENISE PAPPALARDO Service providers are expanding the global reach of their Wi-Fi and wired Ethernet networks to offer users better remote access when traveling. AT&T recently announced that it nearly quadrupled its wireless...

ask dr. internet.
March 7, 2005... Byline: steve blass Steve Blass You recently (www.nwfusion.com, DocFinder: 6129) recommended using Windows Internet Connection Sharing to connect a home network with wireless Windows XP and Macintosh systems to the Internet. Can you...

Start-up takes aim at automating routine data center functions.( RealOps )
March 7, 2005... Byline: DENISE DUBIE Start-up RealOps is offering customers software designed to streamline their operations and maximize their resources by automating routine tasks and providing an audit trail of actions taken across their data centers....

short takes.(Brief Article)
March 7, 2005... n Image Fortress this week is introducing an archiving service for files, structured data and e-mails. Called DigitalFortress, the service lets organizations safely store the information they need to keep for government compliance at a remote...

Grid alliance gains members.(Enterprise Grid Alliance)(Brief Article)
March 7, 2005... Byline: JENNIFER MEARS Corporate IT managers in growing numbers are beginning to look at grid computing - where resources are pooled and then distributed in response to application demands - as a way to increase the utilization rates of...

IBM, CA target mainframe mgmt.(Computer Associates International Inc.)
March 7, 2005... Byline: Denise Dubie IBM and Computer Associates are tailoring wares for mainframe users that the companies promise will make managing the 40-year-old technology easier for novice systems administrators, and cut budget costs associated...

Share at 50: IBM users still sticking together; Group marks half-century of influence, collegiality, good cheer - and buttons.
March 7, 2005... Byline: ANN BEDNARZ Share at 50: IBM users still sticking together Group marks half-century of influence, collegiality, good cheer - and buttons. ANAHEIM, CALIF. - Twice a year the Button Man dons his lab coat, weighted down with...

short takes.(Brief Article)
March 7, 2005... n 3Com laid off 220 employees - about 11% of its workforce - last month, the company said in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to documents filed Feb. 25, the layoffs occurred between Feb. 18 and 23. One...

Start-up promises computing power on demand.(Azul Systems)
March 7, 2005... Byline: JENNIFER MEARS Azul Systems says it has an answer for IT managers wrestling with how to cope with unpredictable spikes in demand that go hand-in-hand with Web-based applications. Rather than deploying additional hardware, which...

Cool Tools.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw Sony Ericsson melds Walkman with a cell phone If the last few years were the camera phone years, we could see the dawning of the music phone years pretty soon. Sony Ericsson last week launched the W800, a...

BlueRoam offers SOHO VPN service.(Small Office Home Office)(Virtual Private Networks)
March 7, 2005... Byline: TONI KISTNER Robert Brown was caught in a time warp - working for a modern distributed organization without remote access to the network. A contradiction unheard of in large companies is common in small firms, which make do with...

Net.Worker Short Takes.(Brief Article)
March 7, 2005... n Actiontec Electronics has shipped new HomePlug network equipment. The Actiontec Ethernet Adapter Kit contains two adapters, one for the power outlet near the router, the other for the power outlet near the PC. Data rates are 14M bit/sec, and...

Service Providers Short Takes.(Brief Article)
March 7, 2005... ? Cisco last week enhanced its Multi-protocol Label Switching software with features designed to foster greater interoperability between service provider networks. MPLS interprovider features let service providers combine the capabilities of...

'Net Buzz.(Column)
March 7, 2005... Byline: Paul McNamara Software's interplanetary dialogue Software developers are from Mars, and lawyers are from Venus. To the extent the two must interact - and the current state of intellectual property law dictates they must -...

IBM pitches Informix database upgrade.
March 7, 2005... Byline: JAMES NICCOLAI IBM has released a major upgrade to its Informix database that promises users improvements in performance, administration and security. IBM called the move the most significant upgrade of the database in five years....

CA sketches security architecture plans.(Computer Associates International Inc.)
March 7, 2005... Byline: ELLEN MESSMER Computer Associates last week said it would roll out a series of software packages designed to help users manage corporate security environments. While details of its eTrust Security Management architecture are...

Proxies: Theory and serious practice.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs T his week we continue with proxies, a topic we started to explore last week. Essentially, a proxy server acts as a router of application-level protocol exchanges. Additionally, proxies provide network address...

Vendors bullish on grid computing.
March 7, 2005... Byline: John Dix At the recent GlobusWorld conference on grid computing in Boston we hosted a panel discussion titled "Grid and the Future of the Network Machine" which featured a cross section of vendor speakers, representatives from...

Sonic expands its SOA lineup.(Service Oriented Architecture)
March 7, 2005... Byline: John Fontana Web services infrastructure vendor Sonic Software this week will introduce its SOA Suite, which includes tools designed to make it easier for corporations to integrate current databases with Web services and to share...

Financial firms bolster authentication.
March 7, 2005... Byline: ELLEN MESSMER Financial institutions are strengthening their defenses against online fraud by adding security mechanisms that are better suited to prove the identity of customers than are simple, reusable passwords. Brokerage...

NetApp upgrading file server OS; New capabilities to support Linux clusters.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Deni Connor Network Appliance is readying an upgrade to the software at the heart of its network file servers, and the first beneficiaries could be organizations running Linux clusters. Data OnTap Next Generation (NG), a...

Micromuse makes service mgmt. foray.
March 7, 2005... Byline: DENISE DUBIE Micromuse plans to unveil next month software bundles designed to help companies more quickly relate network faults to application performance and ensure that performance meets to pre-defined service levels. The...

Juniper scores with WLAN protector.(Product/Service Evaluation)
March 7, 2005... Byline: Joel Snyder, NETWORK WORLD LAB ALLIANCE With the announcement of its NetScreen-5GT Wireless firewall this week, Juniper has firmly (and finally) jumped on the wireless bandwagon. In our exclusive Network World Clear Choice Test,...

Early adopters share tips at IBM event.
March 7, 2005... Byline: ANN BEDNARZ ANAHEIM, CALIF. - Finding hiccups in pre-release code is a labor of love for Martha McConaghy. "Our philosophy is, if we find the bugs, you won't have to," says McConaghy, who is systems, network and operations manager...

Intel: Speed no longer enough.
March 7, 2005... Byline: Jennifer Mears and Deni Connor Intel, which faced design problems and product delays, and was forced to play catch-up with rival AMD in 2004, used its Spring Developer Forum to showcase new technologies that it says will simplify...

Experts say Qwest bid for MCI still viable.
March 7, 2005... Byline: DENISE PAPPALARDO Is there a chance Qwest might yet wrest MCI from Verizon? Absolutely, say experts watching the tug of war, but how likely that chance might be remains a matter of conjecture. "Qwest has made it very...

Microsoft, Sun tiff puts users in bind.
March 7, 2005... Byline: JOHN FONTANA Nearly a year after promising to make their directory and single sign-on technologies work together, Microsoft and Sun have delivered little - a stalemate that exposes an industry rift over identity standards that is...

VoIP apps take center stage at VON; Raft of vendors to roll out IP PBX enhancements, IP phone systems, security wares.(VON 2005 conference)
March 7, 2005... Byline: Tim Greene VoIP applications for businesses, including call center programs, multimedia conferencing and IP Centrex, will be dominant themes at this week's Spring VON 2005 conference. The San Jose show, once dedicated to a...

030705Junipertesthow we did it.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
March 7, 2005... Byline: Joel Snyder How We Did It We tested Jupiter Networks' NetScreen-5GT Wireless by integrating it into our existing test bed and using it as our production wireless access point for several days. Our 802.1X RADIUS server,...

Smart technology, dumb people.(Column)
March 7, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs A couple of weeks ago my esteemed Network World columnist colleague Scott Bradner wrote about the minor furor surrounding Brittan Elementary School in Sutter, Calif. (www.nwfusion.com, DocFinder: 6141). To refresh your...

; ~HD: CA warns of security risk.
March 7, 2005... Computer Associates last week issued a warning about security holes in its software tool designed to help customers manage software licenses. The holes are in CA License software versions 1.53 through 1.61.8 for a number of platforms, which...

Wireless wake-up call; Cisco/Airespace deal boosts thin access point/WLAN switch topology and makes enterprise WLANs more enticing.
March 14, 2005... Byline: Jim Geier Wireless wake-up call Cisco/Airespace deal boosts thin access point/WLAN switch topology and makes enterprise WLANs more enticing. By JIM GEIER Cisco's recent purchase of Airespace could kick-start the...

Eye on 802.11i; Cost, complexity and interoperability issues could slow adoption of 802.11i wireless security standard.
March 14, 2005... Byline: Kevin Fogarty Eye on 802.11i Cost, complexity and interoperability issues could slow adoption of 802.11i wireless security standard. By KEVIN FOGARTY Vendors will tell you that upgrading from the interim security...

How did we get here?(Brief Article)
March 14, 2005... Byline: KEVIN FOGARTY Wired Equivalent Privacy, the original wireless security protocol, used 40-digit and 128-digit keys encrypted using an algorithm called RC4. With WEP, each client machine was assigned one key per session. WEP was...

Wireless by the numbers . . . and letters.
March 14, 2005... Wireless by the numbers . . . and letters Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP): An encryption technique built into 802.11 wireless LANs using 40-bit keys. 802.1X: An authentication standard for LANs and WLANs, used to identify users before...

When Wi-Fi meets cellular; New hybrid networks will make life easier for power users on the go.
March 14, 2005... Byline: Jeff Vance When Wi-Fi meets cellular New hybrid networks will make life easier for power users on the go. By JEFF VANCE Wouldn't it be nice if you had a dual-mode phone that let you talk via voice over Wi-Fi when...

This net is child's play for elite high schoolers; The adults don't know how this stuff works.(Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology)(Column)
March 14, 2005... Byline: CAROLYN DUFFY MARSAN This net is child's play for elite high schoolers 'The adults don't know how this stuff works.' ALEXANDRIA, VA. - They love Debian Linux but not Red Hat. They tolerate Windows but only for gaming. And...

The net behind the students.(Brief Article)
March 14, 2005... Byline: Carolyn Duffy Marsan Students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology have access to top-notch networks. The Alexandria, Va., school boasts 100M bit/sec connections for all its workstations, which are used to...

Compliance burdens; Regulatory requirements have IT jumping through hoops to meet them, although these mandates are also driving bigger security budgets.
March 14, 2005... Byline: Ellen Messmer Compliance burdens Regulatory requirements have IT jumping through hoops to meet them, although these mandates are also driving bigger security budgets. By Ellen Messmer Editor's note: This is the fourth...

Tying the invisible hand.(Governmental Non interference)
March 14, 2005... Byline: Michel Kabay When Scottish economist Adam Smith wrote of the "invisible hand" in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he argued for governmental non-interference in business affairs. The enlightened...

The IT oath: First, do no harm.
March 14, 2005... Byline: Linda Musthaler There is a line in the famous Hippocratic oath that states, "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is...

Letters to the editor.
March 14, 2005... Byline: readers Regarding Mark Gibbs' BackSpin column about disposing unwanted PCs ("More selfishness," www.nwfusion.com, DocFinder: 6222): One alternative Gibbs didn't mention is donating the PCs to organizations such as Computers...

Circumventing Microsoft.(Column)
March 14, 2005... Byline: Kevin Tolly N otwithstanding the fact it will be many years before very many corporate users might be able to work in a "Microsoft-free" environment, there appears to be significant effort being put forth to make it a reality....

Wyse CEO touts software initiative.
March 14, 2005... Byline: John Cox The newly appointed CEO of thin-client vendor Wyse Technology has the task of transforming a small, modestly growing desktop hardware vendor into a major software player. And that's what John Kish says he'll do. Wyse is...

Johnson & Johnson tackles security pain.
March 14, 2005... Byline: ELLEN MESSMER For Johnson & Johnson, the healthcare giant with more than 200 separate companies operating in 54 countries, one of the biggest problems encountered in e-commerce was finding a way to quickly get business partners...

net buzz.(Column)
March 14, 2005... Byline: Paul McNamara Intelligence you can use Here's the high-minded reason for today's column: Major corporations like yours rely on business-intelligence software such as that provided by SAS to discover competitive advantages in an...

Net Infrastructure Short Takes.(McAfee)(Brief Article)
March 14, 2005... Sana Security last week announced Primary Response 3.0, the third version of its host-based intrusion-prevention software that uses behavior-based detection methods to block malicious code. Previously intended for servers alone, Primary...

Microsoft set to launch 64-bit blitz.
March 14, 2005... Byline: John Fontana Microsoft next month finally will ship the long-awaited 64-bit editions of its latest server and client operating systems, and the move is just the tip of a 64-bit iceberg. Microsoft plans to offer 64-bit versions...

Correlating customer service with IT intelligence; APPLICATION SERVICES: Contact center management.
March 14, 2005... Byline: DENISE DUBIE Paul Courneya used to manually collect network, infrastructure and application data to determine why his contact center hit a glitch in terms of customer service expectations. The senior manager of telecom support...

PCI Express pumps up performance.
March 14, 2005... Byline: LOVEST WATSON In the past decade, PCI has served as the dominant I/O architecture for PCs and servers, carrying data generated by microprocessors, network adapters, graphics cards and other subsystems to which it is connected....

Unblocking pipes.
March 14, 2005... Byline: scott bradner A t first it looked like the FCC did a good thing for the Internet the other day, but after thinking about it for a while, I'm not at all clear that the action was as big a deal as it seemed to be. A while...

Contract negotiations for uncertain times.
March 14, 2005... Byline: Johna Till Johnson the time you read this, MCI could be part of Qwest. Or was that Verizon? And SBC and AT&T might merge (ditto Sprint and Nextel) - unless they don't. We pundits can opine, but the only thing network managers can...

BT nabs Reuters contract.
March 14, 2005... n BT Group inked its largest outsourcing contract last week, signing up Reuters with a deal worth about $3 billion over the next eight and a half years. The contract includes managing secure-data networks for Reuters around the world. BT says...

Service Provider briefs.(Brief Article)
March 14, 2005... Byline: staff writers Entrisphere recently unveiled an access product for carriers that integrates several access network service and transport functions on a single platform. The company's Broadband Loop Multiplexer 1500 integrates...

Briefs.(Brief Article)
March 14, 2005... n IBM plans to offer Brocade Communications' SilkWorm Multiprotocol Router as the IBM TotalStorage SAN16B-R Multiprotocol Router. The eight to 16 port router allows resource sharing across storage-area network islands and hosts data migration...

ask dr. internet.(about cell phone viruses)(Brief Article)
March 14, 2005... Byline: steve blass Steve Blass Should I worry about cell phone viruses? It depends on your phone and data. The first media reports of cell phone virus sightings came last year, with sightings in the U.S. this year. Phones that...

Symantec touts back-up mgmt. software.
March 14, 2005... Byline: Deni Connor Symantec last week rolled out data-protection software that lets IT administrators monitor, control and manage all back-up instances in their enterprise-size networks. Called LiveState Recovery Manager 3.0, the...

Start-up set to tackle B2B services.
March 14, 2005... Byline: ANN BEDNARZ After working in stealth mode for five years, Patrick Grady recently took the wraps off his company's efforts to build an e-commerce platform that supports a range of services users can tap into on an as-needed basis....

Vendors launch innovative VoIP gear.
March 14, 2005... Byline: PHIL HOCHMUTH While large IP PBX vendors continue to build on server-based platforms, some international vendors are taking more unique approaches to small-business VoIP systems. Among the distinctive small-business VoIP...

Offshoring closer to home.
March 14, 2005... Byline: JENNIFER MEARS Mobil Travel Guide was looking for cost savings when it decided to outsource its call center operations, but offshoring wasn't an option. The company needed workers with good knowledge of U.S. geography, and that...

Netifice picks up Aventail managed SSL VPN unit.(Secure Sockets Layer)(Virtual Private Networks)
March 14, 2005... Byline: DENISE PAPPALARDO Netifice Communications announced last week that it is acquiring Aventail's Managed Secure Sockets Layer VPN Services business unit, including all 120 customers, 33 employees and network assets. Netifice and...

Cool Tools; Quick takes on high-tech toys.(Phoenix Audio Technologies)
March 14, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw Sharp launches second 3-D Actius notebook Sharp Systems of America last week announced its new 3-D LCD notebook, the Actius AL3D (the successor to Sharp's RD3D notebook). The notebook is available for about $3,500,...

Back that thang up!
March 14, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs B efore we start on this week's topic we have a quick rant to get out of the way: How can it be that here in 2005, when the PC is 24 years old and the human race has been developing software for going on 60 years,...

Network start-ups see hope ahead.
March 14, 2005... Byline: Bob Brown REDWOOD CITY, CALIF. - Nothing gets the attention of a room full of network start-up executives quite like a senior IT official from a huge company such as Bank of America. Attendees at last week's Network Ventures...

Storage security firm times it right.
March 14, 2005... Byline: John Dix Bank of America recently confirmed it lost back-up data tapes that contained information about a federal government credit card program while they were en route to a disaster-recovery site. And last summer an AOL employee...

Microsoft rolls out real-time lineup.
March 14, 2005... Byline: JOHN FONTANA Microsoft last week began to pull together its real-time communication platform and to deliver the pieces that corporations will need to build instant messaging and presence awareness into their applications and...

Oracle, SAP duke it out over retail app maker Retek.
March 14, 2005... Byline: Ann Bednarz A battle for retail software maker Retek ignited last week when Oracle bested rival SAP's $496 million offer for the firm. Up for grabs is the Minneapolis company's retail industry expertise and credibility with retail...