Network World articles from March 2006

Network World archives from March 2006

Extreme scales up metropolitan Ethernet; * Extreme Networks' latest switch.(Extreme Networks BlackDiamond)
March 1, 2006... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Extreme Networks is readying a large-enterprise Ethernet switch aimed at tying together businesses with advanced Layer 2 VPN services, as well as consumers with high-bandwidth offerings such as IP TV. Extreme...

IPv6 cost estimates trigger debate: Part 1; * RTI's IPv6 transition cost estimates.(RTI International)
March 1, 2006... Byline: Carolyn Duffy Marsan How much will it cost ISPs and enterprise customers to transition to IPv6, an upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol? No one knows for sure, but a recent report sponsored by the U.S. federal...

What if your outsourcer is acquired? * Changes of control in outsourcing.
March 1, 2006... Byline: Dan Twing The recent controversy over the outsourcing of shipping facilities at six major U.S. ports has been interesting to watch. British shipping operations company Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation has been the...

Entuity adds firewall, system support to Eye.(network management software 'Eye of the Storm 4.5')
March 1, 2006... Byline: Denise Dubie Entuity this week announced it had upgraded its network management software to include capabilities to monitor in real-time firewall metrics, VPN gateways, as well as host and server systems. Eye of the Storm...

Windows Vista: Is it for consumers or businesses? * Mixed Vista messages from Microsoft.(Microsoft Windows Vista)
March 1, 2006... Byline: Dave Kearns Late last week Microsoft announced a new Windows Vista Community Technology Preview (CTP) - that's Redmond-speak for a beta release that's not sent to beta-testers. In fact, this supposedly "feature complete"...

Beta of Panda's Linux desktop security software available for download; * Panda lets users try out DesktopSecure.(Panda Software, Panda DesktopSecure for Linux)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Desktop Linux users interested in tools for securing PCs against malware and intrusions may want to give DesktopSecure a trial run. Panda Software, the maker of DesktopSecure, is offering a free beta-trial...

Internet neutrality: What is fair to the end user? * Is it better for you to pay for better, faster service?
March 1, 2006... Byline: Steve Taylor, Larry Hettick Today, we respond to another reader's question about our recent coverage of the Internet neutrality issue. The reader writes: "While an undifferentiated best-effort service is fine for accessing the...

Is your staff a threat to your organization's security? * Insider attacks.
March 1, 2006... Byline: Dave Kearns A couple of thousand years ago the Roman poet Juvenal asked "Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?" That is, who will watch the watchers? In over 20 years of consulting, hand-holding, troubleshooting and securing networks...

Keep 'em separated; * Even if you are a sole proprietor, you should keep your business and personal credit card accounts separate.(SOHO Life issue will be discontinued)(Small Business Technology is introduced)
March 1, 2006... Byline: Sandra Gittlen Important information for SOHO Life readers: SOHO Life is coming to an end, the final issue will mail on March 15. In place of SOHO Life, you will receive Network World's Small Business Technology newsletter...

Integrator advocates 'worst-case' Wi-Fi designs; * When considering Wi-Fi, think ahead.
March 1, 2006... Byline: Joanie Wexler It's common for organizations to find the budget to deploy a wireless LAN to support a single, pressing application. However, once the network has been installed, the enterprise tends to find many other uses for...

Your next job could be found on NetworkWorld.com; * Introducing NetworkWorld.com's online job search facility.
March 1, 2006... Byline: Linda Leung Browsing the online pages of NetworkWorld.com could net you a job. NetworkWorld.com last week launched a job search facility in our Networking Careers Research Center. If you haven't visited the Careers Research...

Zillow aims to provide instant valuation of homes; * Zillow claims to cure real estate info problem.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Byline: Mark Gibbs According to economist Steven D. Levitt writing in Wired Magazine: "A big part of a real estate agent's job is to persuade the homeowner to sell for less than he would like while at the same time letting potential...

Acquisitions signal change in the SOA market; * The acquisition saga continues in the service-oriented architecture space.
March 1, 2006... Byline: Julie Craig In a newsletter in January, I focused on recent acquisitions in the service-oriented architecture space, specifically those aimed at flow-based intelligence and analysis. These acquisitions, including IBM of...

GENI: A sneak peek at what's after the Internet?(Global Environment for Networking Innovations)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Byline: Network World Staff A new National Science Foundation (NSF) effort to foster next-generation network research will get a public hearing next week in Arlington, Va. The "town hall meeting" on March 10 will focus on the...

HP, EMC and others hint at their next moves.(Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium)(software companies focus their plans on software and services )
March 1, 2006... Byline: Jennifer Mears PHOENIX -- HP CEO Mark Hurd sought to reassure investors that HP was on track to righting itself through reorganization and a deeper focus on software and services during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs...

Microsoft adds testers to Exchange 12 beta 1 program.(Microsoft Exchange Server 2007)
March 1, 2006... Byline: John Fontana Microsoft on Wednesday added nearly 200,000 testers to its Exchange 12 beta program as it works toward a scheduled release of the software at the end of this year. The Beta 1 of Exchange 12 was first released...

How you can check e-mail performance for free; * MX Toolbox' MX Watch Email Performance Index.(Brief article)
March 2, 2006... Byline: Michael Osterman On March 1, MX Toolbox launched MX Watch Email Performance Index, a free service designed to monitor the performance of e-mail systems. The index is designed to sample e-mail performance data across a wide...

Server Virtualization Open Source Project gains momentum; * SWSoft's Server Virtualization Open Source Project (OpenVZ).(Server Virtualization Open Source Project)(Brief article)
March 2, 2006... Byline: Deni Connor The momentum for server virtualization is building as the Server Virtualization Open Source Project (OpenVZ) gets underway. OpenVZ claims that its site received more than 1 million hits in January, its first month...

IBM packages Tivoli storage for SMBs; * IBM rolls out Tivoli Express for SMBs.(International Business Machines Corp.)
March 2, 2006... Byline: Mike Karp This year IBM is taking aim at the small-and-midsize-business segment, adding SMB-specific enhancements to its storage offerings and rolling them out as IBM Tivoli Express. Express is a portfolio of products and...

Juniper's Secure Access SSL VPN appliance is Best of the Tests winner; * Juniper's security device wins in Network World's Best Products Special Issue.(Juniper Networks)
March 2, 2006... Byline: Christine Burns Editor's Note: Tim Greene is taking a short break from the VPNs newsletter and will be back soon. In place of his regular column, we bring you news of this year's winner of Network World Lab Alliance's security...

Non-competition agreements, Part 1; * Basics of non-competition agreements.
March 2, 2006... Byline: M. E. Kabay I was recently in my old hometown of Montreal to give a lecture on management's role in preventing industrial espionage at an information technology conference there (anyone who likes to read French can find the...

GroundWork rolls out open source network monitoring tool for SMBs; * GroundWork provides open source net monitoring sans the techie Linux interface.
March 2, 2006... Byline: Dave Kearns Take a look at your "data center," your server room - or the computers in the back of your office that are running your network. If they're all running NetWare you can skip the rest of this newsletter, but if yours...

March 6, 2006 Cartoon of the Week.
March 2, 2006... All cartoons Related story

A new convergence form brings together security and application acceleration; * Convergence 2.0.
March 2, 2006... Byline: Steve Taylor, Jim Metzler In our last newsletter, we discussed a couple of forms of convergence and highlighted the benefits of each form, as well as the associated technical and organizational impediments. Today, we are going...

March 6, 2006 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.(America Online Inc.)
March 2, 2006... Past weeks GOOD: AOL takes on phishers AOL last week filed three civil lawsuits against allegedly major phishing gangs, the first such suits by a major ISP to cite a new anti-phishing law in Virginia. The suits allege that the...

Outgrowing QuickBooks and Peachtree; * Changing business situations means changing accounting software.
March 2, 2006... Byline: James E. Gaskin Millions of small businesses that use accounting products from QuickBooks or Peachtree are afraid to make the jump into more complex and expensive software. So I asked Chuck Langenhop, a director at CFO Advisory...

Netgear advances Gigabit products with Broadcom chips; * Netgear chooses Broadcom silicon for Gigabit Ethernet switches.(Brief article)
March 2, 2006... Byline: Jeff Caruso Netgear has chosen Broadcom's Gigabit Ethernet switch silicon for a new line of switches that would be aimed at home and small-office networks. Yes, the time has come for Gigabit Ethernet in your home, if you...

Google adds to its Mini lineup.
March 2, 2006... Byline: John Fontana Google Thursday began shipping a scaled down version of its Google Mini search appliance that is aimed at small businesses. The newest Mini has a document capacity of 50,000, which is half of what the original Mini...

Oracle publishes out-of-cycle security fix; * Patches from Oracle, Apple, HP, others* Beware new Bagle variant* Former government IT worker guilty of hacking, and other interesting reading.
March 2, 2006... Byline: Jason Meserve Today's bug patches and security alerts: Oracle publishes out-of-cycle security fix Oracle has released a critical security patch to the company's E-Business Suite software. The patch, which was released...

Fluke Networks incorporates Visual VoIP tools; * Fluke's acquisition of Visual bears fruit.
March 2, 2006... Byline: Denise Dubie Fluke Networks in February announced it had made final its acquisition of Visual Networks, and the company has already released a product from the deal. Fluke Networks' Visual UpTime Select software will give...

Service provider router and switch market grew in 2005; * Service provider router and switch market expected to realize double-digit growth by 2009.(Brief article)
March 2, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy The fourth quarter and full year of 2005 was a healthy one for service provider routers and switches. According to various market research firms, the overall market increased by about 20% in 2005, to between $7...

Whopping U.S. research network completed.(National LambdaRail consortium )(Brief article)
March 2, 2006... Byline: Network World Staff The National LambdaRail consortium has announced completion of its 10,000-mile-plus fiber-optic network across the United States in an effort to support research on advanced network technologies and...

Grid god to head up Chicago computing institute.(Ian Foster appointed at Computation Institute)(Brief article)
March 2, 2006... Byline: Network World Staff Ian Foster, co-founder of the Globus open source grid project, has been named director of the Computation Institute, a joint venture of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. A key...

Government probes Check Point's bid for Sourcefire.
March 2, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene Check Point's proposed acquisition of intrusion prevention firm Sourcefire is delayed at least until March 23 while the U.S. government investigates whether it wants the deal to go through. The concern is that...

SEC: Beware 'paid autosurfing' schemes on the Web.(Securities and Exchange Commission)(Brief article)
March 2, 2006... Byline: Network World Staff The Securities and Exchange Commission this week issued a warning about "paid autosurfing" schemes on the Internet, noting that offers that sound too good to be true probably are. The SEC also said it is...

Researchers warn that using cell phones on airplanes shouldn't fly.(Brief article)
March 3, 2006... Airlines need to do a better job of keeping passengers from using cell phones and laptops during flight because interference caused by such gear could cause accidents, according to a new study. Carnegie-Mellon University researcher...

IBM survey: CEOs say change is coming.(chief executive officers)
March 3, 2006... Byline: Ann Bednarz IBM survey: CEOs say change is coming By Ann Bednarz In an IBM survey of 765 CEOs and top executives, 65% said they plan to radically change their companies in the next two years in response to growing...

Cisco upgrades optical system.(Cisco Systems Inc.)
March 3, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy Cisco this week unveiled hardware and software upgrades for its ONS 15454 optical transport platform designed to enhance service delivery, scale and management. Release 7.0 of the ONS 15454 is intended to enable...

Microsoft acquires iSCSI start-up.(String Bean Software)(Brief article)
March 3, 2006... Byline: Deni Connor Microsoft Friday announced that it would acquire the intellectual property of iSCSI vendor String Bean Software. String Bean, a four-employee start-up located in Montgomery Village, Md., makes iSCSI target software...

Intel aims to fend off AMD servers.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Jennifer Mears Intel plans to use its biannual Developer Forum in San Francisco this week to get into the nitty gritty of a new microprocessor architecture that the company says will help it close the gap with Advanced Micro...

Trend Micro appliance offers choice.(InterScan Web Security Appliance)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Ellen Messmer Trend Micro last week unveiled the InterScan Web Security Appliance, gateway-based hardware for letting corporate users perform URL filtering, virus and spyware detection and eradication. The appliance offers...

In brief: Tazz Networks enters agreement with Cisco.(Cisco Systems Inc.)(Brief article)
March 6, 2006... Tazz Networks, a developer of policy management software for IP services, has entered into a global OEM agreement with Cisco. Cisco will market the Tazz Policy Control System as the Cisco Broadband Policy Manager, with the initial market...

Building boom for Wi-Fi networks; Municipalities deploy mesh and WiMAX to connect their communities.
March 6, 2006... There were no precedents in early 2004 when Chaska, Minn., got fed up with the prices of local DSL and cable services and deployed a broadband wireless network for its citizens. The Minneapolis exurb of 20,000 dug $1 million out of its...

Brocade looks to improve Fibre Channel, IP SANs.(Brocade Communication Systems Inc. introduced Silkworm 4800 Director Blade and Silkworm 7500 )
March 6, 2006... Byline: Deni Connor Brocade Communications this week is expected to launch a variety of switches and routers that let users consolidate, connect and more easily manage Fibre Channel and IP-based storage-area networks. Among the...

Who should control the 'Net?(VeriSign Inc. accused Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers for domain names registration)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Mark Gibbs "The deal condenses everything that is wrong with how the Internet is currently run in one tiny document. How vital decisions about the global Internet are made by one of three bodies - ICANN, VeriSign and the U.S....

Certified e-mail is a 'tax'? ... Balderdash!(America Online Inc. providing certified email service for Goodmail)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Paul McNamara Any time liberal and conservative activists join forces to confront a corporate behemoth for committing crimes against the Internet, you can be fairly confident the protesters have a legitimate beef... except...

Absence of strategy, or strategy of absence?
March 6, 2006... Byline: Thomas Nolle Last year, Cisco CEO John Chambers clearly set the network industry's priority: To increase the level of strategic engagement and directly involve network solutions in business-process reengineering - in short, to...

Open source plan secures key data.
March 6, 2006... Byline: John Fontana A group of academics and major vendors last week kicked off an open source project designed to give applications easier access to identity systems and users more control over their personal information. The Higgins...

A net under pressure; Broadband wireless key for undersea research lab.
March 6, 2006... Byline: John Cox Working and sleeping underwater for nine days created a different sense of what's important for scientist Kristen Davis. Like noticing the lobster that crossed part of the Florida reef every morning with the regularity...

Trying to learn from disasters.
March 6, 2006... Byline: John Dix Avaya recently sponsored a roundtable discussion in Boston about improving communications during disasters, a conversation that took into account everything from private/public sector collaboration to the ROI of...

Getting MPEG files to auto-stream in QuickTime.(Motion Picture Experts Group-4)(Brief article)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Steve Blass Is there a way to publish MPEG-4 files to the Web so they will open using Fast Start streaming in QuickTime when a user clicks on the link for the *.mp4 file? I have yet to find a consistent way to create Fast...

In brief: Check Point's Sourcefire buy on hold.(Check Point Software Technologies Inc. (Redwood City, California))
March 6, 2006... Check Point's proposed acquisition of intrusion-prevention firm Sourcefire is delayed at least until March 23 while the U.S. government investigates whether the deal should go through. Sourcefire's technology is used to protect computer...

Open source routing reality check.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Open source software has become an integral part of an array of network and IT products, but making a business out of a free Linux-like WAN router operating system and commodity PC hardware will be a challenge,...

The regression of software openness.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Kevin Tolly Late last month, Microsoft was in the news for being the target of another formal complaint to the European Union for alleged anti-competitive practices. This time the complainants are focusing on the ubiquitous MS...

In brief: Companies moving to IP telephony.(Brief article)
March 6, 2006... The switch is on - and circuit-switching is off - as companies transition from circuit-switched, TDM phone technology to IP telephony, one analyst firm says. Infonetics Research says sales of IP PBXs worldwide jumped 3% from the year...

Tips for leading IT amid corporate change; A great communications strategy will help guarantee a project's success.
March 6, 2006... The best of today's new-generation IT executives have learned to devote as many resources to communications as they do to servers, software and the network. Erv Blythe is a perfect example. In leading a mainframe-migration project, the...

Contact centers drive customer-facing firms.
March 6, 2006... Contact centers have been the overlooked application during the industry discussion of IP telephony. Contact centers offer perhaps the tightest link between communications and business process - a link that will become stronger as the...

Microsoft moves to Groove.(acquired Groove Networks Inc.)
March 6, 2006... Byline: John Fontana A year after buying Groove Networks and its peer-to-peer technology, Microsoft has begun laying out plans to develop the software into the offline client that has been missing in its document-collaboration story....

Technology delivers high data rates.
March 6, 2006... An emerging mobile broadband technology can deliver high-speed data services to workers wherever they are. UMTS TD-CDMA, or Code Division Multiple Access - also known as UMTS TDD - is an air interface technology that is part of the 3rd...

Group defends USF.(Universal Service Fund )(Brief article)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Grant Gross and Idg News Service U.S. government officials looking to revamp a fund that helps subsidize telecom services to schools and rural areas have created a "phony crisis" to justify changes, a consumer group said last...

In brief: Sybase introduces software to analyze RFID data.(RFID Enterprise 2.0 )
March 6, 2006... Sybase last week introduced software aimed at helping companies analyze and integrate data collected using RFID. Sybase's RFID Enterprise 2.0 offers device and network management capabilities, and also can help users integrate RFID data...

Vendors, users hash out app acceleration.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Denise Dubie Application-acceleration vendors need to squeeze more capabilities into fewer products, make them work better together, and pay more attention to security and standards. That was the consensus of participants...

Kazeon, NetApp cozy up on file recovery.(Network Appliance Inc.)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Deni Connor Kazeon last week launched software for its file-management box that is designed to help Network Appliance customers recover files more quickly and easily. The SnapSearch and Recovery software resides on the...

U3 promises to break the apps chain.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Mark Gibbs Application portability always has been a huge issue in the IT world because it is such a powerful idea: Move your applications to any machine at any time and they just run. No recompiling, no missing Dynamic Link...

Arxceo's tiny IPS works well, but needs management wares.(intrusion prevention system, Ally IP100)(Product/service evaluation)
March 6, 2006... Arxceo's newest intrusion-prevention system looks more like an MP3 player than an IPS. The 5.5-by-1.5-by-1-inch Ally IP100 is the very little brother of the full-size Ally IP1000 security appliance that boasts a fairly impressive feature...

Choosing sides: Wi-Fi or EV-DO?
March 6, 2006... Byline: John Cox If your company is in Tempe, Ariz., you're now faced with a decision: should you spend money on metro-area Wi-Fi services or cellular data services such as 1X EVDO? As with most things wireless, the answer is not...

Verizon unveils remote IT service.(Verizon Communications Inc.)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy Verizon Business last week launched a service designed to manage business customers' server operating systems. The new option from the enterprise services arm of Verizon is called Remote Internet Protocol Application...

Cloudmark upgrade protects Exchange users.(Cloudmark Server Edition 2.0)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Cara Garretson Spam filter maker Cloudmark this week is expected to announce an upgrade to its e-mail security software that includes new reporting capabilities. The Cloudmark Server Edition 2.0 for Exchange scans e-mail...

IBM tests mobile speech Web applications.(partering with Wake Forest University and University of California (Santa Barbara))
March 6, 2006... Byline: John Blau IBM has collaborated with two universities to develop several speech-enabled Web applications for mobile phones, the company said last week. Big Blue is partnering with Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem,...

Demand fuels data center construction.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Ann Bednarz Across the country, corporate demand for advanced data center space is driving new construction projects. For example, workers are set to break ground in July on an Austin, Texas, development that's been conceived...

In brief: Hitachi Data, Archivas in partnership.(Hitachi Data Systems Corp.)(Brief article)
March 6, 2006... Hitachi Data Systems and Archivas last week announced a partnership to provide an archiving appliance that lets users retain and retrieve structured and unstructured data. The appliance will be based on the Archivas Cluster and Hitachi...

Keep the feds out of broadband.(Column)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Johna Till Johnson A few columns back, I mentioned that universal broadband access is a top policy issue in Washington this year. As FCC Commissioner Michael Copps put it recently: "We may be the only industrial country on the...

Branch offices get multifunction devices.(by NetDevices Inc. )
March 6, 2006... Byline: Tim Greene Businesses have two new options for simplifying their branch office networks with multifunction devices from NetDevices and Adtran. NetDevices is introducing a chassis that can eliminate the need for as many as...

VoIP vendors get serious about SIP.(Session Initiation Protocol )
March 6, 2006... Byline: Phil Hochmuth VoIP vendors poised to make news at VoiceCon this week say they will deliver on the multimedia and interoperability promises of Session Initiation Protocol with a lineup of products that use the protocol as a core...

Alcatel exec talks about IP.(Compagnie Financiere Alcatel, internet telephony)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Jim Duffy The duopoly is broken in carrier edge router. Once virtually the exclusive domain of Cisco and Juniper, companies such as Alcatel, Redback and Tellabs are increasing share in areas such as IP/MPLS services, IP...

What makes Harvard's net tick.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Bob Brown Jay Tumas, overseer of the network at Harvard College.Harvard's data network supports 125,000-plus users, its Border Gateway Complex routes about a half-million IP addresses and the network carts around 150T to 200TB...

E-mail volume expected to explode; As the size of individual messages and in-boxes balloon, e-mail systems are choking under the strain. E-mail archiving software, caching appliances and download services can help get the mail delivered.
March 6, 2006... The average e-mail is growing faster than you can say "supersize me." Your mail server may already have trouble digesting big attachments, but the problem is only going to get worse. While today's typical e-mail weighs in at a mere 20KB,...

How IT security pay stacks up around the globe.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Ellen Messmer U.S. security professionals tend to be paid more than their foreign counterparts, according to the results of two recent studies from the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC2)...

How we tested Arxceo's Ally IP100.(Brief article)
March 6, 2006... For this test we utilized three separate networks connected to the Internet via different ISPs. The first network was used for remote and attack traffic generated from a Dell Precision machine running Fedora Core 4. The second network...

Mailbag: Readers respond to the 'Net neutrality debate, Part 1; * What readers think about the Internet neutrality issue.(Letter to the editor)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Steve Taylor, Larry Hettick Our series on Internet neutrality sparked lots of interest judging by the many e-mails we've received. Thanks to all who wrote on both sides of the issue. This week we'll wrap up the topic (for now)...

ZyXel offers unified threat management for low-end net.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Joel Snyder ZyXel Communications has entered the unified threat-management fray by building content filtering, intrusion-prevention, anti-virus and anti-spam technology into its ZyWall 35 and ZyWall 70 combined firewall and VPN...

Apple goes too far with stereo system.(Apple Computer Inc., iPod Hi-Fi)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Keith Shaw We're taking a break from testing stuff this week to ponder the news of some products coming down the pike: I may take some hits from the Macintosh and iPod faithful, but I don't understand the need to spend $350 on...

HP, EMC and others hint at their next moves.(Hewlett-Packard Co., EMC Corp. (Hopkinton, Massachusetts))
March 6, 2006... Byline: Jennifer Mears PHOENIX - HP CEO Mark Hurd sought to reassure investors that HP was on track to right itself through reorganization and a deeper focus on software and services during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Technology...

El Dorado on the 'Net.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Scott Bradner For a couple of centuries European explorers believed in the myth of El Dorado, a place where gold was so plentiful that new kings entirely covered themselves with gold dust as part of their coronation ceremony....