Network World articles from September 2005

Network World archives from September 2005

White paper details ZENworks use; * 'ZENworks 6.5 Server Management Upgrading and Patching Methodologies'.
September 1, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns While it's true that Novell's ZENworks 7 Suite has just rolled out, chances are that few of you have it yet. For those who have Version 6.5 (or who can get it), Novell has also just "rolled out" a new white paper,...

Just when you thought the spam problem was easing? * Zotob worm creates spam-spewing zombies.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Byline: Michael Osterman Depending on whose spam statistics you follow, the spam juggernaut has shown signs of slowing just a bit over recent months. MessageLabs' spam statistics show that the percentage of e-mail it processed...

Verizon cranks EV-DO; hot spots hit 70,000; Sprint Nextel teams with NFL; * Grab bag: Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, Wi-Fi hot spots.(Evolution Data Only)
September 1, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw Today we've got a potpourri of news: Verizon Wireless pushes the envelope on EV-DO, Wi-Fi hot spots take over the world, and Sprint Nextel inks a deal with the NFL. Verizon Wireless and Lucent announced they have...

Start-up tries to breathe new life into fiber; * ClariPhy's approach to 10 Gigabit Ethernet.(ClariPhy)
September 1, 2005... Byline: Jeff Caruso I've been asking whether fiber to the desktop ought to be considered now as we look ahead to 10 Gigabit Ethernet, and mostly your answers have been "no." But a start-up recently contacted me with a very different...

Vendors defend their approaches to app acceleration; * Webtorials, Robin Layland offer 'Application Acceleration Challenge'.
September 1, 2005... Byline: Steve Taylor, Jim Metzler Webtorials recently published an on-demand "Application Acceleration Challenge," produced in cooperation with Robin Layland of Layland Consulting. Robin has been producing these challenges for a...

Restaurant chain makes Web pages user-Friendly; * Friendly Ice Cream chooses Stampede to improve WAN speeds.
September 1, 2005... Byline: Denise Dubie Friendly Ice Cream Corp. needed a way to improve the performance of Web applications traveling over its satellite network to some 535 restaurants. While the satellite net provided the $575 million restaurant chain...

Junk fax not what it seems, Part 2; * Pump 'n' dump wire fraud.(Column)
September 1, 2005... Byline: M. E. Kabay In my last column I described a junk fax that was supposedly sent by the marketing firm "Orfilian" and that touted "Bazoonium" stock (all names changed). In this column I analyze what was actually happening. I...

SSL VPN sales surge; * Market numbers for SSL VPN gear.(Secure Sockets Layer Virutal Private Networks)
September 1, 2005... Byline: Tim Greene SSL VPNs seem to be making significant gains in popularity among business customers, according to a new study by Synergy Research Group. The study tracks growth in various segments of the security market in two...

Intel previews more energy-efficient chips; * Intel gives glimpse of Woodcrest chip.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Byline: Deni Connor Intel CEO and President Paul Otellini outlined Intel's new course at the Intel Developer Forum last week in San Francisco. Saying that the company's new course is "performance per watt" Otellini said that future...

CipherTrust launches new anti-spam portal; * Patches from Adobe, Symantec, Mandriva, others * Malware may hide behind long names in Windows registry * Zotob arrests point to cybercrime nexus.
September 1, 2005... Byline: Jason Meserve CipherTrust launches new anti-spam portal E-mail administrators looking for information on the sources of spam and about their own company's perception in the e-mail world now have a new free resource....

What happens when data files get very large; * Glimpse into changes large files will bring.
September 1, 2005... Byline: Mike Karp Last time we talked about new, very large data files that are the result of improvements in some important technologies, and I raised a concern that we will have to contend with some new issues when it comes time to...

Massachusetts mulls move to open-source documents.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Byline: Phil Hochmuth State offices in Massachusetts could soon be rid of proprietary digital documents, if a recent proposal to move to open-source document formats is approved. The proposal, drafted by the Information Technology...

Google hacking; What started as a joke builds into a movement.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Robert McMillan Johnny Long says he has never met a Google employee. And yet he is at the center of a community of security experts and search engine enthusiasts that might be developing some of the most interesting uses of...

Novell nets takeover talk.(Novell Inc.)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns Novell released its third-quarter financial results a couple of weeks ago (its fiscal year runs ends Oct. 31), and the picture wasn't very pretty. While revenue fell slightly (from $305 million to $290 million),...

Microsoft, IBM address carmaker needs.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Ellen Messmer DETROIT - At last week's Auto-Tech Conference, Microsoft and IBM separately pitched technology ideas as a palliative for the profit-hungry auto industry. Microsoft proposed that car manufacturers deploy RFID...

Finding out if your Web content being plagiarized; * Copyscape detects copying.(Copyscape)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs Do you care if your Web content is misappropriated? I suspect that for most of us it isn't really a topic we've given much thought to. Indeed, we might wonder what we have that is worth reusing without authorization....

Carmakers unite on global data sharing.(Joint Automotive Data Model)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Ellen Messmer DETROIT - The promise of the giant Chinese auto market has spurred carmakers worldwide to rally around a new standard for data exchange that they say is needed to exploit the opportunity. Announced at last...

In brief: HP unwraps smaller client-management app.
September 5, 2005... HP last week released a scaled-down version of its enterprise client management software for customers with between 100 and 1,000 desktops. HP OpenView Client Configuration Manager is based on Novadigm's Radia technology (HP acquired...

In brief: Intelsat buys rival PanAmSat.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Intelsat has agreed to acquire satellite communications rival PanAmSat Holding for $3.2 billion, creating an industry heavyweight that will have 53 satellites covering 220 countries, the companies said last week. Both companies provide...

In brief: Microsoft to add anti-phishing tool to MSN toolbar.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Microsoft plans to release an add-on to MSN Search Toolbar aimed at protecting Web users from phishing scams. The technology is similar to an anti-phishing tool the company previously said will be available in Internet Explorer, which is...

Google: The immaturity of huge masses.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs Over the past few months Google's power has become increasingly apparent. From its humble roots as yet another search engine to becoming the coolest search engine to selling advertising along with searching to...

Multicore processors and server virtualization.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... We're joined this week by Vernon Turner, IDC's group vice president and general manager for enterprise computing, to talk about the impact on enterprise data centers by multicore processors and server virtualization technology. Note:...

The Internet - redundant, reliable and risky.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Chuck Yoke The Internet is down. If you've been involved in networking for more than six months, you probably have heard this statement. You or one of your team sprang into action, identified the problem and resolved the issue....

Addressing the MPLS challenge.(Nexagent Ltd)(Multi Protocol Label Switching)(Interview)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Jim Duffy and Charlie Muirhead Maintaining MPLS VPN service consistency has emerged as a major issue for companies employing multiple carriers for global reach. Nexagent is a 5-year-old company based in the U.K. that develops...

SAS cuts a wide data path.(Serial-attached SCSI)
September 5, 2005... Until recently, data centers were populated primarily with storage-area networks that used Fibre Channel connectivity and parallel SCSI interfaces. Such storage solutions deliver high performance and reliability but carry a high price tag....

Current attractions; Vendors and service providers unveil telework-friendly technologies.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Ann Bednarz Every year around the same time retailers begin to advertise their back-to-school sales, IT vendors start to pick up the pace of new product introductions. Lately there have been a slew of telework-oriented...

Katrina tests net service providers; Landline and wireless facilities are hit hard.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Tim Greene While most telecom facilities in the hardest-hit Gulf areas were wiped out during and after Hurricane Katrina, it wasn't for lack of some extraordinary efforts by skeleton carrier crews who remained behind to keep...

Exchange protection software debuts.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Deni Connor Exchange protection software debuts The Neverfail Group, a company that got its start as a disaster recovery consultancy in the early 1990s, has begun selling software designed to ensure that Microsoft Exchange...

Supermarket chain freezes Internet access; Audit of network usage at Balls Food Stores confirms that tight policies are working to limit unauthorized Web surfing.
September 5, 2005... Call it Midwest sensibility, outright paranoia or the direct result of extraordinarily tight-fisted control, the Kansas City, Kan., operator of 28 Hen House and Price Chopper supermarkets and pharmacies is the very model of how a network -...

Is QoS approval holding up 802.11a phone delivery? * Vendors may await 802.11e to ship 802.11a phones.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Joanie Wexler I could'a had a V-8 recently during a conversation with a voice-over-Wi-Fi expert. If you've read this newsletter for very long, you've probably noticed that I frequently bemoan the relative scarcity of 802.11a...

Fiber-optic research net gains steam; National Lambdarail is branching out across the country and gaining commercial interest.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Cara Garretson Despite a setback caused by Hurricane Katrina, National Lambdarail, a nationwide fiber-optic network designed to facilitate advanced network technology research, is gaining support. While NLR is firmly...

In brief: SWsoft, HP to partner on virtualization.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... SWsoft has signed a partnership with HP to provide support for its virtualization software on the server maker's Itanium 2-based Integrity machines. End users now can get support for Virtuozzo for Linux on Integrity servers directly...

VoIP and E-911: Why all the fuss? * Guest writer Jim Cavanagh explains why E-911 is so vital for VoIP.(Voice over Internet Protocol)(Column)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Steve Taylor, Larry Hettick One of the areas we've discussed with some degree of regularity in this column is the problem of E-911 compatibility with VoIP. As it turns out, one of our associates, Jim Cavanagh of the Consultant...

Preventing unauthorized network use.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Steve Blass My office uses Windows XP computers, which can show who logged on, and when. But we turn off the computers when not in use and have 24/7 security available to be notified when any computer activity is detected. Is...

Computers and water don't mix; Storage and back-up concerns reinforced.
September 5, 2005... Byline: James E. Gaskin I have a friend who works for a builder of $1 million custom homes in the Dallas area. Her constant complaint: "I hate water." Leaks cause her more problems than any other service call. My office, built in...

Juniper courts Meru for enterprise wireless / VoIP play.(Meru Networks)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Juniper Networks last week said it is teaming with Meru Networks, a Wi-Fi VoIP gear maker, to offer joint product packages to corporate users. Meru is joining Juniper's third-party sales and support service,...

Analytics heats up; Corporate data is only as useful as the information you can extract from it.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Stacy Cowley When business-analytics projects work, the success stories can be dramatic. Witness the results posted by the Dreyfus Corp., which manages $165 billion in mutual fund assets. Looking for a way to lower churn and...

Reactivity secures RSS traffic.
September 5, 2005... Byline: John Fontana Reactivity last week added support for the Real Simple Syndication format to its XML gateway technology, providing a way for users to secure and control access to information distributed using the real-time...

Microsoft warms up voice software plans.
September 5, 2005... Byline: John Fontana, Tim Greene, Phil Hochmuth Microsoft is executing a broad plan to provide customers with software interfaces to traditional voice and VoIP services that will let them make and manage calls from desktops, mobile...

Remote pings and remote control.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs Regarding last week's look at PingPlotter from Nessoft, we should have noted that the release of the next version, 2.7, is scheduled for September - we were working with a beta version. There's also one other...

Microsoft overwhelms with operating system news and software; * Microsoft updates Windows Server 2003.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns Microsoft chose last week, the last full week of the work calendar's summer season in the U.S., to release a flock of operating systems-related news and software. Numerous theories for the multiple releases...

Management frameworks are out - but what's in? * What replaces the traditional framework?
September 5, 2005... Byline: Dennis Drogseth Nobody talks about buying a "framework" anymore. (If you are, I'd love to hear about it.) That might be largely because vendors stopped using the term themselves when "frameworks" became synonymous with endless...

Readers share how they keep their e-mail clutter under control; * E-mail clutter mailbag.(Column)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Linda Musthaler Well, well, well. It seems I'm not the only person who lets her e-mail inbox get out of hand http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/techexec/2005/0829techexec1.html?rl. Many readers wrote to tell me they are...

Heavyweights trade haymakers with Linux/Windows claims; * IBM and Microsoft release research in defense of Linux and Windows, respectively.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Phil Hochmuth They say statistics are like a lamppost to a drunk; more for support than enlightenment. And with that, IBM and Microsoft both recently came out firing with their own vendor-funded research in defense of Linux and...

Proposing a next-generation Internet.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Grant Gross The National Science Foundation has proposed a next-generation Internet with built-in security and functionality that connects all kinds of devices, with researchers challenging the government agency to look at the...

Making a play for role-based ID management; * Role management as reviewed by Eurekify.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns Making a play for role-based ID managementRole management as viewed by EurekifyBy Dave Kearns Last week, I let Bridgestream Vice President of Marketing Ed Zou speak to you directly about the need for roles in an...

News briefs: Massachusetts mulls move to open source documents.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... * State offices in Massachusetts could soon be rid of proprietary digital documents, if a recent proposal to move to open source document formats is approved. The proposal, drafted by the Information Technology Division of the commonwealth...

Battle lines drawn again between browsers.
September 5, 2005... Byline: John Fontana Late on the night of Sept. 30, 1997, a group of Microsoft employees strategically placed a large metal likeness of the Internet Explorer logo on the front lawn at Netscape Communications in Mountain View, Calif. -...

Cisco Catalyst 4948-10GE aces performance tests.(Product/Service Evaluation)
September 5, 2005... Byline: David Newman and Network World Lab Alliance In an exclusive Network World test, Cisco's Catalyst 4948-10GE delivered record low latency and line-rate throughput. Coupled with innovative security mechanisms and an extensive list...

We can't wait to try.(new products)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw A recent vacation has slowed the testing at the Cool Tools Lab, so this week we'll highlight some recently announced products that we hope to try out soon: The TravelMate 4020series of notebooks are designed to...

Living with fiber to the home.
September 5, 2005... Byline: John Dix I had Verizon's 5M bit/sec FiOS fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service installed last week and got curious about how it worked so I called the company for more information. Verizon says it started deploying FiOS in May...

ERP offering relies on open source.(Enterprise Resource Planning)
September 5, 2005... Byline: John Cox A 4-year-old company is using open source software as the foundation for an ERP suite targeted at small and midsize manufacturers. OpenMFG this week plans to release Version 1.2 of its software, which goes by the same...

SonicWall offers versatile security platform.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Tim Greene SonicWall this week is introducing a new multifunction security device that can scan for a laundry list of malicious activity within corporate networks and keep outbreaks contained to LAN segments. Called Pro...

How we did it.(product evaluation)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
September 5, 2005... Byline: David Newman We assessed the Catalyst 4948-10GE in terms of performance, security and features. We tested performance in six areas: throughput/latency in L2, L3, Open Shortest Path First and virtual LAN configurations;...

With software, smaller is better.(reports of software failures)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Jennifer Mears Organizations that build smaller software projects that are rolled out in quick, phased release cycles tend to be more productive and have higher success rates, according to analysts at the Cutter Consortium who...

Telecom taxes: Time for a tea party.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Johna Till Johnson The federal government is desperately out of date on telecom taxation. Not only are some of today's taxes rooted in the politics of the 1800s, but the entire telecom tax structure is based on a set of...

Siemens expands HiPath features.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Stephen Lawson Siemens last week announced it will update its HiPath Xpressions message platform to make it easier for customers to use on the go and with non-Siemens corporate phone systems. Among other things, HiPath...

Vendors prep mgmt. tools to handle virtualization.
September 5, 2005... Byline: Jennifer Mears, Denise Dubie Computer Associates and BMC Software will soon join IBM in upgrading their management packages to help customers get a handle on their growing virtualized environments, making it easier to shift...

Intel-Cisco deal aims to improve Wi-Fi.(Cisco Systems Inc.)(Intel Corp.)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Stephen Lawson A joint development project announced at the recent Fall Intel Developer Forum by Intel and Cisco could improve the performance and quality of corporate VoIP networks. The companies want to ensure Wi-Fi...

Tivoli has mainframe mgmt. on tap.(product information )
September 5, 2005... Byline: Denise Dubie IBM last week announced a slew of upgrades to its Tivoli management software portfolio that the company says will help customers automate administrative tasks and view mainframe-specific statistics from one...

Maxtor adds backup, media streaming to its NAS box.(Network Attached Storage)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw Maxtor is taking its Shared Storage Drive (network-attached storage device) and doing some addition. The Maxtor Shared Storage Drive Plus adds back-up software and a media server to the existing NAS box. Not only...

Never met a tech they didn't hate.(reports of internet music trading)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Scott Bradner In late August The New York Times reported that half of the major record companies are threatening to not renew their contracts with Apple for iTunes, because they want a different business model that would make...

Letters to the editor: Undercurrents of Cisco vulnerabilities.(Letter to the Editor)
September 5, 2005... Undercurrents of Cisco vulnerabilities As a vendor of security products that protect critical IT infrastructure, ION would like to comment on the recent situation regarding the exposure of security flaws in Cisco IOS. Cisco has gone...

Finding the source of a network problem.(causes of network failures)(Column)
September 5, 2005... Byline: Ron Nutter I am attempting to analyze some network performance and Internet access issues on our small network. The LAN slows to a crawl and the Internet drops for a short period of time a few times a day. My firewall doesn't...

Convergence experts sought; * CompTIA looking for input from convergence subject matter experts for new exam.(Brief Article)
September 6, 2005... Byline: Amy Schurr If you or someone on your staff has VoIP expertise, The Computing Technology Industry Association wants to hear from you. Global trade association CompTIA is developing a vendor-neutral certification to validate...

High-speed net creates opportunities for museum; * Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History connects to Internet 2.(American Museum of Natural History)(Brief Article)
September 6, 2005... Byline: Jeff Caruso My 3-year-old loves dinosaurs - in fact, I think he's part T-Rex - so we recently made a rare trip into Manhattan to see the magnificent dinosaur bones at the American Museum of Natural History. But the museum is...

Neverfail products protect against server downtime; * Neverfail launches server failover products.
September 6, 2005... Byline: Deni Connor "Users should always have access to their applications - they should never fail." That is the motto of The Neverfail Group, whose software ensures that application and file servers stay up. The Neverfail Group,...

Back up the endpoints; * Backing up data when it's scattered among thousands of desktops.
September 6, 2005... Byline: Andreas M. Antonopoulos Few businesses would be reckless enough not to have comprehensive and regular backups of the data in their data centers and servers. Yet many businesses recognize that a huge amount of data is not stored...

Data center consolidation challenges; * Drivers for data center consolidation.(Brief Article)
September 6, 2005... Byline: Steve Taylor, Jim Metzler One of the ongoing technology trends that impact the majority of companies is data center consolidation. There are two primary components of data center consolidation: taking servers out of branch...

Finland users like their mobile TV; * Nokia details results of commercial mobile TV pilot.(mobile television surveys)
September 6, 2005... Byline: Keith Shaw Maybe I've been too hard on carriers trying to get end users to watch TV on their mobile phones. People in Finland certainly seemed to enjoy it. Nokia last week released results from a commercial mobile TV pilot...

User speaks out on why he switched from NetWare to Windows; * Why the University of Coventry ditched NetWare for Windows.
September 6, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns A month ago, I told what I considered to be the sad story of the U.K.'s University of Coventry switching from NetWare to Windows. My thoughts were based on a news story I'd read in a U.K. publication coupled with...

Four ways to keep e-mail going after a disaster; * Business continuity options for e-mail systems.
September 6, 2005... Byline: Michael Osterman Last week's onslaught of the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina was yet another indication that messaging is vulnerable to major disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods and other calamities....

WSI taps Observer; * Weather Services International uses Network Instruments' Observer.(Brief Article)
September 6, 2005... Byline: Denise Dubie When Weather Services International upgraded its switches with Gigabit links, Jeff Larkham knew he'd also have to upgrade the monitoring tools he had in place. "We just needed something that could handle that...

In defense of privacy; * Privacy: The big picture.
September 6, 2005... Byline: M. E. Kabay Today I'd like to discuss a fundamental principle that security specialists have to deal with all the time but which has a much broader social significance than discussions of, say, firewalls: privacy. Have you...

Figuring out the cause of an IT failure is more complex than the problem itself; * Getting snowed under by a blizzard of failure alerts.
September 6, 2005... Byline: Mike Karp Solving problems in complex IT environments is a time-consuming, people-intensive operation. In fact, most IT organizations do a very poor job when it comes to identifying and resolving such issues as why an IT or...

The politics of weighing SSL VPN vs. IPSec; * Sometimes political and business reasons rule when choosing VPN technologies.(Virtual private networks)(Brief Article)
September 6, 2005... Byline: Tim Greene Often this newsletter focuses on the technical reasons for using one VPN technology or the other, but as one reader points out, sometimes political and business reasons rule the day. The big claim for SSL VPN...

Katrina could cost BellSouth $600 million.
September 6, 2005... Byline: Jim Duffy BellSouth says damage to its network from Hurricane Katrina could reach $600 million. The carrier, which serves a nine-state region in the Southeast -- including the hurricane-torn states of Louisiana, Mississippi ...

Upcoming education about DNS and virtual directories; * Who's talking about DNS and virtual directory software?(Domain Network Server)
September 7, 2005... Byline: Dave Kearns There are a couple of upcoming events I wanted to tell you about. First, I was drawn to this one by the headline on the press release: "Cricket Liu Seminar on DNS at Gillette Stadium"! What? Was the wizard of DNS...

Verizon skews mobile WAN landscape; * Carrier throws down mobile data pricing gauntlet.
September 7, 2005... Byline: Joanie Wexler So Verizon Wireless threw down the gauntlet and - at least temporarily - has punctured the $80-per-month list-price barrier to all-you-can-eat, high-speed mobile WAN data services. The service provider last week...

Linux server sales grow for 12th straight quarter; * Latest Linux server sales figures from IDC.(Brief Article)
September 7, 2005... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Linux server sales continued strong through the second quarter of 2005, according to a recent market research report. For the twelfth quarter in a row, Linux server sales saw double-digit growth, says analyst firm...

Reviewing the security aspect of outsourcing; * Outsource the work but stay in control of the security responsibilities.
September 7, 2005... Byline: Dan Twing Outsourcing is one of the hottest trends in business and I am constantly amazed at the variety of functions that are being outsourced. In addition to the outsourcing of traditional IT, HR, call center and accounting...

Building sophisticated Web apps the open source way; * OpenLaszlo opens up RIA development.(Rich Internet Applications)
September 7, 2005... Byline: Mark Gibbs About a zillion years ago (actually it was April last year, but we're talking Web time here) I wrote about Laszlo Systems and its Laszlo Presentation Server for delivering Rich Internet Applications (RIA). Since...

Q&A: Addressing the MPLS challenge; * Q&A with Nexagent CEO Charlie Muirhead.(Nexagent)(Interview)
September 7, 2005... Byline: Jim Duffy Maintaining MPLS VPN service consistency has emerged as a major issue for companies employing multiple carriers for global reach. Nexagent is a 5-year-old company based in the U.K. that develops hardware and software...

Mailbag: MBAs take IT pros to higher places; * Two readers explain why they pursued MBAs.(Letter to the Editor)
September 7, 2005... Byline: Linda Leung A few weeks ago, we talked about MBAs that have a hi-tech spin aimed at tech pros and I received quite a few e-mails from readers with their thoughts about such advanced degrees. The first note in my inbox was...