InfoWorld articles from August 2005

InfoWorld archives from August 2005

Encryption products aim to protect data from prying eyes - Three products enjoy varied levels of success in securing data.(Product/Service Evaluation)
August 29, 2005... The world has changed, but you know that. Your auditors are now checking to see if you're protecting sensitive information to meet Sarbanes-Oxley or HIPAA requirements, among others, and your lawyers are promising dire consequences if...

BEA's Plumtree buy adds missing piece to SOA plan - Plumtree's portal layers much-needed user-friendly UI onto BEA's AquaLogic SOA effort.(BEA Systems Inc.)(Plumtree Software)
August 29, 2005... No company is more bullish on SOA than BEA. The problem is that BEA's WebLogic application server -- long the company's flagship product -- is really a Java platform, whereas an SOA is supposed to maintain platform neutrality. Hence BEA's...

Intel seeks a more efficient chip - New chips Merom, Conroe, and Woodcrest are designed to do more work per clock cycle.(Brief Article)
August 29, 2005... It's official: Intel crystallized its plans for the multicore-processor era last week by unveiling a new design formula for chips that will be available in the second half of next year. This next-generation architecture borrows many...

Progress Software eyes service bus link to event-stream processing - Company sees ESP-to-ESB connections correlating event streams in service-oriented networks.(event-stream processing)(enterprise service bus)(Brief Article)
August 29, 2005... Progress Software anticipates an eventual linkage between ESB (enterprise service bus) technology and ESP (event-stream processing) to provide business activity monitoring in service-oriented networks. ESBs offer service integration in...

Blog tools tackle content management - Six Apart, NetWin introduce enterprise blogging features.(NetWin Software Inc.)
August 29, 2005... Deploying a full-blown ECM (enterprise content management) system to address basic corporate content publishing and workflow needs has been likened to trying to kill a fly with a rocket launcher. A more suitable solution may lie in souped-up...

EDITOR'S LETTER: EDITOR'S LETTER: Stop spam at the source - Putting the kibosh on spam before it scurries into the corporate network.
August 29, 2005... Catching spam is a game of cat and mouse. The anti-spam vendors plug one opening, and the spammers find a new one to exploit. (Mice are clever; just think The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.) The cats throw more hardware at the problem, and...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Users dis Dell, IE security hell - Gossiping gadfly sits alone by the phone.
August 29, 2005... For someone so well connected, my social networking diva has been impossible to reach lately. I spend more time talking to her voice mail than to her. My e-mails get rejected by her spam filter, and her IM client says she's offline. If I...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: FROM THE ANALYSTS: Let's get creative - Release your inner bean counter and get more bang for the bucks you pay vendors.
August 29, 2005... How deep do IT managers really want to get into the details of financial accounting for IT purchases? Isn't that better left to the bean counters? Would you rather discuss capex and annuity structures, or rent Gigli on DVD? Well, the...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Something nice for MOM - Third- party ISVs join Redmond in making Microsoft Operations Manager all the more manageable.
August 29, 2005... I admit it. I'm a MOMma's boy. And I'm not talking about the mom who keeps nagging me about a glaring lack of grandchildren. I'm talking about the MOM (Microsoft Operations Manager) designed to keep all my unruly Windows servers in line. MOM...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Is any account safe? Consumers pay when credit card authentication favors convenience over security.
August 29, 2005... American Express has judged that I am liable for a $243 online purchase that I didn't make. Thus began an unwelcome lesson in convenience- centered authentication, the security of e-commerce, and the hot potato of accountability. The...

REALITY CHECK: REALITY CHECK: Are U.S. workers second-string IT hires? Why is the Department of Labor keeping U.S. citizens from having equal access to more than 50,000 IT jobs?
August 29, 2005... Why is the Department of Labor refusing to post on its Web site a database of more than 50,000 job openings -- many for IT workers -- for 2006? Are they precluded by law to do so, as a DOL spokesperson claims? This issue is part of a...

Dell reworks the autoloader - Rack-mountable PowerVault 124T is easier to load, easier to manage, and still easy on the budget.
August 29, 2005... The last Dell autoloader I looked at, the PowerVault 122T, didn't wow me, but there's a lot more to like about its successor. Instead of the mailbox-fed sealed carousel of the 122T, the new rack-mountable PowerVault 124T has two removable...

Prefilters put spammers in the crosshairs - CipherTrust, Mirapoint, Symantec, and Tumbleweed appliances bring IP blocking, TCP/IP throttling, and other network-level tricks to the battle against spam.
August 29, 2005... Anti-spam filtering technologies have been perfected to the point where you can expect to see better than 95 percent accuracy, with no more than a couple of false positives out of every 10,000 messages. Despite this amazing progress,...

Product previews.
August 29, 2005... WiredRed enables Web conferencing from Office apps, GreenBorder bulks up desktop security By InfoWorld staff WiredRed Jump Starts Web Conferences From Office Apps The decision to launch a Web-conferencing session can now be made...

Stealth Drive's Biometrics Secure Data to Go - Platform-friendly micro hard drive offers good encryption but lacks capacity.
August 29, 2005... Stealth is all about prevention. This small-form-factor USB micro hard drive, roughly the size of a pack of cards and weighing approximately a third of a pound, is the latest in secured drive offerings from Memory Experts International (MXI)....

How and when to go 'captive' - Setting up shop overseas helps retain your competitive advantage.
August 29, 2005... Just because you decide you want to take IT work offshore doesn't mean you need to outsource it. Many companies wanting to tap into the global talent pool have decided to set up so-called "captive" offshore operations instead of working with...

Analog Devices takes long view on offshoring - CIO embraces long-term commitment as the key to success with Infosys.
August 29, 2005... For Larry Loh, CIO of Analog Devices, successful IT offshoring is all about making a long-term commitment. About four years ago, Analog Devices found itself bottlenecked in its technology services group, unable to load new OSes and configure...

Offshore partnerships demand a wide range of expertise - It's sink or swim in the choppy waters of foreign partnership structures.
August 29, 2005... Like it or not, offshore outsourcing is becoming increasingly central to IT. As the drumbeat grows ever louder, chances are you'll eventually be asked to get in step. But how do you design and implement an effective offshore initiative?...

CIOs must adapt to today's business realities - Traditional IT execs have more opportunity than ever -- but also more hats to wear.(chief information officers)
August 22, 2005... As companies increasingly seek employees who can straddle the line between business and IT, even the roles of traditional CIO and CTO positions are changing. In the past, a CIO could punch his or her ticket by spending a certain number of...

Intel takes cool to the core - IDF will spotlight a new chip architecture designed to control power consumption and reduce heat.(processor architecture)
August 22, 2005... Speed and heat are out at the world's largest chipmaker; power management and cool are in. This week Intel will reveal details about a new chip architecture that will allow the company to put a lid on the runaway power consumption of its...

Acrylic paints the Avalon dream - Microsoft previews graphics tool; XAML support deemed critical for Windows Vista.(Microsoft Corp. forthcoming Windows Vista OS)(Extensible Application Markup Language)(Brief Article)
August 22, 2005... Microsoft has issued the second preview release of a graphic design tool that lays a piece of the foundation for its forthcoming Windows Vista OS and draws competitor Adobe Systems closer to its crosshairs. Acrylic is positioned to both...

Apache kick-starts open source Web services - Synapse project aims to deliver a scalable, distributed services broker based on Web services standards.(Apache Software Foundation)
August 22, 2005... Go beyond a few basic protocols, and confusion still reigns in the wild world of Web services and SOA. Not just the towering, complex stack of Web services specs, but also fundamental questions about how those specs should work together and...

VeriSign eyes seamless Wi-Fi cellular roaming.(Brief Article)
August 22, 2005... Playing the role of stalking horse for wireless carriers, VeriSign last week announced trials at three major universities to integrate on-campus Wi-Fi to any wide-area wireless carrier network for data and voice roaming between networks. ...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Debian consortium takes on Novell, Red Hat - A new standardization effort aims to make Debian a first-class enterprise Linux contender.(Debian Common Core Alliance)
August 22, 2005... "A lot of people have been unhappy with the service they've been getting from a certain very large Linux vendor." That was Bruce Perens , speaking at this year's LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, which took place in San Francisco earlier this...

EDITOR'S LETTER: EDITOR'S LETTER: Decoding analyst-speak - New column cherry-picks the highlights, translates the tech jabber into English.
August 22, 2005... How many industry analysts does it take to change a light bulb? We'll get back to you on that. But first, wouldn't you like to purchase our Illumination Industry Survey, which predicts that yearly spending on light bulbs will reach $3.7...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Google earns publishers' ire, ZoneAlarm catches fire - Social butterfly turns back into caterpillar.(Google Inc.)(Zone Labs Inc.)(Microsoft Corp.)
August 22, 2005... I have to admit dating a social-networking diva has been an educational experience. We go to a different party -- or several of them -- every night. But instead of talking, everyone stands around BlackBerrying one another. They're too busy...

STORAGE INSIDER: Synergetic SANs and blades - New SAS switching cards from PMC-Sierra promise FC-comparable security for less dough.(serial attached small computer system interface)
August 22, 2005... "Synergetic (adj): Working together; used especially of groups, as subsidiaries of a corporation, cooperating for an enhanced effect." I like this short definition of the word synergetic because it's a good description of what happens...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: IBM's new search framework and the blogosphere - With a little help, UIMA could be a boon to unstructured data retrieval.(International Business Machines Corp.)(Unstructured Information Management Architecture)
August 22, 2005... You can find Irving Wladawsky-Berger's fingerprints on most of IBM's key initiatives: on-demand, open source, Linux, autonomic, and grid computing. So when he launched his blog in May, I became a charter subscriber. There are not many of...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: PC virtualization on the move - Expect more from x86 server virtualization than VMware and Microsoft can currently deliver.
August 22, 2005... Thanks to the backward, "all software owns the entire system" design of the x86 CPU architecture, PC client and server virtualization is one of the most challenging tasks facing system software developers. Even at their best, the benefits of...

REALITY CHECK: REALITY CHECK: Handsets are the last frontier for Linux - The open source OS could gain the cross-hardware integration of Microsoft's dreams are made.
August 22, 2005... We've all heard the Microsoft pitch a thousand times -- if you're running Windows on the server and the desktop, it only makes sense to run it on the handheld. But if that argument is valid then perhaps Microsoft is soon to be hoisted on its...

Big security power in small packages - Check Point, SonicWall beef up all-in-one boxes for branch offices.
August 22, 2005... The evolution of the SOBO (Small Office/Branch Office)-oriented, all-in- one box is a continuing process, bent on improving speed and convenience. The latest fish to walk their way out of the SOBO ocean include not only highly sophisticated...

Tableau set for BI feast - BI front-end remake supercharges deployment, purchase model.
August 22, 2005... The dream of effortless BI deployment has always been sweeter than the reality. Some of the most significant barriers arise during acquisition. Combing through the components to figure out which ones you must buy to get the features you're...

VMware sends in the clones to ease testing - Myriad enhancements to VMware Workstation make Version 5 a must-have.
August 22, 2005... IT professionals are constantly pressed to do more with less and to do it faster. The latest version of VMware Workstation proves a valuable tool in achieving that evasive goal. With it, administrators have the ability to test multiple images...

Veritas eases Exchange archiving - Veritas Enterprise Vault 6.0 gives admins flexible tools, doesn't interfere with end-users.(Brief Article)
August 22, 2005... Products such as Veritas EV (Enterprise Vault) 6.0 help companies come to grips with managing the long-term storage of e-mail, a popular cause in IT shops contending with legislative requirements such as Sarbanes- Oxley. Fully integrated with...

Meet IT's new managers - As the roles of IT and business professionals converge, it takes a new set of skills to lead the pack.
August 22, 2005... Mike Blake didn't start out as a geek. As an accountant with an MBA in economics from the University of Chicago, he was about as pure finance as you can get. But in 1995, when United Airlines plucked him from its corporate planning...

Product previews.
August 22, 2005... EMC bolsters collaboration, Linux e-mail server readied, WatchGuard Aims SSL VPN at SMBs, LogicLibrary Boosts Software Development Asset Management EMC collaboration software keeps projects in step Helping distributed teams get a...

Build your own Windows Update server - Scalable WSUS tops its SUS predecessor.
August 22, 2005... There are few things I love more than getting something for "free" and having it turn out to be valuable. That's certainly true with Microsoft's latest attempt at easing patch management pain, WSUS (Windows Server Update Services). WSUS...

Seeing the future with BI - Tedious data mining and static reports have had their day. The new business intelligence applies business analytics to fresh data and puts analysis in the hands of those who need it.(Business Intelligence)
August 22, 2005... Patterns gleaned from the past should always inform planning for the future. In most enterprises, though, there's been a serious disconnect. For years, business analysts have enjoyed a clear "rearview mirror" picture of the past based on...

AppDetective sleuths out vulnerabilities - Powerful solution does security audits and a whole lot more.(AppDetective 5.0)
August 15, 2005... There's no such thing as a set-and-forget security configuration. You have to stay on top of your applications and databases to ensure that your policies are being enforced and that they're still valid in the face of new vulnerabilities. ...

News briefs.(Microsoft Corp.-product introduction)(Brief Article)
August 15, 2005... Microsoft Releases August Patches Microsoft issued patches for six flaws in Windows and Internet Explorer, some of which could allow an attacker to gain control of a computer system. The patches, which include a fix for a newly discovered...

EMC Taps Surveillance Application.(product introduction)(Brief Article)
August 15, 2005... EMC announced a package geared to manage and analyze surveillance data. The EMC Surveillance Analysis and Management Solution consists of hardware, software, and professional services. It also includes EMC storage arrays and content addressed...

IBM Upgrades WebSphere Software.(Brief Article)
August 15, 2005... IBM unveiled WebSphere Extended Deployment Version 6.0, which extends the capabilities of WebSphere Application Server and the WebSphere platform, and combines capabilities of autonomic and grid computing. The product is designed to support...

Neon Systems offers mainframe ESB - Company tackles integration issues.(Brief Article)
August 15, 2005... Looking to tackle the problem of data integration in scenarios involving mainframes, Neon Systems last week shipped what it calls the industry's first ESB (enterprise service bus) for big-iron boxes. The company's Shadow RTE (Real-Time...

Stars align for open source - LinuxWorld showcases partnerships and community wares.
August 15, 2005... The LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco last week featured strategic partnerships among key companies and the release of proprietary commercial code to the community. On the partnership front, leading open source database...

EDITOR'S LETTER: IT's seven dirty words - Seemingly innocent phrases that simply won't cut it in polite IT society.
August 15, 2005... Remember the George Carlin routine "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television"? (No, I'm not going to print them here; if you're really curious, Google 'em.) I got to thinking the other day that IT has its own set of dirty words. Try...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Red flag flying over LinuxWorld Expo - China stakes its claim to become the next IT outsourcing superpower, with an emphasis on open source.
August 15, 2005... It may have been the worst conference presentation I've ever seen. Behind it, however, was one of the most compelling trends in the IT industry today. In a conference room tucked away on the second floor of San Francisco's Moscone West...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Cisco shoots itself in foot, APC makes servers kaput - No more Star Trek jokes here, cap'n.
August 15, 2005... It seems my less-than-reverent salute to the passing of Commander Montgomery Scott (aka James Doohan) hit a nerve. Outraged Trekkies rushed to scold me for my insensitivity. So no more jokes about the kilt-wearing wizard of the warp drive....

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: The summer of PKI love - Dartmouth College's PKI Deployment Summit showed public key infrastructure moving forward.(Public key encryption)
August 15, 2005... The annual PKI Deployment Summit at Dartmouth College is becoming a summer tradition. Universities differ from other large enterprises in ways that make them bellwethers for IT's future. University user populations are transient, platform...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: What's a monopoly to do? You can build your business into one -- just don't cross the line trying to keep it.(cases)
August 15, 2005... During a discussion with a source close to the AMD v. Intel antitrust lawsuit, I heard something that really grabbed my attention. AMD, he said, isn't suing Intel because Intel is a monopoly; it's suing Intel for abusing its monopoly powers...

CTO CONNECTION: Passing the baton - This is my last column, but you'll get even more real stories from the column that replaces mine.(Column)
August 15, 2005... Back in the summer of 2001, just a few weeks into my job at InfoWorld, I attended our CTO Forum event. When dinner rolled around, I sat at a random table. Two men already seated introduced themselves: Tim Bray, co-inventor of XML, and Dan...

REALITY CHECK: The real returns of RFID - Tags and readers push Gillette to the cutting edge of supply chain management.
August 15, 2005... Despite the hype associated with RFID, when you hear success stories from a very large organization, you have to believe there really is something there. The Gillette Company uses RFID for both pallet and case applications. It moves its...

Asset management moves beyond tracking inventory - With an eye toward the bottom line, solutions emerge to help you run IT as a business.
August 15, 2005... Shyam Ramachandran, IT manager at Viking Range Corp., knew things were out of control. "If someone left the company and HR called to ask what equipment they had, we had no idea," he says. IT kept tabs on hardware and software through a help...

Product previews.(BEA Systems Inc.-product information.)(International Business Machines Corp-product information.)
August 15, 2005... BEA boosts app server with WebLogic 9.0; IBM unwraps grid computing starter-kit; Salient touts Margin Minder Max; and startup Splunk searches log files, message queues, and binary data By InfoWorld staff BEA builds out WebLogic 9.0...

Sygate strengthens end-point defenses - Sygate Enterprise Protection 5.0 adds IPS technology and other enhancements to end-point security product.(Product/Service Evaluation)
August 15, 2005... It seems a lot of people are confused about end-point security these days. Good thing Sygate isn't. The company's updated and renamed end- point security suite, Sygate Enterprise Protection (SEP) 5.0, incorporates several interesting and...

Cenzic checks for Web-app weaknesses - Hailstorm 2.5's exceptional reporting complements its array of impressive auditing tools.
August 15, 2005... As Web applications evolve and new features are added, security managers must be able to reassess the application's overall security. Cenzic Hailstorm 2.5 is a powerful tool for doing just that. It performs not just one-time, but ongoing...

Expose your own online risks - Watchfire WebXM 4.0 expertly manages Web security, accessibility, quality, and regulatory compliance issues.(Watchfire WebXM 4.0)
August 15, 2005... Even with front-page identity theft news, many IT executives fail to understand the risks inherent in conducting business online. And for those who do, addressing those risks can seem an arduous challenge given how complex Web sites and...

Apps vendors attack midmarket - NetSuite, RightNow, Salesforce.com, Salesnet, Siebel, and SugarCRM all update wares.
August 15, 2005... As vendors jockey for position in the crowded midmarket enterprise applications field, their customers are reaping the benefits in rapid product enhancements. Six ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management)...

The next step: IT portfolio and project portfolio management - IT portfolio management puts a premium on strategy.
August 15, 2005... Running IT like a business doesn't end with asset lifecycle management. IT executives are under sustained pressure to invest limited budgets to maximize returns and produce results in step with the organization's goals. Selectivity and timely...

Exclusive: CoreGuard 3.1 clamps down on server, app security - Powerful server encryption from Vormetric keeps data in its place.
August 15, 2005... Keeping data safe is starting to sound like a cliche, thanks to vendors who use the catchphrase but don't effectively address this very real concern. Count Vormetric as one that gets it right. Its CoreGuard solution goes far beyond...

Data security as a service - Thanks to backup service providers, small offices can afford the ironclad efficiency of a datacenter backup.
August 15, 2005... For all their differences, SMBs and ROBOs (remote offices/branch offices) have one unavoidable headache in common: designing a robust backup and recovery system at a justifiable cost. When backing up network assets, larger, centralized...

E-mail archiving: a special case - Whether you use a service or a server, e-mail archiving must meet extraordinary retrieval requirements.
August 15, 2005... Small, dispersed offices aren't alone in demanding special backup treatment. Mail servers in organizations large and small need practical, efficient solutions that simplify archiving and retrieving e-mail from cumbersome Microsoft Exchange...

Open source directory - LDAP servers move closer to becoming commodity items.
August 8, 2005... With more and more companies investigating capabilities such as identity management, SSO (single sign-on), and automated provisioning, directory services are fast becoming a vital component of network infrastructures. So far, however, no open...

EMC boosts midrange Clariion - Latest iteration brings storage capacity and reliability improvements.
August 8, 2005... EMC last week announced four new Clariion Disk Library midrange disk- based backup-and-recovery systems with twice the capacity and performance of current systems. The company is also adding new reliability and information protection features...

Microsoft to enhance Exchange.
August 8, 2005... Microsoft plans to add speech-enabling technology to a future version of its Exchange Server as part of its unified messaging strategy, a move that could potentially compete with its third-party ISV partners. The addition of speech technology...

Oracle eyes Indian software company.( i-flex Solutions)(Brief Article)
August 8, 2005... Oracle said it will buy a majority stake in Indian banking software vendor i-flex Solutions, the latest in a string of acquisitions to strengthen the U.S. company's applications business. The deal is Oracle's latest move to expand beyond...

Penguin adds 64-bit BladeRunners.(Brief Article)
August 8, 2005... Linux hardware and clustering company Penguin Computing is releasing two new blade servers in its BladeRunner family. The BladeRunner 4130 and 4140 will be based on 64-bit chips from Intel and AMD, respectively. The 4130 is based on Intel's...

Easing Linux enterprise integration - Novell, startups offer prebuilt wares to reduce configuration worries.
August 8, 2005... On the eve of this week's LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, several companies offered prebuilt open source solutions designed to ease integration migraines. From small startups to large vendors such as Novell, companies are building momentum...

IBM to buy customer data-hub maker DWL - Addition of data-integration software maker expected to boost IBM's information management middleware.
August 8, 2005... IBM said last week it plans to acquire DWL, a customer-data-integration software maker, to strengthen its information management middleware portfolio. The company's DWL Customer software is a Java-based customer- data hub that pulls together...

Mozilla creates profit arm - Company builds unit to support moneymaking.
August 8, 2005... The Mozilla Foundation, which distributes the open source Firefox Web browser, last week created a corporate subsidiary to support its moneymaking activities and to help widen the use of its products. Although the goals of the subsidiary,...

Alien to ship next-generation RFID readers - The company will also partner with IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle to support their supply-chain solutions.(Brief Article)
August 8, 2005... Alien Technology announced last week a multiprotocol Gen 2 RFID reader, the ALR-9800, which improves read performance and speed over earlier models. Using an Intel XScale processor, the reader will be Java- and .Net-enabled for embedding...

Macromedia marks release of Studio 8 - Company wraps Contribute, FlashPaper into suite along with Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash.(Brief Article)
August 8, 2005... Macromedia on Monday takes the wraps off Studio 8. The new suite includes enhancements to Dreamweaver and Fireworks, and now houses Contribute and FlashPaper, as well. Studio 8 includes an upgraded Flash 8 development tool with new video...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Farewell, CTO Connection - New column, Off the Record, will dish the dirt on what goes down in IT.
August 8, 2005... If you haven't checked out this week's columns yet, let me be the one to break the bad news: Chad Dickerson is hanging up his InfoWorld CTO spurs and heading off to Yahoo, where he'll be toiling away in the brave new world of search. ...

SECURITY ADVISER: Cisco's black eye at Black Hat - Michael Lynn's Cisco/ISS-flaw presentation and its backlash doses out some reality.
August 8, 2005... There I was, running late to the Black Hat conference because of the weather, riding the long escalator to the third floor of Caesar's Palace in Vegas when I heard someone at the top of the stairs yell to someone behind me on the escalator....

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Cisco gets routed, more Vista names outed - Columnist's Star Trek gaffe fails to bring down Internet.(Column)
August 8, 2005... Thanks to the dozens of readers who noted that my previous column was lacking in the Trek department. James "Scotty" Doohan was the second crew member to enter the final frontier; DeForest "Bones" Kelley died six years ago. Actually, I was...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Beware of the IT fixer - IT's volunteers in the field do more harm than good if they circumvent company policy.
August 8, 2005... The IT Samaritan is a helper in the field, someone who stands a foot taller, knowledge-wise, than most of those around him. The helper is that spare set of semi-savvy eyes you're glad to have around when users and customers run into lingo...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Software's common DNA - Different species of application may have more in common than you think.
August 8, 2005... Here are five species of application that seem, at first glance, to have little in common: mainframe "green screen," Win32/VB, Java/Swing, Web browser, and .Net WinForms. An enterprise application portfolio is likely to include members of...

CTO CONNECTION: Exiting in good faith - It's time for this CTO to move on. But before I go, I'm doing my best to ensure a healthy IT department.(Column)
August 8, 2005... Over the past four years, I've spent a lot of my time advising CTOs on how to manage their careers both in this column and on my Weblog. In my very first column, I outlined what I think it means to be a CTO, and since then I've walked you...

REALITY CHECK: Taking the supply chain to new heights - The arrival of universal, always-on communications could spell a new era for supply chain.
August 8, 2005... If 2005 is to be remembered for anything, it may be as the year the last gap in always-on, always-connected communications was closed. This in turn will be a great opportunity to solve the problem of supply-chain visibility. Until now, two of...

Open source identity - Free tools can give developers a head start on advanced security infrastructure.
August 8, 2005... A complete identity management solution comprises a number of components. As such, it would be difficult for any single open source project to offer a plug-and-play identity management system. There are, however, a number of projects that...

Backbase widgets work wonders - Mature AJAX toolkit rewards learners of BXML with highly interactive Web clients.
August 8, 2005... One fertile area of programming today is the AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) toolkit. The buzzword may only be a few months old, but everyone seems to instinctively know that a nice library or toolkit will make it much easier to build...

3PAR for the high-performance storage course - Easy-to-manage InServ Storage Servers lead the pack.
August 8, 2005... Most storage systems are either appliances -- easy to set up but limited in capacity and performance -- or large, high-performance systems that take a week's training to configure and run. 3PARdata is aiming for the middle with its InServ...

Like Google for log files - Splunk brings enterprise search techniques to log file analysis.
August 8, 2005... As much as one system log file can tell you, correlating data from multiple logs can tell you a lot more -- whether you're troubleshooting a Web application, looking for network bottlenecks, or chasing down a network security incident. A new...

A buyer's guide to open source - Open source provides low-cost, community-supported alternatives to commercial enterprise apps.(Buyers Guide)
August 8, 2005... Build or buy? It's a question that vexes every enterprise IT manager. On the one hand, developing applications from scratch can be a difficult endeavor, one fraught with the possibility of failure. On the other hand, high price tags and the...

Open source business intelligence - Low-cost alternatives to costly reporting tools will arrive soon.
August 8, 2005... Customers and ISVs face steep fees when licensing existing BI software, so it's only logical that work on BI within the open source community is heating up. First out of the gate was the Eclipse Foundation, which has made BI one of its seven...