InfoWorld articles from October 2006

InfoWorld archives from October 2006

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Visiting Vista RC2, Part Two - Vista's coming along, but security and app-support questions remain.
October 30, 2006... I started a two-part series in my previous column on living in Vista RC2 for a week. I haven't stopped using it yet, so it's actually been two and a half weeks, but who's counting? This week, I managed to get a clear answer out of...

STORAGE INSIDER: Throwing down the gauntlet over power and cooling costs - EMC's efficiency claims may be overreaching, but it's a debate that customers need to hear.
October 30, 2006... EMC is in the spotlight this week, with a mammoth announcement that covers just about every product line, including Symmetrix, Clariion Celerra, and Disk Library. It will take some time to digest and make sense of all the news. Moreover,...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Practical 3-D telepresence - Full telepresence could be the next best thing to being there.(International Business Machines Corp.)
October 30, 2006... Two weeks ago I wrote about an invitation to join Sun's Oct. 10 debut in Second Life. On the same day, coincidentally or not, IBM invited me to its alumni virtual block party on the 12th. I'd been itching to try my hand at virtual...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Apple's in-house approach to external services - Xserve Xeon comes to life as a platform for no-touch hosting of user- friendly services.(Apple Computer Inc.)
October 30, 2006... Apple gave up on Xserve G5, its 1U rack server, more than a year ago, and with it, its drive to gain share in the enterprise server market. Apple doesn't talk about what doesn't work or why, but I speculate that Apple's enterprise program...

OFF THE RECORD: How not to stop a virus attack - Sometimes smart network engineers can be too smart for their own good.
October 30, 2006... By Anonymous Back in 1999, when the Melissa virus hit the Net, I was working as a network engineer for the Controller's office of a large western state. We got hit hard by Melissa. As you may remember, Melissa was a mass- mailing macro...

REALITY CHECK: Behind the push for WiMAX - An informed citizenry is your best defense against planned obsolescence.
October 30, 2006... We've been told for the past two years how much better WiMAX is than Wi-Fi. It has a potential range of 50 miles (far superior than the paltry Wi-Fi range of a few hundred feet), and it is all IP, making WiMAX easier to manage and secure...

2006 InfoWorld Security Survey: IT's confidence crisis - If incidents are down, why the crisis atmosphere? Because the attacks are much more targeted and severe.
October 30, 2006... This year's InfoWorld Security Survey shows an alarming and growing lack of confidence among IT security professionals -- for the fourth year in a row. It would be hard to find a better example of a distressed IT pro than Brent Oxley,...

Future-proof your IT security - Small, targeted incursions are the next wave of attacks compromising enterprise networks. Know the enemy.
October 30, 2006... Asymmetric warfare is hell. Sure, you may have night-vision goggles, body armor, and air support, but you're also working for a bureaucratic organization built to fight a war that doesn't look much like the one you're in. Your adversary, on...

How malicious hackers get away with data - Lax oversight of outbound data allows hackers to extricate desirable information.
October 30, 2006... Compromising sensitive networks is only half the battle for malicious hackers or spies. Once they're on the network, and have the data they want, they must find a way to get it back outside. Unfortunately, malicious hackers have a number of...

Security weapons to fight the next malware war - Behavioral analysis, app IDs, and data encryption will figure prominently in defending networks against future attacks.
October 30, 2006... The shift from frontal assaults on enterprise networks to insider threats such as rootkits, Trojans, and bots signals big changes in IT security. Here are a few of the technologies that will play an important role in the years to come: ...

Barracuda Web Filter 310 protects network depths from spyware, viruses - Appliance leverages anti-spyware strength to clamp down on viruses, unauthorized applications.
October 30, 2006... Barracuda Networks is building on the success of its Spam Firewall product line by delivering a similarly engaging Barracuda Web Filter 310 appliance. The device contains more features and customization than any other I've seen for the money....

Exclusive: AquaLogic dives deep into the process pool - Fuego acquisition arms BEA with a potent BPM arsenal.
October 30, 2006... Reforming enterprise business processes to boost productivity requires isolating pain points through steady focus on the myriad users, partners, customers, and applications proliferating an enterprise. The latest silver bullet to enter...

Juniper unveils branch-office strategy - J-Series routers combine security, VoIP, acceleration.(Juniper Networks Inc)
October 30, 2006... Enterprises have done wonders in recent years consolidating their IT operations into efficient and tightly managed datacenters. That trend has been a godsend for system administrators and IT workers, who no longer have to spend long hours on...

Oracle zeros in on Red Hat - Ellison makes war not love at OpenWorld, targets RHEL Support.
October 30, 2006... Given Oracle's appetite for buying companies, nobody thought twice about rumors that CEO Larry Ellison had his eye on a Linux vendor that would give his company its own OS. After all, when you've digested a PeopleSoft or Siebel, how hard can...

Windows XP SP3 suffers uncertain future - XP update pushed back to 2008.(Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3)
October 30, 2006... Microsoft's long journey getting Vista out the door has left more than one body by the roadside. Remember the WinFS file system? How about the Next Generation Secure Computing Base? Now the operating system's delays may be causing ripple...

Birth of the killer app - Early, collegial Internet made spam, phishing possible.(Eric Allman)(Interview)
October 30, 2006... Apple Computer is celebrating the fifth anniversary of its "killer app," the Apple iPod MP3 player. But Eric Allman, Chief Science Officer at Sendmail, is among those Internet pioneers celebrating the anniversary of an even older and more...

Authentication the message for next round in spam fight - Microsoft, Sendmail kick off efforts to bolster e-mail authentication.
October 30, 2006... E-mail filters have become effective at preserving our in-boxes, creating the illusion that spam has been tamed. But the bulk of spam is growing. MessageLabs said about 70 percent of all e-mail traffic as of this week, and 66 percent this...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Oracle's Red Hat support spells trouble for Sun - Linux push from the database giant could be end of the road for Sun's Solaris.
October 30, 2006... It wasn't the Oracle-branded Linux that many were expecting. In a way, it was something much worse. A collective gasp rose up from the blogosphere following Larry Ellison's keynote at last week's Oracle OpenWorld conference. To many,...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Redefining innovation - Is a good idea only as good as the cash it generates?(Editorial)(Brief article)
October 30, 2006... Innovative ideas are a dime a dozen, according to Jim Andrew, senior partner at big-time consultancy BCG. In fact, at most companies, coming up with great concepts for a product, service, or process isn't even an issue. But turning those...

SECURITY ADVISER: To patch or not to patch: the third-party question - Should you install third-party patches while waiting for the real thing?
October 30, 2006... Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office have been under a zero-day attack barrage for the last few months. In what is becoming a familiar cycle, Microsoft releases its new monthly patches on "Patch Tuesday," only to have a handful of...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Putting data to work for the bottom line - Companies that recognize the value locked away in customer data will trounce rivals that don't.(Column)
October 30, 2006... Quick. When was the last time you remember being pleasantly surprised by how effectively a company used data about you to improve your customer experience? We all remember back in the '90s the wow of going to an ATM and seeing our actual name...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Vista still funky; iPodders do the "monkey" - When "3-D interface" means "delayed, denuded, and debauched".
October 30, 2006... Even as Halloween looms, few things are scarier than Microsoft readying a new OS for release. Vista is likely to arrive at hardware OEMs before Turkey Day. But some Cringesters report problems getting their gear to work with Release Candidate...

Getting a head start on ITIL - To survive in the 21st century, IT must manage itself based on the services it delivers.
October 23, 2006... IT can no longer deliver services based on technology fiefdoms or silos as it has in the past. This practice is dead. Organizations that refuse to accept it will either dissolve, get outsourced, or end up being controlled by external entities...

Riverbed Steelhead boosts WAN data flow - Enhanced protocol support broadens appliance family's reach.
October 23, 2006... IT always seems to be caught in the middle of the WAN-performance battle: On one hand, users never seem to be happy with an application's performance; on the other, the bean counters won't budget for bigger pipes. If more bandwidth isn't the...

Microsoft: Know your network to stop fraud - Anti-spyware Outreach exec says knowing what's normal can help spot data leaks.(Jeff Williams)(interview)(Interview)
October 23, 2006... The past six months, anti-virus companies Symantec and McAfee have engaged in a full-on proxy war with Microsoft, appealing to the media and the European Commission about the threats to competition and innovation as the world's largest...

Government agencies gear up for HSPD 12 - Vendor mosh pit forms around presidential directive for common ID.
October 23, 2006... Most major IT projects of any size are slow moving beasts: amorphous blobs of specs and builds and regression tests slouching toward completion, someday far in the future. That's why sometimes the best thing you can do as a project...

IBM, Tibco tackle data management - SOA deployments driving demand for data transformation.
October 23, 2006... Knocking down silos is harder than you think. That's a realization that countless enterprise IT administrators are coming to as they try to figure out a way to pull together data scattered throughout an enterprise into a coherent set of...

Motorola readies WiMax devices - Licensed spectrum to supplant Wi-Fi outdoors.(Brief article)
October 23, 2006... Motorola used the WiMax World USA event in Boston late last month to unveil one of the first WiMax CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) products and to demonstrate the handoff capability of mobile WiMax using WiMax APs (access points). With...

Microsoft gives ground on multiple fronts - Concessions on APIs, virtualization may be sign of evolution.
October 23, 2006... Microsoft's used many slogans in its 30 years of existence. Remember "Where do you want to go today?" But let's face it, other, more potent mottoes have guided the actions of the company and its executives throughout the years. Take...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Managing Linux, the Windows way - Cross-platform tools allows Windows admins to manage Linux resources, but at what price?
October 23, 2006... A couple of weeks ago, I took BEA to task for insinuating that the open source community wasn't capable of delivering good management tools for its software. A few readers leapt to the defense: BEA is right, they said. Management is critical...

EDITOR'S LETTER: IT by the book - ITIL's guidelines bind infrastructure and costs to business objectives.(information technology)(Editorial)(Brief article)
October 23, 2006... Can something that's been kicking around for more than 15 years qualify as an overnight success? It certainly feels that way with ITIL, a collection of nine books that lays out a blueprint for IT service management. In the United States, at...

SECURITY ADVISER: Keeping up with advancing malware - Defending systems against wily companion worms and viruses requires inspection discs.
October 23, 2006... Vendors are finding increasingly more effective ways to battle malware such as viruses, Trojans, and bots. Unfortunately, malicious programmers continue to concoct newer, nastier code, and companies need to update their security arsenal and...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Cast your vote for IT's future - Learning where candidates stand on technology issues is tough, but worth the effort.(Editorial)
October 23, 2006... Dear reader: Ask not what IT can do for you, ask what you can do for IT. With the crucial midterm congressional elections just a couple of weeks away (not to mention a bevy of state and local contests), it's time to issue my first annual From...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Intermix suit is nixed, Microsoft (almost) gets fixed - It's MySpace and I'll sue If I want to.
October 23, 2006... Former Intermix CEO BradGreenspan is suing Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., claiming the $580 million Murdoch paid for Intermix -- creator of MySpace -- is $19.5 billion short of its actual value. Though Greenspan's suit was punted by an LA...

STORAGE INSIDER: SMEs, say farewell to DAS - New products from Pillar Data and Xiotech boost the ease and affordability of networked storage.(Small and medium sized companies)
October 23, 2006... Not long ago I had an interesting conversation with a group of folks from a major storage vendor. They had requested a briefing to discuss how to improve their infrastructure to better support product reviews. That's not unusual. Every...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Transmeta takes on Intel - Where did Intel get the performance-per-watt idea? Transmeta says it knows.(Column)
October 23, 2006... Intel's legal staff might as well buy homes in Delaware. That's the venue for AMD's anti-trust action against Intel, and this month, Transmeta petitioned the same Delaware Federal District Court to find that Intel has violated 10 of...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Why SOA and VoIP will converge - Human-to-human communications are a natural fit for process automation.(service oriented architecture)
October 23, 2006... A dozen years ago, I wrote a Byte cover story on the subject of computer-telephony integration. CTI was "right around the corner" back then. Every time I revisit the subject I conclude that, regrettably, it still is. Voice and data...

OFF THE RECORD: Server upgrade with no upside - Our salespeople had no data, no calendars, no contacts, no e-mail, no access to documents.(Column)
October 23, 2006... By Anonymous The problem was obvious: Data storage was maxed out, the network crawled, and half the time our backups were corrupt. The solution was simple, too: Upgrade the servers and increase network function -- without a loss of data....

REALITY CHECK: Google-YouTube deal is a new low for the Net - Online video acquisition proves that market share trumps innovation in Web business.
October 23, 2006... Google's purchase of YouTubehas set off a flurry of analysts asking questions like, "Is this the bad old days of dot-com returning?" Or, "Why would anyone pay $1.65 billion for a year-old company that hasn't made a dime?" I am afraid these...

Reopening the data mart - Master data management starts with a few small steps -- and an updated version of the data mart.
October 23, 2006... The growing acceptance of the SOA approach to enterprise applications has reopened an old IT wound: the sorry state of data in most enterprises. In the 1990s, the data warehouse and the enterprise repository were trumpeted as the solution for...

Exclusive: BladeFrame EX slices, dices, dazzles - Egenera's flexible, modular server blade system takes a unique approach to the adaptive datacenter.
October 23, 2006... What happens when you take a blade chassis and remove the disk, NICs, HBAs, and state from the blades? You get the Egenera BladeFrame EX. At first glance, the BladeFrame EX appears to be a standard datacenter rack populated with 1U servers,...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Which country boasts the biggest IT brains? United States retains No. 1 spot for certifications, but watch out for Belarus.(Column)
October 16, 2006... Back in the 1800s, many educated people became practitioners of the bogus, bigoted "science" of phrenology, which used skull measurements to determine the capabilities of one's brain and the quality of one's character. You may remember -- if...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Vista nags users, Verizon accuses - Microsoft's anti-piracy policy will make Vista buyers want to walk the plank.
October 16, 2006... If you thought Windows Genuine Advantage was a treat, wait till you see Vista's anti-piracy technology. Users who install Vista will have 30 days to validate the product; OEM installs will come pre-validated. (So much for encouraging people...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Used properly, RSS boosts collaboration - For disseminating targeted info, blogging technology is tough to beat.(Really Simple Syndication)
October 16, 2006... Blogs, blogs, bloggity blog blog. In the midst of your daily IT grind, the constant blog babble may sound tedious. But while they are the latest way for employees to waste time using IT resources, blogging technology also has real potential...

STORAGE INSIDER: Clustered storage winks at the enterprise - New release from Isilon Systems improves performance and strengthens data protection.
October 16, 2006... The rationale for deploying a clustered storage system is in many ways similar to that of deploying clustered servers: You get better scalability, both for capacity and performance, and more resilience than traditional solutions can provide....

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Second Life builds the social metaverse - Graphically rich 3-D environment adds new dimension to online community.(Company overview)
October 16, 2006... A well-known company issues a press release inviting reporters to witness its online debut. The year? Not 1994, but 2006. The company? Sun Microsystems. I had to pinch myself when I read the announcement: "Please join John Gage for a special...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: The closeted genius of x86 - The technology used to make PC video games and media editors could do serious business.(Column)
October 16, 2006... The outlandish requirements of gaming and media applications have not only changed the way PCs are configured, it has also driven an expansion of the x86 instruction set and on-chip registers that practically creates a CPU within a CPU (or a...

OFF THE RECORD: IT dream job becomes a nightmare - When you're out of work, any employment looks good. But some jobs are too good to be true.(information technology)(Column)
October 16, 2006... By Anonymous In 2001 I found myself unemployed -- and stranded. I had gotten a job with a seemingly well-funded telecommunications company, which relocated me and my family to California, and immediately went bankrupt. Just another...

REALITY CHECK: Is IT on the rise again? SOA will help spur the growth of a new breed of interdisciplinary IT workers.(service oriented architecture)
October 16, 2006... When I read the press release that IBM was "helping" the computer science department at Georgetown University develop an SOA (service- oriented architecture) curriculum, and that the courses would use WebSphere integration middleware, I...

20 ways to get promoted in the tech industry - If you agree that there's no such thing as an IT project, you may already be on your way up the ladder.
October 16, 2006... Pity the poor, ambitious IT professional. With technology more important to the bottom line than ever, you'd think there'd be career opportunities up the wazoo. But the suits don't really understand what you do for a living. And they hold the...

IBM's IICE heats up content federation - WebSphere Information Integrator package puts content search, data management into one UI.(Information Integrator Content Edition)
October 16, 2006... It's an undeniable problem. Many IT sites lack uniform access to unstructured data locked away in ECMSes (enterprise content management systems), workflow software, and other repositories. Data in these systems is frequently accessible only...

New PowerEdge packs punch - Ninth-generation Dell server steps up the speed, storage, and serviceability.
October 16, 2006... Dell's PowerEdge server line is nearly a decade old, and the newest examples bear little more than a passing resemblance to their ancestors. The Dell PowerEdge 2950 I've been running in my lab presents a sleek, spare, and completely tool-less...

BizTalk 2006 deftly connects enterprise apps - Boasting across-the- board improvements, BizTalk 2006 carries on product line's rich EAI heritage.
October 16, 2006... Suppose you're the new CIO at an enterprise-scale company that has "islands of automation" for accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory control, sales, support, and HR, and your goal is to integrate all business processes. Make...

OpenAjax to focus on security, complexity - IBM, alliance wants to make mashups safer, easier to develop.(Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)
October 16, 2006... Sometimes it's all in the packaging. Take McDonald's "Happy Meals," for example. You've got a burger, fries, and a drink. But wrap it in kid- friendly packaging, add a cheap plastic toy, and voila! You've got a whole new product line. In the...

Oracle buffing up image with partners - Tools, training to be revamped.(Brief article)
October 16, 2006... Anyone who's ever planned a wedding knows that it can be tough to keep all your friends happy. Now imagine you have 17,000 "friends." Keeping them all happy could be downright impossible. That's the situation Oracle has found itself in...

Storm clouds on AV horizon - Microsoft roiling once-clubby anti-virus industry.
October 16, 2006... Leave it to the world's biggest software maker to bust up a good party. Every year for more than a decade the world's top virus and malicious code experts have gathered for the Virus Bulletin conference to talk about what's hot in the world...

Symantec targets crimeware with Security 2.0 - Phishing, pharming targets of product refresh.
October 16, 2006... Republican Congress members who have spent much of the past two weeks trying to change the subject from lurid e-mail and IMs could take a page out of Symantec's playbook. After all, what was Symantec's "Security 2.0" announcement last...

Sun: Java will work well with Vista - Company denies rumors of problems with upcoming Windows operating system.(Brief article)
October 16, 2006... Fending off reports that Java doesn't jive with the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista OS, Sun Microsystems is saying, Don't worry, Java Standard Edition 6 will get along with Vista just fine. Java SE 6 is due in November; Vista will be out...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Opera's open source conundrum - Browser maker embraces open standards but keeps code closed.
October 16, 2006... Suppose there was a software category so ubiquitous that virtually everyone used it and anyone could get the software for free. Suppose, also, that the software was highly standards-based, so much so that it did not require any patented or...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Gaming for business - How will game technologies play out in the corporate world?(Editorial)(Brief article)
October 16, 2006... What does gaming have to do with mainstream business? Until recently, I'd have answered, "not much." But a conversation with Tim Keanini of nCircle made me rethink my position. As the CTO for a security company, Keanini draws on game...

SECURITY ADVISER: Prepare for Internet Explorer 7 - Though significantly more secure, IE 7 has a tendency to choke on some Web apps.
October 16, 2006... After one of the most widely tested beta products in Microsoft's history and trial downloads by millions of users, Internet Explorer 7 Version 1.0 is finally ready. The tentative release date is Oct. 18, followed by Windows Update and...

SECURITY ADVISER: The sad state of computer security - The reality of IT security is dismal -- and there's little hope in sight for improvement.
October 9, 2006... I teach computer security for a living. Last week, a class of mine asked which vendor had the best security. I responded that they all are pretty bad. If you aren't using OpenBSD or software by D.J. Bernstein, then every other product in the...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: The uncertain future of R&D - Forrester report finds little relationship between R&D spending levels and business success.(Column)
October 9, 2006... One of the more eye-opening business experiences i ever had was taking a daylong tour of Procter & Gamble's R&D facilities in Cincinnati several years ago. The sheer scope of the operation blew me away -- I think they said P&G had more Ph.D.s...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: HP execs zip lips, Microsoft's DRM trips - Which is worse, exploding batteries or imploding companies?
October 9, 2006... The HP spying scandal has claimed another fall guy -- or, in this case, fall gal. Chief Counsel Ann O. Baskins resigned last week after declining to testify about her role before Congress. Former spymaster Patricia Dunn says the longtime...

REALITY CHECK: Lessons learned from HP scandal - Spying shakeout demonstrates the importance of clear information-gathering policy.
October 9, 2006... No sense pointing the finger at Hewlett-Packard anymore; we have Congress and the FBI to do that. But I did want to discuss the "I didn't know what my employees/vendors/executive staff were doing" defense -- which was, of course, made famous...

STORAGE INSIDER: More virtualization hits the switch - Startup Incipient to launch new block virtualization software for Cisco switches.
October 9, 2006... It went by rather quietly, but iNSP (Incipient Network Storage Platform), a new block virtualization solution that the startup Incipient recently announced at Storage Decisions in New York, is probably one of the most important releases in...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Emerging security solutions vie for approval - They are promising, sure, but host intrusion prevention systems, end-point security need to prove their worth.
October 9, 2006... Aside from a flurry of beta releases, security updates, and the usual E.U. he said/she said dance, it's been a pretty quiet week in Redmond. In case you're wondering which betas to watch for (past, present, and near-immediate future), the...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Evolving Amazon's services into products - Developing internal Web services is easy; the hard part is bringing them to market.
October 9, 2006... The announcements from Amazon Web Services LLC just keep on coming. The latest news flash is FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), which will make Amazon's warehouse, its customer service, and its pick, pack, and ship machinery available to sellers....

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: IT's virtual asset economy - Pooled assets make sense, but they still must be allocated fairly.(Column)
October 9, 2006... The phrase "kid in a candy store" conjures up a dazzling dreamscape of treats and an immediate longing for everything that the kid sees. Handing independent technology budgets to managers with spending authority is an allowance for a...

OFF THE RECORD: An IT soap opera: Passion, programming don't mix - Careers are bound to suffer when dirty dealings enter the workplace.(Column)
October 9, 2006... By Anonymous Not all soap operas are on TV. case in point: I used to work as a programmer for a midsize trucking company I'll call "US Freightline," with yards and offices scattered around the Chicago area. Not only was "Joe," the IT...

Case study: Unifying call and customer data - A service provider plans to enrich customer relationships by integrating call data.
October 9, 2006... The Hudson Group, a Boston-based application service provider, builds and provides software services for ground transportation companies. The company was looking for a way to integrate voice with its existing Web infrastructure and its order...

SOA finds its VoIP - Outside of the call center, voice/data applications have yet to take off. But adding unified communications services to SOA environments may change all that.
October 9, 2006... The worlds of telecommunications and IT have been colliding for more than a decade, but that loud crashing noise may be reaching a crescendo thanks to SOA (service-oriented architecture). As with mainframe applications, what was once the...

Microsoft Antigen nails viruses but stumbles on spam - Malware protection impresses, but optional anti-spam module can't hack it.
October 9, 2006... Viruses and spam both pose an increasing threat these days, and not just to your data or productivity. Rather than hackers trying to break security systems for their own amusement, most current threats are financially motivated and can cost a...

Jtest continues its trek toward code-testing supremacy - Version 8 of Parasoft's Java test tool sports impressive BugDetective analysis features.
October 9, 2006... Parasoft continues to send its Jtest Java testing suite out to hunt down bad Java code. And Jtest knows that the definition of bad Java code continues to expand: One bit of code might be bad because its developer didn't follow best practices...

IT confronts the datacenter power crisis - As energy costs escalate, conserving resources tops the list of challenges for today's IT managers.(Company overview)
October 9, 2006... When David Young told his colocation provider late last year that his online applications startup, Joyent, planned to add 10 servers to its 150-system datacenter, he received a rude awakening. The local power utility in Southern California...

Run datacenters on direct current, see immediate savings - Inefficiency is partly to blame for excessive heat in today's datacenters.
October 9, 2006... Of all the waste in the typical datacenter, none is as often overlooked as the series of steps that convert power back and forth from AC (alternating current) to DC (direct current). My Ton, senior project manager at Ecos Consulting, aims to...

Levy: Don't let SOA 360 make you dizzy - 360 vision not all blurry.
October 9, 2006... When BEA announced the new SOA 360 service-oriented architecture platform last month at the BEA World 2006 show in San Francisco, everyone agreed that it was big news. Dig deeper, though, and it is harder to agree on what, exactly, SOA 360...

IBM making $1 billion bet on SOA - WebSphere registry repository is key to SOA strategy.(Service oriented architecture (Software design))
October 9, 2006... Much like a spouse reaffirming marital vows, IBM recommitted itself wholeheartedly last week to SOA -- for better or worse. As befits a public declaration of passion, Big Blue brought along gifts to brush away any lingering doubts about...

Mercury updates SOA products - Company announces new products, updated governance platform.
October 9, 2006... SOA -- "service-oriented architecture" or "state of anarchy"? The question is starting to weigh on SOA vendors large and small, as the number and complexity of SOA deployments run smack up against compliance and IT governance requirements in...

TippingPoint Releases Anti-phishing Tool - Monkeyspaw open source tool fingerprints phish sites.(Brief article)
October 9, 2006... There's a kind of "tyranny of good intentions" that often springs up around IT security problems. Three years ago, the issue was spam, and we saw AOL, Earthlink, Microsoft, and a rogues' gallery of other characters pile on with anti-...

Dunn, Others Charged in HP Scandal - Privacy rights, state laws allegedly broken in leak investigation.
October 9, 2006... The windup to criminal charges stemming from Hewlett-Packard's shameful leak investigation has taken weeks. Then, just as the Major League Baseball playoffs got under way, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer delivered his pitch: felony...

Microsoft locks down Vista, Longhorn - Features, not patches cut off with software protection platform.
October 9, 2006... Microsoft's long, strange trip to protect its software from piracy took another twist last week after the company introduced Microsoft Software Protection Platform for its upcoming Vista and Longhorn server operating systems. The new...

EMC, Microsoft sing Duet - Enterprise content management deal combines Documentum, SharePoint.
October 9, 2006... Can three people sing a duet? According to Microsoft, the answer is a resounding "yes." The company last week announced a deal with EMC to step up the two companies' collaborations in the area of ECM (enterprise content management),...

EDITOR'S LETTER: The power of green IT - The cost of datacenter power consumption has enterprises looking for ways to lay off the juice.(Brief article)
October 9, 2006... As an IT topic, reducing datacenter power consumption isn't very sexy, ranking just below filing expense reports and maintaining the mainframe. But for those whose hearts race at thoughts of propping up the bottom line, power conservation is...