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Purchasing & Planning Tools for the Enterprise
TechRepublic's tech upgrade how-to.
| Wired & Wireless |  | |
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How important is this?
Wired & Wireless ranked as #1 IT priority in August
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Videocast: Next-generation IPThe Internet has grown from upstart network into a backbone of enterprise computing. Beyond Internet access, many companies are adding other IP-based
services for voice, video, VPN and hosting.
A Practical View of Cisco ServicesCisco network services are considered among the best in the industry, yet enterprises must employ aggressive negotiation and procurement tactics to maintain leverage and decrease total services spending. Heading South at Nortel"It's a never-ending drip," says one analyst. Indeed, the giant telecom-gear maker's woes will likely worsen before they improve.  See all Wired & Wireless articles
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| Hardware Upgrades | | |
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How important is this?
Hardware Upgrades ranked as #2 IT priority in August
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Dell to buyers: 'Beware the blade myth--at least until November' David Berlind: Dell's message to corporate buyers: Based
on current offerings, blades' promise of density and cost benefit--
when compared with 1U rack mountable servers--isn't all it's cracked
up to be. If Dell enters the market with an offering that meets or beats its benchmark,
it will send the entire blade market back to the drawing board. Blade innovation slows but differentiators still existThe blade server market has matured so quickly that the major
vendors--IBM, HP, Dell, RLX--are finding little room for
differentiation. In fact, so nuanced are innovations in the
blade space that you have to read the fine print to understand
where the innovations lie, who's ahead, and who's behind. Be
on the lookout for how a little innovation can force a big
change to your systems. Sun and Fujitsu Fire Up a New SPARCLast week, Sun and Fujitsu announced the convergence of their Enterprise 64-bit platforms. The move strengthens the overall SPARC position in the data center as a viable alternative to IBM Power and HP/Itanium Unix platforms. See all Hardware Upgrades articles
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| Security | | |
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How important is this?
Security ranked as #3 IT priority in August
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The Convergence (or Not) of Security and Operations Event MonitoringEvent monitoring is of interest from both a security and an operations perspective, but to date they have tended to be implemented separately with different toolsets. This joint interest has given rise to vendors and enterprises exploring the convergence of these two capabilities. Although overlaps in technologies, requirements, and processes exist, significant differences remain, which will impede full convergence indefinitely. MS Patch nine months lateMicrosoft's patch download site may lack relevant user-level information, but reader Clay Ruth thinks the bigger issue is the time it took for Microsoft to decide that this particular hole needed plugging.
Top down, bottom up security managementDan Farber: A large company typically has dozens of security devices
installed that track millions of events. Given the high cost
of security breaches, enterprises must take a proactive
approach to security management that encompasses bottom
up automated code analysis and remediation as well as top
down correlation engines to assess vulnerabilities based on
information gathered from every relevant data source. It's
the only hope of staying a step ahead of malicious hackers. Password Problems, Policies, Practices, and PlanningOrganizations must have a password policy that can be implemented or quit wasting valuable operational and management time and resources with complex, archaic, and insecure systems in the enterprise. There are supplements that strengthen passwords, and many can be implemented before deploying technology. Why Microsoft's patch process needs patchingDavid Berlind: In a bid to prevent more exploitations of the Windows vulnerability that enabled last month's Download.Ject attack, Microsoft has
released a "configuration change" it wants Windows users to apply
immediately. However, timing flaws and user interface issues with Microsoft's patch process reveal that the company's Trustworthy Computing Initiative needs a lot more attention to detail than it's getting. See all Security articles
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| Software Infrastructure | | |
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How important is this?
Software Infrastructure ranked as #4 IT priority in August
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Veritas CEO Gary Bloom UnpluggedVeritas CEO Gary Bloom has two pieces of advice for CIOs: One, make utility computing your top priority. Two, make Veritas -- a company with virtually no hardware or application software agenda -- your unbiased go-to company for computing infrastructure requirements. Bloom talked with ZDNet executive editor David Berlind just prior to announcing that his company would miss its quarterly earnings mark. James Gosling Face to FaceSun Microsystems' James Gosling, father of the Java programming language and the Unix text editor, Emacs, is one of the tech industry's rock stars. Gosling is currently a Sun Fellow and CTO for Sun's Developer Products group. Sun's new success formula: NPVDan Farber: Sun president Jonathan Schwartz believes the "ruthlessly competitive" pricing of the company's subscription model will be a disruptive force in the market. Fundamentally, Sun is hoping to commoditize the infrastructure required to service billions of client devices. At minimum, Sun's subscription pricing model will force other vendors to rethink their pricing and bundling scenarios. At maximum, it will resurrect Sun's fortunes. Sun execs at lovefest: 'Java's got game'Faced with losses, layoffs, resignations, and unbelievably intense
competition, Sun this year tapped its shrinking war chest, its
brightest stars, even its soul to restore the luster that once
graced this company. Sun's key theme at JavaOne, which starts
today, is momentum. And the company's efforts do indeed appear to be
paying off--from Java's progress on the handheld front to détente with superpowers IBM and Microsoft, Sun's back in the game. See all Software Infrastructure articles
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| Web Technology | | |
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How important is this?
Web Technology ranked as #5 IT priority in August
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ZDNet Podcaststhis is the podcast deck this is the podcast deck this is the podcast deck this is the podcast deck this is the podcast deck Reader: Where are Web tools for the rest of us?Software developer Lee Snover empathizes with David Berlind's pained attempt to webify a simple application. When Snover looked into webifying his company's mid-range accounting system, he was astonished "at the paucity of tools that mere mortals can use to develop Web-based applications." Face to Face: Vint CerfMore than 30 years ago, Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn hatched the
underlying protocol of the Internet--TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). The Internet took more than 20
years to reach a mass audience, but in the last seven years the population of Web users has gone from 50 million to more than
800 million. Cerf, who is also senior vice president of technology strategy at MCI, continues to steward the Internet in his
role as chairman of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the international
organization responsible for IP address space allocation, top-level domain name system management, root server system
management, and other functions.
Cingular systems open door to fraudulent credit card transactionsA ZDNet reader alerts David Berlind to a rather astonishing flaw in
Cingular's online account management system that allowed anyone
supplied with a customer's cell phone number and zip code to look
up that customer's basic account information. It gets worse. Until Cingular
hurriedly tweaked its Web site, anyone could pay a customer's bill for
them--with funds from that customer's own account. Federation accelerationFederated identity is beginning to gain some traction among
corporations, according to a survey. Most wanted by
respondents: single-sign on for partners, ease-of-integration
and vendor interoperability. See all Web Technology articles
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