Network World back issues from May 2006:
Can't find a domain name? ... Here's why.(GoDaddy's add/drop scheme)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Paul McNamara Chances are good that you've never heard of the add/drop scheme, so dubbed by GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons. But if you've recently struggled to find a decent .com domain name or paid a king's ransom to regain control of one your organization forgot ...
Vendors air WAN capacity management wares; Accelerators from Citrix, Crescendo and WAN caching hardware from Expand are on tap.(Interop show)(wide area networks)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Phil Hochmuth, Denise Dubie A handful of vendors are expected to use this week's Interop show to launch gear designed to get more data through WAN pipes and Web server data center links faster. Citrix is expected to air its largest-scale application ...
WAN optimizers stretch budgets; Bandwidth-acceleration devices provide an easily implemented money-saving measure.(wide area networks)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Tim Greene One of the surest ways for companies with expensive data links to save money is to install WAN-acceleration devices. Users report the gear pays for itself in as little as a few months. The primary way these devices save money is by making ...
Wireless vendors target high-bandwidth gear.(Interop show)(wireless networking equipment )
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: John Cox, Phil Hochmuth Wireless offerings set to debut at Interop are targeting corporate customers looking to add high-bandwidth gear to core networks. Bluesocket is scheduled to introduce the first multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)-based ...
End-to-end NAC remains difficult; Testing shows that completely interoperable, enterprise-class products could be coming soon.(Network access control)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Joel Snyder Network access control is a phrase on everyone's lips, but InteropLabs' testing shows that completely interoperable, enterprise-class NAC products are not here yet - though they could be just around the corner. The InteropLabs NAC team ...
Mac OS X gets wrong kind of attention.(operating systems security)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Scott Bradner Recently there has been a growth industry in pundits whining about the security of the Apple Mac OS X operating system. To read some of the coverage, you would think someone deciding to use OS X instead of Windows would have to be dumber than ...
Porn purveyors may be in the next cubicle.(child internet pornography)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Linda Musthaler News about Internet-enabled child pornography is rampant today. It seems you can't watch TV news without another startling arrest story, followed by an interview with an expert about how to keep your children safe while online. It's ...
Apple's 17-inch MacBook 5x faster than PowerBook G4.(EasyShare V610 from Eastman Kodak Co.)(MacBook Pro notebook from Apple Computer Inc.)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Keith Shaw I'm still buried in e-mail after some recent travel, so we're going to have to dig into the gadget news bag to highlight some recent device announcements: Macheads, get your drool on. Apple last week unveiled its 17-inch MacBook Pro ...
Wiretapping the WAN: It's the law.(Electronic Frontier Foundation sued AT&T Inc.)(wide area network)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Johna Till Johnson You may have heard about the lawsuit that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is filing against AT&T for cooperating with the feds to wiretap its network. Apparently, AT&T has instrumented its network so that the feds can potentially monitor ...
Avaya to announce service for hosted VoIP; Enterays, Foundry and Siemens also expanded IP telephony lines.(Avaya Inc. introducing Avaya On Demand service)(Siemens Corp.'s BizIP)(Foundry Networks Inc.'s Voice-over-WLAN controller )
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Avaya this week is expected to announce at Interop a hosted IP telephony service, with options for messaging and call center applications. The Avaya On Demand service, to be hosted by the company's channel partners, service providers ...
A second look at 'Lucatel'.(Compagnie Financiere Alcatel merged with Lucent Technologies Inc.)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Kevin Tolly A few weeks back when the Alcatel-Lucent merger news broke, I thought for a moment I'd encountered a time warp. Five years ago, I wrote in my column that a proposed merger of the companies was a bad idea. I can't remember any other ...
InteropLabs hits on NAC, VoIP and open source; HotStage event for '06 InteropLabs takes place in a drafty warehouse in California.(network access control)
May 01, 2006 ... In some settings the word "lab" conjures up sterile images of long, stainless-steel countertops, white rats and even whiter lab coats. The HotStage event for the 2006 InteropLabs takes place in a drafty warehouse in Belmont, Calif., and is more about long racks ...
Interop: BorderWare to unify security appliances; Company integrates new platform into firewall, SIP and IM security appliances.(BorderWare Technologies Inc.)(instant-messaging)(Session Initiation Protocol)
May 01, 2006 ... Byline: Cara Garretson At Interop this week, security vendor BorderWare will detail plans for integrating its new Infinity platform into its existing firewall, Session Initiation Protocol and instant-messaging security appliances. Later this year, ...
Connecting XP and OS X machines via FireWire.(IP network design)(Brief article)(Column)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Steve Blass Can I build an IP network that connects a Windows XP machine to a Mac OS X machine using a FireWire (IEEE 1394) connection? Yes, because the most recent versions of Mac OS X and Windows XP support TCP/IP networking via FireWire connections. ...
NAC will make a splash at Interop; Dedicated network access control devices and software will dominate NAC deployments for the next few years.(network access control)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Tim Greene IT executives looking to control access to their networks should have two more options to consider after announcements this week at Interop Las Vegas. InfoExpress and Vernier Networks are scheduled to introduce network access control ...
A PDF reader, more portable apps.(Portable document Format software)(Foxit Reader and Adobe Reader )
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Mark Gibbs First up this week, a neat freebie: a lightweight PDF viewer for Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP and 2003 called Foxit Reader published by Foxit Software. Foxit Reader is much faster than Adobe Reader and much smaller as a download (1MB, ...
Interop: E-mail security vendors to make splash.(MailFrontier and Sonicwall Inc. introducing Messaging Reporter )
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Cara Garretson A pair of veteran security vendors will use Interop as a stage for announcing new and upgraded products designed to keep corporate messaging systems protected from a variety of threats. Following its February purchase of MailFrontier, ...
In brief: IBM building new storage-compression technology.(in its Viper DB2 database server)(International Business Machines Corp.)(Lionbridge Technologies Inc.'s Freeway 2.0)(NetCustomer offers migration services )
May 01, 2006 ... IBM is building new storage-compression technology into its forthcoming Viper DB2 database server that it says can cut storage needs by more than half. The technology, code-named Venom, lets database administrators compress database tables' rows by scanning for ...
Boeing deploys WLAN location tracking to speed up airplane production.(wireless local area networks)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Phil Hochmuth It's easy to lose track of something in the world's biggest building -- even a jumbo jet engine. Not that this happens often at aerospace giant Boeing, but the company recently deployed a wireless LAN (WLAN) location tracking system ...
Cisco hits on firewall/VPN, misses on ease of use; Exclusive test of ASA 7.1 software running on a high-availability pair of ASA 5540 systems.(virtual private networks)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Joel Snyder With its first iteration of the Adaptive Security Appliance a year ago this week, Cisco shipped its first new stand-alone enterprise firewall/VPN combination in nearly five years. Since then, Cisco has followed through on its integrated-appliance ...
VoIP team ventures into new terrain; What happens when devices try to work through security devices and across wireless LANs?(local area networks)(voice over internet protocol)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: David Newman now, basic interoperability is generally a given in multivendor VoIP settings. What happens, however, when VoIP devices go to work in decidedly unfriendly environments, such as through security devices and across wireless LANs? Results ...
In brief: Alltel announces service that lets wireless users make free calls to 10 numbers.
May 01, 2006 ... Alltel recently announced a service called My Circle, which lets wireless users make free calls to as many as 10 numbers. Most wireless providers offer customers free calls to other subscribers on their network. Alltel's offering lets customers call landline or ...
In brief: NetGear announces stackable switches.(NetGear Inc. introduced GSM7328S, GSM7352S switches and ProSafe AX741 10-Gigabit adapter)(RSA Security Inc. acquired PassMark Security)(Alert Logic offers managed security services)(Brief article)
May 01, 2006 ... NetGear announced last week its ProSafe stackable switches. These include 24- and 48-port 10/100/1000Mbps Layer 3 switches, each with four slots of optional 10G Ethernet uplinks. The 24-port GSM7328S and 48-port GSM7352S switches, which cost $2,790 and $4,600 ...
Virtualization: the best get better.(VMware Inc.'s Distributed Availability Services)
May 01, 2006 ... Byline: John Dix With the Microsoft and Linux camps starting to get their acts together on server virtualization, we decided to check in with VMware, the company that popularized the concept, to see what gains it is making in the interim. Revenue growth ...
Bridging the ITIL-SOA gap.(IT Infrastructure Library)(service-oriented architecture)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Jeff Kaplan Two of today's most popular acronyms in the alphabet soup of the IT industry are ITIL and SOA. The IT Infrastructure Library has gained attention as a governance framework aimed at helping IT operations people become more productive and effective, ...
Darwin and spam.(Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act)(CipherTrust study)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Mark Gibbs According to a recent CipherTrust study, consumers respond to and spend money on 5% of spam messages that link to porn sites. That's in contrast to the 0.025% response rate generated by pharmaceutical spam and the 0.0075% rate for spam hawking ...
How we tested Cisco appliance; ASA 5540 was tested running prerelease Version 7.1 software.(Brief article)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Joel Snyder We tested the ASA 5540 running prerelease Version 7.1 software in our network in Tucson, Ariz. We removed an existing NetScreen firewall and placed a high-availability pair of ASA devices as the primary firewall for one of our production subnets. ...
Higher ed fears wiretapping law; Oral arguments to be heard this week in ACE vs. FCC petition over CALEA.(American Council on Education and Federal Communications Commission)(Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Jim Duffy Institutions of higher education are up in arms over an FCC ruling on wiretapping they say could cost them billions of dollars in upgrades, expose their networks to more attacks, and jeopardize rights to privacy and freedom of speech. A ...
Secure SIP protects VoIP traffic; Security mechanism helps fill hole in Session Initiation Protocol.(voice over internet protocol)
May 01, 2006 ... Session Initiation Protocol has become the call control protocol of choice for VoIP networks because of its open and extensible nature. However, the integrity of call signaling between sites is of utmost importance, and SIP is vulnerable to attackers when left ...
News briefs: 'Net neutrality suffers setback.(EDS Corp. signed an outsourcing agreement with Kraft Foods)(Avocent Corp. acquires LANDesk Software Inc.)(AttachmateWRQ acquires NetIQ)
May 01, 2006 ... * A telecom reform bill approved by a U.S. House committee last week drew predictable reactions from proponents and opponents of 'Net neutrality - as the opponents won in this preliminary round of what promises to be a long legislative process. The bill creates a ...
Testing Cisco's new SSL VPN technology; Adaptive Security Appliance 5540 includes most-advanced technology in Version 7.1.(secure socket layer virtual private network)(Cisco Systems Inc.)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Joel Snyder Cisco has put its most-advanced SSL VPN technology into its Adaptive Security Appliance 5540 with Version 7.1. In our test of a late beta of that software, we found that while it provides a solid and compact feature set for creating smaller ...
Mix-and-match open source for corporate networks; Approach raises key question: Is it appropriate for enterprise use?(InteropLabs' HotStage event)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Rodney Thayer Some say open source software is not worth using. Some say it infringes on patents. Some say it will save the world. Setting aside the religious hype, open source software raises a serious technical question: Is it appropriate for enterprise ...
Cisco, Extreme, Enterasys and Foundry to launch security-oriented switches; Network infrastructure vendors weave security into the fabric of routers and switches.
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Vendors at Interop this week will continue to blur the line between security and network infrastructure products, with Cisco, Extreme, Enterasys and Foundry expected to launch protection-oriented switches and routers. The 20th ...
Management key to controlling desktop-search risks; Management key to diffusing problems with desktop search tools.
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Denise Dubie As more users employ desktop search tools from Google, MSN and Yahoo, IT managers increasingly must establish policies, standardize tools and protect their networks from data exposure, compliance breaches and poor performance, experts say. ...
Phishing leverages VoIP in new scam model; VoIP plays role in new phishing scam.(voice over internet protocol)(Brief article)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Cara Garretson Small businesses and consumers aren't the only ones enjoying the cost savings of switching to VoIP. According to messaging-security company Cloudmark, phishers have begun using the technology to steal personal and financial information over the ...
How to stop more spam.(tips to filter junk mails)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Ron Nutter A couple of years ago, we set up a Linux box running Postfix, SpamAssassin and Amavisd to try and reduce the amount of spam we were getting on our mail server. We used the latest versions of each product. It has done pretty well but we have ...
Internet2's network to get a facelift; Internet2 phases out Abilene network with a backbone that supports 10 10Gbps Lambdas.
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Denise Pappalardo Internet2's network is growing up. That was one of the key topics discussed Tuesday at the group's Spring Member Meeting in Arlington, Va. The research group is phasing out its Abilene network after about seven years of service ...
Start-up aims to drive wikis into corporate collaboration; Start-up CustomerVision taps wiki popularity for enterprise applications.(CustomerVision's BizWiki)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: John Fontana CustomerVision this week is set to unveil itself and BizWiki, a Web-based application for hosted, real-time collaboration that has access controls and workflow routing designed for corporate users. CustomerVision is capitalizing on the ...
Net mgmt. vendors show off app intelligence at Interop; Apparent Networks and NetScout evolve their network tools to better monitor application performance.(nGenius Performance Manager from NetScout Systems Inc.)(AppCritical from Apparent Networks Inc.)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Denise Dubie Management vendors are ready to step up at Interop (all the headlines from the show) to address customer demands for more proactive management of critical network services, and give network teams tools to better assess application performance. ...
Intel, AMD add advanced features to processor packs; Intel, AMD build virtualization and management features into their x86 processors.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Jennifer Mears Recognizing that clock speed is no longer a strong selling point, Intel and AMD are enhancing their x86 processors with embedded features such as virtualization and management tools meant to take the heavy lifting off the software that handles ...
XO 'launches' familiar name for fixed wireless; XO Holdings reintroduces Nextlink, provider of fixed broadband wireless services.
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Jim Duffy XO Holdings last week "launched" a wireless company - one that bore it six years ago. The competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) reintroduced Nextlink to the industry as a provider of fixed broadband wireless services to businesses, ...
Hitachi pitches easier path to storage virtualization; Hitachi Data Systems releases industry's first controller-only offering for enterprise storage virtualization.(Hitachi Data Systems Corp.'s NSC55)(Brief article)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Jennifer Mears Hitachi Data Systems aims to make it easier, and more cost effective, for enterprises to virtualize storage with a product that consolidates existing data stores without requiring customers to buy more disk capacity. The diskless ...
Vendors look to ease compliance management; Management vendors announce wares to address compliance management.(Loglogic introducing compliance suite)(Brief article)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Cara Garretson, Denise Dubie Management vendors at Interop (all the headlines from the show) will be looking to help companies address compliance requirements with automated tools. LogLogic plans to announce a version of its compliance suite for ...
Microsoft customers buying half its managment picture; Current Microsoft managment products garner good reviews; questions dog long-range plan.
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: John Fontana SAN DIEGO -- Corporate users are generally pleased with the direction and pace of development of Microsoft's management software but are not yet ready to take on the vendor's broad self-healing, model-based management initiative. ...
Coffee chain brews up POS hardware; Caribou Coffee Company smells success with IBM's post-of-sale gear.(point of sale systems)
May 01, 2006; ... Byline: Ann Bednarz To demonstrate the ruggedness of IBM's point-of-sale gear, sales executives held display screens under running water. Steven Bolduc, senior manager of POS and technical support at Caribou Coffee Company in Minneapolis, was impressed. ...
Letters to the editor: "When a product is better than the company".
May 01, 2006 ... Happy customers Regarding Joel Snyder's column, "When a product is better than the company": I am stunned -- I have been a customer of CipherTrust for almost three years and my experience is the exact opposite. The company was the reason we chose them as a vendor. I ...
Current stats on messaging problems serve as a wake-up call to IT managers; * P2P nets continue to be found on corporate nets, plus other survey findings.(Survey)
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Michael Osterman Reconnex and IronPort have both issued some interesting statistics on the state of messaging and network security. Here are some highlights of their findings: * Reconnex, in its fifth Insider Threat Index for the first quarter of ...
Not TEOTIAWKI; * 'Net neutrality debate is not about the end of the Internet as we know it.(Column)
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: M. E. Kabay Back in the late 1990s, a common acronym in discussions about the Y2K problem was "TEOTWAWKI": The End of the World As We Know It. In my most recent column, I surely enraged proponents of social action to defend "'Net neutrality" by suggesting ...
Assigning traffic to MPLS service classes; * Placing voice on MPLS.(Multiprotocol Label Switching)(Brief article)
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Steve Taylor, Jim Metzler In a recent newsletter, we referred to our analysis of the service-level agreements associated with some of the most commonly used MPLS services. We were surprised to find that in some instances, excess traffic would default to best ...
Crescendo Networks aims to reduce back-end processing bottlenecks; * Crescendo boosts its acceleration technologies.
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Denise Dubie Because about 40% of enterprise employees work outside of corporate headquarters, according to Yankee Group estimates, companies more now than ever need to optimize the delivery of data center applications over the WAN - and the need will only ...
XO goes back to move ahead; * CLEC reintroduces Nextlink provider of fixed broadband wireless services.(XO Communications Inc., NEXTLINK Communications Inc.)(Brief article)
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Jim Duffy It's back to the future for XO. XO Holdings "launched" a company that bore it six years ago. The CLEC reintroduced Nextlink as a provider of fixed broadband wireless services to businesses, government agencies and other service providers ....
HP rolls out new PC blade switch, management software; * HP BladeSystem PC Blade Switch.
May 02, 2006 ... Byline: Deni Connor HP last week launched a switch that works with its BladeSystem PCs and software that manages the assignment of connections between users and the Microsoft Remote Desktop session running on a PC blade. The HP BladeSystem PC Blade Switch ...
TrustELI aims to simplify VPN set up; * TrustELI adds Eli VPN to make setting up VPNs simpler.(virtual private networks)(Brief article)
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Tim Greene TrustELI, maker of a multifunction security box that includes site-to-site IPSec VPN support, is adding a tool that makes setting up VPNs simpler. Called Eli VPN, the feature lets customers configure VPN tunnels among multiple Eli boxes ...
Hail to the PDA: The business continuity factor; * PDAs can provide nice backup for your small and home offices.(Personal digital assistants)
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Robin Gareiss In a little-publicized event last week, a good portion of AT&T's DSL customers in the Great Lakes states lost DSL service for a full work day. I was one of them. Don't worry. This isn't going to be a rant about network reliability or ...
Think thin when moving from one desktop platform to another; * 2X Software thin client products.(2X ThinClientServer for Windows/Linux)(2X ApplicationServer for Windows Terminal Services)(2X SecureRDP for Windows Terminal Services )
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Dave Kearns I really do appreciate the feedback that I get from you, the reader of this newsletter. In fact, sometimes I think of it as simply an organized way for you to discuss things among yourselves. Two weeks ago, when I mentioned options for migrating ...
Recruitment costs on the rise; * Report shows as number of new hires increases so do recruiting budgets.
May 02, 2006 ... Byline: Amy Schurr If you're making new IT hires this year, chances are good that your company is spending more on its recruitment efforts. According to a report from compensation specialist Culpepper, firms expect to budget a median of $3,205 per new hire this ...
What was said and heard at EMC World 2006, Part 1; * Three days with EMC management.(EMC Corp. (Hopkinton, Massachusetts))
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Mike Karp Last week I spent three days with EMC management, employees and (my guess) about 4,000 of EMC's dearest friends, its customers and resellers. I drank deeply of EMC's beer, sipped sparingly on the Kool-Aid, and verified a number of things I ...
PowerDsine puts more power in its PoE; * PowerDsine jumps ahead of PoE Plus effort in IEEE.(introduced PD83000 controller, power over ethernet)(Brief article)
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Jeff Caruso Power-over-Ethernet specialist PowerDsine this week unveiled a "high-power" controller intended to broaden the range of devices that can be supported by the emerging technology. The PD83000 will use four pairs of Ethernet wires within a ...
Data center architect should oversee production of a 21st century data center; * Staffing and organizing for the 21st century data center.
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Johna Till Johnson Paradigm shifts almost always result in people and process shifts. As new technologies get rolled out, they require new approaches to architecting, designing and managing them - and that's in addition to the entirely new technical skill-sets ...
Interop: Network access control isn't cooked yet.(Secure Sockets Layer)
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Tim Greene Scanning PCs before they are allowed network access is technology that will take another two years before it is mature, according to speakers at an Interop session Monday. Even SSL VPN vendors, who already supply a version of this ...
Interop Reporter's Notebook: Data centers getting hot, literally.
May 02, 2006 ... Byline: Network World Staff Data centers getting hot, literally Data centers are getting hot. Stacks and stacks of single-rack-unit servers, multiple back-up power supplies and tightly packed blade server technology are among the things causing data centers ...
Internet providing haven for teens who cut, burn selves; Self-injuring teens flocking to Internet message boards, Cornell study says.(Cornell University)(Brief article)
May 02, 2006 ... Byline: Network World Staff Adolescents who injure themselves by cutting and burning their skin are flocking to Internet message boards for support and instruction, according to a new study from Cornell University. The researchers found some 500 message ...
Penn State research zeroes in on database access, security; Penn State's PACT technology designed to protect metadata.(Pennsylvania State University's Privacy-preserving Access Control Toolkit technology)(Brief article)
May 02, 2006 ... Byline: Network World Staff Penn State University researchers are touting new technology designed to enable databases to talk without giving away secrets to each other. The university's Privacy-preserving Access Control Toolkit (PACT) relies on encryption ...
Investors look to carrier, mobile, IP TV markets for start-ups; Cisco's market dominance in business networks makes it an uninteresting investment area for VCs and fund managers.(Cisco Systems Inc.)
May 02, 2006; ... Byline: Phil Hochmuth IT executives should be familiar with what's keeping investors from putting money into enterprise- and small-and-midsize-business-focused start-ups: it's Cisco, investors say. Venture capitalists, hedge fund managers and securities ...
Linux vendors make noise in the NW200 list; * Linux representation in the NW200 top network vendors list.(Brief article)
May 03, 2006; ... Byline: Phil Hochmuth Network World's recently-released NW200 - which lists the top 200 vendors in the network industry, by revenue - was again fairly light on Linux companies this year. This is probably what you get for selling a product that can be downloaded for ...