Opinion

Will IT certifications pay off in the long run?

Study suggests their relevance and cash value may be in decline

New litigation rules put IT on the front lines of data access

Procedures for preparedness, data integrity, and retrieval are right around the corner. Is your enterprise ready?

Ripple effect of court cases means new rules for IT

Unless your company’s legal division and IT play as a team, everyone stands to lose

MySpace password exploit: Crunching the numbers (and letters)

Analysis of 34,000 real examples backs up theories that it's not hard to guess most end-users' passwords

Test Center Tracker: Testing Enterprise RSS servers

Fresh from the Test Center: InfoWorld Contributing Editor Mike Heck fired up the test lab to put three enterprise RSS products through the gauntlet: Attensa's Feed Server, NewsGator Enterprise Server, and KnowNow 3 Enterprise Syndication Solutio

Q and A with VMware’s Mendel Rosenblum

I had the chance to hear VMware's co-founder, Dr. Mendel Rosenblum, speak during one of the keynote presentations at VMworld 2006. His discussion about the future of virtualization was fantastic! Even more awe inspiring was getting the chance to

Software Acceleration with the Help from Virtualization

Virtualization isn't just for server consolidation anymore. Software companies are identifying and addressing other important gaps in the marketplace where virtualization can fit in to solve a problem. One such area is in the software developmen

Wireless bypass…the DLink DWL-7700AP

 Designed for outdoor use, the DWL-7700AP has the ability to have a single unit cabled to an internet feed. Then using the 802.11a create a wireless connection in a point-to-multipoint configuration where the 802.11b/g radio then provides tr

Google touts Web toolkit

Google on Thursday released Google Web Toolkit 1.2, a free software development framework for building rich Web applications without having to deal with the quirks of JavaScript. The upgraded toolkit simplifies development of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaS

Virtualization = Power savings?

Server Virtualization News: For PG&E customers, it pays to virtualize By Alex Barrett, News Director 26 Oct 2006 | SearchServerVirtualization.com   One of the things that VMWare brought up after our blade server shootout was that th

Managing SOA Semantics Using Ontologies and Supporting W3C Standards…Part II

Now, let’s finish up with RDF and OWL…my take. Resource Description Framework (RDF), a part of the XML story, provides interoperability between applications that exchange information. RDF is another Web standard that's finding use everyw

Girding up for storage grids?

Storage grids are intriguing, but SNIA and vendors must clarify the technology's boundaries

Forefront client security out and about

Third-party anti-virus vendors are peeved at Vista — and it’s not about the OS's architecture

Test Center Tracker: Storage grids, IM security

Storage grid confusion?: Do you know what a storage grid is? Turns out that most people don't, due to lack of a consistent definition. That isn't stopping Crosswalk from touting its iGrid storage grid solution and the just-released iGrid 71

Home Depot Rebate Goes in Deep Freeze

The litany of excuses that rebate fulfillment houses will use for putting your rebate on ice seems never ending. But one reader decided she was going to put an end to the excuses when rebates she was owed on a refrigerator purchased at Home Depot wen

Preview: WinZip 11.0

When was the last time you used WinZip? If you're like me, it's probably not once since using Windows XP. That's a pity because WinZip has so many more features than just the few compression capabilities embedded in the XP OS. The just

Demo Disaster

I just the PASS keynote where they were demonstrating mirroring. They had 2 clients hitting the DB and setup mirroring. Then they did a manual failover to show how your apps will start working on the new live instance. Well, somebody should have told

Collapse and chaos theory

I don't normally post twice in one day, but I didn't want to lose the thought.The past three Keep the Joint Running columns have been based on Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (see "Collapsible bus

Managing SOA Semantics Using Ontologies and Supporting W3C Standards…”Web 3.0?”

First of all this "semantic week" thing is timely considering the hype the semantic web is getting this week now that somebody linked it to "Web 3.0." No, I am not kidding….

Getting a website banned

Dear Bob …I'm wondering what the best way is to get a website removed or banned from the Internet. I believe that is it not only offensive to me, but it speaks about things that it says my lifestyle agrees with. Which in fact is not true.Thank

Virtualization and security

There are unique theoretical risks associated with a virtual enterprise that merit consideration

XQuery and the power of learning by example

XQuery owes some of its success to its excellent use-case documentation for developers

Test Center Tracker: Securing virtual systems; SOA video

Virtual lockdowns: It may be the buzzword du jour, but conversations and conjectures about the future of virtualization need to take into account the need for security, says Tom Yager in this week's Ahead of the Curve column. How dangerous are t

Red Hat and VMware Firm Up Relationship

So, I suppose Microsoft and Novell don't have an exclusive lock on announcing expanding relationships between virtualization platforms and Linux operating systems? Red Hat recently announced their own expanding relationship with virtualization m

Virtualization Solves Global Warming

Can you believe it? A software company is helping with energy conservation – all jokes aside. During a keynote presentation at VMworld 2006 in Los Angeles, VMware's President, Diane Green talked about power management and how VMware fits into th

Leostream Expands Connection Broker

In an effort to further promote the adoption of hosted desktops and the benefits of thin client computing, Leostream Corp. announced that its Connection Broker for hosted desktops has gained support from two of the leading suppliers of thin computing

Red-Gate’s Acquisition

I'm at PASS this week and I forgot my laptop cord so I'm blogging from my Treo 700w. Anyway, the big news here, if you haven't heard, is the Red-gate acquisition of SQLServerCentral.com. The story is that Brian Knight and Andy Warren w

Working With Open Source Developers and Communities

Opsware addition to manage VMware, Solaris virtual servers

Yesterday Opsware announced the virtual machine management product the company sketched out at its OPSWorld user conference in September. Called Opsware Virtualization Director, the software will be available as an add-on module to Opsware Server Aut

“5 Surefire Ways to Make Your SOA a Success” SOA Executive Form Presentation…As Promised

As promised in the Podcast, here is the "5 Surefire Ways to Make Your SOA a Success" presentation. Download file…

SOA White Papers Now On-Line

I have had many of you request some of the papers I've done over the years, and a few new ones. So, I've put some of them on-line. You can find them here. Happy downloading….

Recap of the SOA Executive Forum and Semantics

Recap of the SOA Executive Forum and Semantics Download file…

Icesoft offers AJAX technology to open source

Icesoft Technologies on Tuesday is making its Icefaces AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) development platform for Java available under an open source license. Specifically, Icesoft is using the Mozilla Public License. Icefaces is an integrated A

Microsoft and Cisco file friends-of-the-court brief

When it comes to patent infringement, a friend of the court may not be a friend of yours

How I became the IT boss by accident

The last thing I wanted was a coup d'état. But desperate times call for desperate measures

Test Center Tracker: SOA and semantics

Just one word: Semantics: Fresh from InfoWorld's SOA Executive Forum last week (check out his thoughts on Day 1 and Day 2), Dave Linthicum is declaring this week "semantics and ontologies week" for the Real World SOA blog. He's st

How alarming

So I've been a fan of 3Ware for some time now. I've used plenty of their PATA/SATA RAID controllers in boxes of varying shapes and sizes for years. I used to run an 8006-2LP in my old workstation, but found that it simply wasn't fast e

Acronis Makes Server Migration Speedy, Accurate and Simple

The P2V and virtual machine imaging and migration market just got a little more crowded. Acronis, Inc. announced the launch of Acronis FullCircle, a software application that allows IT organizations to move an entire server's data seamlessly to

VMworld 2006 Still Being Talked About

VMworld 2006 may have ended, but people are still writing and talking about the world's largest virtualization forum. So what happened at a virtualization event that brought 7000 people together in one place?   LISTEN!

Lenovo Downgrades Return Policy

Manufacturers can usually make the terms in their fine print harsher without anybody noticing. That's not the case for Lenovo this time, though, because a sharp-eyed reader just spotted the fact that the company's policy on product returns

Managing SOA Semantics Using Ontologies and Supporting W3C Standards…Part I

Hey, hey, what do you know…semantics and ontologies is making a comeback, and SOA is driving the push forward. If you've been following me, you know I'm a "semantics guy," and I think it's the jumping off point for EAI proj

Borland upgrades ALM tools

Borland Software on Monday is unveiling the 2006 versions of the StarTeam and CaliberRM tools in the company's application lifecycle management platform. CaliberRM is an enterprise requirements management product while StarTeam manages software

Microsoft’s Linux indemnification trap

Partnership with Novell is a blatant attempt to resurface old fears among open source customers

Preview: EMC Rainfinity 7.0

With its acquisition of Rainfinity in 2005, EMC got a powerful tool to better manage file servers in heterogeneous environments. In fact, the Rainfinity appliance makes moving files to a different system transparent for both Unix and Windows users, w

Microsoft unveils Aggreg8

We were just having a lengthy editorial discussion on the merits of LinkedIn–fast becoming the social networking standard for those looking to 'socialize' business-to-business. Well, nothing gets successful without a little Microsoft comp

Open Source ESBs Have Emerged

I've always found open source to be a strange concept, I mean, why would you want the source code unless you're prepared to become a software product company? However, clearly this notion has gained interest in the past few years, and the S

Finally, a Virtual Machine Charge-Back Solution

As data centers around the globe continue to adopt and implement virtualization solutions into their organizations, one of the issues or questions that always seem to pop up is – "how do I continue to charge-back for system resource usage from o

PlateSpin Enhances Versions of its Software Solutions

Long time data center automation solution provider, PlateSpin, announced that it had launched enhanced versions of its data center automation and optimization software – PowerConvert 6.5 and PowerRecon 2.5. PlateSpin launched the new products while a

VMware Announces Winners of Virtual Vanguard Awards

As promised, VMware announced the winners of the first-ever Virtual Vanguard Awards during a ceremony at VMworld 2006. The awards recognize VMware customers who have best employed VMware Infrastructure to create innovative, high-ROI and leading-edge

Virtual Appliances Keep Gaining Steam

One of the big takeaways from this year's VMworld has been the growing importance and wide distribution of what VMware has coined as "Virtual Appliances". The topic was widely discussed in break-out sessions, throughout the exhibit hal