Opinion

Waging war on the bottom line

Faced with new economic realities, the Department of Defense must rethink how it budgets for IT

Streamlining the ultimate supply chain

U.S. Transportation Command has launched a campaign to revitalize its IT with an ambitious SOA implementation

Case Study: For General Motors, outsourcing is a way of life

The company has standardized work processes in every region of the world

Can’t open source and Microsoft just get along?

A fortress mentality toward proprietary vendors will only hurt in the long run

Weaning yourself off service providers: A 12-step approach

Going in with an exit strategy and exploring alternatives can save money and promote self-sufficiency

The owner/boss is headed in the wrong direction.

Dear Bob …Here is one for your book:This company has been using sendmail on Linux for over 15 years, I have been administering it for over 5. Part of my job is to keep up to date on the software applications involved with email and groupware. Using

SOA Speaking Season is Here

It's almost September, and what does that mean? The start of speaking season of course. This Fall SOA conferences are plentiful, and I'll be speaking at most of them. Moreover, at a few other "SOA linked" conference as well….

Is Architecture out of Service Oriented Architecture?

In looking the latest stories and articles about SOA, it seems to me that many are no longer thinking about the A…architecture….

Can a day without DSL be too far off?

Plus, a compelling read about what lurks behind the ceaseless consolidation of software vendors

NSA takes the blame, Google protects its name

Dell gives chest-beating journalist his 15 minutes of flame

How malicious hackers attack

When it comes to network defense, the adage "know thy enemy" is never more appropriate

A Warranty Replacement, Verizon-Style

A pattern seems to be emerging in the gripes I'm hearing about Verizon. A few weeks ago (see Verizon Never Stops Lying to You) a cell phone customer had promised free minutes snatched away when he needed them. Now we hear from a Verizon broadban

Reader Voices: The WGA Blues

Our on-going discussion about problems with Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage program has revealed many readers to be in a sour mood. But the focus of their frustration actually seems not so much Microsoft as it is customers who only complai

Seagate relegates Maxtor brand to the bargain bin

Two-product-line plan — one for the high-end, one for the cost-conscious — shares R&D and automated manufacturing

Microsoft delivers stronger security and simpler patching

Redmond adds "advanced security" to its firewall and unfurls WSUS 3.0 Beta 2

Achieving employee adulthood

Dear Bob …Your recent columns about nailing down everyone's computers at work got me thinking about something tangentially related: just how much do people goof off at work?Apart from alleged security issues, of course, one of the reasons ofte

Software sleuthing in the field

Software should make it easier for users to track down the source of bugs and errors

AMD’s best is still to come

Plan B Xeon is entry-level server technology, and AMD has the better story

Getting Down to SOA Performance

As I've blogged about before, SOAs are not unlike any other distributed computing systems, and thus designing a performance model should be nothing too new. At this point we understand exactly how each service behaves under an increasing load,

More on SOA and BPM and Step 5 of my 12 Steps to SOA

More on SOA and BPM and Step 5 of my 12 Steps to SOA Download file…

Handling accidental rudeness

Dear Bob …Here's one that may be a bit out of your league, but I thought I'd float it past you nevertheless, since you've been talking about ill- mannered coworkers.I work at a DC-based non-profit organization that has employees (bot

In outsourcers we trust

When the company lawyer takes over tech support, something's seriously wrong

Another take on age discrimination

Dear Bob,I am over 55 with two graduate degrees. One is in Computer Science. I have had two careers, one in the field of each degree. I am being vague to give me some deniability if someone in the company reads this. Currently I am working as a Softw

Unprotected From Protection One

As you plan for the day you can drive off into the happy sunset of your retirement years, there's one factor you might not be accounting for in your finances. Don't forget all the companies that might have an evergreen clause in their contr

Government: Unlocking data, locking down access

The federal government is on a mission to expose content from legacy systems in portals, but it also must meet stringent new access control regulations

Financial services: High pressure, high performance

In financial services, slight slowdowns in transaction volume can equal big losses. No wonder IT invests big in new technology — while keeping regulatory wolves at bay

Telecommunications: Grappling with M&A mania

How many plates can you spin? Try merging huge IT infrastructures with mishmashes of legacy systems while trying to beat the competition with new services

A big picture view of IT

Lessons learned in financial services, retail, telecommunications, health care, and government

Retail: The ultimate distributed architecture

Low-tech IT, far-flung locations, and a patchwork of inventory requirements demand ingenious solutions, especially on a shoestring budget

Novell and Red Hat compete for the king penguin crown

Novell is reinventing itself to challenge complacent Red Hat's reign

Health care: Doctors without desks

As doctors and nurses wander hospital campuses, they need anytime, anywhere access to confidential medical information

SOA Case Studies Beginning to Emerge at Oracle

I get calls and e-mails from a lot of SOA vendors asking me to blog or write about their product…and fill up my inbox with megabytes of white papers and data sheets. I always ask for case studies, which is where the rubber meets the road, but I ne

Gartner’s high-tech hype radar

Plus, IDC report puts open source at the center of innovation and savings

Proactive incident response: Do it by the book

When you need to set best practices for security-event response, learn from Mandiant's example and its forensics expertise

Cert site takes a fall, Dell announces recall

You can't keep a good OS down — or pull a bad one up

Recalling a Dell With a Cracked LCD

Here's an interesting take on Dell's recall of over four million laptops due to battery problems. How many of those four million customers no longer have the original unit because Dell blamed them for damage caused by an overheating battery

SOA Could be a Cuddly Fuzzy Bunny

Joe McKendrick had some good comments on my blog about "Fear of SOA," and made some good additional points:…

Open Source Network Monitoring Luminaries Compare Approaches / Technologies at LinuxWorld

Xiotech hones compliance focus

Fast tier storage with SSD drives and the Archive Management Service winks at new compliance customers

Live Writer is no Word-killer

Online office apps are still too young to dethrone their desktop counterparts

Fear of SOA and Step 4 of my 12 Steps to SOA

Fear of SOA and Step 4 of my 12 Steps to SOA Download file…

Comments on fairness and envy

Dear Bob …In "Nailing IT Governance," (Keep the Joint Running, August 7, 2006) you said,> So it is with IT governance. Give the members of the executive > committee a similar choice — everyone gets the same small benefit, o

XML for business reporting gains momentum

Slowly but surely, XBRL is winning converts among accountants, governments

Apple hears concerns over price

Apple’s Mac Pro workstation headlines the company’s push into the enterprise market

File sharing policy

Dear Bob …I'd like your comments on this:Historically our company policy on mainframe systems (MVS and VM) was such that user's were responsible for granting permission to others to access their files (read/write/execute/delete).&nbsp

Sound MPLS route redistribution

I usually file things like this under "duh", but a recent conversation with a network architect made me think that it's worth noting in public space. I recently had a problem related to dynamic route distribution in an MPLS environment

The right questions to ask when selecting CRM software

Dear Bob …I greatly enjoyed your column on controlling the behavior of end users ("Revisiting the End-User Computing Manifesto, 10 years later," Keep the Joint Running, July 31, 2006).  You and I are pretty much of one mind, for

Getting a raw deal on a green card

Promises, promises. Meantime this IT pro's six-year H-1B window is closing fast

HP Printers: The Older, the Better?

Some things get better with age. To judge by the comments I often hear from readers, that seems to be particularly true of HP printers, because they just don't make 'em like they used to. We all know, of course, that the printer market has

Is SOA Boring?

Funny question to be asking when I'm posting to a SOA blog. However, I was thinking this weekend that indeed, if SOA is done right, and the right processes are in place, it's downright boring….