Opinion

EMC tolls the ILM bell, again

Multifaceted announcement of new products and features reflects EMC's obsession with information lifecycle management

Whipping IT data into shape

Enterprises are tackling the ugly problem of reconciling widely distributed data, driven in part by the move to service-oriented architecture

How Hard is it to Troubleshoot IT Anyway?

Bad meeting manners

Dear Bob …In a recent meeting, someone abruptly spoke out (as in a shouting tone) making a false statement about a discussion that was going on between the chair and another person, and about which the disrupting person should not have had any inpu

SOA Podcast Bandwidth Problem Solved

Hey. Those of you who have sent me notes upset that my Podcast server ran out of bandwidth, I have good news. I moved my cast over to another service that provides unlimited bandwidth, thus no more denial when you’re looking for that SOA news

Our need to know trumps Intel’s need for secrecy

The public’s interest in AMD v. Intel is guarded by the press, and our right to know is in danger

Opening up iTunes U

Apple's walled-garden approach places unnecessary limitations on its online educational content

How to get rewarded for incompetence

Sometimes doing your job as badly as possible pays off, especially when the boss is watching

SAP steps into the software-as-a-service arena

The applications vendor's managed CRM offering raises the bar for wannabe enterprise service providers

Why SOA Management Technology is Not Selling

Sorry for the lack of blogging last week, I was in meetings all week in the Bay Area. One of issues I kept hearing from the VC I was meeting with was that SOA management technology companies are not performing as well as expectations. Interesting, w

Don’t get too excited about Windows source code

Microsoft's offer to open the code to key protocols is probably not as revolutionary as it sounds

Mapping IT meltdowns

Big organizations suffer big IT failures, although technology isn't usually to blame

The IT worst case scenario survival guide

IT is a risky business. Here's how to avoid some common catastrophes and increase your chances of success

When IT disasters really strike

You can't be blamed for acts of God. At least, not if you've got a robust disaster recovery plan in place

Four infamous IT meltdowns

The government’s track record with IT projects is not exactly stellar

When you and a direct report are chums

Dear Bob …It's performance appraisal time, and I find myself in a dilemma of my own making. One of my managers, "Fred" (not his real name) and I have become social friends over the eight years we've worked together. Our families

Rsync file recovery

It happens to the best of us. I was rsyncing about 500MB of data from a holding directory on a Linux box to a FreeBSD 5.4 developement server and inadvertently rsync'd a much older version of a parsing script into the development hierarchy. The

More about PMP Certification

A number of PMP-certified project managers, and managers who hire project managers, wrote to comment on my advice to "Certified or Certifiable." One of the best was Earl Parsons, who gave me permission to reproduce his comment for general r

Vista’s new security features

A recap of the security upgrades in the next version of Windows shows better malware, spyware, and access control features throughout

Is standardization helping to drive corporate mergers?

Finding a “hook up” in the corporate speed-dating scene may be easier when everyone’s platforms are compatible

Put your storage backups on a diet

Avamar and Data Domain bring new features to COS data protection

Lint traps bugs at compile time

Is your syntactically correct code not behaving? Lint is still a champ at detecting errors

Microsoft challenges IBM to a rock ’em, sock ’em e-mail bout

Redmond comes out swinging with free tools to help Lotus/Domino shops migrate to Exchange

PMP Certification?

Dear Bob …What do you think about PMP Certification – wall-paper to decorate cubicle walls or really useful? How does certification weigh against real experience?- Certified or CertifiableDear Certifi …Certifications have two uses. One is to put

iMac perfects the desktop

A product that at one time you couldn’t pay me to use just became the centerpiece of my office

The high-performance GUI

When it comes to increasing human productivity, user interfaces aren't one size fits all

Software as a service: Pay as you build, but at what cost?

Does software as a service offer a graduated scale of functionality, or does it just pick your pocket?

When code changes lead to unemployment

With a high-priced project manager to keep application design on course, what could go wrong?

Stallman vs. DRM

The new version of the GPL tackles issues much larger than software distribution

VLANs maximize VoIP investments

Deploying separate networks invites a management migraine

Lessons from real-world VoIP

Fear of failure can be overcome with the right deployment strategy: Just look to the early adopters

Reining in SOA

To make governance work, you have to know what makes your organization tick

More SOA Consolidation…Before the Market Emerges…Hmmmmm

Here we go again; Progress Software Corporation just announced that it is acquiring privately-held Actional Corporation for a $32 million bucks. Who's Actional? They provide Web services management (WSM) software, and have been around for a whi

Conversing with Marketing

Dear Bob …You've written before about how IT interacts with Marketing. I believe the subject has been perhaps a little over simplified.There are different risk tolerance characteristics between the different groups as well as different goals.

A Camp for Sys Admins

Happy Birthday to You!

Dear Bob …I want to comment on the "Celebration of Birthdays."  I too am in the camp that does not want my birthday advertised (and thus celebrated) in a public manner, not because I am a Jehovah's Witness (I am not really s

Health care IT demands surgical precision

A recent journal study cites the ghastly hazard of getting it wrong

HP support goes astray, Apple cell phone on the way?

Resolute rumor wrangler resolves to resume resolutions

Time to can the CAN-SPAM Act

Despite the FTC's declaration of success, spam isn't getting better, and it's partly the CAN-SPAM Act's fault

Testing for Loosely Coupled Architecture

So, now that we know the basic differences between a tightly and loosely coupled architecture, as well as the advantages, perhaps it's a good idea to break down loose coupling in to a few basic patterns: Location independence, communication inde

Microsoft tries to slip Windows XP SP3 delay under our noses

Forget the so-called wireless flaw in Windows; waiting until 2007 for XP SP3 is the real headache

A degree of tolerance for SOA

When the application is low-risk, developers need less rather than more rules to enable innovation

Understanding UDDI

A quick reference to UDDI-compatible registries

Governing SOA

An enterprise chock-full of services is not an SOA. For that, you need the matrix of rules and policies that make up SOA governance

Portable storage devices: The curse of convenience

Securing storage from internal threats is a rising challenge for storage admins

Family-friendly enterprise calendaring

We need a technology that can bring order to our disparate electronic schedules

Broadband fever spikes at CES

This year’s triple play was phone, the Internet, and interactive TV service over one wire

Building a SOA? Start with Semantic Mapping and Ontologies

Pay close attention; I'm going to get technical for awhile. When dealing with application integration and SOA, as you know by now, we are dealing with much complexity. The notion of ontologies helps the application integration and SOA architect

An unexpected danger of outsourcing

When a promising hire turns out to be incompetent, what's an IT manager to do?

Apple follows the money

The Mac maker knows which side its bread is buttered on, and it's not the enterprise