Opinion

Consulting staff on politics

Dear Bob … I am an IT manager of 15 people across several offices. I keep running into to political issues that my senior management will not provide any direction on and it leaves me isolated. I am usually good at solving these issues after a lot

Homeland Security moves to strengthen open source software

Software analysis tools will identify defects in community-contributed code

SQL Server 2005 leaves open source databases in the dust

Microsoft catches up with Oracle, hones value-added features vital to larger deployments

A difficult diversity question

We're headed into risky territory. I thought long and hard before deciding to post the following question and my answer instead of keeping them private. As with the issue of Jehovah's Witnesses and birthdays, it explores an issue related to

To Congress: Better Internet threat response needed now

The WMF bugs prove that early-warning security systems are sorely lacking

Telcos get hip to the service factor

With prices so similar, it's overall quality that will set providers apart

ZoneAlarm phones home, Apple throws Intel a bone

Does crabby columnist deserve a raise, or is he just being shellfish?

Is SOA a Part of Enterprise Architecture, or Does it Replace it?

I've been speaking at different conferences in the past year. First, the SOA conferences where we talk about the revolutionary approaches to creating an agile architecture based upon the use of service. Second, I'm also speaking at the ent

Connecting the capacity dots

Announcements from Seagate, Western Digital contain clues to the future of hard drives

Storage virtualization and iSCSI don’t mix

Immature products and low market share leave iSCSI SANs in the cold when it comes to virtualization

Microsoft generates mild enterprise buzz at CES

CES marks the return of SPOT and the latest battleground in the war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray

What isn’t storage virtualization?

Vendors label many products 'virtualization,' but not all of them meet the needs of true storage virtualization

Virtualized storage, real rewards

Virtualization comes in many guises, but it's here today and can be a valuable part of your storage strategy

SQL Server could make ‘better together’ ring true

Windows Server, Visual Studio, and SQL Server may impress even hardened skeptics

The tolerance continuum

The SOA community is searching for a balance between openness and strong governance

When Problems Don’t Really Get Fixed, Do They Just Go Away?

Choosing an MBA specialization

Dear Bob … I've been in the IT line for over 7 years. I was bypassed for promotion recently due to my lack of "managerial" academic qualifications, despite being team leads and assistant team leads in my other capacities and would li

Clear Trend: SOA Startups are being taken out Early…Mercury Interactive buys Systinet

What do you know, Mercury Interactive, a testing tool company announced it was buying SOA vendor Systinet for a $105 million. Good for Systinet, first of all. I've been watching and working with that company for the last few years and I think t

IT will give up control of the network

As traffic increases, outsourced infrastructure and management will be the only viable solution

The last IT worker standing

When laid-off knowledge workers hold the key to undocumented data, expect the worst

High-performance computing: Supercharging the enterprise

Thanks to lower barriers to entry, compute clusters and grids are moving out of the labs and into the mainstream

The Romance of HPC

High-performance computing is working its way into the mainstream

Wind River sees a Linux future for devices

The open source OS is a natural fit for device software optimization

Wait for a position or not?

Dear Bob … I have been working in IT for about 5 years now. Currently I am the most qualified candidate for a full time position that is going to be offered. We are currently very understaffed for the work load we have to accomplish daily. I have b

5 Things you can do today to Take Advantage of the “Global SOA”

It's coming gang, the day when the land grab switches from the traditional Web to Web 2.0, or the Global SOA. We've talked about this before so I won't dwell on it here, but clearly we are heading to a day when many of the enterprise s

Dealing with the small stuff

I'm doing something I've never done before: I'm pulling the plug on a discussion thread. Through a combination of "slippery slope" and hitting the wrong button, a discussion about how to handle a relatively benign and minor c

WMF warnings: I wasn’t crying wolf

When a threat is real, warning others is paramount. So why are malware alerting methods so poor?

Resolved: Things go better with IT

The best organizations spend more per user on IT — and pay their IT staffers better

Lessons from an SOA pioneer

Shipping company Con-Way began its SOA journey eight years ago, providing one illustration of how the new architecture approach can go the distance

Restock your IT toolbox for 2006

Useful new Windows utilities and password crackers will make this the year of recovery

Another storage security misadventure

Marriott Vacation Club's woes reinforce a familiar lesson: Secure your backup tapes!

Web 2.0 = The Global SOA

With all of the talk about Web 2.0, I was wondering were the heck that term came from. The term Web 2.0 was originally coined by O'Reilly's Dale Dougherty to describe the forces behind the huge post-dot-com success of Internet companies lik

Handling an employee who refuses to celebrate

Huh … I posed a hypothetical question in Keep the Joint Running and got a slew of answers. The question: How to handle the situation when employees like to celebrate each others' birthdays but you have a Jehovah's Witness on staff who con

Wikipedia, competition, and the future

The online encyclopedia must adapt to meet the ongoing challenges of free-form digital collaboration

Innovation puts the blitz on mediocrity

The most successful IT companies in 2006 will understand that 'good enough' isn't really good enough

When outsourcers have you over a barrel

Pay close attention to a contract's fine print … or pay the consequences

A channel play for SaaS in 2006

VARs delivering software as services could be good news for SMBs and enterprises alike

Good at problems, bad at projects – Help!

Dear Bob …I've worked in IT support roles in the past 7 years that have all been for comparatively small companies — generally between 50-250 employees.  In all of these jobs, I have been one of two or three IT personnel, required to

My Five SOA Predictions for 2006

It's 2006 already? So, what are we going to call this year? The year of SOA? The year of Web 2.0? Or the year we finally get SOA working for the business? You pick. I do, however, have some predictions for 2006…things that will occur and will

The Nokia 770: A Linux-based ugly duckling

Despite its shortcomings, Nokia's new "Internet tablet" could raise the bar for consumer-device development

Happy New Year

I'm posting this on New Year's Eve from our cottage by a lake in central Wisconsin. The New Year is, of course, the time for making resolutions (Ground Hog's Day being the time to start breaking them).In the spirit of the season, here

IT security got better in 2005, but malware and buggy code threaten 2006

This year, better patch management and network controls made for fewer security crises

IT needs to prepare for avian flu disaster

Potential for pandemic should prompt IT shops to beef up remote collaboration infrastructure

The Microsoft machine churns on

Redmond's elves are hammering on security — and have the reports to show for it

Will Seagate’s acquisition of Maxtor spell trouble for its rivals?

The disk drive industry holds its breath for an acquisition rivaling the Hitachi-IBM deal

Recruiting when pay is low

Dear Bob … I'm having trouble recruiting. My organization is no more budget-constrained than most, but the folks who run it view IT as a tactical resource (really, as a necessary evil) so they don't understand why it's important to p

2006 technology in the crosshairs

Thrills! Chills! Or just plain baloney? My hardware-centric prognostications for the new year

ECMAScript: The Switzerland of development environments?

The latest tools from Macromedia show how a programming language can stay neutral to coding practices

Document management systems go to court

New federal rules for 2006 could come down hard on IT

An IT project without a future

When the politics get tough, the tough get outsourced