Virtual private networks that use internet protocol security used to be seen as a nightmare. But next-generation IPsec VPNs are changing all that. ...
25/07/2008 | Secure remote access closes in.pdf | VIEW
Information technology now plays such a large part in our lives that its emotional impact in the workplace has drifted through a feeling of imposition and indifference and arrived at one of desire. Recently thousands queued to be the first to receive a new Apple iPhone, with Apple claiming over a million sales in the first three days. As well as device appeal creating populist swings in favour and fashion, a similar effect is occurring with online content and services. Traffic on the internet is becoming dominated by the extensive use of mass media and video download sites and services such as YouTube and the BBC iPlayer - technology not only ‘on demand', but in demand. ...
23/07/2008 | iPhone, YouTube, we manage.pdf | VIEW
With the ever-present focus on cost savings, many organisations are under pressure to optimise their IT infrastructure to reduce cost. Whilst IT managers have focused primarily on consolidating desktops, servers, storage, applications and networks, many are now starting to recognise the potential to dramatically reduce the costs associated with an unmanaged print environment. ...
21/07/2008 | Managed Print Services - a cooperative approach to controlling the print environment.pdf | VIEW
Recent Quocirca research shows that few data centre managers know how much power their data centres are using - which makes it difficult for them to come up with a well-constructed plan to optimise power consumption and enhance their "green" credentials. Even those who have access to the power bill do not seem to have any granular breakdown of how that power is being used. With data centres representing the greatest energy spend for most large organisations, such a lack of visibility should not be allowed to continue. ...
20/07/2008 | Measuring the Data Centre's Green Power.pdf | VIEW
Much is written about the increasing burden of regulations faced by organisations, be it specific to a particular industry or cutting across all sectors. But another key challenge faced by organisations is the threat of litigation and one of the fastest growing areas here, in the US at least for now, is that of facing lawsuits related to electronic discovery, also known as e-discovery. E-discovery is the process of producing electronic documents for use as evidence in a lawsuit, which can be information in any format that might be considered relevant to an investigation, with some exceptions, such as information that is considered to be privileged. ...
18/07/2008 | Navigating the minefield of e-discovery.pdf | VIEW
Mobile communications have transformed both personal and working life. Not only do most of us regard the mobile as one of the three items we check we have on leaving home - wallet or purse and keys are the other two - but the mobile number is likely to be the primary business phone number. Recent Quocirca research commissioned by RadioFrame Networks looking at the communications needs of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) backs this up. The contact routes that appear most on business cards are email address and mobile phone number, with switchboard numbers and especially direct dial fixed extensions lagging some way behind. ...
14/07/2008 | Mind the gap - mobile coverage issues and the SMB.pdf | VIEW
Over the past month or so, I've attended two Microsoft events. At the MMS event, discussion focused on an approach to virtualisation that showed a greater appreciation of the problems than I would have expected from Microsoft at this stage of its embryonic Hyper-V play. ...
30/06/2008 | A game of two halves.pdf | VIEW
There continues to be much coverage in the press about the impact IT is having on the environment through increasing power consumption. As well as berating IT departments for the poor running of data centres and deploying devices inefficiently in the field there has also been more positive talk about the valuable role IT can play in reducing carbon emissions elsewhere, especially in transportation. This is a pressing issue anyway with the fuel price crisis. ...
28/06/2008 | Cisco eats its own dog foot - and it tastes OK.pdf | VIEW
Many organisations today operate in complex, distributed environments that encompass multiple branch offices spread across diverse geographical locations, some of which may be subsidiaries or affiliated companies. For most of these, access to centralised IT resources is a must. And they also need to provide access to those IT resources for an expanding army of mobile workers and for external users. Remote access has become a fact of life. ...
27/06/2008 | Evolution of internet protocol virtual private network.pdf | VIEW
Those like me who are bit long in the tooth may remember Relational Technology (RTI), the original developers of the Ingres relational database management system (RDBMS) that ultimately lost out to Oracle in the RDBMS wars of the early 1990s. Ingres never actually died, it got bought by a company called Ask Corporation in 1990 which itself was bought by CA in 1994. ...
26/06/2008 | Old databases never die and some won't even fade away .....pdf | VIEW
