July 2007
Disaster Recovery Wizardry
The bottom line for disaster recovery is that it’s a matter of when not if. Whether the problem comes about through a fast-spreading Internet Warhol worm, a natural disaster, or an external event, such as a major accident or a labor strike, a disaster will happen and business continuity will be impacted. To deal effectively with the problem—and not risk new business or run up unnecessary costs—a business continuity plan needs to be in place that balances true risks with real costs. To tilt that balance in favor of a quicker and more accurate response, storage virtualization via the use of dynamic disks can lower contingency costs—dramatically, in many cases. In this vein, SFW provides system administrators with the power to reinstate order from chaos. |
February 2003
SOUNDING THE DIGITAL REPRODUCTION CHAIN
Sad but true: A perfect speaker carries less than perfect sound in a less than perfect room. So if the music source is digital and the PC correcting your less-than-perfect room is digital, shouldn't a pure digital power source drive your speakers? A truly astonished Franco Vitaliano has the answer, as he details a seminal event in audio reproduction. |
THE BASICS OF SPAM FILTERING
You pay for your bandwidth. You pay for your data storage. Do you really want to pay for unsolicited commercial e-mails that we’ve all come to know and not love as spam? Obviously, not! Less obvious is what to do about it. This week, Ben Westbrook, a spam-filtering expert, steps ISPs and corporate managers through a reasoned lesson in what to look for in spam-filtering software. |
EMPOWERING E-COMMERCE WITH OPEN SOURCE
To promote e-commerce in the US, the E-SIGN Act makes it possible for companies to contract, buy, and sell on-line. How does a new startup get to become a major player? The answer is Open Source software. Free from the burden of proprietary licenses, Yozons built a growing company by providing services for secure e-signatures and document delivery in the e-commerce world. |
THE DIRECT PATH TO INFINITE BANDWIDTH
Under examination is a storage breakthrough that merits more than honorable mention: This briefing on systems area networks reveals a superior world of fast interconnect speeds with much reduced latency and the obliteration of that software middleman, the OS device driver. |
FIGHTING SPAM
Faced with a small but scurrilous band of marketeers armed with formidable tools to vacuum up e-mail addresses and bulk send e-mail without a server, how do netizens fight back? With significant legislation still lagging behind the technology, learn about the tools spammers employ and how you can counter their attacks and put them on the defensive. |
THE DOLLARS AND SENSE
OF SERVER CONSOLIDATION
Vendors are pushing the server consolidation story like mad these days, but you need to know some basics about the dollars and sense, if any, behind this tactic du jour. Here it is, in black, white, and executive blue, with a time line drawn from decentralized computing mantras to what now looks like the biggest price/performance disruption since RISC. |
IN SUPPORT OF AN
OPEN IDENTITY
Who controls our digital identities is becoming an issue that all managers need to reckon with. A CTO explains why PingID as a philosophy and technology initiative will provide businesses, developers, and vendors a common way out of the digital identity problem. |
INDUSTRY STANDARD SERVER BLADES
Vendors are pushing the server consolidation story like mad these days, but you need to know some basics about the dollars and sense, if any, behind this tactic du jour. Here it is, in black, white, and executive blue, with a time line drawn from decentralized computing mantras to what now looks like the biggest price/performance disruption since RISC. |
EMAIL ARCHITECTURE
System planning has not gotten any easier for IT managers looking for an e-mail structure that covers all the bases of speed, efficiency, availability, and security. This roundup assesses for what’s working today as mail transfer agents, IMAP solutions, and where to go for useful links. |
PERVASIVE COMPUTING WEB STYLE
The smart space constructs of some pervasive computing luminaries will radically shake up the web along the .NET fault line. The automatic discovery of services by applications will radically alter the Web experience. |
QUANTUM
QUAKES
"Say Goodnight to the Digital generation." No longer academic exercises at Oxford and MIT, quantum computing is being chased by IBM, NEC, and Siemens, while NSA covets easy 512-bit encryption crunching. |
MultiMediaCard vs. Secure Digital
Storage consultant Dalton Han has returned from the frontlines of a new battle dividing MultiMedia Card and Secure Digital camps, as company manufacturers face two standards poised to dominate portable storage. Yet Han also discovers that the battle lines blur as we speak. |
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