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eWeek's Knowledge Center is a resource for your Information Technology How-To questions.
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IT outsourcing has been known for high-ticket consulting jobs where IT bodies from overseas are used for projects. Once the Fortune 500's playground, IT outsourcing is now being used by small and midsize businesses to build e-commerce sites, use mobile applications to lure customers or integrate open-source tools into tech support. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Srinivas Balasubramanian explains how small and midsize businesses can benefit from the democratization of IT outsourcing.
Today's data center managers have many techniques to reduce their data center's energy consumption, but a mixture of techniques is often required to achieve energy saving targets. The key to judging success of any energy reduction strategy is the ability to accurately measure results along each step of the way. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Joe Polastre illustrates how power management technology can be used to achieve up to 40 percent energy savings in your data center.
Small and midsize businesses delivering applications for headquarters, remote offices, customers and partners usually rely on more than one WAN link. The WAN's expanding role in supporting the automation of business applications is challenging for IT staff, as many SMBs lack the required WAN infrastructure to deliver appropriate levels of reliability, performance and security. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Marc Goodman explains how to choose the best WAN application delivery solution for your SMB.
Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, blogs and other Web 2.0 technologies have created new opportunities for individuals, enterprises and governments. But where law-abiding users go, cyber-criminals quickly follow. It's critical for users to be wary of increasingly sophisticated online threats—from the recently discovered Botnet platform to cyber-criminals who infiltrate networks to steal data and identities. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Yuval Ben-Itzhak explains how users can protect their systems from cyber-criminals, phishing, botnets, viruses, Trojans and other malware.
For years, IT has been under intense pressure to implement an expanding number of new business services that are critical to the enterprise. To do so, IT staffs have typically added hundreds or even thousands of servers over the years, which has resulted in skyrocketing IT power consumption and energy costs. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Chris Rixon explains how companies can cut IT energy consumption and achieve other green IT objectives by using an approach based on business service management.
Today's businesses succeed or fail as a result of applying the right technology and software. But it's often difficult to find a single all-in-one solution that encompasses everything a business needs to keep track of client information. There is software for each niche a business might need, but sometimes using niche products can lead to problems. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Andrew Bailey explains how to increase efficiency by using an electronic document management system to keep track of all your client information.
The use of e-mail as a business tool has evolved from a matter of simple convenience to one of absolute necessity. Recognizing the dependence on this vital communications tool, many organizations and regulatory bodies have enacted e-mail archiving and retention policies and guidelines for their members or industry. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Ted Green explains how to use automated e-mail archiving in your company to achieve regulatory compliance.
Some recent attention-grabbing headlines have included how Amazon's cloud computing service had some hiccups, Google's Web-based e-mail package, Gmail, suffered an outage and RIM's BlackBerry devices stopped getting their e-mail. There's a lesson here for IT professionals: Our data centers are more critical than ever. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Rex Black explains how to assure the highest level of quality in your organization’s data center.
The continuing battle between Intel and AMD over supplying the brains of your PC continues unabated. While Intel clearly has the upper hand in client processors and AMD is playing catch-up, there is another battle brewing for PC processors, particularly in notebooks. Here, Knowledge Center analyst Jack E. Gold discusses the battle for the "secondary" processor and how this battle will not pit Intel against AMD, but rather, x86 architecture against ARM. And it's not looking good for x86.
Today, an increasing number of CIOs are reporting directly to the CEO and are being asked to contribute to long-term strategic thinking and planning. Long gone are the days when IT was responsible for managing only IT costs and security. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Ken Vernon discusses how CIOs can use enterprise collaboration software to support its critical leadership competency and increase IT's value proposition within their organizations.
With cloud computing all the rage now, it's no surprise that many software vendors are capitalizing on the momentum by releasing cloud versions of their conventional software products. Delivering software as a service from the cloud has distinct economical and technological advantages. But hosting an application in the cloud doesn't necessarily make it software as a service. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Bob Moul outlines five ways to tell whether or not the software-as-a-service application you need for your business is truly software as a service.
Continuous data protection tools fill the data protection gap left by high availability and disaster recovery tools. Continuous data protection automatically captures transaction and object changes that occur between tape saves. Yet all three technologies are vital components in any data protection strategy. By combining continuous data protection, high availability and disaster recovery, Knowledge Center contributor Bill Hammond explains how you can best protect your company’s vital business data.
The recession is dramatically changing the software industry's playing field, forcing companies to innovate and evolve to remain competitive. The CIO's role is changing too, as CIOs look to reduce software costs and employ a pay-per-use, flexible model. This shift is driving the emergence of virtual private cloud operators, which is changing infrastructure components, the product life cycle and the ecosystem as a whole. Here, Knowledge Center contributors Anand Deshpande and Ashok Korwar share tips on how CIOs can navigate through this changing landscape.
With the current shift to cloud computing, companies have a great opportunity to improve network flexibility, scalability and computing power for less money. If they correctly plan, employ and manage cloud computing applications and services, companies can also manage their networks at a much lower maintenance level. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Dave Kofflin outlines five guidelines companies need to understand before they can benefit from cloud computing.
The CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2009 fall trade show was held at the San Diego Convention Center Oct. 7-9. Here, Knowledge Center mobile and wireless analyst J. Gerry Purdy shares his major insights from CTIA, including his reactions to Motorola's new CLIQ Android smartphone and Motorola's MOTOBLUR software, as well as Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5, MyPhone and Windows Mobile Marketplace announcements.
There are many VPN choices available today, but not all VPNs are created equal. Performance, scalability, compatibility and central management are just a few of the criteria enterprises should consider before selecting a secure VPN solution. Depending upon each enterprise's security and mobility requirements, every VPN choice has its advantages and disadvantages. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Jörg Hirschmann offers a technological and organizational checklist that enterprises should consider before implementing a VPN solution.
The key to guaranteeing Web 2.0 application performance under any load lies in quickly gathering performance data across the full breadth of your Web 2.0 application delivery chain, from the perspective of your users. Load Testing 2.0 delivers this performance data, enabling businesses to identify and fix the root causes of performance issues. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Imad Mouline explains how Load Testing 2.0 can help businesses ensure more satisfying Web 2.0 experiences for their users.
Applications are the lifeblood of any business, and ensuring their quick and efficient delivery across the network to all parties is a challenge even in the best of times. But the current economy is exacerbating this challenge by reshaping organizations via increased merger and acquisition activity, staff reductions and outsourcing. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Joel Trammell explains what risks these challenges pose to the performance of networked applications and gives CIOs 10 steps to follow to ensure they don’t negatively impact business.
Noisy environments can wreak havoc with voice quality on cell phones. Multipoint pairing is one noise suppression technology that helps to filter out background noise and shape the voice signal. Today, not many wireless handsets come standard with this or any noise suppression technology. Here, Knowledge Center mobile and wireless analyst J. Gerry Purdy explains why noise suppression technology should be a requirement for device manufacturers, and how they can cost-effectively include noise suppression technology in all their wireless handsets.
When it comes to choosing the best high availability and disaster recovery solution for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, it's not always easy for IT professionals to separate hype from reality. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Andrew Barnes discusses 10 important points IT professionals should consider when evaluating a BlackBerry Enterprise Server high availability and disaster recovery solution for their organization.
In today's digital economy, e-mail has become a veritable circulatory system, delivering that lifeblood for organizations of all sizes: information. With continuously increasing messaging loads, sluggish Microsoft Exchange Server performance can put a drag on employee productivity, customer service and responsiveness to market opportunities. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Lee Dumas explains five steps you can take to tweak, configure and customize Microsoft Exchange Server for optimal performance.
Today's Web 2.0 and cloud computing data centers have reached a critical juncture, as demand for their services has collided with existing architectures and technologies. Today's data centers are reeling from the high costs of power, capital equipment, network connectivity and space, and are hindered by serious performance, scalability and application complexity issues. Web 2.0 and cloud computing enterprises must focus all resources on their core business of providing leading-edge application services. Here, Knowledge Center contributor John Busch explains why higher-level building blocks are needed to effectively exploit these advanced Web 2.0 and cloud computing technologies.
Enterprise content management has traditionally been very expensive to license, roll out and scale. It often requires expensive hardware and supporting software. The enterprise content management industry has been dependent on complexity, with the vendor controlling the customer through proprietary power. But there is a cost-effective alternative: open-source software. Web 2.0 sites have changed the way in which content is both accessed and mashed up. Here, Knowledge Center contributor John Newton explains how open-source software gives companies an enterprise content management solution that focuses on lower cost, greater simplicity and greater customer choice.
Planning, designing and implementing a disaster recovery solution to reduce the amount of recovery time needed after a system outage is a pressing requirement for all businesses. IT managers protect themselves from disasters by replicating data to a backup system that takes over when the production system fails. But what if the production system isn't dead, just sick? Here, Knowledge Center contributor Rich Krause explores the analogy of health insurance versus life insurance within the data recovery environment, discussing the limitations of traditional backup solutions with today's high availability and continuous data protection alternatives.
Storing data in the cloud has brought with it its own set of compliance and security concerns -- something underscored recently by a survey by Unisys. The survey revealed that 51 percent of the 312 respondents cited security and data privacy as their top concern regarding cloud data storage. While experts say the public cloud may be ready for certain applications, organizations need to be sure those apps are secure -- and that they can prove it when questioned by auditors.
With that in mind, eWEEK spoke to analysts and others in the field and asked them what companies should think about from a security and privacy perspective before pushing their data into the cloud. Here are few of the questions and considerations you should take to your service provider.
Today, application development teams typically need hundreds of hours to develop an application or to fully integrate a new platform. A prototype and proof of concept can also take many weeks or even months to develop. If you could significantly reduce these time frames, you would accelerate time to market and expedite proofs of concept and rollouts. This advantage saves money and reduces the risk of missing features, late deliveries or inadequate testing. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Sid Probstein explains how to accelerate innovation and productivity with rapid prototyping and development.
Trade and moonlighting software developers alike are clamoring to develop the next killer mobile local search application for one of the current mobile application stores—many now competing for attention with nearly 50,000 iPhone applications alone. This means mobile local search applications must not just stand apart in whiz-bang technology but also dominate in user experience. As Knowledge Center contributor Brian Wool explains, in order to secure and hold consumers' attention, content is the critical ingredient to creating powerful and lasting mobile local search applications.
An increasing number of organizations are reporting that their employees, either out of personal curiosity or other potentially more devious motivations, are peeping at the account records of public figures. As a result, suspensions and firings are being announced on an almost weekly basis. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Brian Cleary discusses how these institutions can reduce the likelihood of these access-related peeping breaches by putting automated, role-based access controls in place across their entire organization.
The use of virtualization technology is usually the first and most important step companies can take to create energy-efficient and green data centers. Virtualization is the most promising technology to address both the issues of IT resource utilization and facilities space, power and cooling utilization. IT virtualization, along with cloud computing, is the key to energy-efficienct, flexible and green data centers. Here, Knowledge Center contributor John Lamb describes the concept of IT virtualization and indicates the significant impact that IT virtualization has on improving data center energy efficiency.
The burgeoning mobile work force is on track to grow to more than 1 billion by the year 2011, with nearly 75 percent of the work force in the United States going mobile. The move to a virtual work environment can increase productivity and reduce overhead costs, but supporting these agile workers' printing needs can be a time-consuming challenge for IT staffs. By choosing the right Universal Print Driver solution for your mobile work force, Knowledge Center contributor Richie Michelon explains how you can better manage the print output of your enterprise's mobile work force.
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