A single malicious botnet can harness enough machines to take down key Internet infrastructure and create financial havoc. Millions of computers on the Internet can be compromised. But there are measures that network managers can take to mitigate these botnet threats, using many of the tools already available to help prevent attacks. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Darren Grabowski discusses the impact of these silent botnet threats and offers solutions that network managers can use to mitigate these botnet threats.
Despite the economic downturn and cuts in IT spending in other areas, mobile adoption in the workplace is on the rise. Some companies have chosen to take advantage of the economy to invest in capital projects such as mobility and its infrastructure. Others who thought they could move the expenditure into the next fiscal year are being surprised with employees buying their own devices and expecting to access company assets on them. Here, Knowledge Center contributor William Anderson offers five tips on how to take advantage of this mobile trend to gain the biggest business benefits.
Few disciplines require the comprehension of as much information in so little time as computer security. With billions of data records piling up daily for large organizations, no technique holds as much promise as using computer-generated images to tell the story of what's in the data—a process known as visual analytics. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Justin Wolf explains how to use visual analytics to improve IT cyber-security.
The Federal Trade Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule puts consumers in charge of how they want to receive telemarketing communications. Beginning Sept. 1, 2009, Federal Trade Commission regulations will require that automated sales communications can only be delivered to recipients who have already provided their express written consent to receive them. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Mark Friedman explains how to create a successful preference and opt-in program for more targeted, effective marketing communications.
Business continuity and disaster recovery plans are essential components of overall business and IT planning. Since disasters do happen, it's critical to have business continuity and disaster recovery plans in place before the need arises. To prepare and protect both your employees and business, Knowledge Center contributor Brace Rennels offers 10 tips on how to carry out a solid business continuity and disaster recovery plan.
In the face of turbulent economic times and calls for belt tightening, IT departments need to take steps to reduce costs, while ensuring that their network meets business needs. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Charles Thompson outlines some immediate and long-term steps IT departments can take to better their network efficiency and reduce IT costs.
One of the biggest benefits of using a framework such as Ruby on Rails is that you can do more with less; smaller teams of developers can complete projects and get to market more quickly. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Ezra Zygmuntowicz offers five tips on how to scale your Ruby applications, including caching techniques to keep the load off your application servers and databases.
Many businesses struggle with getting paper-based information into the electronic workflows that are enabled by Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Access and SQL Server. By using document imaging software and multifunction peripherals, knowledge workers can seamlessly and securely integrate paper documents into the electronic workflow. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Ed White explains what IT professionals should know when integrating document imaging software with Microsoft applications.
Today's busy IT professionals are burdened by the demands of doing more with less, which is a common impetus for them to champion unified communications across the enterprise. Unified communications can maximize an enterprise's existing infrastructure and communications investments. And, as Knowledge Center contributor Gunjan Bhow explains here, unified communications can also help enterprises save money and valuable IT support resources.
It seems easy to judge an old smartphone from years ago as not being as good as today's smartphones, but that's not just because of speeds and feeds or just the industrial design. What makes one smartphone better than another is a combination of the materials used, the industrial design that integrates those materials, the user interface, the services provided, and how clever and intuitive the system is. Here, Knowledge Center mobile and wireless analyst J. Gerry Purdy shares 10 reasons why he thinks the Palm Pre is the best smartphone to date.
Facing tough economic choices, businesses across America have collectively laid off hundreds of thousands of employees lately. But without the proper preventative measures in place, important business data could have been lost or left behind on a variety of distributed devices. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Chris Winter explains how to identify your company's exposure to potentially orphaned data, as well as how to deploy centrally managed solutions that allow for reliable, flexible and easy data recovery.
IT has become an integral part of every business today. Unfortunately, many IT departments are facing flat or declining budgets in 2009, along with tremendous pressure to continue to deliver great service and support to their users. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Michele McFadden offers users tips to help solve some of their own IT issues before contacting the help desk. This will allow the IT department to stay focused on improving services and heading off critical problems before they negatively impact business.
Enterprise-class data management systems have passed over R&D, making this vital department primed for serious data management and business process improvements. But these benefits will not be achieved by retrofitting standard business intelligence tools. Through the smart application of IT, Knowledge Center contributor Frank Brown illustrates how scientists and production engineers in the R&D process can leverage the vast wealth of research information available to speed the innovation cycle.
As reports of major security breaches and thwarted attacks on government agencies continue to pile up, cyber-security has become a top-level priority. Federal agencies must ensure that the right people have the right amount of control over vital information. By establishing and implementing consistent security initiatives, Knowledge Center contributor Robert Grapes explains how federal agencies can employ a proactive approach to help prevent security breaches.
Apple, Google, Palm, Microsoft, RIM, Nokia and Symbian are among today's leading mobile platforms. Some are being developed within Silicon Valley's Mobile Golden Triangle, while others call the mobile communities of Redmond, Helsinki and Waterloo home. While geographic proximity doesn't matter much for individual applications built on different mobile platforms, Knowledge Center mobile and wireless analyst J. Gerry Purdy explains how the mobile industry as a whole benefits from having these large communities of experienced mobile developers in close proximity to one another.
Software piracy is not a new issue for software vendors. After all, software is valuable intellectual property. However, in different segments of the software market, the strategies and opinions on how to combat the software piracy issue can be very different. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Victor DeMarines explains the stages of an anti-piracy strategy, and how software vendors' strategies evolve from denial and reaction to realization and revenue recovery.
In today's global market, companies of all kinds outsource the vast majority of their R&D to stay competitive. But if not managed correctly, outsourcing can negatively impact innovation because the engineers doing the work have no vested interest in maintaining a culture of innovation that a CTO may espouse, or they may try to steal intellectual property. Striking a balance between driving innovation and protecting intellectual property has never been more important. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Jerry Smith explains how companies can both protect valuable intellectual property and drive the critical innovation that sets them apart from the competition.
IT companies have long been known for having unique company cultures and being leaders in workplace innovation. But the recession is undoubtedly having some effect on company culture as companies rein in perks to help the bottom line. During this time, it is up to managers to sustain company culture in order to retain the best and brightest talent. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Adam Hyder offers tips on how IT managers can build and sustain an innovative company culture throughout the recession.
Database encryption has gradually worked its way up the priority list for today's IT director. Firewalls and application security are no longer enough to protect businesses and data in the modern-day, open and complex IT environment. Mitigating this risk and complying with numerous emerging regulations are two principal drivers that are forcing database encryption onto the IT director's agenda. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Christian Kirsch explains how these challenges can be overcome and advises on best practices for database encryption.
Backup and disaster recovery processes are nothing new for enterprises running AIX on IBM Power Systems (formerly System p). For over two decades since AIX was introduced, system administrators have backed up data and applications to tape. Those backups required manual intervention to set up, run and confirm the completion of the jobs. Enterprise applications using the data typically could not be run while the backup jobs were in progress. Here, Knowledge Center contributor John Gay explains how you can better perform backup and disaster recovery for AIX and IBM Power Systems using a combination of high availability and continuous data protection technologies.
Over the past six months, many of us have become desensitized to the staggering number and size of layoffs that continue to occur almost daily. But the reality for the IT industry is that layoffs have a different effect on those of us in the industry whose mission it is to protect the company's reputation, intellectual property, confidential data (both electronic and hard copy) and business operations. Knowledge Center contributor Gregory Shapiro outlines seven steps IT professionals can take to protect their company's data before a layoff is implemented.
Managing risk is a core aspect of supply chain management, especially in this volatile economic market in which companies are facing uncertainty about supplier viability, shifting commodity costs, and even weather hazards and natural disasters. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Jessie Chimni offers IT professionals five specific recommendations for addressing and minimizing the risk lurking in supply chain management systems.
Economic times are tough, and the pressure to cut costs has never been greater. But don't let this pressure force you into making bad business decisions that will handicap your organization for years to come. Knowledge Center contributor Laura Mooney explains how making investments in relatively low-cost, quick-to-implement business process management and enterprise architecture tools can help you make smart cost reductions, operate more efficiently with fewer resources, and keep your business operating at an effective level.
The rise in online video and bandwidth-intensive applications is posing a significant threat to enterprise network bandwidth. Instituting a clear Internet usage policy within your organization will help ensure that network bandwidth resources are used efficiently, improving performance, productivity and the bottom line. Knowledge Center contributor Ermis Sfakiyanudis explains how you can set up reasonable acceptable-use policies, as well as invest in tools that help support those policies.
Palm's highly anticipated new smartphone, the Palm Pre, seems to be on track for an early June launch, according to an analyst from Barclays Capital. Palm has a good deal riding on the success of the Pre as it competes against the Apple iPhone and other smartphones in the rapidly growing mobile and wireless market.
For businesses with call centers to thrive in today's economy, it's more important than ever to tune in to the voice of the customer. The amount of conversational data being collected digitally in call centers is growing faster than our ability to deal with it, so customer insights buried in this data are missed. Voice mining technology can now pull all of this audio data together, analyze it and report on it. Using voice mining technology, Knowledge Center contributor Mary Grace Crissey explains how you can analyze audio data to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
If you have a small server room with anywhere from a handful up to 20 servers, chances are you need a KVM switch to handle these jobs. The challenge is choosing the right KVM switch. There's a huge range of KVM switch options, from simple low-cost, personal KVM switches to sophisticated devices with integrated KVM-over-IP and matrix switching capabilities. Knowledge Center Nigel Dickens explains how to choose the right KVM switch for your small server room.
Retail businesses rarely see the kind of economic stress that is facing them in their markets today. The economic crisis has forced consumers to be very selective about buying. The most successful retailers will be those who are adept at data optimization using advanced, database-driven analytics. Knowledge Center contributor Bill Franks explains how retailers can exploit every byte of information from their enormous data assets, which continuously flow through the databases they depend on for illumination.
E-mail overload is the leading cause of preventable productivity loss in organizations today. By revealing the top five tactics for moving e-mail communication to more efficient and effective collaboration, Knowledge Center contributor Ross Mayfield provides insight into how to tackle the daunting mountain of e-mails pushing employees to the brink of overload.
E-mail authentication's importance has been discussed often in the media, at industry trade shows and in blogs. However, before you begin an e-mail authentication program, you are going to need to separate fact from fiction. In this three-part series, Knowledge Center contributor Ellen Siegel explains what e-mail authentication is, why e-mail authentication is important, how e-mail authentication works and what exactly you need to do to authenticate your e-mail.
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