Cameron Sturdevant

With its June 26 release of Hyper-V, Microsoft presented x86 server virtualization leader VMware with what may prove its toughest challenge to date. That’s because while Hyper-V trails VMware’s ESX Server in core features, management options and guest operating system support, Microsoft’s new virtualization offering boasts a pair of significant-and familiar-advantages. Hyper-V is bundled with […]

On opening day Apple’s App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch delivers the billable hour tracking, tip calculating and expense reporting that are staples of mobile workers who rely on handheld devices. Applications are grouped by category, and of the 25 currently in the “business” section I found more than enough time-and-expense trackers. New […]

A First Look at Microsoft Hyper-V RTM By Cameron Sturdevant A First Look at Microsoft Hyper-V RTM – VHD vs. VMDK Microsoft uses a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) format, while market leader VMware creates virtual hard drives using a VMDK, or Virtual Machine Disk, format. This screen shows a VHD being created in the newly […]

At Symantec’s Vision conference in Las Vegas held June 9 to 12, Symantec Chairman and CEO John Thompson said in his keynote address that “Dell is adopting and building on the Altiris platform and will be releasing the Dell Management Console as part of their OpenManage strategy later this fall, based on our technology. The […]

Symantec appears to be adapting to the changing climate; where physical systems and endpoints once ruled the day, virtualization management tools are now appearing on the landscape. For IT managers, the gap between Symantec’s vision–if you will–and the reality of ubiquitous management is still significant, but closing. The gap is revealed in the announcement today […]

The chief cat herder of systems management, the DMTF (Distributed Managed Task Force) added CA, Oracle and VMware to its board on June 3. Adding VMware, an exciting, game-changing company to the board of the staid but utterly essential DMTF is a signal that x86 virtualization must be well-managed to solidify its position as a […]

eWEEK Labs Walk-Through: Microsofts Hyper-V RC1 By Cameron Sturdevant Adding Hyper-V Role to Windows Server 2008 After installing a fresh copy of Windows Server 2008 on a Hewlett-Packard ProLiant ML 115 and enabling the virtualization functions on the Intel chip set, I walked through the roles wizard to add Hyper-V services. eWEEK Labs Walk-Through: Microsofts […]

Yesterday, May 14, the PCI Standards Council, the body that oversees the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) announced the formal timeline for releasing Version 1.2 of the specification in October of this year. PCI DSS was last revised in September 2006 and is still one of the most interesting security mandates in […]

Digging through my e-mail, I came across some analysis by Shavlik that summarized the company’s findings of polls conducted in April at the RSA Conference and Infosecurity Europe. Shavlik makes security, compliance and update tools aimed primarily at Windows systems, so unsurprisingly, the poll results showed a need for the company’s products. And just because […]

There are two big 10 Gigabit Ethernet “drops” coming out of Interop (held in Las Vegas, April 2008.) The first is price and the second is power. I talked with switch maker Arastra, which announced general availability of its 24- and 48-port 10G Ethernet switches in the approximately $400 per port price range. Ed Khatuka […]

In order to give Cisco’s Catalyst 4900M switch a run for its money, I took the unit to Ixia’s newly inaugurated iSimCity test and measurement center in Santa Clara, where I subjected the switch to Layer 2 and Layer 3 tests, alongside a set of power consumption tests. I conducted performance tests on a 4900M […]

Proper planning and implementation are vital to the success of any enterprise IT deployment, but these issues loom particularly large for a product such as Cisco’s Catalyst 4900M switch, which is meant both to serve a foundational role in your network infrastructure and to change–through its swappable card slots–as your organization shifts from 1G to […]