Francis Chu

Wireless hot spots are springing up all over the country in coffee shops, bookstores, airports, hotels, university campuses—and now, fast food chains, too—to provide visitors the freedom of mobile Internet access using their notebooks or handheld devices. But I do not see a compelling reason to bring my laptop to the corner Starbucks and check […]

EZQuests latest external Cobra hard drive boasts superb storage capacity, a high-speed FireWire interface and a compact form factor. My tests showed the Cobra+, which shipped in January, is an ideal portable storage system for adding large amounts of data archiving capability to any PC or Mac desktop. EZQuest offers several Cobra+ drives with capacities […]

Veritas Software Corp.s Backup Exec for Windows gains close to 100 new features and enhancements with Version 9.0, including support for the prerelease Windows Server 2003, a more useful GUI, and improvements to groupware and database agents such as Microsoft Corp.s Exchange and SQL Server. Put another way, Backup Exec 9.0 provides one of the […]

The primary business driver for server consolidation is cost reduction, but other reasons to rein in “server sprawl” include increased manageability, a more robust server platform and better IT service levels. Consolidation of server hardware is closely related to application and storage consolidations—certain types of server consolidation involves converging applications on a single machine and […]

VMware Inc.s GSX Server 2.5 is a good choice for Wintel shops looking to consolidate their server infrastructure to increase CPU utilization and streamline management efficiencies. GSX Server is designed to allow enterprise IT managers to roll out multiple virtual servers (guest operating systems) to run within a large Intel Corp.-based server platform (multiprocessor host […]

The Internet Engineering Task Forces recent approval of the iSCSI specification as a viable standard is a major milestone toward the realization of IP-based SANs. The iSCSI protocol provides a means to transport native SCSI commands over TCP/IP, allowing storage arrays to be shared over IP and SANs to expand by utilizing Gigabit Ethernet networks. […]

Funk Software Inc.s latest Odyssey Security Software Suite offers an inexpensive way to lock down WLANs in smaller Windows environments. eWeek Labs tests showed Odyssey Version 1.1 doesnt offer a ton of new features, but its chief advance is a significant one: Odyssey 1.1 gains an enhanced ability to forward wireless LAN authentication requests to […]

Broadband wireless access took another step forward late last month when the IEEE approved 802.16a, an amendment that adds features to the groups 802.16 standard that defines the WirelessMAN air interface specification. 802.16 was developed by the IEEEs 802.16 Working Group on BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) to address the need for broadband connection solutions that […]

I got a chance to test drive the second edition of Executive Softwares popular desktop optimizing utility, Diskeeper 7.0, earlier this month. Based on my tests, Id recommend Second Edition for sites that want to maximize disk performance in their servers or desktop clients. The revamped optimizer gains new management capabilities and better performance with […]

ReefEdge Inc.s Connect System 3.1 is a comprehensive WLAN security package that addresses 802.11 vulnerabilities with virtual private network technology. ReefEdge Connect System, similar in architecture to systems from SMC Networks Inc. and Vernier Networks Inc., comprises two compact hardware appliances—Connect Server and Edge Controller—that work together to secure heterogeneous wireless LAN access points using […]

The security built into Wi-Fi is better than no security at all—but not by much. Standards bodies are at work, though, on a framework that will free IT managers from some of the heavy lifting they have to do to get WLANs up to enterprise code. During the past two years, the IEEE has been […]

Broadband wireless access took a step forward on Wednesday, when the IEEE approved 802.16a, an amendment to the groups 802.16 standard that defines the Wireless MAN (metropolitan area network) air interface specification. 802.16a was developed by the IEEE 802.16 Working Group on BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) to address the need for broadband connection solutions that […]