Stories by David Newman

5 steps to high-speed Ethernet

If you're considering the move to 40/100gigabit Ethernet, here are five things to keep in mind:

High-speed Ethernet planning guide

Ten-gigabit Ethernet was so last year.

Force10 S4810 data center switch

High port density, high throughput, and very low latency are bedrock requirements in the data center, and Force10's new S4810 top-of-rack switch delivers on all three counts.

NASs for the masses

Either because server disks are full or because virtualization is a natural growth path, organizations large and small are moving toward shared storage. For large enterprises, high-capacity storage-area networks make sense, but what about small or mid-sized enterprises new to shared storage?

3Com S7906E

3Com says it has an alternative for network managers considering high-end switches from Cisco and others.

Cisco ASR 1000 router

With enterprises looking to consolidate data centers and devices, Cisco's new ASR 1000 series router offers a compelling message: Do more with less.

Cisco Nexus 7000 aims for data center dominance

Building a big data center and looking for a switch to match? How do 256 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports and nearly 1.7 terabits of capacity sound?

Juniper switch proves to be credible choice

Cisco take note: Juniper's new EX 4200 switch not only fills a hole in a leading competitor's product line, but also represents a credible alternative for enterprise access switching.

Unified communications: Is your network ready?

Here are five questions for enterprise network managers to bear in mind when considering UC deployment:

Still early in the game for unified communications

Unified communications offers the potential for anywhere, anytime connectivity between employees and the enterprise. But as the InteropLabs hotstage team found in piecing together more than a dozen commercial and open-source voice, data and messaging platforms, the technology is still at a relatively early stage, and today represents more promise than practice.

Scaling and securing VOIP

VoIP vendors say they deliver scalability and security. InteropLabs (iLabs) testing mostly proved them right in multivendor settings. But testing also revealed some implementation gotchas in both of those areas, and pinpointed a few missing pieces when it comes to key exchange for securing VoIP traffic.

A buyer's checklist for application acceleration

Faced with big bandwidth bills every month, it's tempting simply to buy the application with the best performance. Tempting, but not necessarily correct.

WideBand WB28GMPRO

Network managers driven by frugality, patriotism or both, might want to consider the WideBand WB28GMPRO, a low-cost managed Gigabit Ethernet switch made in the American heartland.

VoIP team ventures into new terrain

By now, basic interoperability is generally a given in multivendor VoIP settings. What happens, however, when VoIP devices go to work in decidedly unfriendly environments, such as through security devices and across wireless LANs?

Adtran serves up newest low-cost router

As long as Cisco Systems leads the router market, competitors will continue to come up with differentiators. With Adtran's new NetVanta 4305 access router, the differentiators are price, price, price.