Stories about: UAL

In January 2001 the English language version of Wikipedia opened for business, and was quickly followed by versions in French, German, Catalan and Swedish. Over the past seven years it has grown to include over 250 language editions with more than eight million articles, almost a quarter of which are in English. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia is the world's largest ever encyclopedia. Thanks to the GNU Free Documentation License that covers all Wikipedia content, it is also the most open and free. But just who is behind Wikipedia, and how does it work? Computerworld recently spoke to Brianna Laugher, a Wikipedia editor and presenter at last year's international Wikipedia conference.

The airport authority-controlled Wi-Fi networks at several airports are shaping up as ground zero in an emerging battle between airlines and airports over the use, regulation and management of wireless networks at the facilities.

Storage networking equipment vendors are preparing a slew of new Fibre Channel switches and host bus adapters that can effectively double the speed of current storage-area networks (SAN) to 4Gbit/sec. Products based on the 4Gbit standard, first advocated by chip makers last year and approved by the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) and the American National Standards Institute last June, are slated to roll out this year. The technology could serve as an interim migration step to products based on the 10Gbit/sec.

A variety of storage vendors are testing products that could double the throughput of Fibre Channel storage-area networks (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS) devices from the current 2Gbit/sec. rate.

Several storage vendors are testing new devices that could double the throughput of Fibre Channel storage-area networks (SAN) and network-attached storage boxes from the current 2Gbit/sec. rate.

Storage-area networks have helped scores of organizations more easily allocate and manage storage resources, but most SAN installations are dedicated to servers supporting one application. To gain more value, these SAN islands need to be integrated. But what is the best way to do that?

At this week's Storage Networking World Fall 2003 conference, vendors such as Hewlett-Packard and Brocade Communications Systems plan to unveil technology that's designed to support increased interoperability between storage devices.

Gary Pilafas calls what the storage industry is experiencing right now the "accordion effect," referring humorously to the way the old-fashioned musical instrument makes music only when all that hot air is squeezed out. As a senior storage architect at UAL Loyalty Services Inc., the e-commerce arm of financially stressed United Air Lines, Pilafas has a front-row seat for this particular concert. "It's the march to consolidation," he said at Computerworld's Storage Networking World conference in Phoenix. "It's happening now, and it's a good thing."

Storage is not to be left out of the automation wave sweeping through corporate networks. One of the hottest developments in storage resource management is automated provisioning - software for easing the resource allocation process.

Embattled Electronic Data Systems Corp. has a new chairman and chief executive officer.