Networking: Opinions

Opinions

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Being personal in a centralised world 21 May, 2009 11:22
Knowledge workers like familiarity and will not accept desktop services unless it looks like their PC

Personalisation is about more than decorating a user’s desktop, it must encompass business policy, end-to-end visibility and user introduced applications.
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UC security: When the shoe won't fit, compress the foot 15 April, 2009 05:06
Information security today seems to be suffering from many flawed assumptions

If your security model is location-centric and depends on keeping things separate, how do you respond to a disruptive technology like unified communications? This is a pattern that keeps repeating in many different areas: the security paradigm looked good until a technology comes along, changes the assumptions and reveals the inadequacy of the model.
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Trends coming together make a plan for small business 20 February, 2009 09:36
Netbooks, wireless, and SaaS make a great team.

George Peppard said as his character Hannibal Smith on The A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together." Several trends, if not a plan, are coming together in interesting ways in technology for small businesses. Mix equal parts of online applications, netbooks, and constant wireless networking together, and you get new ways to do more work in more places for less money.
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A day in the life of an application 27 January, 2009 08:29
Many IT managers are discovering how ill equipped the WAN is to provide the backbone of application delivery.

In the quest to reduce operational costs and streamline business processes to improve company performance, organisations are increasingly Web-enabling their business critical applications and centralising operations to the data centre. This “virtual proximity” makes a lot of sense, but in making the move, many IT managers are discovering how ill equipped the WAN is to provide the backbone of application delivery. Slow or inaccessible applications mean infrastructure investments are wasted and employee productivity suffers dramatically.
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Satyam fraud has ramifications for outsourcers 14 January, 2009 09:34
Satyam's customers and competitors should brace themselves for near-term disruptions across the outsourcing industry

The financial fraud perpetrated by Satyam Computer Services executives could trigger near-term disruptions across the outsourcing and IT industries. Ramalinga Raju, the company's founder and chairman, resigned last week. He has admitted to inflating Satyam's cash balances and the credit amounts it was owed while understating its liabilities. This scandal has many ramifications for Satyam's customers as well as those of other outsourcing companies.
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Can Cisco compete in the CE mass-market? 05 January, 2009 07:42
Cisco is an unknown brand in the CE market. But will that be a problem for it?

Cisco has won much attention from consumer news sites since the New York Times reported Monday that the networking giant at CES this week is expected to unveil a digital stereo system that can move music wirelessly around a house, among other consumer offerings. But analysts and pundits say there are hurdles that Cisco must overcome in a market where Cisco is an unknown brand. Pundits also point to similar offerings from Sonos, Logitech and Apple.
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The NOC on systems management 30 December, 2008 10:29
Systems management is now part and parcel of most network operations teams' daily lives.

EMA recently completed a major landscape survey on network management, including updates on technologies, process, and organization affecting the tools and practices used within network operations. One of the more interesting themes that emerged was the overwhelming indication that systems management is now part and parcel of most network operations teams' daily lives.
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Making big plans work (even when many of them don't) 17 December, 2008 08:50
How to implement your "dreams" for making truly significant improvements in network operations

Probably the single biggest thing that stood out to me as I reviewed our IT consulting guidance on CMDB System deployments, service catalog deployments, and plans for end-to-end application and service management strategies, is how consistent the reasons for failure are.
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Countdown to IPv6 - it’s time to plan for migration 15 December, 2008 10:30
While it offers many benefits, there are a few issues to note when planning for IPv6

Questions surrounding Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) have been debated for the past decade, beginning with when and why to deploy. The network address space problem on the Internet, which IPv6 is expected to solve, also has been disquieting for organisations planning ahead for their future network growth.
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Vista SP2 beta: Nothing obviously new has been added 09 December, 2008 09:30
The changes to Vista are under the hood and even they are far from earth-shaking

If you install the beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) expecting to see visible changes to your version of Vista, you'll be sorely disappointed. At least in this initial beta, all the changes are under the hood, and even they are far from earth-shaking.
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Economic crisis threatens networking growth 04 December, 2008 08:00
If you look at how enterprises have spent on networks during the last couple of decades relative to their total spending on IT, you see a clear behavior shift.

The beginning of a new year normally is a time to reflect; it's all the more so when the network industry is facing (along with the rest of the economy) a major financial crisis. We are of a generation that has taken network growth for granted, that has seen the Internet reshape culture and that has come to believe that "more bits" paves the road to the future. It just might be that this comfortable view is the greatest threat we face, because networking is going to change one way or the other.