Swapping out firewalls, Interop news and more

EDITORS’ CHOICE

From the front page

Swapping out firewalls easier said than done

Moving from one brand of gateway firewall to another is proving to be a daunting task that corporate customers say takes six or more months because of a lack of industry standards and dearth of migration tools.

Net access control: Ready? … Or not?all our Interop coverage.

Network companies at Interop last week pushed a clear message about how network security should work: Hardware devices identify users at the network port level, provide virus scanning and authentication services, then allow or deny network access based on strict role-based policies. Whether this actually works or when it will be widely available is less clear. Plus: See

Art imitates wireless net

How do you get users to understand and appreciate an asset as invisible as a wireless network? That was the challenge faced by artists, musicians and technologists at Ball State University who created a digital media sculpture that gives shape and sound to the campus’ award-winning wireless network.

ITVideo

Haile’s perspective

As the former CIO of Fidelity, head of IBM’s network business and now venture capitalist, Don Haile’s seen the industry from all angles. What does he think tech leaders need to know now? Find out on this week’s Network World Hot Seat.

How to

Problems sending e-mail to one particular company

Ron Nutter gives a user a checklist for tracking down this vexing issue.

From the blogs

Adam Gaffin suggests a slap or two for Blue Security for re-routing incoming DDoS packets to a third-party hosting site. James Gaskin says some recent news out of Novell is good, but too late. Mark Gibbs looks at some spam stats. Paul McNamara rounds up the negative comments on the first Origami-based device.

In depth

The new face of disaster recovery

How continuous data protection, wide-area file services and managed backup services help companies get their businesses back online faster amid disaster.

Voice XML 2.1 boosts functionality

VoiceXML is quickly becoming the standard language used for developing interactive voice response and speech-enabled self-service applications. Applications that were previously deployed only on the Web are now easily made available via the phone, giving customers a consistent, convenient method for interacting with retailers, banks and utility providers via the Web or telephone.

Speak the language of convergence

When Butler University recently migrated from an on-campus hosted Centrex phone service to a Cisco CallManager VoIP system, one of the first challenges it encountered was to get more than a dozen staffers from the voice, data and application groups speaking the same language.

More news

RFID tracking system speeds shipping business

A wireless tracking system now lets a big container shipping firm move containers faster through its 300-acre West Coast terminal, boosting the yard’s capacity and pleasing truckers, who now spend less time searching for their loads.

Q&A: Microsoft’s Muglia chats up management directions

At the recent Microsoft Management Summit, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft’s server and tools business, introduced the newest additions to the Microsoft management lineup: System Center Service Desk and System Center Carmine. Muglia sat down with Network World Senior Editor John Fontana for a chat about Service Desk, which pulls Microsoft’s management tools into the Carmine workflow environment used to manage virtual images on a virtual server.

Level 3 widens scope, continues buying spree

Level 3 Communications last week announced its third acquisition in five weeks, this time a $1.2 billion buyout of TelCove designed to expand Level 3’s network to cover additional U.S. cities.

Azul brings compute appliance

Azul Systems, a start-up headed by former Sun executives, is offering appliances that promise to help customers adapt to rapidly changing Web-based workloads.

Sun fleshes out storage strategy via StorageTek

Sun last week announced a four-part strategy for data management that focuses on identity management, virtualization, security and hardware/software integration.

Security start-up targets 0day problem

A new security company says it has developed a novel approach to protecting PCs from software that exploits unpatched Windows vulnerabilities.

Start-up FireEye debuts with ‘virtual-machine’ security approach

Start-up FireEye made its debut, announcing plans to ship a switch-based network-access control appliance next month that will let customers identify network-borne malware and attacks in order to quickly contain them.

But wait, there’s more!

Our This Week page will also link you to these stories: Microsoft, SAP set to enhance productivity software; Layer 7 pumps up security on XML gateway products; EarthLink creates division focused on business services; Free software flows at Interop; Vonage carries burden of tech IPOs; Free software abounds at Interop; WLAN products extend radio and traffic management; Technology demos outshine gimmicks; Visto sues RIM for patent infringement.