Journalists learn early on that each story they write needs to address the five W’s and the H: Who, what, where, when, why and how. We won’t ignore the five W’s in this issue but we will give the H some extra attention.
Journalists learn early on that each story they write needs to address the five W’s and the H: Who, what, where, when, why and how.
We won’t ignore the five W’s in this issue but we will give the H some extra attention. Our How To special section is dedicated to helping you figure out how to get from here to there.
For instance, we start the section with a road map to the new data center. Vendor pronouncements about grid, utility and on-demand computing are alluring, although far heavier on promises than actual products at this point.
In other words, now is the time to put your strategy in place rather than necessarily rushing whatever new products are available into your network. There’s plenty to think about.As analyst Jasmine Noel tells us, “Utility computing does not exist in a vacuum,” meaning that this is an area that requires investigating things from many angles.
Other topics covered in the special section no doubt have your attention today. Namely, how to fight spam and patch your software. While most large companies already have practices in place to address these issues, there’s plenty of room for improvement and lots of new technology developments to consider.
Before installing a new spam-fighting product, for instance, one security administrator says: “Users were spending more time identifying spam on their own than doing actual work.”
On the patching front, it’s not just about keeping up with Microsoft’s security oversights. Unix, Linux and other operating systems haven’t escaped unscathed by hackers and virus writers, either. We spoke with a handful of network executives willing to share their experiences and advice.
You may or may not be syncing up storage-area network islands or moving aggressively into wireless LANs. But if you are, we’ve got some pointers.
We also spoke with Hank Levine, a lawyer who has been going to bat for big telecom users for years. He offers ideas for getting the upper hand in negotiations with your carriers.
Recognizing that you’ll never be satisfied with the network you have, even though you might not have big bucks to revamp it, we also tick off eight ways to add oomph to your infrastructure.
We hope you find the package useful – and that we’ve actually answered more questions than we’ve raised.
