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Microsoft exec claims 'We're building bridges with Dynamic IT'

2007-11-06T11:37:00.001-06:00

Steve Guggenheimer, general manager of Microsoft's Application Platform and Development marketing division, talked about a range of technologies under construction at the company during a keynote address on Monday, including Microsoft's Dynamic IT initiative and virtualization.

"We're trying to work on those bridges that cut across all of our different roles," Guggenheimer said at Microsoft's DevConnections conference in Las Vegas, in a keynote address titled "Dynamic IT and the 2008 Launch Wave." The company has been touting the Dynamic IT initiative, which encompasses everything from applications to infrastructure, since its Tech Ed conference earlier this year.

The company only recently began getting specific about how it intends to execute its plans. Perhaps playing to skeptics, at one point during the keynote the audience saw an offbeat promotional video for Visual Studio 2008, which is set for release this month.

The video carried the tagline "True Development Story" and was themed in part like an expose segment on a nighty news magazine. The clip featured a man dressed as a pompous, pipe-waving pseudo-intellectual, who voiced blustering skepticism over the various promised features in the new product. This was interspersed with comments from Microsoft officials about how the company used its own Visual Studio and Team System tools -- or in the parlance, "dog-fooded" -- to create the new version.

Guggenheimer's presentation also covered the company's strategy for virtualization, which ranges from the desktop to server and application virtualization.

Later, Guggenheimer talked about Microsoft's plans for its data platform, touching at some length on business intelligence.

"A lot of people think about BI as something you have added on top of your platform," he said. Microsoft wants to provide something it calls "pervasive insight" -- BI for everyone. "We're trying to take all that data and make it available throughout the company and to all types of users," he said.

Ram Ramanathan, a product manager for SQL Server, showed off some of the new features in SQL Server 2008. Using spatial data, which is supported in SQL Server 2008, he built a simple application depicting the location of coffee shop franchises along a highway.

The audience also received a runthrough of Silverlight, Microsoft's cross-platform browser plug-in for rich Internet applications and content. Guggenheimer noted that there are hooks for Web applications and scenarios throughout Microsoft's range of technologies.

Guggenheimer wrapped up his talk with a quick overview of Oslo, Microsoft's vision for model-driven development of composite applications. "We all use models today. Just in different tools and different languages," he said. Oslo's goal is to provide a unified framework for modeling applications. Microsoft has provided no firm timeframe for Oslo.

Microsoft claimed 5,000 attendees for the Connections event, which is being held at the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas.

Guggenheimer encouraged the audience to play with the new technologies and sound off. "We listen, we give feedback and decide where to place the bets," he said.

Microsoft exec claims 'We're building bridges with Dynamic IT'

2007-11-06T11:37:00.000-06:00

Guggenheimer's presentation also covered the company's strategy for virtualization, which ranges from the desktop to server and application virtualization.

Later, Guggenheimer talked about Microsoft's plans for its data platform, touching at some length on business intelligence.

Microsoft claimed 5,000 attendees for the Connections event, which is being held at the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas.

Guggenheimer encouraged the audience to play with the new technologies and sound off. "We listen, we give feedback and decide where to place the bets," he said.

Storm worm pulls Halloween Trick, which is no treat.

2007-11-01T08:06:00.000-05:00

It wouldn’t be Halloween without the zombie-creating Storm malware up to some mischief.

The latest Storm-backed spam campaign invites e-mail recipients to visit a Halloween-themed Web site where they can download a dancing skeleton. What gets downloaded instead is a version of the Storm malware that turns unsuspecting users’ PCs into members of the world’s largest botnet. Members of these botnets are also known as zombies.

Read the latest WhitePaper - State of Internet Security Report on Protecting Enterprise Systems

According to security vendor Marshal, the e-mail’s embedded link is not to a URL but to an IP address. Users who click on the link to the Halloween Web site and don’t have their browsers up to date with security patches could automatically become infected, Marshal says. Those who have current patches but click on the link to download the dancing skeleton could also become infected.

Storm’s creators are nothing if not prolific. These malware writers jump on current event topics and seasonal happenings to lure e-mail users into visiting infected Web sites in attempts to grow their botnet, which some say now totals over 1 million members. Recent Storm spam campaigns have used Labor Day, the opening of the National Football League’s season, and promises of YouTube video clips and current music snippets to trick recipients into clicking on Web links and becoming infected.

The malware’s creators are also quick to deflect attempts by researchers to learn more about Storm. The worm can figure out which users are trying to probe its command-and-control servers and retaliates by launching distributed denial-of-service attacks against them, shutting down their Internet access for days, according to an IBM/ISS security professional.

Comcast Suspected of Limiting BitTorrent Use

2007-10-24T09:42:00.000-05:00

After months of allegations that Comcast has been throttling BitTorrent uploads, a report from the Associated Press on Friday appears to verify the claim.

Accusations have been floating around the Internet for some time that Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV operator and the second-largest Internet service provider, engages in throttling peer-to-peer activity.

On Friday, however, the Associated Press said it had confirmed "through nationwide tests" that Comcast blocks some BitTorrent activity.

Comcast representatives avoided responding to the claim directly. At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Friday, Comcast Interactive Media President Amy Banse responded to questions about P2P throttling by pointing to the company's need to "manage" heavy Internet use.

"99.9 percent of our customers happily say they use e-mail and are uploading and downloading video and photos every day at speeds they enjoy," she said. "There are .01 percent that are engaging in what we call 'excessive use.' We're talking about things like sending 18,000 e-mails every hour of every month. We need to manage that, and to the extent we identify this excessive use, we call those customers and offer them additional services like commercial services."

She later said if that .01 percent upgrade to the higher cost commercial services, "they could BitTorrent to their heart's content. (She didn't address the fact that sending 18,000 e-mails an hour may be a sign of a spam bot infection.)

Comcast did not respond to request for further comment by press time.

The company has been on record as supporting net neutrality. COO Stephen Burke told The Wall Street Journal last year that "right now, we’re going as fast as we can to make our services good for our customers on any site they go to, and we have no intention of changing that."

The AP's tests would seem to indicate otherwise. BitTorrent is a peer sharing technology that has each user on the node uploading and downloading at the same time. As they receive the bits of a file, they send it right back out to others who are downloading. The AP found that incomplete downloads are unaffected, but that Comcast meddles with the uploading of completed files.

The report claims that PCs uploading completed files are sent a message from Comcast that tells it to stop sending, which terminates the transfer. Both parties involved in the file transfer typically think the other is responsible for stopping the transfer.

In fairness to cable ISPs like Comcast, it can only allow so much uploading. Because typical cable Internet implementations involve far more downstream bandwidth than upstream, all of its option packages advertise faster download speeds than uploading.

Despite limitations on cable modem upstream bandwidth, AT&T CEO and chairman Randall Stephenson seized the opportunity at today's Web 2.0 conference to take a swipe at Comcast's alleged throttling.

"We don't do that," he said. "A lot of our bandwidth is dedicated to peer-to-peer. We don't block anyone's content."

BitTorrent did not respond to requests for comment from InternetNews.com by press time.

Even if Comcast isn't breaking any rules, the AP's findings may leave the cable giant with a black eye, said Ben Bajarin, digital media analyst for Creative Strategies.

"It's putting rules and regulations on how something free like the Internet can be used," he told InternetNews.com. "Even though BitTorrent is legitimate in a lot of things they are doing, what [Comcast's] moves show is if you want to upload files, you have to have their permission to do that. What if you are a legit content provider and want to do that?"

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2007-10-15T14:13:00.001-05:00

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Top 10 strategic technologies for 2008

2007-10-11T09:03:00.000-05:00

Which technologies must any good IT executive examine in 2008? The list includes green power, unified communications, virtualization, mashups and social software.

Gartner has identified the “Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2008,” and is urging IT executives to think about the risk of not implementing each one. If your competitor masters one of these technologies and you don’t, will you be at a strategic disadvantage?

Gartner analysts David Cearley and Carl Claunch reviewed the list Tuesday at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Fla. Here’s a summary:

1. Green IT

This one is taking on a bigger role for many reasons, including an increased awareness of environmental danger; concern about power bills; regulatory requirements; government procurement rules; and a sense that corporations should embrace social responsibility.

Chip designers have realized that lowering per-core performance by 20% actually cuts power usage in half, so adding cores can improve chip performance and efficiency, Claunch said.

But IT is still responsible for 2% of all carbon releases, and it’s coming from many sources. “Fast memory is getting to be a surprisingly high energy consuming item,” Claunch said.

One of the next steps is taking the power-saving features of mobile devices such as phones and laptops and bringing them to more computing platforms.

“We’ve been confronting the power problem on mobile devices for a long time because of those pesky batteries,” he said. “We can take those learnings and put them into servers. In the future, we’ll have servers that will go to sleep if they’re not being used.”

2. Unified Communications (UC)

UC functionality is drawing from five core markets: voicemail, PBXs, e-mail and calendaring, IM, and conferencing and collaboration. The key trends are communications becoming IP-based, analog systems switching to digital, and growing integration among voice, network, storage, sensors and video technologies.

“In a world in which all the information is digital and carried on IP, the opportunity and advantages of carrying it on a unified infrastructure are becoming obvious,” the analysts stated in a slideshow presentation. “Organizational issues must be addressed to take advantage of this unification, because responsibilities and budgets are so often fragmented among groups such as building maintenance, voice communications, data communications and storage administration.”

3. Business Process Management

BPM is more of a business discipline than a technology, but is necessary to make sure the technology of service-oriented architectures (SOA) deliver business value, Cearley said. It’s also important for dealing with laws like Sarbanes-Oxley that require business to define processes, he said.

“SOA and BPM have common objectives,” Cearley said. “They’re both focused on driving agility, driving business process improvement, flexibility and adaptability within the organization. SOA is a key mechanism that makes BPM easier.”

4. Metadata Management

Metadata is the foundation for information infrastructure and is found throughout your IT systems: in service registries and repositories, Web semantics, configuration management databases (CMDB), business service registries and in application development.

“Metadata is not just about information management,” Cearley said. “You need to look beyond that. Metadata is everywhere.”

5. Virtualization 2.0

“Virtualization 2.0” goes beyond consolidation. It simplifies the installation and movement of applications, makes it easy to move work from one machine to another, and allows changes to be made without impacting other IT systems, which tend to be rigid and interlinked, Claunch said.

There are also disaster recovery benefits, since the technology lets you restack virtual systems in different orders in recovery centers, providing more flexibility.

“Virtualization is a key enabling technology because it provides so many values,” Claunch said. “Frankly it’s the Swiss Army knife of our toolkit in IT today.”

6. Mashups & Composite Applications

Mashups, a Web technology that combines content from multiple sources, has gone from being a virtual unknown among IT executives to being an important piece of enterprise IT systems. “Only like 18 months ago, very few people (knew what a mashup was),” Cearley said. “It’s been an enormous evolution of the market.”

U.S. Army intelligence agents are using mashups for situational awareness by bringing intelligence applications together. Enterprises can use mashups to merge the capabilities of complementary applications, but don’t go too far.

“Examine the application backlog for potential relief via mashups,” the analysts stated in their slideshow. “Investigate power users’ needs but be realistic about their capabilities to use mashups.”

7. Web Platform & WOA

Web-oriented architecture, a version of SOA geared toward Web applications, is part of a trend in which the number of IT functions being delivered as a service is greatly expanding. Beyond the well-known software-as-a-service, Cearley said over time everything could be delivered as a service, including storage and other basic infrastructure needs.

“This really is a long-term model that we see evolving from a lot of different parts of the market,” Cearley said. It’s time for IT executives to put this on their radar screens and conduct some “what-if” scenarios to see what makes sense for them, he said.

8. Computing Fabrics

Today’s blade server design places memory and processors into a fixed combination inside a blade, and until recently neither memory or processors from one blade could be combined with that of other blades.

New server designs will allow several blades to be merged across a “computing fabric,” in which they will appear as a single server to an operating system.

“The fabric based server of the future will treat memory, processors and I/O cards as components in a pool, combining and recombining them into particular arrangements to suit the owner’s needs,” the analysts wrote. “This evolution will simplify the provisioning of capacity to meet growing needs.”

9. Real World Web

Increasingly ubiquitous network access with reasonably useful bandwidth is enabling the beginnings of what analysts are calling the “real world Web,” Claunch said. The goal is to augment reality with universal access to information specific to locations, objects or people. This might allow a vacationer to snap a picture of a monument or tourist attraction and immediately receive information about the object, instead of flipping through a travel book.

10. Social Software

Social software like podcasts, videocasts, blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, and social networking tools, often referred to as Web 2.0, is changing the way people communicate both in social and business settings.

“It’s really been empowering people to interact in an electronic medium in a much richer fashion than we did with e-mail or corporate collaboration systems,” Cearley said.

The effectiveness of these tools for enterprise use varies, and some tools that have the potential to improve productivity aren’t yet mature enough for enterprise use, Gartner says. For example, wikis are highly valuable and mature enough for safe and effective enterprise use. Meanwhile, Gartner says prediction markets potentially have a lot of enterprise value but so far have low maturity. Podcasts, conversely, can be used safely and effectively but don’t have a lot of business value, the analyst firm said.

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2007-10-09T13:49:00.000-05:00

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2007-10-09T09:10:00.001-05:00

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Get your LCD monitors/TV's soon as prices are on the rise.

2007-10-08T15:32:00.000-05:00

The price of LCD panels for notebooks and desktop monitors has been on the rise since April, though the increase has not yet been passed on to consumers. But that could change very soon, according to a new report from iSuppli.

Though LCD television prices have stabilized, monitor prices are far more volatile right now. As an example, the average price for a 15-inch notebook display has inched up from $90 to $108 between April and September, according to iSuppli. But during that time, monitor prices did not go up even as panels did, severely eating into the margins of monitor manufacturers.

"We're now reaching a point where profit margin for the monitor supply is really being impacted," said Sweta Dash, director of LCD and projection research at iSuppli. "So already some monitor suppliers are starting to increase their prices $10 to $20." Considering the already tight supply (from a backlog of product in the spring), prices have almost nowhere to go but up.

"Considering all these facts, we don't think monitor prices can continue to go down," said Dash.

But, never fear: the biggest shopping day of the year should still be chock-full of aggressive pricing.

"Black Friday prices may still be aggressive and exciting," said Dash. "Because they make those decisions way earlier, in (the beginning of) Q2 when many system suppliers set panel prices. Since those are contracts, they can't be changed."

Why Net Neutrality a Must for Working Americans

2007-10-08T09:53:00.000-05:00

Some of the most powerful voices in labor are throwing their full support behind Net Neutrality– calling it crucial to the success and vitality of our democracy.

In a blog post at SavetheInternet.com, Jim Hoffa, the general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, called on Congress to pass legislation that would “ensure that discrimination and economic injustice does not return in a 21st Century form.”

The Teamsters’ Jim Hoffa

When corporations control communications, workers lose

Hoffa referred specifically to recent instances where massive Internet providers had used their gatekeeping authority to stifle free speech over cell phones and the Internet.

“What would happen if … workers decided to fight for better working conditions?” he asks. “Would they be able to list their grievances on a Web site? Just this week, AT&T updated its terms for Internet service. The company will now suspend or cancel Internet service to anyone who speaks out against the company in any way. When corporations control communications and the ability to appeal to the public for justice, workers will ultimately lose.”

In 2005, when Canadian telecommunications workers struck against phone giant Telus, the phone company blocked access to voices-for-change.ca and 600 other sympathetic Web sites.

SEIU President Andy Stern

A ‘pay-to-play’ Internet is dangerous for organizing

“It’s important to make sure that workers are free to unite online about issues in the workplace,” wrote Andy Stern, president of the 1.9-million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is part of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition. “It’s also important to make sure that everyone in America has equal access to the Internet.”

“Restricting access or creating a ‘tiered network’ runs the risk of restricting the Internet only to those who can afford it,” said Stern. “A ‘pay-to-play’ Internet is dangerous not only for any group that wants to organize it’s members online, but to anyone who cares about free speech and democracy.”

For both Hoffa and Stern, the Internet is a critical tool for checking the powers of corporations and holding our elected leaders accountable. As phone companies continue to demonstrate their unwillingness to open communications to everyone, these union leaders — and the millions of working Americans they represent — look to Congress to step in and protect free speech.

10 tips to empower users without endangering IT

2007-10-05T09:59:00.000-05:00

In modern business circles, it's all too easy to develop an "us vs. them" mindset, with the network security professionals on one side and the regular users on the other. This is particularly true when it comes to establishing and enforcing network security guidelines, doubly so where remote access or telecommuting is involved. Everybody really is in the security game together, though, and IT can help do its part by explaining clearly what's off-limits and unacceptable for employees to do at work, and by enabling users to do everything else with minimum muss and fuss. Hence, our top-ten list of things IT can do to help users without compromising its own mission statement:

1. Publish a clear, readable acceptable-use policy (AUP) and let users know what, when and whether it's OK for them to use company computers for personal activities. Anything strictly forbidden should be stated as such.

2. Establish clear, readable guidelines for what employees must do to keep their notebooks and mobile devices safe and secure: install updates, keep antivirus and anti-spyware current, and so forth. Set up decontamination/quarantine areas on your networks, and make employees check through them whenever they bring a machine in from the outside (yours, theirs or somebody else's -- it doesn't matter).

3. If you're monitoring employee activity, tell them in advance, and remind them periodically that you're doing so, warning them of the possible consequences of infringement of the AUP.

4. Offer general encryption tools and encourage their use when sending attachments via email, or files through a Web transfer service or FTP.

5. Offer a list of safe or acceptable Web-based services (IM, file transfer, and so on) along with information on when and how these may be appropriately used at work. If no such services are allowed, state this clearly in the AUP, and provide frequent reminders.

6. Provide security training materials and make training part of new-employee orientation, plus an annual refresher. Warn people about the risks of using anonymizers and proxies to bypass content controls.

7. Provide clear, readable guidelines on when it's acceptable and when it's not acceptable to use file search or sharing software -- for example, search across multiple computers at Desktop.Google.com -- and what kinds of information may not be accessed using these tools. Explain relevant risks, rules and mandates that do not permit such access to occur or that levy major costs and consequences should breaches happen.

8. Provide clear guidelines for use of online-storage services for on-the-road or out-of-the-office file access, and explain when and how encryption should be used to render potentially sensitive or dangerous material unreadable. Provide security tokens or smart cards to secure such access so that losing a laptop doesn't mean losing control over important data.

9. Provide secure remote access to company email, applications and files to employees on a need-to-access basis that's approved by management, via a Web interface (Microsoft OWA, for example) or via VPN connections. Teach employees how to use these tools properly, offer online tutorials and help files, and be ready to help them make this technology work.

10. Be flexible, understanding and polite when it comes to employees dealing with home life at work. It happens, and the best way to minimize interruptions and frustration is to acknowledge the importance of both and to do your best to make sure employees can get work done when they need to do so while feeling free to work outside normal hours to make up for occasional bumps in the road of life and work.

By supporting users and helping them do what they must at home and at work, you will limit their temptation to work around, bypass or ignore AUP requirements.

Wireless carrier association warns against buying into WiMAX hype

2007-10-04T10:33:00.000-05:00

The GSM Association says that businesses and investors who found themselves dazzled by the recent WiMAX World convention shouldn’t buy into the hype just yet.

The reason, it says, is because WiMAX is still in its developmental stages, while High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is delivering high-speed mobile broadband right now.

“I think HSPA is one of the few recent technologies to not be overhyped,” says David Pringle, the spokesman for the GSMA, a trade association that represents over 700 GSM mobile phone operators. “It’s a technology that came out of left field, but its effect on performance has been dramatic. It’s offering wireless broadband experience, and it’s here today.”

HSPA is a comprised of two wireless broadband protocols, known as High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HPUSA), that operate on third-generation mobile devices. HSPDA, which can currently download data at a rate of 7Mbps, is currently used in 3G handsets developed by companies such as AT&T, Samsung and Vodafone.

But while WiMAX has received a great deal of media attention in the wake of the recent WiMAX convention in Chicago that saw the debut of Motorola’s WiMAX client chipset, Pringle says that WiMAX’s working models still can’t outperform HSPA’s current technology.

“We’re close to developing HSPA networks that will reach speeds of 14Mbps,” he says. “You don’t see any early WiMAX network performing that fast. A WiMAX provider would have to build a very dense network to outperform HSPA.”

Pringle says that he expects HSPA to be the dominant wireless broadband technology for at least the next five years, after which it might be overtaken by so-called “fourth-generation” wireless technology such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE). A study released this summer by Juniper Research backs up Pringle’s point, as it projects that HSPA will “dominate” wireless broadband for the next five years, and will account for roughly 70% of the mobile broadband subscriber base. Similarly, a study by Informa Telecoms and Media projects that HSDPA will account for 65% of 3.5G wireless broadband subscribers worldwide. ABI Research, meanwhile, found earlier this year that WiMAX services were a ways off from being competitive with 3G services.

“Technologies like WiMAX are still in a phase where people are speculating about what they can do,” says Pringle. “Whereas in the case of AT&T, you’ve reached the point where all of their 3G devices have HSPA, and there are over 100 handsets that use HSPA and are available right now.”

13 free tools to ease IT management

2007-10-02T15:19:00.000-05:00

Finding the perfect tool to relieve a pain point or fill a gap can be invaluable to network managers. When the tool is free? Even better.

Freeware applications can be a simple utility such as Ping or a more complex set of tools that address many facets of IT management, such as the open source network management software Nagios. In both cases, the tools are free and the benefits are plenty. Tristan Rhodes, network engineer at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, authors a blog on the topic of open source software and supports such free tools for both philosophical and practical reasons.

"I am an advocate for open source software, and I am a network engineer who needs tools," he says. "We use a large number of open source network management and security tools."

Here we’ve compiled some favorite free software finds that have proven to ease IT management at no cost to their users.

1. FastSCP

This freeware application, introduced in 2006 by virtual systems management Veeam, promises to provide file management capabilities for VMware ESX Server users.

Downloaded more than 12,000 times to date, FastSCP (Fast and Secure Copy) enables IT managers to transfer files between ESX Server and Windows machines, without reconfiguring the ESX Server, Veeam executives say. The company also offers commercial applications but built this freeware tool based on its previous experience with Windows file management products at Aelita Software, which was acquired in 2004 by Quest Software.

Mark Devlin, virtualization consultant at Auracom Technologies in Perth, Australia, says he uses the application because it saves a lot of time and costs nothing.

"FastSCP was the only product that was there at the very beginning of the ESX 3.x release that augments fast data transfer from disparate operating system infrastructure such as Windows to VMware ESX and back," Devlin says. "It greatly reduces downtime by expediting transfer of large contiguous files and provides file system visibility into both Windows and VMware ESX infrastructure."

2. Leaf

Leaf Networks' free software of the same name is a networking platform said to resemble an instant messenger or Skype client, which works to enable network and device sharing between an individual's home office and work PCs, for example, or among several individuals.

For Ryan O'Connell, a freelance software engineer, the application helps him stay connected and in touch regardless of location. "I was looking for a way to stay connected to my home network when I was on the go," he says.

O'Connell says the software works like a messenger application in which individuals can invite others to join the network from an easy-to-use interface after downloading and installing the application. The user interface allowed him to select what he wanted to share and with whom, and Leaf makes it simple for other less-savvy users to join his network.

"It can be used like a VPN or FTP server by users that do not know the first thing about setting those servers up," he explains.

3. NetCPS

Among the "tried-and-true freeware classics" James Kritcher uses is NetCPS. The vice president of IT at White Electronic Designs in Phoenix says he puts the application to work measuring network performance.

Written by its developer Jarle Aase, NetCPS is a utility to measure performance on TCP/IP networks. Once downloaded, the application will send data between two machines to measure how well it travels via TCP/IP.

"It should be useful for testing networks, and the performance of hubs, switches and routers," Aase wrote on the freeware's download page. NetCPS is freeware that along with its source code can be used for most purposes -- except the Web site indicates governmental and military use is not permitted

4. NetFlow Configurator

Network management software maker SolarWinds is expected to make available a freeware application next week that the company says will enable network managers to remotely configure NetFlow on Cisco devices.

The NetFlow Configurator utility will let IT managers unfamiliar with the command-line options for configuring NetFlow set up NetFlow on supported Cisco devices. The utility also enables IT managers to configure collectors and ports, and set up NetFlow ingress/egress configurations on each interface. The software, SolarWinds says, will also automatically configure NetFlow options in a "consistent manner across varying levels of Cisco IOS."

5. NTOP

One of the reasons Weber State University's Rhodes taps freeware is to get a picture of network activity.

For instance, one of the many freeware and open source applications running in his network today is NTOP, a network traffic probe that can sort network traffic according to protocols, display traffic statistics, show IP traffic distribution among protocols, and identify e-mail addresses of computer users, among other things.

"NTOP provides an informational dashboard that allows us to see who is using our network and what type of traffic is being sent," Rhodes says.

NTOP is distributed under the GNU General Public License, and users must accept the terms of the license to download the free application.

6. PacketFence

For security managers looking for an inexpensive means to deploying network access control (NAC) technologies, PacketFence may be worth checking out.

The open source NAC system installs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Fedora or as a virtual appliance with PacketFence ZEN and uses isolation techniques such as DHCP scope changes to monitor and limit access to network devices and resources.

According to Rhodes, "This is the best open source NAC available. We use it to capture users who violate our network policies and inform them of the violation."

7. PhpWiki

Rick Beebe, manager of system and network engineering for ITS-Med at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., says he recently switched to the freeware Wiki application PhpWiki for system documentation.

"We've been using a shared directory with a bunch of text and Word documents in it. Moving to a Wiki allows for easier access and updating, and makes everything searchable," Beebe says.

8. Safe Access Lite

Security vendor StillSecure recently made available a free version of its NAC technology that the company says will help users assess the security posture of up to 250 endpoints.

Safe Access Lite works in a monitor-only manner, and tests endpoints, such as client desktops, to ensure they are compliant with preset security policies or the most recent patch update, for instance. The software downloads as a preconfigured VMware virtual appliance and uses three of StillSecure's testing methods: agentless, agent-based and Web-based nonpersistent agent.

While there are no fees associated with using Safe Access Lite, StillSecure requires those that download to register with an e-mail address, which the company says gives users access to the license key, updates and online support.

9. SequoiaView

This free application, developed by the computer science department at the Eindhoven University of Technology, provides storage visualization capabilities. The software can show users a display of file storage and how much is being consumed in a graph display.

Craig Bush, network administrator at Exactech in Gainesville, Fla., says he has found a few uses for the tool from identifying users who consume the most storage to finding places where resources can be freed up.

"We use it for displaying the heavy hitters on our file server for a quick and dirty way to see who's taking up what on our file storage," Bush says. "I also use it on my local drive to see where things are being stored and what stuff I can clean up."

10. ShareWatch

For network managers looking to keep tabs on remote computers and servers, ShareWatch could give them a window into what files and printers are being shared on the system and by whom.

White Electronic Design's Kritcher says he uses the freeware application to "monitor network share activity," and application creator Steve Miller says on the download Web site that "ShareWatch will show you all resources in use and by what users."

The software also allows IT managers to close files, disconnect users, and remove share on local and remote computers.

11. Shavlik Google Gadget

Patch management vendor Shavlik Technologies last week made available a freeware version of its technology via a Google Gadget.

"Gadgets powered by Google" are miniature objects made by Google users that offer dynamic content, Google says.

The Shavlik Google Gadget is supported on Windows 2000 SP4 and Windows XP SP2 systems that are running Google Desktop. The free download provides a patch scanning tool for computer users who want to check their system for missing patches. It uses the same security scanning engines used in Shavlik's NetChk product, the company says.

"We wanted to provide a no-cost option [to users] and fill the hole that is being left by those security vendors that are discontinuing previously offered free security services," said Mark Shavlik, CEO of Shavlik Technologies, said in a company press release.

12. Spiceworks IT Desktop

Jon Chorney, systems administrator of Master, Sidlow & Associates in Wilmington, Del., says the free software from Spiceworks helps him monitor 35 workstations, seven servers, 15 printers and a few other devices at no cost.

IT Desktop runs on an IT manager's workstation and inventories systems, clients and other IT-based devices through agent-less discovery methods using protocols such as Windows Management Instrumentation and Secure Shell (SSH). Chorney says the software also makes it possible for less-experienced staff members to take an active part in monitoring the network.

"Spiceworks now allows access from a separate computer, and I have a part-time intern working for me. Because the interface is so easy to understand, I can assign him the task of regularly checking the results of the scans. This will materially improve my ability to catch issues early on," Chorney says. "You can get a lot of important information and understand it without having to have a lot of technical knowledge. The fact that it’s free means that it’s all the easier for the small business to take advantage of."

13. ZipTie

Network configuration management is a time-consuming and detail-oriented task, and one that begs for automation. That's why when AlterPoint spun out an open source project and community from its commercial configuration management technology, Weber State University's Rhodes couldn't have been more pleased.

"We have more than 700 network devices across our campus. We need to know what devices are plugged into our network and what the configurations of those devices are. If a device fails, we want to have a configuration backup available so that we can quickly replace the devices," Rhodes says.

ZipTie is a client-side application that can be downloaded to a Windows or Linux machine. It features device discovery and backup, device configuration comparison, configuration change detection, configuration distribution and an extensive set of point-and-click tools for performing administrative functions on network devices such as routers, switches and firewalls.

"ZipTie has allowed us to securely [using SSH] download our configurations in an automated way," Rhodes says.

October Deals!

2007-10-02T08:34:00.000-05:00

Digital Camera w/Cat5e Cable Purchase

From now until the end of October, when you purchase any 2 cases of Cat5e patch cables, you will receive 1 free Kodak EasyShare C613* Digital camera. To qualify cases must be full, unbroken quantities, same cable color per case, same length per case. Quantities and prices are as follows:

3ft = 250 pieces/case $285.00
5ft = 200 pieces/case $290.00
7ft = 150 pieces/case $279.00
10ft = 100 pieces/case $260.00
14ft = 80 pieces/case $266.00
25ft = 60 pieces/case $308.40

Click Here for Free Camera!

Note: Promotion ends 10-31-07.
Promotion may be terminated at any time.
*Camera may be substituted for comparable model depending on availability.

Extra Fall Savings

To add to our already great prices, we are offering 10% off any pre-made cable this summer. Includes all Audio/Video, Cat5E, Cat6, USB, and Fiber Cables! Just type in coupon code FALL2007 in your shopping cart! Coupon not valid with any other offer. Offer valid through 12/20/07.