Midsize companies in most global markets are currently in a major cycle of enterprise resource planning (ERP) replacement driven by economic conditions and operating requirements. Despite the buzz about the cloud, companies are cautious in adopting cloud ERP. This briefing focuses on the current ERP cloud computing landscape from the perspective of midsize customers who have deployed cloud-based ERP when replacing legacy solutions.
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Most organisations are sitting on IT equipment that is not supporting the business optimally, yet the received wisdom is to sweat the assets to gain as much perceived lifetime value from them as possible. However, IT assets have inherent value which can change significantly through each asset’s lifecycle—whether this is through its hard resale value or just through its scrap value. By applying a full IT lifecycle management (ITLM) approach to the complete IT platform, a business-optimised platform can be created—one where business value overrides the embedded concept of sweating assets.
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This paper highlights the environmental impact of printing and discusses how a managed print service can support an organization's sustainability goals, while also lowering costs and driving business efficiency.
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While large enterprises have the resources to manage an overly complex series of inline devices and the requisite staff to perform all manner of security functions, small to medium businesses (SMBs) cannot afford to deploy them all, even though they are subject to the same level of attacks. Unified threat management (UTM) is the gateway security solution that has evolved along with the rise of enterprise security threats.
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In the coming years, a new Internet protocol, IPv6, will gradually succeed IPv4. The two Internet protocols aren’t interchangeable or compatible, so organizations will have to run them both in parallel on their networks for some time. This checklist offers five steps as a phased, cost-effective approach to move to the next-generation Internet protocol.
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When it’s time to expand your business network, you must consider the current and future needs of your organization and assess the technologies that will provide the best performance for mission-critical applications. This checklist offers 10 rules for building a network that will reliably support your business as it grows.
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As personal mobile device ownership grows, organizations need to enhance their mobile device management (MDM) capabilities to be on par with desktop management and security, including establishing provisioning, configuration, management, and security operations that ensure user productivity while preserving compliance with information technology (IT) policies. This document serves as a glossary for common terms used in MDM.
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The task of managing iPhones or iPads in the enterprise is only going to continue to grow for most organizations. At a minimum you need to enforce device passwords and encryption policy, and have the ability to wipe corporate data in the event the device is lost or the employee leaves. This white paper introduces you to four simple steps for onboarding your iPhones to the corporate exchange server.
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Lawmakers and auditors have begun to require extensive safeguards for personal data residing on laptops, distributed personal computers, and handheld devices. They are also mandating protections for data being transferred to and from mobile employees over wireless connections and public networks. This white paper discusses the ensuing challenges faced by financial institutions and describes some of the tools that exist to prove compliance.
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Healthcare organizations are confronting how to fully embrace mobile devices beyond the administrative team. Personal device ownership is growing rapidly, and businesses face the challenge of how to fully provision, manage, and secure mobile devices. Healthcare needs a single platform to manage every device, while complying with security requirements. This document describes 11 best practices for mobile device management (MDM) in the healthcare industry.
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Personal device ownership and usage in the enterprise is growing rapidly, and businesses face the challenge of how to fully provision, manage, and secure mobile devices in their corporate environments. Businesses need a single platform to manage every device—desktop, laptop, smartphone, and tablet—both personal and corporate owned. This document describes 11 best practices for mobile device management (MDM).
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Corporate purchasing is no longer the primary way devices come into your organization; employees will bring their favorite devices and you have to make them work with your infrastructure and corporate policies. There are practices and tools available that can help you do this, but you need to have an enterprise mobility management (EMM) strategy that suits your users and your organization.
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The Federal Information Security Amendments Act of 2010 (FISMA 2.0) contains several major new provisions, the most significant of which may be a requirement that every agency’s security program include “continuous automated monitoring of information systems used or operated by an agency or by a contractor of an agency or other organization on behalf of an agency.” This paper examines the implications of this requirement and looks at a set of host-based services that can be used to monitor and manage mobile and remote endpoints.
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While companies seemed willing enough to let the applications that surround and extend their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system reside in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) environment, they were less willing to place their systems of record in a cloud they did not specifically own or control. But that is changing. This white paper discusses the advantages of a SaaS environment for ERP and argues that the cost savings can be substantial.
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The widespread adoption of smartphones and tablets, the growth of cloud computing, and the increased need for convenience printing means that organizations must provide employees with a secure and simple managed approach to mobile printing. Read this report and learn about the market drivers for mobile printing in the business environment and some of the best practices for building a mobile print strategy.
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Social networks offer many opportunities for businesses to gain a closer engagement with their customers. This appears to be an unstoppable bandwagon that all organizations must leap on before they are left behind, but is it that simple? The social network landscape is packed with choices and pitfalls for the unwary, so a careful and appropriately nuanced response is required. Read more on how to best use social media.
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A properly conducted code review can do more for the security of your application than nearly any other step. A large numbers of bugs can be found and fixed before the code makes it into an official build or into the hands of the test team. Additionally, the code review process lends itself very well to sharing security best practices amongst a development team and it produces "lessons learned" toward preventing future bugs. This guide focuses on identifying the types of issues that you should look for in the code being reviewed, and then on finding these bugs as quickly and effectively as possible. It also describes how you can use threat models, architecture diagrams, and other inputs to help guide your review.
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An ERP system is a major investment for any business, particularly a smaller one. A well-planned and implemented ERP system can change the way you do business and significantly improve profitability. But there are pitfalls if you have not prepared properly. In this white paper, Pronto Software outlines critical questions you need to consider in the search, evaluation, and implementation of an ERP solution for your business.
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In the unwired enterprise, mobile devices connect the boardroom to the shop floor to the consumer across the supply chain. They empower people and companies that employ them. This friendly guide looks at how your enterprise can manage and leverage this technology to ensure your organization is productive and secure. Understand the key aspects of enterprise mobility and know how you can boost your bottom line through mobility.
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An increasing number of organizations are permitting employees to bring their own mobile devices into the workplace to be used for work purposes. While this practice may first appear to reduce enterprise mobility costs while increasing employee productivity, it also poses new risks and may actually increase costs if not properly managed. Know how to cost-effectively manage this Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) phenomenon.
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Today, more and more companies are launching mobile applications, creating a mobile professional workforce across job roles and categories. This white paper provides a framework for CIOs on how to create a mobile application strategy for their business. It gives a step-by-step guide to the different stages involved, from choosing a focus, to building and deploying, to the ongoing support of enterprise mobile applications. Read more.
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This white paper describes the need for IPv6, the benefits it can provide, and how important it is to take a holistic view of IPv6 migration from a business perspective.
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As the marketplace moves towards a less opaque and more defined cloud computing model, UK-based businesses will increasingly expect reliable, secure and cost-effective on-demand services that free employees to be more productive and more profitable, wherever they are located. These organizations have heard about the benefits but remain unsure about the “types of cloud” available to them, and about the precise timing and extent to which they should embrace opportunities presented by the cloud. Beyond convergence, the situation has become even more complicated with trends such as consumerization and the proliferation of handheld devices, plus the security threats (and remarkable new business opportunities) posed by an increasingly mobile world. Learn more.
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Mobile device interfaces can enhance customer engagement by providing services such as pricing information and user review facilities. The upward trend in the sale of smartphones further validates the importance of creating retail mobile solutions. By leveraging the potential of mobile commerce, retailers can unify the customer experience across channels and better understand customer behavior through analytics. In this context, retailers have started to develop sophisticated mobile platforms that capture shopping preferences and customer location, create shopping wish lists, provide rich product information, integrate social media, and so on. Download this white paper to learn more.
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The emerging class of digitally savvy bank customers, including small and midsized businesses, increasingly wants to use bank branches for sophisticated financial advice, support, and products--as opposed to conventional transactions such as cashing pay checks. This white paper, produced jointly by Knowledge@Wharton and Wipro Technologies, captures the emerging business models for bank branches. It is based on comprehensive, globally conducted customer surveys, as well as interviews with Wharton faculty and Wipro executives.
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In the current regulatory environment, banks are facing two levels of challenges. While they are under pressure to expand beyond home territories, they also face stifling regulatory constraints. These restrictions are forcing banks to maximize on every capital expenditure they make. Such financial and regulatory reforms, in the face of the economic slowdown, have positive effects on quality assurance, governance and data management. But it also forces banks to hold capital that they would otherwise invest. This environment has made it vital for banks to sharpen their analytical and forecasting capabilities. Find out how the burden of regulation, expansion, cost optimization, and business transformation can be shared by an expert partner to foster an environment for growth.
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The oil and gas industry is faced with not only the challenges of volatile prices but also the various risks from owning and operating critical infrastructures and assets. In order to overcome these issues without compromising cost efficiency, IT services within the process control domain (PCD) need to be transformed. This encompasses the outsourcing of IT services within the business-critical PCD so that the organization benefits from the best practices of wider enterprise IT. Transforming IT services within the PCD not only helps reduce costs but also helps meet the common business challenges faced by the oil and gas industry. Download this white paper to learn more now.
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New technologies and changing economic conditions have triggered a number of changes in the pharmaceuticals, life sciences, and biotech sectors. Increased global sales of life sciences products and growing demand for drugs present drug industry companies with a host of opportunities. However, the mandate for clinical trials has led to considerable inflation in their research and development (R&D) expenditure. The resolution lies in using emerging markets as an alternative to conduct these trials. Thanks to new technologies, the cloud, and social media/online portals, the pharmaceuticals, life sciences and biotech sectors can make the most of the emerging opportunities. Learn how.
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For more than a decade, offshoring and outsourcing enjoyed an unchallenged monopoly in terms of adding value to global organizations. Since the economic downturn of 2008, however, there has been a shift in the perspective of IT expenditure. An increased demand for direct linking of IT to business outcomes and variablization of IT cost has made IT services in the cloud an attractive business idea. Find out why.
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The recent release of the Firesheep Wi-Fi attack tool has increased awareness among both users and attackers of the inherent insecurity of unprotected HTTP connections. Firesheep allows an attacker connected to the local network to monitor the Web sessions of other users on that network. According to experts, the best solution is to use TLS/SSL for all connections to Web sites. Download this white paper to learn how to avoid these attacks.
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As a company in the financial sector, you place extremely high demands on your call center. The complicated and sensitive nature of the calls requires an agent who is highly trained and experienced. This leads to a high cost per call. At the same time, sacrificing caller satisfaction is not an option. This creates a tough challenge: How do you decrease the cost per call, while improving the customer experience? Download this white paper to find out.
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Power over ethernet (PoE) allows network administrators to deploy VoIP phones, WLAN access points, IP security cameras, and other powered devices without having to install AC outlets, pull cables, or modify building plans. By eliminating the need for separate electrical wiring and power outlets, PoE technology can deliver savings of up to 50 percent compared to traditional network powering infrastructures. Learn more now.
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Test language is a dictionary of keywords that helps testers communicate with one another and with other subject-matter experts. The keywords replace common English as the testing basis and create an approach called keyword-driven testing (KDT). KDT can be used to improve communication between testers, avoid inconsistency in test documents, and serve as the infrastructure for test automation. Download this white paper to learn more.
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Riverbed Whitewater leverages WAN optimization technology to provide a complete data protection service to the cloud. The appliance-based solution is designed to integrate seamlessly with existing backup technologies and cloud storage provider APIs. Read this ESG Lab report on hands-on testing of the Riverbed Whitewater appliance for ease of use, cost-effective recoverability, data assurance, and performance and scalability.
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This IDC Buyer Case Study examines BT's successful project to reduce costs and raise efficiency and quality in its release-service introduction, testing, and deployment activities, using offshore-based partner Wipro. It looks at the challenges, risks, and outcomes of the project, and draws some lessons for organizations considering similar challenges.
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This white paper reveals the results of a survey that examined how companies can intelligently manage devices to create value, and to look at implications for improving energy efficiency. While recognizing there are challenges facing smart management of devices, one third of those who responded to a related survey also acknowledged that such efforts could help cut costs or increase profits significantly across many areas of the business. Learn more. Download this white paper now.
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Cloud and virtualization both help deliver optimal resources, on-demand utilization, flexibility, and scalability. However, business owners often have to address issues that are common with computer networks such as unauthorized use, outside intrusion, data loss and technical support. A managed services solution that is well-planned, efficient, and cost-effective is crucial to maintaining a functioning network. By outsourcing service management, organizations can devote time and resources to more important aspects of the business, while critical systems and data are hosted in a secure environment. Learn more. Download now.
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Security Information and Event Manager (SIEM) users face the pressure of high costs related to the selection of a SIEM product, its deployment, integration and day-to-day use. Such cost pressure stems from substantial initial cost of the product, additional expenses for specific hardware and third-party product licenses, etc. In the end, what was initially considered as an affordable price for the chosen SIEM solution may turn out to be a large hole in the budget with an enormous total cost of ownership. Download this white paper to learn different approaches for resolving them successfully.
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While technology has made it possible to transmit power across geographies and time zones, power companies remain unable to fully leverage these developments. This is a result of the challenges posed by power theft from transmission and distribution lines spread across very large geographies. These leakages are the result of tampered meters and sloppy revenue protection strategies. One solution is to deploy smart grids that provide a high degree of real-time visibility, control, and responsiveness to activity on the grid. Learn more. Download this white paper now.
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The SaaS delivery model promises the consumer a pay-per-use model for consuming software without any up-front capital expenditure in terms of buying the license and infrastructure, and without the overhead of maintaining the infrastructure necessary to run the software. That said, there are three levels of SaaS maturity among ISVs. Download this white paper to learn about the shortcomings and merits of each SaaS maturity level.
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While technology has improved quality of life, it has also contributed to global environmental imbalance, particularly in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. However, technology, combined with smart policy, can significantly reduce the emissions responsible for climate change. Learn where IT has high-impact potential to reduce carbon emissions while boosting profitability—and how you can use IT to “green” your practices for larger-scale benefits.
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Security breaches are perpetrated by a wide variety of external and internal sources, including hacktivists, targeted attackers, and profit-motivated
cybercriminals, as well as through mundane everyday occurrences, such as missing laptops and thumb drives. To address these compliance and privacy issues, organizations have responded by adding layers of controls and integrating them with varied results. Now, those organizations realize that making security simpler is the ultimate strategy for ensuring end user adoption of new security measures and meeting multiple, overlapping regulatory requirements. This paper is a review of DigitalPersona Pro, its integrated approach, and its features and efficiencies in these areas.
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The growing adoption of laptops and other portable devices is changing the foundation of traveling and telecommuting. Laptops have overtaken desktops as the computer of choice for business users. While endpoint protection has been traditionally associated with solutions like antivirus and firewalls, these technologies don’t adequately protect data against theft, loss or unauthorized access. Learn more. Download this white paper now.
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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is notoriously complex. Horror stories abound about failed installations, unresponsive vendors, and wasted investments. But as daunting as ERP can be, many organizations can’t operate without it. Working closely with your vendor to configure a solution, choosing the right delivery model, and following this list of 10 tips can help you optimize your ERP initiative. Find out more.
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This report discusses the policy and business drivers of "clean tech," and the development of the clean tech sector in terms of business models, globalization, technological diffusion, and growth. The emphasis on clean tech has increased in recent years due to international concerns about the economic impact of climate change caused by GHG (largely CO2) emissions from energy production and consumption. This report examines government policies in different economies, and focuses on clean tech opportunities for software services such as measurement and monitoring, platform efficiency software, mitigation software, system integration, and managed services consulting.
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There is an increasing trend among employees toward using their personal mobile device for fulfilment of their work commitments. While this appears to bring many benefits for the employee while, on the face of it, reducing upfront costs for employers, it does introduce significant on-going costs and risks for the organisation. However, with many appealing mobile consumer devices being offered, the trend is likely to increase. Organizations need to work out suitable strategies and policies to manage this complex and hybrid situation in the best interests of both themselves and their employees.
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Today's organizations, faced with stricter internal security policies and multiple regulatory compliance requirements, continue to struggle in their efforts to make Active Directory auditing simpler and more adept at fulfilling their needs. Native Windows auditing mechanisms don't meet the demands of modern businesses, and administrators are often left in the dark about significant and potentially harmful Active Directory changes. Learn how to easily improve native Active Directory auditing without making dramatic changes to your IT infrastructure in this eye-opening white paper written by renowned industry expert Don Jones.
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Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets may be putting your corporate information at risk. Lost or stolen smartphones that are not password-protected, or information in corporate e-mail or business applications transmitted wirelessly but not encrypted, can all too easily expose confidential corporate data. Download this white paper to learn about key strategies for protecting your enterprise mobile devices and the sensitive data they contain.
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Businesses need to be highly flexible, scalable, and able to adapt quickly to market conditions and customer demands. However, this is easier said than done; building and maintaining such capabilities the traditional way is laborious and challenging. Download this white paper to learn about the various capability acquisition and IT solution deployment options—and how to evaluate them.
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These days, the IT department can’t just focus on keeping servers up and running, getting users the access they need, and bringing new services online to benefit the business. IT is, unfortunately, also the last line of defense in the organization’s security and compliance efforts. Microsoft MVP Don Jones recounts the top 5 horror stories associated with poor auditing. Read this white paper and prevent these nightmares from happening to you.
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Before adopting any applications for key business functions, executives should perform a thorough total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis. Unfortunately, apples-to-apples comparisons can prove challenging. While it may be tempting to compare the initial license price of on-premises software to the annual subscription fees for cloud computing, this methodology fails to account for the ongoing internal operating costs for the on-premises software. Beyond direct software and hardware purchase and implementation costs, it’s also important for organizations to consider additional business drivers, including infrastructure and resource overhead, maintenance costs, ongoing operations, flexibility, and risk. Download this paper to learn more about how you can estimate the true TCO of cloud applications versus traditional on-premise software.
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The result of implementing middleware products such as WebSphere MQ (WMQ) “out-of-the-box” without security measures has led to increased risk of failed audits on various regulatory measures. The need for auditing, penetration testing, and remediation of critical middleware structures to assure regulatory compliance and provide internal security methods beyond traditional perimeter security methodologies is paramount.
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For the second year, Symantec’s SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey revealed that small to medium businesses (SMBs) are not taking disaster preparedness for their computer and networking systems as seriously as they should. Most SMBs don’t take action to prepare for disasters until after they have experienced loss from downtime, and this lack of preparation has a significant impact on their customers and their business.
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File-level recovery on its own is an incomplete strategy when it comes to meeting stringent recovery time objectives (RTOs) for complete system recovery. This paper investigates what’s at risk, where system-level recovery fits relative to current data protection approaches, the impact of system-level recovery on your IT department’s ability to meet RTOs, and the potential of system-level recovery to reduce costs.
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Objective performance testing was performed on four publicly available small business endpoint protection products and a pre-beta version of another endpoint protection product, on Windows 7. The products were benchmarked using thirteen performance metrics to assess product performance and system impact on the endpoint or client machine. This report presents the results from these performance tests.
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Riverbed Whitewater leverages WAN optimization technology to provide a complete data protection service to the cloud. The appliance-based solution is designed to integrate seamlessly with existing backup technologies and cloud storage provider APIs to provide rapid data retrieval, and replicate data to the cloud to provide an off-site storage location for disaster recovery. Read the ESG Lab report of the appliance's features.
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The explosive growth of enterprise data poses new storage and data management challenges for enterprises. This white paper details how organizations can leverage cloud-based storage offerings as part of their data protection plans. The paper also takes a closer look at solutions offered by Riverbed that allow organizations to integrate cloud-based storage within solutions that address a growing set of data protection demands.
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This white paper examines the use cases of database migration and challenges that accompany it. The main attention is devoted to solutions used to remove the complexity and bottlenecks of database migration. This white paper introduces Devart's Schema and Data Compare tools tailored to facilitate any database migration tasks and reduce time and effort.
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Businesses today demand that their information technology (IT) functions deliver certainty, confidence, and agility while improving efficiency. This white paper explains how Attenda provides a way for businesses to achieve their IT goals while avoiding the pitfalls of wholesale outsourcing or uncontrolled consumption of public cloud services.
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This white paper describes some of the common challenges associated with protecting data on laptops and at home and remote offices and portrays proven solutions to the challenges of protecting distributed business data by establishing a private cloud/enterprise cloud. Learn which best practices can ensure business continuity throughout an organization with a distributed information technology (IT) infrastructure.
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Are you looking to implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, but are afraid of time and IT resources needed—not mention the loss of employees during the training and implementation? Plex Online can help. Discover how Plex Online’s four-phase training process—piloting, testing, systems enhancements, and go-live—drives 98% customer satisfaction in Plex Online implementations—32% higher than the industry average.
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Software as a service (SaaS) is becoming an increasingly attractive choice for manufacturers that would rather not continue to divert resources into purchases of sophisticated software systems that do not represent their core business, while adding costly IT resources. SaaS provider’s IT experts handle it, while your company gets back to doing what it does best. See the infrastructure needed to sustain SaaS in manufacturing.
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In a well integrated identity environment, SiteMinder handles web access management, authentication, single sign-on (SSO), secure session management, and flexible policy definition. SiteMinder functions well when data exists in a relatively homogeneous state; this blueprint shows users how to extend an existing SiteMinder infrastructure across additional heterogeneous applications, identity sources, and constituents.
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Enterprises are looking for incremental change to their infrastructure. The value of your portal lies in delivering a rich and secure experience across multiple applications. The more information you provide, the more valuable your portal is to stakeholders across your organization. Developed by the inventors of the virtual directory, identity and context virtualization is the next generation integration solution.
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No portal is an island—or at least, it shouldn’t be. While SharePoint is great for sharing documents, it doesn’t integrate easily with the rest of your enterprise. To be truly useful, your portal needs to bring together all your users and connect to all your applications. Read about identity and context virtualization—a next-generation integration solution.
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For web single sign-on (SSO), and consistent enforcement of authorization across all applications, many web access management (WAM) packages offer an excellent and proven approach. However, they assume a relatively homogeneous identity environment. This white paper describes how virtualization solves the issue of directory integration with an approach that is cost effective, nonintrusive, and easy to deploy.
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For public-facing Web sites or those with a large consumer audience, finding a way to implement strong security that is easy to use is a great challenge. This paper examines the security threats associated with weak authentication practices on the Web, why businesses need to strengthen online authentication, and new approaches for delivering one-time passwords and two-factor authentication. Increase your Web site security now.
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Increased regulatory requirements, the need for transparency, and the desire to better manage and mitigate risks together make governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) top of mind for both business and information technology (IT) executives. Business managers and IT security managers must work collaboratively to control access and authorization to guard against fraud and mistakes, while ensuring profitability and compliance.
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If you are a multi-company enterprise, then this Two-tier ERP Strategy Kit will show you how to grow your satellite divisions while cutting costs. Including analyst research, whitepapers, and real-world case studies, this Kit shows how you can equip your subsidiaries with a more agile, flexible cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system while maintaining your headquarters on-premise ERP instance of SAP or Oracle.
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Various scenarios can impact the resources for a rollout delivery team when utilized for large technology infrastructure rollouts at multiple locations. Shifting processes, methodologies, and resources can streamline the technology rollout at each site. This paper explains how alterations to the rollout delivery team configuration, as determined by project variables, can impact site delivery and your business. Read more.
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The administration and management of printing can be time-consuming, often relying on manual processes. Many businesses are rethinking their approach to managing the print environment, by either adopting a managed service or implementing centralized print management tools. This can ensure the high availability, reliability and manageability of printing resources, while leaving IT staff free to focus on core activities.
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Computing infrastructure today though versatile must be used wisely. Intelligent workload management (IWM) allows for efficient consumption of computing resources while ensuring business tasks are supported by all needed resources—and that this is all done securely. IWM tools support the building, management, monitoring, and securing of workloads. See how to run your cloud computing system with leading-edge technology.
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This report focuses on how cloud infrastructures are being used by sales and marketing, finance, and operations in professional service organizations (PSOs). It outlines the benefits of using a cloud infrastructure to manage enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other enterprise systems. With the right solutions in place, globally dispersed project teams have unlimited accessibility to secure and reliable information.
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Successful enterprise resource planning (ERP) deployment demands a focused examination of the professional services provided by your organization, and the most efficient infrastructure required to support them. You must provide your most important asset—your people—with effective tools that can be accessed remotely, securely, and immediately. Professional service organizations that understand this will be in a strong position to determine the best cloud-based solution for their needs.
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Manufacturers have been slow to embrace the cloud. But the proven success of cloud-based solutions, along with the promise of a less expensive and more responsive business solution infrastructure, is prompting many manufacturers to take a closer look. This report explores how manufacturers can use cloud-based solutions to transform how they manage their supply chain and internally improve operations, leveraging the cloud to gain real-time visibility into all information across their company.
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Universities and other higher education establishments have to address the need for savings across the board. One area is expenses from faculty members and other associated with faculty. The complex mix of expense types needs a flexible yet solid means of managing spend as close as possible to the point of expense that encourages the individual to participate in the process without it being seen as an imposition. Know how.
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Balancing employee requests for keeping mobile channels open, while getting the right level of work and commitment from them, should not be left to chance. All organizations need to fully understand their employees’ mobile usage and behaviors to be able to put appropriate policies in place to ensure business requirements are met while acceptable personal use is still enabled. Read this white paper to know how to do this.
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Managing mobile costs is a challenge for all organizations and becomes more complex and problematic for those organizations spanning across countries or using multiple suppliers within one country. Getting to grips with these costs in a way that does not undermine the value of mobile flexibility is paramount, and organizations need to gather sufficient detail to effectively manage and analyze their mobile costs. See how.
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Electronically stored information is a key asset to any organization, but it is often insufficiently cared for. Failure to protect data can result not only in steep fines, but also in loss of competitive advantage of the company. To ensure the safety and integrity of information, read this report on data governance examining how well European businesses understand the risks and what steps they have taken to address them.
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Old-style, one application per physical server data centers are not only nearing the end of their useful lives, but are also becoming barriers to a business’ future success. Virtualization has come to the foreground, yet it also creates headaches for data center and facilities managers. Read about aspects of creating a strategy for a flexible and effective data center aimed to carry your business forward.
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This white paper analyzes the return on investment (ROI) that customers can expect from their enterprise network solution, based on interviews with customers. Additionally, you will read about the business case for proactively managing network and application performance. Get the visibility you need to achieve your IT objectives. Download this white paper today.
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The case company is rolling out new professional service concepts, addressing the customer need for services fitting the information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) framework. A centrally located team needed ITIL service knowledge and certification before training service development, consulting, and sales. Implement applied the Foundation Fasttrack concept—fast-paced, flexible learning in a familiar environment.
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To establish optimal service and support conditions, the case company, Naviair, chose to adapt and implement information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) service support processes. During the process, Implement Consulting Group assisted with facilitation, ITIL input, and lean competences and tools. The existing procedures and instructions were combined with ITIL’s different service support areas.
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The case company decided to carry out an information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) implementation, and in so doing hoped to make production in IT more visible, increase customer satisfaction, and maintain or increase employee satisfaction in IT. Implement Consulting Group facilitated the process selection and design and managed the requirement collection, selection, and implementation phases of the project.
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The case company implemented an information technology services management (ITSM) system to support information technology infrastructure library (ITIL)–inspired processes. Implement Consulting Group had the project management responsibility during the entire process—from the preliminary requirement collection to selection and implementation to testing and go-live.
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This article focuses on the development of strategic agility as a capability that is built into the design of an architecture. The capabilities, the article argues, are matured through six stages that offer different levels of strategic agility. Strategic agility, once capitalized through modular architectures, enables a company to achieve greater speed and flexibility in information technology (IT) deliveries.
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Companies must meet GRC criteria defined by internal and external policies, as failing to do so can have business and legal consequences. Although management of travel and entertainment (T&E) expenses is often seen as being of low importance for overall GRC, poorly managed T&E can lead to unforeseen issues with long-term business impact. See why using an external T&E management provider is the best way to adhere to GRC.
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The managed print services (MPS) market continues to evolve as vendors expand their service offerings beyond the office print environment. Today the business agenda is broader, and MPS must provide a route to business transformation as well as cost efficiency. Businesses thus must place their transformational goals on the agenda at the start of an MPS engagement. See what major MPS providers have to offer to your business.
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Comprehensive management and protection of information can be achieved only when both data centers and end points are controlled by managed service providers (MSPs). MSPs must change their thinking and embrace end point management, ensuring IT availability, data security, and business continuity. See how MSPs with the right tools and services are well positioned to strengthen customer relationships and grow market share.
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Companies have invested heavily in their IT infrastructure, but they still face challenges with their existing business operations. To help create a cost-effective, high-performance system, SAP has developed a program to help companies proactively analyze and improve business performance in four key areas. Take a look at SAP Safeguarding services options and how they are designed to serve business users and IT staff.
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This whitepaper provides an overview of challenges associated with monitoring and management of heterogeneous database environments. Relational database systems (RDBMS) are at the very heart of virtually every enterprise: they power CRM, ERP, e-commerce, billing and other systems. Efficient monitoring, troubleshooting and database performance analysis are essential for the business to stay up 24/7. On the other hand, automated DB diagnostics and management tasks can keep the IT costs under control.
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Spurred on by the increased availability of high-speed data services and wide array of smartphones, many organizations see mobile applications as a way to improve organizational efficiency, increase collaboration, and raise the speed at which business gets done. To get the most out of mobility, organizations need to rethink the technologies, the people, and the processes involved in creating a truly mobile enterprise.
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IT is feeling the pressure to allow users to access sensitive corporate data via their personal mobile phones. Employees want the flexibility to use applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), e-mail and instant messaging not only from within the workplace, but at any time from any device. Yet, with network security and customer privacy at stake, IT has been slow to bow.
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According to The Nielsen Company, some 150 million people in the US will be using smartphones by mid-2011 to view twitter feeds, conduct searches, consult maps and more. People are increasingly using smartphones to get work done too. As long as it’s governed appropriately, workplace use of consumer-oriented smartphones can lower spending, heighten morale and help employees get more done.
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Not too long ago, business support of mobile workers centered on managing the use of a limited number of Windows-based laptops and BlackBerry smartphones. Today mobile phones are ubiquitous for most employees, and IT departments are being asked to provide broad access to networks, databases and critical enterprise applications while they manage, support and figure out how to protect data from theft and security breaches.
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Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions and cloud computing systems are relatively new, and can interact in many ways. Here is an overview of key concepts involved, assumptions that clarify their network topology and functionality, and a comprehensive list of architectural scenarios, with an analysis of costs, risks, and benefits for each scenario, to help architects evaluate the suitability of various solutions.
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With one IT department in five spending more than half its time and resources on routine maintenance and administration of existing systems, top business objectives end up sitting on the back burner. Learn how early investments in change and improvement—hosted services or software-as-a-service (SaaS) security services, for example—can turn into big savings by reducing the long-term burden of routine maintenance.
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This three-part report describes how all businesses can benefit from software-as-a-service (SaaS) services and, in particular, a variety of hosted services. It also provides advice, best practices, and insight on how to create security and management policies for a distributed workforce.
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Small to medium businesses (SMBs) are becoming increasingly mobile organizations. This paper discusses the growing concerns these organizations face with an increasingly distributed and mobile workforce, their specific information security needs, and protective measures they can take to meet these needs. It also reveals how software-as-a-service (SaaS) security services can help SMBs deliver protective measures.
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Mobile data security is most effective when implemented in layers: installing smart firewalls, deploying antivirus software, and using encrypted connections. True mobile security relies just as much on the actions of end users. This means companies must instill a culture of security within their organizations. Learn how well–considered policies and procedures encourage and enforce smart and safe business practices.
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E-mail and the Internet are critical resources for most organizations, but the attributes that make them so essential can generate significant legal risks for employers. E-mail and Internet misuse continues unabated. This paper considers some of the risks of employee use of e-mail and the Internet and suggests solutions such as setting up effective usage policies to help reduce risk.
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Security technology has evolved from static firewalls and antivirus products to suites of tools that are effective in protecting against modern threats. But without a solid process backing up the technology, organizations will still be susceptible to emerging threats. Learn more about aligning security processes with the latest security technologies to create a barrier against today’s most insidious threats.
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Technology is at a point where organizations must make decisions about where the IT platform future lies. Will existing architectures be sufficient to see a business through the next few years, or will cloud computing—built on the proven approaches of Web services and service-oriented architecture—be a better way forward? By modeling and predicting future states, organizations can make the right decisions. Find out how.
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Low margins, a boom in the managed services sector, and a decreasing reliance on client–server-based infrastructures are drastically changing the business landscape for many traditional IT channel players. This paper assesses the challenges facing the IT channel and describes how IT resellers can transform the growing demand for managed services from a threat into a key opportunity for future business success.
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One area of cloud computing that presents significant opportunity is data protection as a service. However, not every business model for data protection services has an equal potential for success. This paper is intended for managed service providers (MSPs), value-added resellers (VARs), IT solution providers, and system integrators who are offering, or are interested in offering backup and recovery as a service.
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This paper compares on-premise versus SaaS, hosted solutions for email security. You can see that there is research that proves hosted services is a better choice for compliance, security, and costs, especially when it comes to email. If you’re an IT managers who is undecided about the SaaS model, this is a must-read.
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This paper compares on-premise versus software-as-a-service (SaaS) hosted solutions for Web security. Through the comparison, you can see that there is research that suggests that hosted services are a better choice for compliance, security, and costs. If you’re an IT manager who is undecided about the SaaS model, this is a must-read.
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As you evaluate conferencing solutions for your organization, an important selection consideration should be the overall cost of the solution; both initial and on-going. It is necessary to evaluate the cost of your current conferencing solution as well as whether an on-premise alternative will pay for itself in a reasonable amount of time. Find out how.
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Real-time IT infrastructure promises to deliver services to businesses with the same availability as utilities. Cost reductions will be achieved through virtualization and consolidation. This white paper looks at the business drivers and technology advances that will provide the foundation for manageability of infrastructures across enterprise applications.
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IT managers have to protect the business against malware, keep Internet bandwidth available for legitimate business needs, and enforce acceptable use policies for the human resource department. Managers must also find a balance between allowing reasonable personal Internet use at work and maintaining productivity and concentration in the office. Learn how to deal with the top 10 threats facing these managers.
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IT managers need to establish policies for Web use in the workplace. This paper discusses how Internet bandwidth is a finite and expensive resource that needs protection from spammers, criminals, hackers, time-wasters, and employee misuse. Not only is it expensive and limited but it is a vital business tool. Discover the true cost of Web use and misuse, and learn the steps you can take to reclaim your company’s Internet.
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When considering adopting cloud computing or software-as-a-service (SaaS), a question most potential customers ask vendors is “How secure will our data be in your hands?” Customers are right to ask this question and should closely examine any vendor’s security credentials as part of their cloud/SaaS evaluations. This document is intended to give a broad overview of one vendor’s security policies, processes, and practices.
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Gaining the trust of online customers is vital for the success of any company with an online presence, particularly those that require sensitive data to be transmitted. This VeriSign white paper explores the latest developments in website security that online businesses should consider to build consumer confidence, protect their valuable brand, safeguard sensitive information, and increase transactions.
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Online consumers need greater assurance that Web sites are legitimate and that their confidential information will be protected from malicious activity. Download this VeriSign white paper to learn more about new approaches to online security that can lead to increased online transactions, reduced shopping cart abandonment, and an improved bottom line.
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Be sure to protect your Web site by understanding techniques that can be used to detect when and how attackers compromise Web servers. Also, understand the business models behind malware attacks to better anticipate, and prevent, attacks on your business by reading this white paper.
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Whether you are an individual or a company, you should approach online security in the same way that you would approach physical security for your home or business. This guide will demystify the technology involved and give you the information you need to make the best decision when considering your online security options.
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Phishing continues to grow and effect both consumers and businesses. Read this guide so that you are able to help protect yourself and your customers from these harmful attacks.
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Choosing the right security solution is critical to the success of an online business. Look for trust-based security solutions from established vendors, like VeriSign, that deliver protection and consumer peace-of-mind through the use of cutting edge technology to meet emerging threats.
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Business intelligence (BI) is no longer just for back-office analysts. More people are using BI in their daily tasks than ever before. This white paper explains how job scheduling makes data warehousing—the key component in modern BI—more efficient, relevant, and accurate. It also outlines how one company used job scheduling to unify its data warehousing chores, free up IT resources, and increase its BI effectiveness.
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Application delivery has become a priority for virtually all IT organizations. Unfortunately, the majority still struggle with this highly complex task. This handbook can help you to help become better at application delivery by creating and analyzing a framework that you can customize for use in your environment. It also identifies key criteria that IT organizations can use to evaluate alternative solutions.
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Technology has enabled businesses to become highly distributed—whether across a region or around the globe. This paper explores the business imperatives that are driving enterprise IT design today, and presents five key principles chief information officers (CIOs) are using to redesign business infrastructures. It also explains how wide-area network (WAN) solutions can help hold distributed organizations together.
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The amount of data and IT assets stored outside corporate data centers has risen significantly, and IT managers are now looking to consolidate their IT infrastructure. This paper examines the trends toward server consolidation and virtualization, and how wide area network (WAN) optimization can help IT organizations address the challenges of application performance and information availability within these environments.
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The need to be close to customers, manufacturing facilities, and specialized labor requires organizations to extend the concept of headquarters to many locations. But managing a global workforce means dealing with data sprawl, and having data recovery and security plans for every part of the organization. Learn how wide-area network (WAN) technology can help you develop a scalable and secure data protection model.
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If your company has expanded, or gone through site consolidation, your IT infrastructure may have become a hodgepodge of outdated equipment and inefficient workflows. Employee productivity suffers, risks of disruption and data loss increase, and IT administrative overhead outstrips budget and staff resources. Discover an approach for harmonizing systems, management, and best practices across all your locations.
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In the ever-changing economy, organizations looking to cut costs and drive innovation are turning to co-sourcing as a cost-effective and less risky alternative to outsourcing or offshoring. This white paper explores the primary business benefits of the co-sourcing model and provides key information for evaluation.
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The Linux operating system is free and stable, delivers solid performance, and often has good vendor support. These advantages have allowed it to garner 60 percent of the Web server market, making it popular among Web hosts as well. Yet despite the obvious advantages, Linux is not fully optimized for Web hosts because it was never designed specifically to address the unique requirements for this market. Find out more.
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This guide explores what a whitelist is, the distinction between sender source whitelists and sender address whitelists, the characteristics of a good whitelist, the role of the user in managing a whitelist, and finally the role of the IT administrator in the whitelist management process.
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Virtualization is a key element of the IT strategy for businesses of all sizes, with a variety of benefits for small and midsized businesses. It helps them to build an IT infrastructure with enterprise-class capabilities and it does so with a form factor—and a return on investment (ROI)—that fits any business. Discover how your business can use virtualization to reduce costs, improve services, and simplify management.
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Virtualization is central to twenty-first-century IT systems, yet many chief information officers fail to understand the benefits it can deliver to the data center. Storage controllers have always offered the ability to carve out pieces of real storage from a large pool and deliver them to a number of hosts, but it is storage virtualization itself that offers improvements that drive operational efficiency. Find out more.
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This white paper explains the importance of an independent, enterprise-wide job scheduling solution for your IT infrastructure. It discusses why you need a single job scheduling tool, the market drivers leading IT professionals to an independent job scheduling solution, the benefits of an independent job scheduling solution, and how it can save your business valuable time, money, and resources while avoiding risk.
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Many companies have invested a lot in their job scheduling environments, but are bogged down by inefficient processes, incompatible systems, and a lack of visibility. Through technology reuse and consolidation, you can reduce the time, money, and resources expended, while scaling to support enterprise-wide capacity. This white paper focuses on job scheduling challenges and presents a solution to upgrade your environment.
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Demarc extensions have been a recurring gray area in the telecommunications industry for years. There is often misconception when it comes to who actually performs the Demarc extension. This confusion can lead to finger pointing and eventually a bad reputation for those involved. Understand the issues surrounding the Demarc extension and how they can be resolved from the very beginning.
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Your company needs an approach to server-side application distribution and provisioning that is architected for the cloud and designed for IT, if it’s going to deliver on the business promise of virtualization. Learn about one solution for solution for provisioning and deploying server-side applications in the cloud—or anywhere else.
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Data centers have grown rapidly in size and complexity. At the same time, competitive and economic pressures have made cost control critical. To cut costs and meet service level objectives, organizations of all sizes are initiating projects to simplify IT, consolidate resources, and increase energy efficiency. Discover why companies are turning to virtualization to master these and other data management challenges.
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One of the greatest challenges facing organizations is protecting corporate data. The issues that complicate data protection are compounded by increasing demand for data capacity, and higher service levels. Often these demands are coupled with regulatory requirements and a shifting business environment, which impact infrastructure. IT organizations must meet these demands while maintaining flat budgets. Find out how.
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Unifying development and operations is a critical aspect of enabling a dynamic infrastructure—one that improves service, reduces cost, and manages risk to better meet the evolving challenges of today’s technology, application, and business environments. This white paper introduces a process and product framework to help organizations enable a more dynamic infrastructure for delivery of smarter products and services.
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As companies expand operations into new markets, the percentage of total corporate data in remote offices is increasing. Remote offices have unique backup and recovery requirements in order to support a wide range of applications, and to protect against a wide range of risk factors. Discover solutions that help organizations protect remote data and offer extensive data protection and recovery solutions for remote offices.
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The demand for business intelligence is increasing at a rapid pace across all industries—more so during tough economic conditions as seen in 2009. Many senior executives are looking to optimize existing business processes that can lead to bottom-line and top-line benefits. This paper presents the different levels of analytical solutions that are required for organizations, with a specific focus on predictive analytics.
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With the boom in sales of smart mobile handsets, the opportunity for developing and selling mobile applications is ever more appealing. But the market is changing and evolving rapidly, with new concepts and technologies vying for attention. Discover why, in order to gain momentum, mobile applications need to have both appealing value for customers and the most appropriate, rapid, and wide-reaching routes to market.
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In February 2009, Quocirca interviewed 800 individuals across eight geographies about their views on, and usage of, enterprise performance management (EPM) tools and processes. The research was repeated in December 2009 and there was a clear improvement in understanding of EPM basics. However, much remains to be done. The overall increase in the EPM sub-indices does not mean there is room for complacency. Find out why.
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As networks, devices, and media converge, telecom companies have increasingly complex catalogs of products and services on offer to customers who are, in turn, becoming more aware that they can switch to other providers. These companies need to find ways to effectively and consistently engage with customers to optimize the entire sales experience and capitalize on competing influences rather than losing out to them.
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Whether it’s for an in-house delivery model or an on-demand model, a business case needs to justify the total value of a solution. This ensures that the selected delivery model will help reduce operational costs and drive continuous value from IT investments. Learn how to properly prepare a business case that includes a total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis to assess both cost impacts and line-of-business impacts.
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Digital Britain is the UK government’s strategic plan for the UK’s digital economy. While social inclusion and rights protection are major themes, the plan will also have a significant impact on businesses—encouraging the distribution and virtualization of business functions, and interconnectivity between companies, customers, suppliers, and employees. Learn how to minimize any harmful impact on your business.
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The electrical power generation, transmission, and distribution system has survived for decades with limited intelligence. But today, independent power producers, green power sources, and new regulations require a smarter grid. Learn how the electric utility landscape has changed, and how Ethernet-based supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems can be used to control power flowing into and out of the grid.
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This paper focuses on identifying the similarities and differences between Oracle Financial Analyzer (OFA) and Hyperion Planning (HP). For users who are migrating, or thinking of migrating, to Hyperion Planning, strategies will be discussed to ensure their existing functionality can be replicated in HP. The paper is aimed at users who are familiar with OFA or similar multidimensional database applications.
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For finance executives, the financial advantages of cloud computing are undeniable. Shifting the costs of hardware and software from a capital investment to an operating expense makes software-as-a-service (SaaS) more affordable, and far more accessible. Learn how SaaS financials tools can free finance executives from the constraints of on-premise solutions, allowing them to concentrate on growth, regulation, and risk.
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The service industry consumes millions of gallons of fuel and expends trillions of pounds of carbon monoxide each year as trucks roll to installation and service locations. Eliminating unnecessary travel is one way service companies can help protect the environment, and meet environmental compliance requirements. Discover a methodology that can help you reduce your fleet’s fuel consumption and carbon monoxide emissions.
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Critical business processes in biotech and pharmaceutical companies involve highly confidential documents that need to be safely accessed by external partners and potential licensees. Poor security measures, based on a traditional view of data security, have led to high-profile security breaches. Discover new ways for life sciences companies to conduct important business securely without being impeded by IT complexity.
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For many companies, collaborating with outside partners involves sharing confidential information. Unfortunately, in order to work quickly and efficiently, project team members must sometimes share information without using a safe collaboration platform—putting companies at risk of security breaches. Learn how IT leaders can mitigate that risk by creating highly secure online work spaces for document sharing.
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When cyber-criminals stage attacks on businesses with covert malware, spam, and scams that drain employee productivity, users aren’t aware they’ve been victimized. Rich media, open-source platforms, and social-networking sites are vulnerable to these threats. Learn how a hosted Web security and content filtering service intercepts all types of Web-borne attacks.
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Technology rollouts on a nationwide and global scale require technicians to perform onsite work. Though you may have hired a technology rollout Company to manage and deploy these technicians, they ultimately serve as direct representatives of your company. If they are ill-mannered, inexperienced, or unprofessional, it is a direct reflection of your company to your customer and you are faced with the consequences. Thus, understanding the relationship your technology rollout company has with its field technicians is very important. Find out how to intelligently evaluate a technology rollout company to ensure that your deployment is as efficient and cost-effective as possible.
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The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) has published a PCI DSS Wireless Guideline which acknowledges that wireless is a clear and present danger to network security and those who collect, store or transmit card holder data must take steps to assure that it is secure, whether or not wireless is deployed in the cardholder data environment. Organizations that handle payment card data must take steps to secure the CDE against wireless threats including unmanaged and unknown wireless devices in the environment and must scan all locations. This white paper helps organizations understand how the PCI DSS 1.2 wireless requirements apply to them, how to meet those requirements in a cost effective way, and how to secure your network and cardholder data from wireless threats.
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For managed services providers (MSPs) aiming to serve small and medium-sized businesses, the ability to capture and retain lasting customer relationships is a determining factor for long-term profitability. Only by clearly and consistently communicating your value to your customer can you hope to attain the role of trusted advisor—a position that will help protect you from losing business to lower-priced competitors. Learn how an integrated, offline reporting solution can help ensure that your customers perceive your value in the ways that matter most to all managers within the customer organization.
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A business' success delivering managed services depends on its ability to improve the delivery of effective and efficient services to its customer base. Learn about ways that managed services providers (MSPs) can develop a higher-value business by improving their ability to attract and retain high-quality customers and provide IT services in an effective manner.
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Service companies that want to thrive need to find a better way to deliver services and run their business. Automating IT services is the answer, and it should be the immediate goal of any company that aims to stay in business as market pressures increase. Looking beyond basic automation, becoming a managed services provider (MSP) should be the long-term goal. Discover ways to ensure your service company's survival in today’s competitive IT services market.
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Margins on profitable products and services erode as they become commoditized. And now, the same process is starting to happen to the IT services market. To avoid the commoditization trap and distinguish their services from their competitors, managed services providers (MSPs) need to develop a two-pronged strategy that involves delivering higher-value services that yield greater profit margins, and driving down service delivery costs so they can effectively deliver responsive, tools-based services to compete efficiently in a commoditized market. Find out how.
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Most IT service providers have always and continue to operate in a break/fix service environment. When a customer calls with an issue, the service provider drops everything to fix it. Under these circumstances, service providers have a difficult time forecasting monthly revenues and staffing needs, which has a huge impact on profitability. Add to this the intense competition, excessive customer turnover, low technician utilization rates, and shrinking margins that characterize today‟s market, and the result is IT service providers anxious to find a new way of delivering their services. Learn about innovative IT-as-a-Service initiatives that are defining the new IT value chain of the future.
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With the success of software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based vendors, more applications are being accessed over the Web. Applications once considered too proprietary or mission-critical for SaaS, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), are now being delivered as services. After seeing the increasing rates of SaaS adoption, Nucleus Research decided to examine the user base of SaaS vendor NetSuite. Find out what they learned.
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Do-it-yourself (DIY) security can be daunting. It requires significant time, effort and expertise to maintain strong security while complying with information access and disclosure regulations. Find out how a hosted security solution can provide reliable and comprehensive security coverage for your company’s e-mail, Web, and instant messaging (IM), without requiring extensive expertise or equipment in-house.
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Because e-mail is a source of vital information, users are reluctant to delete old messages. To get around typical storage limits imposed by IT administrators, they often rely on Microsoft Outlook PST files that are stored on individual work stations instead of on a central server—a solution that carries serious risks. Find out what those risks are, and learn about e-mail archiving solutions that can help you avoid them.
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Nationwide and global multi-site technology rollouts require internal resources beyond just a single point of contact. By understanding the dynamics and configurations of a deployment company’s internal resources, you can be sure that you are getting the most efficient and cost-effective system of methodologies for your project. Get the critical information you need to evaluate a technology rollout company effectively and ensure that you are getting the most efficient and cost-effective implementation system for your technology deployment projects.
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When companies have technology rollouts to deploy on a nationwide or global scale, service efficiency is critical. By understanding the details of the Rollout Services Model, they can avoid the potential nightmares of project implementation and increase the chances that projects are completed on time and within budget. Learn how to evaluate a technology rollout company effectively and ensure that you are getting the most efficient and cost-effective implementation system for your technology deployment projects.
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The rapid deployment of nationwide technology rollouts requires well-defined processes, robust management skills, and a unique understanding of how to get the job done. Without a proven technology rollout system, businesses run a high risk of project complications that can result in increased costs, missed deadlines, and an overwhelming burden on internal resources. Learn what a technology rollout system is, how it can lower costs and save time without compromising quality, and what questions to ask a technology rollout company.
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For IT departments drowning in complex and expensive software maintenance chores, the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model can ease the burden. SaaS reduces complexity by outsourcing most of the infrastructure needed to run software applications, and reduces costs by charging only for what is consumed. But you can also adopt a hybrid SaaS model, in which some systems are outsourced and others are kept in-house. Learn more.
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The global economic recession has put immense pressure on companies to cut costs—particularly IT-related expenditure. Companies were often forced to run only a few projects with regulatory impact and immovable deadlines, proceeding against very lean budgets. Recently, key economies such as the US and China have started to show signs of recovery. Learn more about how the recession has had an impact on IT investment.
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Yes—process manufacturers do face extraordinary business challenges. You need to effectively respond to market imbalances, supplier failure, and increased regulation and quality requirements. You also need an IT backbone specifically designed for process manufacturing—integrating supply chain planning, product lifecycle management (PLM), and enterprise asset management (EAM). Find out how to adapt to the “new normal.”
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For many consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, the environment is too complex to implement a new business process without upgrading the IT systems that support that process. Taking a consumer approach to upgrading can help. You need to seek out solutions that fit your CPG environment, can keep up with continual innovation, and more. But you always need to be thinking ahead. Learn more about developing an IT roadmap.
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Calculating the total cost of ownership (TCO) of an Internet protocol (IP) telephony system is complicated. And you need to know the return on investment (ROI). But knowing the TCO doesn’t make it easy to figure out the ROI—because the benefits of IP private branch exchange (PBX) aren’t easy to quantify. You can, however, get an idea of your ROI by knowing 10 ways a new IP phone system can repay the money you spend on it.
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Formally defining, effectively retaining, and successfully archiving e-mail and other electronic business records is one of the most important tasks facing many organizations today. Learn how to quickly and cost-effectively preserve, protect, and produce legally compliant e-mail and other electronically stored information (ESI) in anticipation of litigation and regulatory audits, with an e-discovery compliance program.
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Online spam campaigns have become more sophisticated and precisely targeted. Spammers routinely disseminate millions of fraudulent e-mail messages to control legions of employee computers and connect them into botnets which sap bandwidth and productivity. Learn how implementing a hosted anti-spam service in your company can provide multi-layered protection against spam, improve employee productivity, and lower costs.
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Consultant Paul Mitnick chose the Training Partner learning management system (LMS) to help a real estate firm consolidate its learning management program. In addition to a breakdown of the steps involved in his LMS software selection process, you’ll also discover how the LMS implementation went—including the testing and timing involved in ensuring that all data was in the new LMS before it was accessed by users.
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Standards can play an important part in enterprise learning, from the development of learning content to how it interacts with database management applications—specifically learning management systems (LMSs) and learning content management systems (LCMs). This document provides an overview of the standards that affect learning technologies and advice on how to work with vendors of standards-affected technologies.
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Companies dealing with industry or government regulations are often required to meet specific standards for system security, audit trails, and verification of electronic documents. With electronic data increasingly replacing printed documentation, new strategies are needed for dealing with regulatory compliance. Discover how these regulations can affect the use of learning management systems (LMSs) for employee training.
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Is a total ban on workplace social networking a good idea? Companies should take more calculating points of view and look at how to turn the negative effects of social networking into positive effects. Employers can manage employee social networking to maximize the positives. The strategy combines employee education, well-thought-out acceptable use policies (AUPs), and—critically—effective Web filtering technology.
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Hosted services can offer a sound solution for small and medium businesses requiring safe and reasonably priced platforms. Applying the same concept at a higher level could result in hosting and services providers leasing or renting virtual real estate for the services they provide in order to lower their initial investments or subsequent upgrade costs. Learn more about “hosted hosting,” the new breed of hosting services.
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You know your organization’s need for stronger IT security can’t wait any longer. Regulatory compliance and the risk of a data breach are forcing you to implement more stringent security procedures. But password problems still consume time and money. Though the benefits of single sign-on (SSO) and strong authentication are significant, deploying an IT security solution can be daunting. Get tips on how to go about it.
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For midsize firms seeking more value in a shorter period of time, a rapid enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation may be the way to go. If you’re unsure this is the right choice, you need to consider some important factors. The best candidates tend to be ERP solution first-timers. Learn more about how to work closely with ERP partner vendors for a rapid—and successful—ERP implementation.
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To compete in today’s economy, you need enterprise-size IT infrastructure and reach—but at a midsize cost. To do this, you need to find an IT community that understands your business processes and objectives. The Oracle Accelerate program offers a way to find a software vendor and local partner organizations that can provide you with the IT infrastructure, the features and functions, and the expertise. Learn more.
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Acts of cyber aggression could lead to a cyber war or worse. Capitol Hill is giving attention to this security issue, and vendors are creating new offerings and expanding existing programs—creating new opportunities in the defense industry and opening doors for new players. Learn more about the blurring between information security vendors servicing the private sector and those in the defense and intelligence industry.
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Is it true that companies in Europe are more concerned with security, while those in the US are more concerned with productivity? Maybe. However, there’s a trend in the US toward safer log-on, authentication, and authorization. In the next few years, both aspects may converge as the US will be more security-concerned, while the rest of the world will be concerned about ease of use and productivity gains. Learn more.
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Why would a company choose to migrate its development tools? And if the migration is decided upon, how can this be done easily and effectively? Get answers to these questions, and explore the concerns and issues surrounding migration of your development environment, using IBM’s Rational Application Developer (RAD) as an example of a current tool and MyEclipse Blue Edition from Genuitec as an example of a new tool.
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Most document security companies concern themselves solely with the prevention of unauthorized access to content. Online publishers, on the other hand, struggle to find a balance between document security and a satisfactory reader experience. A new approach to document security can give online content publishers the ability to protect their content without adding unnecessary complexity to document access. Learn more.
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The pervasiveness of malware on the Internet creates more opportunities for mixing and matching dangerous content than previously possible. A converged threat is a combination of viruses, spyware, phishing, spam, and other attempts to exploit vulnerabilities. But you can’t sever all ties with the Internet—you need better protection methods to head off potential threats before they reach their targets. Learn more.
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The payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS) defines a comprehensive set of requirements to enhance and enforce payment account data security in a proactive rather than passive way. These include security management, policies, procedures, network architectures, software design, and other protective measures. Get a better understanding of the PCC DSS and learn the costs and benefits of compliance.
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Small and medium businesses are especially vulnerable to disruptions caused by e-mail loss, compliance demands, and the threat of e-discovery. Yet these companies may not have adequate resources to deal with these risks on their own. Learn how your business can benefit from e-mail archiving, and in particular a hosted e-mail archiving service, to combat data loss, and realize greater productivity and competitiveness.
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As more corporations adopt instant messaging (IM), chief information officers (CIOs) and IT managers are learning that it can be a serious source of liability and security exposure. Users, it seems, simply don’t understand the losses and exposures that can result from incautious IM use. Find out how security software solutions can help you reap the benefits of IM without exposing your company to unnecessary risk.
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While the virtues of encrypting PC data are extolled by vendors and the press alike, some painful truths go largely unmentioned. Whether necessary for compliance or state breach disclosure law, or for doing business in a state requiring it, encryption is necessary but difficult. Learn where existing encryption solutions are failing, and find out how emerging tools and trends can make encryption better, and easier.
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The increasing use of virtualization allowed managed hosting providers to reduce costs by sharing infrastructure between customers, creating the earliest versions of what is now known as cloud computing. Platforms managed by specialists provide higher service levels, greater ease of secure access, and more manageable costs than many companies can achieve internally. Discover more about Europe’s managed hosting market.
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IT departments rarely have the luxury of spare capacity or sufficient knowledge of all the products and technologies that the rest of the organization expects. However, IT is an integral part of most companies, and supporting diverse or specialized technologies and understanding their impact on the business is necessary. Organizations not only need third parties—they need them to be focused and cost-effective. Learn more.
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Teamwork requires data to be shared, but security must be maintained. Folder encryption is an essential part of corporate security and protecting intellectual property. Secure Folder can provide a secure electronic workstation. Files and folders can be secured for users’ personal use, or configured so they are available for the shared, exclusive use of a selective group. Find out more about a desktop encryption solution.
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Secure Mail is a plug-in that integrates into Microsoft Outlook. The main functions of Secure Mail are provided in the toolbar or the menu. It’s possible to pre-assign various setup options before the software is rolled out, which can be locked so that the user can no longer change the default settings. Learn more about the main properties of Secure Mail and get an overview of the possible configurations the product offers.
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Unencrypted communication between users’ workstations and the backend SAP servers is a significant vulnerability to your SAP environment. This can put the confidential data inside your SAP systems and your entire business activity at risk—and have a negative impact on your customers. Find out how to reduce business risks and improve audit results through encrypted communication and two-factor user authentication for SAP.
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Do you understand the differences between open source and closed source (proprietary) software? To make an informed decision when choosing between them, you need to know the advantages and disadvantages of each. The main issues in the debate include cost, service and support, innovation, usability, and security. Get a closer look at open source and closed source software solutions so you know what’s right for your needs.
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Aligning IT with business objectives has long been a mantra of corporate directives. But organizations often fall short of publishing quality documents and assembling plans that meet business needs—never mind providing the necessary details to ensure thorough infrastructure planning. Don’t focus too much on technology—find out how to better manage the IT planning process and how to overcome its challenges.
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The increasing number of passwords actually decrease productivity and present a security risk when people get frustrated and write their passwords on a sticky note. This means the application of a single sign-on (SSO) solution provides greater security and improved user-friendliness and productivity. Learn how to increase the security and usability of existing and alternative authentication methods, and how the requirements for user authentication can be realized efficiently and at low cost.
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Tape drives and tape drive backups are expensive, time-consuming, and unreliable. Tape drives can cost from $350 to thousands of dollars (and the tapes aren’t free either). Plus, tapes are notoriously failure-prone and vulnerable to environmental degradation—and tape drive installation is expensive. Find out the other reasons why your tape backup system might not be an effective data storage and security strategy.
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SysTrust is an assurance service developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA). SysTrust Certification is critical for any CPA, bank, lender, or financial institution subject to a data security system audit. Failure to meet industry standards can result in fines of up to $1,000 (USD) per infraction. Learn how you can protect yourself.
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The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) regulates the storage and management of corporate financial data for all Registered Public Accounting Firms and many publicly held companies. Which SOX regulations affect data backup in your company—and how can a remote data backup solution help you comply? Find out, with an explanation of various sections of the SOX act, matched with key remote data backup functionality.
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A remote data backup solution can be compliant with almost any international, federal, or state data protection regulation—and can be compliant with the common caveats of most data security laws by providing functionality like data encryption and secure media control. And, as some regulations require files to be archived for several years, you can create a routine that archives files you select for backup and storage.
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Backing up critical data on an external drive provides only minimal protection against one type of data loss: hard drive failure and nothing else. External drives are easily damaged, lost, or stolen. Portable drive backups are rarely taken off-site and are insecure, time-consuming, and limited. And when an external drive holding key data no longer works, what will you do? There’s a better way to back up data. Learn more.
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Backing up your critical data on compact disc (CD) or digital versatile disc (DVD) is risky business. Disks can be easily damaged by routine use or natural disaster, lost, or stolen. CD and DVD backups are rarely taken offsite, and are not secure, automated, or full featured. Discover 10 reasons why you need to find a better data backup solution for your business, and avoid the endless expense of backing up on CD and DVD.
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A number of bargain-basement data backup services are entering the market with a barrage of advertising. Some people may make business decisions based on price alone, but when it comes to vital needs like secure data, cheaper is not better. Would you buy the cheapest parachute? Then why settle for the cheapest data backup solution? Learn more about data backup technologies and why you should avoid cheap alternatives.
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Discover a framework for crafting a software-as-a-service (SaaS) strategy in your company. Examine key concerns such as data integrity, maintaining compliance, and ensuring proper process management, as well as approaches to help maximize your return on investment (ROI). A SaaS solution for your enterprise resource planning (ERP) or accounting system might be your ticket to improved business and application performance.
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IT has long been seen as one of the best ways to address the challenges of the business environment. Yet the complexity and rigidity of IT infrastructure keep IT from fully serving the business. IT could better help serve your customers and reduce business costs if it were provided as a service. Find out more about IT service management standards and best practices, with a focus on SAP’s approach to IT optimization.
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IT managers realize that service-oriented architecture (SOA) projects are no longer an “if”—they’re a “when.” SOA can help achieve your number-one goal: aligning IT with business. If you’re in the consideration and planning stage, you’ll need some practical strategies for a business-driven SOA deployment. Find out how packaged solutions can accelerate SOA deployments, ease the burden of SOA management, and more.
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Many business activities require access to real production data, but there are just as many that don’t. Data masking secures enterprise data by eliminating sensitive information, while maintaining data realism and integrity. Many Fortune 500 companies have already integrated data masking technology into their payment card industry (PCI) data security standard (DSS) and other compliance programs—and so can you.
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Whether you’re working toward your first or your next payment card industry (PCI) data security standard (DSS) audit, you know compliance is measured on a sliding scale. But full compliance can’t be achieved with just one policy or technology. Using data masking, a technology that alters sensitive information while preserving realism, production data can be eliminated from testing and development environments. Learn more.
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Do you use real customer profiles and statistics to drive marketing efforts, or real employee data for salary or benefit analysis? While these activities are critical to success, they can put you at risk for a data breach. But with a data security system, you can maintain the data’s original properties, while giving clearance for key business activities to proceed. Learn how to assure your sensitive data is protected.
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To many managers, the words “business process management” (BPM) conjure up images of complexity—months of planning, meetings, and more meetings. While BPM can be complex, it needn’t be. You can move quickly to implement process automation for your company. Learn what to consider and act on as you contemplate how to automate your business processes and increase competitive advantage and customer loyalty.
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In 2008, botnets were responsible for 90 percent of spam. The ever-changing nature of botnets makes them hard to detect and even harder to defend against—and these compromised “robot” computer networks don’t seem to be going away in the near future. Learn about new and sophisticated botnets, how they can affect your business network, and the steps you can take to protect your company from a botnet attack.
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IT has long been one of the best ways to address business challenges. Yet significant obstacles at the level of IT infrastructure stand in the way. Siloed IT operations and rigid IT management processes can impede business agility. When IT partners with the business to act less as a technology provider and more as a service provider, business objectives can be achieved more efficiently and cost-effectively. Find out how.
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You needn’t be a seer or sage to perceive risk—it’s as predictable and devastating as a Florida hurricane and as far-reaching as a corporate scandal. But you do need to be a visionary to see the underside of the risk coin. This side represents opportunity, competitiveness, and growth. Find out why insight into managing two types of risk, rewarded and unrewarded, can help you explore opportunities for growth and profit.
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Electronic communication tools are increasingly at risk due to sophisticated e-mail and Web threats. Implementing reliable, effective protection is essential—but many companies don’t know about the latest proactive virus protection techniques. Find out where your company’s vulnerabilities are, how your traditional security software might not be protecting you as well as you think, and how a heuristic solution can help.
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The need to transmit documents securely to business partners or within your own company is increasing rapidly. Critical, time-sensitive documents need to be secure and auditable, and delivery must be guaranteed. Learn how the Inovis BizManager business-to-business (B2B) gateway solution can help your company achieve a standardized, synchronized, and streamlined exchange of information, both internally and externally.
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The ability to securely exchange information with trading partners is vital to your success. And while the type of information varies by industry, the goal is the same: standardized, synchronized, streamlined exchange of information across the trading community. Learn how Inovis BizManager provides direct, secure data exchange, and can reduce the time, cost, and effort of fulfilling electronic communication requirements.
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Designed for the IBM System i and iSeries platforms, Inovis’ BizManager400 provides secure managed file transfer of critical business documents like purchase orders, advance ship notices, and invoices. BizManager400can also serve as a single business-to-business (B2B) gateway for trading partner connectivity, community management, integrated mapping, and integration. Find out about the key capabilities of BizManager400.
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Part of the BizManager product suite, BizLink is an enterprise-level electronic data interchange (EDI) solution and business-to-business (B2B) gateway. It’s designed for secure managed file transfer, regardless of disparate data types, transports, and connectivity methods. Find out how Bizlink can protect private data, and simplify the management of a complex community of external partners and internal organizations.
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Web-borne malware is now more common than malware entering a company through e-mail. The number of Web sites carrying malware increased by 400 percent in 2008. This can cause serious issues for your business. You need to proactively protect your networks both by instituting acceptable usage policies for employee Web usage and by implementing a solution that can effectively combat these malware intrusions. Find out how.
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Unplanned e-mail outages or even routine maintenance can cause huge disruption, not only to your business, but also to your customers and partners. What issues do organizations face regarding e-mail outages? Learn about the different e-mail continuity solutions available and how a hosted e-mail continuity service can provide a cost-effective, high-availability e-mail solution with minimal deployment efforts required.
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With limited IT budgets and resources, how can small to midsized companies effectively and affordably manage and secure their digital assets? Creative companies, with assets that are almost entirely digital, are especially concerned with effective data management. Explore options that can save time and money—and provide your creative companies with creative solutions for solving your digital file management problems.
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Although students at the University of Nevada’s Reno campus were generally respectful of the campus’s computers and IT policies, entertainment or malicious software often appeared on computer hard drives. This made machines less stable or even disabled them entirely. To combat the problem of computer network security, UNR found a solution that enables automatic shutdown time and safer shared computer workstations.
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Schools often need to deploy computers that offer a limited feature set, as limiting a computer’s functions is important to protecting its purpose and keeping students focused. To lock down student workstation functionality, Newburgh Enlarged City School District finally implemented a solution to control system settings and application functionality. Learn more about the features and functionality of this workstation access solution.
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Oklahoma City University spent a significant amount of money putting the latest computer technology and software in its classrooms. But teachers noticed students weren’t always using these learning tools appropriately. After installing teacher management software, instructors have total control of classroom computers and no longer have to deal with classroom distractions, such as games and instant messaging. Learn more.
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Student workstations at the University of Kentucky were constantly going down due to user activity—both innocent and malicious. IT couldn’t repair all the workstations immediately, so many students had to wait to use a computer. To reduce computer downtime and eliminate workstation damage, the system administrator installed a solution that prevented workstation drift and helped ensure desktop security. Find out how.
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Lewis and Clark Community College in Illinois (US) was having a number of technology problems in its classrooms, leading to student attention issues. After installing a new software solution, teachers can now share their screens with students, provide remote assistance to students from a central console, and monitor classroom screens to ensure students are on task. Find out more about this workstation management solution.
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More and more students in classes at a senior high school were using USB drives to bring applications into the classroom. Because allowing unauthorized programs to run on workstations presents a number of serious challenges to teachers, the school needed to find a way to stop this behavior. Learn about the solution the school used to block distractive software and ensure its computers were used for their intended purpose.
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The IT landscape has grown into a complex system of servers, networks, locations, products, and processes. Making all these systems work efficiently and securely has become an enormous task. This four-chapter e-book can help you identify the issues surrounding the design, control, and management of jobs, and give you insight into best practices for an efficient, maintainable job scheduling and workload automation system.
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In December 2008, Advanced Systems Concepts commissioned Forrester Consulting to examine the potential return on investment (ROI) that companies may realize by deploying ActiveBatch, an IT job scheduling and management solution. Learn about the financial impact in a midsized financial services company with global operations, in which ActiveBatch is used to manage its mission-critical job scheduling environment.
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The Internet allows us to access information from anywhere in the world. However, access to documents is a barrier to many remote workers and travelers who rely on people in the office to retrieve files from cabinets and fax or e-mail those documents. Learn how document management systems (DMSs) can help create, manage, audit, and retain documents in a company-wide, controlled, and remotely accessible filing structure.
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Is it is possible for small and medium businesses (SMBs) to achieve levels of application integration historically reserved for large enterprises with deep IT pockets? Duplication of data can be eliminated with the right electronic document management system (EDMS). Discover how an EDMS can be integrated with other core business applications to replace paper files and documents, driving efficiency and managing IT costs.
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Today’s Web applications exist in an environment vastly different from when businesses first entered the Internet. Few companies have a comprehensive Web application security program to prevent Internet-borne security breaches. Learn how security concerns for Web applications are different than for traditional applications, and how to build a Web security program that curbs costs and provides effective security.
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Vulnerabilities in Web applications are now the largest vector of enterprise security attacks. Attacks compromising sensitive data are often the result of “cross-site scripting,” “SQL injection,” and “buffer overflow.” As many companies have discovered, these attacks will evade traditional network defenses unless you take new precautions with automated detection. Learn more in this primer to Web application security.
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Limited resources dictate that most midsize companies must support business continuity at the lowest cost and without putting additional pressure on scarce IT resources. But business continuity is more of a critical success factor than ever before. Customers won’t tolerate a lack of service availability. Midsize companies must find a way to ensure maximum business continuity, and reduce downtime—and costs. Learn more.
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A strong identity management platform plays dual roles: gatekeeper and guardian of business intelligence (BI) and data. Midsize businesses can’t operate effectively without the ability to control access to their networks and business systems. And, many midsize companies must report on this information for compliance purposes. Learn about the factors driving midsize companies toward stronger identity management systems.
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While companies have long seen their stores of data as valuable corporate assets, how they manage those stores varies enormously. Today, however, new government regulations require that companies retain and control information for long periods of time. Find out what IT managers are doing to meet these new regulatory requirements, and learn about solutions for storing vast quantities of data for the lowest possible cost.
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Addressing information protection and control (IPC) is a complex challenge. Enterprises must secure their databases to protect sensitive information and comply with policy regulations. Learn more about threats to business information, the impact of government regulations on data protection, and how database security best practices can prevent sensitive customer data or company information from being distributed.
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A highly available IT infrastructure is a critical success factor for businesses in today’s fast moving and “always on” economy. But the traditional approach to building high availability infrastructure is expensive to implement and rarely meets user’s service level expectations. Learn how technologies available in the Oracle Database 11g can help you avoid costly downtime and recover quickly from unavoidable failures.
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IT spending is often an issue for companies, but in difficult economic times it’s even more important to see what benefit IT can bring to the business. But IT investments are most effective when they improve business performance. Find out the degree to which organizations in the United Kingdom (UK) understand what IT is doing for their businesses, and in particular how some companies measure this and benefit from it.
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Monitoring, measuring, and reporting on the financial health of a company is a basic need that requires effective tools and processes to optimize the end result. Underpinning this is the requirement for planning capabilities, using scenario and what-if analysis with simulations and other forward-looking capabilities. The new primary research presented in this report shows that most organizations still have much to do.
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As you implement a virtualized environment, knowing how to monitor and maintain them becomes yet another challenge. Monitoring network and application traffic in an environment containing one-to-many relationships between physical hardware devices and virtual application servers presents a number of concerns. Learn about the traffic flow in virtual environments, and the various visibility options and their ramifications.
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Integrative software as a service (SaaS) business systems are a way of transforming your finance operations. SaaS can position finance as the nexus of standardized, real-time information. Finance executives should investigate SaaS solutions and providers, so that finance and IT can work together to enable a cost-effective transformation of finance to a stronger leadership role and improve finance’s value to your company.
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Regulations regarding digital information use, storage, and protection are meant to help maintain the integrity and security of public and private networks. Compliance measures such as the payment card industry (PCI), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), and others focus on the long-term retention and integrity of all data. Achieving secure, long-term data retention is easier with log management and incident response tools.
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A strategic compliance program can help employers in the United States (US) reduce the likelihood of litigation, regulatory investigations, security breaches, privacy violations, and other electronic disasters. Find out what it takes to make a compliance program succeed, and learn the importance of establishing clearly written rules, formal employee education, and effective hosted-services solutions right from the start.
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Companies using traditional means cannot cost-effectively respond to daily threats. Analyzing such threats is cumbersome and time-consuming, involving multiple applications for code analysis, as well as a network of computers. Emerging threats cannot be addressed by the same human resources as in the past. Learn how those expert skills and knowledge have been transferred to a data security system with artificial intelligence.
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With an uncertain future, if you want to continue growing you must step away from “business as usual” and focus on keeping operations lean and efficient. Top-level executives have directed managers to restructure and cut costs. For chief information officers (CIOs), restructuring often means consolidating IT resources to eliminate redundancy. But today, managers must look past the numbers and evaluate long-term benefits.
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There are three types of web security solutions: software-based, appliance-based, and managed services. Each needs to be evaluated against several key buying criteria, including the accuracy of threat protection, ease of installation and use, and total cost of ownership (TCO). Learn about the benefits of each category, and how they deal with all manner of web-borne security threats, including inappropriate use of the Web.
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The Internet creates new opportunities for mischief—and new challenges for managers. How do you balance individual access with the overall good of the business? What’s the right balance between monitoring and blocking? Learn about a Web security solution that can allow you to monitor and enforce your Internet usage policies, bringing site monitoring and filtering together with anti-virus and anti-spyware protection.
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Server-based computing has been seen at best as a way to provide those within highly task-based environments with a controlled desktop environment. However, changes in software, hardware, security, and management systems are driving the shift toward server-based computing being suitable for a larger proportion of a company’s user base. Learn how client-side computing can be more tightly controlled yet provide flexibility.
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Network-centric operations (NCO) provide the ability to leverage information networks to generate a more dynamic and agile decision-making space. A fundamental enabler is service-orientated architecture (SOA). The use of industry-standard IT architectures helps ensure that systems can be provisioned rapidly, shared as appropriate, and give the flexibility and response times needed within such challenging environments.
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Networked printers and multifunction peripherals often require a high level of support and manual intervention. Secure remote monitoring platforms reduce device downtime by automating service alerts and meter reading, and providing proactive toner replenishment. Users benefit from improved device uptime, and manufacturers and their service partners can build proactive service relationships that can drive customer loyalty.
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Given today’s economic climate, companies are looking to create more value by reducing risk and saving costs. As companies increasingly rely on data networks encompassing an ever-growing range and number of internet protocol (IP)-enabled devices and applications, they need to more effectively administer and manage these assets—they can no longer take the management of their IP networks for granted.
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As energy resources become scarcer and more expensive, electrical efficiency is a more important performance factor in the specification and selection of large uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. There are three subtle but crucial factors that can affect the cost of operating a UPS system. Sadly, these factors are often unrecognized. Find out what they are, as well as common errors in evaluating UPS efficiency.
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Common methods for monitoring the data center environment date from the days of centralized mainframes, and include such practices as walking around with thermometers. But as data centers continue to evolve with distributed processing and server technologies that drive up power and cooling demands, you must examine the environment more closely. Monitoring equipment isn’t enough—learn how to better manage your data center.
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Blade servers have a major advantage over traditional ones—improving processing ability while using less power per server. But, with their smaller footprint, blades can be much more densely packed, resulting in racks that use up to 20 times the electrical power and generate up to 20 times the heat. This can stress power and cooling system capability. Learn how to create a power and cooling strategy with these guidelines.
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In some circumstances, the air surrounding IT equipment can be harmful to internal electronic components and lead to failure and downtime. Reliance on precision cooling solutions to maintain the proper humidity level in a computer room or data center doesn’t always assure proper humidity levels at the IT equipment air intake. Learn more about humidity, its effects, and its management in computer rooms and data centers.
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Avoidable mistakes made when installing cooling systems and racks in data centers or network rooms compromise availability and increase costs. These flaws create hot spots, decrease efficiency, and reduce cooling capacity. Although facilities operators are often held accountable for cooling problems, many problems are caused by improper deployment of IT equipment. Learn more about these mistakes and about simple remedies.
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Data center electrical efficiency is rarely planned or managed. The unfortunate result is that most data centers waste substantial amounts of electricity. Today, it is both possible and prudent to plan and measure data center efficiency. In addition to reducing electrical consumption, efficiency improvements can bring higher IT power densities. Learn how to describe, measure, and evaluate data center efficiency.
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Perimeter computer-room air handlers and central air-handling units have been used to cool data centers since the launch of the mainframe. But as rack power grew, air delivery and heat removal challenges appeared. Row-based designs address issues of proper heat removal and cold air supply—and bring energy-efficiency advantages. Learn more about row-based solutions and the benefits they can deliver to your data center.
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The new web-borne threats attacking business networks are more intense and sophisticated than ever. Methods using rich media, web 2.0 collaboration tools, and a host of other technologies expose networks to a new breed of web security threats. Find out what the latest web security threats are, including the risks and business impact these threats represent, and understand the advantages of hosted security solutions.
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How much time do you waste juggling multiple applications or searching for documents instead of focusing on your customers and prospects? Salesforce.com and Google, two software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers, have teamed up to bring together Web-based business applications that can streamline communication and collaboration. Find out how to take advantage of the benefits of SaaS to meet more of your business needs.
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E-mail is a prime communication channel for business, so e-mail security has a high priority. But as budgets tighten, it’s more difficult to keep up with new threats to e-mail security. Sustaining and enhancing security while optimizing your budget can be done with a cost-effective solution that optimizes your existing investments in technology, people, and processes. Find out what a network appliance can do for you.
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Guardian Management had a clear vision for its business: shift emphasis from real-estate management to real-estate investment, and expand throughout the western United States. But Guardian’s technology infrastructure didn’t support these goals, so the company embarked on comprehensive infrastructure optimization. Discover why the new infrastructure is more available and reliable—and how it’s fueling business productivity.
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Today’s executives have more challenges and concerns than ever, from compliance to use of technology. To thrive and ultimately excel within a competitive landscape, an organization must have a technology framework capable of meeting today’s marketplace requirements while positioning the company for future growth and challenges. Find out how to better leverage technology investments and become a best-run business.
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Euclid Insurance needed to allow clients and carriers to securely transfer sensitive data without straining the company’s IT resources or forcing use of cumbersome encryption keys. Euclid standardized its data security with an online data storage solution. Find out about the benefits, including secure online file sharing and collaboration; auditable document access for regulatory compliance; and lower cost of operations.
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In a global survey of senior managers in various functions from 17 industries, 61 percent say IT’s primary mission today is that of reducing costs and boosting productivity. But the IT mission is changing: nearly 70 percent of the same executives say that within three years IT’s main role will be to enable revenue growth. Learn more about how this shift is expected to happen, and how to manage it in your organization.
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Virtualization of system resources aboard x86 servers has become a de facto component of modern computing. So hardware and software vendors have begun to consider its impact on the architectural design of their products and the go-to-market models they use. Find out how virtualization can offer companies cost-savings for existing infrastructure, and new deployments that can be architected to leverage virtualization.
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Choosing a solution for vulnerability management (VM) is a critical step toward protecting your organization’s network and data. Without proven, automated technology for precise detection and remediation, no network can withstand the daily deluge of new vulnerabilities that threaten security. This 12-point short list of considerations can help you determine what solutions will work best for your organization.
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Virtualization software reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) in server environments and provides almost immediate return on investment (ROI). TCO analysis should take a holistic view of all software and hardware costs, giving a better view of technology purchases and where new efficiencies can be made. Learn how to apply a TCO model to virtualization projects, and reduce the costs of operating a server environment.
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Organizations that want a sustainable competitive advantage need to reduce infrastructure costs, respond faster to business needs, and increase the consistency and predictability of operations. Adopting virtualization infrastructure—the combination of server, storage, and networking virtualization technologies—is essential to achieving these goals. Find out how virtualization can help you decrease costs and more.
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If you’re not up to speed on the key benefits of software asset management (SAM) solutions, this overview can help. Additionally, you’ll learn about the areas where an SAM solution can deliver the most tangible, quantifiable cost savings to your company. You’ll also learn how to calculate the potential return on investment (ROI) on an SAM solution in order to present senior management with a compelling business case.
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Many organizations do a poor job of measuring the business value of their IT investments. Simple financial metrics are not good enough. But there are a number of consistent, repeatable, and credible measurement methodologies that hold both business users and IT departments accountable. Compare four methodologies, and learn how adding one of them to your overall governance framework can improve your IT investment returns.
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Hosting a Web site in-house can be expensive, as it requires the necessary hardware and software and power and security precautions—not to mention the cost of bandwidth. To reduce costs and increase both security and performance, some companies are turning to “shared” solutions such as managed hosting and colocation. Before implementing one of these solutions, learn what your options are, and the questions to ask vendors.
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System planning is the Achilles’ heel of a data center physical infrastructure project. Planning mistakes can propagate through later deployment phases, resulting in delays, cost overruns, wasted time, and a compromised system. These troubles can be eliminated by viewing system planning as a data flow model, with sequenced tasks that progressively transform and refine data from initial concept to final design. Learn more.
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The average power consumed by an enclosure in a data center is about 1.7 kilowatts (kWs), but the maximum power that can be obtained by filling a rack with available high density servers, such as blade servers, is over 20 kW. Find out about the power density values of current and new data centers, and learn practical approaches to creating strategies for deploying high-density computing, with limitations and benefits.
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IT management is faced with the daunting task of turning complex data into actionable information that supports an organization’s business strategy. IT management is also responsible for ensuring the availability and performance of mission-critical applications. Discover how to manage the IT environment from a dashboard that can deliver valuable and easy-to-use information from both physical and virtual environments.
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As virtualized servers move to production environments, the threat of process and infrastructure breakdown is mounting, exposing IT departments to a number of virtualization risks. IT managers are looking for solutions that provide better control and a more comprehensive view of their virtual and physical IT environments. Follow these simple guidelines to choose the best-fit vendor for your virtualization solution.
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Many large, sophisticated enterprise IT environments still suffer from preventable critical failures. To keep the infrastructure up and running, IT departments must constantly monitor servers, applications, and services—task that have become essential over the past 10 years. Learn about the most common infrastructure problems, and discover simple and proactive measures you can take to cut downtime by over 50 percent.
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Virtualization is a leap forward in data center evolution. It saves energy, increases computing throughput, frees up floor space, and facilitates load migration and disaster recovery. Optimizing your power and cooling infrastructure is an essential step in realizing the full potential of virtualization. Find out why optimized infrastructure is so important, and how you can reap the full rewards of virtualization.
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Network-critical physical infrastructure includes power, cooling, racks and physical structure, security and fire protection, cabling, management systems, and service. To manage these key pieces of your network’s physical structure, you need to be able to manage devices individually. Find out how an element management solution can help you assimilate and manage the large volume of data necessary for network availability.
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Conventional methods for specifying data center density don’t provide the guidance to assure predictable power and cooling performance for the latest IT equipment. Discover an improved method that can help assure compatibility with anticipated high-density loads, provide unambiguous instruction for design and installation of power and cooling equipment, prevent oversizing, and maximize electrical efficiency.
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Conventional models for estimating the electrical efficiency of data centers are grossly inaccurate for real-world installations. Electrical loss estimates are typically made by summing inefficiencies of electrical devices, such as power and cooling equipment. Discover a more accurate efficiency model that can help you identify and quantify waste in power and cooling equipment, and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).
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The traditional room-oriented approach to data center cooling has limitations in next-generation data centers. Next-generation data centers must adapt to changing requirements, support high and variable power density, and reduce power consumption and other operating costs. Find out how row- and rack-oriented cooling architectures reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), and address the needs of next-generations data centers.
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Electricity costs are an increasing portion of the total cost of ownership (TCO) for data centers. But you can dramatically reduce the electrical consumption of typical data centers through appropriate design of both the network-critical physical infrastructure and IT architecture. Discover how to quantify electricity savings and learn about methods that can greatly reduce your data center electrical power consumption.
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Data center commissioning requires tight coordination between vendors, facilities, IT departments, engineers, the commissioning agent, and others. Managed properly, commissioning can deliver an unbiased evaluation of whether a new data center will succeed or not. Managed poorly, it can lead to problematic data center performance issues. Learn 10 common data center commissioning mistakes, and find out how to avoid them.
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As the complexity of security threats increases, so do the security measures needed to protect networks. Data center operators, network administrators, and other data center professionals need to comprehend the basics of security to safely deploy and manage networks today. Find out what you need to know about the fundamentals of secure networking systems, including firewalls, network topology, and secure protocols.
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Despite advances in technology, power outages continue to be a major cause of PC and server downtime. Protecting computers with uninterruptible power supply (UPS) hardware is part of a total solution, but power management software is also needed to prevent data corruption after extended power outages. Learn about the various software configurations you can implement and the best practices that can help you ensure uptime.
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The need to share information is greater than ever, with increasingly complex company-wide processes. The movement of digital data, both within a company and across its porous boundaries, carries more and more risk as regulations for data protection and personal privacy are tightened. Discover how to stay ahead of the competition by putting the technology in place that allows you to share content widely, but safely.
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Today’s economy favors agility—companies must respond instantly to fluctuations in the marketplace to keep a competitive edge and save costs. A flexible communications infrastructure is a key part of achieving organizational agility. Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), the technology behind the converged voice-data network, allows companies to scale phone solutions to their needs—saving money even as those needs change.
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Choosing a business phone system is a three-phase process. First, evaluate your requirements, then evaluate potential vendors, and finally evaluate the technology. Shopping for a new phone system is as much about planning, implementation, and support as it is about installing new state-of-the-art equipment. Before making your decision, learn the dos and don’ts of the evaluation and selection process.
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IT infrastructure software has a well-established track record for experiencing frequent cost overruns and missed deadlines. Expensive software and extensive customization are the key contributors to increasing identity management costs to four or five times more than the price of the initial identity software license. Learn how software as a service (SaaS) can reduce the cost and complexity of IT infrastructure.
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Connecting company networks securely to the Internet has been the role of the venerable network router. Companies seeking to securely link trusted networks with external users and Internet resources—like software-as-as-service (SaaS) applications—are discovering that identities must be unified across internal and external networks. Discover the benefits of a new device created to meet this need: the identity router.
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Symplified KeyChain can provide access management and secure single sign-on (SSO) for software-as-a-service (SaaS) and enterprise applications. By easing user access and strengthening security, KeyChain can improve manageability of both your SaaS—Salesforce, Workday, Concur, and others—and your enterprise applications, like SAP and Oracle. Find out how it can help manage your applications, regardless of location.
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You can use identity and access management to improve security, reduce risk, and meet compliance requirements for cloud systems. But are you aware of the identity requirements for access controls and audit for software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications? Or about the compliance regulations governing sensitive information in SaaS and cloud applications? Discover how to address the needs of SaaS and cloud-based identities.
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An unprecedented wave of security breaches has led to the establishment of technical standards, IT governance frameworks and laws designed to improve and enforce IT security. Companies are under increasing pressure to control their IT infrastructures more effectively. Learn how ongoing automated vulnerability assessments, together with well-defined network security policies, can simplify the compliance process.
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New network vulnerabilities appear every day due to flaws in software, faulty configuration, and human error. Detecting, removing, and controlling vulnerabilities requires vulnerability management (VM)—the continuous use of software tools to purge exploitable risks. Find out how making VM a part of your network security strategy can help you counter sophisticated exploits and document compliance with security standards.
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Vulnerability management, the discovery of vulnerabilities and assessment of the risk to the network, is a critical part of both the security and business landscape that any company’s security team needs to understand and implement for long-term success. But companies that rely totally on signature-based defenses can be helpless against many threats. Find out how to reduce risks by identifying and eliminating weaknesses.
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Unsurprisingly, research shows that the majority of companies see their future predicated on how well they can innovate. However, just throwing IT technology at issues in the hope that innovation will happen is not viable. Ideas are ephemeral and easily crushed within the wrong environment. Creating a suitable culture, allied with a well implemented idea management approach combined with strong leadership, is required.
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Companies should consider managed file transfer (MFT) suite vendors that meet their tactical and strategic needs. It's all too easy to be reactive and deploy technology that supports only one file transfer protocol and one standard for secure file transfers. It's more prudent to deploy a product that can be easily expanded and upgraded to handle multiple protocols and multiple standards in a well-managed, auditable way.
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Business-to-business (B2B) gateway solutions have matured to the point where they can support a wide range of projects. However, there are still functional differences—including product maturity, service-oriented architecture (SOA) enablement, architectural coherence, and community management—among competing solutions. Find out who the leaders, challengers, visionaries, and niche players are in the B2B gateway market.
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Today’s data transmission departments are battling for budget and relevance. Moving files and ensuring delivery is getting tougher every day. To successfully deliver data to an increasing number of target platforms and meet rising customer expectations, leading companies are adopting service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and upgrading their file transfer departments into data transmission services. Find out more.
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The biggest threat to data security doesn’t come from hackers, misconfigured firewalls, missing patches, or negligent employees. Nor is it in the application layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Basic Model. Instead, there are three undocumented layers of the OSI Model that exert a huge influence on security decisions and the integrity of security programs. Learn about those layers and how to manage the threat.
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E-mail marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways of reaching audiences. But it’s only effective if it reaches inboxes. As Internet service providers (ISPs) develop increasingly stringent rules to fight spam, spoofing, and phishing, many legitimate messages are getting blocked. Find out how to cope with the constantly changing deliverability landscape and learn key strategies for improving e-mail marketing results.
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Outsourcing is increasingly used to reduce costs and increase value—but it has its risks. As companies look to push more of their custom software application development needs to outsourcing partners, you need to plan carefully to build stringent security requirements into contracts and create metrics to ensure those requirements are met. Find out how to increase the value and reduce the risk of outsourcing.
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With the frenetic pace of global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) showing no sign of abating, nearly every chief information officer (CIO) today must at some point grapple with the enormous challenges of integrating acquired companies. But too often success eludes the merged companies—with IT getting part of the blame. Find out how to avoid common M&A pitfalls and achieve rapid, highly effective post-merger integration.
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Companies implement unified communications (UC) to boost employee productivity. An approach for successful UC implementation includes an often overlooked component: the need for visibility and control of network flows due to the increased demands of UC. Learn about a network appliance that can provide visibility of network traffic, so you can prioritize and control that traffic to realize the benefits of UC.
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The differences between on-demand applications (also known as software as a service, or SaaS) and on-premise solutions mean that stronger benefits can be achieved with a SaaS-based system. On-demand solutions are far more cost-effective than their on-premise counterparts—statistics show that the total cost of ownership (TCO) for an on-premise solution over the first three years is 60 to 200 percent higher. Find out more.
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In today’s economy, competitive advantage can be short-lived. Companies recognize that continued investments in IT infrastructure are required to stay ahead. Executives in all industries must understand how IT drives value and competitive advantage. Explore the relationship between IT investment and gains in performance and productivity, and find out how leading companies are maximizing their returns on IT investments.
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Has your organization truly embraced the message of the incident management process, as part of the practices recommended in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)? If your efforts have centered on the service desk, then you may be missing out on a lot of what incident management in particular and ITIL in general can offer. Learn more about the core principles of ITIL, and how you can use them to improve service management.
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Long-term cost savings and extensive feature sets make voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone systems an attractive option for many businesses. But with prices for a single VoIP phone ranging from $150 to $700 (USD) or more, switching to VoIP can be an expensive proposition. Find out what to look for in a VoIP phone system, how to buy, what you can expect to pay, and how to get the most out of your investment.
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The payment card industry (PCI) Data Security Standard establishes common processes and precautions for handling credit card data. Although achieving PCI compliance can seem daunting, the requirements represent security best practices that should be observed by any organization with IT systems and data to protect. Learn about network scanning and security assessment solutions that can help you manage PCI compliance.
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Designed to improve consumer financial services, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) includes security provisions for protecting confidential electronic financial information. For the approximately 9,500 financial institutions affected, compliance can be complex and process-intensive. Learn about network security auditing and vulnerability management solutions that can make GLBA compliance faster and more cost-effective.
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For businesses of all sizes, especially those lacking the IT resources and budget for an in-house e-mail archiving solution, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution may offer a feasible and effective alternative. SaaS e-mail archiving can be implemented in days rather than months, eliminate upfront hardware and software costs, and get transparent, continuous upgrades. Discover the other benefits of SaaS e-mail solutions.
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The network of devices used for information, security, and daily transactions is now ubiquitous, and everyone now relies on it even if they don’t acknowledge it. But network failure can cause widespread disruption, unhappy customers, unproductive employees, and lost business. Ensuring network availability, security, and efficiency is a job for experts who need powerful tools to carry out these tasks. Learn more.
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You may already know what disk defragmentation software does and what the benefits are. Take a closer look at the benefits in performance, cost, time-to-complete, wattage consumed for each test, and overall kilowatt hours (KWHs) consumed with Diskeeper defragmentation software. All tests, including methodology, format, and protocols, were performed with a focus of determining power and cost savings. Learn more.
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Most operating systems use logical file systems optimized for traditional magnetic hard disk drives (HDD). As a result, users adopting newer solid state drive (SSD) technology often see poor write-speed performance caused by free space fragmentation. Learn how new automatic disk maintenance technologies can improve SSD performance and extend the life of SSD devices by minimizing free space fragmentation.
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IT departments in midsize companies are expected to improve the service quality to PC users, cut IT support costs, and increase business flexibility. But midsize companies often worry about tight IT budgets and few IT resources. Deploying the Windows Vista operating system can help. Find out what 73 midsize companies have to say about how Windows Vista has offered not only cost savings, but security benefits and more.
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Take an in-depth look at Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007. This comprehensive guide includes a detailed overview of the Exchange Server architecture, and discusses new features and capabilities for tightening security, improving regulatory compliance, maximizing availability, and boosting productivity. It also provides tips for installing and upgrading Exchange Server deployments, and for simplifying server administration.
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Barker Implement, an Iowa, (US)-based farm equipment vendor, wanted to expand its business, improve productivity and customer service, and strengthen IT security without adding IT staff. To address those goals, Barker standardized new client computers on Windows Vista Business and deployed Windows Server 2008. Find out how Barker achieved efficiencies that are expected to yield long-term cost savings as the company grows.
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Limited office space at the National Aquarium in Baltimore required staff to share computers, resulting in several security risks and inefficiencies. For more efficient and secure computer sharing, enhanced data security, and reduced support time, the Aquarium moved all users to Windows Vista. Learn how the move has reduced login time from 15 minutes to 5 seconds, provided faster access to information, and more.
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Midsize businesses face the same security threats as larger companies, and likewise they must comply with the same regulations. But, their security budgets are smaller. The good news is that IT security systems don’t have to be expensive. Learn about the top three security problems, how to develop security policies using integrated security solutions, and how to do vulnerability assessment with low-cost security tools.
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Lundburg Family Farms, a grower of organic and sustainably farmed rice products, aims for top efficiency in all areas, and so it looks for new IT management solutions that offer long-term cost savings and efficiencies. The company’s old operating system didn’t provide adequate network security, and it wanted to find a flexible security solution that would enhance security while improving network user access. Learn more.
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Ensynch, a provider of IT security management solutions, was satisfied with its operating system. However, Ensynch often looks to make upgrades that will improve its competitive edge, especially those that strengthen IT security, better promote mobility, and improve employee productivity. Discover how Windows Vista helped Ensynch achieve stronger IT security, faster mobile connectivity, and more efficient use of IT staff.
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Consolidating various data center devices running on multiple platforms provides network administrators with a more efficient information infrastructure. After all, fewer moving parts results in better overall efficiency and reliability. Use a centralized console to manage infrastructure, and combine reliability and remote connectivity while reducing costs—without compromising application and technology service levels.
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New standards, protocols, and platforms to support the data center continually appear: TCP/IP, Telnet, SSL, PPP, USB, MacOS, Linux, and Windows 2003 servers—the list goes on. All offer flexibility, standardization, and compatibility. But they also pose challenges, such as silos of information and limited access from applications on other platforms. But data center infrastructure needs to be centrally managed—discover how.
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For data center administrators responsible for monitoring the screens of hundreds—and potentially thousands—of servers and PCs, video resolution is paramount for efficiency. A keyboard/video/mouse (KVM) switch can help by enabling IT staff to manage servers and other network devices, within the data center or remotely. Get a technical glimpse into the “whys” behind the “V” in KVM and the importance of video resolution.
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In the past 12 years, the universal serial bus (USB) has grown from pipe dream into the de facto standard for devices such as portable memory devices, video game consoles, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and more. Learn how a USB keyboard/video/mouse (KVM) can correctly emulate the constant presence of a keyboard and mouse to each connected computer, offering much more flexibility in the data centers of tomorrow.
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E-discovery is the extension of the discovery process to include identifying, preserving, collecting, reviewing, and analyzing electronically stored information. Today, it represents 35 percent of the total cost of litigation. Companies that fail to produce e-mail in a timely manner face paying fines and other risks. Learn how you can develop an e-discovery plan to better manage your electronic data discovery processes.
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The Internet is now an important business tool—but it also puts companies at risk of exposure to Web-based threats that can cause major damages, such as financial losses, identity theft, and loss of intellectual property, to name a few. To protect your business data and reputation, learn about a multilayered solution that can offer stronger protection while reducing your reliance on time-consuming signature downloads.
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Most companies have already invested in e-mail security. However, yesterday’s defenses may not be up to the challenge of tomorrow’s threats. Why? Because Internet security risks are increasingly malicious: Web threats are growing more than 100 percent every six months, and targeted attacks are up 351 percent from two years ago. Re-examine your approach to mail server security and protect yourself from malware attacks.
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Analysts estimate that 80 percent of a company’s intellectual property is in its e-mail. Finding this information when it’s needed can be a major source of frustration for employees—one that can consume hours per week and megabytes of storage. But clearly these documents must be retained, not deleted. Learn about a searchable archiving solution that protects companies from liabilities as well as increasing storage costs.
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Today’s mobile devices improve productivity and efficiency, but they also bring new risks to companies: confidential corporate and personal data can be lost or subject to other threats. Mobile device security management should consider a combination of people, processes, and technology. Learn about current security issues and actionable mobile security best practices so you can mitigate the risks your company is facing.
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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software can facilitate business improvements. But it can also create new challenges, including obsolete technology, lack of flexibility, and high support costs, to name a few. There’s a way to keep your current ERP system while extending its capabilities to remote manufacturing sites, service centers, and supply chain partners: a service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach. Learn more.
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There are many legitimate reasons for upgrading your company’s enterprise network. The trick is selling those reasons to the executives holding your company’s purse strings. When you know it’s time for a network upgrade, you need more than just the technical facts—you have to arm yourself with a solid business case. Start with 10 tips that can help you sell the members of your upper management team on a network upgrade.
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Because there are many areas of specialization in computer security, it’s possible you don’t even know what you don’t know. To help you understand the areas where you might be missing key information, you need checklists of the most important facts that small to midsize business owners should know about. And, learn how a few simple and inexpensive solutions can help keep your computers and networks safe and secure.
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Testing, installing, and using a digital certificate on your Apache Web server can benefit your business by addressing online security issues. If your system’s security is maximized, your customers can feel more confident about using your site to perform transactions. Get the lowdown on best practices for setup to help you ensure efficient management of your encryption keys and digital signatures.
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Server-gated cryptography (SGC) as part of your secure socket layer (SSL) certificate can protect you from the dangers waiting in cyberspace. But first you should know how SGC-enabled SSL certificates work and why they are different from other certificates. Find out how SGC-enabled SSL can help you assure your customers that you have stronger encryption, greater privacy, and reduced risks of fraud and identity theft.
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Some companies need to secure multiple domains or host names for their Web sites. The Starter PKI program from thawte provides a system that enables the purchase and renewal of multiple secure socket layers (SSLs) and code signing certificates. Cut the red tape involved in adding domain names: find out how The Starter PKI Program works, as well as how to enroll, the costs involved, and how it can benefit you.
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As a software developer, you know that the product you make available on the Internet can be tampered with—without detection—if it’s not secured. Customers need to know that the software really comes from the publisher who signed it and that it’s not been altered or corrupted. For secure online distribution and confident customers, learn how to sign your code and active content with a code signing certificate solution.
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Secure socket layer (SSL) secures data transmissions across the Internet, and is an integral part of most Web browsers and Web servers. To make an SSL connection, SSL protocol requires that a server have a digital certificate installed—which is typically signed by an independent and trusted third party to ensure its validity. Find out more about SSL and how to know if you need to deploy an SSL certificate.
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You have a Microsoft Internet Information Services (MS IIS) web server. But what about your digital certificate solution? Learn how to test, purchase, install, and use a digital certificate from thawte with your MS IIS, and ensure efficient management of encryption keys and digital certificates with best practices. Learn how you can address online security issues to build the confidence of your customers.
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Many consumers don’t trust Web site safety enough to complete an e-commerce transaction—and consequently, billions of dollars in sales are lost. How can you combat this trend and ensure your customers trust you enough to share their sensitive data in online transactions? Learn how an extended validation SSL certificate increases the visibility of authentication status—to help assure your visitors find your site is safe.
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A network security appliance is more than a modified operating system running on a server. Compelling total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits are only achieved from solutions that incorporate a foundation of sustainable reliability. Discover the essential requirements for such a foundation, including appliance architecture combining best-of-breed software, and network-centric configuration, administration, and management.
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Effective network security is most successful when you use a layered approach, with multiple defense factors in the overall solution. Successful remote access solutions provide effective authentication and access control—and you must take care to ensure your data can be transported securely over the network. Learn about the components of a layered strategy, and how to provide embedded systems with remote access ability.
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IT administrators must maintain application availability while controlling costs. One key area where operational efficiency can be achieved is in the storage infrastructure. But traditional storage systems are inherently inefficient. Learn why thin provisioning can help simplify storage management while improving capacity use, and how distributed redundant array of independent disks (RAID) technology can help.
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Loss of data due to system failure can cost a company thousands of dollars per hour of downtime. Business continuity is critical, with data protection plans that provide rapid, seamless, and non-disruptive backup and recovery. Learn how Oracle databases, when used with Pillar’s replication solutions, deliver a backup and recovery plan that can protect against errors and provide more efficient storage management.
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Growing demands on storage management system requirements can run counter to your need to lower costs. With Database 10g, Oracle introduced new features that can simplify database storage management to offer significant savings in both deployment cost and ongoing management overhead. Find out about best practices for deploying Oracle with Pillar’s Axiom storage system, with benefits to performance and management.
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One of the biggest issues now facing corporations is regulatory compliance. As if corporate security threats weren’t enough, regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), and others now have long checklists of mandated requirements that must be adhered to—and thoroughly documented—by IT departments. Learn about a logical approach to managing the volumes of data required to prove compliance.
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This white paper describes how interdomain federation happens with the Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (Jabber XCP). If you’re a service operator, line-of-business manager, security professional, or application developer, we’ll help you understand the benefits and challenges involved in building communication "clouds" using real-time technologies such as extensible messaging and presence protocol (XMPP).
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At Jabber, Inc., security is a core priority in every phase of design, implementation, and deployment. We aggressively apply lessons learned from other Internet-scale technologies and from our work with customers in the financial, government, and telecommunications sectors to achieve continuous improvement in the security profile of our products. In this whitepaper, we delve into the core security features of Jabber XCP.
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Speed and agility are increasingly important elements to success in a wide variety of domains. As a result, the Internet is becoming a more dynamic, user-centric, real-time environment. In this white paper, we explore characteristic technologies of the real-time Internet and how enterprises, governments, service providers, and other organizations can leverage those technologies to build competitive advantage.
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This white paper discusses how session initiation protocol (SIP), real-time transport protocol (RTP), and extensible messaging and presence protocol (XMPP) can work together to harness the unique strengths of each protocol within and across applications. Each protocol has a role in powering the real-time Internet, and this paper highlights how they complement each other to create a whole solution.
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Presence is a key technology powering the real-time Internet. Forward-thinking businesses, service providers, and government agencies are already reaping the benefits of presence-enabled information exchange. This paper explores the nature of presence data, its value to the organization, and methods for leveraging presence to create strategic value and competitive advantage.
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Download this white paper to find out about the different types of firewalls, their features, and how to implement a firewall solution.
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The rise of electronic records is having a profound effect on business litigation. Electronic records are now so important that the litigation rules in US federal courts have been officially amended to give judges and litigants more guidance on coping with records. IT managers tasked with setting policies for e-mail retention should understand the amended rules before any lawsuit is started or anticipated. Learn more.
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Enterprise e-mail solutions are vital to successfully doing business. However, they’re also increasingly expensive and complex, and e-mail servers are regularly subject to malicious attacks and other issues. Successful risk management begins by creating a policy for the entire messaging infrastructure. Learn how to build on that foundation to mitigate risk, so your organization is free to focus on growth and innovation.
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Implementing a digital signature solution can secure business operations, reduce costs, advance business processes, and improve your competitive advantage. However, implementing an incompatible digital signature solution could end up costing thousands—if not hundreds of thousands of dollars more than necessary. Before you invest, get an overview of the options and their associated costs and different value propositions.
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A software migration can cause pain over many months in at least three crucial areas, though it will provide long-term benefit. But with a migration assurance program, you can completely avoid major pain. Find out how a rollover to Office 2007 and Vista can impact the productivity of your users, your IT staff, and your business. And learn about the steps you can take to minimize or avoid a decrease in productivity.
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IT organizations struggle with the challenges of shrinking budgets, ever-changing technology, compliance pressures, and more. For greater efficiency, many IT organizations are turning to information technology service management (ITSM) to help improve processes. But there’s still too much focus on technology and not enough on business outcomes. Learn key strategies for changing your approach to delivering IT services.
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Customers and users see the value of IT services only after they’re in operation. Unfortunately, preparation and due diligence doesn’t always mean that you end up providing the IT services those users are expecting. With the automotive industry used as an analogy, get key tips on how to better define and document IT operations design and transition—so ultimately, your customers and users get the services they demand.
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Research shows that up to 90 percent of e-mail received by companies is spam. In the beginning, spam was mainly text-based, but over the past few years, spammers are increasingly using embedded images and attaching common file types, such as mp3s, to gain access to mailboxes. Learn more about the types of spam out there, focusing on NDR, or non-delivery report spam—and how you can block it.
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North American server installations are uniquely inefficient because of multiple circuits, use of floor space and weight, and more. A new approach to power distribution for high-density server installations saves floor space, simplifies power cabling, saves capital cost, reduces weight, and increases electrical efficiency. Learn more about how this distribution architecture can provide you with numerous benefits.
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New power and cooling technology allows for a simple and rapid deployment of self-contained high-density zones within an existing or new low-density data center. The independence of these high-density zones allows for reliable high-density equipment operation without a negative impact on existing power and cooling infrastructure—and with more electrical efficiency than conventional designs. Learn more now.
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Many of the mysteries of equipment failure, downtime, software, and data corruption are the result of a problematic power supply. Compounding the problem is that there is no standardized way to describe power problems. Learn more about common power disturbances, what can cause them, and how to safeguard your critical equipment—all described in Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard terms.
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High-density servers offer a significant performance per-watt benefit. However, they can present a significant cooling challenge. Most data centers are designed to cool an average of no more than 2 kilowatts per rack, but many new servers demand over 40. Thus, innovative strategies must be used to properly cool high-density equipment. Read about 10 approaches that can help increase cooling efficiency in your data center.
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Globally, data center power and cooling infrastructure wastes more than 60 million megawatt-hours per year that do not contribute usefully to powering IT equipment. This is an enormous financial burden on industry, and is a significant public policy environmental issue. Find out about the principles of a new data center architecture that can be implemented today to dramatically improve the electrical efficiency of your data center.
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The majority of IT organizations are under great pressure to evolve to a next-generation network operations center (NOC). A survey of 176 IT professionals has revealed that over a quarter of NOCs don’t meet their organization’s current needs for application performance management. Learn how to migrate away from the current stove-piped NOC to an integrated operations center that effectively supports all components of IT.
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IT organizations can no longer manage networks in isolation from the applications they support, requiring a shift from focusing on devices to a focus on performance. But a number of factors complicate the task of ensuring acceptable application performance, including the lack of visibility into application performance. Learn tips to plan, optimize, manage, and control your application performance and improve delivery.
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For disaster recovery, remote replication is a simpler alternative to traditional servers. However, simple replication in a virtual server can affect the consistency of files or applications and create longer recovery cycles. Find out how two virtual machine (VM) solutions can overcome these limitations to deliver consistent replication and fast recovery of stored data for uninterrupted processes and business continuity.
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The loss of your computer facilities, even a temporary one, can seriously affect your operations, resulting in significant monetary consequences. And the risk of catastrophe has greatly increased. For this reason, you should invest in an effective and reliable backup system. Learn about procedures for server backup management, and the various tools available on the market that can help you protect your vital data.
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In 2007, IT GRCM (governance, risk, and compliance management) became a hot new segment in the IT industry. Many vendors began offering solutions for policy mapping, advanced computer controls collection, and more. Now, IT GRCM providers are revamping their products for increased efficiency and usability. Get ratings for the overall market as well as market segments, and learn from a vendor product and service analysis.
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Companies spend millions each year conducting mandatory training for audits, the risk of noncompliance, internal training requirements, and a plethora of other reasons. Manual training processes increase a company’s risk of noncompliance—and can be redundant. Read the 10 steps that can help you develop an enterprise-wide compliance training strategy, to reduce the costs and the compliance risks of mandatory training.
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Many companies have already invested heavily in solutions that provide remote access solutions to their employees, and are now looking to leverage those solutions for their remote vendors. But what works for your employees might not work for your vendors—and the wrong solution can introduce security risks, from viruses to unauthorized access and noncompliance. Learn about the different access requirements for vendors.
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Today’s increasing compliance requirements have focused additional attention on how enterprises manage and control these critical accounts and passwords. How can you address the requirement for shared privileged access while still maximizing information security? Find out how traditional solutions may not be providing the security you need—and how upgrading your password system with an automated solution can help.
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Noncompliance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards can have a devastating effect on any company that relies on credit card transactions. Contractual penalties and revocation of your rights to process credit card transactions are just two potential repercussions. Though there is no single solution for PCI compliance, you can minimize the risks by staying on top of the latest products and procedures. Learn more.
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With the compliance demands of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), the Payment Card Industry (PCI), and others, it’s crucial that companies emphasize separation of duties (SoD) and internal access controls to help maximize network security. But many still struggle with the real-time need of granting temporary access to resources. Learn about a solution that can offer secure, controlled, and audited resource access in a timely fashion.
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Data Protection Manager is designed to provide continuous data protection for servers. A virtual tape library solution with de-duplication complements Microsoft DPM 2007, and together they can meet the data protection and recovery challenges of both Windows and non-Windows environments. Find out how these technologies work together to provide continuous data protection and recovery for enterprises of all sizes.
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A data de-duplication application can be an integral part of your data protection and data replication software. De-duplication technology can dramatically reduce the cost of protecting your data. Find out how data de-duplication software can work in conjunction with storage software to minimize duplicate data for more efficient disaster recovery—and how this can save bandwidth, storage resources, and overhead.
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Data de-duplication can be considered the next evolutionary step in backup technology, as it can reduce data volumes, slash storage needs, and minimize data protection costs and risks. But to separate the hype from reality, you must consider a number of key factors so you can select a data de-duplication solution that actually delivers cost-effective, high-performance, and scalable long-term data storage. Learn more.
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Successful business operations hinge on a company’s ability to maintain a high level of data availability. Database applications, such as Oracle, demand advanced data storage management to optimize application and data availability, as well as storage management capabilities. Discover a solution that can help deliver an enhanced backup, restore, and recovery regime that protects your vital data from soft and hard errors.
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IT managers face explosive data growth, which drives up costs for primary storage and storage for backup and disaster recovery. To help reduce costs and footprint while maximizing return on investment (ROI), a single-instance repository de-duplication tool, when integrated with a virtual tape library, could be the answer. Learn about how using this green, flexible, and scalable solution can help with your backup needs.
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In today’s increasingly connected business environment, IT organizations need to implement an ever-higher standard of security at the network endpoint. Administrators must meet the needs of new and more demanding regulatory requirements, foil an expanding population of professional computer criminals, and prevent rapidly propagating new viruses from entering and damaging operations. Discover a solution that can help.
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As the number of remote and mobile workers grows, new security practices highlight the need for strong authentication. Today, passwords aren’t enough protection against unauthorized access. How can you increase authentication security while preserving operational and budget efficiency? Learn about the challenges of identity authentication, and the versatile solutions that can help prevent the risk of breaches and attacks.
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Companies want to manage security risks and encryption to protect data and to comply with industry guidelines. The desire to separate network management from document ownership can create additional security concerns, as IT services are outsourced. To address these issues, you need to ensure your security solution provides visible and on-going encryption of sensitive data files shared on your networks. Learn more.
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Secure sockets layer (SSL), an essential security protocol, has allowed the Internet to extend to e-business. At the heart SSL is the certificate. As organizations increasingly rely on SSL, the number of certificates in use can grow into the hundreds or thousands, increasing your costs. Learn about the three key areas impacting the management of SSL certificates today—and what you can do to reduce cost and complexity.
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Archiving and logging standards place a great burden on network security professionals and IT administrators. When your routers, firewalls, and other devices are added to multiple servers, the volume of data that must be kept accessible can be tremendous. Learn more about event log standards and challenges, and how to implement a tool that can improve troubleshooting and diagnosis of incoming—and in-house—security issues.
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Genius Project4Domino and Microsoft Project are both project management tools, and though their range of features is different, they are also complementary. Using the solutions together can bring a well-rounded project management solution to companies of all sizes. Learn how they can be used to ensure consistency and eliminate downtime, so your long-term strategic project plans are a success.
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The combination of cross-platform environments, added database complexity, more data, and less headcount is a challenge for database administrators (DBAs) trying to maintain high database availability and performance. Discover techniques DBAs can use to streamline and automate storage, performance, and capacity management to deliver high database performance and availability—helping to ensure overall database success.
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Although IT outsourcing can result in cost savings of up to 60 percent, you’re not as likely to see that return if you don’t have an offshore development center (ODC). This team of programmers and developers, hand picked to complement your skill-set and culture, works on your behalf at the service provider’s site, and can be a seamless extension of your IT department. Learn more about the benefits of setting up an ODC.
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A non-profit hospital needed to protect its critical clinical systems without either interrupting system availability or overloading the small IT security team. The hospital had to overcome several vulnerabilities, such as the fact that some clinical systems could not be patched due to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. Find out how a server security solution helped the hospital address these challenges.
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Quantros, an application service provider (ASP), required a secure network and maximal uptime, but with a small IT department and a small budget. The challenges were to implement and enforce sound security policies and to keep up with the stream of vendor patches. A server solution that fixes vulnerabilities at the root cause and eliminates the need to hastily install patches increased server protection. Find out how.
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Server security is a key issue for the health care industry. Between an expanding body of regulations and the need for 24/7/365 system availability, it’s essential to address vulnerabilities as soon as possible. But with constant new threats, protecting your server isn’t easy. Learn about the special needs of server security in the health care environment, and how you can have comprehensive protection with no down time.
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The availability of your server and key business applications depends on how you deal with security vulnerabilities. Intrusion prevention systems (IPSs) go some distance toward protecting databases and networks from hacking. But it’s not enough. Discover the benefits of a next-generation IPS that generates no false positives and can be deployed with zero risk to instantly protect your data from potential security threats.
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You wouldn’t be entirely wrong in assuming that the security practices and policies you apply to your physical infrastructure can be transferred to your virtual. But you need to be aware of the complications of virtual infrastructure security. Learn about a solution that can help overcome the challenges of virtual networks, to back up for disaster recovery, better consolidate your servers, and reduce energy requirements.
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An increasingly mobile workforce offers many benefits. The right mobile and wireless technologies address the unique computing demands of mobile workers, and help automate processes and boost return on investment (ROI). But to maximize mobile technologies, companies must blend their needs with those of the user and the job function. Learn about the challenges of implementing mobile applications—and how to overcome them.
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Remote control software allows you to work on a remote computer—located across the hall or around the world—in real time, as if you were using its own keyboard and mouse. And remote solutions can dramatically reduce your cost of supporting client desktops. But before implementing remote software in your company, learn about the various remote capabilities and features you need to consider, including automated scripting.
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Learn how IT asset tracking tools helped Allina Hospitals and Clinics monitor 2,700 computers on and off their network without having to invest in additional infrastructure. This case study shows how their security system enabled this leading health care provider to go from a 30 percent tracking record to an almost perfect record for its growing inventory of laptops and electronic health records.
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Learn how Grant Thornton achieved a 99.7% guaranteed IT asset tracking rate across a nation-wide network of leased computers to tightly control network endpoints, achieve regulatory compliance, and drive down total cost of ownership (TCO).
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The best encryption and security policies will not protect your laptops against careless employee use. Learn about the latest innovations in tracking IT assets off the local area network (LAN), remotely deleting sensitive data, and physically recovering stolen computers.
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Data auditing and data encryption are two key Payment Card Industry (PCI) requirements for maintaining cardholder data protection. Although the two capabilities are distinct, they’re also synergistic—in fact, PCI recommends using data auditing as a substitute for encryption. Learn more about an auditing and encryption solution that can help you make better decisions about protecting your and your clients’ sensitive data.
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Whatever your reasons for needing to capture a complete audit trail for all database activity, you want to make sure your system allows you to support three accepted approaches. This three-way auditing ability can provide auditing for all activity in your database, including monitoring, reporting, and alerting on all critical data activity across your company. Learn more about these approaches, and their many benefits.
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IT administrators need to simplify both complex and routine tasks to deliver increasing value with limited resources. Data center automation can help minimize the duties associated with maintaining the existing infrastructure. Learn about a solution that can enable automated batch processing for more efficient operations, and integrate the diverse application and platform environments often found in today’s data centers.
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Integrating UNIX, Linux, Mac, Web, and database platforms includes securing all systems with the same authentication, authorization, and group policy services you use for Windows. How can this be done, without intrusive reconfiguration of your existing systems, while still providing the necessary granular administrative control? Learn how to leverage a centralized identity management tool leveraged with Active Directory.
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UNIX and Linux systems aren’t exempt from the rigors of regulatory compliance. System logs can help you spot suspicious insider activity and contribute to more accurate compliance reports by showing which users accessed what systems, what commands they executed, and what changes they made to key files and data. Find out how centralized UNIX/Linux auditing can help you troubleshoot and reduce your risk of non-compliance.
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Data leakage and data breach are two disparate problems requiring different solutions. Data leakage prevention (DLP) monitors and prevents content from leaving a company via e-mail or Web applications. Database activity monitoring (DAM) is a data center technology that monitors how stored data is accessed. Learn why DAM complements DPL, and how you can benefit by making it part of your overall data security strategy.
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Data auditing is a form of data protection involving detailed monitoring of how stored enterprise data is accessed, and by whom. Data auditing can help companies capture activities that impact critical data assets, build a non-repudiable audit trail, and establish data forensics over time. Learn what you should look for in a data auditing solution—and use our checklist of product requirements to make the right decision.
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Threats to data content posed by insiders. Compliance regulations entailing stringent data controls. It’s hardly surprising companies need to find more secure methods for keeping confidential data under lock and key. Learn about managing security challenges across three important layers of your IT infrastructure, and how database activity monitoring (DAM) and database auditing and protection (DAP) can help you.
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As traditional paper-based documentation and transactions shift to digital, companies must be vigilant that their electronic signatures solutions protect against forgery and guarantee non-repudiation. Also, these solutions must be easy to use. Before you sign the contract on a new digital signature solution, find out 10 vital criteria for choosing a solution that meets your needs—and sustains the integrity of your data.
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Data breaches and leaks are on the rise—and the consequences, from theft of identity or intellectual property, can seriously compromise a company’s reputation. Stolen laptops, hacking, exposed e-mail, insider theft, and other causes of data loss can plague your company. How can you detect (and respond!) to breaches and protect your data center? Learn about the functions and benefits of an automated data auditing system.
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Web 2.0 applications, perceived by many software users as better looking and easier to use than traditional apps, can provide many benefits to your company. However, building Web 2.0 apps adds development burdens of security, transaction management, and a variety of user interface features. To conquer these issues, you might consider an application generator to eliminate hand-coding infrastructure programming. Learn more.
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Data security breaches are a common occurrence in business. As such, today’s business climate needs to find better ways to collaborate—without compromising sensitive information. Documents can be kept more secure through best-practice, persistent security strategies that provide end-to-end protection beyond the firewall. By deploying such a strategy, you can securely accelerate business and gain competitive advantage.
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Do you know what you need in a hosted content management system (CMS)? Have you pinpointed the security features and characteristics that are essential to compliance with internal and external policies, and industry best practices? Find out how a hosted CMS can take care of everything from user management to Web browser, Web server, database, and application security—and let you focus on your own business and content development.
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If you’re still struggling to deploy and maintain traditional on-premise software applications, you might consider a new generation of on-demand software-as-a-service (SaaS) alternatives to satisfy your rapidly changing business requirements. There are many benefits, but also risks that can negatively impact your operations. Find out how safeguarding your SaaS with a wide area network (WAN) application delivery can help.
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Day-to-day IT requirements are often managed at the expense of strategic goals. But if you can consistently control change in your IT environment, you’ll be that much closer to resource efficiency and risk mitigation. Learn about a four-phase change management methodology that, when used with enterprise software, can help you detect, track, and analyze change—for continuous improvements and more budget for new projects.
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In today’s competitive market, creating and maintaining successful customer relationships is vital. That’s why everyone involved with the customer must work together as a team. In most companies, sales, engineering, and marketing often use separate systems—causing communication gaps in customer support. Discover how sharing information through integrated customer relationship management (CRM) can help bridge those gaps.
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Most businesses recognize the strategic importance of customer relationship management (CRM), but some small to medium businesses (SMBs) continue to use basic contact managers or simple spreadsheets to track customers, manage leads, and collaborate on sales. Achieving great results requires more than just installing CRM software. Learn how assessing your business’s CRM maturity level can help build your road map to success.
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In the computing world, a dramatic shift is taking place—enabling a new way for IT departments to manage services. The promise of a leaner, more efficient data center has many businesses clamoring to go virtual. In the rush to virtualize, however, they have forgotten the painful and expensive lessons learned from introducing risk into the physical environment. Find out how detective controls can mitigate those risks.
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It seems that these days you need a password for everything. And with so many to remember, it’s no wonder helpdesks are bombarded with calls that tie up the IT department’s resources. Password inflation and the resulting fatigue increasingly frustrate not only end users, but the support teams that deal with the fallout of strict password polices as well. Find out how some businesses are putting an end to this madness.
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While the growing trend among companies today is to implement stronger password policies to increase network security, it seems that many still struggle with finding the most cost-effective solution. Read about what a recent survey of over 600 IT professionals discovered about password policies, and find out why implementing a low-risk, cost-effective, and secure password management solution is just what you need.
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Your web site can be your best marketing and sales tool in a global market. Stale content, however, isn't useful to visitors—so you have to make sure your site is constantly updated. How can you reduce the time and financial expense of using multiple systems and multiple forms of content to revise your site? A software-as-a-service (SaaS) content management system (CMS) might be the solution you're looking for. Read more.
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Companies looking to expand their facilities and strategize their way into the marketplace often focus most of their efforts on bottom line results. During the process, they factor in infrastructure costs but often pay little attention on how to control them. Find out how a Web-enabled solution that puts infrastructure management sharply in focus can help you easily access distributed information while helping curb costs.
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Role management is becoming recognized as an essential aspect of an organization's identity management and security. But role management goes well beyond simply assigning passwords or user IDs. You must also manage and govern the roles related to the core business activities of your organization. Start by looking at key considerations for choosing a role management solution, and benefit from suggested best practices.
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Organizations need to control who has access to enterprise resources, what level of access individuals have, and who is authorized to grant access. But you may not know that identity management involves more than your organization s operations side—you must also align your infrastructure to maximize security. Find out key considerations and best practices for developing a user provisioning and access management strategy.
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Is your information security system staying on top of the 400 new threats that appear monthly? Securing your Web applications is not a one-time event, but a continuous process of testing and re-testing for new vulnerabilities, especially when vital data is in development or production. Learn how a Web application security optimization process can help you perform effective continuous assessments of your system.
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Along with positive technological changes inevitably come the negative (spam 2.0, anyone?). Today's e-mail spam is increasingly image-based and harder to detect. Fingerprinting and optical character recognition (OCR) help identify some spam, but are less and less effective. Find out how a solution that creates real-time, behavior-based rules for new spam campaigns can put spam in its proper place—outside your system.
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You think you're staying on top of security by monitoring your IT systems for changes and user activity. But current approaches to network security, such as native auditing, often fail to perform as well as they should. Before you hit the panic button, find out why your system may be letting you down, and letting unauthorized users in—and how with real-time insight into your servers, you can boost security and compliance.
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Enterprises are becoming increasingly aware of their fiduciary duty and legal obligation to protect confidential and personal information. As such their IT departments must find a way to effectively secure storage tiers from unauthorized access and viewing. Discover why today’s storage security technology with integrated encryption processing is the type of solution that many IT professionals are turning to.
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Collaborative tools are becoming essential to sharing data in today’s office environment. You need a solution that can grow to accommodate new projects and uses—and a storage system that is flexible enough to meet initial demands and adapt to changes. Find out how a multiple-node storage area network (SAN) can maximize the scalability and functionality of your collaboration tools, and ease storage administration.
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Earlier-generation spam systems all share a common weakness—they rely heavily on analyzing content that can easily be manipulated by spammers. As such, state-of-the-art antispam systems must go beyond content examination by analyzing messages in the full context in which they are sent. Find out how using a multilayer defense approach can help you successfully eliminate spam and blended threats in your enterprise.
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Every enterprise must be prepared to confront an incident that threatens the security, privacy, or general operations of the company or its customers. But how is it possible to respond to an incident quickly, without interrupting corporate operations? By building an incident response team (IRT) with the right skills, authority, and knowledge to properly deal with a range of known—and unknown incidents. Find out how.
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It’s almost a certainty that every company will, at some time or other, face a significant incident. As such, many experts are turning to enterprise incident management. It empowers professionals from a variety of fields to work together to solve problems in a coordinated, disciplined manner so that budgets can be justified and progress can be made quickly. Learn how incident management can benefit your business.
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While there are numerous strategies for dealing with the restoration of functions through a recovery process, there is only one for continuing operations with minimal interruption. It’s called a reserve system, and it’s vital for business continuation. It’s fast and easy to activate, simple to move, low in cost, testable, available, and highly reliable. Find out how it compares to some of the more traditional strategies.
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Just when malware design seemed to have reached a plateau, new and more complex attack techniques have now emerged. For a while, security controls designed to manage spam, viruses, and malware were working, but as a result of this success, the threats they protected against were forced to change. Learn about today’s key security trends and how you can fight against the sophisticated new generation of Internet threats.
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Most spam, viruses, phishing, and e-mail denial-of-service attacks can be traced back to a single common cause: lack of e-mail protocol authentication. This lack of authentication means that a receiving mail server cannot reliably verify that a particular message is in fact from the sender it claims to be from, making it harder to distinguish friend from foe. Find out more about new standards that can help.
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While a great deal of attention has been given to protecting companies’ electronic assets from outside threats, organizations must now turn their attention to an equally dangerous situation: data loss from the inside. Given today’s strict regulatory standards, data loss prevention (DLP) has become one of the most critical issues facing executives. Fortunately, effective technical solutions are now available that can help.
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Service excellence alone is not enough to ensure future growth and profitability in today’s challenging market. Streamlining IT processes is essential to your business workflow. Whatever your professional services software needs—from customer relationship management (CRM) to human capital management—it’s time to learn your lessons: find out key strategies and best practices that can help your company grow profitably.
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Professional service providers are starting to apply supply chain management concepts to their strategies for hiring and retaining talent. Adapting to market demands such as globalization and a more sophisticated client base means human resources departments need a complete and integrated process of talent management. But hiring and keeping top talent can also help you increase revenues and increase client loyalty. Find out how.
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Managing growth is a monumental undertaking—and one that Valero Energy Corporation has mastered. But as one of the largest oil refinery companies in North America, with revenues exceeding $90 billion (USD), the company needed to find a way to fit new applications into its existing infrastructure in a quick and cost-effective manner. By switching to SAP’s NetWeaver platform, Valero saved $480,000 (USD) in the first month.
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Sant Joan de Déu Hospital is one of the most important hospitals in Spain, and specializes in pediatrics and women’s medicine. Because of its status, it needed to find a way to automate its internal processes and develop a corporate portal for patients and health professionals. Since deploying a business process management (BPM) solution, Sant Joan has increased accessibility and created autonomy within its departments.
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If the auditors came knocking, would you be prepared? When they do come, you’ll need to be ready to answer some tough questions regarding your change management processes. Implementing and assessing change management controls for Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) compliance in the US can be a very expensive and time consuming process. Find out how you can reduce the SOX burden by improving the way you manage your change processes.
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As the Microsoft Exchange environment continues to grow, building and managing the underlying IT infrastructure becomes increasingly difficult for Exchange administrators. Adding more and more storage can lead to frequent system downtime and slower response times. Discover seven ways your administrators can spend less time on day-to-day Microsoft Exchange management—while planning for future growth in the process.
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Small to medium businesses (SMBs) can benefit from the expansive use of IT just as much as their larger counterparts. And in many cases they have to, because of their interactions not only with remote users, but with suppliers and customers as well. To this end, an SMB’s IT infrastructure needs to be resilient and secure. To ensure end-to-end care of data assets, businesses need to adopt the right strategy. Find out how.
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The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) was created by credit card companies to protect cardholder data, ensuring that merchants and service providers maintain the highest degree of information security. However, many retailers are still questioning its effectiveness and necessity in light of the high cost of compliance. Read this white paper to find out what this cost really means for your organization.
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Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS) is a popular tool for the Windows platform that offers essential version control features and helps promote team collaboration. However, while it performs certain functions well, it’s not optimized for remote access, lacks many critical security features, and suffers from stability problems. Find out why many developers are now switching from VSS to SourceAnywhere Standalone.
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Data deduplication is one of the hottest technologies in storage today. However, with many different deduplication approaches from various vendors—each hyping its own unique benefits—it’s easy to get caught up in determining which factors are most important for you. Discover the different methodologies used in design deduplication solutions so you can make the right decision the first time.
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The teachers at Bangor Township Schools in Michigan (US) wanted a way to monitor students’ computer screens to make sure computers were being used for classroom projects and not games or messaging. Insight, Faronics’ classroom management solution, allows teachers to monitor every screen and to send warnings to students who visit inappropriate web sites. Read about the other benefits these teachers gained with Insight.
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According to Web services provider IronPort, over 92 billion spam messages are sent around the world daily. While it may seem like an uphill battle, several strategies are available that can help. To combat these threats, many organizations are implementing new technologies to secure their inboxes by blocking unsolicited messages. Discover what other tactics your business can adopt to help e-mail deliverability.
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It’s an inescapable, undisputable fact that most organizations have conflict between IT security and IT operations. Having been given two distinctive—yet potentially contradictory—goals, in a sense they were destined to be at odds with one another. What does it take to bridge the gap between these two teams to achieve compliance? Can standardized processes and software tools help (or hinder) this effort? Find out here.
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The competitive nature of the financial services industry today and the changing landscape of the customer approach to investing puts an onus on suppliers to consider how well they are dealing with customers’ business transactions. In order to provide better customer service—while at the same time improving operations—these organizations must invest in a system that allows real-time visibility of the entire process.
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To solve your data-intensive problems and deal with data storage tasks, you might consider a two-tier method. How? By using service-oriented architecture (SOA) to make distributed systems interoperable. Why? SOA can optimize data storage architecture, transparently and securely, to maximize and optimize access to large quantities of data. Learn about other benefits, and the steps that are best for your IT infrastructure.
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Effective IT disaster recovery (DR) and planning is essential for every business. However, IT environments have become so complex that safeguarding the business against disasters can present some major challenges. One way to improve your business disaster recovery planning is by pre-testing DR scenarios using network simulation. Find out how a simulation testing solution can help you better protect your business.
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Are you on top of data security compliance? Is your source code secure? Are you looking for a new approach that can help ensure these things are taken care of? With SourceAnyware Hosted solution—which provides 128-bit SSL encryption—your data is protected and your source code is secured from attacks. Find out how SourceAnywhere can help you lower total cost of ownership and improve your development team productivity.
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As businesses become increasingly dependent on the effective delivery of IT services over global networks, technologies that optimize application performance over wide area networks (WANs) become more competitive. But how do you know which WAN to choose when there are so many solutions on the market? By learning about WAN best practices and principles, and by making comparative evaluations of competing vendors’ offerings.
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Increasing user productivity is an ongoing challenge for many companies. While an abundance of online information and applications is available to them, facilitating fast and secure access to the information can be a complex task. An integrated provisioning and single sign-on (SSO) solution provides secure access to the network from the moment an employee starts the job—enabling full productivity from day one.
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The threats faced by small to medium businesses (SMBs) are multidimensional and must be handled differently from big enterprises, given the smaller number of personnel dedicated to look after them. The ideal security software for SMBs looking to protect their information systems would be the combination of antivirus, antispam, and content security solutions, combined with a powerful network firewall. Find out why it works.
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When you connect to the Internet, you do so through the Windows Socket (Winsock) layer. While this layer is an integral part of the Windows operating system and acts as an interface between your computer and the Net, it cannot distinguish the difference between good traffic and bad. MicroWorld Winsock Layer (MWL) technology helps by sitting on the Winsock layer and analyzing the traffic—before it gets to your computer.
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Today’s business processes place high demands on IT infrastructure, and the answer often is integration of software and hardware resources. Now you can integrate by separating: divide logical processing and storage resources from the physical hardware on which they run, and help make virtualization a powerful tool for improving your data center’s flexibility, reliability, and use—while reducing cost of management.
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Virtual data centers must enable increased physical server use and central management of virtual machine infrastructure. A clustered file system, with a virtual machine manager (VMM), can add critical new management and migration capability to current virtual servers. Before installing and configuring VMM, find out the hardware and software required for migration and integration, and helpful “how-to” pointers.
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The amount of malware that is being released around the world is increasing at an alarming rate. To combat these cyber-crimes, new layers of protection are needed that take advantage of automating the entire malware protection cycle—from sample collection, analysis and classification, to remediation. By combing automation with Panda’s Collective Intelligence, targeted attacks can be detected more quickly and efficiently.
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For advocacy firms, safeguarding client information is of paramount importance. One key concern for these law firms is the presence of vulnerabilities in their networks due to the general lack of user awareness in information security issues. While there are a number of solutions on the market to combat threats, MicroWorld’s suite of security solutions provide highly advanced protection that businesses can rely on.
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Software implementation can be complex. Even when it seems all your business processes and systems are “go” after the implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, there might still be room for improvement. Find out how a post-implementation system assessment of technical and functional systems can improve data capture accuracy, increase user buy-in, and boost your return on investment (ROI).
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Computerized numerical control (CNC) is crucial to the successful operation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, but the road to success is sometimes rocky. To surmount the challenges of meeting your CNC needs, learn how an on-demand (or CNC managed services) model can improve your return on investment, and streamline and standardize your business processes.
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Spam has become a global epidemic. And because it is constantly evolving and mutating, spam makes it difficult to separate good e-mails from the bad. While most mail servers have mechanisms to combat spam, they often require third party solutions to eradicate spam from the network. Find out more about the shortcomings of established filtering methods, and how one community-based approach to filtering can work.
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Have you ever received a call from your existing long-distance phone company asking you to switch to its service and wondered why they are calling? Chances are the integrity of its data is so poor that the company has no idea who many of its customers are. The fact is, many businesses suffer from this same problem. The solution: implement a master data management (MDM) system that uses an accurate data matching process.
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Ensuring the quality, accuracy, and security of customer data has never been more important than it is today. The growing potential for privacy breaches and tighter compliance regulations have created unique challenges and responsibilities for many data providers. Here we discuss some of the key privacy issues surrounding data management, and how partnering with a provider of master data management (MDM) software can help.
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Virtual private networks (VPNs) are optimized to perform specific functions within the remote access architecture. But deploying the often complex mix of approaches for managed and unmanaged devices can affect your security. Blue Coat RA provides a new approach that bridges the gap between traditional and endpoint security technologies—helping businesses meet remote access requirements in a simple, cost effective manner.
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Businesses today are increasingly committed to Web-enabled applications as a cost-effective way of delivering critical business solutions. But as more and more businesses follow suit, it becomes increasingly apparent that better performance and availability across the Internet must be realized by the early movers in order to maintain their lead. With the deployment of advanced products and services, this can be achieved.
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Blade computing is a new computing architecture that provides a highly dense, scalable, and powerful flexible platform to support businesses’ software needs. Blade architecture was once used for simple server consolidation, but it has now become a way of managing IT assets, which provides significant business benefits. Find out how a blade system can benefit your company while optimizing your existing infrastructure.
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Today, more business than ever is done in branch offices or at remote sites, but very few IT resources are actually hosted there. To reduce costs, businesses often consolidate applications—but consolidation can lead to poor performance. With the right solution, however, acceleration techniques—like bandwidth management and protocol optimization—can be properly dispersed to remote applications, helping increase performance.
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According to Symantec, 40 percent of malicious attacks target your browser. With Web content threats quickly on the rise, there’s an opportunity for businesses to enhance their Web filtering strategies. Enforcing appropriate use policy and providing robust Web content security, however, requires a dynamic filtering solution that can mitigate a variety of content security threats—not only today but in the future as well.
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As the solution of choice for many companies, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have helped many manufacturers operate more efficiently and effectively. By streamlining business operations, ERP systems can solve many of the problems faced by today’s manufacturing companies—and help them become leaner and more competitive. Find out how an ERP solution can work for your company.
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A call center can be so much more to your enterprise than a costly necessity. By carefully selecting an on-premise contact center solution, your company can boost revenues, retain customers, and discover customer service strengths and weaknesses in the long term. But before making a purchase, do you have the information you need about your current situation? Find out what to ask before you buy.
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Explosive data growth, shrinking backup windows, and unreliable restores are just a few of the issues you have to manage on a daily basis—especially if you’re using a legacy tape backup application system. But you can still use your legacy system by extending its life and enhancing its reliability with a hardware-based disk compression solution. Find out how, and considerably reduce your backup and recovery times.
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The capacity of today’s storage systems is increasing at an astonishing rate. But the truth is: the more storage you have, the more you use. So, how do you create an efficient data storage system? And how much space can it really save you? Advanced single instance storage (A-SIS) deduplication can reduce storage consumption up to 95 percent—helping you conserve disk space, while keeping your system overhead low.
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Chances are, if you’re backing up your data, you’re using backup tape as your solution. But advances in data management technologies are making disk-to-disk (D2D) backup a vital component of any sane data protection strategy. In fact, D2D backup provides answers to the challenges threatening traditional tape backup strategies. Find out how to evaluate the different advanced data protection solutions available on the market today.
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E-mail archiving systems are no longer simply tools that focus on regulatory compliance, but instead are multifaceted systems that can help companies satisfy legal discovery requirements, improve messaging-related storage management, and assist in disaster recovery efforts. While there are several solutions available, a hosted solution can offer a number of important benefits you should consider.
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Does your business have a records management policy that addresses e-mail? Well if it doesn’t, now’s the time to consider adopting one. To meet Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) requirements, businesses must create and enforce a clear corporate messaging policy. With Fortiva’s on-demand archiving solution, your legal team can easily develop e-mail policies—making compliance with legal discovery demands much easier.
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Even when business revenues decline, the demand for IT services often continues to increase. To meet those challenges, both businesses and IT partners must come to terms with the demand and delivery needs of each group. Strong communication between the user and the IT provider is essential. Strategize your initiatives and transform your business: find out key recommendations to manage IT supply and demand relationships.
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It is widely acknowledged that unauthorized changes made to an IT infrastructure cause up to 80 percent of a system’s unavailability. So what key ingredient is needed to reduce that percentage? By adding change control to an existing or planned change management infrastructure, businesses can improve IT service availability, lower compliance costs, and accelerate their IT infrastructure library (ITIL) implementations.
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There are key systems in every infrastructure where unapproved change can pose significant business risk. These guidelines show you how to properly categorize these systems in order to identify those that have risk characteristics. By learning how to identify critical change control failure points in your infrastructure, you reduce the threat of costly downtime, potential security breaches, and compliance weaknesses.
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Identity theft and credit card fraud affect all businesses—and the problem is only getting worse. In order to combat these threats, credit card companies have joined forces to introduce the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). For financial institutions, complying with PCI DSS by using real-time monitoring and selective enforcement software can help to relieve the burden of unauthorized changes.
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Before an organization can truly realize the cost and agility benefits of enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA), there are a few concepts it should know about. By understanding the various stages of SOA adoption and by knowing what technologies are available, an organization will stand a better chance of succeeding in its SOA initiatives. With these seven steps, effective SOA can be realized.
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Corporate governance encompasses the processes and systems by which organizations operate—and it affects every business. To effectively participate in governance processes, businesses should consider closed-loop service oriented architecture (SOA). Although stand-alone applications for governance, management, and security exist, find out why they do not enable the demand and value management that closed-loop SOA offers.
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Corporate IT organizations are struggling to satisfy the demands of a constantly evolving business environment. Lowering costs and responding to changing markets are a few of the challenges they face. Another is understanding how to leverage mission-critical applications as they develop new composite applications. Find out how deploying a service-oriented legacy architecture (SOLA) can help—and save you time and money.
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Corporate IT departments and independent software vendors (ISV) alike are faced with a number of similar business challenges. One such challenge is the problem of how to derive additional value from their existing Windows and UNIX software applications and create advantage with Web-enabled solutions. Discover the pros and cons of Web-based and Web-enabled applications—and learn about the solutions that lead the pack.
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The security provisions of the US Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) are complex and process-intensive, and non-compliant financial institutions and their officers have suffered penalties as a result. With QualysGuard’s vulnerability management and policy compliance solution—including on-demand auditing capabilities—financial institutions can easily meet the key security guidelines that are detailed in the GLBA.
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Despite the defensive efforts of firewalls, intrusion detection, antivirus solutions, and the like, criminals, careless employees, and contractors have exposed more than 158 million digital records of consumers personally identifiable information since 2005. With this critical need for stronger network security, Qualys has developed an on-demand solution that effectively manages these vulnerabilities.
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While most information vulnerabilities stem from external intrusion and theft of data, there remains a greater potential for information to be lost, stolen, or accidentally erased by internal sources—the employees. Don’t let this be the case with your business! Information vulnerability management (IVM) is a corporate issue—one that needs addressing. To learn how you can reduce your exposure, download this white paper.
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As with all things, there’s a good side and a bad side—the Internet is no different. Although it improves communication between businesses and customers, it can also overwhelm customers that are bombarded with marketing e-mails on a daily basis. Customers want more convenient contact channels. Smart companies understand this and are responding by adopting a multichannel approach to customer relationship management (CRM).
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As a provider of employee benefits, CIGNA must observe a bevy of regulatory compliance mandates. Because much of its efforts are compliance-focused, it continually embraces technology, searching for new products to better manage its benefit offerings and track its security risks. With QualysGuard’s vulnerability management solution, CIGNA has mitigated vulnerabilities and remained up-to-date with compliance regulations.
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With a vast global network that supports over 60,000 employees, vulnerability and risk management programs are crucial for Oracle GIT. To further enhance its IT system risk management capabilities, Oracle deployed QualysGuard’s on-demand software vulnerability and compliance management solution. Since its deployment, Oracle has optimized its scanning capabilities and automated its demand security auditing processes.
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To keep your growing business competitive, your data center must be secure, protected against disaster, and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But if managing IT is not your core competence, what are your options? A managed service provider (MSP) can help. Learn about the benefits of outsourcing data center management, and make sure your crucial business applications are always available when you need them.
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Corporate concern for the environment is no longer just an issue of compliancy. Businesses are becoming increasingly concerned about how much energy is required by their IT operations, especially by their data centers. Greening IT starts in the data center: find out how data center consolidation—and other solutions—can help you reduce energy consumption, and even increase productivity and efficiency.
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When it comes to data and storage management, midsize organizations often face similar issues to those of their larger counterparts. Rapid data growth, business continuity, and data archiving are just a few of the problems they must deal with. By coupling IP-based storage area network (SAN) technology with Ethernet-based SAN connectivity, however, organizations can gain higher levels of efficiency and effectiveness.
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With the increasing complexity of the data center and its dependent systems, data center automation (DCA) is becoming a necessity. To replace the costly and inefficient human aspect of managing the data center, IT departments must adopt DCA solutions. Combined with utility-based computing architectures, these solutions can provide greater dynamics in the environment and facilitate speed of response to market demands.
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Remote access to source code is a requirement for today’s development teams. Popular source control packages are ideal for sharing code across a local area network (LAN), but when used remotely over the Internet, they cause problems in performance, security, and flexibility. Find out how remote-access middleware does more than increase your network speed. It can protect your code base and provide multiplatform support.
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For small businesses with limited budgets and IT support, customer relationship management (CRM) has been out of reach. Until now, these small companies have missed out on the benefits provided by CRM because most applications were built for larger companies. New technology, however, has now emerged that levels the playing field for these smaller businesses by providing a fully customizable and affordable CRM system.
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When testing firm Promissor’s system kept crashing, it knew it was time to make a change. With over 800 employees made up of part-timers, temporary workers, and employees on various pay cycles, its payroll team was constantly reconstructing lost time sheets and wasting valuable time. Since implementing an automated Web-based solution, it has benefited from improved data collection accuracy and reduced manual processing.
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Non-profit organization The March of Dimes realized that to continue its success, it would need to find more efficient and effective ways to work. Its human resources (HR) department was doing most of its HR and payroll processes manually—for over 1400 employees in various locations. To automate these processes, it turned to a Web-based application and has since significantly cut down on processing time and expense.
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TESTCo was accustomed to managing its issue tracking for software testing using Microsoft Excel or one of its customers’ homegrown solutions. But as operations expanded, the company realized it needed a better system to manage this process—one that could monitor issues and ensure they were resolved and documented. Using ProjectLockers Issue Manager, TESTCo has benefited by saving on maintenance hours and costs.
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For many years, S&C Electric, a global provider of electric power system equipment, used internally built tracking and Subversion data to manage source code and documents and to track viruses. But as it grew, its needs became more complex, and more maintenance time was required. A managed source control solution now manages and protects S&C Electric’s intellectual property, and saves the company a lot in man-hours.
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Software company Terra Technology’s development team often worked remotely, without a centralized development system. Managing documents manually was quickly becoming an unproductive use of the team s time—and increased its chances of making errors. Since using ProjectLocker’s document management system, Terra Technology has saved valuable time and money, and can now focus on its core competency—supply chain software.
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Any geographically distributed business with three or more remote sites has likely dealt with tape-based backup systems. If this sounds like your business, then you certainly understand the complexities involved with managing growing data—not to mention the risks. The good new is that an agentless, multisite backup and recovery software solution is available that can offer a high-speed alternative to tape-based systems.
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IT managers today face plenty of problems when it comes to protecting remote office data—problems that agentless architecture could eliminate. Many organizations outsource their data protection, which can be costly. But an agentless architecture disk-to-disk (D2D) software solution can offer your business bottom-line benefits that range from lower administrative costs to pay-as-you-grow scalability and increased security.
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Online advertising has grown so fast that it has surpassed billboards, magazines, and cable in spending. Local advertising is growing even faster, and the need to provide competitive services to advertisers is becoming imperative. As demand for local listings increases, a tool enabling advertisers to manage their own web site listings will not only save them significant operating dollars, it’ll provide a competitive edge.
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Today’s IT professionals are often challenged by unrelenting changes in the enterprise, increased data growth and compliance regulations, and geographic distribution of assets, to name a few. Keyboard/video/mouse (KVM) over Internet protocol (IP) can help by providing an effective tool that can remotely manage servers—regardless of their physical location. When looking for a KVM over IP solution, you should consider some basic requirements first.
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An estimated 55 percent of users of business critical applications work in remote locations. With so many users working remotely, networks become congested and user productivity suffers. Until now, wide area network (WAN) monitoring and shaping has required special appliances, but there’s a new alternative software-based solution available that leverages the power of the user’s PC—providing unprecedented traffic control.
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Is it possible to easily migrate from legacy tape devices to encrypting tape drives and still keep costs to a minimum? The answer is yes. With a comprehensive key management storage security system, a manageable and affordable migration process is achievable with a simple 3-step process. This process includes many benefits, such as a complete feature set that enhances system auditability and minimizes operational costs.
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What can a managed Subversion solution do to help .NET businesses solve their integration problems? Subversion meets the challenge of software development by allowing teams to use branching and tagging methods that help them work better with their QA organizations. It also saves .NET businesses a lot of money over setting up and maintaining a development infrastructure in house, which keeps the cost of ownership manageable.
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Software development best practices can save you money and make your team more productive. When software development teams don’t invest in a solid development platform, it makes their work harder and often ends up costing them more money over time. A hosted platform, however, provides a level of convenience and savings that makes it the obvious choice for today’s IT development, management, and consulting organizations.
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In their efforts to accelerate time to market and improve business process efficiency, many marketing organizations adopt customer relationship management (CRM). But CRM often falls short in exploiting the exponential growth of content associated with product and brand marketing. By using a digital asset management (DAM) solution, however, you can increase productivity and achieve a favorable return on investment (ROI).
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In today’s business world, heightened privacy concerns and tightened regulations such as the US Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act have forced organizations to improve their workflow and archival and records management processes. That's why many results-oriented organizations are now using workflow software—bringing together people, processes, and documents to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and meet compliance requirements.
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The future of customer service management (CRM) is changing—and SAP’s CRM 5.2 is a big part of the reason. SAP is known for constantly enhancing its products—whether it’s changing its tier architecture or introducing new dimensional components. But its latest in CRM technology provides many new features and functionalities, and introduces some of the latest trends. If you want to know more about SAP CRM 5.2, here it is.
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Today’s complex enterprise networks present unique challenges to those whose task it is to manage and secure them. Existing security measures that worked yesterday may not be sufficient tomorrow. But by combining Configuresoft’s Enterprise Configuration Manager (ECM) with Microsoft’s System Center 2007, businesses can secure their data, protect their bottom lines from costly downtime, and meet regulatory standards.
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IT is often characterized as distinct groups pursuing individual agendas and launching disconnected initiatives to increase operational efficiencies. To overcome this, organizations need a set of capabilities that can help improve coordination between IT and the rest of the business while facilitating effective service management. Adopting foundational technologies and a best-practice benchmark is a good place to start.
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Most businesses today depend on their own IT departments to satisfy corporate governance objectives and meet increasing customer demand. Unfortunately, many have failed to clearly demonstrate to themselves—and to their customers—that they are truly managing their business. Only when the IT department understands what the business wants can it benchmark itself and build continual improvement plans that can meet these demands.
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Is scrambling to consolidate and virtualize your information systems department frazzling you and your hardware? Are management and infrastructure costs not as low as you’d like them to be? Separate your business applications from your physical server hardware—and make your virtual infrastructure more dynamic and flexible, while reducing costs. The trick is doing it without losing space or key data. Find out how.
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Enterprises of all sizes are building flexible storage infrastructures by using iSCSI and virtualization technologies that let them allocate and shift storage area network (SAN) resources dynamically in response to the demands of their virtualized server environments. Find out how a virtualized infrastructure with virtualization technologies can help you achieve an IT infrastructure that is simple to manage and scale.
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iSCSI storage area networks (SANs) offer an alternative for building SANs. Consolidating storage in a SAN offers storage management and scaling benefits for data centers, and iSCSI support in Windows Server 2003 makes connecting servers to an iSCSI SAN easier and more affordable. Read this technical briefing to understand best practices and the benefits of using an iSCSI SAN with SQL Server 2005.
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In order for a business to stay on top of compliance requirements required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)—and avoid financial penalties or possible jail time—it must take a good look at its IT environment and financial reporting processes. The collection, management, and analysis of log data are integral to meeting SOX requirements and as such, require a system that automates these processes across the IT infrastructure.
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SQL Server deployments can be large and complex. However, Auto-Snapshot Manager simplifies data management tasks and offers a comprehensive approach to SQL Server protection by providing both local and remote database protection, allowing for quick data recovery in case of data loss or site failure. Find out more about how Auto-Snapshot Manager can provide you with the safety net you need for effective disaster recovery.
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Organizations of all sizes face similar challenges when managing storage—not enough capacity or protection. Help has arrived with Internet small computer system interface storage area networks (iSCSI SANs)—and they're steadily gaining momentum. With iSCSI SANs, businesses can effectively manage their storage needs, while lowering costs and increasing security. Find out why many industry leaders are choosing iSCSI today.
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With your Internet and e-mail gateways largely secured against external hackers, most security breaches are now occurring within your network. But why should this issue be placed above the many other IT and governance concerns vying for your attention? Well, where would you be if your closest competitors suddenly had your latest technical blueprints—or if your customers all cancelled their accounts thanks to a data leak?
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Today’s extensive use of data collection tools coupled with the easy access to communication networks has woven more devices and systems into the fabric of our daily lives. As the scale of integration and complexity grows, so does the need for the appropriate paradigm to address it. In order to scale, system software architecture must be organized around a common-shared information model that can span multiple systems.
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Information lifecycle management (ILM) is rapidly gaining acceptance as a process crucial to the success of many IT initiatives. The reason for this is the importance of managing data. With the growing demand for ILM comes a variety of solutions that follow a disjointed, point product approach. By choosing an ILM software designed to scale to its needs, a business can benefit from software built on a unified platform.
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Every day, sensitive business information finds its way into the wrong hands—through external breaches or internal theft. Such data is highly regulated, and any risks of exposure can result in stiff penalties and legal liabilities. Many of these security risks lie in the test/dev environments, and as such require a solution that protects data application clones from unauthorized access without jeopardizing its integrity.
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The growth of application data has placed an enormous burden on IT organizations to maintain acceptable application performance and availability. The weight of managing and navigating through vast amounts of inactive data has caused outages and raised budgets, among other problems. Active archiving software, however, addresses complex data management issues and delivers lasting benefits to organizations and its users.
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Data breach is a very real problem in business today. Every day, organizations store massive amounts of data inside database tables—data ranging from credit card transactions to product inventories. This valuable information is what runs the business. In order to protect this data and stay on top of compliance, an enterprise data management solution that respects information privacy regulations should be considered.
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The maze of regulations governing electronic data has never been more complex. Various regulatory bodies, as well as international, regional, and national governments, have different requirements for handling electronic data. Get an in-depth look at compliance regulations, particularly the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), that impact IT managers, and learn about best practices for managing your electronic messaging content.
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Fax hardware plays a crucial role in the sending and receiving of business documents. With high-volume use over time, instabilities in performance can occur. Therefore, how well fax boards and fax software applications perform together becomes an important consideration. With IQ Express intelligent fax board series, fax servers send and receive corporate documents electronically—reducing costs and improving productivity.
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For automotive manufacturers and their suppliers, consumer demands are high and global competition is fierce. To compete successfully, manufacturers must meet expectations and still generate an acceptable profit margin. By using QAD’s Just-in-time (JIT) Sequencing process together with its Manufacturing Execution Workbench (MEW) tools, automotive manufacturers will have the foundation needed to meet these challenges.
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Three strikes—your out; that’s what lockout management does. But employees often forget the many passwords needed to access information. What ensues is a flood of calls to the help desk that, over time, can become a huge administrative burden. Adopting a strong password policy is critical. By implementing a lockout management strategy via automated management solutions, businesses enhance security and improve workflow.
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When Naghi Group’s annual revenue began to soar, it realized that running core business operations on multiple systems was no longer feasible; its current solution lacked the integration capabilities necessary to communicate with its distribution and manufacturing departments. After only a few months since integrating VAI’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, Naghi has already realized its many benefits.
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Financial service institutions spend thousands of dollars every year on securing their networks from external breaches, but often fail to think about possible internal threats. Employee fraud has become a growing problem in the financial sector—one that many institutions are not fully prepared to handle. Implementing automated detection technologies, however, can be their first line of defense to eradicating this problem.
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Electronic communication tools can provide enormous benefits for your employees, as well as distinct competitive advantages. However, they also carry the risk that employees might communicate in ways that violate corporate policies, various statutes, or best practices. Find out about the key steps you should take to mitigate the risks you face from employee use—and misuse—of communication tools.
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Employees installing and using unauthorized applications like instant messaging, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), games, and peer-to-peer file-sharing applications cause many businesses serious concern. Find out why it’s important to control such applications and learn about various approaches you can take to find a simple and cost-effective solution that integrates with malware protection.
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The first six months of 2007 continued a trend of rapidly mutating virus and spam campaigns. Small targeted attacks were favored over large-scale attacks. The Web in particular continued to be a growing source of threats, being overrun with Trojans, spyware and adware, potentially unwanted applications, and undesirable web sites. Protect yourself: learn about our predictions for the upcoming threat landscape.
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Today’s information technologies present businesses with countless ways to communicate and collaborate, creating a new global work environment that does not follow traditional physical limitations of borders and boundaries. Find out about an approach to network security that extends your protection beyond the workplace to reach remote users and an increasingly mobile workforce.
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Technology products always seem to come out strong, and then wither under intense scrutiny. This was the case with single sign-on (SSO). However, any product driven by strong need will reinvent itself to address the problems it contains. With SSO, a number of myths have now been exploded. Find out why it may be time for you to evaluate SSO for your company. Myth #1: You can’t get true SSO.
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To boot or pre-boot, that is the question. There’s no doubt that operating systems (OSs) are complicated given the sheer amount of code that must be flawlessly interfaced and the potential vulnerabilities that can ensue. While full disk encryption (FDE) is one step closer to a more secure OS, encryption without strong authentication isn’t enough. For security-conscious users, pre-boot authentication is the only way to go.
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The Mobile County Public School System was frustrated with frequent attacks by viruses and malware on its student and staff workstations. The school district’s IT department searched for ways to gain more control over the multi-user computer environment. With Faronics’ Deep Freeze servers, IT now has centralized control of workstations, and increased protection against the effects of spyware, malware, and viruses.
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Newport Independent school district’s implementation of a formal energy-conservation policy created problems for the district-wide computer system. Rather than having to manually shut down up to 900 computers at the end of every day, the district’s head IT technician opted to centralize control with Faronic’s Power Save technology. The final result: a solution that is both environmentally and fiscally responsible.
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If you’re operating a small to medium business (SMB), you have special needs when it comes to IT security. While large businesses usually have large budgets to invest in the latest technologies, you have to wait until new technologies have proved themselves. One such technology is e-mail content security (ECS). But do you know what makes a good ECS solution and what makes a bad one? If you don’t, you should. Find out now.
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So you think you just need to be able to block spam? Think again. When it comes to anti-spam, detection is important. But so is management. You also need to control incoming and outgoing e-mail content, as well as checking for spam, viruses, specific text, and attachments within a rule-based framework. Find out how to use an integrated e-mail content management package for effective and flexible spam control.
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Many manufacturers want to increase production efficiency and improve quality—but how can they ensure their efforts are successful? A process-oriented enterprise resource planning (ERP) system may be the answer. This white paper includes case studies on a variety of process manufacturing industries and provides valuable insights into the ERP capabilities required to successfully manage a process-oriented implementation.
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On top of the many challenges faced by IT managers today comes yet another challenge: ensuring efficient and secure user access to SAP. Because of the unencrypted communication between users’ workstations and the backend servers, the SAP environment—and the confidential data it stores—become vulnerable. With a secure single sign-on solution to SAP, however, you can significantly improve the security of this environment.
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Today’s business environment is more mobile than ever. With more employees traveling—using laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and home computers to conduct business—vulnerabilities increase. Companies are now protecting their digital assets with full disk encryption (FDE). Recent advances in FDE allow businesses to protect data stored on users’ mobile devices, without jeopardizing intellectual property.
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Protecting your company’s data is not only wise, but often legally necessary. In order to beef up their data security programs, more companies are implementing full disk encryption (FDE). In the past, FDE was software based, which left it open to greater security risks. With the advent of new technology, however, it is now possible to migrate from software- to hardware-based FDE while still protecting your existing systems.
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Fax servers are essential for the financial services industry. Their reliability and security help transmit financial information quickly and safely. Financial institutions, however, also have workflow and document needs due to lots of back-office paperwork. Luckily, there are fax servers on the market that help financial institutions optimize workflow and business processes—organizing and reducing paperwork backlog.
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When you decide to implement a new fax software solution, you should review how the solution will be implemented and managed, as well as its ability to grow with your network. Within a Windows network, critical architectural, administrative, and usage concerns should be thoroughly considered. Review your options with this fax server overview outlining the benefits of different fax servers and e-mail integration.
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Secure transmission of health care information is critical to your medical organization and your clients. Volumes of critical medical data are sent to you every day, making it imperative that the information be sent quickly and safely. Fax servers are easy-to-use point-to-point systems that provide secure transmission of confidential information—saving you time and money while protecting all your sensitive data.
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Whether field service is your primary business or a service offering, incorporating mobile technologies into your existing system can give you a competitive edge. Electronic information capture not only increases reporting accuracy, but it also provides real-time data for your planning, billing, and purchasing needs—bridging the gap between your front-office operations and back-office processes.
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Keeping up-to-date on security features is challenging for any size business. Making your computer system secure without sacrificing usability isn’t easy. In fact, careful planning is absolutely necessary to ensure a secure system that works for you. Whether you’re worried about hackers, phishing, or internal breaches, there is a security solution to help you protect your critical data.
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What would you do if a critical error occurred during production—all because the wrong data was input into your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system? You’d probably be asking “how could this happen?” The ability to communicate information between teams can mean the difference between production success and failure. Avoid these snafus with a system that can integrate the data of both the design and ERP systems.
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Insecure data. Heavy fines due to non-compliance. Loss of customers and reputation. It adds up to a nightmare scenario that businesses want to avoid at all costs. However, this nightmare is preventable: knowledge base-driven data security solutions can be critical tools for enterprises wanting to secure not only their data—but also their status in the marketplace.
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You think you’re doing right by copying data so it’s available for production support. But did you know copied data is often at risk of insider theft or tampering? And that database management tools, such as encryption and digital certification, aren’t always deployed properly, thereby increasing the risk? Using a solution that centralizes database security policies can help. Find out more—before your data is desecrated.
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Why is Vyatta’s open source networking approach so successful? Because it is in touch with today’s users needs. By eliminating the reliance on specialized hardware, Vyatta’s open source, Linux-based approach to networking is changing the way networks are being purchased and deployed. With its strong community of users, Vyatta is challenging even proprietary networking vendors like Cisco. We challenge you to find out more.
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How can you get the most out of your virtualization project and avoid the common mistakes made by many businesses? By adopting a strategy that’ll allow you to be free of risk and save on your pocketbook. Don’t let your virtualization project become another implementation failure; make it a success. Sensitizing yourself to the five mistakes common to many enterprise virtualization implementations is a good place to start.
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Microsoft Dynamics is a business management solution designed to allow your employees to customize and automate their Microsoft Office system user interface according to their preferences and work styles. Microsoft Dynamics helps your employees and your business work more efficiently—giving you a faster return on investment and an effective and profitable business.
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The open architecture of Microsoft Dynamics GP provides a flexible solution for organizations implementing a business management system. The foundation is provided by the Dexterity runtime engine and Microsoft SQL Server, helping Microsoft Dynamics GP offer many features and benefits. These include an extendable architecture allowing add-ons and vertical enhancements—so that organizations can grow today and tomorrow.
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Microsoft development tools will help developers and independent Microsoft software vendors integrate Microsoft Dynamics GP with existing applications. This accounting and business management system includes many features and benefits, as well as guidelines to help developers choose the right tools for various development tasks and create custom applications that integrate with Microsoft Dynamics GP.
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With ever-changing technology, businesses often spend too much time and money trying to sustain their outdated systems. But is it possible to maintain a legacy system without the substantial costs of frequently updating it? By adopting service-oriented architecture (SOA)—which provides a suite of automated tools and services for migrating and extending legacy platforms—businesses can maximize quality and minimize costs.
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Systems integration with service-oriented architecture (SOA) helps you reuse the functionality in your mainframe applications. Extending your mainframes to an SOA through Web services will accelerate your time to market, keep your costs low, and help you avoid undue risk. Keep your business dynamic and current, and stay competitive in today’s marketplace—modernize your existing mainframes with SOA.
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In the rush to explore the “next big thing” in software technology, it’s easy to forget the huge investment you’ve already made in mainframe assets. These assets have performed the business functions that they were designed for, but it’s OK to remain open to new solutions too. By leveraging existing assets while moving to a service-based architecture, you can extend your existing business resources while saving money.
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To survive in today’s global marketplace, companies must develop a competitive advantage. Your business can thrive with the help of enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA). With the ability to implement business strategies more quickly, this greater flexibility will help your new business processes and empower your information workers—giving your company long-term growth and an ongoing competitive advantage.
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Globalization is one of the top issues affecting organizations’ supplier management strategies. True supplier collaboration can no longer be avoided: working closely with suppliers around the globe is the best way to streamline and reduce costs and increase value. With practical tips and techniques on how to achieve your vision statement, you can attain sourcing excellence while setting a pace that’s right for your company.
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Storage area networks (SAN) continue to grow in size and complexity. Often, the ongoing cost of maintenance and upgrades exceeds the initial acquisition and implementation cost. The ideal solution is to find an architecture that provides a simple migration path without disrupting the existing infrastructure. A stackable fibre channel switch can deliver—without diminishing your ability to upgrade and expand in the future.
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VMware and blade servers have taken the IT world by storm. Virtual server use has grown over 50 percent, and blade servers account for 12.5 percent of all new servers. Can you incorporate them into your existing frameworks? Yes. Routers can scale server numbers with virtual interfaces, and with fibre channel storage area network (SAN) connectivity, you can reduce testing and development costs in VMware environments.
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Corporate e-mail usage is expected to jump 38 percent by 2009. Can our future data centers handle this load? By using QLogic’s fibre channel host bus adapters (HBAs) in the Microsoft Exchange environment, your data centers can handle the load without degrading overall performance—thus providing the bandwidth and throughput you’re going to need.
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The Solaris operating system has become the top choice for hosting data center applications. Sun Solaris platforms consistently exceed the reliability requirements of enterprise data centers while at the same time reducing total cost of ownership (TCO). QLogic fibre channel solutions are a perfect match for Solaris environments and successfully meet the input/output requirements of enterprise applications.
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IT managers know that choosing the Linux host bus adapter (HBA) for their data center infrastructures can impact the reliability of their systems. That is why Linux-based servers are being deployed in many enterprises. You can use the reliability of QLogic storage area networks (SANs) to drive more value from your SAN investments—giving your IT managers increased reliability and scalability in a hardware portfolio.
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Storage area networks (SANs) are key components in IT organizations, as they provide access to and protection of critical data. Managing data storage is becoming increasingly complex, with regulatory and corporate requirements dictating national disaster protection. Whether your company is near or far, remote SANs store your critical data, saving you and your company from losses in even the most dire of circumstances.
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Realize the benefits of storage area networks (SANs) by using public or private networks. The benefits of SANs include centralized data management, back up, and restoration of data, as well as remote archiving for disaster recovery and business continuity. Host bus adapters (HBAs), switches, and multiprotocol routers are the keys to the fibre channel network—and the high-quality of select remote sites.
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Most IT managers have proven, cost-effective ways to increase the return on investment (ROI) of existing infrastructures—that is, storage area networks (SANs). SANs provide high-availability storage to servers within corporate infrastructures. Connecting low-cost servers to SANs makes business sense, as it dramatically reduces the cost-per-server connection to well below $100 (USD).
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Server consolidation is the reason enterprises deploy server virtualization technologies across their data centers, improving server and processor use. As more virtual servers are consolidated onto a single server, demand is increased on the central processing unit (CPU) and host bus interfaces. However, you can do more with less by deploying a fibre channel host bus adapter, enhancing your server consolidation levels.
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Traditional disaster planning and recovery solutions, including tape backup, image capture, and clustering, fail to deliver the necessary combination of recovery speed and integrity within reasonable budgetary constraints. That’s why organizations are increasingly leveraging virtualization to achieve superior disaster planning and recovery operations. Find out how to make it work for you.
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Fibre channel storage area networks (SANs) used to be implemented in only high-end enterprise class data centers, but this is no longer the case. SANs have become more affordable and can be widely implemented without sacrificing performance. When you need to expand your frame-based computer network, consider stackable switches as a cost-effective solution for the infrastructure of a fibre channel SAN.
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Small to medium businesses (SMBs) must adapt to technology innovations as well as the demand-driven consumer market. The need for small computer system interfaces (SCSIs) on each server host, along with enhanced security needs have driven SMB costs upwards. Is there a solution? Yes. Storage area networks (SANs) built on stackable switches help reduce costs, and are a viable approach for SMBs.
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As clusters grow to address the problems of increasing application complexity, interconnect performance has become a key factor in overall application and clustered system performance. Finding the interconnect performance you need is a complex task— however, when compared with two other adapters, InfiniPath SDR Infiniband interconnected faster and scaled better on high-performance computing (HPC) applications.
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IT organizations today are faced with the constant pressure of reducing costs at the service desk, while at the same time ensuring optimal customer service. To accelerate their IT infrastructure library (ITIL) initiatives, many are implementing service resolution management (SRM) systems. With the addition of SRM, these organizations can address the core issues required to operate an efficient and strategic service desk.
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As products become more complex and customer expectations continue to rise, service and support become increasingly difficult. So how can service and support managers transcend these problems and use each customer interaction to build customer loyalty and drive service leveraged revenue? By empowering customers with Web 2.0 technology and enabling users to manage their own experiences. Find out how.
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Server and data center consolidation has never been more important. Issues such as server sprawl and increasing costs have made consolidation the number one priority among IT managers. New virtualization technologies, however, are helping data centers combat these problems. Learn about the factors that are driving consolidation initiatives today, and find out what best practices can be used for ensuring its success.
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As your business grows, so too does the complexity of your data center. Along with this complexity, there are problems such as the inflexibility caused by operating systems, applications, and associated data, which are bound to the hardware they are installed on. Discover eight ways to optimize the infrastructure in your data center using virtualization products designed to work with your current technologies.
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Today’s data centers are an increasingly complex mixture of server platforms, hardware, operating systems, data, and applications that have accumulated over time. So how do you take your data center from a tangled mess of suboptimal servers which may be hampering your service levels, to one that can maximize performance? With the use of virtualization technology, data center optimization can become a reality.
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As management visionary and author Peter Drucker once said, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” No statement rings truer—especially when it comes to security risk reduction. By having an accurate depiction of your network, however, you can identify real-world security threats and learn how to evaluate your organization’s ability to respond to them. Find out how, with these seven essential steps.
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With the growing global epidemic of data theft, tougher regulations are being enforced by government bodies worldwide. As such, organizations need to work harder at proactive security. With the right technology, identifying network vulnerabilities and measuring overall security exposure becomes manageable. By using these eight steps as your guide, you can put an end to network security vulnerabilities once and for all.
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Worldwide, various standards have been created to provide some form of structure with respect to delivering products and services. Over time, however, the adoption of industry compliance guidelines has seen many pitfalls, specifically with the advent of technology. Developing a sound compliance strategy requires a unified solution—one that includes all the necessary components, but also keeps the business users in mind.
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Joshen Paper & Packaging needed to update its enterprise resource planning (ERP) distribution system. Joshen partnered with Vormittag Associates Inc. (VAI) and found a solution that consolidates its financial reporting and provides its sales team with real-time inventory information access. The result: faster inventory turnaround and order fulfillment—and to date, about 100 new clients in its customer base.
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Whether you’re a manufacturer, vendor, or customer service company, the increasing pressure to make sales and decrease service costs affects you. The key to its success is to look at your customer experiences as repeatable life cycles. Instead of viewing sales and service as independent challenges—solved by using disconnected software packages—an integrated solution that accelerates the total life cycle may be the answer.
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Knowledge management (KM) can mean different things to an organization depending upon the nature of the initiative. KM is not a technology or set of methodologies, but a practice or discipline that involves people, processes, and technology. If implemented correctly, a KM initiative can improve the productivity and efficiency of an entire organization. With these ten basic principles, your organization can learn how.
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Today’s support organizations often face the challenge of providing efficient and effective customer service. Without the right tools, it can become an uphill battle. To gain true scale and effectiveness in service and support, many organizations are now turning to knowledge management initiatives like knowledge-centered support (KCS)—a business process that directly addresses the root causes of support inefficiencies.
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Are you moving to call-center multisourcing to save money? Did you know that many multisourced agents use varied and unreliable systems? This leads to unavailable agents and, consequently, long waits for your customers. Are all call centers like this? No. Call centers using a common hosted platform share tools and unify agent management, resulting in answered calls and positive customer experiences
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Supplemental product or technical data is typically delivered separately from the information contained within portable document format (PDF) files. This can make it difficult for users to locate the additional content for download. With the CopyFILE plug-in application, however, companies can integrate supplemental product information by using links within a PDF file—thus allowing content to be easily distributed.
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To build or not to build—that is the question. Is building an enterprise application from scratch better than modifying existing application code? With a .NET framework, the answer is an emphatic yes. Building applications from scratch using only .NET code not only provides cost savings, it also allows software developers to extend applications to users via the Internet—without sacrificing functionality or security.
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Disappearing network perimeters highlight the need for identity-based security. Open networks, mobile systems, and unmanaged endpoints have become overwhelming obstacles—and cash drains. However, enforced identity-based policies within identity-blind systems have proven futile. Is there a solution? Yes. Make your policy enforcement layer identity-aware—build user identity knowledge directly into your network fabric.
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Good security used to mean perimeter firewalls and desktop anti-virus software. However, threats don’t come just from outside the company any more. That means security must go beyond the desktop and into the network infrastructure itself. You can stop security breaches at the source—with multimethod and microsecond threat detection—before any damage is done to your network and your business.
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The 802.1x protocol should be the obvious choice when implementing user-based authentication in enterprise networks. So why doesn’t everyone use it? Because it doesn’t give a complete solution for authentication and policy requirements, even when it’s integrated with a network access control (NAC) solution. But if you integrate 802.1x with a local area network (LAN) secure switch, you get a more complete secure solution.
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Registry cleanup is inarguably an integral component of PC maintenance. However, many PC users may be wasting time and effort cleaning their registries more often than necessary, depending on the age of their computers, as well as how often software and other utilities are installed. In order to save time and get the most out of your PC, there are a number of myths about registry cleanup you ought to dispel.
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Bridging the gap between an application’s problem domain and its code can be difficult, even for the best software engineers. Bridging these two diverse worlds—each with its own language—requires a finished application that creates an intersection between the two. By building a domain-specific modeling (DSM) language and generator using MetaEdit+, engineers close the gap and pave the way to better productivity.
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There is a high demand for economical and efficient enterprise applications. The Internet and open source software are creating opportunities for software vendors to deliver their software as a service. By transforming your own applications, you give your clients access to your solutions on the Web, on a per-use, per-project, or subscription basis—giving them the inexpensive, accessible service they want.
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Stable revenue and stronger customer relationships are what software companies want, and more are turning to software as a service (SaaS) platforms to reach these goals. Building an SaaS infrastructure is complex, and you need operations and engineering experts to manage your infrastructures. Start by following a step-by-step process—thus helping to increase your revenue and strengthen your customer network.
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In today’s datacenter, management costs have eclipsed all others. Server management puts a huge strain on IT budgets and, as a result, solutions that reduce costs by simplifying IT infrastructures and automating management processes are in high demand. Thankfully, a Linux-hosted management tool delivers automation for key management process—allowing your IT talent to focus on real-time business needs.
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For independent software vendors (ISVs), software delivery creates big operational challenges. Integrating an application with the latest operating system and service pack causes headaches for customers and suppliers. However, pre-built server devices or appliances contain one convenient, ready-to-go system, minimizing configuration glitches and letting customers and suppliers step back while the appliance does the work.
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Businesses and security threats alike are evolving. Strong protection of client data is a necessity for any organization handling credit card information, especially if it’s subject to payment card industry (PCI) compliance. As a result, many businesses are looking for ways to ensure proper security controls. Thankfully, there are solutions adapted to the challenges of meeting PCI compliance—and staying secure.
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Reducing server management complexity and total cost of ownership (TCO) are key IT goals. There’s a new generation of automated management tools designed to enable provisioning, monitoring, and control of blade systems in infrastructure deployments. This means more work in less time, ensuring IT talent is responding to business needs—resulting in improved TCO metrics rather than time-consuming manual processes.
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In stark contrast to a few years ago, IT executives now rank power and cooling among their top concerns. As IT continues to support more servers, power and cooling have become limiting factors to the number of data center servers. However, there is a solution. Blade server thermal technology optimizes power and cooling while improving energy monitoring—real benefits that reduce the overall IT total cost of ownership (TCO).
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When companies discover new security vulnerabilities, they must retrofit the affected software with an appropriate patch and fend off the wrath of customers. Each newly discovered vulnerability results in a frantic patch, halfway deployed, and potentially opens up another hole. That’s why you should address security vulnerabilities during the software development process—before you get locked into a game of catch-up.
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Information security managers, quality assurance staff, and developers are faced with the enormous responsibility of keeping Web applications secure from the ever-growing menace of hackers and internal threats alike. So how can they protect sensitive data without exhausting internal resources, overspending the budget, or being forced to use costly manual penetration testing using external consulting firms?
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The Internet continues to be a powerful force for driving business activity, and is increasingly being used by organizations to manage internal corporate data and operational activities. Indeed, the online presence of a business or organization depends on the use of Web applications to store, transmit, and manage confidential information. So do you know where your top Web application vulnerabilities are?
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For organizations deploying many servers, total cost of ownership (TCO) analyses favor blade over rack-optimized systems. Blade server systems—reducing both capital and operating expenses—exploit economies of scale when deploying servers in volume. Saving power, cooling, and space by more than 25 percent, the blade advantage is particularly relevant for servers working in conjunction with storage area networks (SANs).
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Implementing IT solutions that fulfill all corporate requirements requires exhaustive research and analysis. But the reality is that most organizations have neither the time nor the resources to do all this. Indeed, such an approach is largely impractical, since by the time you’ve built your perfect solution, it may already be out of date. So what are your real options? Three words: Business. Process. Integration.
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Slowdowns, scalability issues, and security gaps hit Web applications where it hurts. Data center consolidations put distance between application servers and users—producing long round-trips and slow response times. Luckily, there is a solution. Deploying a wire-speed application system—in a unified single-platform design—boosts response times, improves infrastructure scalability, and safeguards against security threats.
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The greatest threat on the Internet involves increased data theft, data leakage, and targeted attacks for the purpose of stealing confidential information. To combat this, the payment card industry (PCI) has created a data security standard (DSS) that holds all merchants—regardless of size—to much higher standards of performance when it comes to protecting customers’ financial and personal information.
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Malware attacks have reached unprecedented levels—to the point where antivirus labs cannot keep up with the sheer volume. What are the current malware dynamics, and how far-reaching is their impact? More importantly, what is the state of technological solutions to address the issue?
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There is no single antivirus engine on the market today that is the fastest and most effective at identifying viruses, spam, or other threats. According to a recent survey, 97 percent of organizations have antivirus software installed, yet 65 percent have been infected at one time or another since. One way to reduce the chance of virus infection is to install multiple antivirus scanners at the mail server level.
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Is it beneficial to use multiple types of virtualization software together? The answer: yes. Combining complementary virtualization technologies provides a stronger, more robust solution that reduces costs, maximizes return on investment (ROI), and minimizes the number of servers to manage. By consolidating these technologies, organizations can get the most out of the application, hardware, and operating system (OS).
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Customers, employees, and partners are an integral part of any business—each playing an important role in its success. But how is it possible to share vital information between them? In order to access information, understand trends, and build better processes, a system that enables multi-user collaborative technologies is required. Without these collaboration tools, business process management (BPM) cannot be successful.
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As the digital era evolves, media content companies are faced with a number of new challenges. One such challenge is that they can no longer specialize in one communication format. The advertising market is now a dynamic and complex forum making it difficult to manage multiple channel revenues. A standard, integrated solution, however, can facilitate the management of advertising revenues while increasing customer satisfaction.
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Today more than ever, retailers are faced with the challenges of selling locally while competing globally. To be successful, they must provide a shopping experience that inspires customer loyalty. Retailers that understand their customers’ shopping habits can build strategic global supply chains that anticipate demand. One way to achieve this is with a scalable technology platform based on industry standards.
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As the creator of performance apparel, Under Armour has become the fastest-growing designer and distributor of its category of apparel in the world. In 2005, to sustain growth and compete on a global scale, it needed a flexible IT landscape that could offer better visibility to data and scale over time. With an out-of–the-box scalable solution, Under Armour is on its way to reaching the $1 billion (USD) revenue mark.
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Just when you thought you had all your security measures figured out, along comes the portable storage device to make you question them all over again. With the popularity of portable consumer products—and their ever-increasing storage space—comes a greater risk of losing sensitive corporate data. To secure corporate data, companies must not only focus on perimeter security, but on internal security weaknesses as well.
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In 2004, there were 1.3 billion credit cards in circulation in the US. With fraud incidents on the rise, credit card companies are at constant risk of losing sensitive cardholder data. At the same time, strict payment card industry (PCI) requirements are forcing companies to put better systems in place to ensure clients are adequately protected. By implementing the right software tools, achieving compliance is possible.
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Improving the supply chain is essential for any company that wants to gain or maintain a competitive edge. To do this, companies are adopting sales and operations planning (S&OP) strategies. Years ago—when the pace of market change was slow—S&OP was a nice-to-have; today it’s a business imperative! But it doesn’t have to happen overnight. By taking a five-step approach, companies can implement S&OP at their own pace.
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When it comes to disaster recovery (DR) software, companies should think of it as an insurance policy—not just software that recovers lost data. Being prepared for disaster makes good business sense, but oddly enough, few companies are. Because Linux distributions don’t include DR tools, companies must look to a file-based recovery solution that can recover the entire system and eliminate the need to rebuild.
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As with any hot market, point-to-point wireless is bait for the pathologically
opportunistic. In this atmosphere—often termed "anarchy"—trust can t be a matter of faith. To get in on the wireless opportunity without getting shafted, you need to know a few basic and incontrovertible facts concerning the difference between licensed and license-free wireless. In fact, a successful outcome depends on choosing the right one.
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"Wild West" is a metaphor often used to describe the wireless wide area network (WAN) business. But it s worse than that. In the Old West, everyone had a gun. In this business, customers are defenseless. What s going on? Well, for one, vendors are playing fast and loose with terminology that should mean something. Wireless is compelling, but how do you decide what s right for you—and who do you trust?
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Why do some customer relationship management (CRM) implementations fail? The answer: companies’ lack of understanding of their current CRM environments, and of what areas need modification or improvement. Companies with a clear understanding of what they need from a CRM solution—as well as of what CRM means to their business—are more likely to succeed. To clinch that success, some key elements should be assessed first.
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In business, planning plays a fundamental role in analyzing and forecasting key financial data. While forecasting future events is one benefit of planning, it can also be used to achieve a series of objectives, including regulatory compliance. In order to achieve these objectives, companies should consider implementing a unified customer performance management (CPM) solution—one that takes compliance into consideration.
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As a supplier to Wal-Mart, appliance manufacturer Haier America was required to implement a radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging system. To satisfy this requirement and to keep costs to a minimum, Haier needed a solution that would seamlessly integrate with its current enterprise resource planning (ERP) application. That’s why it turned to a custom-designed modification package. But was it enough for Wal-Mart?
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For most companies, e-mail is an integral part of the business workflow and a primary channel for communication. For these reasons, e-mails can be considered legal business documents and should be retained for a predefined period to satisfy government regulations. With an e-mail archiving system, message contents and attachments are stored in a read-only format, ensuring they are archived in their original state.
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Research shows that between 65 and 95 percent of all e-mail is considered spam. On an individual level, spam is an annoyance more than anything else, but on a company-wide basis, spam causes significant problems—and the cost to manage it is sizeable. Spammers are always one step ahead of antispam vendors, so to combat this persistent problem, companies need a single-source product that can eliminate spam for good.
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Over the past few years, vulnerabilities have exploded across all types of platforms—leaving IT security and operations teams scratching their heads. Today, many companies use the scan-and-patch method for managing vulnerabilities—a reactive security process that should be avoided. By combining assessment and remediation, companies create a vulnerability management program that can rapidly respond to emerging threats.
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Although layer-two networks are a viable, cost-effective alternative to traditional wide area network (WAN) services, they have some major security deficiencies. One of the key drawbacks of layer two is its inability to handle identity authentication—which creates serious theft and vulnerability problems. With a layer-two data protection solution, however, you can mitigate these types of security issues.
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Storage area networks (SANs) are complex structures that contain an infinite number of configuration possibilities—making the process of configuring the devices to be installed into the SAN a lengthy one. To simplify the process, QLogic’s configuration wizard provides users with some basic tools to guide them through common SAN tasks, enabling them to easily build stable and secure SAN fabrics for their storage solutions.
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The days of storage area networks (SANs) built with hubs and based on private, arbitrated loops are gone. Today’s fully public switches—which include a variety of switch features—make managing large SANs a lot easier. The key to a flexible SAN is the switch’s ability to create zones, which allows the SAN to be partitioned into various groupings and enables SAN managers to allocate storage where it makes the most sense.
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The first step to a successful storage area network (SAN) implementation is preplanning. Architecting a SAN not only helps solve issues of storage consolidation, it facilitates day-to-day data center support and maintenance. A SAN investment should save support dollars, not require additional support resources. With a sound implementation strategy, costly upgrades—and many headaches—can be avoided.
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With data theft on the rise, many companies are forced to improve their network security. And although they spend millions of dollars every year on securing these networks, the focus has largely been on securing the access to the network rather than protecting the information itself. Secure information sharing (SIS) solutions integrate additional intelligence into the process—and protect your data without added overhead.
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Research shows that the occurrence of multivendor Internet protocol telephony (IPT) environments is on the rise. As such, an increasing number of companies are faced with the challenges of using multiple tools to manage these environments. With a single, specialized IPT management solution, companies gain a unified view across the entire voice infrastructure—which can significantly impact total cost of ownership (TCO).
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Now that you have planned and assessed your new system, it’s time to explore the next phase of the integration process: design and pre-deployment testing. Part 4 of this 4-part e-book series provides a basis for the exploration of network design. In addition, it includes a report card that will help you select the appropriate design and validation software tools for your Internet protocol telephony (IPT) system.
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When deploying any new system, preparation is key—and Internet protocol telephony (IPT) systems are no exception. Part 3 of this 4-part e-book series provides some basic steps you can take to successfully deploy voice and data network services. A complete capabilities inventory has been included to help you ensure that every feature of your current system will be considered for inclusion in your new system.
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The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) provides a common process framework for driving service quality improvements and cost reductions. That’s why organizations must ensure they clearly understand the objectives of their ITIL implementations, while implementing robust governance processes to measure and report progress—or else risk implementations that fail to live up to stakeholder expectations.
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The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) has become an answer for many IT departments trying to solve their business problems. But many organizations find that their investment in ITIL has failed to yield the anticipated return on investment (ROI). So what’s the key to maximizing ITIL ROI? First, understanding that the term “ITIL-compliant” has as many meanings as there are outsourcing service providers.
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Chapter 2 of this 4-part e-book explores the Internet protocol telephony (IPT) life cycle, and discusses how understanding the key phases of this packet-based system can increase implementation success. By harnessing your knowledge about this system's natural rhythms, you will begin to establish key concepts that you can put into action—facilitating the management of the system and reaping its long-term benefits.
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As the era of traditional telephony draws to a close, the doors to the next generation in communications open. Chapter 1 of this 4-part e-book discusses electronic human voice communication and its importance in business today. It documents the underlying beliefs, philosophies, and observations of the future of telephony, and provides the basic concepts readers will need to guide them through the rest of the series.
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Data loss can be damaging to a business—hurting short-term stock prices, impacting customer relationships, and reducing revenues. As more companies conduct business via network communication, the need to protect their customer data and intellectual property becomes greater. With a data protection solution, organizations can secure their data in motion—without introducing unmanageable cost and complexity into the network.
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When it comes to security architecture, choosing a system that’s scalable and applicable to a broad set of security needs is a wise move. New security services for Internet protocol (IP) networks are emerging that enable new levels of scalability and manageability—while remaining completely transparent to the network. By applying this type of system, you build an optimal framework for future security applications.
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Spam considerably lowers user productivity, as it delivers unwanted, irrelevant, or anonymous e-mail messages. The best way to manage the incidence of spam is to measure it. The Spam Index—a tool for measuring improvement in spam control systems and for comparing spam control performance with competitors—is a method used by businesses worldwide to achieve lower spam levels and improve business performance.
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E-mail is a powerful business tool that most enterprises can’t live without. Unfortunately, along with its capability of accelerating commerce, productivity, and social interactions, there are some drawbacks—such as spam! Companies that rely on e-mail to do business simply can’t afford the negative affects of spam. However, new technology is emerging that helps stop spam and allows users to get on with business.
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In this new era of corporate governance, risk avoidance, and responsibility, organizations are more than ever held accountable if their data is not properly protected. As such, many are finding new ways to address security risks, by developing multiple layers of defense to reduce points of weakness. Deploying data encryption technology is a good place to start—but the key is making the right choice.
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Heightened awareness of vulnerabilities in sensitive stored data has resulted in the increased application of encryption technology. To secure data at rest, a well-defined process for handling the keys used to encrypt data—as well as the keys used to safeguard the data encryption keys—is essential. With the proper key management controls in place, companies can ensure that data is effectively secured and recoverable.
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In order to stay competitive, growing organizations need technology that allows them to react quickly to changing industry. According to recent polls, nearly 40 percent of midsized businesses are getting that technology through customer relationship management (CRM). With a rapidly growing market of choices, it’s important to look within your company to assess its needs and goals—before you commit to a CRM solution.
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If you could have a 360-degree view of your business, wouldn’t you want to take a peek? Most companies would say yes, but no business could benefit more from this panoramic view than large enterprises. Today, they’re getting that view—and more, from customer relationship management (CRM) technology. For large enterprises, CRM represents a powerful opportunity for positive change—and you ignore it at your own risk.
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You can’t pick up a business or IT magazine today without seeing numerous articles about the growth of mobile and wireless technologies. Why are these technologies so trendy? The answer is simple: developments in mobile computing, wireless communication, bar codes, and other data collection and communications technologies help businesses extend visibility and control over the operations that really matter to them.
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It s hard to go anywhere these days and not see ads for mobile wireless carriers. But the technology is so confusing and the choices so overwhelming, it can be impossible to know which solution to choose. Before making the wrong choice, it’s best to have a basic understanding of mobile wireless communication—how it is currently being used in the industry, and how it can benefit your organization in the future.
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How can you establish a priority-based mobile networking system that provides workers access to company and customer records that they can manipulate from the field? By employing a total solution system that provides various methods of transmitting data. While this type of system may be more costly to implement than a stand-alone pager or cell phone, the benefits it offers can directly impact your bottom line.
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When it comes to two-dimensional (2D) symbologies, less is more. While 2D bar code symbols may be less costly to print, they are considerably more expensive to read, because of the complexity of developing decode algorithms. However, with the integration of public domain 2D symbologies into a range of application standards, solutions employing these codes are beginning to reach their full potential.
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For manufacturers, improving internal processes and supply chain responsiveness can help maintain profitability. That is why many are tuning into radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. With RFID, the benefits are immediate throughout the supply chain, and organizations that take the time to understand its capabilities and limitations can increase their inventory visibility while streamlining their operations.
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Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has retailers talking. The reason: RFID helps reduce labor and improves the ability to gather data. Retailers can use this data to make positive changes to business processes, which can be tremendously advantageous for them. With careful planning, an RFID system can provide immediate benefits, as well as long-term competitive and total cost of ownership advantages.
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Imagine this scenario: an infected laptop within your company has accessed the network and is spreading malicious code to thousands of other devices. This incident could cripple any business, but with network access control (NAC) products, companies can rest a little easier. NAC’s ability to measure, enforce, and report on an array of security issues has gained it attention amongst security conscious organizations.
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As proprietary network hardware appliances become obsolete, unified network platforms (UNPs) are slowly gaining momentum. UNPs are the new paradigm for networking and security—operating on a single system that can be implemented on off-the-shelf hardware. With a UNP, organizations can design, build, manage, and maintain secure networks, without the limitations and expense of vendor proprietary hardware and software.
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Malicious hacking and illegal access are just a few of the reasons companies lose precious corporate data every year. As the number of network security breaches increase, companies must find ways to protect data beyond the perimeter of their businesses. But how do they build a data-defensible architecture that will protect data on an ever-evolving network? The answer: by first developing an in-depth defense strategy.
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The supply of multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) services and service providers has grown exponentially with the demand for Internet protocol (IP) and Ethernet services. But while MPLS enhances packet processing speed and network performance, it lacks in security. As government and industry compliance regulations increase, organizations must invest in tools that can ensure security without affecting network performance.
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Wide area networks (WANs) are essential to the majority of businesses, enabling effective communications within the organization and with customers, partners, and suppliers. As more bandwidth-intensive applications are added to the mix, these networks are expected to handle the extra load—which can decrease its performance. Ensuring WAN usage is well-managed eliminates unwanted traffic and accelerates business activity.
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Small to medium businesses (SMBs) face the same challenges as large businesses when it comes to IT management—they have increasingly complex systems they rely on to drive their businesses and gain a competitive advantage. Operating and maintaining a complex IT infrastructure requires specific skills, but getting the right staff at an affordable price can be a problem. Outsourcing IT management may help to ease the strain.
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In any organization, people remain one of the largest sources of value when it comes to business processes. But providing them with tools that can be easily accessed and used has its challenges. As we move into the era of service-oriented architecture (SOA), portal and collaboration software now delivers the essential people-focused capabilities businesses need, while adding significant value to the organization.
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One of the first and seemingly simple questions that companies ask when making IT investments is “how much does it cost?” Many often find themselves wondering why—even after a successful implementation—their costs keep going up. When evaluating a mobile workforce automation project, companies should take the time to conduct a thorough total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis to detect hidden costs—and avoid nasty surprises.
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In the $1.8 billion market of document management services, only 10 percent is billed by dealers. So how can they increase their share of the managed print services trend? The dealer’s path to advantage lies in its service and supply organization. To make this transition, the dealer needs a tool that gathers knowledge of the client’s fleet and identifies where printing dollars can be saved.
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How do companies address the out-of-control costs associated with network printing? Many look to control them by outsourcing their managed printer services. The transition from basic dealer services to a holistic approach—where the dealer manages the print services for the entire organization—has its challenges. With printer fleet management tools, companies gain a competitive advantage and save on printing costs.
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Your operations and assets are under multiple points of attack, both inside and outside your network. Organizations face escalating security risks and network availability requirements as they open their networks for communications and transactions with key customers, business partners, and employees. That’s why you need to ensure efficient monitoring and enhancement of your network security posture and operations.
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Malware infections are becoming more and more severe, making detecting infections before they infiltrate your server or desktop a high priority. Perimeter-based security keeps the malware—and the risks—away from your systems. Adding layers of security, particularly outside the network, can help you identify and stop Internet threats before they infect machines, expose sensitive information, and consume valuable resources.
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The computational complexity of problems faced by programmers today is growing exponentially. With accelerated changes brought on by the Internet, companies need to explore new methods of enabling their programmers to focus on these complex problems. When dealing with complex data, an object caching database system can alleviate the task of programming special code for persistent data while writing applications.
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It’s no coincidence that the surge in counterfeiting over the past decade has coincided with a huge increase in Internet access around the world, and the more recent shift toward broadband connections. The Web provides a shop window to the world, yet it is impossible to police. New, intelligent, automated monitoring technologies are beginning to offer powerful solutions to this rampant online problem.
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Corporate leaders know that revenues are made from “better data.” And when your data is at risk, so is the survival of your organization. That’s why it’s essential to protect your revenues with “safer data”—and it’s also why the common business language is now one of risk management. IT departments are now learning this in many of the same ways that business people have always had to—including the hard way.
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Information technology (IT) governance is currently a hot topic. But what is “governance” exactly? IT governance includes a number of actions and decision-making structures that encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT, and it’s an important area of focus for any organization that wants to increase its IT business value. We present a step-by-step guide to help you achieve the IT governance you need.
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The latest threat plaguing the corporate office is clipped to the belts and purses of your workforce—their mobile devices. And while employees have the ability to keep in touch, in real time, with their clients and the office, it also increases the risk of security breaches. Finding weaknesses and securing your mobile network should be one of your highest priorities—someone may be stealing your sensitive data right now.
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Just about every IT professional has a fragmentation horror story about a system so severely degraded by fragmentation that it was unusable. But very few IT professionals can offer more than anecdotal evidence regarding the importance of defragmentation software. That’s why we decided to put fragmentation to the test, with the intent of answering the basic question: is fragmentation really a problem in your organization?
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The exponential growth of storage requirements is driven by the information age—the thirst for information and the increased complexity and size of applications, operating systems, and data. There are bigger disks storing an abundance of larger files than ever before, so the effects of fragmentation can worsen noticeably over time. To keep up with same-day performance degradation, disks must be defragmented in real time.
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As organizational storage allocation requirements multiply, the time required to back up file-based data also continues to increase. While software vendors continue making advancements in technology to speed up the disk fragmentation process, it continues to remain an issue—one that needs to be addressed at the file system level. Defragmenting the hard drive volume prior to performing the backup may be the answer.
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SANs, NAS devices, corporate servers, and high-end workstations all suffer the effects of fragmentation because of their multiple physical disk drives. This is attributed to the impact of fragmentation on the logical allocation of files and their physical distribution. The solution to this problem: implementing an automatic defragmentation software solution, together with intricate modern hardware technologies.
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The power sector realizes the importance of information technology (IT), and its potential to contribute to the power reforms process. The global IT market for this sector provides a wide range of technology and solutions that can address the entire business value chain in power distribution—from setting up distribution network and service connection, to distribution load management, power delivery, and customer service.
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In recent years, the rapid succession of virus attacks has created an intense security environment. The capacity for quick response to new anti-virus attacks is a critical component of any organization’s security plan. Antivirus scans are significantly faster on desktop systems with regularly defragmented files and free space—which means that using software to automatically keep systems defragmented should not be overlooked.
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Effective communication uses many senses, but visual communication provides huge amounts of information, and can convey all sorts of meanings. Face to face, we can rely on visual cues; however, the amount of information transmitted via distant communication is limited by cost and complexity. And when the costs of transportation rise, broader use of remote visual communications becomes increasingly practical.
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There is a considerable need to understand how technical performance and the problems within the technical infrastructure impact the capabilities of the business itself. The majority of companies can only measure specific asset and application performance, whereas many issues within the infrastructure lie at the transport level, where packet switching can present both great opportunities and major issues.
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Predictions of the death of software are overstated. In reality, businesses are becoming more reliant on technology, not less. What’s changing, however, is the number of options available for managing, delivering, and paying for software applications. Many independent software vendors recognize the benefits of offering software as a service--a delivery alternative that can present long-term benefits for all parties.
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The greatest threat to the security of the modern network is complexity. Threats to network security almost always play on missed details in the design of a network or a piece of software. These overlooked details enable much larger and potentially devastating security breaches to occur. However, this threat can be countered with a well designed network and vigilant safeguards.
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Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) has been adopted as the dynamic protocol of choice for pain-free management of network resources. The integration of the Domain Name System (DNS) and DHCP into a single network helps overcome traditional barriers to effective resource allocation. Indeed, combining DNS and DHCP enhances information security, thus providing a solution your organization can grow with.
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Domain name system (DNS) best practices are becoming more standardized. However, DNS services are often overlooked simply because they are so commonplace. The result is poorly configured services that are either not fully functional, or easily compromised. To ensure that the Internet remains a reliable medium for information and commerce, further implementation of secure and efficient DNS will be required.
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When Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) was created, the Internet was still mainly a vehicle for scientific collaboration. Indeed, the need for security has grown out of the increased use of the Internet as a commercial medium. That’s why new DHCP issues have come to the forefront that were simply not explored in the early days of the Internet.
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To understand the power of cache poisoning and pharming, imagine that you’re logging on to your Internet banking service. The page looks a little odd, but the address is correct, and it has the same fields as usual. You might enter your credentials without thinking twice. Unfortunately, you’ve just provided a criminal syndicate with the contents of your bank account.
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Increased complexity, coupled with the adoption of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), demands additional management overhead for enterprise- and carrier-class networks. This management need is compounded by requirement for corporations to implement IP version 6 (IPv6)-compatible networks to ensure capacity and service over the next decade. This transition will require careful planning, and naming systems will play a critical role.
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A modern weight control system must support data entry from humans, as well as direct acquisition from weigh scales and devices. However, it cannot operate as a stand-alone point solution. It must span geographic space, hosting data from multiple lines and even divisions. And because of the proliferation of co-packers, it must sometimes even span company boundaries.
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In times like these, when IT spending is increasingly subject to cutbacks, finding out how to get "more for less" is as crucial to a company’s IT department as making sure that applications run smoothly. In Rome, Italy, Gruppo Tosinvest managed to prove that this challenge—which keeps legions of IT managers awake at night—can be solved.
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There are several ways to virtualize the front office, with at least four different solution choices available. The soundest advice may be for companies to start the process, and evaluate the alternatives based on their ability to solve real business needs. It’s time that the personal computer (PC) find its place in the data center—not proliferated around the workplace.
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For today’s organizations, Internet access is a must-have. However, when they decide to open the door to the World Wide Web, the good—along with the bad—enters the network. Spyware and viruses can be distributed onto the network from untrustworthy web sites. In order to protect the best interests of the organization, an effective Web content filter is required.
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The number of devices in the corporate world is increasing every year. And as mobility proliferates, so does the requirement for network security solutions to protect against external attacks, as well as attacks originating inside the network perimeter. However, network access control solutions can provide organizations with the ability to automatically enforce security policies, while still maintaining user productivity.
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The network infrastructure in today’s enterprises faces incredible challenges as both business processes and workforce requirements evolve. Furthermore, large public enterprises are hosting exponentially higher numbers of financial auditors due to US federal regulations, especially Sarbanes-Oxley. This has caused a heightened need to ensure that the network remains safe, while still permitting auditors and their unknown devices to remain productive.
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Over the last two years, there has been a significant amount of IT industry attention focused on controlling users and devices access¬ing the corporate network. In this same time, the number of mobile com¬puting devices has surpassed the number of desktops used in corporate networks. Needless to say, the challenge IT managers face in securing the network has grown exponentially.
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With the emergence of network access control (NAC) technologies, network administrators now have tools to gain critical network understanding. NAC solutions can contribute significantly to an organization’s business objectives by automatically enforcing network and security policies, preventing network downtimes, maintaining network integrity, and meeting compliance regulations. With this in mind, it’s important to look at what NAC implementations actually require.
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As a bedrock element of any sound corporate data protection strategy, encryption protects valuable company data, whether it is at rest, in transit, or in use. Advanced encryption algorithms coupled with faster processors now make it possible to transparently encrypt and decrypt entire drive volumes, massive amounts of data on storage area networks (SANs), and other large-volume data stores.
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High-profile cyber-attacks are imprinted in the enterprise security worldview, and for good reason. Enterprises without sound intrusion prevention strategies across the three threat dimensions—undesired access, malicious content, and rate-based attacks—are exposed to unacceptable risks, especially from hybrid attacks. However, a three-dimensional protection (3DP) approach provides protection for clients, servers, and network infrastructure, while maximizing bandwidth for mission-critical traffic.
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IT departments play a key role in complying with the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Without the right technological solutions to record and monitor access to networks, financial systems, and sensitive data, company management cannot ensure the integrity of the information in their financial reports. That’s why technology that helps with SOX compliance and internal control management is imperative.
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Many organizations use limited (restricted) users and system policies and group policies to ensure users cannot access certain areas of the computer or install most off-the-shelf software. However, these approaches require the network administrator to be very knowledgeable, and to spend large amounts of time setting and maintaining the policies. The alternative: a whitelist-based security solution.
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The problems caused by malware and malicious code in the form of rootkits and Trojans are multiplying everyday. These pervasive problems have created a new industry of antivirus and anti-spyware software. Blacklist-based software is one of the most common response solutions. However, the relatively new approach of whitelist-based software is a simple and secure option for total system control.
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Educational institutions represent a unique and complex learning environment from a technological standpoint. Educational instructors are faced with the conundrum of needing to be more knowledgeable about technology in order to ensure that students are appropriately educated; yet they have to continually tighten security because of the growing number of threats—both internally and externally.
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Typically, there are two approaches to managing public access and workplace workstations: the lock-down approach, and the reactionary approach. However, despite the variety of public access or corporate computer environments that exist, non-restrictive technology is applicable to all of them. With this technology in place, users can use workstations as they desire, but downtime and technical support costs are eliminated.
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E-mail users around the world have noticed an increasing number of unsolicited messages reaching their mailboxes. Anti-spam solutions have had to increase the frequency of their updates, and also to develop more heuristics more rapidly. That’s why it’s vital to implement an automatic process that quickly learns the characteristics of new spam—without affecting existing detection accuracy.
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Many companies are struggling to comply with a patchwork of regulations related to sensitive corporate information. As a result, companies are looking for new database security and auditing solutions to help prevent unauthorized access to confidential information—and to satisfy internal and external auditors—without the performance loss and insider security risk of traditional database management system (DBMS) logging approaches.
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Security is a vital consideration when evaluating enterprise Internet protocol (IP) telecommunications solutions. In addition to delivering business benefits, a voice over IP (VoIP) system may also become a target for unauthorized users, and must be secured against threats. Indeed, if threats and vulnerabilities are not addressed, the results can be devastating with respect to lost productivity, resources, and reputation.
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The service-oriented architecture (SOA) integration framework enables organizations to map IT processes to business needs, with new business processes being defined on demand for business agility. However, SOA is predicated on an ability to integrate loosely-coupled services, one application to another: users are not necessarily involved. This creates challenges for governing how service assets are developed, provisioned, and invoked.
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XML gateways, a new class of networking device, manage message-level security, service-level agreements (SLAs), and performance in service-oriented architectures (SOAs). XML gateways specialize in application-level protocols rendered within the XML or Web services message itself. With the ability to rapidly inspect and process XML messages, they can perform security, transformation, routing, and SLA operations at wire speed in the network.
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There’s no universal solution for Web services security. Sometimes, access lists programmed into the Web services themselves are sufficient. Other times, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) may be more than adequate. However, when granular message processing and auditing is essential, dedicated extensible markup language (XML) and Web services security technology will prove necessary. Which options are right for you?
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IT managers undertaking any implementation of IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes should understand the concept of process maturity. As a foundation for process improvement, these key practices improve the ability of organizations to meet goals for cost, schedule, functionality, and product quality—the ultimate goal being to improve efficiency, return on investment, and effectiveness.
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Images have long been part of e-mail communications—from corporate logos in signatures, to scanned documents, and more. But recently, spammers have started using a variety of techniques to embed unsolicited messages into images in order to bypass increasingly sophisticated spam filters used by companies and Internet service providers. The question is, what are you going to do about it?
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There are hundreds of anti-spam and anti-virus products designed to defend against unwanted e-mail. These solutions can take the form of software, appliances, or managed services. Managed filtering services are convenient and economical, and are also extremely effective in managing threats. In fact, most managed e-mail defense services block threats before they even reach the internal network.
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Today’s n-tier infrastructures make significant demands on the problem management process. Isolation of performance problems in these environments is difficult at best, and traditional monitoring tools are not equipped to deal with the multiple dependencies and complexities they present. Indeed, even effective problem management processes may not be sufficient without improved tools.
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While many monitoring frameworks support commercial applications and application infrastructures, very few offer organizations the capacity to manage the custom application components that are inevitably a part of their infrastructure. But as these applications tend to be the most critical components of the target infrastructure, a framework that cannot provide insight into these ultra-critical components is offering severely limited value.
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The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) provides a comprehensive and consistent set of best practices for IT service management (ITSM), promoting a quality approach to achieving business efficiency in the use of information systems. The key paradigm shift that ITIL s ITSM best-practices taxonomy seeks to achieve is the movement away from management of silos, towards management of services spanning multiple silos.
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Traditionally, IT infrastructure operations teams are organized as domain experts—one expert for network devices, another for the Citrix MetaFrame Server, another for the database, and so on. Most monitoring systems mirror this approach, with separate solutions for monitoring different network elements and applications. This approach is rife with complications, but alternatives do exist which can simplify your day-to-day activities.
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With hundreds of monitoring solutions available, which ones are right for you? Many organizations spend months assessing different products, but find it difficult to distinguish between them, thanks to industry jargon—“proactive monitoring,” “root-cause analysis,” “service-oriented user views”… There are different ways to compare them, but before you even begin, you need to be clear on what your objectives are.
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Thanks to pressures in the telecom equipment manufacturing industry, application-ready platforms (ARPs) in Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) are increasingly indispensable. ARPs must provide standards-based platforms to support diverse sets of applications. The ATCA ARP provides such a platform, but in light of the ATCA specifications that define the basis for the platform, ARP implementations still present some interesting challenges.
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Storage is a vital part of enterprise IT infrastructure, with Internet protocol (IP) telephony storage leading the way as an effective technology. With the increased adoption of open standards-based architecture by the enterprise telephony market, IP telephony storage will gain acceptance as an entry-level storage tool and a viable low-cost alternative to Fibre Channel storage area networks (SANs).
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Monitoring the end-to-end performance of applications and services at all infrastructure tiers is the "holy grail" of IT organizations. But most companies use silo-based monitoring tools incapable of monitoring events and activities occurring elsewhere in the infrastructure. A "collaborative" approach for deploying such tools stands a greater chance of adoption than the typical top-down implementation method commonly used today.
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We don't like to be reminded that there are people who thrive on the theft or malicious destruction of sensitive information, especially where financial transactions are concerned. However, businesses can no longer afford to be complacent. Implementing a practical policy such as the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard can go a long way toward ensuring peace of mind.
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Corporations share data with a variety of remote offices, trading partners, customers, and regulatory agencies. Sensitive data is transferred to and from entities around the world billions of times a day. Security breaches are frequently in the news, with reports of compromised customer data. However, business-to-business (B2B) workflow breakdowns are more likely to occur—and are potentially just as harmful.
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There was a time when companies went with one platform, and stuck with it, hiring IT staff with that technology in mind. That time has passed. Today, heterogeneity is the name of the game, with orga¬nizations having combinations of legacy software and distributed systems, across multiple platforms and applications. But while heterogeneity brings multiple benefits, it also involves serious risk.
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In the past, most businesses have operated more or less effectively with a certain level of downtime—whether required to maintain systems, applications, and data, or to produce daily analysis reports. Unfortunately, today’s emphasis on ever-greater productivity and profitability means that downtime becomes an obstacle to improving perfor¬mance and delivering value—the two essential conditions that make your business competitive.
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Everyone wants the biggest bang for their IT buck—the most functionality and ease of use, deployed to the widest audience, for the lowest cost. But for years, packaged software, despite high up-front and recurring costs, has been a must-have. However, business professionals are beginning to recognize a more efficient approach to their software needs: the smart client.
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Developers obviously need to leverage best techniques to migrate MS Access applications to the MS SQL Server and Oracle Client/Server database platforms. However, they can also benefit from a presentation of specific migration procedures; guidance on which migration path makes the most sense; and a list of criteria to assist with the decision on whether to migrate at all.
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Vulnerability assessment (VA) has become one of the hottest fields within computer security. VA tools are designed to detect and report on security holes within software applications, allowing organizations to take corrective action—before devastating attacks occur. Indeed, due to reduction in hacker “time to exploit,” along with intense regulatory pressures, the need for reliable VA has never been greater.
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As digital information has become more and more critical to businesses, firewalls—which once served as the walls of the fortress, have now become an archaic means of defense. Thus, as threats evolve, responses must change as well. Rather than focusing protection solely on perimeter security, it is imperative to look at protecting data at the source—inside the database.
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Hackers have recently started to use search engines to find web-facing database interfaces that can be used to mount attacks on databases placed behind a firewall. This is a significant new development, completely exposing previously “protected” databases to outside attack. In fact, an attacker can data mine any of the commonly used search engines to find target databases to attack.
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Most large organizations zealously protect their networks and host operating systems. But enterprise-class applications receive comparatively little attention, on the assumption that they are protected by defenses at the network perimeter. Yet these applications and databases are the major reason enterprises invest in IT in the first place—and the data they contain are often the enterprise’s most valuable assets.
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Database intrusion detection and security auditing continues to grow in importance. Thus, monitoring your database applications is a critical component of achieving a strong defense-in-depth around your sensitive data. However, to be efficient and effective, you must use the right combination of tools. Monitoring should never replace other layers in the security stack—it should complement the existing pieces instead.
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At its core, security is all about risk reduction. One of the most effective database security practices, “defense in depth,” employs multiple layers of protection to reduce the risk of intrusion. No single level of defense is infallible, and even multiple layers cannot ensure your organization will be 100 percent impenetrable. However, they can make you far less vulnerable.
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Internet protocol (IP)—used for transmitting data across networks everywhere—is now used pervasively, transmitting data to and from a multitude of devices. Arguably, IP is the most successful open standard ever, but as network communications converge under a single standard used for an increasing number of applications, we need to understand how effectively these critical assets are being managed.
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Traditional document management systems are geared toward control, discipline, and orchestrated workflow. Contrast this with the untamed world of ad hoc processes that drive so many of our activities. In this environment, teams are dynamic and agile. Imposing structure and formal processes almost always results in confusion, resentment, and lost productivity. The needs of distributed teams require a different approach.
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Given ever-increasing regulatory pressures, document life cycle management is clearly an issue every enterprise must resolve. Until now, documents stored on local machines and e-mailed outside the organization have presented a particularly thorny challenge. Fortunately, new technologies make it possible to extend document life cycle management to the desktop and enforce document retention policies across every computer in the enterprise.
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Documents provide tangible evidence of decisions and agreements. They contain crucial intellectual capital. And they make key contributions to your brand. As a result, your organization invests significant resources to create processes for protecting critical documents and managing associated business risks. That’s why your document security services need to work within your environment to enhance existing security processes and technologies.
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The benefits of e-learning have been amply demonstrated and extensively documented. However, less attention has been paid to the business benefits of implementing learning management systems (LMS). The misconception is that LMS and e-learning are irrevocably linked. But that isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, an LMS can provide real benefits, in the broadest—and most critical—business sense.
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As of June 2006, the payment card industry (PCI) has established a detailed set of policy, procedure, infrastructure, and data security requirements for merchants that store and process credit card data. That’s why it’s vital for key PCI requirements to be met when it comes to encryption, user authentication, virus and malware control, access control, and auditing.
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Access control is more than just checking devices for malware before admitting them to a network. Identity-based network access control (NAC) looks at the identities of users and devices, and knows what resource they are authorized to access, allowing enterprises to tightly control access, and the devices and behavior of users.
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Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a driving force for future functional use within organizations. However, these functions must be viewed as being shared services for all processes. Functional re-use will be the main means of ensuring that organizations can respond rapidly and effectively to market dynamics, and that improvements to specific functions will have the optimum impact across the whole organization.
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Data centers are squeezed by a variety of pressures, such as power consumption, heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) requirements, new servers, human error, patching, asset tracking, and more. On top of this, you have to keep up with dynamically changing business requirements. One of the key ways you can address these dilemmas, however, is through server consolidation using virtualization.
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Low-cost hardware and a plethora of connectivity options should make it easier for employees to be more productive. However, outside the perimeter of the business location, additional controls need to be applied to ensure data security and integrity. What’s the best approach to getting the most out of mobile productivity? And how to avoid the six most common mobility pitfalls?
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Installing software and patch updates can be frustrating and time-consuming for IT staff and users alike. But it's critical to update your computers regularly to keep security filters current. This need increases exponentially if your users are mobile and geographically dispersed. Should this continue to be the responsibility of your IT staff? Or should you outsource this function to a managed service provider (MSP)?
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Employees with laptops can do their jobs anytime, anywhere. They are empowered to respond to customers, partners, and colleagues faster and more effectively. Sales, service,
marketing, and logistics improve... but if your company’s technical support strategy isn’t up to scratch, these gains can be quickly erased by hidden costs—or overturned by critical security risks.
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The options available for mitigating e-mail spam in the enterprise are varied—as varied as the variety of actual spam definitions. These factors often lead to some confusion about what a particular anti-spam solution can or can’t do. In order to focus on the basics, you need to cut through the hype in the anti-spam market and its buzzwords.
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An Internet service provider (ISP) presents one of the most complex environments for managing spam, due to the sheer volume of e-mail, and the high service levels demanded by customers. The main challenge for ISPs seeking anti-spam solutions is thus to find products that provide the flexibility to suit a wide variety of users, and the preferences of those users.
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A single view into the health of the IT infrastructure is essential to efficiency. However, comprehensive monitoring is inaccessible to many IT organizations, thanks to limited resources: not only must they deliver performance and availability at service-level agreements, but they must find efficient ways to do it, to address other priorities such as innovation, training, development speed, and revenue support.
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To function as a business partner, IT must deliver service at predictable levels—and also contribute to enterprise strategy, by planning for services that enable growth. That’s why IT needs end-to-end infrastructure views that reveal issues as they happen, and track trends that predict future needs. But how can IT create unified views of the environment without draining critical resources?
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Information technology (IT) executives are beginning to seriously re-evaluate their highly hyped, service-oriented architectures (SOA) strategies—and consequently, their IT outsourcing, hosting, and enterprise system management strategies. However, creating long-term strategies is complicated by the wide range of available service delivery models. That’s why it’s vital to uncover the important concepts—and decision points—relating to these different delivery models.
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Intelligence agencies cannot afford delays in uncovering insight, whatever the source. At the same time, they must work within operationally constrained environments. Unfortunately, traditional IT approaches simply fall short when it comes to providing a solution that can reliably process massive amounts of data in a timely fashion. But with national security at stake, failure is simply not an option.
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GeoEye is the leading provider of map-accurate commercial imagery to the US military and intelligence community. In the past, GeoEye lived by the motto that “big problems require big machines.” However, this was presenting the company with significant—and escalating—cost and complexity issues. The solution: a self-managing and self-healing distributed computing environment that required no custom application development.
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A global telecommunications provider was mired in a hardware-centric architecture for its network applications. Even with a sizeable computing infrastructure investment, failure of server components was inevitable, and application failover schemes were risky. The provider needed a more cost-effective way to scale its operational support system (OSS) applications—without sacrificing dependability.
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Companies using earlier versions of the JD Edwards family of products may be considering upgrades to the EnterpriseOne versions. However, the decision to upgrade is often overshadowed by the considerable costs of doing so. Approaches to reducing these costs lie in rigorous approaches to several critical project activities, ranging from a thorough upgrade assessment to the transfer of knowledge.
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IT managers understand the difficulty of demonstrating returns on investment for technology projects. The issue is particularly acute for large multiphase deployments, such as IT infrastructure library (ITIL) implementations: massive projects which are hard to sell to management, and which promise returns many years in the future—after significant investment. So how do you get management to buy into your vision?
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Compliance with the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is not a one-time project, but a sustained effort to gain visibility into processes affecting financial reporting accuracy. Most IT controls are manual, error-prone, and resource-intensive. However, there’s a new, radical solution: an automated IT control framework in which all the information required to verify compliance is available in a single reporting system.
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X1 Enterprise Edition lets users search enterprise data with desktop, mobile, or browser clients. Thus, when integrating X1 Enterprise Edition security with an existing Microsoft network installation, it’s important to understand how X1 security features are configured and deployed (including web server security), and how X1 and Microsoft Windows security layers work together at runtime.
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Knowledge workers by the millions are leveraging desktop search (DTS) tools. However, with change comes risk, and failing to proactively establish policies and lock down a centrally managed DTS solution can result in significant civil and criminal liabilities. But by following a few basic principles, companies can realize the full benefits of this new technology, while enhancing their information security.
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Since its inception in the 1980s, remote control software has come a long way—evolving into sophisticated tools that provide much more than just simple remote control. But with the wide range of remote control products on the market, it is important to know which features are truly beneficial, in order to separate the good from the bad.
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Organizations of all sizes can benefit from instant mobile access to communications. It is important that these benefits not be undermined by an overly restrictive attitude to security. The best way to minimize the risks is to take proactive steps to manage mobile security challenges. That way, organizations can continue to be secure, while taking full advantage of mobile technology.
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One of the biggest decisions that must be made in the support and evolution of a purchased software application is whether to upgrade or reimplement. This one decision has far-ranging implications on the entire organization, and can drive the technology direction for years to come. The key is to understand the difference between an upgrade and a reimplementation.
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User provisioning manages the entire life cycle of user access to IT resources. Traditionally, the connection between provisioning and IT security administration has been unreliable, with too many processes connected to too many systems. A better approach is to leverage a single application for user administration across the IT infrastructure. This model reduces complexity, enhances reliability, and lowers costs.
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IT plays a critical role in any outsourcing effort. Organizations engaged in or pursuing business process outsourcing (BPO) must ensure that they truly understand the capabilities of their existing software environment, as well as the capabilities of candidate BPO service providers. Embedding IT requirements and capabilities from the start will thus improve the likelihood of success for any BPO endeavor.
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Technology decision-making in larger organizations is about making existing IT platforms as efficient as possible. However, there are weaknesses in the day-to-day operation of such environments, particularly in storage and information management. Positioning information lifecycle management (ILM) in the context of infrastructure management provides an understanding of where we are today—and of how much further there is to go.
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In August 2006, Microsoft conducted a Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 standard distribution benchmark to measure the performance and scalability characteristics of the application in a simulated distribution scenario. This benchmark exercised core accounts receivables scenarios around order entry through invoicing, in addition to procure-to-pay processes around purchase order creation through receiving of goods. We look at the methodology and results.
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The client/server trend in multi-tiered computing has been made possible because of reductions in the cost of hardware and software components, as well as the availability of high-performance database engines. The utility of this technology is reflected in the Microsoft Dynamics AX application. Its three-tier client/server technology provides a solution that can be accessed through networks, even with limited bandwidth.
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When companies extend their IT operations to mobile employees, valuable data and devices are taken out of the protected perimeter of the office, and placed in the briefcases of users. Business processes may run more efficiently, and there may be more flexibility in working practices, but this is of little benefit if attitudes to IT use are complacent or irresponsible.
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La abstracción es el ejercicio de comprender una serie de problemas a la vista heterogéneos y darles comprensión homogénea. Una de las principales abstracciones del mercado actual de las entidades es la administración, motivo por el cual se anunció el Microsoft Business Framework, el cual afectará el ERP clásico de las supuestas Best Practices.
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Across the public sector, cost savings will be decisive when considering an investment in blade computing. The decision can be made on a fairly straightforward cost basis—does the investment pay back? But blade computing also offers advantages in terms of the ability to respond to business needs, which should make it a core part of public sector IT strategy.
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E-mail is more important to companies than ever, since sensitive information is e-mailed both inside and outside the organization. However, growth in overall e-mail volume, driven by more sophisticated spamming attacks, as well the need to ensure content is suitable for purpose, means that we now must reconsider how we view e-mail management within the organization.
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We are now seeing a high level of uptake of grid computing, with pilots resulting in implementations. However, these implementations are based on advanced clustering of single applications—and large-scale grid implementations covering an enterprise’s total IT infrastructure are still rare. The key to mainstream adoption may lie in a better understanding of the business value of grid computing.
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Una vez atravesados los problemas del ERP en los noventa, en el año 2000 logra alcanzar su madurez, enfrentándose al mismo tiempo con problemas tales como la regionalización y la actualización de versiones, entre otros. Actualmente se acerca otra etapa en la resolución del modo administrativo, en la que el problema del ERP será atacado con productos de plataforma.
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How you decide to deploy and implement new Internet provider (IP) telephony infrastructure, as well as new applications or services to end users, will vary greatly based on the scope of the project and the degree of complexity involved. However, whether you are deploying to small remote offices or to large core sites, it is vital to establish standardized procedures.
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Enterprises looking to understand their Internet provider (IP) telephony implementation costs must go beyond simple analyses of return on investment. A total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis is required to help drive the bigger picture, as it considers both tactical and strategic goals, including management of the overall IT budget (annual operational and capital expenditures), risk assessment, and strategic objectives.
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Customer relationship management (CRM) is growing in importance as a competitive tool. However, a successful CRM solution must consider many factors, including a well-defined implementation strategy, the people factor, and the need for integration with the incumbent enterprise resource planning solution. If these conditions are met, CRM can have a dramatic impact on internal processes, customer satisfaction, and company profitability.
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Webcom Limited is a Canadian book manufacturer specializing in custom book production. Its heterogeneous IT infrastructure was resulting in discontinuous information flow, which impeded staffers’ abilities to collaborate throughout the steps of a book’s production. But when Webcom Limited migrated to an integrated Microsoft business management system, it saw a 33 percent improvement in the automation of job production workflow.
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The hub and spoke concept refers to a parent or holding company that uses one business software system (the hub), which is integrated with the systems used by its individual subsidiaries or divisions (the spokes). We look at the hub and spoke concept with SAP R/3 at the hub, and Microsoft Dynamics NAV at the spokes.
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The exponential growth of storage requirements is driven by the increased complexity and size of applications, operating systems, and data. In this environment of bigger disks storing not only larger files, but more files than ever, the effects of fragmentation rapidly grow on systems each day. To combat the daily degradation of system performance, disks need to be defragmented daily.
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The recent explosion of virtualization as a technology coincides with the trend of consolidating systems on to less, but more powerful, hardware. With more robust hardware, consolidation makes cost-effective sense. And given the reduced management overhead and more efficient hardware use, virtualization makes a great deal of sense indeed. However, it’s also important to be aware of its dangers.
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Managed well, service-oriented architecture (SOA) offers a tremendous opportunity to make positive changes and lay a foundation that will allow IT to become responsive and cost-effective. But SOA is also a potential minefield: hype is raising expectations beyond reality in an environment that is already stressed. In fact, managed poorly, SOA can be an expensive and spectacular failure.
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File fragmentation is a primary factor in the most common system stability and reliability problems. For this reason, advanced daily defragmentation of every server and workstation should be considered. In fact, when advanced site-wide defragmentation is fully automated, it is one of the most effective system maintenance activities for protecting and improving the stability and uptime of an entire network.
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In the converging network and security infrastructure, relating what is reported from security products to what is observed on the network is critical. Q1 Labs’ network security management product, QRadar, combines network behavioral analysis with vulnerability assessment and security event correlation into one platform. Ultimately, this convergence reduces IT acquisition and operations costs, and enhances responses to network security incidents.
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The anti-spyware industry is going in two separate directions. First, there are suite products that come with other security applications, along with anti-spyware. Second, there are best-of-breed products that are purely focused on detecting and eradicating spyware. Depending on the type of organization, choosing a suite-based anti-spyware over best-of-breed software can leave a company vulnerable.
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Security measures that repel spyware attacks are critical to any comprehensive security plan, thanks to laws requiring companies to notify their customers if they experience a data security breach. But it’s not enough to have a plan for complying with breach notification laws. Every company’s goal should be to avoid having to give such a notification in the first place.
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Organizations wanting to create a more flexible, responsive environment to support their business processes must consider removing the process dependencies from the underlying hardware and software infrastructure. This can only be done through suitable intermediary technologies such as a service-oriented architecture that uses application servers with integrated middleware providing solid support for existing application integration and future business process requirements.
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The frequency of breakdowns in the IT client relationship is reaching epidemic proportions. Indeed, an IT client breakdown is comparable to the onset of an illness. If caught early enough, treatment is often relatively painless. However, if left to advance to the later stages, or full maturity, the treatment will not only be invasive, but also require significant recovery time.
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Customers are a company’s true source of value creation, and maintaining their trust is imperative. When companies understand this, privacy protection will become an important business tool, rather than just a regulatory requirement (as many companies think of it). Obtaining, using, and especially protecting customer data has never been more important to the strength and positioning of a company’s success.
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A survey of existing IT event resolution processes suggests organizations are unsatisfied with current processes, despite the importance of ensuring that severe service outages do not occur. In fact, over 75 percent of participants identified significant gaps in existing processes. However, it is possible to identify the components of an effective interactive event notification platform to mitigate current process gaps.
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The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) is the world’s largest financial services post-trade infrastructure organization, having cleared and settled more than $1.4 quadrillion (USD) worth of securities in 2005. In the highly competitive financial services industry, the secure processing of transactions is vital to DTCC's success, which is why DTCC integrated security testing into the application development processes.
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Businesses are being held increasingly accountable for their business application security—by customers, partners, and government. Unfortunately, most businesses are playing catch-up with security. What’s really needed are processes that fix the software development cycle by weaving security expertise into software acquisition, development, and deployment. Businesses that don’t take a process-oriented approach today may end up chasing application security forever.
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In searching for tools to implement an effective application-security strategy, managers have a choice between two technological approaches: dynamic analysis and static analysis. Available in a variety of freeware and commercial automated tools, both approaches promise comprehensive detection of security vulnerabilities. But a truly effective strategy may require a mix of both.
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Application security is an important emerging requirement in software development. This article introduces CLASP, an application security process and plug-in to IBM 's Rational Unified Process environment. It was developed by Secure Software, and gives organizations a structured way to address security concerns during the software development lifecycle.
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Corporations striving to comply with data security laws and regulatory initiatives must implement anti-spyware measures. Businesses who fail to take reasonable physical, administrative, and technical measures to prevent the unauthorized acquisition, alteration, or destruction of valuable information, risk costly and disruptive legal proceedings. And courts and responsible agencies will freely second-guess such decisions in the event of a data breach.
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It is sometimes difficult to quantify the scope of spyware problems within corporate environments. The least noticeable effect of spyware is to slow network and desktop processing by tiny increments. But even the slightest slowdown, multiplied across the enterprise, adds up to a serious bottom line impact in decreased automated processing and worker productivity.
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The threat of spyware has risen to epidemic levels for many information technology professionals trying to protect their users and network. In response, many security vendors are creating anti-spyware software to seek out spyware and eradicate it from the enterprise network. Webroot's Spy Sweeper Enterprise is just such a product.
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At first glance, spyware and computer viruses appear to have much in common. But in fact, spyware is a unique challenge. Unlike viruses, the motivation behind spyware is financial, which has driven rapid technical innovation and broad distribution. The first line of defense is education; understanding the unique threat spyware poses is the first step in a plan for protection.
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With the advent of the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), security is no longer optional for health care organizations. As spyware risks grow, they must ensure that data is protected from unauthorized disclosure, and that it is available when needed. Thus, implementing anti-spyware measures is both a good business practice and a move towards ensuring regulatory compliance.
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Consider the case of two hypothetical companies—Company A and Company Z—each using an identical enterprise software package delivering identical core functionality. Company A has the same number of users, but the total cost of ownership (TCO) experienced by Company Z is about twice the TCO enjoyed by Company A. Why? We explain.
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IFS Applications is built using the same principles employed by successful manufacturers—the production and assembly of components. This allows change and evolution within a component without affecting other components. With a proven track record of building for change, IFS provides step-by-step, non-disruptive introduction of new technologies into operational systems.
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E-government webs are among the largest webs in existence. Thus, creating a semantic web infrastructure to organize them is highly desirable. At the same time, the complexity of existing e-government implementations also challenges the feasibility of semantic web creation. This paper explains challenges in semantic web development, identifies Wiki advantages, illustrates a potential solution, and summarizes major directions for research.
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It is essential for users to be able to create and deliver secure, professional-looking e-mail communications which present a consistent corporate image. PDF software meets these needs. However, when considering PDF, users must determine if the solution enhances communications for all network users, and whether the solution integrates PDFs with other software packages, including e-mail, accounts, and customer relationship management systems.
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E-mail is one of the most important communication mediums. However, its ubiquity has exposed enterprises to a wide variety to new risks. While a great deal is known about inbound message-borne threats, such as spam and viruses, relatively little attention has been paid to outbound e-mail content. This annual survey examines the level of concern in organizations; the technologies used to mitigate risk; and the state of e-mail-related policy implementation and enforcement.
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The growing list of regulations for protecting data in virtually every size organization and industry means enterprises are being pressed hard to find effective, affordable, encryption technologies. Identity-based encryption has a greater advantage over traditional approaches to public key cryptography. It ensures the security of encrypted e-mails while minimizing the burden on end users.
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Data centers are complex mixtures of legacy platforms, hardware, operating systems (OS), data, and applications. They are inflexible, costly, and difficult to manage, so instead of optimizing the current OS, users are adding new ones. By using OS Portability and streaming servers across physical or virtual infrastructures over the network, users better utilize their data centers.
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Due to the changing regulatory environment and the complexity of business today, organizations are facing increased accountability. Security risks, however, can often be difficult to measure and even more difficult to understand by people outside of the department. The key to demonstrating improvement is to translate security information in to business terms. Organizations must align, manage, and measure security around business operations.
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Using aggregated dashboard views and establishing metrics can help IT audit and governance professionals and IT security professionals implement policies that keep secure networks operational. Such tools can distill information to its essence, offer decision support, allow problems to be identified and isolated faster, and permit greater accountability. Ultimately, they allow more efficient and cost effective processes.
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Business intelligence (BI) capabilities transform vast amounts of data into relevant information that organizations rely on to make decisions and manage performance. Most companies have some form of BI, and most are familiar with its benefits. However, in order to extract maximum advantage from BI initiatives, it is necessary to be aware of—and avoid—their seven “fatal flaws.”
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Just uttering the term "blade server" creates confusion and spawns many questions. That’s because the term is applied to a wide range of hardware and software products that can vary greatly in terms of value, functionality, and fit in the enterprise. This is akin to using the term "automobile" to describe everything from a three-cylinder compact car to an eight-passenger SUV. In this buying guide, we’ll sort out the confusion and provide you with a practical checklist for evaluating current market offerings. There is a place for blade servers in your enterprise, but not every enterprise needs every offering available.
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Organizations are overwhelmed with how to begin implementing identity and access management (IAM)
solutions. They are scratching their heads and asking, "Where do I start?" Even after implementation, security and information protection must be continually improved while ensuring compliance with regulations. Auditors continue to ask: "Are the right controls in place?" "Are they effective?" Download this white paper to learn more about defining the steps necessary to understanding and deploying IAM, giving enterprises a roadmap to an effective IAM program.
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The Internet is having an identity crisis. Long regarded as a powerful tool for cost reduction and service enhancement, the Internet is falling short of its promise because of the real and perceived threat of identity theft. Financial losses and insurance costs are mounting, as organizations struggle to protect their information perimeters and improve the strength of their authentication systems to ensure that the authorized user is present during the sign-in process. The widespread use and misuse of passwords as authentication tokens is generally cited as a cause of the accelerating erosion of user confidence and the increasing incidence of identity theft. It is generally agreed that passwords are not enough. Much has been lost, however, in the race toward person-present authentication systems. While the application of passwords is fraught with risk, the introduction of complex authentication infrastructures and cumbersome end user technology has eroded usability and increased the cost of security dramatically. This paper describes a new authentication approach that retains the simplicity and low cost of passwords, while gracefully introducing as much person-present assurance as is required by the application.
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The past decade saw the emergence of the storage area network as a way to centralize, consolidate, and virtualize deployment and management of storage resources. This architecture was developed to address complex problems that arose as storage moved from a central point (the mainframe-based data center) to a distributed model due to growth in departmental systems and applications.
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Server consolidation is a hot topic. As a supplier of enterprise-class servers, Egenera has participated in many consolidation projects, with both customers and prospects. This paper summarizes what we’ve learned about consolidation, and provides a roadmap for driving consolidation in your organization. We answer the question most often asked by our customers: How do we get started?
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How many times do you hear network administrators scream at the top of their voice, "I have spent millions of dollars buying expensive and the best antivirus software solutions and yet every two months, when a new virus strikes, I have my entire network go down!" This is a common complaint you will get to hear from one and all network administrators, primarily because most security vendors today concentrate more on a "reactive" approach to stop virus attacks, than a “preventive” approach!
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Spam is unsolicited junk mail sent to you or your mail server. People who indulge in such activities are called spammers. These are sent by commercial advertisers who may offer dubious products, get rich schemes, products that do not suit your life style, promote illegal activities, etc. The intent here is to make you spend money. Almost 60% to 70% of spam is related to porn. There is another type of spammer who sends large number of e-mails that flood your mailbox or mail server. This white paper provides
information about spam, losses caused by spam, how spam works and suggests key features that a good anti-spam software should have.
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Unwanted pop-up ads are intrusive Internet advertisements that are displayed when you access web pages. This white paper provides information about different type of pop-up ads, losses they cause, how they work, and suggests key features that a good pop-up ad filter software should have.
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The Internet access you have provided in the office costs money. You wish to see it used as a productive tool and increase business. It also provides the best way to appear busy. Employees can open multiple pages, a few of them related to legitimate work, while the others cater to their "personal" interests. It takes a single mouse click or Alt+Tab to navigate between pages, when a supervisor appears. This white paper provides details of how Internet access can be abused and how organisation can keep a tab on its employees.
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thawte Technologies is a Certification Authority (CA) which issues SSL Web Server Certificates to organizations and individuals worldwide. thawte verifies that the company ordering the certificate is a registered organization and that the person in the company who ordered the certificate is authorized to do so. thawte also checks that the company in question owns the relevant domain. thawte digital certificates interoperate smoothly with Apache and the latest software from Microsoft and Netscape, so you can rest assured that you purchase of a thawte digital certificate will give your customers confidence in your system and integrity—they will feel secure about transacting on-line. Information is a critical asset to your business. To ensure the integrity and safety of your information, it is important to identify with whom you are dealing and the data you are receiving is trustworthy.
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In this guide you will find out how to test, purchase, install, and use a thawte Digital Certificate on your Microsoft Internet Information Services (MS IIS) web server. Throughout, best practices for set-up are highlighted to help you ensure efficient ongoing management of your encryption keys and digital certificates. We will also touch on the role of thawte as a trusted third party and how using a thawte digital certificate can benefit your business by addressing unique on-line security issues to build customer confidence.
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