Risk In Controlled Environments (RiskICE) Health and Safety System Software

Protect Life introduces RiskICE (Risk In Controlled Environments). Now there is a web based Health and Safety software system that can help your organisation efficiently manage all components of operational risk and compliance in an integrated and proactive way. Please see the article ‘business case for RiskICE’ or the article entitled ‘why use RiskICE’.

Efficient management of risk and compliance requires knowledge to be available and shared across all departments within an organisation. The Safeguard Life’s RiskICE platform comprises a number of integrated modules gathering and automatically distributing key operational information to all areas of your company ensuring compliance and productivity in today’s increasingly arduous legislative environment.

RiskICE’s modules are integrated and easy to use; allowing you to remain on surpass of your business risk at the touch of a button, using RiskICE’s comprehensive reporting. Each module can function independently or as an integrated solution which all-in-all is an online health and safety system

RiskICE’s workflow tool is highly configurable allowing companies to automate and control particular company rules and company process. This means it can be used for more than just a health and safety system.

This health and safety management system can be easily configured to your particular industry requirements and provides a number of options for easily integrating with other third party systems such as SAP, Microsoft Dynamics and Oracle.
RiskICE the health and safety management system.

As you may expect RiskICE is a modern easy to use web based software application developed using the latest Microsoft .Net technologies. The platform has recently been redesigned from the territory up based as a Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) providing a flexible and scalable enterprise software solution.

Advanced capabilities such as the built-in workflow designer, configuration manager, organization intelligence and reporting and flexible application set-up allow organizations to rapidly implement best-practice for every aspects of H&S compliance.

Protect Life – RiskICE is offered as a Serviced hosted offering or can be installed on your corporate Network.

If you would like further information in support of the system, its benefits, integration options and/or the establishment for RiskICE please send us your necessity (enquiries@protectlife.com) or call us to schedule an informal conversation or presentation/demonstration on +44 (0)871 050 0880 (then select option 1).

Olympic News

How To Avoid Software Licensing Non Compliance

Introduction

The world has changed over the last twenty five years out of all recognition. With the opening up of the World-Wide-Web there has been a massive revolution in communications and the way in which populations manage their lives. However with the introduction of computers and databases, banking on line and free exchange of information throughout the world, there is also the criminal aspect to go with it. The virus and hacking into sensitive sites is a goldmine of opportunity for people intent on fraud and illegal activities. So naturally there is a neced for the public to be protected and have total security so that they can use the facilities without harm. Such Website security and email protection systems have now become big business. As companies become more acutely aware of the dangers and risks of illegal activities they are investing in security solution technology to do something about it.

Software Security

One such company has combined the provision of secure networks, data and applications with the processes and technology involved in making sure that data is managed effectively. The service includes ensuring that bottlenecks are minimised on the network and speed is maximised; minimising data destruction and loss of productivity from spam and browsing that contravenes corporate policy and helping organisations use the technology to uphold corporate policies and comply with regulatory needs.

During these financially challenging times you would expect companies to be economising on computer hardware and software, but instead many organisations have gone ahead investing in IT as a way of restructuring their businesses to create opportunities, thereby gaining competitive advantage. I have a theory that downturn in business is generating more illegal activity so there is more need for security technology and some companies are benefiting as a result. Every cloud has a silver lining.

The Modern World of Software Licensing

As the recession continues to bite many companies do have had to cut costs resulting in less to spend on IT and unfortunately there have been a number of bankruptcies, but that does not tell the whole story. More recently as the IT business grows ever more gigantic, the management of all the software and monitoring of all the licensing of software is becoming a minefield. For a large organisation where everything is run on computers with its associated software, the cost in licences is huge. There has been a fair bit of news recently about how much it has cost for UK and European businesses to bring their software licensing up to date as a result of a software audit. It seems that the federation against software theft (FAST) claim they can audit any company as they see fit. The cost of just having to reconcile license fees could tip the balance and financially cripple a business. What with the security costs of protecting your computer systems and the licensing fees and keeping up to date with new ideas, large organisations can find their IT costs spiralling out of control.

And you thought licensing your software in a physical environment was complicated, well the game has changed! Over the last three years, there has been an increasingly widespread adoption of x86 server virtualisation which has significantly changed the information technology landscape. No longer is a server workload tied to the underlying hardware as more than one workload can run on a single box. This has quite astonishing benefits in terms of high availability and disaster recovery, not to mention significant cost savings from the reduction in hardware requirements. The automatic inventory of hardware and software delivers a realistic snapshot of the IT infrastructure and provides, among other things, a reliable data pool for license management, allowing any company to dramatically optimise its license situation.

With malware increasing in both volume and sophistication and no anticipated slow down in sight, we believe it is now more important than ever for companies to have a comprehensive web security solution in place. Over the years it has been shown that service delivery models and benefits vary greatly and that tight integration of services at the provider level is critical. In the case of e-mail this means security, archiving, continuity and policy management.

The type of security software we are all familiar with is the firewall on our computers and web and email monitoring to identify potential threats.

Some Interesting Facts Have Emerged:

Although most IT directors would claim to know exactly how many PCs they have on their network, the reality is that more than two-thirds of organisations have a discrepancy of up to 30% between expected and actual inventories. This discrepancy poses obvious problems. How can businesses accurately budget and plan if they don’t know what they already have, and indeed out of what they do own, what is actually in use? In theory the idea of effective Software Asset Management is that organisations can manage IT assets in order to support business goals, enabling cost controls, strengthen security and improve corporate governance, all while minimising risk. Keeping track of the hardware in a large organisation is very time consuming, but then doing the same for all the licensing of software for each piece of hardware can be near impossible.

SAM and Virtualisation

Traditionally, licenses have been allocated to the physical hardware on which the relevant software is running. With the increased demand on budgets IT departments are looking for ways of reducing| shrinking| cutting} costs. Organisations have recognised for some time now that their internal data centres are extremely inefficient and have looked for more efficient approaches to give them better control over their applications and service levels, while having increased choice in the way they support their operations. Reducing cost is one of the key drivers behind virtualisation, a technology which is having a truly transformative effect on the IT landscape. There is both a growing realisation and an acceptance that the economic viability of virtualisation and cloud computing in one form or another, will represent the next big transformation in corporate computing.The expectations are huge; banking analysts say that cloud computing will be a $160 billion market within the next five years, and every major IT company is jumping on the bandwagon.

Whilst there have been concerns expressed around complexity, and “how to get started” these are becoming dispelled, as many organisations specialising in SAM, such as Softcat, have educated clients on the process and priorities and how to make it economical. According to the analyst firm Gartner, SAM helps organisations save up to 30 % of their IT budget, so it is little wonder that it’s rapidly rising up the Chief Information Officer’s (CIO’s) agenda, despite the concerns around complexity.

One example of saving on costs is where the Telegraph Media Group bought in an effective SAM strategy which helped the company gain complete control of their IT assets attaining savings of £100,000 from over expenditure on unnecessary licenses. Although initially the senior managers need to be aware of the whole SAM process, there are some aspects, such as discovery and license management, that are quick and simple to implement and can deliver a much more immediate business and financial impact: lower costs, greater security, decreased risk and improved corporate governance. These initial steps will also set organisations on the road to achieving full ISO 19770-1 compliance when the time is right.Space is at an all time premium, electricity bills ever increasing, budgets shrinking, and while virtualisation is helping us fit more servers into a limited space it does not necessarily mean that the storage solutions being used are any better provisioned or utilised to their full capacity.

The vast majority of our customers pay a lot of attention to licence compliance to ensure they only deploy legal software. Alongside the constant and rising threat of audits from vendors and regulatory bodies, some vendors are taking action to recognise these efforts being made by customers – such as: simplifying license programmes, free education and raising the ethical argument to the physical users of using non licensed products. There are free tools and licence statements to help get an precise picture of customer’s Microsoft software assets or, specialist SAM partners are available as part of the programme, to engage with customers and work through the process.The term software solutions is just the industry jargon for the operating system that allows your computer to do what you want it to do.

The Future Trends in Computing.

Under increasing pressure to deliver superior results for less cost, IT managers are considering new options to maintain the functionality of their critical resources such as e-mail management and web security. One of the latest ideas to emerge is that of cloud computing. This term describes any scenario where computing resources are accessed over the Internet and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) makes up one of the largest elements of cloud computing. The SaaS vendors provide a service where the customer does not pay for the software itself, but rather for using it. This takes care of the complexity of licensing and asset management for the IT department allowing the company to concentrate on their contractual work. The process of cloud computing helps customers to reduce the cost and complexity of web and e-mail management and security, so they can focus on their core business by eliminating unnecessary distractions.

Some compare the cloud computing revolution to that of electricity a hundred years ago when companies stopped generating their own power and plugged into the newly built electrical grid. It was more economical to outsource the production of electricity leaving the companies to focus on their core operations. Today a similar revolution is underway. Hooking up to the Internet’s global computing grid, massive information-processing plants are pumping into our businesses and homes. This shift is already reinventing the computer industry. The heavily publicised topics of the increased activity around all things “virtualised” and companies being audited, Software Asset Management (SAM) is becoming a key talking point of the latest products and services available.

Cloud computing models will prevail with Software as a Service (SaaS) along with Platform as a Service. I believe hosting companies will be at the cutting edge of this evolution and will lead to industries becoming more service based. This will range from mobile/GPS/PRS hand held services, consumer services, services targeted at SMBs. We see this as a massive market as these guys don’t want to invest in their own technology per-se, they just want a service. Large enterprises are already embracing cloud computing and it is having a significant impact, as a way to manage their costs and deliver services to both their external customers and internal employees. In fact this move to a hosted delivery model, where the technology or application is simply made available when and where you need it, will drive a new market. We won’t be talking about Software as a Service; or Hardware as a Service… soon we’ll have a new definition – Everything as a Service.

Analyst firm, Gartner agrees that some of the biggest benefits of clouds computing “are the built-in elasticity and scalability, which not only reduce barriers to entry, but also enable these companies to grow quickly.” In the case of ScanSafe, modifications can be made from a web interface from anywhere in the world and alterations are made active in seconds. Furthermore, an SLA provides a financially backed guarantee about service availability and effectiveness. Embrace storage resource management solutions, commit to thin provisioning, actively employ duplication and start using intelligent archiving you will not only save money, time, and reduced your company’s environmental footprint, you will have taken your challenges head on, controlled them and overcome them.

The ability to utilise applications such as web security on a pay-as-you-go basis will be a perfect strategy for businesses seeking greater flexibility and control over costs. According to global market intelligence firm, IDC, “The cloud model offers a much cheaper way for businesses to acquire and use IT – in an economic downturn, the appeal of that cost advantage will be greatly magnified. More and more of the focus now is moving to service based models, and managing OP-EX (Operational Expenditure), whereas discussions previously were focussed on CAP-EX (Capital Expenditure). This argument is even truer in today’s economy.

What’s New in Microsoft?

Microsoft has announced the launch of the next wave of Microsoft Office and related products. At a time when an organisation requires its communication tools to be cost-effective and flexible, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is able to achieve new levels of reliability and performance by delivering features that simplify your administration, help protect your communications, and with greater business mobility. Exchange 2010 delivers new, integrated e-mail archiving functionality-including granular multi-mailbox search, item-level retention policies and instant legal hold-making it easier to address compliance and discovery issues. Administrators get centralised control of all archives while users get direct access to their archived mail, including a familiar archive experience that does not disrupt the way they manage their inboxes every day. Exchange Server 2010 actively helps protect your communications through built-in defences against viruses and junk e-mail and support for an array of third party security products.

The latest advances in Microsoft software is revolutionising the IT industry in the same way the invention of the wheel changed the world. The pressure to optimise your IT infrastructure for ever-changing business conditions requires you to be agile and that means investing in solutions that provide you and your organisation with options.

Microsoft Exchange, enables rich and productive collaboration among its users and can help achieve better business outcomes while controlling the costs of deployment, administration and compliance. The latest release of Exchange 2010 delivers the widest range of deployment options, integrated information leakage protection, and advanced compliance capabilities, that combine to form the best messaging and collaboration solution available in a simplified way to help keep e-mail continuously available for the user. With new deployment and storage options, enhanced inbox management capabilities and e-mail archiving built-in, Exchange 2010 helps you lower costs and enhance business outcomes.

Allied to cloud computing, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is another area where a model is emerging that has enough advantages to become main-stream. VDI will cause a fundamental rethink for Microsoft in terms of its operating licensing system. The current licensing model, where device and software license were inexorably tied together, in years to come won’t be the case and Microsoft is already adapting to accommodate the new concepts. The ability to provide a unified service eliminates the need for multiple interfaces, reporting and policy management – therefore reducing management workload.

Licensing the Virtual Environment

If the link between software and hardware is broken, that model doesn’t work. To their credit, the software vendors, led by Microsoft, have recently started to make changes to their licensing models to match the abilities of the technology – however, whilst these changes are on balance positive, the complexity of licensing in a virtual environment is dramatically increased. Our training deck for the SAM Team on virtual licensing runs to 35 slides – something you don’t ever want to be subjected to unless you suffer from insomnia! Intel technologies are continually addressing the complete business needs of the market and Virtualisation is a constant theme. With the recent launch of their Xeon 5500 design of server chips, it is possible to have intelligent power management that can deliver a 90% reduction in energy costs compared with servers of just five years ago. (and not just making chips go faster!)

Softcat have always maintained that good financial stewardship of software assets has the same result – and this is even more crucial in a virtual environment. We can help you make the most of the licensing terms available – did you know that licensing a server for Windows Datacentre Edition allows you to run unlimited virtual Windows Servers? – and of course ensure that you are adhering to the terms of the licensing agreement, which is critical to ensure compliance. Microsoft is certifying customers for a whole 12 months after their SAM engagement and ring fencing them from further investigation. Microsoft wants to encourage and support its customers to integrate SAM in their everyday planning and control – working with them to maximise their software investment.

SAM Vendor Programmes

A number of associate vendor partners have instigated SAM accreditation programmes and are taking a more “in partnership” approach, where their intentions are to help and reward customers for engaging in SAM. Microsoft have pioneered this sort of programme, along with the likes of Adobe, and Symantec have also launched accreditations to guarantee end user customers they are in safe hands, when engaging with such resellers. The point here is that the vendors want to encourage customers, rather than the previous stance of enforcement. Finally, worth a note with regard to e-mail management, there is the added burden of efficient and effective retrieval and legislative compliance that service providers are able to lighten.

Conclusion

It is amazing how fast technology has evolved over the decades to drive our lives from every angle personal and business. Two extremely hot topics of the last year, have without doubt, been Software Asset Management (SAM) and Virtualisation. The fact is that organisations the world over are analysing their processes and costs to see how they can work smarter. The economic slowdown could be said to have a positive effect as it pushes| forces| nudges companies towards the process of change thereby accelerating the change. With the increased demand on budgets, coupled with the increased activity around all things “virtualised”, these remain two of the most heavily publicised topics and Softcat believes the business case for cloud computing is a compelling one and that certain non-core business functions, that are nonetheless necessary, are best done in the cloud, being more cost effective for the business and, in many cases, provide the most efficient service.

Xbox 360 and new input devices

The second video game console created by Microsoft is the Xbox 360, its functionality is to receive games, TV, movies, and music over the internet.

The Xbox 360 is also deemed a multimedia entertainment powerhouse. Through their Xbox 360, users can stream videos from a PC, or a USB thumb drive, and watch them on a TV. They can stream music from their PC or rip songs to their Xbox 360 hard drive. This allows them to listen to their music while playing their favorite game. In addition, HD cables offer unprecedented support for Xbox high-definition gaming.

After Xbox 360, Microsoft announced a new game console that doesn’t need a remote controller to be used by players. This game console is called Project Natal. A new and more stimulating games to play. The player will just move his hands and body to interact with the game.

Project Natal captures the players movements and all of their performances while playing because of its motion sensor capability. It also detect voices, and facial reactions and recognitions. It can also scans some devices that you will use in the games.

Just by stepping in front of the Project Natal Sensor, you can already give instructions by talking to the device. Every word that the player will say can be easily pick up by the Project Natal . It can also automatically sign you up in the Xbox Live just by scanning your face even without saying a word.

Xbox has roughly the same features and functions with Nintendo Wii. Its just that Nintendo Wii has a controller or wii-mote to be used by the player. The idea of Xbox is apparently came from Nintendo Wii Motion control. The dissimilarity is that they recreate it into something more innovative that revolutionize home entertainment.

Project Natal will surely offer a complete new phase of interactivity for Xbox 360 users and game players international. For sure this will hit the market by the time it will be published.

The Xbox 360 is equipped with a full suite of parental control features which allow parents to monitor almost anything their kids can do on the system. Parents can block games and movies, restrict who the children can talk to or contact, and limit them from using Xbox Live.

Think about what games you want to play, what kind of accessories you need and if you would like to take advantage of Xbox LIVE Marketplace or join a Xbox Community. Though Microsoft has not officially broadcast any price or release date projections for Project Natal, it is expected to release in late 2010.

Guaranteed Web Conferencing Applications With Reviews Of The Best Video Conferencing Software

Web conferencing system allows you to communicate with different people living in different parts of the world. The first factor is regarding the location. In such a case you must ensure that the selected conferencing system does not suffer from this problem.

Sometimes, you may have to share your applications online. It also helps to save your money. If it is less then it won’t be much useful to you.

Web Conferencing solutions are actually used for business purposes. There are lots of web conference solutions available in the market. Webex also supports the same extra features like that of Genesys.

You can use Microsoft Office Live Meeting also. For web conferencing you will require certain equipments like microphones, headsets and web cameras. You can communicate with different peoples simultaneously with the help of these services.

You don’t have to spend any money on tickets or accommodation as you can directly contact the person. The work can be done in a more efficient manner. You can contact your clients in different parts of the world by using the web conference service. With the help of web conferencing service it is possible to manage different works going inside an organisation.

Some use this for recreational purposes and others use this for business purposes. Some of the features included in a web conference program include instant text messaging, audio conferencing, video conferencing, file sharing, slide shows and application sharing. Some programs are free. For others you will have to pay.

Web conference programs are also used in many other fields. So, you must have a high speed internet connection. If you want to do both then you must have all the three web conferencing equipments.

If you want to know more about online conference software then you should have a look at go 2 webinar as well as megameeting reviews

Golf Bags

What to look for when buying cheap hosting.

Cheap web hosting should not be taken as a lesser quality service, but should be thought of as a best-value product that meets industry standard quality of service. Look at server uptime, offer 24×7 FTP access, excellent customer support, and best of all most affordable web hosting prices. Cheap Web Hosting is the best place to find the best prices, deals, and overall value for your web hosting needs. Choosing your web hosting can be a difficult process. Cheap web hosting is loaded with features to help your web site succeed, all at one affordable price. On this site you can find a list of the top low cost web hosting companies.

Customer testimonials are good indications of a web hosting companies performance. It will give you a detailed account of their experience with the company as a client. Additionally if the affordable web host also offers a Month-to-Month contract option.The price per month could decrease if there is an option to sign up for a longer contract such as for a time span of two years offered by the hosting provider. Look for a generous email package and awesome web email interface and now I can cancel my email hosting plan too.

Website Source develops a web site migration strategy to reduce website downtime caused by domain hosting compatibility issues. We address these issues before we move your site and you become our newest, valued client. Website hosting can be cheap, but also reliable and fast. Our low cost web hosting plans come with full email pop3/smtp and imap support with email aliases and responders.

Run trouble-free Joomla, WordPress, Drupal and many other popular website content management systems. Our budget shared hosting packages are optimized to run efficiently most cms plugins and add-ons except video editing and sharing ones. Running a small or dynamic-light site will permit you to easily slip into a readily available shared cheap hosting account. General Cheap Web Hosting accounts like shared host providers are reliable and sturdy enough to even perform advanced functions and drive shopping cart software and support robust databases of either MySQL or Microsoft?s SQL server.

Choosing the right budget web host for your website has become a real challenge now a days. There are so many cheap web site hosting companies offering multiple packages for your online business. Choosing the right affordable web host provider then takes due diligence in consideration of the must requirements to have a reliable affordable web hosting and good support.

Are You Suffering From the 3 Red Rings of Death?

Has your Xbox 360 given up on you? I can feel your pain since I had exactly the same problem. But, instead of sending the Xbox 360 in for repairs I took the matter into my own hands and found the fix.

You see, there is a flaw within the Xbox 360 which causes this error and it is very easy to fix. Microsoft can fix it, but you may have to wait weeks to get your system back. Your local electronics shop can fix it (maybe), but they might want to charge you and arm and a leg.

Since I really didn’t want to wait or pay through the nose, I searched the web until I found someone who had put together the complete fix in a step by step guide. And, the best part is they guarantee you will be playing your games again by this evening!!

What’s more is they included two fixes within the guide and one of them does not even involve taking the Xbox 360 apart. If you’re handy, with this info you could make $$$’s just buying broken Xbox 360′s and repairing them in about 1 hour.

Sound neat? Here’s where you can get more information… Xbox360 Three Red Lights Fix

If you’ve been putting off getting your Xbox 360 fixed because you are out of warranty or because you thought it was too hard, time-consuming, and so on; Xbox 360 3 Red Lights Repair Guide will show you exactly how to fix it. Don’t suffer with this problem any longer get the complete Xbox 360 3 Red Lights Repair Guide today.

Because you can fix the problem – easily! – with the Xbox 360 Rings of Death Repair Guide.

New Knowledge

What Marketing Contact Manager Software Should You Choose?

It seems CRM technology is the buzz in business these days. And it’s no wonder customer relationship management is a powerful tool when implemented correctly. So what CRM solution should you choose?

Whether you are in a retail industry, financial services, high tech, telecommunications, computer or any other business to be successful you need to have better customer service than your competition.

This can be a much bigger task for small or medium size businesses who may not have the resources available to them. A billion dollar industry is going to have all the resources. But at the end of the day they have to both accomplish the same thing.

There are ten things to consider when evaluating your CRM software.

1. Company Goals and Strategies – until you know exactly what these are you’ll have trouble dealing with the remaining 9 items.

2. Web-based, Client based – smaller companies may do better with web based services which take care of storage, updates, and anything else related to software. On the other hand client side software resides on your computers and you have full control of it.

3. Budget and the Total Cost of Owning – determine your budget before you start doing your software research.

4. Room to Grow and Expand – it is important to ensure that you have an idea of what type of growth your company will experience in the future and the software choice should account for that.

5. Rapid Deployment – how fast can you install, train, and get your CRM package up and running

6. Customizable for your Business Needs – you should choose software that allows you to customize to your specific company needs.

7. Works with Existing Systems – If you have other software in play such as Microsoft Office or Outlook you will be benefit from software that integrates with it.

8. Vendor Reputation, Product Reliability – It’s important to purchase your CRM software from a reputable vendor so that you can depend on product support, upgrades, and anything else you might need.

9. User Interface Meets User Needs — It is critical that the software work for the company and fit their plans not the other way around so buy because it fits your way of doing business.

10. Functionality – Of course functionality is required because without it there is not CRM solution.

Your CRM needs need to meet the individual requirements of each company. There are many factors you need to consider when choosing your CRM solution but not are all equal in value and you will need to determine the importance of all ten items. Different size businesses are going to have different scales of importance.

Always give attention to both the technology and business objectives. Too often business objectives get forgotten about and the technology gets too much attention. Remember this is an equal partnership and rather than the business fitting the software the software needs to fit the business.

What CRM solution should you choose? These ten points will ensure you choose the right marketing contact manager.

banterality.com

Controlling Computer Errors Easily With Fixing Software

Have you had this type of problem? A program you have been using every day for months or even years causing all kinds of trouble? Have your computer alwas started quickly and easily and now it seems to take forever? It is very likely that you need to repair the registry to fix pc errors. So what exactly does that mean? See, the registry can be compared to a directory on the PC that looks after your system including any software you have installed

Any registry error requires skilled knowledge about computers and the operating system and even if you like to do things yourself and consider yourself a whiz at Windows, your first choice to fixing any registry error will be to find a good registry cleaner software.

Registry cleaner software is a sort of program that is designed to take tender loving care of your Microsoft Windows operating system. You can liken your computer to the tool shed or garage storage, where tools and stuff are hidden away and that are only picked up when needed. For you, the start menu, the windows explorer and the desktop, these are your gateways to find these things. Now think of your memory as the place in your brain (the computer of your body) where the index of all these things is kept. That’s what the registry is. An inventory system.

The XP registry doesn’t differ too much from other Windows registries, with some interesting points we learned from Microsoft: Windows XP automatically makes what’s called a “restore point” every day, and when you do things like install a new program this helps it with recovery if there is a problem. There is also the possibility to create your own restore points when using Windows XP. According to Microsoft, you need a minimum of 200 megabytes of free disk for System Restore. If you don’t have it, XP won’t do it automatically. In any case you will always need a windows registry cleaner, regardless of your restore points. Our recommended software manages Vista too.

Each Windows operating system is different, obviously, and regarding registry repair software, you will need to carefully choose the right windows registry repair software to run. Before buying or running a downloaded registry cleaner, check what we recommend here (follow the links). You don’t want to mess up your Windows registry and mess up your computer. It’s worth a few well spent bucks for the peace of mind to purchase a good piece of reliable software from a reputable company, one that specifically addresses your particular operating system, whether Windows XP or Vista.

Surgient’s Virtual Datacenter Updated with Woven Systems’ 10 Gig

Surgient, a company that provides self-service virtualization automation and lab management software, provides its technology to customers in two ways: a licensed model and a hosted model. In its hosted model, the company makes its platform available as part of a hosted service that enables businesses to save considerable resources and slash time-to-market for new software products with a hosted datacenter for testing, training, or demonstrating their software.

Surgient’s virtual datacenter leverages virtualization technology from Microsoft and VMware. And as the company’s list of hosted customers continues to grow, so too must its datacenter. Even though its datacenter is itself virtualized, the company has to deal with increased scale without compromising performance.

To help solve that problem, Surgient looked outside of its organization and found Woven Systems and their Ethernet fabric switching solutions based on the company’s patented vSCALE technology for datacenters and high-performance computing clusters.

Surgient chose Woven’s technology to upgrade its datacenter to 10 Gigabit Ethernet using Woven’s EFX 1000 Ethernet Fabric Switch. With only a single EFX 1000 switch, Surgient is able to interconnect all of its virtualized servers and its storage area network in its datacenter. So why did Surgient choose Woven Systems?

“We looked at Ethernet switches from multiple providers, and Woven’s Ethernet fabric provided the most impressive performance,” said Evan Watkins, director of operations at Surgient.

“Dynamic datacenter environments that make extensive use of virtualization have dynamic networking requirements. As virtual machines are moved around to different virtualization hosts as part of normal operational tasks, the networking load shifts with them, changing the load on various switches in the environment. In a traditional networking environment using spanning tree protocol, it is normal to manually plan that load shift, making sure that the intermediate distribution layer switches have sufficient bandwidth and uplink capacity to handle the loads. With the Woven Systems EFX-1000, it dynamically adjusts the load on the various paths in its internal fabric, avoiding bottlenecks and optimizing throughput without any operational efforts on our part.”

In a typical virtualized datacenter, it is critical to have a reliable SAN environment. However, it can prove to be extremely expensive for most organizations to build out a Fibre channel storage network system along with a Gigabit network environment. And Surgient’s hosted facility is no exception.

Watkins said, “With the Woven Systems switch we have a reliable, high speed, multi-path, load balancing iSCSI storage network but only have one type of network to manage. We didn’t have to deploy a Fibre channel storage network. We didn’t have to hire or build Fibre channel networking skills on our datacenter team. This saved us a considerable amount in capital and operational expenses.”

“Surgient’s deployment proves it is now possible to build an all-Ethernet datacenter that scales without compromising performance,” says Joseph Ammirato, vice president of marketing at Woven. “They’ve amassed an impressive and growing list of customers that demand the mission-critical reliability afforded by Woven’s Ethernet fabric.”

Networking Predictions for the New Year – Application Acceleration

As 2008 draws to a monotonous close, there is still a sliver of time left for me to make my 2009 networking predictions. Yes, money will be as tight as a Minnesota Senate race next year, but there certainly will be a number of bright spots. Here is my list of 10 technology areas to watch in 2009 (in no particular order):

   1. Managed network services. Unlike other IT infrastructure areas (servers, storage, security equipment) large and small organizations have been buying network services for years (think Frame Relay, Centrex, etc.). This comfort level will persuade frugal chief information officers to pad contracts with additional services in 2009. Network service providers like AT&T, BT, and Verizon will prosper as IT managers eschew internal efforts and instead dabble in areas like managed network security, remote access, and WAN  optimization. I expect increasing quarter-to-quarter growth in many managed network services in 2009 and beyond.

   2. Phat networks. While many IT projects will be put on the back burner, I still believe that we will see a lot of network backbone upgrades next year. Why? All of this Web 2.0/IT consumerization stuff generates a lot of traffic and the load isn’t getting any lighter. Like it or not, CIOs will have to spring for 10Gb core switches and routers to keep remote and branch office workers productive and happy.

   3. Unified communications. OK, now I’m in buzz-word territory but I see a problem and an opportunity here. The problem is that we are all communicating with each other using a half dozen or so independent technologies. We need to rein this in soon while integrating the concept of “presence” into our communications processes. On the flip side, there is a great opportunity to integrate unified communications into business processes to improve efficiency and service. Imagine how happy you’ll be when your service call is answered by a product expert rather than a series of frustrating menus and gatekeepers.

   4. 802.11n. I’ve been a believer in this next-generation WLAN (wireless local area network) standard for a while. In 2009, we should see significant growth in penetration and revenue. Given improvements in bandwidth and security, I expect to see 802.11n as a replacement for access switches as organizations refresh the network edge. I also anticipate additional manufacturing, health care, and government applications built to take advantage of the 802.11n momentum. Look for HP to become an aggressive competitor in the WLAN space while independents like Aruba and Meru get gobbled up by the likes of Juniper and Brocade/Foundry.
  
   5. Core network services. I’m talking about services like DNS (domain name system), DHCP (domain host configuration protocol), RADIUS (remote authentication dial-in user service), and IP address management. With all of the networking activity in the past few years, these core services have been a virtually ignored kludge leading to unplanned downtime, security vulnerabilities, and manual operations. This mess must be fixed soon. Good news for Blue Cat, Infoblox, and Juniper. Look for Microsoft to stir the pot with a core networking services appliance in 2009 as well.

   6. Application networking. I’m combining two categories here: Application acceleration and WAN optimization. The year 2009 promises to consolidate tons of applications and services in massive data centers running on top of virtual servers. Users and virtual machines will be in a constant state of mobile flux while exchanging enormous files and speaking an ever-growing variety of network protocols. Someone has to play traffic cop to avoid gridlock so A10 Networks, BlueCoat, Citrix, F5, and Riverbed should do just fine.

   7. Telepresence. The use of video conferencing should grow as companies restrict employee travel and equipment prices plummet. Cisco is about to announce a sub-$1,000 SMB platform while carriers are planning managed services offerings. But, telepresence growth will also expose its limitations. Business managers will discover that boring six-hour telepresence sessions are no substitute for actual human contact.

   8. Virtual server and network integration. As physical servers host dozens of virtual guests, and virtual machines move from host to host, networking can get pretty dicey. The way around this problem is tight integration between virtual and physical switches. VMware and Cisco are already working on this but what about the other hypervisors (Citrix, Microsoft) and switching providers? Look for open application programming interfaces and one-off relationships in 2009.

   9. Data center networking. Closely related to virtual server integration, expect to see more specific data center networking equipment from Extreme Networks, Force 10, and glamour start-up Arista Networks. Data center equipment will offer functionality like virtual switch integration, clustering, dense port counts, and support for IP storage. Cisco and Brocade/Foundry will focus in this area while Juniper and HP will aggressively push products and programs.

  10. Real Cisco competitors. Cisco is a well-oiled machine but I see a perfect storm for others to gain share. With organizations looking to save money, technically advanced low-priced alternatives will look extremely attractive. I’ve already seen Aruba and Extreme win deals like this when Cisco was the incumbent. Along these same lines, the competition has never been stronger in terms of both technology and resources. Finally, as Cisco enters the blade server market, look for HP and IBM to cozy up to others or push their own gear. Brocade/Foundry, HP, Huawei, Juniper and others may gain share at Cisco’s expense in 2009

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