Security for virtual environments is a problem many shops haven't fully addressed.
But when you think about it, one hack can bring down a host of VMs -- not pretty.
McAfee has a new
program -- actually more of a service -- that audits the security of your
virtual infrastructure, including people and processes. Afterward, McAfee recommends
technology to protect your shop.
Posted by Doug Barney on March 03, 20080 comments
I am not a fan of Microsoft buying Yahoo. Yahoo has nothing that Microsoft hasn't
already built or bought, and is, in fact, a legacy Internet company.
Now, a New York Times wonk has what he calls a better idea: Redmond
should buy SAP.
I'm not entirely sure this guy's neural connections are working properly. Look
up "legacy" in the IT dictionary and SAP is the first definition.
SAP does have great technology and, after a long process of installation, has
helped many companies operate more efficiently, rationalize supply chains and
tie in partners. But is it the future? No.
That said, I'm not sure if NYT author Randall Stross realizes that Microsoft
currently owns four separate ERP platforms: Great Plains, Axapta, Navision and
Solomon. Not only that, but Microsoft is currently re-architecting these ERP
tools so they'll be more modern than anything SAP has.
I'm actually pretty darn comfortable with Redmond's ERP plans, and believe
buying SAP would be a move backward.
Posted by Doug Barney on February 25, 20080 comments
Ask entrepreneurs and IT pros what's hot, and you won't hear much about browsers,
fat client OSes and Cat 5 cable. You
will hear a lot about virtualization.
In fact, the vast majority of IT pros have
"a
strong interest in virtualization." Still, only a minority in IT are
currently doing virtualization.
Redmond readers are different. Many (if not most) of you are virtualizing,
according to our own research.
Fortunately, there's a brand-new resource that will tell you all you need to
know. VirtualizationReview.com
is now up and running, and it comes with a new
newsletter with weekly analysis.
Let me know what you think of the site and what you need to know about virtualization
by writing [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on February 25, 20080 comments
When Microsoft is wrong, I'm not shy about telling the world. When it's right,
I'm the first to pat 'em on the back. In the case of the
new
class-action lawsuit over Vista Ready logos for PCs, I'm patting and complaining
all at once.
Here's the rub. Dell, HP, IBM et al have been selling millions of PCs with
Vista Ready logos. Consumers complain that many of these units can't handle
higher-end revs of Vista, especially the Aero interface.
Here's where I defend Redmond. Vista comes in many forms and the lower-end
versions do run on these machines. On the other hand, Aero is graphics-intensive,
and requires the kind of GPU processing that used to be the domain of top engineers,
scientists, videographers and pimply faced teenage gamers. And, to be legally
precise, the logos don't say "Vista Aero Ready."
On the other hand, Vista does not play nearly as nice with hardware as I'd
like. I've upgraded three or four older machines to XP, and in each case it
was surprisingly flawless. Vista is a lot more demanding, making it tough to
upgrade our current machines. And -- let's face it -- many of the units sold
by Best Buy and Circuit City may run Vista, but they move slower than
an Oscar acceptance speech.
Have you bought a Vista machine that wasn't up to snuff? Share your stories
by writing me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on February 25, 20080 comments
When I was a kid, I owned a wall hanging made by my grandfather that was inscribed
with an old English evening prayer -- including "If I should die before
I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my Soul to take."
I treasured it, but it also scared the bejeepers out of me. I wanted to wake
up.
Now, we have to worry about our computers either never waking up or waking
up hacked.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation claims that encrypted disks can be, er,
decrypted while the
computer sleeps. BitLocker from Microsoft was cracked by EFF and Princeton
University experts by finding passwords in RAM, which isn't flushed during sleep
or hibernation.
Microsoft isn't the only vendor with this the problem; Apple has it, too!
Posted by Doug Barney on February 25, 20080 comments
Last
month's Patch Tuesday had less action than a Kate Hudson romantic comedy.
Tomorrow's, though, will be a
little
more intense, with a dozen fixes expected for everything from Visual Basic
to IE and Office. Microsoft's most-loved client OS, XP, gets some tweaks, as
does the New Coke of software, Vista.
A lot of the exploits concern that old bugaboo, the remote execution of code.
And seven are deemed critical.
I have to hand it to Microsoft. While other vendors quietly release fixes,
Microsoft sticks its neck out each and every month and boldly proclaims where
its faults lie. And that takes guts. Agree? Let me know by writing [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on February 11, 20080 comments
How many Web sites or services have you signed up for, only to forget your user
name or password? Here's the problem: You try to register, but the user name
you want is taken, so you add a bunch of random numbers to the end of your name
(say, dbarney8256). And even though nothing special is happening on the site,
the security gods who run it demand a complex password (say dBarn&y8256H20).
Got those committed to memory? I thought not. Use the Web long enough, and
you end up with dozens of these non-intuitive user names and unintelligible
passwords.
Single sign-on is one answer, and within high-end corporate environments, single
sign-on often gets you access to wide range of corporate info. But it does nothing
to help you remember the sign-on to your (my) favorite motorcycle forums.
A bunch of companies that don't particularly like each other have
agreed to help. Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign and Yahoo are all members
of the OpenID Foundation, which hopes to offer one user name and one password
that gets you onto all of your favorite registered sites. Just make sure you
keep that info very, very safe!
Microsoft had a decent approach to this. It was called Passport. Unfortunately,
not enough sites backed it and Passport is now largely used to access Microsoft-only
content.
Posted by Doug Barney on February 11, 20080 comments
Yahoo's board of directors this weekend
formally
rejected Microsoft's takeover offer. The board apparently wants either more
dough or to hook up with a different partner, such as Google (which would raise
antitrust concerns) or AOL.
I'm no stock market whiz (and have the losses to prove it!), but as I understand
it, the Microsoft bid was a huge premium over Yahoo's existing share price.
And Microsoft offers the ailing Yahoo resources, market share and commitment
-- things Yahoo needs.
On the flip side, I still don't think this deal is in Microsoft's best interest,
especially if it spends far more than the $44.5
billion it already has on the table.
Instead of trying to out-Google Google, imagine what could be done if all that
money were placed in the hands of a bunch of young, smart programmers and visionaries.
Posted by Doug Barney on February 11, 20080 comments
Do you remember the PowerPC processor? This little beauty drove everything from
late-model Amigas to Macs. After Apple ditched Power for Intel, it looked like
Power lost all its muscle.
But IBM is keeping the processor family very much alive, and uses it to drive
the world's fastest PCs to what IBM last year claimed was the world's fastest
server.
While IBM pushes its x86 Blade and traditional server lines, the company's
most interesting family just might be the Power-powered System p. Mostly aimed
at the high-end, there are two new System p's: the 520 and 550 Express. Added
to that is a new virtualization technology, PowerVM, that lets the System p
run a wider variety of software, including Linux apps built for x86 systems.
Unfortunately, the System p still doesn't run Windows, even though years ago
NT ran just fine on the PowerPC.
Meanwhile, Sun is now shipping Sun MD. This data system is like a military
field hospital. You can drop Sun MD into a new location, and have processing,
storage, networking and pre-canned data processing all set to go. Not sure if
it comes in Army green.
Get all the details here.
Posted by Doug Barney on February 11, 20080 comments
If you listen to Wall Street,
paying
$44 billion for Yahoo is the smartest idea since E=mc2. Google's stock is
down, and Yahoo is on the rise after Steve Ballmer's public pitch for the No.
2 search engine concern.
Let me toss some cold water on this little love-fest.
I don't see anything in the Yahoo portfolio that Microsoft doesn't already
have. It's kinda like Time magazine buying Newsweek, Coke buying
Pepsi or BP merging with Exxon -- just more of the same. Even worse, Yahoo
is on the decline (its market share and financials are more like Boo-Hoo
than Yahoo!).
Yahoo is, to a large degree, a legacy company. All its core offerings -- search,
e-mail, forums, news and IM -- have been around for years. Why spend $44 billion
to buy the past when you could invest that money in inventing the future?
This deal seems like a knee-jerk reaction to the Google threat. Instead of
building technologies that can outpace Google, Microsoft is hoping to buy a
company that has proven it can't keep pace. From a purely business standpoint,
maybe the Yahoo audience is worth that kind of cash -- but this isn't a deal
based on technical innovation. What do you think? Write me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on February 04, 20080 comments
Vista gets far more criticism for what it has than for what it doesn't. The
big complaints have to do with too many functions running up against too little
processing.
If you want Vista but not the overhead of Media Player and other features aimed
largely at consumers, then vLite
is for you. This free tool strips Vista of all the features you never wanted
in the first place.
Posted by Doug Barney on February 04, 20080 comments
Every so often, a cartoonist sends me samples of IT humor hoping to get published.
In all cases, the work has been lamer than Barbaro's right leg.
There's a new contender for the IT cartoon Hall of Fame, this time sponsored
by Microsoft. The strip is called "HEROES
happen {here}." Not sure what that name is supposed to mean, but it
sure ain't funny.
The strip is also designed to show off Silverlight. In fact, you have to download
Silverlight before you can start laughing your IT butt off. I went through the
process, wanting to give the strip a full whirl. The result? Less laughter than
a Bill Belichick press conference.
Posted by Doug Barney on February 04, 20080 comments