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A WORM Turn: EMC Introduces Centera
Compliance Edition
By Charles King
EMC has announced the availability of Centera
Compliance Edition, a new storage system specifically designed to meet or
exceed record retention regulations. Based on EMC’s content-addressed storage
(CAS) technology, Centera Compliance Edition features retention enforcement
that allows the setting of hardened retention periods for electronic records
and satisfies SEC Rule 17a-4, enhanced disposition (i.e., “shredding”) of
electronic data as required by DOD Directive 5015.2; and application access
security that allows access and authorization activities to be established at
the application or server level, as required under regulations including
HIPAA. Additional new features include Content Parity Protection (CPP), which
enables users to set policies for replicating fixed content. List prices for
Centera Compliance Edition begin at $64,000 for the hardware and $84,000 for
the software in a 4-terabyte protected (8-terabyte raw capacity) total system
configuration.
The evolution of enterprise storage has followed two
parallel, often intersecting pathways. On one, the ability to efficiently
collect, store, and access vast quantities of data enhanced both the quality
and value of business information. On the other, securely storing information
subject to government and other regulations is in danger of being compromised
by the sheer volume of data involved. Traditionally, businesses and agencies
have relied on tape- and optical-based storage solutions that offered permanent
Write Once, Read Many (WORM) features to ensure the integrity of saved data.
But in the evolving world of enterprise storage, where even a minor email can
become crucial if it is requested for a financial or government audit,
manually sifting through terabytes of optical- or tape-based material can be
onerous. Additionally, it seems a fact of life that like data, regulations
will continue to expand beyond expectations or understanding.
For that reason, we find EMC’s new Centera
Compliance Edition of particular interest. Centera (or for that matter, any
other ATA-based solution) does not deliver capabilities of high-end storage
systems like EMC’s Symmetrix or IBM’s Shark, but it is unlikely that
enterprises would ever utilize high-end systems for processes as banal as
secure document or email storage and retrieval. However, Centera’s CAS-based
solution offers an intriguing and affordable alternative for companies that
need faster solutions than those to traditional compliant systems. Centera’s use
of ATA-based storage technology provides both a more efficient means of
searching for documents than traditional regulation-compliant systems and
price/performance that compares favorably against tape and optical solutions.
As apparently the first to market with a disk-based regulation-compliant
storage solution, we expect EMC will make hay while Centera shines. If the
new Compliance Edition fills the niche EMC has designed it for, we would
expect other vendors to pursue similar disk-based solutions for burgeoning
regulated applications and markets, further shrinking the already tightening
market for tape and optical products.
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The Integration of Rational by IBM
Looks Complete
By Jacques Halé
IBM released further enhancements to the WebSphere
Studio this week, crowning in the process the integration of Rational into
the IBM marketing machine. Back in December 2002, IBM announced that it would
acquire toolmaker Rational Software for $2.1 billion. With this announcement,
IBM indicates that the integration of Rational as a new division and fifth
brand, joining WebSphere, Lotus, Tivoli, and DB2, is now complete.
Additionally, IBM also restated its pledge to the open standard Eclipse
platform, allowing WebSphere Studio to be customized and enhanced by
independent partners.
For IBM customers, the Rational acquisition was an
important event and one where we expressed concern that the support of
platforms other than IBM’s might be compromised. However, the company seems
to be holding to its pledge for WebSphere Studio to support competitive
standards such as Microsoft .Net and BEA. We believe this is a smart move on
IBM’s part: it should help capture developers who operate in heterogeneous
infrastructures. Rational keeps its impetus in providing tools for the whole
range of developers, mainly in the three areas of business application
deployment, software product development by independent software developers (ISDs) and embedded systems and devices. This last market
has been courted by IBM for some time with its IBM's WebSphere Everyplace
Embedded Software. The home automation market is one potential application of
these technologies, but it is only this week that a serious home automation
has finally taken shape (IBM and Commonwealth Builders’ development of 170
unit housing community equipped with wireless remote management of home
utilities).
Of course, the schedule for new products will be
driven by IBM’s priorities. The announcement this week of three new products
for developers is consistent with the push of IBM towards the promised On
Demand World, and Rational is positioned at the center of the brand portfolio
comprising also WebSphere, DB2, Tivoli, and Lotus. As the center point, its
role is one of integration of application development, data schema, system
configuration, and testing, giving a more cohesive portfolio for the
development and deployment of the On Demand concept. Welcome to the team!
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Widening the Data Path: Microsoft
to Support 64-bit AMD Opteron and Athlon 64 Processors
By Clay Ryder
Microsoft announced this week that it is developing
native 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that will
support the upcoming AMD Opteron and AMD Athlon 64 processors. The company
will extend 64-bit support in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 to run
natively on the AMD Opteron processor for servers and workstations, and the
AMD Athlon 64 processor for desktops and notebooks. These new versions are
targeting increased efficiency for many operations, including engineering and
scientific projects, financial services, online transaction processing, data
warehousing, digital content creation, video editing, advanced gaming, and
computer-aided design. Desktop and server beta releases are expected to be
available in the middle of 2003.
With the endless banter, promises, delays, and
inevitability of Intel’s 64-bit Itanium processor, one could easily overlook
the fact that Intel is not the only player with a 64-bit IA game plan. The
official release of AMD’s Opteron processor is imminent, and Microsoft’s commitment
to this platform is an important coup for AMD and its partners. As of late,
AMD with its Athlon processor has been methodically competing against Intel,
mostly in the lower end of the market, as a cost-conscious but high-quality
alternative to Intel’s Pentium 4 family of processors. However, overcoming
Intel’s continuous and effective marketing has been a significant issue for
AMD, especially when the most visible differentiation has often been the
price of the processor, which across the board is a commodity whose price has
continued to fall. Nevertheless, with Opteron, we believe the case will be
different and AMD has a real chance to capture a significant portion of the
64-bit IA market despite the Itanium marketing onslaught.
The crux of this opportunity is the simple fact that
Opteron, while being a 64-bit implementation, is backwards-compatible with
existing 32-bit IA applications, whereas Itanium is not. Thus, users who
would like to upgrade to 64-bit computing without rewriting, recompiling, or
repurchasing their applications have a path to do so while coexisting with
their 32-bit applications. Microsoft’s support for the processors means that
users would be able to upgrade to a 64-bit operating environment while
continuing to use some or all of their 32-bit applications. This flexibility
would allow users to upgrade to 64-bit applications on their own timeline,
not one dictated by a systemwide upgrade (and the commensurate downtime and
IT misery). For the SMB marketplace, we believe this removes a critical
impediment to 64-bit computing as it does not automatically obsolete existing
software and IT investments. At the same time, Microsoft’s support for the
processors could prove helpful in bolstering an Intel competitor, which would
help undercut the argument that Microsoft and Intel represent a computing
monopoly. This would not be the first time that the Windows NT code base, the
antecedent to XP and Server, was made available for multiple platforms
(remember NT 3.51?). However, this time around application availability for
this non-IA-32 platform is built in, the lack of which doomed NT from ever
gaining traction on Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC. Overall, we believe Microsoft’s
support for the latest from AMD is very important and may buttress a
potentially substantial windfall for AMD, SMBs, and
ultimately itself.
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Threat and Response?
By Jim Balderston
The FBI’s Internet Fraud Complaint Center announced this
week that it had referred 48,252 fraud complaints to a range of federal and
local law enforcement agencies, a total that was triple the 16,775 that it
made in the prior year. The FBI also said it had another 37,000 complaints
about computer hacking, spam, and pornography. The FBI’s report on fraud said
that $54 million was lost in 2002, up from a figure of $17 million in 2001.
The largest single category of complaint was for non-delivery of merchandise
or nonpayment for same. Credit card fraud was 12% of all cases. The report
also noted that the Nigerian letter fraud had made further inroads in the
fraud Hall of Fame, with victims of the scam losing a median of $3,864.
According to the report, seventy-four individuals alone lost $1.6 million to
this scam. Meanwhile, a former Bush administration official told Congress
this week that the government is moving too slowly on upgrading its Internet
security infrastructure. Richard Clarke, a former special advisor to the President,
said that the Homeland Security Department was moving too slowly to prepare
and protect both government and private sector infrastructure, noting that
hundreds of cyber-security jobs that were to fall under the purview of the
Homeland Security Department are unfilled. Government officials noted that
while much was left to be done, a 50% increase in federal systems had
developed up-to-date security plans. However, Clarke noted that as long as
there were well-known vulnerabilities that can be inexpensively exploited the
risk of such attacks remains high.
It should come as no surprise that the recorded
complaints of Internet fraud are rising year to year. Even a tripling of such
complaints cannot come as any sort of shock. Not only is the online commerce
between individuals exploding in raw numbers, the number of grifters drifting
to the Internet as the locale of their next scam is growing as well. We do
not read the FBI’s statistics as evidence of a new outbreak in lawlessness.
Instead we see new generations of an eternal class of people following the
money trail. Regardless of any information awareness campaigns, the trusty
old Nigerian fund transfer scam is going to continue to hook people left and
right. There’s a sucker born every minute, and nothing – not technology, nor
legislation – is going to alter the fundamental reality that gullibility and
greed are a fool’s cocktail.
That being said, the increasing
number of scam artists now plying their craft on the Internet does raise
concerns, especially as it pertains to more serious threats to national
infrastructure and government operations. In the early days of the Internet
security was largely a factor of obscurity. Few people knew where everything
was, or how to get there, so that any attacks on the system could be traced
to a relatively small number of people who had the requisite knowledge and
skill to make such an incursion. In most cases, those people guarded their
knowledge carefully; they knew the potential harm it could cause if allowed
to fall into the wrong hands. Today, that small circle of knowledgeable and
largely responsible people has been burst asunder, and the knowledge needed
to do real harm has been disseminated much more broadly. The esprit de corps of the early Internet
participants – one that provided a self-policing mentality – has been burst
asunder as well. As we view the future, we see more and more people gaining
the rudimentary skills and knowledge needed to do real harm to network
resources or real-world assets that are managed through those resources. Just
as terrorists used simple box-cutters to bring down the Twin Towers, one must
consider the ability of someone with simple hacking tools available all over
the Internet to cause real havoc. In such an environment, we believe that
both private and public sector IT security issues must be addressed in a
forceful and expeditious manner. In the never-ending game of
measure/counter-measure that is IT security, simply standing still means that
an enterprise is losing ground.
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Who’s the MAN? Intel, Others Join WiMAX
By Charles King
Communications component and equipment companies
including Intel, Nokia, Fujitsu Microelectronics, Aperto,
Proxim, and Wi-LAN have announced
they are joining WiMAX, a non-profit corporation, to help promote and certify
the compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless access equipment
adhering to the IEEE 802.16 technical standard. The 802.16 standard is a
wireless metropolitan area networking (MAN) technology that will connect
802.11 hot spots to the Internet and provide a wireless extension to cable
and DSL for last-mile broadband access. According to the organization, the
802.16 technology provides up to thirty-one miles of linear service area
without direct line of sight to the base station, and offers shared data
rates of up to 70 Mbps per base station sector, enough to provide T1-type
connectivity to more than sixty businesses or DSL-type connectivity to
hundreds of homes. A typical base station supports up to six sectors. During
the next year, WiMAX will develop conformance test plans, select certification
labs, and host interoperability events for 802.16 equipment vendors. The
organization will also work with the European Telecommunications Standards
Institute (ETSI) to develop test plans for HIPERMAN, and European broadband
MAN standard.
While we usually do not discuss efforts whose
eventual applications lay far in the future, the WiMAX effort is intriguing
enough to pique our interest. The 802.16 standard is not the first wireless
broadband technology to hit the street, but it is the most powerful non-line
of sight solution that we have heard of. Additionally, the technology’s sheer
capacity offers some interesting scenarios for consideration. The WiMAX
announcement suggests that 802.16 could provide the wireless broadband
backbone for quickly provisioning T1-style business networks with far lower
costs than wired installations, or even deliver “on demand” style wireless
connectivity for singular events like trade shows or at temporary locations
such as construction sites. We would amend that list with wireless solutions
that could provide cable-quality data to entire urban or suburban
neighborhoods or deliver DSL-type Internet access to rural areas that are
beyond the “last mile” budgetary restraints of service providers.
That said, actually implementing such solutions lays
a good ways off in the future, but it is easy enough to see why Intel and
other vendors are intrigued with 802.16. During the past year or so, the
booming popularity of wireless networking solutions for homes and businesses
has raised their profile among many vendors. Cisco’s recent purchase of home
networking stalwart Linksys indicated one direction
this interest is leading and the WiMAX effort offers another, more elemental
approach. The fact is that is 802.16 becomes a reality, it (and the
vendors/promoters involved) will become the backbone technology partners of
choice for telecoms, ISPs, cable operators, and anyone else with content to
deliver or an Internet service to provide. For years, media companies have
discussed the potential ramification of ubiquitous online connectivity
unrestrained by geographic limits or considerations, but a simple examination
of cellular phone service maps reveals that vision is still beyond reach.
While 802.16 may not extend the Internet to every “last mile,” it is likely
to lead vendors and users down any number of roads not seen or considered
before.
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Remedy Announces Strategic
Adjustments at User Group Meeting
By Myles Suer
This week the Remedy User Group meeting was held in
San Francisco with 800 to 1,000 of the faithful on hand. The end of the
period of darkness was proclaimed: the Peregrine Acquisition. At the same
time, BMC (Remedy’s new parent) and Remedy announced Business Services
Management, the new positioning for BMC as well as the IT Service Management
portion of Remedy’s business. In addition, Remedy stated that it is no longer
in the CRM business as it will no longer offer sales force or marketing
automation software. With this stroke, Remedy defined what it calls Customer
Service and Support. Remedy claims that with this focus, it will be able to
achieve a best-of-breed solution, but it does see the need to integrate with
CRM solutions. Remedy indicated a willingness to collaborate in the marketing
and sales force automation marketplace.
We believe linking IT Help Desk functionality with
the concept of Business Service Management is very interesting. BMC is making
the IT Help Desk effectively the repository from which systems information
will be housed. Additionally, the blending of BMC and Remedy technology
functionality for IT Service Management should improve BMC’s
market competitiveness – especially as the technology of MasterCell
is added to the mix. At the same time, the combined technology should give
BMC the ability to act as systems player, not a toolmaker. To take the next
step, BMC must pull together an integrated, composite story for CIOs and the Global 2000 on why BMC Service Management
should be the first thing on their purchase list. We believe this is also
true for Remedy’s customer service and support business. Remedy was early to
build out a Web Service interface and a leader in rethinking its business
focus in light of the connectivity that is only now starting to become
possible. This is not to say that BMC and Remedy do not face challenges
ahead. Remedy needs to innovate and improve the customer experience, and
shift its emphasis towards marketing as opposed to technology. In sum, BMC
and Remedy seem to be making the right moves but it is still early in a new
game.
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