Francis Chu

The WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) standard, ratified last year by the Wi-Fi Alliance, will be making its way into products this summer. WPA provides a significant (if temporary) security boost for Wi-Fi networks by enhancing encryption and authentication capabilities while maintaining backward compatibility. This will allow companies to gradually migrate WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)-based networks […]

The Radicati Group has released a study on the state of instant messaging that forecasts escalating growth for IM usage worldwide through 2007. According to the report, 70 percent of the corporations this consulting and market research firm interviewed are using some form of IM, but only 26 percent have standardized on a single corporate […]

The KL0116, Altusens latest LCD KVM console, offers an efficient way for administrators to manage as many as 16 servers in a data center rack. The $4,495 KL0116, available now, is a compact 1U (1.75-inch) rack-mountable drawer with a built-in 15-inch LCD screen, keyboard, touch-pad and integrated 16-port KVM switch thats easy to install on […]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Iomega P850m Iomegas P850m appliance is a good choice for Windows shops looking for a high-capacity storage system for data backup or server consolidation tasks. The system has a competitive price, but upfront cost is still fairly high at $17,000-plus. For sites with Windows expertise, administration will be a snap as the P850m […]

M-Systems 3.5-inch fast flash Disk ultranarrow SCSI disk is a robust, rugged storage option aimed at embedded systems and high-performance desktops. The solid-state FFD, available now for $700, doesnt have moving parts. An FFD drive stores data in nonvolatile flash memory using the technology M-Systems developed for its line of Disk-on-Chip storage products. M-Systems also […]

The supercomputing club got a new member this month, but the newest high-performance system is not based on Unix cluster or grid computer systems. In fact, this supercomputer might be more at home in a suburban den than in a lab. The researchers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications assembled the supercomputer using 70 […]

ZyXel has boosted the security features of its ZyAir Wireless LAN adapter family by providing 802.1x authentication support with Meetinghouse Data Communications Aegis client and authentication API. The Aegis client, based on the 802.1x standard, operates from an authentication server, which can be the Aegis server or a RADIUS server such as Funk Softwares Steel […]

IT managers fed up with the security flaws in the wired equivalent privacy standard are wondering when to begin upgrading their enterprise 802.11 wireless LANs with Wi-Fi Protected Access. However, although there is much to be gained by moving to the latest security standard from the Wi-Fi Alliance, there are many things to consider before […]

SMC Networks latest 802.11B High Power Wireless PC Card, which shipped last month, enhances mobile connectivity with a significant power boost over standard wireless PC Cards in the market, increasing the operating range to 2,700 feet. The 2.4GHz SMC2532W-B High Power PC Card can generate up to 200 milliwatts of transmit power, about four times […]

I visited Hewlett-Packards Lab in Palo Alto, Calif., yesterday, where company executives showcased the companys Utility Data Center installation in action. After several informative slide presentations, HP officials took me into the lab where the UDC was installed. The UDC Lab is an impressive gallery of HPs latest hardware and data center technologies, and it […]