Francis Chu

Veritas Software Corp.s NetBackup Professional 3.1 is a powerful and cost- effective way to safeguard desktop and mobile client data in primarily Windows-based environments (with the exception of Windows Millennium Edition, that is). Version 3.1 also supports backup for Solaris. The update, which was released last month and costs $445 for a single backup server […]

Do your telecommutting employees need a desktop firewall with a small footprint that has hefty protection? Do they have broadband service and need easy-to-use software to protect a computer that is now more exposed to hackers on the Internet? Then take a look at Tiny Personal Firewall from Tiny Software, which includes great features such […]

SmartFilter 3.0, Secure Computing Corp.s latest URL filter, offers an inexpensive way to deny access to irrelevant or inappropriate Web sites, improving productivity and protecting corporate liability. However, because SmartFilter acts as a plug-in to proxy servers and supports a limited number of firewalls and Web caching appliances, its popularity will be restricted to enterprises […]

Until the recent energy crisis in California, no one really paid much attention to how much power was being used to keep racks full of Wintel servers running in server farms and data centers. We were more interested in packing as many multiprocessor boxes as possible into a rack and seeing how many transactions they […]

IQinVisions IQeye2 internet camera can help companies make sure that none of their equipment “walks out the door.” It can be easily integrated into a network to provide quality monitoring, live surveillance and imaging over a LAN or WAN. The $795 unit has a built-in Web server and 10/100M-bps Ethernet port to process images and […]

Hewlett-Packard Co.s latest ultraslim server, the NetServer LP1000r, packs Intel Corp. 1GHz Pentium III processors into a 1.75-inch form factor along with a large internal storage capacity. Although eWeek Labs tests show the Web performance gained with the faster processors is not significant, IT managers in space-conscious Web hosting and data center environments will find […]

Avocent Corp. breaks new ground with its recent introduction of the DS1800, a KVM switch that runs over a standard Ethernet network. But although the DS1800 has the impressive capability to extend the control of servers through the IP network, its mediocre performance and high price might deter some IT managers from jumping into this […]

Shopping on the Internet is like signing up for a supermarket saver card or getting that extra 10 percent discount when you sign up for a retail stores credit card. You get some immediate savings, but you are also involuntarily subscribing to junk mail. To this day, I still receive junk mail from the company […]

Security-conscious companies with limited budgets and small IT staffs should consider Axent Technologies Inc.s VelociRaptor firewall appliance to provide powerful network security with straightforward setup and management. The VelociRaptor appliance is armed with Axents latest Raptor firewall (Version 6.5) and Axents PowerVPN, preinstalled in a Cobalt Networks Inc. RaQ appliance. Given Raptors record in the […]

Companies thirsting for more robust tape backup systems will have plenty of choices in the months ahead as three tape technologies emerge. As data accumulates with increasing speed on ever-more-complex networks, systems administrators are under pressure to improve backup systems. E-commerce transactions and other high-volume operations create demand for higher backup storage capacity, faster data […]