Servers & Data Center Breaking News

Bad economy good for client virtualization?
Could the stretched-out replacement cycles for desktop machines be a boon for client computing? In a recent Wall Street Journal Business Technology blog post, Ben Worthen noted that a survey from our print publication, CIO Magazine, found that companies will forgo traditional three-year replacement cycles for desktop machines (both traditional desktops and notebook computers). According to the CIO survey, 46 percent of businesses will defer replacing machines for the next year or two. More..

Symantec takes cybercrime snapshot with 'Underground Economy' report
The criminal market online for buying and selling stolen credit cards, pirated software and information about financial accounts is thriving, according to a Symantec report published Monday. More..

Sports Web site goes virtual as it gears up for expansion
Fantasy sports site coasts along with server and I/O virtualization. More..

Windows HPC hits top 10 among supercomputers
Microsoft on Tuesday hit another high-performance computing milestone by placing its server for the first time in the top 10 on the list of the Top 500 super computers as judged by Top500.org. More..

Microsoft offers push e-mail with new SMB servers
Microsoft is offering smaller businesses the same kind of Windows Mobile push services that enterprises get with new versions of its server software, expected to be launched on Wednesday. More..

Microsoft kicks off next era of small business software
Microsoft Wednesday released an updated bundle of infrastructure servers for small business and its first-ever offering tailored to midsized businesses, and said the two would evolve alongside the company's software-plus-services strategy. More..

Free tool collects logs, manages security and compliance
QI Labs develops a free version of its enterprise log and compliance management appliance to help potential customers get started collecting security event information and monitoring appropriate network systems.  More..

Novell lays out Red Hat attack plan
Novell Tuesday took aim at rival and Linux market leader Red Hat with a migration service designed to help move Linux users onto Novell's Suse enterprise servers. More..

One in four DNS servers still vulnerable to Kaminsky flaw, survey says
he Measurement Factory's 4th annual study of 80 million addresses in the IPv4 space proves several in the Internet community didn't heed the industry's warning to upgrade their DNS servers with patches for the Kaminsky flaw and other known vulnerabilities. More..

Egenera lays off 87 workers, refocuses on software
Economy, strategy shift behind Egenera's cost-cutting moves. More..

IBM debuts Lotus Foundations Start appliance
IBM is making another run at Microsoft small and medium-size customers, announcing a software-hardware appliance on Monday that combines an IBM-branded machine with its Lotus Foundations Start collaboration software. More..

Energy Star for servers coming in February, EPA says
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released the third draft of its Energy Star specification for servers and expects the final spec to be ready for use in February. More..

TimeSight aims at lifecycle management of video surveillance data
TimeSight Systems last week launched what could be the first lifecycle management package for video surveillance data. More..

IBM sues to block executive's move to Apple
IBM is suing one of its top executives, a server guru who is trying to take a job with Apple, where he would be working closely with CEO Steve Jobs. More..

The Google-ization of Bechtel
Bechtel's CIO tells how the construction giant is transforming its IT operations by emulating practices of Internet leaders such as Amazon.com and Google. More..

Building for the future
For most IT leaders, bound by long-standing infrastructure choices and loads of legacy systems, it's little more than a parlor game.  More..

Intel, IBM open up switch specification for blades
Intel and IBM have agreed to open up IBM's BladeCenter switch technology for more server makers to use, part of an initiative to spur adoption of a specification for low-cost blade servers. More..

IBM signs $70M contract extension with Medicare
IBM has signed a one year extension to its contract with Medicare for the provision of IT infrastructure services. More..

An IBM user group's final message: 'pwrdwnsys *immed'
The note that Andy Gladys sent out to the Application Systems User Group of Greater Cleveland this week could not have been more straightforward or painful. More..

Corporate fraud, in-flight Wi-Fi, R&D tax credit, more
Mergers and acquisitions are not usually quick affairs. Just the due diligence process of examining a company's enterprise IT systems--the infrastructure, applications, outsourcing deals and vendor contracts--can take up to a week, according to industry consultants. More..

Developers rank best application servers
The "user's choice" for application servers, according to more than 700 software developers, include two of the oldest-one might say mature-and one relative newcomer. Developers ranked Adobe ColdFusion, the open-source Apache Geronimo, and Oracle WebLogic Server, among their favorite options, according to a free report distributed by Evans Data (free registration required). More..

Data center rethink needed, warns analyst
IT managers need to fundamentally rethink their data centers in order to ensure that they become much more dynamic and less rigid, according to analyst house Burton Group. More..

Rackable steps up enterprise push with new server
Rackable Systems, which is best known for providing servers to large Internet companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo, is aiming for a bigger slice of the enterprise market with its new C2005 server released Tuesday. More..

How DNS cache poisoning works
There has been a long history of attacks on the DNS ranging from brute-force denial-of-service attacks to targeted attacks requiring specialized software. In July 2008 a new DNS cache-poisoning attack was unveiled that is considered especially dangerous because it does not require substantial bandwidth or processor resources nor does it require sophisticated techniques. More..

SolarWinds manages VMware servers for free
SolarWinds updates its Orion network performance management software with support for VMware virtual server environments and introduces a free utility to help IT get started at no cost. More..