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Vol. 13, #50 - Dec 8, 2008 - Issue #704
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2009 Global Trends Exec Summary
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- Editors Corner
- 2009 Global Trends Exec Summary
- VIPRE Enterprise Auto-Uninstalls All Major AV Products
- Quotes of the Week
- Webinars and Seminars
- Webcast: Affordable, Enterprise Email Archiving
- Admin Toolbox
- Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without
- Tech Briefing
- Redmond Slates 8 Bug Updates For 2008 Final Patch Tuesday
- 5 Must-Do Cyber Security Steps for Obama
- New "Cloud" Browser Operating System
- Report Sees Major Terror Attack By 2013, Ignores Cyberattack Risk
- Rethinking Computing - Interesting Craig Mundie Keynote
- Tutorial: Active Directory
- Expert Videocast: Mark Minasi Talks Vista Deployment
- Upcoming Security Feature In Windows 7: Applocker
- Windows Server News
- Vista And W2K8 SP2 Beta Released
- Cloud Mashups - Web 3.0 or Cloud 2.0?
- WServer Third Party News
- Beta Testers Needed For New Sunbelt Security Scanner V2
- Sunbelt Exchange Archiver Updated to V3.8000
- WServerNews Fave Links
- This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff.
- WServerNews - Product of the Week
- Use Desktop Authority to Meet the Latest USB Port Control Mandates
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Use Desktop Authority to Meet the Latest USB Port Control Mandates
Any storage device plugged into a computer becomes an instant risk for data
leakage outside an organization's usual security controls.
Desktop Authority gives you the flexibility to totally restrict USB port
access or to finely control it down to the specific user or device to meet
current mandates. The USB and Port Security option provides policy-based
access control to USB storage and communication devices. It lets you apply
our patented Validation Logic to easily restrict or lock down access to USB
ports as mandated. With control over 20+ device types, granular control can
be established while maintaining user productivity. Download a 30 Day
Trial Now!
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-USB-Port-Security
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Editors Corner |
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2009 Global Trends Exec Summary
Thanks to all of you who participated in the latest joint ITIC/Sunbelt
Software survey. As always, your input and candid comments are highly
appreciated. Let's start with the greatest challenges facing IT departments
during the next 12 months. Not surprisingly, you rated the biggest
challenges as:
- Budgetary constraints and IT staffing issues: Everyone it seems is trying
to accomplish more tasks, improve network infrastructure, hardware and
application performance, reliability and security with fewer resources.
These two issues were tied for the most daunting challenge facing IT
departments with 52% of survey respondents selecting these issues.
- Security: Two out of five businesses - 41% -- said security was a
key concern.
- On the other end of the spectrum, the issue of least concern to IT
managers and C-level executives, is upgrading the existing WAN
infrastructure. Only 9% of those of you who responded to our survey
cited WAN infrastructure upgrades/issues as a chief concern.
IT Budget Forecasts
The harsh economic climate is impacting IT budgets. Somewhat surprisingly,
only 27% of companies reported that their 2009 IT budgets will decrease;
32% said their budgets will remain the same as 2008; while 16% reported
their IT budgets will increase during the next 12 months. Some 19% of
respondents indicated they are still unsure of what their budgets will
be and the remaining 6% reported they are reviewing the budgets but have
not yet made a decision.
- Of the 16% of corporations that said budgets will increase - the
largest portion - 23% indicated the budget increases would be modest --
ranging from 5% to 15%. Eight percent reported their IT budgets would
rise minimally - 1% to 5%. Large budget increases will be a rarity in
2009: only 1% of companies will see budgets go up by 20% to 30% and 3%
will see IT budgets increase by more than 30%.
- Of the 27% of firms polled that said their 2009 IT budgets will
decrease - the largest group - 32% indicated their budgets will contract
from 5% to 15%; though 43% are still unsure of how much their IT budgets
will shrink.
- Over one-third of the corporate respondents -- 35% -- said that the
ongoing economic downturn had caused their companies to delay or abandon
planned software, hardware and network infrastructure upgrades, while an
additional 26% indicated they might have to put migration plans on hold.
However, 39% of the survey respondents - nearly two out of five businesses
reported that their network migration and upgrade plans will proceed as
planned in calendar 2009.
- Of the 35% of companies that indicated they will delay or abandon certain
planned upgrades - the network projects that will be most impacted are:
server hardware (21%) and network infrastructure products such as routers
(19%) and storage devices (15%).
- Security remains the market segment that is least impacted by budgetary
constraints. Only a very small 3% minority of corporations across all
vertical and horizontal markets indicated they would defer planned
security upgrades.
Virtualization Results
Virtualization remains a high growth technology area. The latest ITIC/Sunbelt
Software survey found that the market leaders - VMWare, Microsoft and Citrix
are consolidating their positions. The survey also showed that while desktop
and application virtualization is on your radar screens, those market segments
are not a top priority for the majority of those polled.
- VMware remains the market leader but Microsoft's Hyper-V is closing the
gap. In response to a question in which we asked customers to select ALL
the virtualization products they plan to use/deploy in 2009, 38% said
VMWare's ESX Server; 22% said VMWare Server. However, 35% of the respondents
indicated they will use Microsoft's Hyper-V, while 17% said they will deploy
the older Microsoft Virtual Server.
- When it comes to Application Virtualization solutions, Microsoft's App-V
is the clear market leader, beating VMware's ThinApp by a 2-to-1 margin,
which came in third behind Citrix's XenApp 5.0. However, it must be noted
that thus far, only about 15% of the survey respondents are deploying
application virtualization in production environments.
- It's still very early in the game for the emerging application
virtualization market: 62% of businesses have not yet deployed application
virtualization or chosen an application virtualization vendor.
- Because of the economic downturn, server virtualization in the data
center remains a higher priority than either desktop or application
virtualization in calendar 2009.
- Interestingly, in spite of cost constraints and pressures on IT budgets,
only 7% of the survey respondents said they had attempted to renegotiate
the terms and conditions of their virtualization licensing contracts to
get better deals. Another 27% said they were studying the issue but had
not yet made any definitive attempts to renegotiate and 66% said "No."
Microsoft Vista: User Satisfaction and Planned Deployments
- To date, only 10% of the 700 survey respondents have deployed Vista.
- Windows XP is the primary desktop OS for 88% of the respondents
- The Vista experience was much better than anticipated for the 10% of
companies for whom Vista is the primary desktop OS: 27% rated Vista's
performance, reliability and security Excellent or Very Good; another
32% rated it "Good", 19% said it was "Satisfactory" while 19% gave it
an "Unsatisfactory" rating mainly due to application incompatibility
problems.
Apple Macintosh Enterprise Usage Continues to Grow
- Over two-thirds of the 700 survey respondents - 68% -- indicated they are
likely to allow their end users to deploy Macs as their corporate enterprise
desktops in the next 12 months.
- Seven out of 10 businesses - 70% -- rated the security of the Apple Mac
and OS X as "Excellent" or "Very Good."
- An 82% majority of corporations rated the reliability of the Mac hardware
and OS X 10.x as "Excellent" or "Very Good."
- Over three-quarters of businesses - 77% -- have Macintoshes present in
their environments.
If you have any questions or want more information, or you have suggestions
for future survey topics, feel free to email ITIC at:
ldidio@itic-corp.com.
And again, we appreciate your participation.
VIPRE Enterprise Auto-Uninstalls All Major AV Products
Check out which products and which versions are now able to be uninstalled
automatically, making the deployment of VIPRE Enterprise even simpler than
before. This is the new page for all the uninstallers:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Agent-Uninstallers
Quotes of the Week
"The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up
there's no law against whacking them around a little." -- Porterfield
"Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win." - Jonathon Kozol
Warm regards, and thank you for being a WServerNews subscriber. No trees
were killed in the sending of this message, but a large number of electrons
were terribly inconvenienced. Please tell your friends about us.
They can subscribe here:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Subscribe
UNDO - Wrongly attributed quote. It was not Thomas Jefferson but Gerald Ford
the 38th President of the United States who said: "A government big enough
to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you
everything you have." Presidential address to a joint session of Congress
(12 August 1974).
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Automated Uninstall of Symantec AV
No more 2-day SEP V11 Migration Classes! Sunbelt built VIPRE Enterprise;
a completely new technology combining corporate antivirus plus an
enterprise antispyware solution for total endpoint security designed
by admins for admins. And that means EASY DEPLOYMENT. Save your IT budget and
don't renew products from Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro, Learn how VIPRE
Enterprise takes much less resources than the competition! It's clearly time
to ditch expensive, bloated, old-style AV products. Get your 30-day eval here:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-VIPRE-Enterprise
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Webinars and Seminars |
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Webcast: Affordable, Enterprise Email Archiving
Join us for a look at Sunbelt Software's Exchange email archiving and
compliance solution, Sunbelt Exchange Archiver. If you need a powerful, easy
to use, enterprise-class email archiving tool that automatically enables you
to comply with all requirements, and allows you or your end-users to
transparently retrieve any archived email, then don't miss this webinar!
The webinar will explain the features and benefits of implementing a powerful
email archiving solution on your Exchange Server at an affordable price.
Learn how Sunbelt Exchange Archiver can help you:
- Improve Exchange performance
- Eliminate PST headaches
- Dramatically reduce backup times
- Use up to 80% smaller message store
- Meet compliance requirements
- And more
When: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 2:00 PM (EST) Please register here:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Email-Archiving
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Tech Briefing |
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Redmond Slates 8 Bug Updates For 2008 Final Patch Tuesday
They will serve up eight security updates next week, six of them marked
"critical," to plug holes in Windows, IE, Office and other code. Two of
the eight updates will patch Windows, another two are aimed at Office,
while the remaining four plug holes in (IE), SharePoint, Windows Media
Player, and Visual Basic and Visual Studio. Here is the monthly advance
warning of what to expect next Tuesday:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Security-Bulletin
5 Must-Do Cyber Security Steps for Obama
As President-Elect Obama focuses on two wars and a hemorrhaging economy,
security experts are urging him to address five weak security links in
America's cyber infrastructure that threaten the nation's defenses and
financial institutions. Take a look and offer feedback:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Obama-Security-Steps
New "Cloud" Browser Operating System
Fascinating. This code is a "browser operating system that boots into a
browser and allows you to run apps inside a tab and switch to your main
OS whether it's Linux or Windows. Read all about it at:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-gOS
Report Sees Major Terror Attack By 2013, Ignores Cyberattack Risk
In stark and certain terms, a Congress-mandated commission warned that the
world's nations face the threat of a major terrorism attack using biological
and nuclear weapons by 2013. The commission's report, titled "The World at
Risk," skips over the threat of cyberattacks and focuses almost exclusively
on nuclear and biological weapons. "[Terrorists] are more likely to unleash
an aerosol can filled with pathogens than to strike with a nuclear weapon,"
the report warns. More at ComputerWorld:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Network-Security-Issues
Rethinking Computing - Interesting Craig Mundie Keynote
Computing is undergoing a major paradigm shift. Radical new approaches
to hardware and software will transform our online and offline lives,
seamlessly combining the power of the Internet with a world of devices.
Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, will
discuss the possibilities-and show how close we are to realizing them.
They show a new robot that will run on Redmond's campus to help people
catch shuttles. At MIT's EmTech site:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-EmTech
Tutorial: Active Directory
Working with Microsoft Active Directory can be complicated and confusing
if you aren't prepared, but with the right guidance any administrator can
learn to make AD work for them. This Active Directory Learning Guide
provides the information every administrator should know, from the basics
of Active Directory to tips and explanations regarding DNS, replication,
security, migration planning and more: (Required Registration)
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Active-Directory-Tutorial
Expert Videocast: Mark Minasi Talks Vista Deployment
In this videocast series, Windows guru Mark Minasi takes you through
Windows Vista deployment and management -- from migration basics to
machine capturing: (Required Registration)
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Vista-Deployment
Upcoming Security Feature In Windows 7: Applocker
Vista introduced BitLocker (and Windows 7 will have an enhanced version)
but perhaps more exciting, at least for IT pros, is a different "locker"
that's planned for the new OS: AppLocker. It will give you a new way to
control which programs users can and can't run and even supports biometric
devices such as fingerprint readers. Sure, Vista and XP have software
restriction policies, but AppLocker should be easier to use and more
flexible and effective. Read more at SearchSecurity.com:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Application-Permissions
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Windows Server News |
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Vista And W2K8 SP2 Beta Released
For the first time, Microsoft has packaged one download that applies to
both the client and server flavors of the OS. They warned to not try it
out in production environments. Mike Nash said: "The Customer Preview Program
(CPP) is intended for technology enthusiasts, developers, and IT pros who
would like to test Service Pack 2 in their environments and with their
applications prior to final release. For most customers, our best advice
would be to wait until the final release prior to installing this service
pack." Here is the TechNet page with all the goodies:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Customer-Preview-Program
Cloud Mashups - Web 3.0 or Cloud 2.0?
Will your Servers be in your server room or somewhere else?
There's no question: web mashups are integral part of Web 2.0. Besides the
social aspect of Web 2.0, mashups have been more and more prevalent in the
Web 2.0 world. It is hard to imagine a Web 2.0 app not having content from
other sources: a map from Google, pictures from Flicker, avatars from Gravatar,
or movies from YouTube. Many web providers now exposed proprietary content
through API's. ProgrammableWeb has the most comprehensive list of Web 2.0
API's I could find. The list is growing every day. Instead of opening their
content to outside world, many websites opened their doors and let other
developers deploy applications on their sites: Facebook, LinkedIn, Salesforce
and many others, all providing proprietary platforms. The users can then
combine applications from various vendors and use them.
On March 14th 2006, Amazon started the Cloud Race with the release of
Amazon Web Services Platform. At the end of 2006, Microsoft realizes that
the Cloud is the new big thing as they start development of their own
version of cloud offerings and release after two years a comprehensive
suite of tools and services (Windows Azure) which makes Microsoft one
of the main players in the field. Other players are trying to catch up:
VMWare, EMC, Google, HP, etc.
So what's the future of the Cloud? How it will change our lives? Continue
reading at
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Cloud-Mashups
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WServer Third Party News |
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Beta Testers Needed For New Sunbelt Security Scanner V2
The biggest change to SNSI is the engine. The engine has been substantially
improved, resulting in much faster scan times and much smaller definitions
updates, going from 38MB to 1MB. Additionally, there is an all-new UI, new
reporting capabilities and we've added scan support for Vista (32 & 64)
and 2008 Server. Below is the link to the beta forum for SNSI. On the forum
is a link for the download, and a link for the Quick Start Guide.
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-SNSI-2-Beta
Sunbelt Exchange Archiver Updated to V3.8000
Corporate lawsuits are inevitable. When organizations are sued, electronic
data, and especially email is the first target of legal discovery. The
savings from one major lawsuit can fund an email archiving initiative and
provide a competitive legal advantage. Are you prepared to meet the
E-Discovery needs of litigation, mergers, and internal inquiries? What do
you need to know to plan a robust e-discovery strategy without breaking
your messaging budget?
Find out the new features of Sunbelt Exchange Archiver in the Release Notes.
Choose: Resources - Datasheets - Release Notes:
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-Sunbelt-Exchange-Archiver
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WServerNews Fave Links |
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This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff.
|
|
WServerNews - Product of the Week |
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Use Desktop Authority to Meet the Latest USB Port Control Mandates
Any storage device plugged into a computer becomes an instant risk for data
leakage outside an organization's usual security controls.
Desktop Authority gives you the flexibility to totally restrict USB port
access or to finely control it down to the specific user or device to meet
current mandates. The USB and Port Security option provides policy-based
access control to USB storage and communication devices. It lets you apply
our patented Validation Logic to easily restrict or lock down access to USB
ports as mandated. With control over 20+ device types, granular control can
be established while maintaining user productivity. Download a 30 Day
Trial Now!
http://www.wservernews.com/081208-USB-Port-Security-POTW
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