Features

IP Routing 101: Interior Gateway Protocols By Eric Hall Your business can really suffer if your IP routing service isn't in good working order. We cover two common interior gateway protocols found on corporate networks -- RIP and OSPF.

Review: ProGear's an Easy-to-Swallow Tablet By Lori MacVittie SonicBlue revives the Web pad form factor and looks to cure corporate ills with robust networking and application support.

Intranets A to Z By Ron Anderson Covering everything from applications to infrastructure, we tell you what it takes to build a corporate intranet that's secure, functional and highly habitable for your network users.

Reader Poll Results: Collaboration Software

Online Only Inside Network Computing Tune in to hear Ron Anderson give you the rundown on testing and deploying asynchronous collaboration tools.

Review: Sharing is Daring By Ron Anderson Make sure collaboration is a priority on your corporate intranet. We tested four tools designed to let your users exchange ideas in a structured way via a Web-based interface.

Workshops

Online Fraud Detection Takes Diligence By Lori MacVittie The last thing you want to do is frighten away a customer, but there are some ways you can scare away credit-card thieves.

Shrinking the Video: How Codecs Work By Darrin Woods For conducting video conference calls or training employees at their desks, building a network that's capable of transmission using codecs (compressor/decompressors) is the way to go.

Buyer's Guide: Move Over Big Brother: Performance Management is Here By Lori MacVittie Today's Web-monitoring services provide performance, availability statistics and comprehensive details about the hardware and software that comprise your Web site. We discuss how to choose the solution that fits your needs.

Online Only: Interactive Buyer's Guide: Web Performance Management This issue's interactive guide compares products from BMC Software, Compuware, Mercury Interactive, Tivoli and more.

Sneak Previews

Matrix E1 Optical Access Switch Boasts Bandwidth By Peter Morrissey After putting this switch through its paces in our labs, it's safe to say that 10 Gigabit has arrived.

Cisco's Network Analysis Module Fills Monitoring Gap for Switched Networks By Greg Shipley Trying to monitor switched LAN segments has always been a huge pain. Cisco's cost-effective NAM is a protocol analyzer, latency meter, QoS tool and proactive monitoring device all rolled into one.

OptiView Tries to 'Cache' in on a New Business Model By Lori MacVittie Proxy caching tools are used to store content close to the edge of a network to speed up content delivery. TurboCache is introducing a new twist: It practically pays for itself!

Alacritech's 1000x1 Server and Storage Accelerator is a SLIC NIC By Sean Doherty We took notice when Alacritech claimed its 1000x1 NIC accelerates server and network processing and reduces CPU utilization. Our tests show that its SLIC technology does indeed command some respect.

TeVista 2.0: Network Monitoring Off the Wire By Bruce Boardman TeVista data collection leaves a small footprint, but its data-management capability leaves something to be desired.

Departments

The Rant: Don't Cut Your Phone Line Yet; Cell Phone Companies Will Just Leave You Hanging By Michael J. DeMaria "Before I decide to go cell-only, I need to see a 99.999 percent uptime guarantee and a list of the providers that'll give me that kind of stability."

New & Improved We look at EverStor Software Replicator for Linux.

Centerfold: Bear Stearns Adds an Extra Layer of PC Protection By Kelly Jackson Higgins Find out how the company's managing director for IT security protects Bear Stearns' 1,000 PCs from an accidental software override.

Letters "I can understand [Lori] MacVittie's enthusiasm for WDO 1.1 -- I'll take two copies of any product that can deliver a one-minute download, two minutes before it's requested."

Columns

Online Only: RSA Conference 2002: On-Site Report (Day One) RSA Conference 2002: On-Site Report (Day Two) By Mike Fratto What's bad about the RSA Conference this year? There are so many interesting sessions packed into such a short amount of time that it's hard to decide which one to attend.

Air Time: On the Road, Disconnected and Out of Memory By Dave Molta Traditional LANs and WANs have evolved to the point where users are not so reluctant to be dependent on the availability of those network services to get their work done.

Top of the Stack: Quality of Simplicity By David Willis "Effective quality of service requires a consistent end-to-end view through the network that is independent of any platform, device or media. Unfortunately, this can become horrendously complex if it's overengineered."

The Inside Story: Woof, Woof! By James Hutchinson "As a business, we face many of the same technology issues you do, and when the time comes for us to make a strategic purchase, we always take the first bite before recommending the technology to you."

Above the Net: Patently True By Doug Barney "The Internet must be kept as technologically pure as possible. The basic building blocks must never be owned by a single vendor, but rather live independently of any commercial interest."

The Business of IT: Becoming a Lean, Mean IT Machine By Jonathan Feldman This issue introduces a new column dedicated to the softer, yet essential side of IT: the business practices that transform a good technical department into a formidable IT force.

Full Nelson: Longing for Simpler Days By Fritz Nelson Nowadays, the markets some companies create are as confusing as an Enron financial statement. Take Interface Dynamics, which says its product "is built around the peer-to-peer paradigm." OK, so what does it do?

Online Only: In the Trenches: Corporate Intranets We asked IT professionals to share the experiences they've had while building a corporate intranet. Read their stories, learn from them, commiserate with them or just plain enjoy 'em.