Features

Review: Sneak an AiroPeek at WLAN Stats By Peter Morrissey and Dilip Advani If traffic on your wireless LAN is full of tie-ups and collisions, and undocumented access points make things even tougher, get control with the help of a WLAN analyzer. The three WLAN sniffers we tested provide the information you need to keep tabs on your wireless transmissions.

Nice, Neat Storage: The Reality By Jon William Toigo Dreaming of a perfectly organized system to represent the information on your storage networks? Wake up and smell the coffee: Storage-virtualization vendors have yet to deliver on their promises. We'll explain why.

RFI: Storage Virtualization Solutions Rejected By Steven J. Schuchart Jr. For a cost-effective way to reduce bandwidth requirements and provide quick, reliable Webcasting, videoconferencing, e-learning and collaborative applications, look no further than eCDNs.

Workshops

Learning to Live With NAT By Bruce Boardman Hewlett-Packard and IBM have devised solutions for getting network address translation and SNMP to coexist peacefully. Here's how to use HP's NNM and IBM's CNAT to get needed SNMP information without losing NAT.

Online Only: Interactive Buyer's Guide: Thin-Client Devices Our guide gives you 23 feature points -- including monitor sizes, network interfaces and protocols supported -- for the hottest thin-client products available.

Sneak Previews

Dell PowerEdge 4600 Delivers Twice the Processing at Half the Price By Eric Fleming Outfitted with Intel Xeon processors and high-availability features, Dell's new server sped through our throughput tests. For some folks, Its excellent pricing could cancel out PowerEdge 4600's limited storage capacity.

Online Only: IndigoVision's Digital IP Camera By Darrin Woods IndigoVision brings video surveillance to the digital world, where banks of monitors are replaced with computer screens split into images of IP video streams sent by IP-based cameras. We tested one of those cameras and found the images good, with plentiful features.

ImageStream Internet Solutions' Rebel Router By Curtis Franklin Jr. and Brian Chee For bringing DS-3 routing to branch offices and ISPs, this low-cost, Linux-based router shines in its ability to add services and features through open-source software. But if you need a router with wire-speed performance on multiple DS-3 interfaces, look elsewhere.

Funk Software's Odyssey for Network Security By Dave Molta Network Computing's exclusive sneak preview of this end-to-end 802.1x system for enterprise wireless LANs gives the design high marks for addressing the need for WLAN authentication and privacy. But take note: It's not compatible with all client OSs.

Departments

Letters "I want to tip my hat to Don MacVittie for his BuzzCut about do-it-all Web services. They scare the bejesus out of those of us concerned with the (in)security aspects of Web services." --George Capehart, Capehart Associates

Centerfold: Tired of Triage, Maxxim Standardizes ERP/CRM Apps By Kelly Jackson Higgins Maxxim Medical discovered that merging acquired medical product manufacturers into a cohesive whole required a holistic ERP/CRM system.

Quick Takes This issue, we look at these hot products: F5 Big-IP Link Controller 2000 eRoom Technology eRoom 6.0 Fourelle Systems Venturi 2.1 Cisco Systems 3700 Routers

Columns

BuzzCut: Internet Explorer Struggles to Secure Privacy By Patrick Mueller With the coming release of IE 6, Mueller says security issues are addressed, but not resolved. As an administrator, you'd be wise to check out his comments and suggestions to better prepare for Microsoft's new browser-side implementation of the P3P protocol.

Plus, online-only sidebar: Cross-Site Scripting Explained

Online Only: Air Time: Verizon Goes Flat Rate By Dave Molta Last week, Verizon took the big plunge, announcing a $100, monthly flat-rate pricing plan for its 1X Express Network, a 2.5G system built around Qualcomm's CDMA technology that delivers 40- to 60-Kbps performance. That's far from inexpensive, but I'm willing to bet that it will increase adoption rates with corporate customers.

Security Watch: Desperately Seeking the Security ROI By Greg Shipley Organizations must answer asset-identification questions to understand security risks and investment returns. Refined ROI formulas and methodologies are sorely needed.

The Inside Story: Live from Las Vegas By James Hutchinson "Las Vegas N+I is typically the biggest show of the year for the enterprise computing and technology market. But this N+I was particularly significant in that it was the first one held since the terrorist attacks of September 11. Many of us were wondering what this show would be like: Would vendors show up in force? Would you, our readers, trek to Vegas on your corporate or private dime?"

Air Time: Cutting Through Wireless Hype By Dave Molta "If you're too quick to dismiss emerging technologies, you may be seen as 'stuck in the past.' But if you fall for the hype, you may find yourself supporting a technology that will never be ready."

Down to Business: Getting There First But Not Always Winning By Rob Preston "Is implementing leading-edge technology always a bad idea? Of course not, but much depends on the size of your company, the maturity of its IT infrastructure, the breadth of alternative products and the stability of the vendors."

BuzzCut: Klez Fallout Continues By Jonathan Feldman With the Klez virus lingering like a bad dream, IT managers are making every effort they can to head off the next worm. Instead, maybe they should focus on controlling spam and other unsolicited and misleading e-mail that can wreak havoc among users and helpdesks.

BuzzCut: Microsoft Preps SMS for Mobile Duty By Bruce Boardman "With the next release of Systems Management Server, Microsoft promises better use of existing network infrastructure while supporting a wider array of devices. We recommend SMS users consider the product release date when planning investments in mobile and embedded technologies."