Outstanding Products; Impressive Services By Bruce Boardman
Once again, we're recognizing a slew of amazing information technology products and services in seven key categories, including security, mobile and wireless, and infrastructure. Here are the winners of this year's tough competition.
Infrastructure By Sean Doherty
A first-class infrastructure bespeaks strength inside and out. Inner strength focuses on security and management; outside strength equates to bandwidth. Our winners combined all these elements with the bonuses of great test results and, often, very reasonable prices.
Business Applications By Lori MacVittie
It's not enough for the winners in this category to do their jobs. These programs must behave flawlessly in the overall network schema, cooperating with other apps as well as the administrators who have to manage them every day.
Network and Systems Management By Bruce Boardman
It's always better to prevent problems from arising than to deal with them after they've cropped up. This year's awards go to packages that do both.
Security By Curtis Franklin Jr.
The key to keeping intruders out is to know exactly who's in. This year's awards go to products that have improved the basic methods for authenticating and managing users' identities.
Storage and Servers By Don MacVittie
It's all about storing data this year: Where to put it and how to get it there fast, manage it and keep it safe. Find out which products we think will help you best manage and store your precious data.
Mobile and Wireless By Dave Molta
This year, wireless devices continue on the path to maturity, offering new services and combinations of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G never imagined by the first radio pioneers.
Digital Convergence By Sean Doherty and Michael J. DeMaria
Convergence applications like unified messaging, VoIP and presence management empower users with desktop tools to enhance productivity and improve the bottom line. This year's winners are sure to do just that.
Features: Our Special Firewall Blowout
Analyzing the Threat-Management Market By Greg Shipley
Big changes are afoot in the network access control game. Is your security infrastructure primed to take advantage of newly converging technologies?
Deep Inspection Firewalls By Adrian Peters and Michael Jones
We subjected six products to months of tough testing. None of the products came out unscathed, and the contest was too close to call until the last minute. Find out which product won our coveted Editor's Choice.
XML Gateways By Lori MacVittie
We tested three security devices and, although they all impressed, our top pick edged past the others thanks to stellar performance, flexibility and integration. Find out which one it is.
Branch Office Devices By Curtis Franklin Jr. and John H. Sawyer
Securing remote locations is as easy as installing a branch-office device that provides for remote administration and easy VPN setup. We tested seven devices and found that the easy-to-use centralized management of our Editor's Choice won us over.
Workshops
Windows to Linux Printing (and Vice Versa) By Pete Payne
A properly configured cross-platform printing environment can save you time and money on hardware and maintenance. We'll show you how to set it up.
ClearSight Networks' Analyzer 5.0 By Don MacVittie
Delve into real-time traffic at the physical and network layers for a complete view of app performance.
Gomez's Performance Network 6.0 By Sean Doherty
This Internet application monitor displays real-time performance stats and collects data to project your future needs.
Last Mile Edited By Tim Wilson and Tom LaSusa
In this edition we chuckle at the Top 11 tradeshow giveaways we'd like to see, PC violence and MacAquariums.
Quick Takes Edited By Patricia Thomas
This edition looks at Memory Experts International's Outbacker, Raxco Software's PerfectDisk 7.0, Plumtree Software's Analytics Server and nLayers' InSight 3.0.
Letters By NWC Readers
Paul Rowe laments, "Laws like Gramm-Leach Bliley and SOX are hampering business' ability to implement and manage changes needed to boost productivity."
Columns
Down to Business: Note to Vendors: Keep It Simple By Rob Preston
We pine for products that are easy to understand and use, that work out of the box, that pack only those features we may actually touch. Vendors are responding--slowly.
Carrying On: Words to (Net)Work By By Rob Preston
In his penultimate column, David passes on nuggets of IT wisdom that will change your life.
High-Tech Market Recovery Rumors Are Just That By Tim Wilson
After many optimistic reports in 2004, the high-tech industry's first-quarter report card is a big bust. Time to hunker down and be nice to your boss.
CA's purchase of Concord: A Beginning and an End? By Bruce Boardman
Could Computer Associates finally be accepting the shortcomings of its own Unicenter management product line? A recent company acquisition seems to suggest so.
Ethernet Goes the Distance By Peter Morrissey
The Metropolitan Ethernet Forum now has a certification that will help carriers put Ethernet services in place and test them for reliability and interoperability. End-to-end Ethernet may not be far away.
FUDBuster: Will Spammer's Jail Sentence Stop Spam? By Rob Preston
Spam artist Jeremy Jaynes got jail time for pumping out more than 10 million junk e-mails a day. But the new laws--and even convictions--won't stop the spam.
REPORTS
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ANALYTICS Plan and design your enterprise blade server deployments
InformationWeek U.S. IT Salary Survey 2008
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