April 27, 2006 -- Market Analysis: Web Application Firewalls
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The 12th Annual Well-Connected Awards By the Editors of Network Computing In our annual awards special, we present the winning products and services in 48 categories within eight information technology markets -- security, network and systems management, enterprise applications, wireless, messaging and collaboration, network infrastructure, application infrastructure and storage and servers. From this pool, we pick the most outstanding product of the year. • Security • Network & Systems Management • Enterprise Applications • Wireless • Messaging & Collaboration • Network Infrastructure • Application Infrastructure • Storage and Servers

Market Analysis: Web Application Firewalls By Jeffery Rubin and Ravind Budhiraja As more organizations move applications to the Web, they must defend an increasingly tangled environment full of security holes. A relatively new breed of security watchdog, Web application firewalls use deep-packet inspection to reveal the inner workings of Web applications, block attacks and harden your network.

Review: Web Application Firewalls By Jeffery Rubin and Ravind Budhiraja Web application firewalls block stealth attacks at Layer 7. We put four of these appliances to the test. While all performed admirably, one handily outgunned its rivals thanks in part to an intuitive interface and comprehensive policy development. Find out which one garnered our Editor's Choice award.

Review: Wide Area File Services By Don MacVittie With wide area file services, your remote users can access a central data center as if it were local. We tested three applications that speed data to wherever your users are. Our Editor's Choice impressed us with its solid reporting and performance.

Workshops

Centerfold: Multimedia Rocks Virgin Entertainment Group's WAN By Kelly Jackson Higgins After a close call with its VoIP traffic at its Times Square location, Virgin is now upgrading the 3 Mbps MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS) WAN link at headquarters to 10 Mbps and preparing to add more bandwidth-heavy applications to its MPLS WAN.

Crash Course: Router Redundancy Protocols By Peter Morrissey Routing protocols add redundancy and reliability to increase uptime. Here's what you need to know.

Netformx DesignXpert 9.0 By Sean Doherty Is a picture of your network worth a thousand words? Most definitely, if Netformx DesignXpert draws it.

F5 BIG-IP 1500 Load Balance Appliance By Sean Doherty It's not cheap, but this load balancing appliance with global traffic management capabilities is easy to use and has the extras you'll want.

Panopticon Explorer .Net By Edward Hand Using treemaps, Panopticon lets analysts roll data up to see varying levels of detail.

FeedDemon 2.0 By Barbara Krasnoff The second version of this popular application offers an assortment of options in a variety of styles for serious RSS and blog readers.

ProShow Gold By J. W. Olsen Don't let ProShow's simplicity fool you. With no artistic experience, you can create compelling slideshows.

Last Mile: Smiles Everyone, Smiles (Or Else) By Andrew Conry-Murray and Tom LaSusa In this edition we shudder at the Top 11 worst ways to motivate your IT staff. Also: IT ailments diagnosed and more.

Will Intel Macs Entice? By Richard Hoffman The hype continues for Apple's new Intel-based Macintosh machines, but the question for the enterprise is, "Should you care?"

IT Compensation Inches Back Up By Rich Karpinski According to the National IT Salary Survey of more than 10,425 IT professionals, the average IT manager made $99,000 and the average staffer $73,000. Find out how your pay compares.

Wireless: Resistance Is Futile By Dave Molta Despite concerns over security, wireless standards and investment protection, IT is being forced to address the increasing demands for wireless services.

Will Red Hat Dunk With JBoss? By Lori MacVittie As Red Hat prepares to acquire JBoss, the company says it has no immediate plans to change anything. Once the deal is completed, we shall see.

BuzzBlog: Best Buy Gone Bad; Crime Fighting Pen By Andrew Conry-Murray A judge orders electronics retailer Best Buy to stop using Windows maintenance software from Winternals. Also, Uniball touts high-security ink to help prevent ID fraud.

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