The Survivor's Guide to 2005

Certainly, you should take a moment to reflect on your accomplishments ... OK, now for the tough decisions about how you're going to forge ahead in 2005 while meeting new regulations, improving security and, in your spare time, killing the spam monkey clinging to your back, all while justifying your purchases and proving a real return on IT investments.

For this year's Survivor's Guide, we've asked our technology editors--all seasoned veterans of the IT industry--to help by compiling road maps revealing how to get your people, processes, infrastructures and business plans in shape for the upcoming trek. We'll discuss service-oriented architectures, governance and supply chains; VoIP-ready switches and routers; Wi-Fi and metro wireless; ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library), IT accountability, and frameworks versus point products; unified communications; iSCSI SANs, ILM and blades; IPS for policy-based network access control and SSO; and more.Meanwhile, business editor Tim Wilson talks about enduring in a sometimes hostile corporate climate, and contributor Jonathan Feldman suggests proactive measures IT staffers at small businesses can take to survive--and thrive--in the year ahead.

--Mike Lee, [email protected]