George Spafford

In the early years of networking, Bob Metcalfe set forth his famous law of networking that points out that the total value of a network grows by the square of the number of nodes (people or devices) that connect to it.    As time went on, networks grew, the dot-com world worked itself into a […]

For just about any technology, be it an operating system, application or network, when a sufficient level of adoption is reached, that technology then becomes a threat vector. This is why Microsoft Windows is threatened by thousands of forms of malicious software and, in contrast, specialized supercomputers are threatened by relatively few. This also is […]

When we look at how important IT systems have become to organizations and society as a whole, we need to factor in resiliency when designing them. Resiliency pertains to the system’s ability to return to its original state after encountering trouble. In other words, if a risk event knocks a system offline, a highly resilient […]

The IT community is witnessing a proliferation of applications and document templates all offering salvation regarding regulatory compliance. While tools can help, they cannot provide a total solution. Organizations must factor in people and process requirements to develop and/or purchase the appropriate technology. This article will focus on process requirements. Information technology is a multiplier […]

So what happens when a change fails? Is there chaos or is a contingency plan executed? High-availability organizations are always evolving their contingency plans when failure occurs, or the likely prospect of failure appears. Rather than put their entire focus into one way of implementing a change and never taking failure into account, these groups […]

In the dark ages of computing, there were paper records that were keyed into the computer for processing to generate reports. If the data was lost, then the paper records were retrieved and keyed back in. Today, paper records aren’t so common, as paperless offices grow in popularity. As a result, the need for timely […]

In a column that ran earlier this month, I took a look at ‘defense in depth’ for small business — well, actually, for all businesses. In this follow-up article, I’ll lay out a basic list, or menu, of security technologies and processes that business and technical folks should consider. I call it a menu because […]

Information Technology (IT) staffs are very concerned about efficiency these days. Interestingly, the topic of configuration items (CIs) from the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) isn’t discussed very often. This article will discuss what CIs are and the importance of their management. Unless care is taken in an IT organization, the rate of change can […]

“Do I need a new firewall?” This is a frequent question asked by owners of small businesses concerned about growing security threats infesting the Internet. But rather than relying on a single solution to address security challenges, small organizations instead should adopt a strategy of “defense in depth” — using multiple mechanisms and levels for […]

In the first of two articles about power quality, we outlined the basic elements needed to plan and implement a data center power project. In this article, we will review some of the important factors to consider when reviewing vendor proposals. You should take the following into account: Sole Source — How valuable is it […]