Applied Communications of Minnesota, Inc. » Industry Topics

60 Minutes with Security Visionary Nir Zuk

kpaul — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:07:41 +0000

In this previously recorded interview, Nir Zuk, network security visionary and founder and CTO of Palo Alto Networks, is interviewed by security analyst Mark Bouchard, CISSP, to provide viewers with his opinion on the direction of the network security market. Nir Zuk has been delivering innovation to the information security industry for the last 20+ years. He was one of the developers of stateful inspection firewall technology, worked on the world’s first intrusion prevention and detection appliance and is now pioneering next-generation firewalls. Watch Nir speak about the state of the information security industry and answer some of the toughest questions from the audience. http://www.paloaltonetworks.com/literature/forms/60-minutes.php

Top 10 reasons NOT to buy Xsigo VP780

kpaul — Wed, 12 May 2010 01:53:32 +0000

Top Ten Reasons to NOT Buy a Xsigo VP780 I/O Director

10. No one you’ve heard of uses Xsigo. OK, so EMC, VMware, Accenture, Microsoft, Hitachi, Capgemini, and Technicolor all use Xsigo today. But you don’t want to take chances. Nobody does. So don’t take their word for it!

9. InfiniBand is a flash in the pan. Sure InfiniBand has been around for a decade, is available from all leading server vendors, has shipped over 5M ports (at speeds 10G or higher), is embedded in servers from two major vendors (with more coming!), and is growing at 35% per year. But Cisco doesn’t offer IB, so that’s reason enough to doubt it.

8. InfiniBand is just too darn fast. You’ve seen the signs: “Speed kills!” If man was meant to be moving data around at 40Gbps (soon to be 80Gbps!), Cisco would be doing it.

7. Isn’t that InfiniBand stuff just for HPC? InfiniBand is the dominant interconnect in high-performance computing. Why? Because it delivers 4X the bandwidth of 10G Ethernet, at 1/3 the latency, and at less cost. But why would you want high performance in your data center?

6. Who knows where InfiniBand even came from! Wasn’t IB dreamed up in some government lab or something? Well, no. InfiniBand was actually created by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Sun, and Compaq. But what do those guys know about systems?

5. With IB, you’d have a new interconnect in your data center. InfiniBand means you might have to learn something new. Of course FCoE is new, too. But Cisco tells you that’s OK. It’s good to have someone do your thinking for you.

4. Cost savings aren’t a priority. Sure Xsigo can save you 50% to 60% on your connectivity capital costs, but you don’t need the cost savings (and your switch vendor needs the money!).

3. Cisco promised you BIG discounts! Xsigo showed you how to eliminate 70% of your switch ports, and amazingly Cisco came back a day later with a 70% discount, “guaranteed for life.” Wow! That was a coincidence, but you’ll take the discount. Clearly Cisco has your best interests at heart.

2. You like vendor lock-in! Your favorite vendors have been with you for years and they give you great service. As well they should. They know you, and know what they can get away with. They never mentioned that the expression “one throat to choke” can work both ways.

And the TOP reason to not buy a VP780 I/O Director…

1. The new VP560 I/O Director is much cuter! At just 2U height, the new VP560 is sized and priced for smaller deployments. So NOW you have a choice in open, standards-based, enterprise-proven virtual I/O: the VP560 or the VP780. Something you did not have before.

For more blogs on virtual I/O, visit http://www.xsigo.com/blog/

Compliance and E-archiving made easy with CommVault Simpana!

kpaul — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 23:51:31 +0000

The growing number of internal investigations, audits, records retention guidelines, and compliance requirements demand the need to keep more information for longer periods of time. This puts pressure on storage infrastructures and creates the need for a retention strategy that is able to adapt as your policies evolve over time. All this is required while maintaining seamless end-user access to e-mail, files and documents, and enabling fast access to archived content by index and search when required. For more information, visit http://www.commvault.com/solutions-compliance.html

Palo Alto "Visionary" in 2010 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls

kpaul — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:11:49 +0000

Applied Communications’ newest security partner has announced their position in the Gartner 2010 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls. Key points outlined in the report include:

Palo Alto Networks was recognized as a visionary in the Gartner 2010 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls.
According to Gartner, “The rapid growth of business applications moving from the internal data center to external software as a service (and someday cloud services), along with the impact of what Gartner calls “the consumerization of IT,” has rapidly changed the definition of a “trust boundary” and the types of security controls that are required at that boundary.”
Furthermore, Gartner notes: “In 2009, Gartner saw market pressures accelerate the demand for next-generation firewall platforms that provide the capability to detect and block sophisticated attacks, as well as enforce granular security policy at the application (versus port and protocol) level. ”

Palo Alto Networks’ next-generation firewalls enable policy- based visibility and control over applications, users and content. With this technology, enterprises can accurately identify and control applications, scan content to stop threats, and prevent data leakage – all with a single network device. By reducing the number of security devices in their networks, companies can save both capital expenditures and operational costs.

Download Report

Why SharePoint Needs Riverbed’s WAN Optimization Solutions

kpaul — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:05:06 +0000

Microsoft SharePoint is quickly becoming a “must have” application. But, while it fosters collaboration within increasingly distributed workforces, IT does not appear to have much control over it. Many SharePoint implementations are mission critical, yet access to these sites is often thwarted by poor network performance. Similar to Microsoft Exchange and other collaboration applications, companies deploying SharePoint can benefit from WAN optimization solutions, including those offered by Riverbed, an ACM strategic partner. Riverbed will ensure that these collaboration applications make the most of their productivity and information sharing capabilities.

Riverbed Technology is a leading provider of WAN optimization technology (branch office, data center, and mobile worker acceleration). Solely focused on providing customers with solutions that enable faster, more efficient IT infrastructure, Riverbed has already helped more than 5,000 customers improve their busienss and accelerate critical business applications. Not only will SharePoint implementations benefit from Riverbed solutions, but any applications that need to be accessed remotely will improve as well. Steelhead appliances have also been instrumental in providing robust data protection and disaster recovery environments, including the enhanced security of encrypting data in flight.

www.infoworld.com/pdf/whitepaper/Why_SharePoint_Needs_Riverbed_WAN_Optimization.pdf

www.riverbed.com

Did you start your own business to become an I.T. Expert?

lfredrickson — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:34:04 +0000

Xsigo Virtual I/O one of the Highlights of VMworld that was “both new and real.”

lfredrickson — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:19:42 +0000

CNET called virtual I/O one of the highlights of VMworld that was “both new and real.”

Computerworld called virtual I/O “one of the five virtualization trends to watch.”

Here are 3 reasons why virtual I/O is catching on now… and why it is especially critical with vSphere and the new Nehalem processors:

1) vSphere and Nehalem deliver 3X more I/O potential

With vSphere and Intel’s new Nehalem processor, you get 3X the I/O capacity of previous generation technologies. At VMworld, Xsigo proved this, running over 20Gbps continuous I/O traffic from a single 1U high server over a single cable.

To get the most from these technologies, you need I/O that is guaranteed not to be a bottleneck. Only virtual I/O lets you dynamically share bandwidth across multiple I/O requirements. And only Xsigo delivers the 20Gb bandwidth you need to capitalize on today’s server potential to run more VMs in less space and on less power.

2) vSphere requires more I/O connections

vSphere adds new fault tolerance capabilities that can boost availability. But it will require more network connections and more I/O bandwidth to accomplish this. Virtual I/O lets you configure additional network connections on demand, without re-cabling servers and without adding cost.

3) Cloud computing requires greater I/O flexibility

vSphere provides the platform for the cloud. But only if servers can be dynamically connected to the required network and storage resources. Virtual I/O gives you that flexibility by eliminating the constraints of traditional cards and cables.

Virtual I/O powered this year’s VMworld. Find out why in this video:

2 ACM Solution Partners named CRN 20 Hot Products Midmarket CIOs Want Right Now

kpaul — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:23:27 +0000

More than 300 CIOs of midmarket companies gathered in LA for Everything Channel’s Midsize Enterprise Summit. ACM is proud to announce that two of our partner solutions were named on the list of “20 Hot Products Midmarket CIOs Want Right Now.” Learn more about them below.

SonicWall Network Security Appliance E-7500
SonicWall’s Network Security Appliance (NSA) E-7500 was designed to protect against a vast spectrum of network attacks using a parallel performance 16-core architecture for high-speed threat protection. The NSA E7500 provides administrators with a set of customizable Application Firewall tools for precise control and inspection of network traffic, along with intrusion prevention, antivirus and antispyware and high-speed VPN technologies. “We currently use SonicWall. We’re looking at their newer products and are trying to determine how they fit into our infrastructure. We like their Web-based configurations; they’re easy to troubleshoot,” said Kris Jensen, director of infrastructure for Panattoni Technology Group, a commercial real estate development company in Sacramento, Calif.

See the full article here.

CommVault Simpana 8.0
CommVault’s Simpana 8.0, the latest version of its data management and protection software suite, offers the full gamut of data lifecycle management, including backup and recovery, application integration, replication management, hardware snapshots, storage resource management and federated content search, all with a simple Web-based interface.

See the full article here.