System crashes are never pretty.  At best, they’re a nuisance for users who‘ve come to expect 24/7 access. More typically, system downtime means lost productivity, disaffected customers, and a hit to the bottom line. And, the bigger the organization, the greater the vulnerability ­ – and the damage they can potentially suffer.

The last bastion of proprietary networking is continuing to thrive within data centers. SANs based upon good old fashioned fibre channel still support 99% of the world’s storage resources. To their credit, fibre channel networks are extremely reliable, provide high performance, and are simple to administer. On the other hand, they are quite expensive (especially when compared to Ethernet), and they are truly isolated from the rest of the network.
 

We have all spent a lot of time talking about the perils of open-door BYOB policies.  The attached white paper by the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) takes a quantitative look at the impact of BYOB on typical enterprises.  This paper discusses the challenges (especially security) created by all of the new mobile devices and the “de-perimeterization” of organizations.  And finally it recommends some architectural solutions for these security issues.  In particular, the paper addresses – at a high level – mobile device management solutions.

I've been playing with Windows 8 for a little over 24 hours and so far so good, I'm still getting used to the Metro UI.  One thing I do like is the new task manager in Windows 8.  You can now see the current state of the processor as it changes speed, if you have your computer configured to use the balanced power options.  I also like the new layout and performance graphs.  I think I'll give Windows 8 a full month before I decide whether or not to stick with it.  I do miss the start button and seriously hope the final version of Windows 8 has the ability to turn off the Metro UI.