Latest News from PHP Developer's Journal

Using PHP to Enhance Password Security

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 15:00:00 EDT

When dictating password policies to users, it is common for such policies to require that users generate passwords that contain a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers and special characters. Moreover, it is well established that the strengths of such passwords are further enhanced if the passwords do not in any way resemble dictionary words, since minor substitutions of dictionary words and names are often included in the dictionaries used in dictionary-based attacks and in some rainbow table variants. Thus “D3veloper” would be a less than ideal password since potentially it’s an easily guessed variant of the word “developer.” A common recommendation for dealing with this issue is to suggest the use of randomly generated passwords such as “0Y=/S?tV”. However, such passwords often pose great difficulty for many users to remember, which can lead to passwords being written down and hence result in a decrease rather than an increase in security. To resolve this issue, a technique has recently been suggested whereby the user turns an easily remembered phrase into a seemingly random password by taking the first letter of each word in the phrase and then performing character substitutions in order to introduce other character types such as numbers and special characters.

Cloud Computing: PhpStorm 2.0 – Take PHP by Storm

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:49:39 EST

This new release focuses on adding support for the latest standards: PHP 5.3 namespaces and closures, ECMAScript 5 and makes debugging a lot easier with a zero-configuration debugger. It also extends our code analysis capabilities to provide more inspections and quick-fixes for your code, adds command line tool support for Zend_Tool and Symfony.

Do You Pitch Content? Why?

Thu, 20 May 2010 11:23:00 EDT

Years ago I did consulting for KPMG. The group I trained sold an 8 figure solution that originally took 3 years to close (we brought it down to 4 months). One of the first things they did was to get an appointment with one of the managers (an entry point, not a real decision maker) [...]

Adaptivity CMO to Present at Cloud Expo East

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 05:15:00 EDT

The “root cause” of IT delivery limitations is directly linked to how systems are designed, built and implemented. In his session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Brian Sledge, Chief Marketing Officer for Adaptivity, will review the architectural, engineering and operational components that are necessary for creating a complete blueprint for IT that enables organizations to design, build and run optimized Enterprise Cloud Delivery models. You wouldn’t build a building without a blueprint, right? So why would you build a Cloud for IT without a blueprint? Cloud Expo is the world's leading Cloud-focused event since 2007, and is held five times a year, in New York City, Silicon Valley, Prague, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Adaptivity CEO to Present at Cloud Expo East

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 23:00:00 EDT

The “root cause” of IT delivery limitations is directly linked to how systems are designed, built and implemented. Designing and implementing Cloud in an Enterprise requires a multi-dimensional design approach. In his general session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Tony Bishop, Founder and CEO of Adaptivity, will walk through how to create a tailored Cloud blueprint for their Enterprise IT. You wouldn’t build a building without a blueprint, right? So why would you build a Cloud for IT without a blueprint?

Hubspan to Present at Cloud Expo April 19-21 in New York City

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:45:00 EST

There’s PaaS (Platform as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), SaaS (Software as a Service) and a growing number of “aaS” solutions on the market. But which one is right for you and will address your company’s needs? In his session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Max Coburn, Chief Architect and a product strategist for Hubspan Inc, will take you through the many different “aaS”es on the market today, sorting through the hype and acronyms and giving real-world examples of when these consumption models work and when they don’t. He will also explore the "build vs. buy" decision and when it may be the right time for you to consider outsourcing.

Living at Shmoocon

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:24:00 EST

Well, I'm in Washington DC following the aftermath of Shmoocon 2010. Despite me being an avid security/hacker con goer, this was my first. Let me start by saying that "aftermath" is no exaggeration. Between the 24+ inches of snow and the crazy antics one can only find at a hacker convention, aftermath may even be a weak term. Due to the snow, the city shut down... all forms of life ceased to exist and the president was driving a monster truck around town. Okay, not really, but me and my fellow Americans have been stuck in the hotel and DC for the past 3 days which basically no place to go.

Earthquake Relief Fundraising Efforts

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:15:00 EST

As most everyone knows by now, on January 12, 2010 Haiti was all but leveled by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. And while TV news played a big role in informing the world about developments related to this disaster, it was non-traditional digital communications that really stole the show. It was cell phones and websites, Twitter and [...]

The Circular Nature of Technology

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:45:00 EST

Like technology, everything in life tends to repeat, although in newer, fresher and more useful applications. The fashion trend toward slim fit clothes shifts to baggy, then back again; suits go from three to two button and back to three; pastels and bright colors to earth tones as it shifts anew. Car design is similar: Mercedes, for example, regularly goes back and forth between rounded and square styles, and the re-birth of the Chevrolet Camaro revisits the shape of one of my favorite classics – the ’68 SS. Only this time, newer, faster, sleeker.

The Pros Picks, and Why: T, IBM, KFT, HPQ, MSFT

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:55:00 EST

He gets zero points for creativity, but a few points for being bold enough to be boring. Tom Forester - portfolio manager of the Forester Value Fund has recommended Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) as his top tech picks right now…. a sector he’s keen on as a way of avoiding [...]

Juniper Networks to Present at Cloud Expo 2010

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:45:00 EST

Today's data centers stand at the epicenter of powerful technological and economic trends. Cloud computing, together with processing, storage, security and software technologies that make it possible, are already straining the capabilities of legacy data center networks. In his session at the 5th Cloud Expo, David Yen, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Fabric and Switching Technologies Business Group for Juniper Networks, will discuss how the era of legacy data center architectures is ending.

Intel Updates Atom

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST

Intel, which just got its ass whooped by the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly smothering GPU competition and for looking like it’s gonna move its CPU monopoly into the GPU market, announced its first big Atom chip rev on Monday. It integrates graphics directly into the single- and dual-core Pine Trail Atom CPU, an x86 first. The design is supposed to tickle the widget’s performance and usher in smaller, more energy efficient netbooks along with a new batch of cheap entry-level desktop PCs including ultra-small designs (figure a less than 1-litre chassis), fanless designs and all-in-one designs.

The Power of Trust

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 01:30:00 EST

Self trust is the fuel that powers us to explore new worlds, test new theories, expand our horizons. When we trust ourselves, we have the courage to move beyond the known and safe. We move beyond our past and reach for our full potential. When we don't trust ourselves, we're tethered to a predictable, repeatable world.

Adobe Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2009 Results

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:30:00 EST

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) on Tuesday reported financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Nov. 27, 2009. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009, Adobe achieved revenue of $757.3 million, compared to $915.3 million reported for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 and $697.5 million reported in the third quarter of fiscal 2009. Fourth quarter fiscal 2009 results include the impact of the Company’s acquisition of Omniture, Inc.

Breach and Akamai Deliver Cloud Computing Security

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:30:00 EST

Breach Security has announced the release of the WebDefend Global Event Manager, a solution developed to work in conjunction with the new Web Application Firewall service offered by Akamai Technologies. When deployed with Akamai’s Web Application Firewall service, the WebDefend Global Event Manager is the first web application security management solution that defends against global application security threats by enabling customers to make distributed cloud and data center defense-in-depth architectures operational.

Dell Reorgs Again

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST

Dell has broken out a mobile device unit to develop phones and portable widgets. It will be headed by Motorola import Ron Garriques, who currently runs Dell’s consumer division. That division will now be joined to Dell’s SMB unit under Steve Felice, which should cut costs. Dell moved the furniture around earlier this year when it shifted from geographical units to market segments. The new unit will supply Dell’s new Mini 3 smartphone to China and Brazil. The odds are against the new business.

Diffusing Technology into Generation Z

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST

Us “Baby Boomers” tend to believe we have accomplished a lot in the years ranging from our roots of hard rock, to the birth of basic internet technologies in the early 1970s. We started our generation with black and white television, experiencing everything from the assassination of President Kennedy to absorbing the wonders of man walking on the moon.

Microsoft CFO Quits

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:15:00 EST

Microsoft’s CFO Chris Liddell, 51, a New Zealand import, is bored and wants a better job. So he’s “looking at a number of opportunities that will expand his career beyond being a CFO” – according to a statement out of Microsoft – and will be leaving at the end of the year. Microsoft’s replacing him with Peter Klein, 47, currently CFO of Microsoft’s $19 billion-a-year Business Division, responsible for Office.

Adobe Flex Developer Earns $100K in New York City

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST

CIO and CTO salaries will see a spike of 12.5% in 2010, according to research conducted by Bluewolf on salaries in the Tri-state region (New York, Conn. and New Jersey). Bluewolf is a global technology consulting firm and the preeminent source of salary data and statistics for IT professionals. Every year, Bluewolf issues its Bluewolf IT Salary Guide for Tri-state job seekers and employers, revealing its proprietary salary research. In 2010, CIO salaries will range from $175-200,000 in 2010, up from $149,000-175,000 in 2009. CTO salaries are predicted to range from $140,000-$175,000 in 2010 up from $120,000-$150,000 in 2009, according to Bluewolf's salary research. In addition to CIOs and CTOs, 2010 starting salaries for VPs of Information Technology are expected to increase from $110,000 to $125,000.

Who Invented Virtualization?

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:00:00 EST

I’m willing to make this little bet with you: Most people of a certain age are more than willing to bet folding green that IBM ‘invented’ virtualization. Gen-any-letters will bet VMware with confidence. You will win either way. Today’s burgeoning virtualization market is a different story. And in that story, VMware is the dad.

VMware View Delivers “Follow Me Desktop” for Healthcare Practitioners

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

VMware, Inc. the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud announced that healthcare providers are using VMware View to furnish medical staff with reliable access to their desktops, applications and information as they roam from room to room and floor to floor within hospitals to care for patients. Healthcare organizations including Norton Healthcare, St. Vincent’s Catholic Hospital and Riverside HealthCare are using VMware View to help deliver cost-effective, flexible, highly available IT services, ultimately improving patient care. Healthcare provider “follow me” desktops deliver the medical information they need to care for patients, while giving IT staff the ability to easily provision, secure and manage desktops and applications from the datacenter.

Smearing Cloud Lipstick on a Legacy Tech Pig

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:45:00 EST

The Cloud Computing Conference and Expo in Santa Clara has come to an end, leaving a fair share of opinion, skepticism, and robust discussion for the period of incubation leading up to the next conference. Many companies have adopted “Cloud-something or other” as their new name, and are aggressively bringing their products to market. We observed exhibitors displaying cloud network management software, cloud email and SMS messaging, cloud security - basically cloud everything.

Yahoo! Query Language

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:00:00 EDT

The Yahoo! Query Language is an expressive SQL-like language that lets you query, filter and join data across Web services in real-time. With YQL, applications run faster with fewer lines of code and smaller network footprint. In this session Jonathan Trevor, who works in the Y! Platform group will further discuss how developers can access and shape any data across the Internet through one simple language, no need to learn different APIs.

Moving the Operating System & Desktop to the Cloud

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:45:00 EDT

Eyeos is an Open Source project (selected Project of the Month in Sourceforge for August 2009) that creates a Cloud desktop and is installable on a wide variety of cloud environments (including single LAMP virtual servers). At the Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, Pau Garcia-Mila will go into detail about how it acts as a platform for web applications written using the eyeOS Toolkit, and includes 67 applications and system utilities as the default pack. It currently has 9 communities in 9 countries and more than 530.000 downloads.

Cloud Computing on Gartner's Top 10 List and SYS-CON Events' 2010 Calendar

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:45:00 EDT

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt. These technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives. They may be strategic because they have matured to broad market use or because they enable strategic advantage from early adoption. “Companies should factor the top 10 technologies into their strategic planning process by asking key questions and making deliberate decisions about them during the next two years,” said David Cearley, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “However, this does not necessarily mean adoption and investment in all of the technologies. They should determine which technologies will help and transform their individual business initiatives.”

Swine Flu Stocks are Seeing Their Largest Pullback Yet

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:06:00 EDT

After posting large gains throughout 2009, swine flu stocks are seeing their largest pullback yet. For investors looking to position their portfolios for flu season, there are more ways to trade the flu than ever. Investors have large-cap pharmaceutical plays to choose from, and some of the more volatile, small-cap names have proven the efficacy of their drugs, while others are too far behind in their clinical trials to capitalize on the current pandemic.

Stock in Focus: Sunwin International Neutraceuticals

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:35:00 EDT

The press release states that under the terms of the one year agreement, Sunwin will provide marketing support and technical staff to support Hunan Fuhui's sales efforts within the province. Additionally, Hunan Fuihui must distribute at least 50 tons of stevia extract within the first year for this agreement to be subject to renewal. Hunan Fuhui is an experienced distributor based in the Hunan province, located in southern China and home to more than 64 million people.

Stock in Focus: Dragon Capital Group

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:35:00 EDT

Dragon Capital Group has announced that its subsidiary Shanghai Zhaoli Technology Company, Limited has received Distribution Rights from Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. for their line of printers, and printer consumable products. Dragon Capital Group is a leading holding company of emerging high-tech companies in China.

Stock Review for NBR, BTU, ODP, PBG, OSK and PCU

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:31:00 EDT

The Real Story Behind Independent Internet Consultants?

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:45:00 EDT

In a recent post on a cloud computing mailing list, an old timer from the telecom days admitted that for him “being an independent consultant means about the same things as “being unemployed.” Over the past few years the joke was “you cannot swing a dead cat over your head in downtown LA without whacking an unemployed telecom engineer.”

1st Annual Government IT Conference & Expo: Themes & Topics

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:00:00 EDT

A round-up of the problems, issues and opportunities due to be discussed October 6, 2009 in Washington, DC, at SYS-CON's 1st Annual Government IT Conference & Expo (www.GovITExpo.com), a 1-day deep dive into the new wave of Internet-based technologies that are changing the way that Federal agencies leverage, procure and utilize IT.

New Simple Cloud Storage API Launched

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:30:00 EDT

PHP/Zend, Microsoft, IBM, Rackspace, GoGrid and Nirvanix have launched a new low level cloud API for PHP called the "Simple Cloud API". The API can best be described as low level storage focused API (An API for other API's). In a sense it's a way to create other higher level programmatic API interfaces such as REST or SOAP using an easy, yet portable PHP programming environment. The Simple API allows you to easily interact with a variety of cloud interfaces including support for File Storage, Document Storage, and Simple Queue services. The Simple Cloud API is not a web service; it is an API that exposes common operations in application services offered by different vendors, making it easier for PHP developers to build ‘cloud native’ applications.

KITE (Keynote Internet Testing Environment) 3.0 Soars Higher Than Ever

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:12:00 EDT

Keynote Systems, a provider of on-demand mobile and Internet test & measurement solutions for continuously improving the online experience, today announced Version 3.0 of KITE (Keynote Internet Testing Environment). KITE 3.0 is Keynote’s free desktop tool for real time testing, diagnosing and troubleshooting of Web performance issues from the end user perspective. KITE 3.0 makes it easy for all Web teams, especially QA testers, Web developers and IT Operations teams, to optimize Web site performance from the end user perspective. And KITE 3.0 arrives just in time for online retailers preparing their sites for the upcoming 2009 holiday shopping season.

Using the New, Simpler DOCTYPE in HTML 5

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:15:00 EDT

HTML 5 is making some things easier to use. The first is the DOCTYPE. Located at the top of a Web page before the opening BODY tag, the DOCTYPE describes the syntax for the page. The roots for the DOCTYPE lie in SGML. Bearing this in mind, all DOCTYPES for HTML 4 and XHTML require a DTD (Document Type Definition) to describe the content. This is all gone in HTML 5. Now, all you have to do to declare that you are using HTML 5 as your DOCTYPE is add the following to the root of your Web page:

The Ten Attributes of a Magnetic Sales Professional

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:45:00 EDT

The Magnetic Sales Professional doesn't see their role as job. They see it as a calling.

Word Saved from Ban

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:00:00 EDT

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has rescued Microsoft Word from being clamped in injunctive leg irons, barred from sale on the US market. On Thursday the court gave Microsoft the stay it was looking for while it appeals the decision of a Texas district court that it infringed on an obscure custom XML patent held by a little Canadian company called i4i. Nobody ever heard of i4i until a few weeks ago when Microsoft was told to pay it $290 million in damages for treading on its IP and to take Word and the Word-bearing Office suite off the American market until Word stops offending. The injunction was supposed to go into effect next month. Microsoft maintains that the patent is bunk and that there’s prior art. It also claims that it would take months to fix the problem.

Web 2.0 & Collaboration... Opportunities Ahead

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:00:00 EDT

While so much of the buzz around Web 2.0 has focused on the business-to-consumer market, the greatest opportunity today for vendors is in the business-to-business collaboration space.

Cloud Security Is Nothing New but It Changes Everything!

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that Glenn Brunette, Distinguished Engineer and Chief Security Architect at Sun Microsystems, will be presenting at the upcoming Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (www.cloudcomputingexpo.com) this coming November 2-4, 2009, in Santa Clara, California. His session will be entitled “Cloud Security – It’s Nothing New, It Changes Everything!”

VS.Php for Visual Studio 2010

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:45:00 EDT

Now that VS.Php 2.7 is out, I'll like to share our progress with VS.Php for Visual Studio 2010.

If you are currently participating on the VS2010 beta program, you can try VS.Php for Visual Studio 2010.

Here is a screenshot of VS.Php running on Visual Studio 2010:

There are a number of things broken but basic functionality is there.

You can download the latest build here: vsphp_en_2010.exe

Oracle To Keynote Cloud Computing Expo

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:15:00 EDT

Enterprises large and small are drawn by the advantages of cloud computing - pay-for-use, self-service, elastic scalability and the elimination of hardware management – resulting in very low barriers to entry and exit and high agility. However, enterprises are also concerned about security, quality of service, integration, compliance, lock-in, and the long-term costs of public clouds.

VS.PHP 2.7 Adds Support For Silverlight Integration

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EDT

We pleased to announce the release of VS.Php 2.7 for Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2005. This release introduces a number of new key features and enhacements of existing features. Silverlight One of the most exciting new features is Silverlight integration. With VS.Php 2.7, you can develop Silverlight applications and host them in your server side PHP application. VS.Php makes it easy to develop, debug and deploy these types of applications.

The Cloud, SaaS and BPMS

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:15:00 EDT

Many have discussed and commented on Cloud computing’s benefits, as well as its risks, though I have heard few discussions on Cloud computing’s impact on business process re-engineering, and how to get from the existing internal business processes to a Cloud computing model. For smaller organizations this may not be as great a concern as it would be for larger, more complex organizations, with many stakeholders. It will be interesting to see how the major vendors of BPMS position themselves for this migration to Cloud computing.

Were You Hit By the $23 Quadrillion Error?

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:45:00 EDT

Reports are flying around the Internet about people using their VISA debit cards and seeing errors on their billing statements for charges of $23,148,855,308,184,500. That’s a pretty serious software bug and one that will cost VISA a lot of time and credibility to fix. They’ve already indicated that the charges and the additional fees will be removed. But in the meantime, some VISA holders are stuck with very empty bank accounts (these were debit cards, so they were directly tied to the card holder’s bank account).

Aral Balkan Continues His “Cihad” on Wikipedia

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:00:00 EDT

The social media terrorists among Adobe's user community do not get it. This man Aral Balkan started a campaign against SYS-CON Media by contacting foreign technology media outlets, by turning his personal blog into a social media cihad, and even by entering false descriptions into Wikipedia. This man executed a deliberate campaign against SYS-CON with his Twitter followers assisting him in his mission to "kill SYS-CON and its employees." Aral Balkan is a social media terrorist, as described in here. How do you like this apology?

Aral Balkan's Twitter “Cihad”

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:00:00 EDT

"A couple of months ago SYS-CON Media was attacked by a Turkish blogger by the name of Aral Balkan from within Adobe's Flex / Flash user community who declared "cihad" against SYS-CON. SYS-CON's CEO explained his views on that particular subject in his "Social Media Terrorists" blog, which is an appropriate blog title especially since this man's religious, ethnic, cultural, and national background fits into FBI's profile definition of the modern day terrorist."

Social Media Will Replace BusinessWeek Too

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EDT

This morning I received a story link from a friend, her email subject - McGraw-Hill Said to Hire Evercore to Sell BusinessWeek Magazine - Bloomberg.com. As I read the story I recalled our Ulitzer launch where our development work started a little over two years ago. During our first production meeting in April 2007, we put on the whiteboard that Ulitzer would be a social media platform that would replace traditional media in the near future. The news story says: "BusinessWeek, the McGraw-Hill Cos. magazine that lost 30 percent of its advertising revenue in the second quarter, is up for sale, according to a person close to the situation."

Windows Azure PHP Development Kit

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:15:00 EDT

Microsoft announced at TechEd India — a show running simultaneously with TechEd 2009 in Los Angeles, a new software development kit for people interested in building apps in PHP for Windows Azure cloud. The PHP SDK for Windows Azure, a.k.a. PHPAzure, is an open source project, available for download from Microsoft CodePlex. The SDK provides consistent programming model for Windows Azure Storage (Blobs, Tables, Queues).

Why SOA Is a Good Fit for CRM Solutions

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:15:00 EDT

Online commerce is no longer just for consumer products, but also for direct and indirect goods and services. As a result, new demands are placed on classic customer relationship management (CRM) applications. While most have successfully automated customer-facing interactions (such as order capture, configuration, pricing, and order query), they still rely on external systems to process subsequent steps (such as invoicing, fulfillment, and pick-pack-ship), which are completed in a back-office enterprise resource planning (ERP) application.

Altor Networks Wins Network Products Guide Reader Trust Award for Virtual Network Security

Tue, 19 May 2009 12:16:00 EDT

Altor Networks announced today that Network Products Guide, industry’s leading publication on information technologies and solutions has named Altor VF virtual firewall a winner of the 2009 Best Products and Services Award. This respected annual award honors products and services that represent the rapidly changing needs and interests of the end-users of technology worldwide. As part of the tech-industry’s leading global awards program, this year’s Best Products and Services were nominated from all over the world. The first security solution of its kind and purpose-built for the virtualized environment, the Altor VF monitors and controls inter-VM traffic and enforces security policies at the individual VM level. Designed from scratch to secure the latest virtualization technologies, the Altor VF provides the thorough protection and ease-of-operation missing from traditional network security products that were not designed for the virtual environment. “Increased end-user awareness and ongoing advances in technology are helping shape better products and services.” says Rake Narang, editor-n-chief, Network Products Guide. “Altor VF is the industry’s only complete virtual firewall solution, delivered as a virtual appliance, which secures VMotion and auto deploys for easy installation.” “Network Products Guide’s recognition of the Altor VF is further validation that we are taking a leadership position in providing defense-in-depth security for virtualized environments,” said Catherine Edwards, communications director at Altor Networks. “The Altor VF goes beyond basic virtual firewall functionality to provide best-of-breed protection, and tight integration with existing security management systems, allowing security administrators to feel confident about expanding virtualization to their production environment.” The Altor VF gives customers unprecedented visibility into and granular control over virtual network traffic with award-winning technology that dramatically improves the security of virtual servers in data centers. Data center administrators can now pinpoint virtual security compromises and easily create role-based security policies. Security policies can be continuously enforced on individual VMs, simplifying deployment and on-going security management of the virtual infrastructure while reducing the dangers of security breaches.

Oracle + Sun Will Be Like the iPhone: Larry Ellison

Sat, 16 May 2009 20:00:00 EDT

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told Reuters in an e-mail interview that then got put in a filing and shipped to the SEC that, despite all the armchair speculation, he's keeping Sun's hardware business. Not only that but he's going to pour money into Sun's Sparc chip.