With the Survivor's Guide to 2005 NWC issue hot off the presses I wanted to pass on details as to what we are focusing on at ACME in the IT shop for 2005. We have some big multi-year projects still ongoing and some things we started in 2004 as well as new projects for 2005. In the past we made the mistake of approaching budgeting as a "wish list" and then figuring out if we had the staff to execute the projects. This year we took a more realistic approach. Keep reading to see what amazing things we have planned for 2005.

According to The New York Times, Symantec and Veritas are in discussions aimed at having Symantec purchase the company best known for its data backup packages. Like so many of these stories, there are obvious story lines, and those that are a little more subtle.

The obvious story line is that the number of players in the security market continues to decline as mergers and acquisitions continue at a goodly clip. There are, of course, aspects both good and bad to consolidation, but financial and market forces seem to be moving in the "fewer/larger" direction, so there's little constructive that I can say about it. The less obvious story line actually has more meat, in my opinion; security is gradually moving from asset protection to business continuity assurance.

Think about it: Most security is focused on keeping "the bad guys" from succeeding in their dastardly deeds. Business continuity doesn't really care so much where the threat comes from, it just wants to keep software, hardware, and data assets available and useful to the proper users. Assurance includes security, but doesn't stop there, extending to backup and restoration, disaster recovery, maintenance, regulatory compliance, and a host of other issues. At a recent conference I noticed more people handing out business cards that read "Data Assurance" or something similar, and it's a trend that can work for the security professional on a number of levels.

First, the change in scope can mean that you have meaningful control over more aspects of the network infrastructure, so that security stands a chance of being built into, rather than bolted onto, the network. Next, the greater responsibility can translate into larger budgets--seldom a bad thing in the corporate world. Finally, taking a broader view of assurance can make you much more effective in designing security--the extra work and responsibility can carry some solid professional benefits in horizon-broadening.

So Tim Wilson at NWC wrote in the current issue about how to negotiate with vendors. And I also noted the article from Don MacVittie about SAN Switches. At ACME we just got finished with a grueling few months of back-and-forth negotiations with SAN vendors.

The push to consolidation in security continued today as 3Com purchased IPS vendor TippingPoint ** for somewhere in the neighborhood of 430 million dollars. According to the announcement, TippingPoint will continue to operate as a separate division of 3Com, with its headquarters remaining in Austin, Texas.

So what does this mean to the world of security? In one sense, it's just the latest step in the march of security to the network infrastructure. Cisco is the loudest voice talking about the virtues of tying security to the switches and routers at the core of the network, but it's far from the only voice. With this acquisition, 3Com has put some serious money behind this kind of talk, and it's reasonable to expect that they will ultimately tie the products together more closely. There's no surprise in this, but I do think there's good news for security-conscious folks in the small- to medium-business category.

While most of the companies talking about security and the infrastructure have been focusing on products in the enterprise space, 3Com has built a reputation in the SMB market over the last few years. 3Com has also been introducing more products aimed at security, so the company has obviously seen an opportunity to make a market within security-conscious SMB I.T. folks. This is great news for those who have significant concerns about security within smaller companies. TippingPoint is a very solid IPS product (as I found when performing tests for an IPS review that will appear in Network Computing in January), and linking the thinking with 3Com's presence in the SMB world should mean nothing but good things for migrating security capabilities down-market.

I'm looking forward to seeing how 3Com works with TippingPoint as part of the corporate fold. If today's purchase means that a 200-seat busines can get serious intrusion analysis, detection, and prevention, then this is good news for the networking community. I'm going to remain optimistic at this point, but I still have some phone calls to make--I'll let you know more after I have a chance to talk with the folks at 3Com and TippingPoint.

** In the original version of this post, CheckPoint was erroneously identifed as the company purchased by 3Com. Thanks to alert readers who pointed out the error.

Someone has way too much time on their hands. Both the guy who did this and my brother, who somehow managed to find this obscure link.

Someone over at the Goldfish Online has recreated working logic gates in LEGOs.

You can check them over for accuracy here

Perhaps we'll see LEGO kits for this available for purchase for the geek in your life? We could only hope...

Comparing yesterday's "primary storage" with today's Serial ATA

One thing's for certain -- the robots in the upcoming 'Transformers' movie better look that good (though I don't expect Optimus Prime to Moonwalk.)

Posted here at 01:12 PM in Techno-Oddities

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Posted here at 09:29 AM in Techno-Oddities

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