Stories by: Paul Venezia

Back in the old days, the only realistic way to connect multiple remote sites was by T1 or T3 delivered either point-to-point or via Frame Relay. These were either slow and expensive or fast and unbelievably expensive. Then came MPLS, which dispensed with the need for point-to-point circuits from site to site, but was still bound by high expense. You got what you paid for. These circuits were not only reliable, but if a T1 or T3 circuit dropped, you could generally count on the carrier to jump on the problem quickly and resolve it with some expediency.

It's an odd juxtaposition. The Dell PowerEdge R715 sits in a rack just below a recently decommissioned 2U, two-socket server that cost about as much when it was new five years ago. The difference? The older server has a total of two CPU cores, one per processor. The R715 has 32 cores, running at the same clock speed. If that's not progress, I don't know what is.

My lab is dotted with Synology NAS devices providing a wide array of services, from disk-based backup to general file sharing to shared storage for small virtualization build-outs. In all the years I've had these boxes spinning, they've never once let me down. In fact, I have a four-year-old Synology DS409 that is still performing perfectly. It hasn't lost a disk yet.

The benefits of server virtualization are so significant at this point that implementing it is a no-brainer. First and foremost, server virtualization makes much better use of computing resources than physical servers do, since you can run many different virtual servers on a single physical host. In fact, you may be surprised at just how many general-purpose server instances a single modern server can handle simultaneously.

There comes a time in most businesses when circumstances dictate that one or more users work from home either full- or part-time. In other cases, it may simply be convenient for business owners and employees to be able to use company resources from home or (unfortunately) while on vacation.

As we rapidly approach yet another VMworld conference and the general release of VMware vSphere 5, it's clear that VMware hasn't been resting on its laurels. The newest version of vSphere builds on the strong foundations of vSphere 4.1, showcasing new management and automation features and levels of scalability.

Citrix XenServer is a commercial implementation of the open source Xen virtualization solution. Citrix has extended the base Xen engine with management tools and tightened up various components related to implementing and managing Windows and Linux virtual machines, not to mention integrating the whole shebang with the company's virtual desktop initiative, as well as its foundational server-based desktop and application delivery solutions.

There's an area of the NAS landscape where the lines between consumer and corporate use are blurred. While high-end NAS arrays cost plenty of money, they also provide essential features like redundant power supplies and superior performance. At the lower end are the truly consumer-grade devices that might seem like they'll work in a corporate environment but fall short of meeting the essentials critical to infrastructures. They are, however, very cheap.

After finally getting the go-ahead to proceed with a project to virtualize a small business infrastructure, it may seem that the hard part is actually making it all happen. In many cases, however, the hardest part is getting the budget together to acquire all the hardware and software necessary -- actually making the switch is the easier task.

There are two ways to look at the Cisco SA 520 network security appliance. On one hand, it offers a solid array of features: 65Mbps IPSec VPN throughput, 100Mbps overall throughput, integrated firewall (limited to 100 rules), built-in filtering for common services like IM and P2P networking, SSL VPN, IPS, DDNS, and multi-WAN support. On the other hand, it has nearly no relation to the rest of Cisco's security solutions.