Does the open source community provide world-class security technology? Can organizations stop dealing with commercial vendors for security software? To avoid any undue suspense, the answers are: "Emphatically yes" and "Maybe, but you probably need to make an investment of some kind." But let's take a look at the evidence - this article references two open source projects: netfilter and Snort. Escalating ChallengesFirst, it's clear that the challenges related to security are escalating. Outbreaks of viruses and worms are becoming more virulent and spreading faster. Blended threats and application-specific attacks are becoming more sophisticated and harder to detect. Wireless communications, instant messaging, and peer-to-peer networks are opening new holes in corporate defenses. Top management is taking a sudden and unaccustomed interest in IT security. Yet IT depart... (more)

The Next Chapter in the Virtualization Story Begins

Cloud Expo Europe €550 Savings here! Cloud Expo West $800 Savings here! Cloud Computing Journal recently caught up with Pete Malcolm, CEO of cloud management innovators Abiquo - a major new player in the fast-emerging Cloud ecosystem and Platinum Plus Sponsor of 6th Cloud Expo being held in Prague, the Czech Republic, 21-22 June 2010. Malcolm is keynoting at the event. His theme will be "An Open Cloud Ecosystem - the Gathering Storm." Explore Cloud Expo Sponsorship & Exhibit Opportunities ! Abiquo was also Platinum Plus Sponsor of the 5th International Cloud Expo held April 19-21, 2010 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City Cloud Computing Journal: How would you define the difference between Private clouds and Public Clouds, and why is the distinction so important in the context of Cloud Computing? Pete Malcolm: Actually, I think people get rather too hun... (more)

MySQL Creator Wants War with Oracle

MySQL Session at Cloud Expo Oracle’s reaching out to customers to defend its acquisition of Sun and its MySQL open source database has spooked alienated MySQL creator Monty Widenius and his spokesman Florian Mueller, both of them enriched by Sun’s billion dollar purchase of MySQL last year, into calling for “open war” between the MySQL community and Oracle. Oracle has accused the European Commission, which is blocking its acquisition of Sun because of MySQL, of twisting the results of its antitrust investigation to suit its own MySQL bias by misrepresenting, cherry-picking or ignoring what users said about the market and the competitive scene and so Oracle brought a string of large accounts to its closed-door hearing before the regulator on Thursday and Friday to support its contention that the “great majority of customers” do not oppose the deal. According to the W... (more)

Cinedeck Defines New Category, New Standard for Ultra-Portable, Cinema-Grade DDR Systems for Production Community

NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwire) -- 02/09/10 -- Cinedeck (www.cinedeck.com) today announced the debut of the world's first camera-mountable, HDMI/HDSDI recording, monitoring, playback and editing device for the production community. Designed by cinematographers for cinematographers, Cinedeck defines an entirely new category of extremely portable, affordable, platform agnostic, cinema-grade recording and monitoring solutions for anyone with an HDMI, HDSDI or LAN camera. Cinedeck is: -- Extremely Portable: measuring 5"x8"x3.5" and weighing less than 4 pounds, Cinedeck is camera-mountable and stores (with all cables and accessories) in a space no larger than a shoe box; -- Affordable: Cinedeck costs less than a week's rental of similar quality tape deck and focus monitor; -- Massively Compatible: Cinedeck records from nearly any HDMI or single/dual link HDSDI camera and... (more)

Organisations in Central and Eastern Europe with High Employee Engagement Are Achieving Better Business Results, Says Aon Hewitt

SOFIA, Bulgaria, December 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Aon Hewitt, the human resource solutions business of Aon plc (NYSE: AON) has announced the results of its annual Best Employers study for the Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) region. The top regional Best Employers by category were announced at a ceremony in Sofia, Bulgaria. The research shows a strong correlation between high employee engagement and better business results. On average, CEE Best Employers companies: out-perform on financial targets (108% of EBITDA goal realisation versus 93% for other organisations), have lower staff turnover rates (6% turnover versus 9% for the rest of the organisations), have lower absenteeism (3.5 day/employee versus 5.5 day/employee in the rest). The study, which Aon Hewitt has run in Central and Eastern Europe since 2001, recognises companies that stand out from their peers through t... (more)

The i-Technology Right Stuff

Related Links: Wanted: 19 More of the Top Software People in the World Sung and Unsung i-Technology Heroes Who's Missing from SYS-CON's i-Technology Top Twenty?" Our search for the Twenty Top Software People in the World is nearing completion. In the SYS-CON tradition of empowering readers, we are leaving the final "cut" to you, so here are the top 40 nominations in alphabetical order. Our aim this time round is to whittle this 40 down to our final twenty, not (yet) to arrange those twenty in any order of preference. All you need to do to vote is to go to the Further Details page of any nominee you'd like to see end up in the top half of the poll when we close voting on Christmas Eve, December 24, and cast your vote or votes. To access the Further Details of each nominee just click on their name. Happy voting!   In alphabetical order the nominees are:   Tim Berner... (more)

The Top 250 Players in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem

In the run-up to the next Cloud Expo, 7th Cloud Expo (November 1–4, 2010) being held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley, it's time to give my earlier list a complete overhaul. Here, accordingly, is an expanded list of the most active players in the Cloud Ecosystem. I have increased it from the 'mere' 150 I identified back in January of this year, to 250, testimony – as if any were needed! – to the fierce and continuing growth of the "Elastic IT" paradigm throughout the world of enterprise computing. Editorial note: The words in quotation marks used to describe the various services and solutions in this round-up are in every case taken from the Web sites of the companies themselves. Omissions to this Top 250 list should be sent to me via Twitter (twitter.com/jg21) and I will endeavor to include them in any future revision of this newly expanded rou... (more)

After Ubuntu, Windows Looks Increasingly Bad, Increasingly Archaic, Increasingly Unfriendly

My recent switch to a single-boot Ubuntu setup on my Thinkpad T60 simply floors me on a regular basis. Most recently it's had to do with the experience of maintaining the software. Fresh from a very long Windows 2000 experience and a four-month Windows XP experience along with a long-time Linux sys admin role puts me in a great position to assess Ubuntu. Three prior attempts over the years at using Linux as my daily desktop OS had me primed for failure. Well, Ubuntu takes Linux where I've long hoped it would go - easy to use, reliable, dependable, great applications too but more on that later. It has some elegance to it - bet you never heard that about a Linux desktop before. There are many night-and-day differences between Windows and Ubuntu and, for a guy that does 80% standard office tasks and the rest of the time I'm doing Linux admin tasks, it was nearly all i... (more)

Linux.SYS-CON.com Exclusive: Linus Discloses *Real* Fathers of Linux

Related Links: Linus Torvalds Isn't the "Father of Linux" "Ok, I admit it. I was just a front-man for the real fathers of Linux, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus." Thus begins a characteristically Torvaldsian e-mail to LinuxWorld News Desk sent by Linus Torvalds in response to our invitation to comment on the sensationalist claims this morning that he isn't, after all, the inventor of Linux. "They (for obvious reasons) couldn't step forward to admit that they had gotten bitten by the computer bug, and had been developing a series of operating systems on their own during the off season. But when they started with Linux (which they originally called Freax - they do feel like outsiders, you know, and that's a whole sad story in itself), they felt that they could no longer just let it languish in obscurity. They started to look for a front-man, and since Santa Claus is fr... (more)

SCO CEO Posts Open Letter to the Open Source Community

In an open letter to the OS community, Darl McBride writes: 'The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system...' Read the full letter here: The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a ... (more)

Where Are RIA Technologies Headed in 2008?

I am always being told off by i-technologists for quoting Picasso as having said that computers are useless. But I still love his reasoning? "Because they can only give you answers." Picasso, like AJAXWorld Magazine, liked questions. So we thought we would share with you what some of the world's leading rich Internet application pioneers are thinking may be the next questions that we need to see answered. From that readers can themselves infer where AJAX is headed. What are the top questions to ask next about AJAX? Eric Miraglia of Yahoo! 1.  (From March'08) How do I calculate the ROI of building my RIA on the iPhone SDK vs using AJAX? 2.  How do I assess the performance of my app and decide what to do next to make it faster?  3.  When it comes to accessibility, how do I know what's required of me for my rich web apps?  Beyond what's required, what makes good business se... (more)