13-09-2004 • VOLUME 7 • NUMBER 34 • £2.60
WWW.ITWEEK.CO.UK
19 ENTERPRISE Safer Linux
strengthens access control
27 CLIENT VPN protection
through a browser
CONTENTS
32 NETWORK Why has BT
suddenly extended ADSL?
ENTERPRISEWEEK
Options grow for data archiving 15
Microsoft considers price cuts 15
What price an Itanium server? 16
INTERNETWEEK
Why daredevils will love XP SP2 22
Tips for better e-trade web sites 24
CLIENTWEEK
Sun and ARM back mobile Java 27
Microsoft’s Windows File System 28
Firms mull Windows Longhorn 28
NETWORKWEEK
3Com’s low-cost resilient routers 31
CyberGatekeeper guards LANs 35
How to control global networks 36
MANAGEMENTWEEK
Recycling poses danger to data 39
Does monthly patching pay off? 40
Corporates hire more IT staff 40
Governance
scares chiefs
The need to ensure compliance with
governance and data protection rules is
a growing priority for IT directors, who
complain they are increasingly dissatisfied with the service and support from
enterprise applications providers,
according to IT Week research.
Forty-five percent said compliance
was a big problem, up from 39 percent
last year, according to IT Week’s annual
ImageTrak survey.Worries about budgets fell – 53 percent ranked it a top
concern, down from 60 percent. System security still dominates the agenda and 77 percent gave it the highest
importance rating. Satisfaction with IT
vendors was largely unchanged. Cisco
and AMD came top, each chalking up
an 85 percent approval rating. Business app vendors PeopleSoft and
Siebel both scored below 50 percent.
Low scores for leading enterprise
application vendors suggest implementation and ROI still pose problems.
Comment, p5 Spending, p5
Intel serves up double chips
IT Week staff
hip giant Intel last week detailed
plans for chips with two processor
cores on one piece of silicon, a
move that promises a dramatic change in
system price/performance.
The development of multi-core chips is
likely to accelerate take-up on volume servers
of CPU-hungry technologies, such as virtualisation and business intelligence. However,
software licensing could prove problematic.
Many software vendors currently charge
per processor, so dual-core chips threaten to
reduce their revenues. AMD last week said
that Sun, Red Hat and Novell will all price by
CPU socket rather than processor core. But
other vendors may decide to argue that a
dual-core chip should carry the same software tariff as a two-way server.
Intel expects to make a rapid transition
to the new technology. “By the end of 2006,
40 percent of all our desktop chips, 85 percent of our Xeon server chips, and 70 percent of mobile chips will be dual-core,” said
the firm’s president, Paul Otellini.
At the Intel Developer Forum last week,
C
Area codes spread VoIP
Martin Courtney
R
egulator Ofcom last week revealed its
plans to encourage internet telephony
services by creating a dedicated prefix for
voice over IP (VoIP) calls.
The new IP-only area code, 056, can be
used anywhere in the country, though customers can also request geographical prefix
numbers that will begin with 01 or 02.
This will let subscribers keep their local
numbers when switching to VoIP services, a
move Ofcom hopes will encourage more
firms and consumers to sign up.
“It will be a boost for businesses since
increase in power consumption
or heat dissipation.”
In a research note, Martin
Now IBM Power 5
Reynolds of analyst Gartner
AMD Opteron
Mid to Intel Itanium 2
wrote that dual-core demonlate 2005 Intel Pentium 4 AMD Athlon
strations mark “the beginning
Intel Pentium M
Intel Xeon
of a significant increase in
processing power across the
2006/2007 Sun multi-core chips
entire industry”.
Competition between Intel and AMD may accelerate the release of
Intel showed a four-chip demonstration
their dual-core products, Reynolds added.
server based on a future dual-core Itanium
“AMD might well speed up its conservative
2 chip, codenamed Montecito. Hyper[second half of 2005] release date. The
Threading technology added a further dourelease of dual-core designs from these
bling of processing power. Overall, this
manufacturers will alter the competitive
provided the equivalent of 16 processors
landscape of the processor market.”
from just four chips.
IBM last week said it will use a dualIntel also announced that it plans to
core AMD Opteron in a new version of its
release a dual-core mobile processor, codeeServer 325, scheduled for the middle of
named Yonah, next year with a new graphnext month. AMD demonstrated its first
ics chipset and wireless support.
dual-core chips on an HP ProLiant server at
Experts predict that by swapping in
the end of last month. Vice-president Dirk
multi-core chips firms will be able to upgrade
Meyer said it was a “milestone that changes
to higher performance relatively easily.
the dynamics of the computing business”.
Nathan Brookwood of analyst Insight64
said, “These chips provide an attractive path
WiMax, p8 AMD, p10 Leader, p12
for increasing performance with little or no
Itanium, p16 Intel forum report, p27
CHIP MAKERS DOUBLE UP PROCESSOR CORES
one of the important things when migrating to VoIP is the ability to maintain existing dial plans,” argued Leslie Firlie, senior
manager for European solutions marketing
at comms provider Spirent. “If companies
are doing any IP PBX or
IP Centrex applications,
changing those would be
difficult on traditional
[analogue] phone lines.”
The IP prefix could
help to identify low Carter:VoIP
competition
cost lines. Several providers have recently
begun offering IP telephony services over
broadband links that could potentially cut
phone bills. For a set fee per month, businesses can make unlimited calls to other IP
phones, though there is a charge for IP calls
to traditional analogue numbers.
BT is due to move all its current telephone services onto a converged voice/data
telecoms infrastructure by 2006, and expects most calls to be carried via IP by 2008.
Ofcom has also issued a consumer guide
to new VoIP services and asked for feedback
by 15 November. Ofcom chief executive
Stephen Carter said in May that VoIP will
vital to maintain UK competitiveness.
BT’s ADSL goes the distance, p32
www.ofcom.gov.uk
BlackBerry
gets facelift
BlackBerry maker RIM
has launched a new device
styled more like a phone.
The 7100 is a quad-band
GSM phone, but can also
link to a firm’s BlackBerry
Enterprise Server for
corporate email and has 7100
a full qwerty keypad. UK introduces
networks will sell the
a new look
handset this autumn. It is
priced at $199 (£112) in the US.
Nokia, p8 www.blackberry.com
NEWS INSIDE: STORAGE Kit, p4 • MICROSOFT Virtual Server, p5 • BUDGETS Trends, p5 • LINUX Desktops p6 • NOTES Update, p10 • WIRELESS Security, p10