Exchange 2000 for the Big Guys

Scaling Microsoft Exchange 2000 is a pragmatic guide to designing large implementations. 11/01/2002

Certified Mail

Licensing confusion, and more salary survey feedback. 11/01/2002

Best Defense

What's going on in your network? Who can you trust? Take a look at Hackproofing Your Network and find out just how vulnerable you may be. 11/01/2002

Resumé Makeover

This month, Greg takes a reader’s resumé and gives it a fresh look. 11/01/2002

Unified Storage Mirage

Each new version of Windows seems to introduce a new file system. Is Longhorn the end of it? 11/01/2002

CA Unwraps New ARCServe for Backup

Computer Associates Int’l Inc. (CA) this week announced version 9 of BrightStor ARCServe Backup. CA bills ARCServe 9 as a significant redesign of its flagship backup product for Windows, Linux and NetWare. 10/31/2002

Microsoft Reports Critical Vulnerability in Windows 2000, XP

The flaw results from an unchecked buffer in Microsoft's PPTP implementation. The bulletin was one of three security bulletins released by Microsoft's security team on Thursday. The other newly patched vulnerabilities involve Internet Information Server and Windows 2000. 10/31/2002

Numbers Game

"MCP By The Numbers," a monthly update of Microsoft certification that we published in the magazine, now appears on Microsoft's MCP Web site. The numbers show up with a few interesting discrepancies. 10/31/2002

Microsoft Offers HIPAA Help in New BizTalk Accelerator

Microsoft will offer a revamped version of its healthcare industry extension to Microsoft BizTalk Server, the BizTalk Accelerator for HIPAA, on Dec. 1. 10/30/2002

Office 11 Beta Runs Only on Windows XP, Windows 2000

The beta version of Office 11 Microsoft released last week will only run on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Microsoft officials say there has not been a final decision on whether to freeze out Windows 9x and Windows ME users from the final version of the Office suite, which is scheduled to ship in mid-2003. 10/30/2002

Study: IT Delayed After 9/11, But Will Still Make Major Security Purchases

It was popular wisdom after the terrorist attacks of September 2001 that Corporate America would wake up to its vulnerability and quickly spend additional billions on security and business continuity solutions, products and services. 10/30/2002

Windows 2000 Achieves Common Criteria Security Certification

Windows 2000 received the Common Criteria security certification on Tuesday after Microsoft invested millions of dollars and three years of effort to gain the certification. 10/29/2002

Unisys Serves up Pre-Configured Database Bundles

Unisys Corp. on Monday introduced several pre-configured database bundles that it says will enable customers to rapidly deploy and support large database environments. The new systems, which feature Microsoft’s Windows 2000 Datacenter Server hosted on Unisys’ Intel-based ES7000 servers, are also outfitted with SQL Server 2000 and matched with storage capacity from EMC Corp. 10/28/2002

DDoS Attacks in the Crosshairs

The massive Distributed Denial of Service attack earlier this week against the backbone of the Internet has created a classic game of "Is the glass half empty or half full?" 10/24/2002

Intel Still Talking About InfiniBand

Intel was one of the loudest, largest and most active early backers of InfiniBand. That's why the chip giant's decision over the summer to discontinue work on hardware products involving the fledgling server interconnect technology was widely viewed as a very bad sign for InfiniBand. 10/24/2002

IDC: Full-Fledged Web Services at Least a Decade Away

Analysts at market research house IDC are throwing cold water on the idea that the revolutionary phase of Web services -- delivering software as services -- will take hold soon. According to IDC, that development is at least 10 years away. 10/24/2002

SP1 for Windows XP Embedded Ships

Microsoft updated the componentized version of Windows XP this week with the delivery of Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 1. The SP1 release brings expanded foreign-language support, the Microsoft .NET Framework, remote boot and diskless operation. 10/23/2002

Security Firm Finds 9 IE Flaws

An Israeli security firm, GreyMagic Software, documented nine new vulnerabilities in recent versions of Internet Explorer, eight of which the firm calls "critical." 10/23/2002

First Beta Ships for Office 11

Microsoft's Office 11, which will include a major overhaul of the Outlook e-mail client and XML integration across the product line, went into its first beta testing phase this week. 10/23/2002

Microsoft: Servers, XP Growing Revenues

Microsoft used its recent financial earnings report to highlight momentum in its server and business products. Strong performers, according to the company, included SQL Server Enterprise Edition, Windows 2000 Server and Windows XP Professional. 10/22/2002

Stratus Makes 100% Windows Uptime Guarantee

Stratus Technologies upped the ante on uptime guarantees this week with an offer promising 100 percent uptime on Windows servers. 10/22/2002

MCTs Allege CTEC Rip-off

A CTEC in Florida is under the gun from a number of MCTs who say they haven’t been paid for work done. 10/19/2002

Microsoft Says Security Emphasis is Paradigm Shift

Security remains a hot-button issue for Microsoft, as Brian Valentine, senior vice president for Windows, touted Redmond's new “hard" approach to software development. 10/19/2002

Microsoft's Online Support Program: Ends Nov. 1

For a limited time, Microsoft offers rapid online support for selected Microsoft products, including SQL Server 2000 and Windows 2000 Server. Cost of support: $99. 10/17/2002

IDC Sees Turnaround in Server Spending

IDC forecasts that in the third quarter of 2002 the standard Intel architecture server market will show growth for the first time since the beginning of 2001. Don't get too excited, the market research firm warns. After the awful first half of 2002, worldwide server sales should still be down 9 percent in 2002 compared to 2001. 10/17/2002

Unisys Runs Itanium 2 on Industry Standard Benchmark

Unisys ran its first TPC benchmark with one of its 16-processor, Windows-optimized systems using the 64-bit Itanium 2 processor. 10/17/2002

Microsoft Issues 3 Patches, 1 Fixes Critical SQL Flaw

Microsoft released three security bulletins late Wednesday, including one with a patch for a critical flaw in its SQL Server database. The other two bulletins included patches for moderate threats to the Windows XP Help and Support Center and to a seldom-used feature of Word and Excel. The flurry of security bulletins takes Microsoft to 61 bulletins so far in 2002, one more than the software giant issued for all of 2001. 10/17/2002

Microsoft Lays Out Support Lifecycle, Policy

Microsoft introduced consistency and predictability into its formerly haphazard product lifecycle support on Tuesday by laying out a policy and creating a single Web site where customers can check on the support status of all Microsoft's software. 10/16/2002

Support Deadlines Loom for Exchange 5.5, SQL 7.0, NT 4.0

Microsoft laid out the end dates for regular support of most of its products on Tuesday as it detailed its first Software Lifecycle policy. Windows NT 4.0's support deadlines stayed consistent with what the software giant announced last December. End dates for regular support of Microsoft's other major enterprise products: December 2003 for Exchange 5.5, March 2004 for SQL Server 7.0 and March 2005 for Windows 2000. 10/16/2002

6 Electives Added to MCDBA Title

Microsoft allows MCAD/MCSD.NET core exams to count toward elective credit for MCDBA title. 10/16/2002

DYS Analytics Ports Enterprise E-mail Management Tool to Exchange

Messaging and groupware toolkit vendor DYS Analytics ported its Email Control! tool for monitoring and managing e-mail in large environments to the Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000 platforms. 10/16/2002

BizTalk Making Headway in EAI Market

While the combination of Microsoft Corp.’s BizTalk Server and XML Web services is showing promise as an enterprise application integration tool, it’s still too early to tell whether Redmond will stake a claim to turf along side traditional EAI heavyweights. 10/15/2002

Microsoft CIO Details Internal Security Measures

Ever wonder what the alpha user of Microsoft software, Microsoft's internal IT Group, is doing about security? Microsoft corporate vice president and chief information officer Rick Devenuti offered a glimpse last week during MEC 2002 in Anaheim, Calif. 10/15/2002

70-214, Implementing Security in Beta

One-week testing phase for MCSE elective exam starts today. 10/10/2002

How Microsoft Eats its Own Dogfood

Every time Microsoft rolls out a major new enterprise product, the software giant claims itself as a long-running early adopter in production systems. At MEC 2002 in Anaheim, Calif., Microsoft corporate vice president and CIO Rick Devenuti explained how his IT department reconciles its top priority of being "Microsoft's best and first customer" with its more standard role of making sure employees in this global Fortune 500 company always have access to the applications they need to do the jobs that keep the revenue flowing. 10/10/2002

Microsoft Claims Internal Benefits From Windows .NET Server, Titanium

Microsoft corporate vice president and CIO Rick Devenuti is seeing several benefits from an internal early deployment of Windows .NET Server 2003 and expecting others with the Exchange Titanium release. 10/10/2002

Ballmer Owns Up to Microsoft Licensing Flap

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had a lot of explaining to do about Microsoft's new licensing and Software Assurance policies Wednesday morning at Gartner's ITXpo/Symposium, being held in Orlando, Florida. Owning up to customer disenchantment with Licensing 6.0, Ballmer admitted that the process and ensuing customer pushback resulted in a "lot of learning for us." The CEO also provided further clarification to Microsoft's .NET approach, stating that the intention of the architecture is introducing XML into Microsoft's products. 10/09/2002

Unisys Tests High-Performance Wintel Computing at CTC

Unisys will collaborate with Cornell University’s Cornell Theory Center (CTC) to test high-performance computing solutions based on its ES7000 servers. 10/09/2002

HP, Intel Push Itanium, But Sun Goes to 32-Bit

It's been a rough year for large IT providers, but some major industry leaders say they are bullish on their near-term prospects, and will continue to aggressively pursue new technologies. At Gartner's ITXpo/Symposium in Orlando, the CEOs of HP, Intel, and Sun Microsystems all say their organizations are weathering the economic storm, and seeing growth in some areas. 10/09/2002

Exchange Titanium Gets a Preview at MEC

Microsoft used its Microsoft Exchange Conference in Anaheim, Calif., to offer more details about the next version of its Exchange messaging and groupware platform, code-named Titanium. 10/08/2002

3 Microsoft E-Business Servers Combined to Form "Jupiter"

Microsoft will consolidate Commerce Server, BizTalk Server and Content Management Server into one set of technologies code-named "Jupiter" that will be released in two stages in 2003 and 2004, the company disclosed during the opening keynote of the MEC 2002 conference in Anaheim, Calif. 10/08/2002

Content Management Server 2002 Will Ship by Year End

Microsoft announced plans this week at its MEC 2002 conference in Anaheim, Calif., to ship Content Management Server 2002 by the end of the year. 10/08/2002

IBM Opens x440 Lab in Redmond

IBM Corp. is moving to build the market for high-end Windows-based server systems by opening a demonstration and testing lab near Microsoft's Redmond, Wash. campus. 10/03/2002

SQL Patch Addresses 3 Critical Vulnerabilities

Microsoft released a cumulative patch for SQL Server and the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) to fix three newly discovered critical vulnerabilities. While Microsoft has rolled together fixes for multiple vulnerabilities in a product into one patch regularly this year, rarely has one patch fixed more than one critical hole. The patch posted on the day that the SANS Institue and the FBI listed SQL Server generally as one of the top security vulnerabilities on Windows systems. 10/03/2002

Fast and Furious: 4 Patches Out of Microsoft Wednesday Night

Critics frequently allege that new security fixes come out of Microsoft on a daily basis. Most days that's an exaggeration. Wednesday night, however, Microsoft made the hyperbole seem tame by posting four new security bulletins to its Web site. They involved critical vulnerabilities in SQL Server and the Windows Help Active X control and moderate vulnerabilities in three client versions of Windows and the Services for Unix 3.0 Interix SDK. 10/03/2002

Feature Packs Coming for SMS 2.0

Microsoft has two free "feature packs" in the release candidate stage for Systems Management Server 2.0. The packs are called the SMS 2.0 Software Update Services Feature Pack and the SMS 2.0 Administration Feature Pack. Both should be available later this month. 10/03/2002

Microsoft Error Reporting Drives Bug Fixing Efforts

Microsoft is prioritizing its bug fixing efforts based on the pop-up error report windows that appear during setup and application crashes in newer versions of Windows and Office, according to a letter Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent to customers. 10/03/2002

Transcender C#-Cert/Windows 7.0

Beta Exam Update: 70-300, Analyzing Requirements in November

Microsoft sends out invitations to candidates for final MCSD.NET core requirement exam. 10/02/2002

70-214, Implementing Security Gets Beta Tested Next Week

Registration for this MCSE elective exam already underway. 10/02/2002