Author Archive
Kevin Jonah
Infrastructure
Services rendered
When Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Scott McNealy and Microsoft Corp.'s Steve Ballmer announced last month that the two companies had agreed to work on interoperability between their systems, they already had a good head start. That's because both companies already support Web services standards in their development tools.
Digital Government
Dangers in disguise
Pundits often throw around the phrase 'digital convergence' to describe how Internet and computing technologies are changing everything from television to telephone calls. But there's another, somewhat less friendly digital convergence happening on the fringes of the technology world'the merging threats of unsolicited e-mail marketing and malicious software.
Digital Government
Air safety: wireless networking security
Wireless is perhaps the most rapidly growing networking technology, and certainly the most widely hyped. But its rapid growth has brought some serious security concerns'sometimes, ubiquitous and easy access to data networks isn't exactly a good thing.
Digital Government
Internal security
A few years ago, the focus of network security and firewall technology was on the perimeter'keeping bad guys on the outside from getting to systems on the inside.
Cybersecurity
Stemming the tide
The networked world is an increasingly dangerous place. With the possibility of foreign governments or organizations plotting cyberterrorism, there's no end to the number of threats to operations on the LAN, WAN or Internet.
Digital Government
Tools to put the wheels on EA
There are plenty of good reasons to map out an enterprise architecture. Enterprise architecture models'and the tools that create them'can take the sting out of integrating agency functions, launching new initiatives, or just optimizing existing functions and IT investments. Even so, there's really only one reason why enterprise architecture is so popular in government these days'it's mandatory.
Digital Government
Model programs
With passage of the Clinger-Cohen Act in 1996, agencies were faced with the need to better manage their enterprise architectures'the act mandated an overall blueprint for their IT systems.
Digital Government
Wireless adds a new twist to security headaches
One of the biggest emerging issues for network management is dealing with wireless LANs. The popularity of the IEEE 802.11b Ethernet standard, known as WiFi, has soared, partially because of its low cost and ease of installation.
Digital Government
Look beyond your network
You'd think network management would get easier. Everything connected to enterprise networks is simpler than it used to be. Network standards make integration more straightforward. And enterprise systems management tools and other software programs put control of networks at administrators' fingertips. Right?
Digital Government
RAD becomes routine -- almost
The return to a central computing model driven by the Web has made it both easier and more difficult to deploy applications. It's simpler because there's no code to ship out to every client; it's more difficult because there's no code to ship out to every client.
Infrastructure
Databases tag along with XML
Extensible Markup Language has become the data format of choice for many emerging applications in e-commerce and e-government.
Featured eBooks
Infrastructure
Forms with function
The government has hundreds of thousands of forms available in Adobe Portable Document Format. But the vast majority of them can only be completed if they're printed out. There's no way for most of them'especially forms targeted to citizens'to be submitted electronically.
Cybersecurity
Securing the airways
Internet security is a lot more than just protecting your networks from direct attacks.
Digital Government
A SAN with a plan
Data is the grist of any application. The trick has always been getting that data from where it is to where it needs to be without causing bottlenecks in application performance. Today, with the mushrooming storage requirements of distributed applications, managing performance is one of the biggest headaches for system administrators.
Digital Government
A SAN with a plan
Data is the grist of any application. The trick has always been getting that data from where it is to where it needs to be without causing bottlenecks in application performance.
Cybersecurity
Crackerjack security
Federal information technology managers' data encryption options are about to expand.
Digital Government
Corel offers free WordPerfect 8 version for Linux
The freeware Linux operating system has had plenty of adherents but, until now, few commercial-quality applications. That is changing rapidly, thanks in no small part to Corel Corp. Corel carried on WordPerfect's long cross-platform tradition with Corel WordPerfect 7 for Linux, the most popular productivity application for the upstart OS. Now Corel is jump-starting mainstream interest in Linux by giving away a personal version of WordPerfect 8 for Linux without a manual, clip
Digital Government