Blog

Mimecast iPhone App, Search your Email Archive on the go

08 Dec 2011

Orlando Scott-Cowley writes: Mimecast’s CTO, Neil Murray, said the future is all about client/cloud in his blog post about Gartner’s 2012 predictions. He closes the post by saying;

    “…the end user is king in our future and just about everyone else’s.”

UK Cyber Security Strategy

28 Nov 2011

Mike Smart, Product and Solutions Director, EMEA at SafeNet comments on how this new strategy will affect small enterprises and refers to the government initiatives to improve online safety and establish ‘kitemarks’ for cyber security software to help consumers and businesses better understand the cyber security solutions available and allow them to make more informed choices.

Three quarters of firms may not fully recover computer systems after an IT faliure

24 Nov 2011

Following a report by IT group EMC which found that three quarters of firms and public sector organisations across nine European countries may not fully recover their computer systems or data after an IT failure. Roger Keenan, managing director of City Lifeline, says:  “It is astonishing how many smaller enterprises do not think about how reliant they are on their computers and their data.  Companies start small and grow.  They begin with a couple of PC’s, then buy a server or two and plug them into the nearest 13 amp socket. Then suddenly, the entire business ends up dependant on the contents of the server-cupboard-under-the-stairs.  This is fine until something happens – a fire, a break-in, or a power failure which crashes the server discs and loses all the information. 

Stolen government certificate signed malware is an upcoming trend, says Imperva

15 Nov 2011

Tal Be’ery, Imperva’s Web Security Research Team Leader on how a governmental digital certificate has been used to sign malware: According to a report by F-Secure, the certificate was used to sign a piece of malware which has been spread through malicious PDF files, dropped after an Acrobat Reader 8 exploit had taken place.

Cloud and the SME

10 Nov 2011

Marcie Terman, Business Development Director at DataFort writes: It seems that for some years, people have been trying to shove the concept of what is now called ‘Cloud Computing’ down our collective throats. Over 10 years ago Steve Jobs tried to herald the days where we would run applications on centralized computer mainframes that offered micro-leasing of software rather than outright purchase.

SSL, the protocol for protecting the internet

03 Nov 2011

Mark Knight, Director, Product Management, at Thales e-Security writes: It's good news that Google have announced their continued expansion of the use of SSL which means that certain Google searches (and the results) will be encrypted. There's already been pressure to turn on encryption at corporate and domestic WiFi hotspots to prevent theft of passwords and other information by sniffers on the local hotspot but it must be remembered that this still only protects communication between the user's computer or phone and WiFi access point. Traffic flowing on the wired network across the various hops and interconnection points that make up the internet to get to websites such as Google is typically unencrypted. The solution is for web site operators to deploy technologies like SSL to provide end to end encryption from the consumer all the way back to their site. It's good to see that https (aka SSL), is now gradually replacing http, even for free services like Google search.

More Bandwidth!

24 Oct 2011

Rick Aspan writes: Use the word “bandwidth” around CommScope folks, and you’re sure to see grins appear.  Bandwidth is our specialty, it’s what we enable and we have a pretty impressive record at supporting our customers in addressing the ever-growing need for it.

Six golden rules for secure authentication

17 Oct 2011

Alan Davies,Vice President of ActivIdentity EMEA writes: 

There are thousands and thousands of passwords written down on yellow post-it notes stuck to computer monitors. This is a nightmare for any security administrator whose job is to protect valuable data. Against a background of growing risks, access to networks must be protected using multi-layered security measures. Experts at ActivIdentity£part of HID Global, one of the world’s leading providers of identity assurance products and services, have put together six requirements for ensuring secure access to corporate networks.

JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform (ESB) and JBoss Enterprise BRMS Help Build the Intelligent, Integrated Mortgage Business

13 Oct 2011

Pierre Fricke, product line management director, JBoss middleware group, Red Hat, writes:

One of the most notable boom/bust cycles has been playing out over the last decade. Expected to take the next 10 years, the real estate boom and bust offers lessons and opportunities for financial services and most any industry with respect to business processes, due diligence, intelligence about customers and partners, and IT automation.

Optimising Datacentre operations through application performance management

10 Oct 2011

Kevin Gunner, Senior Consultant at C&C Technology Consulting writes: As companies work through mergers or divestments, this often leads to datacentres being consolidated. Adopting an application or service-centric led strategy is key to successful consolidation programmes.

Need Help Justifying That Infrastructure Upgrade?

06 Oct 2011

James Donovan writes: I often get asked by customers, partners and fellow employees: ‘How do we justify the expense of an infrastructure to the powers that be who control the purse strings?’

Apple iPhone4s - Comment from Ciena

05 Oct 2011

Mervyn Kelly, EMEA marketing director at Ciena writes: 

The launch of the iPhone 4S is great news for consumers and Apple lovers and brings the promise of an enhanced customer experience and exciting new video applications. As usual, the early reviews highlight the device’s superior capabilities and features and overlook an important aspect: the impact of the iPhone 4S on the network. Consumers’ hunger for bandwidth continues to grow as mobile HD video, social networking and other robust applications are becoming part of a new life style – and that is exactly the market Apple’s new device was designed to address. The recent launch of Amazon’s Kindle Fire plays to a similar market, another in a long line of devices that have the potential to radically alter the way in which digital content is consumed.

Insuring Against Business Failure

04 Oct 2011

Marcie Terman, Business Development Director at DataFort writes: 

How much is ‘business as usual’ worth to an organisation? 

These days it usually means communicating with your customers and suppliers. Easy really. All you need are your email systems and data servers and you are operational.

Channeling Mr. Spock – And Sector

30 Sep 2011

Philip Sorrells writes:Oh the wonder of a long weekend!  You may not be a Trekkie but this geek loves to get his Spock on and, over a recent weekend, enjoyed back-to-back to back Star Trek episodes on cable TV.

Gold Stars, for Mimecast’s Unified approach to Email Management

19 Sep 2011

Today is a brilliant day for us at Mimecast writes Justin Pirie...

We’ve been awarded a four star gold review by one of the worlds largest Exchange communities: MSExchange.org! The highest possible rating. I can’t express how excited we are here at Mimecast to have this well respected blog and community praise our service like this because these accolades don’t come every day and I wanted to explain in more detail why it matters so much.

Morto Post Mortem: Dissecting a Worm

08 Sep 2011

Imperva's Tomer Bitton writes: Morto has been in the headlines, for good reason.  This worm is unique as it exploits Microsoft's remote desktop protocol (RDP).  It doesn’t exploit any specific vulnerability, it simply relies on people installing the worm and then it uses a brute force password attack to gain access to systems. It is the first time we’ve seen something like this.  The malware itself is sophisticated even if the method of proliferation isn't.

Postgres Enterprise Manager; I love it when a plan comes together

26 Aug 2011

Dave Page writes: After 9 months of heads-down work, I’m glad to finally be able to talk about the project I and a number of colleagues here at EnterpriseDB have been working on… Introducing Postgres Enterprise Manager!

IT Pet Peeves: Email

16 Aug 2011

Orlando Scott-Cowley from Mimecast writes:Email has evolved to be one of the most important and relied upon forms of communication and collaboration within the workplace. Unfortunately, the second email goes down, employees are often quick to either blame IT or jump to another email service during the downtime.

Cutting the (Computer) Cord—A Smart(phone) Thing to Do?

09 Aug 2011

Rick Aspen writes: New research from Pew Internet & American Life Project highlights the incredible rate at which consumers are adopting smartphones—and no longer using personal computers.

The Eerie Quiet of your Junk Folder

08 Aug 2011

Spam volumes on the Internet are down on this time last year. Great news, we can all relax and stop worrying about our Junk or Quarantine folders or that missing million dollar order that might he hiding therein.

Everyone Says "Scale Out," But What's the Difference?

29 Jul 2011

Peter Fuller writes:I was in London last week talking with a major distributor of Scale Computing products and several industry analysts. The definition of what “Scale-out” really means to the marketplace surfaced several times.

Imperva CTOs perspective on the Oracle CPU

22 Jul 2011

Amichai Shulman, CTO at Imperva writes: “The July 2011 Oracle vulnerability announcement contains fixes for 78 vulnerabilities in total, 16 of which are in the database server product.  

Security and Trust in a “cloudy” world

15 Jul 2011

Joseph Sulistyo, Senior Product Manager at Brocade, writes: Do you find any difference between “Security” and “Trust” for your business critical information?

Ordinarily one would argue that security is the “key” method or system that needs the most attention to ensure the highest level of confidentiality and integrity to your information from unauthorised access, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction. Access control and a cryptography method like encryption become essential for providing the highest level of protection to data or information.

Pop Quiz—Wired, Wireless or Both?

01 Jul 2011

Jim Hulsey writes: I took a pop quiz from Cisco. It contained 10 simple questions to help me determine how I should network my office – wired, wireless or both. My quiz result was “both”—wired with a few wireless access points for visitors. While this quiz is helpful and entertaining, those taking the quiz should also be given one more option—the choice of “in-building wireless.”

Your Best Asset Is Your Enterprise Asset Tracking System

20 Jun 2011

Shawn Mitchell writes: If you’ve ever tracked a growing number of assets with a spreadsheet, you’re familiar with the chaos. Efficient business operation and gaining a competitive advantage are both hindered when your asset tracking is out of control. As assets become more involved with an organization’s processes, the impact of misplaced assets or off-track locations becomes more severe.

SpyEye Trojan Targets Airline Website that Accepts Bank Debit Card Payments

17 Jun 2011

Amit Klein writes: We have uncovered a SpyEye configuration that targets users of two leading European airline travel Web sites:  Air Berlin, the second largest airline in Germany (after Lufthansa) and AirPlus, the global provider of business travel services for companies. SpyEye exploits the user’s machine, not the websites, to carry out this fraud.

Response quote from security intelligence specialist Q1 Labs to the denial of service attacks by Hacker group Lulz Security on the websites of CIA and US Senate.

16 Jun 2011

“In light of the weeks denial of service attack on the websites belonging to the CIA and the US Senate, UK public sector organisations are reminded of the critical importance of guarding their online perimeter,” said Tom Turner, senior vice president of marketing and channels for Q1 Labs.

What should IT do in the wake of the RSA systems hack?

14 Jun 2011

SecurEnvoy co-founder Steve Watts discusses the fall-out from the RSA systems hack in March and offers some words of advice on how best to handle the consequences...

The high-profile hack of EMC's RSA division, which resulted in questions being raised about the security of the SecurID hardware authentication system, and the eventual replacement of some 40 million tokens - a process that started in June and is likely to continue for some months - is a game changer on several levels.

The Case of the search engine poisoning

09 Jun 2011

Amichai Shulman writes: “Today, Imperva released a report on search engine poisoning.    Search Engine Poisoning attacks manipulate, or “poison”, search engines to display search results that contain references to malware-delivering websites. There are a multitude of methods to perform SEP: taking control of popular websites; using the search engines’ “sponsored” links to reference malicious sites; and injecting HTML code. Here’s a graphic explaining how it works:

Need Help Managing Offices In A Changing Environment?

25 May 2011

James Donovan writes: Probably the most certain feature of networks in the office is uncertainty. Although the acceleration of developments in networking is not set to decline, it is possible to prepare for future networking trends and their impact of businesses in general, and upon offices in particular.

Verizon weighs in on Visa’s Mobile Acceptance Best Practices

20 May 2011

David Tran and Jen Mack write: Verizon has reviewed Visa’s Mobile Acceptance Best Practices - and we want to add our voice in support of this important first step in addressing the rapidly evolving mobile payment landscape.

Don't Abandon Your Purpose-Built Network Solutions Just Yet...

20 May 2011

Karl Triebes writes: Imagine taking your car to the shop for major repairs and finding that the mechanic uses just one tool for everything, from changing a flat tire to replacing your transmission. He explains that he doesn't need all those expensive, special-purpose tools anymore now that he's found this one, All-Powerful Tool.

Being Open about Virtualization and Cloud Interoperability

04 May 2011

Byline: Dave Stevens, CTO and Ken Cheng, Vice President of Service Provider Products, Brocade

At Brocade Tech Day last year in New York, we described virtual machines, or VMs, as the “new atomic unit of work” in IT for both service provider and enterprise customers. This concept is based on the fact that VMs allow applications to be encapsulated and detached from the underlying infrastructure and are portable, combinable and manageable as separate entities. For this vision to be fulfilled, we believe that the IT industry needs to agree upon standards and interoperability mechanisms that facilitate the fluid movement of VMs between public and private cloud infrastructures, regardless of the technology or the provider.

Avoiding the rush hour: Application Performance Management is essential to IT Consolidation projects

03 May 2011

Nigel Pink writes: As a result of acquisitions multinational enterprises often have a plethora of different IT systems. Data centre and server consolidation simplifies complex IT infrastructure and reduces IT costs but increases complexity when delivering applications

Structured Network Infrastructure – Enabling Converged Technologies

19 Apr 2011

James Donovan writes: The converging of technology presents numerous challenges to managers of network infrastructures. No longer do managers only have to worry about voice and data; they must now be well versed in the installation and support of integrated voice, data, video and a variety of building management products. Industry trends moving toward IP-based networks will result in significant new demands on IT managers and their network infrastructures.

SaaS and the Channel- What is happening? Part #2

14 Apr 2011

Justin Pirie writes: In my first post Anders and I looked at how Cloud is changing the traditional IT supply chain and discussed some of the transformation that needs to take place.

At the heart of government

11 Apr 2011

Breda O'Shea writes: The cloud is making waves of that you can be sure. And you certainly know it is making an impact at every level of the economy when you are called to give evidence to Parliament on its impact and potential.

Protect Against Copper Theft With Aluminum Cables

01 Apr 2011

Mike Schaefer writes: Do an online search for “copper theft,” and you will find numerous stories about the daring and destructive theft of cell site RFcable lines, power cables and rooftop air conditioning coils. You’ll also see gruesome stories about desperate souls who have died or been seriously injured in their search for today’s “orange gold.” Copper theft is a $1 billion a year problem in America, and could be 10 times that amount globally. Our wireless customers are some of the hardest hit.

The Forecast is Cloudy with 100% Chance of Exploding Data

30 Mar 2011

Roger Klorese writes: When we look at cloud service providers, we see lots of different uses of the term, from innovators who are defining new paradigms of scalable, elastic, pay-as-you-go Software-, Infrastructure- and Platform-as-a-Service at the one end to legacy hosting and colocation providers who have glued some cotton balls on the outside of their racks and called them "clouds." (I like to think of them as "The Cloud" vs. "the cloud.") Whether fully or partly cloudy, though, one thing is certain: the greatest cost and the biggest obstacle to cost-effective elasticity is the biggest growth factor: the continuous and dramatic expansion of data, both structured and unstructured.

Seeing the Forest Through the Trees

23 Mar 2011

John Humphreys writes: Sometimes it really does pay to step back, breath deep and take in the landscape surrounding you. It's during those introspective moments that connections just seem to come a little easier.  My guess is we simply need to have the space to let pieces fall into place. I recently had that experience when I saw this. 

Is it Time for an Optical Reboot?

17 Mar 2011

Gareth Spence writes: After a busy few weeks of shows, briefings and meetings, I was able to spend some time over the weekend digesting what’s proven to be a whirlwind of new ideas, new technologies and ultimately new ways of networking. Throughout this time, I’ve had one phrase continually moving through my mind: optical reboot. Looking back, it’s clear that everything I’ve seen over the past few months has its genesis in this phrase. Indeed, I firmly believe that the first stage of this reboot is happening right now.

Assessing the Appalling Austin Enterprise Email Events

07 Mar 2011

Nathaniel Borenstein writes: Today’s news brings the announcement of a legal case that will test whether it is permissible, in Austin, Texas, for government officials to use private email to conduct public business.  None of us at Mimecast are authorities on Texas law, which will (properly) decide the case.  But we know a lot about the purposes, strengths, and weaknesses of enterprise email systems, and we’ve recently been studying the startlingly widespread use of personal email for company business.  Some of what we’ve found may be relevant to the Austin case.

Don't Abandon Your Purpose-Built Network Solutions Just Yet...

28 Feb 2011

Karl Triebes writes: Imagine taking your car to the shop for major repairs and finding that the mechanic uses just one tool for everything, from changing a flat tire to replacing your transmission. He explains that he doesn't need all those expensive, special-purpose tools anymore now that he's found this one, All-Powerful Tool.

Citrix Betting Big on Cloud App Delivery

23 Feb 2011

Bill Burley writes: This is an exciting time to be at Citrix, and at the intersection of the two hottest IT trends - desktop virtualization and cloud computing. In fact, we've seen our Citrix Service Provider (CSP) program grow exponentially over the last year, with more than 800 cloud providers certified to use Citrix technology to deliver apps and desktops from the cloud to tens of thousands of subscribers.

Why Is Email So Complicated? Part 562: People Lie About What They Want

21 Feb 2011

Nathaniel Borenstein writes: Email software is written by programmers, most of whom think of themselves as software engineers.  They approach their tasks, for the most part, with a highly rational set of techniques.  In the best of cases, this includes a careful analysis of user requirements, a specification of software functionality, and a decomposition of that functionality into a rational, modular architecture.  In short, programmers approach the business of building software as a rational and coherent task.

Why Is Email So Complicated? Part 562: People Lie About What They Want

21 Feb 2011

Nathaniel Borenstein writes: Email software is written by programmers, most of whom think of themselves as software engineers.  They approach their tasks, for the most part, with a highly rational set of techniques.  In the best of cases, this includes a careful analysis of user requirements, a specification of software functionality, and a decomposition of that functionality into a rational, modular architecture.  In short, programmers approach the business of building software as a rational and coherent task.

HP's Acquisition of Vertica: Comment by Ingres

17 Feb 2011

Ketan Karia, SVP of Marketing, Ingres writes: "With the acquisition of Vertica, HP joins the list of players such as SAP, IBM and EMC who have recently chosen to invest in DBMS. As Gartner recently noted (MQ for Data Warehouse & DMBS, January 2011), vendors have begun to establish their positions in preparation for a major battle over data warehouse DBMS market share. These strategic moves in the market are based on a simple observation- companies of all sizes are making significant investments in operational analytic solutions as well as operational and predictive Business Intelligence (BI), and the trend is expected to grow exponentially in the future. The impact of BI on enterprises is essential and the DBMS has become an important component of speed and performance in real-time analysis environments where complexity of data and increasing data volumes have to be taken into consideration.”

Is this the age of the Internet kill switch?

14 Feb 2011

Gareth Spence writes: Recent political upheaval in Tunisia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries has once again brought into sharp focus the role the Internet plays as a means of communication. Whether as a tool to report events to the outside world or as a weapon of government-sponsored propaganda, the Internet is now a critical element of any political action. Yet while some commentators are quick to claim the success of so-called ‘Twitter revolutions’ others are starting to question the Internet’s independence.

Security conferences: Why go?

27 Jan 2011

Bill Brenner writes: For the last couple years, the RSA security conference has been later than usual. In 2009 it was in mid April, which was fantastic.

Last year it was March. Not as good, but still better than mid-February, when San Francisco is usually rainy and cold -- and snowstorms foul up the travel schedule.

Bandwidth Usage for KX II HD 1080p Resolution?

24 Jan 2011

Richard Dominach writes: A customer recently asked how much bandwidth the Dominion KX II KVM-over-IP access uses, specifically for the full HD (1920×1080) resolution.  This is a common user question.  The answer is as follows.

The importance of thin provisioning in Data Protection

10 Jan 2011

Bobby Crouch writes: Thin Provisioning is a fairly well known concept in the storage marketplace; provisioning a logical volume larger than the physical capacity actually accessible by the application or server (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning ).  Most storage array vendors offer thin provisioning on some or all their systems.  Many charge a premium for this feature as the gains in efficiency, CapEx and TCO are obvious.

What was of most interest in storage economics in 2010?

10 Jan 2011

David Merril writes: I’m always interested in the trends in storage economics and in identifying them, take into account as many sources of information as possible, especially among our customers.  Sharing these trends with you on this blog is an important focus, so it’s interesting to consider what generated the most interest over the past year.

Mobile Users Three Times More Vulnerable to Phishing Attacks

04 Jan 2011

Mickey Boodaei, Trusteer CEO writes: We recently gained access to the log files of several web servers that were hosting phishing websites. Analyzing these log files was an interesting exercise. Specifically, they provided visibility into how many users accessed the websites, when they visited them, whether they submitted their login information and what devices they used to access the website.