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As part of a defense-in-depth security solution for domain-controlled enterprise networks, a proposed self-healing system architecture is designed to increase resiliency against botnets with minimal disruption to network services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past decade, manufacturers have invested heavily in the use of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs). The results of these investments have been mixed, as some organizations have seen significant returns while others have experienced major problems in implementation. As yet, the returns and complementarities between AMT have not been determined. Using complementarity assumptions developed by Milgrom and Roberts [P. Milgrom and J. Roberts, "Rationalizability, learning, and equilibrium in games with strategic complementarities," Econometrica, vol. 58, no. 6, pp. 1255-1277, 1990.1, [P. Milgrom and J. Roberts, "Complementarities and fit - strategy, structure, and organizational-change in manufacturing," J. Accounting Economics, vol. 19, no. 2-3, pp. 179-208, 1995], combined with the Survey of Advanced Technology in Canadian Manufacturing (a comprehensive AMT survey), a model of manufacturing plant productivity was developed. Constrained regression analysis reveals that the effective use of AMT depends on the types of AMT used in combination and that analysis done with a high level of aggregation of either size classes or industries will result in ambiguous conclusions. Insight into the impact of complementarities on optimal AMT adoption strategies is provided through solution lattices for medium plants and the vehicle industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet and corporate Intranets have brought a lot of information. People usually resort to search engines to find required information. However, these systems tend to use only one fixed ranking strategy regardless of the contexts. This poses serious performance problems when characteristics of different users, queries, and text collections are taken into account. In this paper, we argue that the ranking strategy should be context specific and we propose a new systematic method that can automatically generate ranking strategies for different contexts based on Genetic Programming (GP). The new method was tested on TREC data and the results are very promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States that businesses must consider computer security when extending their office computer network environment to employees' homes. Assumptions and limitations of secure identity-based loading (SIBL); Techniques in securing the integrity of firmware; Information on Smart-card integration; Goals on integrating a workstation into a particular network environment; Other applications of SIBL.

The article discusses the importance of organization size in software engineering techniques. Small and large organizations have the same objective in software development but there is a great difference between the path to optimal developmental results of both organizations. Software development is a team sport especially in larger teams where coordinating communication among team members is critical to success. Team motivation should also be considered in the software process. Techniques as well as processes should be tailored to the needs of an organization. Moreover, organization size is the most important factor in determining the most suitable software engineering techniques. INSET: Wolfgang Responds.

The article focuses on the software engineering techniques used on both small and large organization. The relationship between software product's characteristics and business goal is important component of software development. Both organizations might successfully use the same software processes when they require products with the same characteristics in order to succeed. They will also benefit from the processes that support their goals when they have the same goals for development project. The function of the business characteristics that drives the product development of a software is through the right process. INSET: Larry Responds.

Today?s businesses and consumer applications are becoming increasingly dependent on cloud solutions, making them vulnerable to service outages that can result in a loss of communication or access to business-critical services and data. Are we really prepared for such failure scenarios? Given that failures can occur on both the network and data center sides, is it possible to have efficient end-to-end recovery? The answer is mostly negative due to the separate operation of these domains. This article offers a solution to this problem based on network virtualization, and discusses the necessary architecture and algorithm details. It also answers the question of whether it is better to provide resilience in the virtual or physical layer from a cost effectiveness and failure coverage perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tremendous effort and resources go into achieving enterprise agility. Business processes are the primary entity concerned with these efforts and resources because they constitute the know-how of any enterprise. Processes can be structured or unstructured; the former are well formed, often repetitive, and call for intense coordination among stakeholders. The latter are loosely defined and call for stakeholders' personal experiences and social interactions. Here, the authors demystify the social interactions on which network-based business processes are developed, structure them for better tracking, and analyze the value they add to enterprise operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hybrid of node degree and k-shell index is more effective at identifying influential spreaders and has less computational overhead than either of these traditional measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the cyberdefense mechanism used to secure the electronic data and computerized information systems in cyberspace of business enterprises. It mentions the major elements of cyberdefense that constitutes like a fortress such as an observation tower, fortified walls, and gates which respectively monitors any incoming threats, guide the servers, and manipulates the access protected by fortified walls. Moreover, it mentions several actions to be taken in assuring the development of a comprehensive security program which include vulnerability management, business continuity planning (BPC), and security awareness training.

ICANN recently announced an "open season" on top-level domains, to start some time in 2009. This will dramatically expand the namespace for Internet domain names and will allow cities, industries, and companies to register specific top-level domains for themselves. What effect will this have on the companies involved and on Internet users? In this column, the author explores that question and gives his opinion on the answer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterprises typically operate multiple data center sites, each handling workloads according to an enterprise-level strategy. Sharing resources across multiple sites (or enterprises) brings up several important problems. Each site may have its own policies that govern its interactions with other remote sites. Different policies impact the system performance in different ways, and site administrators and system designers need to understand the effects of a given set of policies on potential workloads. In this paper, we describe an analysis methodology that determines the impact of policies on workloads, and we present results and validation for a prototypical multisite resource sharing system. Our analytical tool is capable of evaluating complex policies on a large-scale system and permits independent policies for each site so that policy makers can quickly evaluate several alternatives and their effects on the workloads before deploying them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses recent developments in mobile technology. Some of the devices discussed include installed Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors for satellite navigation and Geographical Information Systems through satellite imaging for additional navigation. The article explains how satellites translate information from the Mediascape program into digital technology, the mobile Bristol project, and how Mediascape authoring tools can help those at work and those who manage a business.

Service level agreements are at the core of the business relationship between service providers and their customers. Service level monitoring is necessary to validate and ensure that service levels are indeed adhered to. One key tool for this is threshold crossing alerts. TCAs can notify a service provider that a certain parameter has exceeded a certain threshold value, directing attention to those areas where preventive action needs to be taken. This article presents a protocol and an architecture that implements a new category of TCAs for parameters that need to be aggregated across a network, as opposed to parameters that can be observed from a single device; for example, ‘average utilization across all links in a network’ as opposed to ‘utilization of a particular link.’ Although highly useful, such parameters are rarely subjected to SLAs today, due to the lack of effective monitoring technology. Our system fills this gap. It does so in a manner that is decentralized inside the network and does not rely on a more traditional centralized management architecture. We focus on business application aspects, as well as the robustness and accuracy properties of our system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on service discovery in pervasive computing environments. Pervasive computing environments are far more dynamic and heterogeneous than enterprise environments. Enterprise network services operate within a network scope protected by firewalls and managed by system administrators. In this regard, pervasive service directory in an office environment might target an enterprise computing service, but it might also target a service that does not belong to the enterprise domain, for instance, a colleague's personal service.

A fundamental shortcoming in efforts to get more value from corporate intranets is the lack of comprehensive and credible means for measuring the ability of portals to meet employee and other audience demands. Designing better software for intranet portals and effectively measuring portal performance requires linking value to critical business requirements with the proper balance of metrics that can help corporations derive more meaningful return-on-investment estimates. The intranet efficiency and effectiveness model is a theoretical model for viewing and measuring intranet activity while accounting for the overall business requirements of corporations. It provides a needed framework for the "family of measures" approach by graphically depicting multiple indicators that derive the unique contributions of information technology at the process level. INSETS: Requisites for Portal Design.;Metric Types..

Many experts predict that software-defined networking, a technology that's been highly touted for several years, will soon finally begin gaining ground in the marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For enterprise datacenter operators who want to continue in-house operations, the future depends on documenting costs and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses predictions on the impact of internet on business enterprises by 2020. It projects that the internet, along with mobile and cloud computing, will continue to alter how the business is carried on. It forecasts that micro-multinational companies such as Nokia Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and Apple Inc. will continue to rise as well as tacit knowledge on jobs. It indicates that there will be more creation networks, similar to Linux, Wikipedia, and Firefox.

The article discusses the steps involve in effective patch management. Software vendors must establish timely and practical alerts to avoid making things complicated and to prevent wasting of time. It is also important for the organization to maintain a solid relationship with key information technology (IT) vendors to facilitate the timely release and distribution of information on product security issues and patches. Other steps involve in effective patch management include downloading patches and documentation, assessing and prioritizing vulnerabilities and testing of the patches. Deploying patches and systematic audit and assessment are also important for patch management efforts.

Presents a study that analyzed Internet usage among industries. Layers in which the dispersion of Internet use was analyzed; Measurement of investment in and adoption of Internet technology for enhancing sophisticated business computing processes; Commitment to Internet-based projects.

Reports that the business enterprises' increasing use of the Internet will drive the rise the in number of computers connected to the network between 1997 and 2001, according to a study by Dataquest. Growth projections for the Internet software and service market for 1997 and 2001.

Presents information on the Enterprise Networking Committee (ENC). Information on enterprise networking and enterprises; Discussion on various aspects relevant to the ENC; Computer solutions of interest to the ENC.

The article focuses on the role of information technology (IT) professionals to the company and to the community. IT professionals must make the customer feel enjoyable through listening and addressing their needs for the success of the business. Customers do not care about how IT professionals solve their problems, but on the delivery of a solution that will be helpful to their business to better support its clients. It also discusses IT complexities, which could be addressed by creating a business intelligence team.

The article reports on the result of a research conducted by the IT Governance Limited which suggests that only 12 percent of businesses take technology seriously enough to operate their information technology (IT) resources. The boards still appear to be lagging behind in their execution of appropriate IT governance measure despite of the increasing compliance pressures from the U.S. Sanbanes-Oxley Act and U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. A survey was conducted to know the number of companies with IT governance wherein 57 percent said that directors and officers did not understand the business implications of deferring maintenance while 37 percent said that the frameworks of IT governance were integrated with the enterprise risk management regime of the company.

The author reflects on the significance of enterprise search systems, a service-oriented architecture built on the indexing core. The core will be complemented by federated services of crawling and querying techniques to operate on the list of documents output. He emphasized that the enterprise should require more than crawlers that simply index static Web pages and need to send out sophisticated queries which extracts information from dynamic Web sites.

The advent of emerging computing technologies such as service-oriented architecture and cloud computing has enabled us to perform business services more efficiently and effectively. However, we still suffer from unintended security leakages by unauthorized actions in business services. Firewalls are the most widely deployed security mechanism to ensure the security of private networks in most businesses and institutions. The effectiveness of security protection provided by a firewall mainly depends on the quality of policy configured in the firewall. Unfortunately, designing and managing firewall policies are often error prone due to the complex nature of firewall configurations as well as the lack of systematic analysis mechanisms and tools. In this paper, we represent an innovative policy anomaly management framework for firewalls, adopting a rule-based segmentation technique to identify policy anomalies and derive effective anomaly resolutions. In particular, we articulate a grid-based representation technique, providing an intuitive cognitive sense about policy anomaly. We also discuss a proof-of-concept implementation of a visualization-based firewall policy analysis tool called Firewall Anomaly Management Environment (FAME). In addition, we demonstrate how efficiently our approach can discover and resolve anomalies in firewall policies through rigorous experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations trying to leverage the social computing phenomenon in their enterprises must motivate knowledge workers to contribute and share knowledge. A new framework for designing interfaces helps determine which features will motivate users to contribute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in social computing can help firms enhance and leverage internal capabilities, such as knowledge work and collaboration, and seamlessly integrate the vast information resources available on the Internet. Many firms, however, are still developing the practices that will enable them to leverage social networking in the enterprise. The articles in this special issue speak to this need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For IT professionals, 2011 brings new challenges. The growing importance of green computing, the increase of context-aware applications, the intensity of cyberattacks, the proliferation of social networking and collaboration, the promise of next-generation Web technology, and the expansion of cloud computing will continue to have significant impacts on our profession. Learn how IT Professional will help you stay on top of these issues and many more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Findings from 13 case studies on RFID's use in green projects reveal its potential not only to enhance environmental sustainability but also to reduce costs and generate revenue by creating new commercial opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A consortium of leading organizations from industry, the nonprofit sector, and academia has developed and tested a framework for systematically assessing and improving sustainable information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New opportunities exist for the IT industry and emerging markets to embrace each other. Consequently, IT Professional is introducing a new "IT in Emerging Markets" department. To trigger an ongoing discussion, this inaugural installment examines the importance of emerging markets, IT's role in their growth, and the related challenges that IT professionals will face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most organizations have an extensive set of security requirements, established for commercial firms through complex interactions of business goals, government regulations, and insurance requirements. Meeting these requirements has been time consuming and error prone, because there haven't been standardized, automated ways of performing all of the tasks and reporting on results. Another obstacle has been the lack of interoperability across security tools. To overcome these deficiencies and reduce security administration costs, the National Institute of Standards and Technology developed the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An investigation of green IT in 14 Danish companies identifies three strategies: storefront focuses on external presentation, tuning involves simple changes for improved efficiency, and redesign reinvents the company to leverage green IT's potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business processes in today's enterprises are dynamic, flexible, and sometimes ad hoc. The enterprise often uses not only process management systems but also various tools, resources, and services to support process execution. Process spaces can provide a new abstraction for process management in such scenarios. Process-space management systems can enable definition, analysis, and management of process spaces over distributed process artifacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the book "Virtual Enterprise Integration: Technological and Organizational Perspectives," by Goran Putnik and Maria Manuela Cunha, which addresses the emergent research and development issues for virtual enterprise. It is a guide to a broader perspective of virtual-enterprise integration requirements. It also explores how systems integration can serve the needs of an expanding and increasingly competitive organizational model. The authors believe that systems integration is the important success factor in creation, reconfiguration and operation of a virtual enterprise because it is a network of partners that use heterogeneous resources.

The article reports on the DCI's Portals, Collaboration and Content Management Conference to be held on November 15-17, 2005 in Miami, Florida. The event will show attendees how to use a portal to leverage information and improve business operations and process efficiency. Sessions will range from an introduction to portals, to half-day seminars on portal implementation and deployment. User case studies and sessions on exploiting portals in business processes will help provide an understanding of how portals can improve businesses by increasing revenues and decreasing costs.