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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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.