Brian Fonseca

When building an IT environment for a large casino and hotel that weaves together traditional mainframe applications with forward-looking Web-based software, rolling the dice on critical database decisions isn’t a wise gamble. Despite the dependence of many casino-oriented applications on IBM infrastructure and “green screen” technology, casinos such as the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa […]

EMC Corp. and Dell Inc. joined forces during a Webcast in London on Wednesday to introduce the AX100, an entry-level SAN (storage area network) device targeting small and midsize businesses and remote office customers at a cost of less than $10,000. Slightly bigger than a traditional VCR, the 2U AX100 array starts at $4,995 for […]

Microsoft and several leading storage hardware vendors are planning advancements for the company’s Windows Storage Server, all in the name of helping small and midsize businesses (SMBs) buttress their infrastructures. Microsoft Corp. is planning to release next week at the Microsoft Tech Ed conference in San Diego the first feature pack for Windows Storage Server, […]

EMC is diving deeper into the elusive, Windows-dominated small and midsize business depths with a lower-end alternative for its entry-level network-attached storage gateway NetWin family. The storage titan on Thursday unveiled the NetWin 110, which is scheduled to ship in early June for $6,100. The Microsoft Windows Storage Server-based NetWin 110 provides SMBs with a […]

IBM is aiming to help customers bridge a major storage interoperability chasm by announcing Friday that its TotalStorage SAN Volume Controller v.1.2 will support and manage bitter rival EMC Corp.’s Symmetrix and CLARiiON hardware storage arrays, as well as Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Corp.’s Lightning disk-based offerings. Available April 30, TotalStorage SAN Volume Controller v.1.2 […]

An investigative report issued this week by the U.S. and Canadian governments surrounding the worst power failure in U.S. history is shedding light on the importance of business-continuity planning through findings that the electric-system catastrophe could have been prevented. The U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force placed much of the blame for the Aug. 14-15 […]

Oracle Corp. and Dell Inc. are deepening their technology relationship to take better advantage of a small and midsize business (SMB) audience ripe with new sales opportunities as well as to catapult the proliferation of grid computing to new heights. Larry Ellison, CEO of Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle, and Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of […]

IBM Corp. has issued a patch for a DB2 database vulnerability that, left undetected, could let an intruder compromise administration privileges for DB2 8.1 Enterprise Edition on Microsoft Windows. To exploit the DB2 flaw, all that is required by a perpetrator is a user ID and password. Through a guest account, an attacker could run […]

As IT budget spending on disk and SAN storage systems rises back to prominence, customers are sounding the call for better storage infrastructure optimization and manageability within mixed-vendor environments. To help simplify the complexity of numerous moving parts, IBM on Tuesday unveiled the IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center. Available in May, Productivity Center is a modular […]

Increased regulatory oversight that mandates better corporate control of data at the heart of enterprises is forcing some CIOs and IT managers to take a hard look at the consequences of leaving in place systems with inadequate data retention and disaster recovery capabilities. To help ease that burden, vendors such as IBM and Permabit Inc. […]

In an effort to improve data protection and consolidation across organizations’ multiple branch sites, Microsoft Corp. joined EMC Corp. and its Legato software division on Thursday to unveil an integrated offering backed by a series of new educational seminars. The new business continuity solution being launched features Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC’s NetWin 200 using the company’s […]

IBM hopes to gain the trust of ISVs and clear a path for their embrace of its technologies through a troika of new application development and integration tools, vertical-specific offerings, and an expanded partner ecosystem. The company plans to unveil these initiatives at its PartnerWorld conference in Las Vegas this week. If it can sell […]