Our physical test environment consisted of six Fast Ethernet subnet domains connected via Cisco Systems Inc. and Ascend Communications Inc. routers. We used two custom-built vertical market applications plus miscellaneous office productivity, e-mail, Web server and database query tasks as a framework for finding the best performance monitoring tool. The two custom-built applications consisted of a two-tier Visual Basic automobile insurance rating package and a three-tier Web-based search engine process for querying a financial database.
Qualcomm Inc. this week said 3Com Corp. will bundle the wireless technology firm's Eudora e-mail program on CDs with 3Com's U.S. Robotics modems. The U.S. Robotics' logo will be displayed in the Eudora user interface. Qualcomm has seen more than one million downloads of this newest version of Eudora since it was commercially released in mid-February.
U.S. and Japanese government trade officials reached an agreement last week on telecommunications interconnection rates, capping four years of talks. The rate cuts, which will be applied retroactively from April 1, 2000, stand to benefit competitive carriers by at least US$2 billion in the next two years, trade representatives say. The deal specifies two sets of reductions in interconnection rates, which are charges that Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) levies on other carriers for use of its lines to reach business and domestic consumers. For carriers that connect to NTT at the regional level, which includes a majority of non-Japanese telecom companies, the two sides agreed on a 50 percent rate reduction over the next two years, with a further reduction of at least 16 percent in the third year.
We installed the Novell Inc. Modular Authentication Services (NMAS) software on a network consisting of a NetWare 5.1 server running on a Compaq Computer Corp. Proliant 5500R with dual 550-MHz Xeon processors and 512M bytes of memory. The server had one 9G-byte disk with a single SYS volume and second 9G-byte disk split into four volumes.
Quantum Corp. / ATL Products Inc. has announced a hardware/software product, the Prism LP130 Storage Consolidation Option, that makes it possible to logically carve up the company's tape libraries and share them among heterogeneous Unix, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and mainframe servers. The Prism LP130 lets each tape library be divided into 16 virtual partitions. Each virtual partition can be managed by a different storage management application, such as Veritas Software Corp.'s NetBackup. The Prism LP130 works with the Quantum/ ATL P3000 or P6000 Prism Management Card and contains a browser-based management tool. It is available starting at $13,000.
Bill Gates is sinking another $100 million into his cherished Internet-in-the-sky venture, helping restore confidence in the next-generation satellite business. The software mogul last week joined several international venture capitalists in providing a total of $1 billion of new equity in ICO-Teledesic Global Ltd., the holding company for the satellite ventures of wireless pioneer Craig McCaw. The holding company controls the successor to ICO Global Communications Ltd., a satellite voice and third-generation wireless company that emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. It also controls Teledesic, a broadband IP satellite data network that Gates helped found in 1994 and is projected to begin service in 2004. The satellite business has been seeking a jolt of confidence since global calling and paging pioneer Iridium failed last year.
Lane departs Oracle unceremoniously
The fledgling management service provider (MSP) vendor community has formed the MSP Association to define and promote what its members do: offer outsourced management services to customers on a subscription basis. The group initially includes 19 companies, such as startups SilverBack and InteQ, as well as companies that sell to MSPs, such as Hewlett-Packard Co. Although the industry is still in its infancy, consultancy International Data Corp. in Framingham, Massachusetts, estimates revenue could reach US$78 million this year and grow to $524 million by 2004. In the next few weeks, the association will hold its first meeting and elect officers, as well as set priorities and form working committees.
Forget about Bell Atlantic Corp. And GTE Corp., too. The two have officially merged, and the new entity is Verizon Communications (pronounced like horizon). The merger gives the company one of the richest local exchange markets in the world and a nationwide long-distance network, a combination that sets it up to be one of the super-carriers that will emerge from the current telecommunications competitive turmoil.
Brocade Communications Systems Inc. this week introduced several enhancements to its switch operating system that will let administrators monitor their Fibre Channel switches and improve communications of their storage-area networks (SAN). Fabric Watch, an optional component of Fabric OS, lets a storage administrator monitor the health of the Fibre Channel SAN. Fabric OS is the operating system for Brocade SilkWorm switches. The package lets customers set thresholds for out-of-the-ordinary events and gather information on the error rates of data passed between two switches. Fabric Watch will work with Computer Associates International Inc.'s' Unicenter TNG, Tivoli Systems Inc.'s Management Environment and Hewlett-Packard's OpenView via SNMP alerts. Fabric Watch will be available this month for $1,000 per SilkWorm switch.
Our testbed comprised 10 clients each with minimum configuration of two Pentium II processors running at 400 MHz, and 128M bytes of RAM. The largest client machine had four 400-MHz Pentium III processors and 1G byte of RAM. Each client had one 100M bits/sec Ethernet network interface card for connection to the Fast Ethernet test network. The eight-way server we used for testing was a Dell Computer Corp. PowerEdge 8450 model with eight, 550-MHz Pentium III Xeon processors with 512K bytes of Layer 2 cache and 2G bytes of RAM. The server was connected to a PowerVault RAID array enclosure that housed eight hot swappable 9.1G byte 10K rpm Ultra2 SCSI hard drives. The server had room for two hard drives, and we used one drive for Windows NT and the other for Windows 2000.
Novell Inc. this week revised its network operating system, messaging and Internet connectivity software for small businesses. Novell Small Business Suite, in Version 5.1, now includes firewall services, the ability to bridge to other versions of NetWare and free installation support. It includes NetWare 5.1, GroupWise 5.1 and firewall services. The product used to only include proxy caching services. The package supports up to 50 concurrent users per tree over multiple servers. It's designed for firms with less than 50 network users.
Union leader blasts AT&T
Lucent Technologies Inc.'s Microelectronics Group has acquired Hermann Technology, a Dallas supplier of specialized components for dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical networks. Founded in 1994, Hermann makes passive thin-film filters for DWDM systems, which Lucent hopes will help it kick up the throughput of its own optical-network components manufacturing. The price of the transaction was US$438 million in Lucent stock. Hermann's approximately 65 employees are expected to remain in Dallas.
Industria, Vuent in procurement tie-up