Patch management for dummies: A practical guide

Patch Management for Dummies: A Practical Guide Timely patching of an organization's information technology systems is critical to maintaining the operational availability, confidentiality, and integrity of information assets. Failure to keep operating system and application software patched increases the potential risk of serious financial, legal and reputation losses due to information compromise. For an organization to succeed at effectively managing its system patching, executive management must initiate and support an organization-wide Security Vulnerability and Patch Management Program. How to Measure -- and Improve -- Data Center Efficiency The efficiency of any device or system is the fraction of its input (electricity, fuel, whatever makes it "go") that is converted to the desired useful result. Anything other than the useful result is considered to be "waste". This fraction of "useful out" to "total in" is usually expressed as a percent. For data center physical infrastructure, the input is electricity, and the useful output is power for the computing environment. This paper presents a view of data center efficiency that will allow IT managers to properly optimize their data centers for the highest available electrical efficiency. What is the Role of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008? Why such great interest in virtualization? Server consolidation brought about through virtualization can greatly reduce the number of physical servers that an IT department must support. Virtualization also enables easier application deployment and management. And server consolidation saves organizations 25 percent to 45 percent in utility costs alone. Windows Server 2008 includes built-in virtualization technology to help organizations better manage IT resources. In particular, Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V provides a hypervisor-based platform that enables companies to leverage centralized management, clustering, and enhanced security. Removing the Human Data Leak: Are Passwords Making Employees Steal? Information is one of a company's strategic resources. The company owns valuable proprietary processes, sensitive customer information, private vendor lists, and strategic goals that have great value -- and may be attractive targets for competitors or thieves. Most insiders seeking to do harm don't use their own username and password to gain access to company resources. They either compromise an account or use another employees account or a shared account. This is the real challenge: passwords are required to maintain security, but a strong password policy often results in a less secure environment. Time-Saving Solutions to Remove Infrastructure Cost & Complexity Before, business leaders looked for new technology online, or they heard about new solutions through conversation with their peers or via advertising. Then they had to wade through stacks of CDs, manuals, patches and wires in order to set up and install new technology. But today, IBM Smart Business provides a new way to evaluate, implement and support applications -- dramatically simplifying the adoption and management of business applications, while helping to remove the burden of technology. As a result, you have time to focus on growing your business, rather than managing your IT. How New Business Goals are Changing the Application Lifecycle A new generation of applications and architectures has changed the rules for IT -- again. Composite applications and service-oriented architecture (SOA) are catalysts for a massive application refresh movement -- and IT is under pressure to ensure that quality keeps pace with rapid changes in technology. All of this has created a need to re-think traditional application quality management practices and establish new disciplines addressing the application lifecycle. Not just the traditional software development lifecycle (SDLC) phases, but the entire lifecycle. eNewsletter Information: You are receiving this e-mail because you are a loyal subscriber to the Web Buyer's Guide White Paper Spotlight with the e-mail address ignoble.experiment@arconati.us. If you no longer wish to receive Web Buyer's Guide White Paper Spotlight, unsubscribe here. Copyright © 2009 Ziff Davis Enterprise. All Rights Reserved. Ziff Davis Enterprise, 28 East 28th Street, New York, NY 10016 Privacy Policy