►Ten Security Recommendations
for SMBs

 Small and mid-sized businesses can be the hardest hit by new malicious code, spam, and phishing. Disruptions and down time can be avoided, however, by following the measures outlined in this article.

Introduction

The security landscape is constantly changing, so the threats your business faces today are different from the threats of a year ago – or even six months ago. The latest Symantec Internet Security Threat Report gives an overview of threat activity for the first six months of 2007. Here are a few important trends noted in the Report:

• In the first half of 2007, 212,101 new malicious code threats were reported to Symantec. This is a 185 percent increase over the second half of 2006.

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By the time a man realizes that his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.

Charles Wadsworth
 

►Just for Laughs

Server consolidation and virtualization can increase computing and data center performance while reducing costs. But they also change the power and cooling profile of your data center and can introduce potentially crippling power and cooling challenges.

With consolidation and virtualization, computing is concentrated on fewer servers, so each unit becomes more critical, requiring higher levels of protection. Additionally, new high density servers require more power and generate more heat that must be removed to avoid server degradation and allow you to fully utilize rack space.

Adapting your power and cooling strategy for consolidation and virtualization can help you:

     1. Remove power and heat-density constraints to your project
     2. Put more high-performance servers in fewer racks
     3. Save precious data center space
     4. Utilize less energy

Here are eight steps you can take to ensure your infrastructure is ready for a virtualized environment.

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Most articles about virtualization discuss the technology in the context of "big" business. They are glowing about the potential for "data center consolidation" or "reduced system maintenance expenses." Or they rave about the prospects for a better disaster recovery plan, better security and extra flexibility for employees.

What about small business? The good news is if you are a small business owner, there are plenty of short- and long-term benefits from virtualization-and you don't need a big budget. (That makes virtualization attractive in a brutal economic climate.)

So what is virtualization? Quite simply, it is technology that explodes the traditional one-to-one relationship between computer hardware and the software that runs it. Virtualization software allows you to create two or more complete computing environments on a single piece of hardware. The proliferation of systems with multi-core microprocessors has made virtualization possible across a wide range of business applications.

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If you're serious about lowering business expenses and increasing efficiency, you may already be among the growing number of SMBs using Voice over IP (VoIP) technology to offset telecommunications expenses.

But did you know that by blending VoIP technology with your existing wireless LAN, you can make another leap in productivity -- through a new technology called wireless VoIP?

The idea may not be so strange.

In recent months, more and more businesses with 10- to 50-person networks are realizing Voice over Wi-Fi technology is within their grasp. By using it, these SMBs are leveraging the power of converged wireless communications to transport telephone traffic to and from mobile users.

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