Features

Review: Add Some Fiberlink to Your VPN Diet By Mike Fratto If managing your users' VPN access is draining resources, consider outsourcing. We issued a 1,000-user RFP to top-tier VPN providers and found that premium service doesn't necessarily mean a high price tag.

Online Only: Our Original VPN ASP Request for Proposal<

Online Only: Full RFP Responses from AT&T, Aventail, Fiberlink Communications, and OpenReach

Employee Provisioning By Lori MacVittie Provisioning new hires, deprovisioning departing employees and managing everyone's access and passwords while they're onboard can suck up a tremendous amount of time and money. Luckily, today's EUAs (enterprise user administration solutions) can centrally manage workers' access to resources and ensure that employee data is entered in the right systems at the right times.

Online Only: Does HIPAA Affect Me? The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is aimed primarily at health-care providers and clearinghouses. But there are privacy and security rules that have been implemented in accordance with HIPAA that affect many more organizations than is commonly expected.

RFI: Employee Provisioning Software -- eProvision Has All the Right Moves By Lori MacVittie In response to our RFI, four vendors brought samples of their EUA software into our labs for hands-on testing. Top honors went to Business Layers' eProvision thanks to its flexibility and password self-service.

Online Only: Full Responses to RFI Read the four vendors' responses to our comprehensive questionnaire about providing a complete employee provisioning solution for our fictitious retail store, Stuff4U, an 80-unit chain with 5,000 employees.

Workshops

Workshop: Shining Light on Optical Networking By Darrin Woods With demand for network bandwidth exploding and 10-Gigabit Ethernet going all fiber all the time, the future of optical networking looks bright. If you need stellar knowledge, check out this primer.

Online Only: Interactive Buyers Guide: ATM Access Concentrators What kind of video support are you looking for in an ATM access concentrator? Our guide breaks down the product features from top vendors to help you decide which one is best for you.

Sneak Previews

Forum Sentry Stands Guard Over SML Transactions Via Hardware Cryptography By Lori MacVittie Want better performance when you're digitally signing and encrypting XML documents? Forget the software approach; Forum Sentry performs hardware-based cryptographic acceleration to ensure purchase orders aren't compromised in transit.

A Paragon of Security, Raritan's System Provides Remote Access From a Tiny Place By Ron Anderson We tested Raritan's Paragon UMT1664 Cat 5 UTP cable-based matrix switching unit and TeleReach Web interface for remote access. The result? These products were a cut above the competition for slow but secure Web access to any system connected to our UMT1664.

ForeScout ActiveScout Finds and Neutralizes IP Attacks By Mike Fratto ForeScout Technologies' ActiveScout Enterprise software provides a layer of protection by dynamically monitoring and blocking attackers as they attempt to penetrate your network.

Departments

Letters "The real reason you can't justify VoIP isn't necessarily the cost, but quality." --Jay C. Carter, Washington State Employees Credit Union

Centerfold: Tyco Thermal Uses a Quick Fix to Give Remote Access By Kelly Jackson Higgins Tyco Thermal gets its traveling employees and remote offices onto the network -- fast -- with a remote-access appliance that makes corporate data available using only a Web browser.

Quick Takes We take a look at these top products: * Watchfire's WebQA * Blue Pumpkin Software's Activity Manager, Advisor and strategic consulting service * Resonate Central Dispatch's LAN-based traffic-management software

Columns

The Inside Story: Warning: Spoilers Ahead! By Mike Lee "The Hollywood movie-makers may not get it, but poor employee provisioning can be a comedy of errors."

BuzzCut: WorldCom Word to the Wise By Peter Morrissey You, and other customers who are locked into contracts with WorldCom, have some breathing room to consider your options. VPN, for example, might not be a bad backup for some of your WorldCom WAN connections.

Air Time: Obstacles Abound for Mobile Wireless Data By Dave Molta The wireless data market can't sustain six profitable players, so look for consolidation among the major participants. For those remaining, financial viability in this industry is all about market share and year-to-year subscriber growth.

BuzzCut: Novell IDs a Web Services Strategy By Ron Anderson Novell is doing the right thing by developing products that will put it in the Web services arena as a Liberty Alliance player. But the company must do more -- like deliver the products, and fast.

Down to Business: Know Your Partner By Rob Preston "The tech meltdown affects more than your 401(k). It bears directly on your career as an IT professional." Don't be left holding the bag should one or more of your key vendors go away.

BuzzCut: RealNetworks Goes Open Source. No, Really By Don MacVittie With RealNetworks' adopting open-source software, we could soon be free from vendor lock-ins, forced upgrades and multimillion-dollar license fees.

BuzzCut: The Dual-Band Two-Step By Dave Molta Imagine you and your cell phone roaming transparently between access points at different frequencies. The expanding wireless LAN industry, with its multiband capabilities, puts simultaneous support of 11a, 11b and 11g within reach.