Your Data Center is the core of your company’s IT environment. If it’s compromised in any way, the risk to your business could be incalculable. But as companies actively look for any opportunity to save money, they may want to think twice about cutting indiscriminately within the data center. One size definitely doesn’t fit all, and that last cut may be fatal.

“Every data center has different security requirements depending on specific circumstances,” says Warren Shiau, senior associate and lead analyst of IT research for The Strategic Counsel. “It’s simply too risky to make cuts that take you below the requirements of your circumstances.” Click here for the rest of the Article.

ISC has a discount coupon for 20 Percent off of their popular VSA 19 Inch Rackmount Universal Shelf Series valid thru 2-3-09. If you need shelves for your server rack, I would suggest you take a look at these.

They are both 1U vented adjustable depth shelves. The VSA-1626 adjust 16″-26″ and the VSA-2744 adjust 27″-44″. Both of them have a 500lb weight capacity.

Another nice thing is the entire shelf adjust rather than just the mounting ears providing additional surface when you need it. Click here to see shelves. Watching out for you as always, Rackmount Ranger!

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) today released an embedded server blade that fits into higher-end ProCurve switches and a combined virtualization and network management technology. The new products blur the lines among the roles various vendors and devices play in the data center.

The server blade, the Open Network Ecosystem Services zl Module, is HP’s answer to Cisco’s Application Extension platform, which can run Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO) or third-party Linux apps on Cisco Integrated Services routers. ONE’s initial apps include a co-developed Microsoft/HP network security and identity server, MacAfee network security, Avaya (NYSE: AV) unified communications, F5 application acceleration, and Riverbed (NSDQ: RVBD) WAN optimization. Click here for the rest of the article.

Nickelback lyrics notwithstanding, many see Linux as the hero that can save us — save us from continuous hardware upgrades with each major software revision, confusing licensing programs, hidden costs and fees and vendor lock-in. With that said, is Linux our hero? The obvious answer is yes, but is it a true hero or just the hero of the month?

They say a hero will appear when the world needs one most. A hero saves you from oppression (vendor lock-in), fights off the bad guys (hackers, viruses, malware), and allows you to sleep better at night knowing he is watching over you (stability). Click here for the rest of the article.

Companies rushing to virtualize their environments to cut costs will find that backup and restore could be a problem due to its extensive use of scripting.

Most businesses use VMware products, as the company is the market leader, and its VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) centralized backup facility requires users to write a lot of scripts. That makes it difficult to use, according to some experts. Click here for the rest of the article.

It’s hard for a CIO to go 10 minutes without hearing about how cloud computing is going to transform IT sooner rather than later. Online user groups and blogs are afire with talk of the cloud and its implications. Business news outlets can’t seem to write enough about the cloud’s potential impact. And employees are putting it to use one way or another—with or without the company’s blessing. Click here for the rest of the article.

The job market is brutal, but some IT specializations remain in high demand. Many of the hottest roles and skills address issues specific to survival, such as productivity, efficiency and process improvement. Most relevant are those experts who can use technology to help drive profit. Click here for the rest of the article.

Readers have been weighing in with some very insightful (and pointed) comments about IT transformation since we posted a blog item questioning how vague the buzzword is.

Some readers agreed that the term is rather ambiguous or misunderstood; others said “transformation” is rarely mentioned among IT workers in the trenches. Click here for the rest of the article.

Applied Research questioned 1,600 IT representatives from enterprises with 5,000 employees or more as part of Symantec’s annual survey. Click here for slide show presentation.

Financial services CIOs were once the rock stars of technology professionals. Do they deserve some of the blame for industry meltdown?

It was not uncommon to hear CEOs of big banks talk about the importance of information technology to their operations, back in the recent past when banks still had operations worth talking about. Click here for the rest of the article.