The increasingly mobile nature of the work force is creating new security challenges for IT staffs. Theft of data and confidential information is becoming a greater concern for more firms, especially when related to the use of hand-held devices and laptop computers by remote and mobile workers.

According to research from the Computing Technology Industry Assn. (CompTIA), 60 percent of 1,070 organizations say security issues related to the use of hand-held devices for data access and transfer have increased significantly or increased somewhat over the past 12 months. For wireless networks, 55 percent of organizations say security issues have increased significantly or somewhat over the past 12 months.

"The increasing pervasiveness of remote access to confidential data and applications by mobile employees, and the implementation of wireless networks, are raising the stakes for corporate IT departments," says John Venator, president and CEO of CompTIA. "As access extends beyond the four walls of the organization to satellite offices, home-based workers and mobile employees, each remote connection or access point is another potential security vulnerability that must be secured."

Nearly 80 percent of the surveyed organizations allow data access by remote or mobile employees, but just 32 percent of organizations have implemented any security awareness training for these workers, and just 10 percent plan to implement such training in the next 12 months.

Meanwhile, CIOs at organizations faced with this growing mobile work force say they are looking to their mobile operator partners to provide tools and services to help them control, secure and manage mobile devices in the same way they manage other IT assets.

In a study conducted for Mformation Technologies, CIOs report significant productivity gains from their use of mobile technology, and expect further gains from ongoing investments. They say, however, that the effective management of these corporate assets is becoming increasingly difficult. As a result, 45 percent of the CIOs surveyed are looking to mobile operators to provide assistance with the management of mobile devices.

Sixty-two percent of CIOs in the United States, in fact, indicate they would change their mobile operator if a comprehensive mobile device-management (MDM) solution was offered by a competing mobile operator. Almost all the CIOs surveyed (95 percent) are currently looking for a solution for managing and securing enterprise mobile devices and applications.

The vast majority of U.S. companies (88 percent) expect the operator to have a role in enterprise mobile device management, with nearly 60 percent indicating they would prefer an arrangement with their operator that gives the IT department direct control over their mobile assets. Not surprisingly, therefore, 62 percent of U.S. companies indicated they would consider switching to a new mobile operator if it offered MDM as a managed service.

Data centers stressed out

Data center managers are increasingly implementing virtualization and server consolidation strategies to manage the growing complexities in today's data center, according to Symantec. Its report suggests data center managers face onerous and complicated challenges resulting from rapidly rising service-level agreements (SLAs), staffing difficulties, increasing expenditures and data center growth.

"The services delivered by data center professionals have never been more important to their businesses, but, at the same time, they are under relentless pressure to do more with less, and within an environment of maddening complexity," says Kris Hagerman, group president, data center management, Symantec.

Research results suggest budget growth is not keeping pace with data center growth, while stringent SLAs mean data centers must deliver ever-increasing levels of speed, agility and availability. According to research results, 65 percent of respondents report formal internal SLAs exist in their organization; 32 percent report service-level demands have rapidly increased; and 51 percent report they have had more difficulty meeting service-level demands.

In addition, data center growth is persistent and expected to continue, driving higher costs. Global 2000 enterprises are spending more than $6.6 billion annually to help manage data center complexity. Meanwhile, 52 percent of respondents report their data centers are currently understaffed; 69 percent of respondents reveal their data centers are growing at least 5 percent per year, while 11 percent report 20 percent growth or more per year; and the average reported budget increase during the last two-year period is 7 percent worldwide.

Server virtualization and consolidation are considered top cost-containment strategies for the majority of respondents, particularly in the United States. According to the research: 90 percent of respondents are at least discussing server virtualization, 50 percent are implementing virtualization strategies; 91 percent are at least discussing server consolidation; 58 percent are implementing consolidation strategies; 75 percent are considering storage virtualization as a potential solution; and 59 percent indicate Web applications are the most likely to be moved into a virtual environment, followed by database management applications (42 percent).

SMBs spending for security

IT security budgets in the small and midsize business market were in a strong and healthy state moving into the final quarter of 2007, according to the results of a global market survey conducted by Astaro Corp. A total of 2,800 channel partners, resellers and end-users participated in the market-trend survey on topics ranging from IT security tools, managed services, foremost challenges and planned investments. Survey respondents represented diverse industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, education and financial services.

Of those surveyed, 37 percent plan to allocate $50,000 for security tools and services in the next fiscal year, while 13.6 percent plan to set aside between $50,000 to $100,000 for their security budgets. Less than 10 percent plan to spend more than $1 million. The majority of respondents were companies with less than 100 employees.

Planned investments for the next fiscal year show that nearly 70 percent will increase budgets to prevent unauthorized access to networks and data. Sixty percent plan to invest in vulnerability assessment, preventing leakage of confidential data and protecting Web applications from worms or hacker attacks.

Half of the respondents reported security for notebooks and wireless data communications as being priority areas for next year's investments.

"The biggest challenge our customers and resellers are facing over the next five years is the ability to find vulnerabilities in their systems and prevent unauthorized network access," says Arne Klein, Astaro vice president of marketing. "Overall, the state of IT spending on security will continue unabated, with managed security services gaining ground in almost every application."

Questions to ask an MSP

By selecting a managed services provider (MSP) that offers the most robust functionalities, enterprises can retain the greatest degree of control over network and application performance, even for outsourced applications and services. According to Streamcore, this should ultimately result in a strong end-user quality of experience (QoE), enhanced employee productivity and fewer help desk calls.

Streamcore poses five questions that enterprises should ask during the vendor evaluation process:

What visibility into network performance will be available? With insight into network usage and performance, enterprise business-critical applications are managed and delivered most effectively.
What visibility into application performance will there be? Enterprises should demand granular, session-based monitoring of applications down to the user and session level to understand application performance and enhance existing MPLS mechanisms.
What application-based reporting does the provider offer? Enterprises should receive regular reports to track WAN infrastructure or application performance to understand overall variations in resource usage. This reporting should also monitor overall QoE to determine if applications are being delivered predictably over the network.
What customized business-oriented reporting should be expected? Enterprises should be offered granular reports that can be analyzed via business group or unit, specific performances issue, or global geography to understand how specific application or network performance varies.
Where is the customized portal for network and application management and troubleshooting? Enterprises should be given the option of an enterprise portal to enable real-time insight into what is happening on their WAN to allow for both isolation of performance problems and the ability to fine-tune network delivery of applications.

Not your father's WAN

The Tarkett Group WAN is composed of 80 sites, including four data centers and 25 production sites, with the network used for critical applications like SAP and Cognos.

In order to optimize network performance, Tarkett IT Director Ingo Klever decided to migrate the WAN to MPLS using class of service (CoS), which manages network traffic by grouping similar types of traffic (e.g., e-mail, streaming video, voice) together and treating each type as a class with its own level of service priority. CoS proved to be an insufficient approach, however, as it does not permit dynamic application performance management according to business priorities, and it did not allow Klever to exploit existing traffic-measurement solutions on the frame relay network.

To address these issues, Tarkett implemented a WAN optimization solution from Ipanema Technologies, which was administered by managed service provider e-Qual. Some 38 sites were equipped with physical IP engines and another 40 with virtual IP engines.

For Tarkett, change management is now simplified, operations are accelerated, while the total cost of traffic management is minimized.

WAN acceleration and optimization technologies have gained the spotlight recently, as organizations contend with applications in use at distributed locations, as well as for mobile workers. The Aberdeen Group, in a report sponsored by Virtela, has quantified the productivity of such technologies, saying companies that have implemented WAN acceleration and optimization technologies are achieving impressive improvements (1,158 percent on average) in response times for business-critical applications.

SHORT TAKES

Stealthy flights

AirTran Airways has deployed Lancope's StealthWatch, which leverages Cisco IOS NetFlow from the organization's network infrastructure to cost-effectively improve security and network management. StealthWatch provided continuous network monitoring to help AirTran demonstrate network-wide PCI compliance. By utilizing NetFlow, StealthWatch aggregates high-speed network behavior data from multiple segments of AirTran's geographically dispersed network. This scalable approach provides AirTran with in-depth network behavior information beyond what is available from SNMP tools alone.

Wireless campus

The California State University system has selected Aruba Network's wireless systems for use across its 23 campuses. With more than 417,000 students and 46,000 faculty and staff members, the university system is the largest in the country. The university's campuses and the chancellor's office network are presently undertaking a networking equipment upgrade that includes Aruba wireless solutions. Campuses will be upgraded based on when the original equipment was installed, as well as on the saturation of the existing network bandwidth.

Secure healthcare

The radiology department at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas chose Nortel to securely send medical orders directly to radiology technicians wirelessly. The system allows staff to receive medical orders anywhere on the hospital's 120-acre campus on a hand-held device. "Nortel has worked with our other technology vendors to improve communications in our radiology department, resulting in efficiencies in patient care," says Don Allen, director of radiology at the center. "This technology enables technicians to receive their next assignment from any floor in the hospitalâ€“without having to return to the department following each procedure. We foresee extending this type of technology to different departments throughout the hospital."

Managed continuity

Howard Weil, a New Orleans-based investment firm, has selected C4 IP from Cypress Communications to complete its business continuity solution. C4 IP is a fully managed voice, data and Internet solution that enables users to connect, communicate and collaborate in the face of any disaster. "Before Katrina, we utilized our (disaster recovery) site about six times for hurricane-related evacuations," says Jason Molaison, IT manager at Howard Weil. "However, for Katrina, we faced a new problemâ€“we never had to support the entire staff and maintain that support for any length of time."