Enterprise IT
Becoming A Master Of The Obvious
OK. By a show of hands, who of you out there has a valid disaster-recovery plan? Forget it--I probably wouldn't believe you even if I could see your hands. A recent Network Computing E-Mail Poll showed that more than 40 percent of you have small (less than 24 ports) populations of dial-in ports. What's more, the E-Mail Poll indicated that you're in no rush to outsource these ports. Let's extrapolate that number, for the purpose of discussion, assuming the number of WAN connections, voice and fax lines are all proportional. More than likely, you've come to the conscious, or unconscious, decision that you can't afford resilience to the point of nonstop networking or a standby disaster recovery site. If this is you're decision, it's time to reexamine it. I know--you're past the point of waking up in a cold sweat wondering if a flood or a riot will take you out of business, but, the fact is, an affordable disaster-recovery site strategy may already be well within your reach.
ReadCorporate Intranets
Put yourself in my shoes. I'm the chief technology officer at Network Computing's mythical AppLogistics Inc., and I represent an international group of people with different companies and different names, selling different products to different customers with different systems, in different states, regions and countries. Our corporate imperative is to ensure that these disparate entities present a single, unified image to the market. I'm the guy who has to sell this to them or else jam it down their throats. I'm the one telling them they have to become a new sales and marketing organization. What's the quickest way to get them up and running? What's the best way to support them? An intranet, that's the ticket! With an intranet, you point your browser at your new server and away you go. We decided we'd issue an RFP for a packaged application and Web infrastructure. Then we'd issue a second one with AT&T, MCI or some large Internet service provider (ISP) for the virtual private network (VPN). They'll mail our users the browser disks, they'll handle the setup and user support. Bang! we're up. No problem, right? Well, let me tell you what really happened.
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