Infrastructure convergence – the two sides of the coin

Let’s be fair – IT isn’t the only industry fraught with jargon, but it can certainly hold its head up high among the leaders of the field in terms of gobbledygook. The minefield of acronyms we all have to suffer is worsened by the astonishingly bad practice of overloading individual, sometimes quite innocuous words and [...]

IP Address Management – a latent need, not a market bandwagon

It always seems quite ironic to me when I read how industry analysts are accused of ‘bigging up’ vendor offerings, when I and my peers seem to spend so much of our time resetting the expectations of over-optimistic marketeers. Indeed, without such a position, we would offer a far less useful service – on occasion [...]

Can Power over Ethernet make networks greener?

It is always dangerous to speculate, particularly in this industry, which sometimes seems to be more founded on speculation than practical reality. Consider, for example, Power over Ethernet (PoE) – essentially offering a way of delivering power through an Ethernet cable. Today, there are a multitude of different devices that can be attached to a [...]

Bringing wireless networks into the management fold

As part of the briefing cycle for Aruba’s announced acquisition of Airwave Wireless, I had a very interesting conversation with Roger Hockaday, EMEA marketing director for Aruba. In part it was about the announcement, but it quickly turned (as these things do) to a discussion of the wider picture of wireless, and indeed wired network [...]