IT Expert Voice

How can you keep your corporate programmers on target? Try these suggestions from well-known PHP developer Luke Welling. READ MORE

Ubuntu Linux is best known as the most popular desktop Linux distribution, but it’s developing a reputation as the easiest Linux for enterprises to deploy on the cloud.

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, has always had many enthusiastic user and developer fans. It’s a different story within the enterprise. Canonical has been trying to improve its business reputation though in both the server and cloud spaces. In particular, according to Neil Levine, Canonical’s VP of Commercial Services, Canonical has been working hard to bring Ubuntu’s well-known ease of use on the desktop to cloud deployments. READ MORE

Microsoft has essentially extended Windows XP’s sales life, and many observers expect that Windows XP’s support life will also last longer than expected. So should your enterprise stick with Windows XP or continue on to Windows 7?

It seemed so clear. Like it or lump it, the top brass realized, your company would move its enterprise desktops to Windows 7 as Windows XP came to the end of its sales and service life. Then, Microsoft changed the rules. At the same time that Microsoft announced the beta program for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 SP1s, the company “decided to extend downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional beyond the previously planned end date at Windows 7 SP1.” This means you’ll still be able to “downgrade” PCs from Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows XP Pro until early 2015. READ MORE

The Internet is running out of network addresses, which will force the switch from IPv4 to IPv6. But IPv6 has other advantages as well, such as improving network performance and making network administrators more productive (and cheerful).

It isn’t a pretty thought to consider migrating an enterprise to a new Internet addressing scheme. Any change to the network can be time consuming and expensive to deploy. But in addition to the technical forces making the move a necessity there are good technical reasons for making the switch. READ MORE

Like it, or lump it, we’re going to have use both IPv6 and IPv4 on our corporate networks and the Internet for years to come. Here’s how we can do it.

It would have been so easy if the early Internet and TCP/IP network designers had made IPv6 backward compatible with IPv4. They didn’t. And, while  Leslie Daigle, Chief Internet Technology Officer for the Internet Society, admitted at a June 2009 meeting that IPv6′s “lack of real backwards compatibility for IPv4 was [its] single critical failure,” crying over spilt standards isn’t going to help us now. No, instead we have to make the best of using IPv6 in an IPv4 world. READ MORE

One reason why IPv6 adoption has been so slow is that everyone is waiting for everyone else to adopt it first. If that’s the reason for your own company’s sluggishness, it’s time to reconsider, because important online partners are already using the network address protocol: Google is leading the way, by offering its services over IPv6. READ MORE