In 2006 IDC released a study showing that the costs associated with data center management escalate at an alarming rate - in large part because of rising software management expenses. Virtualization has many definitions and uses in today's computing world, but three instances of virtualization are of key importance to solving the problems remaining in the data center after the implementation of state-based management and automation.

The introduction of Linux into the data center has brought with it the promise of a new level of cost-efficiency and flexibility for enterprise data center environments. IT professionals prefer Linux for their data centers because it's highly customizable and can be adapted to address specific issues more easily than any other operating system.

Considering that e-mail is the killer application of the Internet, this question seems rather unexpected. After all, every time we click the send button, things seem to work. After reading this article you'll be amazed at the journey your e-mail goes through and even more amazed that it sometimes makes its way to the intended recipient at all.

IPv6 can be used to automatically connect a host to a network using stateless auto-configuration, doing away with the need for any IP addressing support like a DHCP server. In an IPv6 network, the IPv6 protocol includes information that can directly configure a host.

In 1998, Michael Kunze wrote an article for c't, a biweekly German computing magazine, hoping to demonstrate that free software could be an effective substitute for its commercial counterparts. In the article, he coined the acronym 'LAMP' to describe an illustrative collection of available software - the Linux operating system; the Apache Web server; the MySQL relational database management system; and the Perl, Python, and/or PHP scripting languages - that could provide an end-to-end free computing environment. Kunze hoped that the acronym-loving IT community would remember LAMP in connection with the proposition that free software deserved serious consideration as an alternative to commercial software.

SpikeSource, a starry Redwood City, California, start-up providing Open Source software testing services, wants to embolden enterprises to use the Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Python/Perl (LAMP) stack (www.spikesource.com). Their goal is to certify the LAMP stack and the applications that use it. At the heart of its value proposition is an automated testing bed, which lets software vendors and Open Source projects upload their applications and verify that there are no conflicts with the stack.

Talk to young programmers and developers today and you'd be fooled into thinking that free/open source software (FOSS) was a relatively new invention. Those crusty old folk among us (myself included, born in that prehistoric era of the early '70s) know that it goes back a little further than that.

Why haven't you already moved your Microsoft Windows IIS server infrastructure to Apache on Linux? Does the idea that something is inexpensive (free) automatically bring to mind the old adage, 'You get what you pay for?' Do you fear that your IT staff will not be able to support the new platform? Will you be able to find competent developers to maintain, enhance, and develop new Web sites based on Apache on Linux?

Apache Beehive, the cross-container, open-source application framework for building SOAs and enterprise Java applications that BEA is releasing to open source, is now available to the public. It can be obtained from the Apache Software Foundation Web site.

Jim Willis, director of e-Government Services for the Rhode Island Office of the Secretary of State, was a consultant for the state when he implemented an online database using open source tools. The ability to use open source technologies was a condition of his hiring, and the state has benefited as a result of his leadership.

Paul Murphy, author of 'The Unix Guide to Defenestration' and 20-year veteran of the IT consulting industry, wrote this detailed piece for us in 2002 on how Microsoft's use of XML extensions for its Passport single sign-on service was 'fundamentally inconsistent with SGML principles.' In contrast, Murphy explained, Plan 9's factotum authentication management offers an elegant and effective open source alternative. Enjoy the piece again here.