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Jun 17 2008   11:08PM GMT

Podcast: Live from Enterprise 2.0, discussing how to use social media

Posted by: Alexander Howard
Web 2.0, podcast, enterprise, Technology, new media, MP3, social publishing, event, WhatIs.com, forum, feedback, community, interactive media, social networking, communications, Web applications, cloud computing, the cloud, government, conference, enterprise 2.0

Last week at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, I was pulled into a podcast with Chris Brogan, Aaron Strout and Sam Lawrence. We talked about what was going on at the conference, what we’d learned so far and what strategies individuals, businesses and enterprise might find useful in using social media.

Download the MP3

These guys are deeply immersed in the enterprise social software world, aka enterprise 2.0. Aaron is a VP at Mzinga, Sam is the CMO for Jive Software and Chris Brogan, is, well, everywhere in the social media world, along with being a VP at CrossTechMedia.

P.S. Feel free to call me “Andy” from here on out.

Jan 28 2008   3:47PM GMT

What is virtual networking? Readers respond to “virtually everything.”

Posted by: Alexander Howard
Networking, Virtualization, command line, virtual, commentary, feedback, buzzword, controversy, word meanings

Virtualization was top of the mind for IT administrators and media alike last year. 2008 is no different. Just review the much-discussed recent survey, IT priorities in 2008. If a technology can be remotely related to any virtual, you can bet that vendors will do so. “Virtual insanity” isn’t a 90s Jamiroquai tune.
Our job, as always, is to cut through the buzzwords to the meat of what any particular technology is, how it works, who is using it and why it’s important. Read our definitions for server virtualization, application virtualization, file virtualization, virtual machine and paravirtualization to get just a taste of our virtual offerings. We even added Second Life to the database, after it became clear that virtual worlds needed some explanation as well.

If you want the complete virtual file, head over to the complete virtualization taxonomy.

A couple of readers responded to a Word of the Day from last week, virtual networking. One asked for clarification, the other outright disputed the entry. Following is most of our definition for virtual networking, if you missed it (and if you did, make sure to sign up for the Word of the Day newsletter).

Virtual networking is a technology that facilitates the control of one or more remotely located computers or servers over the Internet. Data can be stored and retrieved, software can be run and peripherals can be operated through a Web browser as if the distant hardware were onsite.

Virtual networking facilitates consolidation of diverse services and devices on a single hardware platform called a virtual services switch. The centralization of control reduces the cost and complexity of operating and maintaining hardware and software compared with administering numerous separate devices in widely separated geographical locations. Maintenance personnel and administrators can install device drivers, perform tests and resolve problems on the remote machines from a single location.

It may be necessary to install virtual networking software on the remote computers or servers to take advantage of this technology. Several vendors, including Microsoft and VMware, offer virtual networking software. Some vendors offer comprehensive virtual networking services, allowing business network administrators to outsource labor and resources to the vendor. Virtual networking capability is a standard feature of Windows XP and Vista.

Here’s our reader’s request for clarification:

“Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought accessing something over the Internet is still a physical network. Yes, it isn’t a LAN, but I think it wouldn’t be appropriate to classify as “Virtual Networking”. It is a real network, physical connection, but under the cooperation of the original network (ie a company or home network) , telecommunications provider and possibly an intermediate ISP. It is still all physical and I would think “Virtual” would be an inappropriate classification/definition.” -Justin Snyder

Justin, thanks for writing in. In this sense, the term virtual is used in a more figurative than literal way. In general, virtual simply means the quality of effecting something without actually being that something. All of the various virtualization technologies are a variant of this concept. In server virtualization, one physical server is divided into multiple isolated virtual environments, each of which is masked from the users. Virtual tape makes it possible to save data as if it were being stored on tape although it’s actually be stored on hard disk or on another storage medium. A guest OS is an operating system installed in a virtual machine or disk partition in addition to the host or main OS. In each case, a software layer has been added in lieu of a physical connection.

Virtual networking is much the same. A virtual sevices switch allows the sysadmin to monitor or change configurations remotely — or virtually — instead of going to the location in person. Justin, you’re right — whenever you access something online, it does flow over physical devices at one point or another, even if it’s wireless — but the technologies that underpin much of that traffic are these days, often virtual.

Our other reader strongly disagreed with the idea of virtual networking on a more existential level:

This entry [virtual networking] is specious and should be deleted. Unix workstations and servers have had this capability for at least 15 years. And there is nothing virtual about it. It simply uses a little hardware and OS capability, accessed via the network. Since when did anything and everything involving the network become “virtual”? Is e-commerce going to be renamed “virtual shopping”?

Microsoft and VMware have done nothing more than catch up to 1990’s technology, slap a “virtual” label on it, and pretended as though they invented it. Give us a break. -Brian Herzog

Brian, I agree. Virtual has now been attached to so many products that the term is well on its way to being meaningless. You make a great point, with respect to the historical abilities of Unix gurus far and wide to effect changes through the command line, abilities only now being entrusted to mere mortals using Windows GUIs. That being said, even if Microsoft and VMware are adopting “old” technologies and incorporating them into their offerings, I think the process of networking using this kind of is fairly described as virtual. If I’m wrong, I’m sure I’ll hear more from you, our dear readers, on this count.

Thanks for writing in!

Aug 29 2007   3:06PM GMT

Notes on pronunciation in IT: AAA server and SQL

Posted by: Alexander Howard
email, messaging, Audio, learning, feedback, conversation

Permanence is both fleeting and intractable on the Internet. In the print world, once the newspaper, magazine or book has been proofed and fact-checked to the point where the law of diminishing returns kicks in, the final product is just that.

Online, “stop the presses” just doesn’t cut it. It’s a nearly universal experience to have clicked “send” before the message or attachment is ready for its audience — or post, in the age of the blogosphere, YouTube and Twitter. And it’s not just novice users that wish they had thought twice before responding or composing their thoughts. Part of the job here at WhatIs.com is always making sure that our copy and links are accurate and working, whether you find our content though this blog, within our definitions or learning content or in any of the new media types that have appeared on the site over the past few years, like podcasts, embedded videos or screencasts.

Earlier today, unfortunately, came one of the moments that editors cringe to admit, where a grammatical rule was broken and a wild card character made its way into one of the few remaining digital media forms that can’t be recalled: the email newsletter. Once it goes out of the mail server, there’s no calling your words back. WhatIs.com sends out a Word of the Day newsletter (Subscribe ere), each weekday, chosen from among the thousands of IT-related terms in the database. Our editors write three questions to go along with the term, usually written to match whatever the theme of the term might be — mobile computing, open source, SAP, CRM or perhaps whatever major tech events has occurred recently.

The three categories of tech trivia include:

• a Secret Word of the Day, where we describe a term without naming it
• an IT Acronym Challenge, where we test your ability to make sense of the alphabet soup
• and a Daily Tech Trivia question, which can be about nearly anything related to technology or current events

Today’s Word of the Day was BotHunter, which meant that our questions centered on security and threat management. The final question should have read as follows:

In IT security, AAA means more than roadside assistance. A AAA server is a server program that handles user requests for access to computer resources and “AAA” services. What do the three A’s stand for in AAA server?
Answer

When I originally wrote the question, I heard “triple A” in my head when I read AAA, a symptom of depending on a certain highway assistance service for decades. In the context of IT security, however, AAA is pronounced by saying each letter separately, or “Ay Ay Ay,” spelling out the acronym. That means that “an” is correct, not “a” as I wrote in the newsletter, just as it is in our definition for AAA server. My apologies to you, dear reader, for the mistake.

If you’re further interested in the correct pronunciation for some of the most commonly mispronounced terms in IT, make sure to consult our guide, How do you pronounce IT? You can see the correct phonics and hear the word spoken aloud by yours truly. Leave us a voice message if you disagree, approve or want to add to the list.

Apr 11 2007   10:35AM GMT

Channel 9: Connecting Microsoft developers and customers with Web 2.0

Posted by: Alexander Howard
Microsoft, Web 2.0, podcast, software, video, blog, collaboration, Development, forum, wiki, screencast, IPTV, feedback, conversation

Channel 9 is a discussion forum used to promote conversations among Microsoft’s customers, hosted by Microsoft, featuring video interviews with developers, podcasts, forums and a wiki. More than twenty different podcasts and IPTV shows are available for download and subscription as well.

According to the first video ever posted on the site, the name “Channel 9″ was chosen after the on-board channel #9 on airplanes. When the flight crew turns on Channel 9, passengers can listen to cockpit conversations. The metaphor makes sense in describing a forum between developers and users — and both the site and the name stuck. Microsoft’s application development teams use Channel 9 as a platform for aggregating user feedback and responding to it, publishing production notes and occasionally posting quirky videos like a “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Microsoft.” You can learn more about the story of Channel 9 by watching this video or reading the Channel 9 Doctrine.