- One Fewer Excuse for Deploying Policy (aka NAC)
- Red Hat backs AMD virtualization
- Fujitsu double encryption on mobile drives
- Trixbox 2.0 spins up some new trix
- Why a change to an AutoCAD file format is throwing some WAN accelerators for a loop
- Connecting Vista to MySQL
- Cross-generational Windows/Office preformance: About OfficeBench
- Preview: Sun's two-way eight-way
- Take your pick!
- A service-oriented Test Center Tracker
April 25, 2008 | Comments: (0)
One Fewer Excuse for Deploying Policy (aka NAC)
While most network staff give a nod to the general idea of policy-based networking, there have been a number of hurdles to its adoption, not the least of which is a need to understand the current state of the endpoints on the network.
Without knowing what is happening with the endpoints, it's virtually impossible to know the implications of implementing policies. Answers to questions like, "How many non-compliant systems do we have?" "What kinds of non-Windows endpoints do we have?" and "What kinds of non-compliance issues are the most prevalent?" are exceedingly difficult to gather manually.
Enter Great Bay Software's Beacon Endpoint Profiler.
The Beacon (as I reported after testing it in February 2007) scans your network and profiles the endpoints, giving you a clear picture of the environment you're actually facing.
Great Bay hasn't been resting since then, and is announcing at Interop their new capabilities -- in concert with their announcement of their expanded relationship with Juniper -- to handle up to 100,000 endpoints with a single Beacon.
This capability to scan networks this large is a clear indication of the progress that policy-based network deployments are making. During my conversation with Great Bay President Steve Pettit yesterday, we discussed the progress that many enterprises are making in moving their pilot systems into enterprise-wide deployments, and the advantages to those enterprises who use automated tools in the planning and design process.
The return on investment for these kinds of tools is exceptional. For example, gathering information on 50,000 endpoints manually is unimaginable. Using an automated system to collect the information and provide reports specifically targeted at the implications for policy deployment is the clear answer.
As it becomes clearer that the role of the infrastructure is not simply to pass traffic, but rather to protect both itself from attack and the endpoints from each other, deployment of policy-based infrastructures is a requirement. Tools like the Beacon Endpoint Profiler are keys to making this transition as friction-free as possible for end users.
After all, their productivity is the purpose of IT.
Posted by Stephen Hultquist on April 25, 2008 09:13 AM
April 22, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Red Hat backs AMD virtualization
Red Hat is announcing Tuesday its support for virtualization capabilities offered by AMD processors in new HP servers.
The company's Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 platform supports AMD's Rapid Virtualization Indexing technology, for more efficient use of memory management on Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors. HP now is offering systems equipped with these processors in its HP ProLiant DL585 G5 servers, Red Hat said.
Rapid Virtualization Indexing improves the efficiency of virtual guest operating systems' memory management, Red Hat said.
Red Hat also is offering para-virtualized device drivers to make IO workloads in virtual guests perform close to the bare-metal performance of the system, said Doug Shakshober, senior consulting engineer at Red Hat.
In OLTP testing, Red Hat Enterprise Linux showed that a virtualized guest using Rapid Virtualization Indexing and the para-virtualized drivers had a 21-fold performance gain and reached 77 percent of the performance of a non-virtualized environment using a 16-CPU virtualized guest on a difficult database OLTP workload, the company said.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 has been shipping since November.
Posted by Paul Krill on April 22, 2008 06:35 AM
April 21, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Fujitsu double encryption on mobile drives
Fujitsu, (I mean Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc) is announcing today the MHZ2 CJ series, a new line of 2.5 drives with FDE (full disk encryption) capabilities, joining rivals Hitachi GST (Global Storage Technologies) and Seagate who have been shipping similar hardware based encryption on some of their models.
The additional twist that Fujitsu puts on their MHZ2 CJ drives is 256 bit AES encryption, which should ensure an even stronger protection than what rival solutions provide, Fujitsu suggests. During a briefing, David James, vice president of advanced product engineering for Fujitsu suggested that without the right key it's virtually impossible to disclose the drive's data content and that the automatic encryption has no impact on the performance of the drive.
The new drives will offer up to 320 GB capacity, SATA connectivity and will spin at 7200 RPM which makes them likely candidates for deployment in high-end laptop models. Fujitsu is not disclosing pricing at the moment, but it's reasonable to expect that adding a new provider of drives with hardware based encryption will, in time, make those device more affordable and widely deployed.
James referred to some (unspecified) industry reports estimating that 700,000 laptops are stolen every year, which creates significant costs and embarrassment that can be easily avoided if companies deploy FDE on machines expected to carry sensitive data.
Waiting for quantity shipment to begin in July, I look forward to reviewing the new drives and comparing them with Hitachi's and Seagate's models.
Posted by Mario Apicella on April 21, 2008 08:26 AM
April 17, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Trixbox 2.0 spins up some new trix
I've been working with Fonality's Trixbox for a little while now. I've run Asterisk via the old Asterisk@Home code (later, Trixbox CE) for years, so taking a close look at the Pro version has certainly been interesting. Fonality just released Trixbox Pro 2.0 this week, and my test system has been upgraded to this rev, which gives me the chance to take some of their new features for a spin. Trixbox Pro is a centrally-managed, Asterisk-based PBX in a box. It's managed through Fonality's Web portal, not locally on the server, and offers an extensive GUI to control and manage Asterisk. The 2.0 release builds upon that foundation to introduce several new features.
Perhaps the biggest new feature is the extended FindMe support. I haven't spent much time with it, but it really does look terribly handy. FindMe offers full control over what happens when a call comes in and you're away from your office phone. From ringing several extensions simultaneously or in sequence to calling cellphones and home phones, this rules-based functionality even extends to the capability of controlling the call via any phone. For instance, if FindMe finds me on my cellphone, I can still trigger the call recording function, or transfer the call back to my extension from my mobile phone. This is possible due to the fact that when Trixbox Pro passes an inbound call to the cellphone, it's still in the middle -- and can listen for and respond to DTMF tones. That's a neat trick.
Anyway, I hope to have a full review of Trixbox Pro ready in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
Posted by Paul Venezia on April 17, 2008 01:44 PM
April 16, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Why a change to an AutoCAD file format is throwing some WAN accelerators for a loop
An innocent change to an AutoCAD file format has cut sharply into the ability of some WAN acceleration solutions to speed the transfer of these files, and caused grumblings in some widely distributed AutoCAD shops over slowed WAN performance. The problem affects users of AutoCAD 2007 and 2008 (specifically those who open and save the design program’s files over a WAN) and stems from a change to the DWG file format for AutoCAD 2007.
Ironically, Autodesk’s changes to the DWG file format were designed to improve performance and reduce file size, among other things. But the new format, when combined with the automatic backup setting called Incremental Save Percentage (ISP), has quietly turned the WAN optimization and acceleration industry on its ear, or nearly so. See the recent bulletin from Autodesk and Riverbed Technology in the Autodesk Knowledge Base.
How does a DWG file negate the benefits of WAN acceleration? Most WAN accelerators reduce data on the WAN through a process called data deduplication. As data passes over the WAN and through a pair of WAN optimization appliances, byte segments are stored and hashes or tokens are created to represent the recently seen data. On subsequent passes, instead of sending every byte of a file back over the WAN, only the tokens are sent that match data already in the local data store. This dramatically reduces the amount of data traveling the WAN while improving response time and performance for the user. Many WAN appliance vendors use this or similar techniques to great advantage.
The DWG problem boils down to this: AutoCAD 2007/2008 files are completely rewritten when a user does a full save on the drawing with AutoCAD’s Incremental Save Percentage value set to 0. Instead of only a few bytes of the file changing with a simple edit, the whole byte structure of the file changes. So to appliances that rely heavily on deduplication and pattern matching, each file save looks like a cold pass, gaining little data or time reduction from the WAN accelerator. It is important to note that this issue only impacts the save operation. Subsequent reads are not affected and will still benefit from data deduplication and overall better performance.
AutoCAD users can mitigate the scrambling effects, to a certain point, by changing the Incremental Save Percentage to 50 or higher (100 is the max). In fact, AutoCAD ships with the setting at 50 out of the box. In years past, AutoCAD users experienced some file corruption with any ISP setting greater than 0, so for many, changing that value to anything else is out of the question. But there will be times, even with an Incremental Save Percentage of 100, that each byte will be changed during a file save operation.
As a result of this file rewriting, a bit of a cat fight has broken out between leading vendors Riverbed Technology and Silver Peak Systems. Riverbed is affected by the AutoCAD file format/ISP setting issue more so than rival Silver Peak, and Silver Peak would like the world to know. To be clear, Riverbed will still accelerate AutoCAD DWG files over the WAN, even on a full save, but the data reduction is less than what Silver Peak is able to accomplish.
The AutoCAD file problem is a very specific use case and not an indicator of any larger technology issue with Riverbed. Silver Peak’s data deduplication technology is able to handle this particular problem much more gracefully than Riverbed’s.
I recently participated in an online demonstration with Silver Peak where I saw the effects of the rewritten AutoCAD files when saved over the WAN, and how to a large extent, Silver Peak’s appliances still provided a good measure of performance increase. The following table summarizes the test results. The lower the ISP setting, the more the effects of the rewrite are felt. The tests were conducted over a 10Mbps network with 100ms latency. Times are in seconds. The DWG file was 14MB in size.
| Incremental Save Percentage | 0% | 50% | 100% |
| Base line | 40 | 65 | 62 |
| Optimized save (cold pass) | 39 | 62 | 61 |
| Optimized save (warm pass) | 23 | 20 | 19 |
| Optimized save (hot pass) | 23 | 20 | 18 |
| Improvement | 43% | 69% | 70% |
Source: Silver Peak Systems
I was not able to run the same tests with a pair of Steelheads from Riverbed, but they claim to provide at least a 20% improvement in performance even on a “cold” file save.
One thing to remember is that other factors in addition to data deduplication are at work to increase WAN performance. Mitigating the effects of latency, reducing application chattiness, and overall TCP optimizations all play a part in speeding up file transfers over the WAN. Riverbed executives stated they are working closely with Autodesk to minimize or even eliminate this problem, but no time table on a fix was available.
Posted by Keith Schultz on April 16, 2008 10:58 AM
April 16, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Geometry quiz: Can we draw a straight that joins together Vista, virtual disks, a new version of Ajax development tools and MySQL? Well, geometry has nothing to do with that but I would bet dollars against pennies that a similar line can be easily drawn in your data center.
Virtual to the core
Depending on who you are talking to, and sometimes you may get different answers at different times, Windows Vista is described as either an embarrassing fiasco or the best OS you can ever load on a desktop or laptop. My personal opinion? Glad you asked. I am somewhere in between those two extremes, but I haven't found yet a compelling reason to migrate my personal machines from XP. Was Microsoft too concerned with compatibility while developing Vista? Were those concerns the reason why Vista looks so much like XP? What should be the target of the next desktop OS from Microsoft? Randall Kennedy is mulling those questions and offers an interesting answer, but you'll have to read it all here.
Open up your vdisks
Virtual disk are the pillars of virtualization and probably the main reason for the success of that technology, but do you really know what's their structure? Probably not. Moreover, from outside of virtual machine you loose access to files and other data stored on its vdisks. If you ever spent a though on that, a new SDK and API combo from VMware should fill that gap, David Marshall reports. Why is this new free tool, dubbed somewhat predictably VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit, important? Please read David's post to find out.
New ways to Ajax
Speaking of development tools, Backbase just released a new version of their Enterprise Ajax platform. What caught my eye is that development and deployment on low end servers is free, but Martin Heller gives a quick and comprehensive round up of what the new version brings to the table in today's Strategic Developer.
The MySQL show goes on
Last but not least, I am glad to carry on the flag for the MySQL show in Santa Clara, still ongoing today and tomorrow. Perhaps if you are in the area it's still possible to find time for a visit? For an overview of what to expect at the show and more teasers here is what Zack Urlocker has to say.
Posted by Mario Apicella on April 16, 2008 08:29 AM
April 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Cross-generational Windows/Office preformance: About OfficeBench
I created the OfficeBench test script back in 1999/2000 while my company, Competitive Systems Analysis (CSA), was under contract to Intel's Desktop Architecture Labs (DAL). CSA was responsible for a great deal of internal benchmarking and white paper development surrounding the Pentium III and Pentium 4 CPU launches.
OfficeBench was designed from the beginning to be a "run anywhere" benchmark. By "run anywhere" I mean that the script will execute reliably under almost any Windows runtime environment. At the time it was being developed, this meant Windows 2000 and Terminal Server. As Windows evolved, so did OfficeBench. Today it supports every version of Windows since 2000, including XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008, all flavors of Terminal Server, and all known application and desktop virtualization environments.
OfficeBench is also version independent. That is, it's designed to work with any version of Microsoft Office. When it was originally conceived, the state of the art was Office 2000. Since then, Microsoft has rolled out three additional versions: XP, 2003, and, most recently, 2007. OfficeBench runs unmodified across all four versions. Combined with the support for the various Windows platform releases, OfficeBench is the only test script of its kind that allows you to compare performance across multiple generations of Windows and Office.
OfficeBench uses OLE automation to drive the applications. This is different from most test scripts, which use window messages or keystroke and mouse click simulation. Using OLE automation has numerous benefits, including allowing test scripts to run unmodified across the four Office versions. It also factors out any input-related anomalies while eliminating the chance that a UI change or third party modification will somehow break the script.
Key OfficeBench tasks include the following:
Reformat all section headers and subheads in Word.
Generate multiple chart objects in Excel.
Generate complete multi-slide presentation in PowerPoint.
Multi-page scroll w/copy paste of chart objects into Word.
Slide sort/apply multiple templates in PowerPoint.
Multi-page scroll/print preview/print-to-file in Word.
Multi-chart print preview/print-to-file in Excel
Global search/replace in word (multiple).
Multi-slide preview/print-to-file in PowerPoint.
Navigate simulated research Web site in IE (multiple).
The above are just some highlights. There's a lot more going on than meets the eye, and the key is that it's the exact same set of tasks executing across all versions of Office.
OfficeBench doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's delivered as part of a sophisticated, extensible, multi-process testing framework we call DMS Clarity Studio. DMS Clarity Studio provides a variety of scalable workload objects for testing everything from client/server database connections to MAPI-based message store access to streaming multimedia. OfficeBench has been engineered to run in parallel with these workloads, providing for a rich variety of targeted test scenarios spanning the range of Windows client and server platforms. It's all coordinated through the DMS Clarity Studio framework and also seamlessly integrated with the exo.performance.network's Clarity Analysis Portal.
Note: DMS Clarity Studio is offered for free as part of the exo.performance.network. It's also part of the larger DMS Clarity Suite framework in use across thousands of trading workstations and other mission critical systems in the financial services sector. Some of the largest trading firms in the world trust DMS Clarity Suite to tell them when their systems are under-performing.
In summary, OfficeBench is part of a proven testing ecosystem that spans the range of Windows platforms and runtime scenarios. It is a sophisticated, version-independent benchmarking tool that executes reliably under almost any Windows runtime environment, allowing IT organizations to accurately assess multi-generational performance across all versions of Windows and Office.
Posted by Randall Kennedy on April 14, 2008 03:00 AM
April 09, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Sun's two-way eight-way
Sun's newest UltraSPARC CPU goes multi-socket in the SPARC Enterprise T5240 server
Ever since Sun introduced the eight-core Niagara CPU a few years ago, the company has been the nominal leader in cores per socket. With the introduction of the Niagara 2 (known as the T2), Sun upped the ante, addressing some of the flaws in the Niagara 1, and pushing even more smarts onto the CPU die. Now, with the introduction of the T5240, they're doubling it up. 
[ Read Paul Venezia's review of the eight-core, single-CPU Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120. ]
Sun introduced the T5240 today, showcasing the 2U, dual-CPU system as the next step in SPARC-based server evolution. I've had a T5240 in the lab for a few days now, and will be writing a full review of the unit soon, but for now, I'll stick to the highlights.
As with all recent server designs from Sun, the SPARC Enterprise T5240 leverages existing chassis and disk designs, looking much like the Intel-based Sun Fire X4450. This consistency is notable in allowing for some re-use of parts such as SAS drives between servers with different architectures.
Inside, however, the T5240 is completely different. The basis of the T2 CPU is a multi-core, "System on a Chip" design that places 4MB L2 cache per core, FPUs, memory controllers, 10G Ethernet, and hardware crypto smarts right on the CPU die, streamlining access to these resources. In the T5240, there are not one, but two T2 CPUs on the mainboard, joined by a central bus. This central bus is built with Sun's own ZAMBEZI chips, which the company refers to as a coherence hub, though hub might be a bit of a misnomer if compared to Ethernet switches and hubs.
Regardless, this bus or hub is the central point of contact between CPUs. Each CPU has four connections to the hub, each running at 6.7GB per second in both directions, providing an aggregate of 26.8GB per second per CPU in each direction. There have been some sacrifices made in the multi-CPU design, however, such as moving the 10G Ethernet controllers off the die, and reducing memory bandwidth per CPU (though aggregate bandwidth among all CPUs is higher than the Niagara 2 single-CPU layout).
In short, the T5240 brings as many as 128 threads (16 cores at 8 threads per core) and as much as 128GB RAM into a 2U rack server with 16 2.5-inch SAS slots, four gigabit Ethernet ports, 10G capability, and more. Suffice it to say, it’ll be an interesting few weeks in the lab. Stay tuned.
Posted by Paul Venezia on April 9, 2008 12:00 PM
April 09, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Be it Symantec future plans, simplifying the installation of OSS, sharing the pain of nasty updates or piercing one of the latest Microsoft apps stack , whatever your pleasure or your inclination you should find worthwhile reading today's Test Center Daily selection. Enjoy your visit and please come back .
Turning the page on Veritas
Not a moment too soon, after only two years of saber-rattling Microsoft and Symantec decided it was not worth fighting over an even older dispute.
I am tempted to ask what caused this sudden change of heart after so much tough talking and after making an entry or two in a court docket , but frankly why bother? Obviously there wasn't much of a case there, so let's bygones be bygones and focus on the future, on the ongoing Symantec ManageFusion event in Las Vegas, for example. David Marshall is there and is taking notes on what's cooking.
Opening up Open Source
What's your definition of a geek? Let me suggest this one: Someone who thrives dealing with the intricacies of installation requirements and applications' prerequisites. If you fit that description BitNami is not for you. For the rest of us (and our moms) Savio Rodriguez has an interesting post on how BitNami is making complicated OS applications easier to install on all major platforms.
No more updates for me!
Finding those automatic software updates a bit overwhelming? Well, you are not alone. Randall Kennedy has posted a heartfelt rant on how a couple of well coordinated (not!) updates from Adobe and Microsoft can ruin your day.
Scottie, Groove me up!
If you listen to the marketing hype and to some reviews Groove is Microsoft way of simplifying office collaboration. Well, it gets complicated before getting simpler, which is why you should read Peter Bruzzese comprehensive review. Here is part two of Peter two-pronged stab at Groove, but reading part one first could be a good idea.
Posted by Mario Apicella on April 9, 2008 08:05 AM
April 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)
A service-oriented Test Center Tracker
It's Tuesday in the Test Center, and there's a wealth of blogging on services of one sort or another. There are services from large to small, internal to external -- it's just a service-oriented world out there.
Google leads Salesforce in SaaS: Ephriam Schwartz looks at the SaaS battle between Google and Salesforce.com and sees the advantage in nearly every category going to Google. Google, he says, has the technology, the cash, and (most important) the strategic vision to be the same sort of giant in services that they've been in search. Is this good news? It depends, as so much does, on whether you're a customer or a competitor...
Social services?: David Linthicum has been reading press releases from vendors, and has seen an interesting approach from IBM: SOA as dating service. Big Blue wants to help publishers and builders of different services find one another so they can play nicely together -- ideally, in IBM's SOA sand box. No word, yet, on whether you have to share your favorite band and what you're doing every waking moment in order to be truly popular.
The criminals find services: Criminal minds are unlikely to let any good idea go un-exploited, and Matt Hines is looking at criminal elements who are getting in on software as a service -- for malware. Criminal hackers aren't known for their cooperative mindset, but SaaS lets them build on existing code and turn their real efforts to the creative part of the venture -- the creative part that makes sure life will be difficult for the rest of us.
Posted by Curt Franklin on April 8, 2008 01:25 PM
April 07, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Packeteer sizzles at CIFS; RIA development heats up
WAN speed record: For several years running, our testing of WAN acceleration appliances has served mainly to chronicle the superiority of the Riverbed Steelhead, whose approach to byte- or segment-level caching and CIFS optimization has made it the perennial performance leader and our annual Technology of the Year Award winner. Only Silver Peak Systems, which inched closer year by year, could give Riverbed a run for its money. Last week we discovered that speedy wide area networking, or at least the branch of WAN acceleration concerned with file transfers, is a three horse race. Packeteer's iShaper may not be a better overall solution than Riverbed just yet, but it registered the best CIFS performance in our testing to date. See Keith Schultz's review.
Adobe AIR is the answer? Adobe AIR is not yet widely known or implemented, but it solves all of the major issues keeping the browser from being a common front end for applications, says Tom Yager. Read AIR's praises in Tom's "Ahead of the Curve," then weigh Martin Heller's counterpoint in "Strategic Developer."
RIA for the enterprise: Curl's longtime focus on creating rich, Web-based business applications has paid such dividends as excellent performance, smooth handling of intermittent connections, and support for large data sets. Version 6.0 of the InfoWorld Technology of the Year Award winner advances with skinnable controls, more sophisticated graphics rendering, a Macintosh runtime, and the ability to add a Curl applet to an AJAX page, and vice versa. See Martin Heller's review.
Beat the heat: "In many cases, a datacenter can generate enough heat to heat a building 10 to 30 times its size," says says Steve Sams, vice president of IBM Global Site and Facilities Services. Instead of casting that heat to the winds, some companies are using it to keep other buildings warm, and even to generate electrical power. See Ted Samson's "Sustainable IT."
It's the applications, stupid: Thanks to today's more secure operating systems, remote attacks, where the end-user is not involved at all, are becoming almost a rarity. That means educating end users is the key to client security. See Roger Grimes's "Security Advisor."
Smaller disks, lower power: Mario Apicella tackles a new twist on the old speed versus capacity question: the advantages of arrays built around larger capacity 3.5-inch drives versus those that leverage newfangled, lower-power 2.5-inch disks. See "Storage Advisor."
Posted by Doug Dineley on April 7, 2008 09:14 AM
April 02, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Managing Switches for Policy-Based Networking
My recent blog post about Lockdown Networks demise seems to have struck a chord. I've heard from a few enterprise users and product vendors as a result, and NetClarity recently disclosed their patented approach for connecting to switches in existing infrastructures.
The point is this: it's not about access control. It's about actually designing an infrastructure that complies with policies that help you protect your infrastructure and key assets to the extent possible.
This takes work. It takes thinking about your network infrastructure, considering possible design changes to enable enforcement, creating the policies that reflect your requirements, and then deploying policy management solutions that enforce the policies.
It's not complex, but it is challenging. It takes a focus on what you want to allow and what you want to deny. Even if you don't deploy a policy enforcement solution, you should be determining what your policies are. Otherwise, you are living in a fantasy world regarding how your network is designed and what is happening on it.
What are your policies? What are you doing to enforce them?
Posted by Stephen Hultquist on April 2, 2008 12:29 PM
April 02, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Globalpex's content certification uniquely verifies physical content in the envelope
SaaS offering also certifies and retains e-mail and instant message conversations
It’s easy to assume that technology ensures the integrity of our electronic communications. And in most cases that’s true. For example, products such as ReadNotify and RPost offer certified e-mail delivery notification and read receipts. Similarly, IBM Lotus Sametime and Jabber have excellent instant messenger (IM) security.
But there’s a big gap when you need to certify paper documents. After all, the U.S. Postal Service and other expedited shippers only confirm that an envelope has been sent and delivered. Because Globalpex content certification services prove what’s in the envelope – as well as verify what you say in IM chats and confirm what you send in e-mails – these offerings deserve a close look. 
Globalpex has something for enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses, and entrepreneurs. Yet the core processes are the same for each organization.
The contemporary Web interface intuitively organizes documents you’ve sent by an easily customized folder structure. From the same display you also view whether a document has been received or read, adjust retention periods, review IM chat history, and send new documents.
For example, to content-certify physical mail, I followed a quick and simple process that works with any file that can be printed. Using a one-screen wizard, I swiftly uploaded a Microsoft Word document, selected a recipient (contacts can be imported from Outlook), chose a carrier (DHL, UPS, FedEx, or the U.S. Postal Service), and chose a retention schedule, which can range from 30 days to 30 years.
Behind the scenes is where it gets interesting. The Globalpex servers add a barcode to every page to verify authenticity, send the document to a secure printer, create a PDF document for retention, and then pass the physical document to the carrier you selected for delivery to your recipient. The barcode is an essential ingredient, since it can be compared to the original document if necessary to authenticate that nothing has been changed by the recipient.
Certified e-mail works by effortlessly creating your message using an integrated Microsoft Outlook-style Web application. After sending the message, Globalpex first proves that the destination server received the e-mail and then provides you with a read receipt that records the recipient’s IP address and other specifics with a time and date stamp. Because the unalterable e-mail resides on a Globalpex server, there’s irrefutable legal proof of delivery, receipt, and viewing.
Certified Instant Messaging (currently in beta) costs nothing if you select the standard 30-day retention period. The downside is you must install Globalpex’s IM client, which is a no-frills application that connects to other Globalpex users and those with an AIM account. Still, Globalpex gives you certified group chat and a searchable history. Moreover, organizations don’t have to invest in separate IM servers and support. Once this service is formally released Globalpex will price chat retention beyond 30 days.
Even in this initial rollout, I see immediate benefits, particularly for financial, government, insurance, and legal organizations. In the case of paper documents, besides content certification and retention schedules that help with compliance regulations, you potentially reduce international shipping costs (local rates apply because the document is packaged closest to the destination).
One important feature for big clients would be integration with existing systems, including enterprise content management (ECM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. At minimum, this could streamline original document production and management. Globalpex representatives indicated they are developing plug-ins for these existing applications, but didn’t have a timeline for availability.
For SMB operations, Globalpex delivers a cost-effective turnkey solution. Even for individuals, Globalpex supplies good value because you pay as you go; this makes it convenient to use the service selectively for, say, contracts or human resource documents.
Globalpex Content Certification Services
Pricing: Physical mail, about $5.87 for 10-page document with 3-year retention (not including shipping charges); certified e-mail is $0.25 plus $0.05 per year for retention of a 300K message.
Verdict: Globalpex complements existing delivery services by certifying the contents of a package. It also reduces the cost of expedited delivery and converts paper to more manageable files for retention. This service, additionally, provides approximately 50 percent cost savings over alternatives for certified e-mail, while adding greater security and retention. Finally, Certified Instant Messanging offers standard 30-day retention plus advanced reporting – with no license fees.
Posted by Mike Heck on April 2, 2008 10:00 AM