This Week In IT: 12/21/12

This Week On Tom's IT Pro: How to Use File History on Windows 8, How to Use File History on Windows 8, Less and More: A Buyer’s Guide to 4U Servers, Illustrated Guide to Making the Move to 10 Gigabit Ethernet, The Microserver: Three Key Players, Three Different Views, and more.

• Amazon Web Services Now Supports Microsoft's Windows PowerShell

Now enables developers and administrators manage their AWS services from the Windows PowerShell scripting environment with more than 550 cmdlets.

• GPU Server Guesses Over 345 Billion Passwords - Every Second

Recent advances in computing horsepower have given new meaning to brute-force attacks on passwords. 

• Microsoft Drops Windows Azure Storage Prices

Announces a 28 percent reduction in prices for Windows Azure Storage. 

• Integrating Data with SQL Server Integration Services

One of the most time consuming challenges facing data managers is data integration. 

• Amazon Opens AWS Marketplace to Windows Apps

Amazon now allows Windows Server developers to distribute cloud apps via the Amazon Web Services Marketplace.

How to Use File History on Windows 8

Knowing how to handle backup and restore in the Windows 8 File History will help relieve stress when things go wrong.

• Gartner: Amazon Web Services, HP Have Worst Cloud IaaS Service Level Agreements

Gartner analyst Lydia Leong sharply attacked cloud Infrastructure as as Service service level agreements as being potentially "meaningless."

• Survey Foresees Huge Opportunity For Big Data in 2013

A survey released by GigaSpaces suggests that 44 percent of companies are planning to move their big data to the cloud. 

• Kingston Teams with ESET, ClevX for Enterprise-Safe Flash Drives

Privacy USB Flash drives now have an option for DriveSecurity powered by ESET. 

Less and More: A Buyer’s Guide to 4U Servers

Factors to consider when making any 4U server purchasing decision.

• Pica8 Intros First Open Software Defined Networking Reference Architecture

Company addresses the lack of an "open" vSwitch. 

• Cisco Completes Cloupia Acquisition

Cisco is gaining Cloupia's software solution that automates converged data center infrastructure. 

• A Behind the Scenes Look at Beta IT Certification Exam Scoring

Ever wonder why you have to wait awhile – and sometimes, wait some more after that – to get results for beta IT certification exams?

An Illustrated Guide to Making the Move to 10 Gigabit Ethernet

The enterprise world is knee-deep in making the transition from 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) to 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

• Qualcomm Samples New Switch Family Aimed at SMB Market

Now sampling new affordable, high port-count Gigabit Ethernet switch series for the SMS market.

• Intel Introduces World's First Six-Watt Server-Class Atom SoC

These server-class SoCs only draw six watts of power.

• Public Clouds: Matters Of The External Connection

It's a mistake for enterprises to assume that after making the move to a public cloud service that all “infrastructure has gone out the door” and bandwidth worries are no more.

The Microserver: Three Key Players, Three Different Views

The thought that processor architectures we are using in our phones and everyday appliances could power very specific portions of the future data center is intriguing.

James Alan Miller is Managing Editor of Tom's IT Pro. He is a veteran technology journalist with over seventeen years of experience creating and developing magazine and online content. Founding editor of numerous business and enterprise computing sites at the internet.com network, James headed up the After Hours section at PC Magazine, as well as hardware and software sections of various Windows publications.

See here for all Tom's IT Pro articles written by James.

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