This Week In IT: 1/11/13

This Week On Tom's IT Pro: Slideshow: Rugged Tech for the Enterprise, Making It in IT: Advice for a Veteran IT Pro Without a Degree, APT: How to Defend Your Network Against Advanced Persistent Threats, Mind the Gap: IT - The Times They Are A-Changin , Floating Point Accelerators: Does IT Finally Get A Free Lunch?, and more.

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 Released

Redhat announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.9, a minor release of the platform.

• QNAP Announces 10 GbE TX-x70 Series NAS

Expanding rackmount NAS product line with two new entry-level models.

• Making It in IT: Advice for a Veteran IT Pro Without a Degree

Ed Tittel advises a 55-year old IT professional who never got a degree or any certification other than a CNE 3 /4 and ComTIA + PC Technician.

Slideshow: Rugged Tech for the Enterprise

Here are 17 examples of toughened-up gear that can survive military field operations and office park party fouls.

• Sponsored Video: Blade Servers Cut IT Costs

IDC study finds a high correlation between blade platform adoption and lower per user infrastructure costs among a wide range of businesses. 

• Win a Test Lab from Veeam!

Thinking about getting certified or that tech blog you keep putting off? Both are kind of tough to start on due to not having the right equipment.

Helium-Filled Enterprise HDDs Could Reach 6 TB Capacity

Western Digital is hoping to gain an edge in the enterprise hard drive market by rolling out helium-filled, sealed drives.

• Cost Reduction Remains Chief Reason to Adopt Cloud, Confusion Still Apparent

Survey finds expectation of cost reduction is the main reason why business consider a move to the cloud.

• 21 Years Ago: SLAC Installs the First Web Server in the US

Tim Berners-Lee set up first WWW server in at CERN in December 1991. 

• Sponsored Video: Converged Infrastructure Transforms IT

Businesses deploying converged infrastructure technologies in integrated solutions that more tightly align and even accelerate the value of information technology to help drive better business results.

APT: How to Defend Your Network Against Advanced Persistent Threats

Is resistance against Advanced Persistent Threats really futile?

• Mind the Gap: IT - The Times They Are A-Changin

In the past, IT has been the gatekeeper to technology for the business, mainly because we were the only people who lived it every day. That is no longer true. 

• Security Appliance Market Slowed Down in Q3 2012

The growth of the security appliance market is visibly decelerating, according to IDC. 

• RIM Sells Cloud Services Unit to Synchronoss

Research in Motion (RIM) is further streamlining its business with a surprising sale of its cloud business unit Newbay to mobile software developer Synchronoss for $55.5 million in cash.

Floating Point Accelerators: Does IT Finally Get A Free Lunch?

Floating point acceleration key to huge top-end performance jump in the world's fastest supercomputers.

• Calxeda Sees Storage Servers as Initial Opportunity

Calxeda apparently putting some effort in attracting business from the storage server market.

• Gartner Issues More Optimistic Outlook on IT Spending

Market research firm Gartner said that the uncertainties surrounding global economic growth are likely to subside in 2013 and lay the foundation for increases in IT spending this year.

• Why You Should Avoid “Brain Dumps” When Preparing for IT Certifications

Brain dumps are pretty constant, if unwanted and unattractive feature of the IT certification landscape.

Slideshow: The Ten Most Influential People in IT

The most transformative leaders and visionaries working in enterprise technology today.

• 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. 

• How Cloud Computing Has Advanced Over the Years

No single day passes without millions of people making use of one of the many features offered by cloud computing.

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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