Email	Print Reprint
	add to:
	Del.icio.us Digg Google Furl	Slashdot Y! MyWeb Blink

Flash back 20 years: A cool new storage media called CD-ROMs hits the market, we lost the Space Shuttle Challenger, and 5 million people joined together for "Hands Across America" to raise money for charity.

Corny? Sure. But that's the level of collaboration IT needs through 2007. For most of you, capital budgets will grow next year, but not by much. Forrester predicts a microscopic 2 percent hike, compared with 6 percent growth this year and 7 percent in 2005.

2007 SURVIVOR GUIDE INTRODUCTION BUSINESS STRATEGY SECURITY WIRELESS STORAGE & SERVERS MESSAGING & COLLABORATION APPLICATION INFRASTRUCTURE ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS NETWORK MANAGEMENT NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE

Simply wringing more computing power out of packed data centers won't be enough. For the next wave of change, IT must take the lead in improving communications and making the very best use of resources throughout the organization.

You could sort through hundreds of technologies to find the unique combination that will make your network sing. Or, you could read on as our experts analyze hot IT areas, from security to wireless to storage, and identify the business trends you need to watch in 2007. Our advice is grounded in real-world experience backed by a year's worth of the hands-on product testing and analysis that only Network Computing can provide.

The defining trend: Helping teams work more effectively. The tools we use for communication--e-mail, voice, IM, and increasingly video/Web conferencing--will be ever more intertwined, says Mike DeMaria. The same goes for the business applications and application infrastructure, where Lori MacVittie charts the impact of Web services and explains how the next generation of EAI and Web 2.0 initiatives, like mashups, are enabling IT to combine information from different data sources in new ways.

Indeed, you'll depend on information synthesized from many different components. Network management will move further away from lumbering frameworks toward a universal system for tracking process relationships among devices and software, says Chris Matney. Similarly,incorporating multiple software and hardware resources is the only way to build coherent security policies crucial for protecting corporate data. Don MacVittie tells us how.

Meanwhile, smart IT shops will capitalize on opportunities by reducing the time it takes to deploy applications. Andrew Conry-Murray says that often, simply purchasing applications as services can free up resources. Deployment times will also be reduced by continuing virtualization of the server and storage infrastructure. Steve Hill explains the process, while Mike Fratto recommends branch-offices-in-a-box at remote sites.

And, application delivery will continue to reach us--in and out of the office. Dave Molta charts how 2007 will see local and wide area wireless networks to collide as dual-mode cellular/ voice over Wi-Fi products gain ground.

An ever-increasing level of interconnectedness demands a champion to ensure that we can deliver any application, anytime, anywhere. Matney argues that technological expertise, while important, must be augmented by increasingly effective communication. He's right. IT can and must fulfill the role of collaboration champion if we expect to thrive in the changing technological climate of 2007.

RELATED ARTICLES No Related Articles		TOP 5 ARTICLES No Top Articles.