Jon’s Network

Former Gartner analyst Rich Mogull now has an “open-source” analyst firm, Securosis. One of their projects, Project Quant, hopes to develop a model that accurately reflects the costs associated with patch management.

They have a 20 question survey to learn more about real-world patch processes. If you think you can offer some helpful information, please take a stab at the survey.

In the registration code field, please use JONSNETWORK

Click here to fill out the survey.

Click here to learn more about the survey.

Ironkey makes high-end, secure, USB flash drives for the security and privacy conscious. Designed for the military, government and enterprise, it is easy to deploy and use. They can even make Tor more secure for you. Check out their FAQ. (Link: Ironkey)

Bone up on PC power management with this vital list of resources. Check the directory for possible vendors. Contact me if you want to check anything out.

Beyond the Perimeter Podcast on PC Power Management
Amrit Williams, CTO of BigFix, talks to Doug Washburn.

Climate Savers - Smart Computing
An initiative to mobilize systems buyers to meet or exceed ENERGY STAR specs and use power-management tools on computers.

Computer Power Management Forum
Vendor-neutral resource intended to promote IT energy efficiency.

ENERGY STAR Low Carbon IT Campaign
The ENERGY STAR Low Carbon IT Campaign is a nationwide effort to assist and recognize organizations for reducing the energy consumed by their computers and monitors.

Energy Star Power Management
Tips on activating power management features in enterprises.

Five Reasons to Consider PC Power Management
Doug Washburn blogs.

Forrester Report - How Much Money Are Your Idle PCs Wasting?
Free download through April 30, 2009. (A $279 value).

Green IT Baseline Calculator
Courtesy of Forrester

No Good Excuses Not to Power Down PCs
Ted Samson’s article at Infoworld tells how to overcome common complaints about PC power managament. Be sure to check the comments.

Through April 30, 2009, you can download “How Much Money Are Your Idle PCs Wasting?” by Doug Washburn of Forrester. It usually costs $279.

Organizations are wasting money paying for energy to run computers when they don’t need to be run. Forrester recommends organizations enable power management on as many assets as possible using power management software by client management suite vendors like 1E, BigFix(my preference), LANDesk, or Scriptlogic. Stand-alone solutions like Faronics or Verdiem are an option, but benefits are not as easily achieved or tracked.

I’m partnered with BigFix. If you want to learn more, let me know. DM me on Twitter

You may have noticed a slew of posts about vendors with boilerplate descriptions. It’s part of a new feature I’m building on the site to hopefully have a place for IT shoppers to compare and learn about possible solutions. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but always balked because I didn’t have the right tool. I think Expression Engine would be ideal, but didn’t want to migrate my blog or start another site. I built a solution using Wordpress page templates, but that wasn’t scalable since I would have had to create a new page template for each category in the directory. I improved upon that by using regular WP categories with a single custom category template. I integrated related resource links using a custom field and WP bookmarks. I will still have to create a bunch of category templates since I want the directory listings to appear different than my usual category archive page unless there is a way to assign a template to a group of categories (I don’t think so).

Once all the boilerplate listings are in, more detailed information will be posted as I come across it or as it is submitted to me. It could be the type of information vendors want their prospects to see, but more interesting will be the user reviews and feedback about small details that are only found out during bake-offs and production.

If you have any suggestions or feedback or want to submit anything, I’d love to hear it.

Offered as a stand-alone product or as part of the BigFix Systems Lifecycle Management suite, BigFix Power Management allows IT organizations to enforce conservation policies across the enterprise, while providing granularity that enables application of these policies to a single computer. For end users, BigFix Power Management maximizes power policy deployment while minimizing usage impact through an optional “opt-in” approach. Granular controls also allow end users to save their work before shutting the system down - ensuring no loss to productivity. (Link: BigFix)

• Centralized, policy-driven power management of distributed computers scalable from individual machines to entire global enterprises
• Fine-grained controls for hibernation/ standby, subsystem-only shut down and “save work before shutdown” options
• Wake-On-LAN support synchronizes systems maintenance processes with power conservation
• “Opt-in” programs encourage end-user participation as well as “Wake-on-Web” feature to allow for end-users to remotely connect and turn on their own systems

LANDesk automates systems and security management tasks to see, manage, update and protect all your desktops, servers and mobile devices from a single console. It doesn’t matter if your systems are inside or outside the corporate firewall. The power management solution is here. (Link: LANDesk)

1E’s Nightwatchman works with the 1E Agility Framework reporting server to directly measure and report on power consumption, energy costs and C02 emissions. It can also calculate the actual savings you are achieving by using NightWatchman’s power saving measures. (Link: 1E)

BigFix gives you an intelligent, non-invasive client to do pretty much anything you can think of when trying to manage disparate machines spread out all over the world. If you have problems finding your machines, changing anything on your machines, or maintaining and verifying configurations, you should take a look at BigFix.

The BigFix platform is designed to continuously discover, assess, remediate, and enforce the health and security of servers, desktops, and roaming laptops in real-time via a single, policy-driven agent and single console. (Link: BigFix)