Companies should begin to spell out policies for security and compliance. The first step in doing that is to evaluate these disciplines along four key parameters: data classification, organizational structure, user classification, and technologies.

Information protection includes all data security issues, including access, malware and encryption:

• Data classification: Determining what data needs to be protected against viruses and other malware threats; and what data needs to be encrypted.

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Growth is one of the big themes in the data center for 2005/2006. Server growth is at 11% on average, year-on-year, while storage growth is a stagerring 22% per year, according to Nemertes upcoming research benchmark on next-generation data centers.

To deal with the explosive demand for IT services and resources, data centers are also being transformed.

Companies can select one of two main strategies: scale-out by buying more commodity servers and storage, or high-density where more services are delivered by fewer more dense and powerful servers and storage systems.

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Participants in the latest Nemertes' Convergence benchmark shared many concerns about and suggestions for the carriers. But a few very clear themes came across about why they are frustrated and why they haven’t turned to them more.

These themes include: lack of awareness, lack of scope, lack of incentives for salespeople and others. The carriers have some work to do on all these fronts if they truly want to excel in providing VOIP and converged services.

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