NEON SUES IBM ALLEGING ILLEGAL DISPARAGEMENT OF ZPRIME

Neon, the company behind zPrime, the software that helps users move legacy workloads to specialty engines and thereby reduce their metered software charges, has sued IBM in Federal Court.  The case was filed in Austin, near Neon's home town, which is one of the cities served by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.  The suit stems from allegations that IBM has falsely disparaged zPrime and misrepresented in a material and harmful way the software and maliciously disputed the legality of using it on IBM mainframes while knowing otherwise.
The key Federal law invoked by Neon is the Lanham Act.  The Lanham act is part of U.S. trademark law, not antitrust law.  It has been invoked in this matter because Lanham can bring a successful plaintiff substantial relief quickly and perhaps simply (compared to an antitrust suit, anyway).  The law appears to fit the circumstances as described by Neon, although it is a safe bet that IBM will say Lanham has no applicability to this matter.  Neon's Lanham hook has been sunk into the way IBM has disparaged zPrime and Neon in its effort to dissuade mainframe users from buying the product.
The Lanham act is named after a Texas Congressman, Fritz Lanham, who served (and got his law passed) during the Truman administration.  The Lanham Act has been updated and amended during the more than six decades since its initial passage.
In recent years, IBM has been accused of antitrust violations by rivals such as Platform Solutions, which it bought and slaughtered, and T3, which is has not bought and not yet slaughtered.  In its suit, Neon says IBM is probably violating antitrust law in the mainframe business, but Neon is not making any antitrust claims at this time.  Neon views an antitrust suit against IBM as a morass.  Instead, Neon is using its assertions about IBM's allegedly monopolistic practices to paint a dark picture of Big Blue's business practices.  But that does not mean Neon's suit is confined to a Lanham claim.  On the contrary:  Neon has also invoked California's law against unfair competition and some related Texas law.
Neon is represented by the Houston firm Reynolds, Frizzell, Black, Doyle, Allen & Oldham.
Like Neon, IBM has already been talking up its side of the story in the business press, along the way conceding that zPrime really could save users a bunch of money.  IBM told Bloomberg news that Neon's zPrime "is akin to a homeowner tampering with his electrical meter to save money."  Neon would be unlikely to approve of the term tampering, but its complaint seems to say that IBM's practices are a bit like those of a utility company . . . if the utility company happens to be Ga

IBM LEGAL VICTORY CRUSHES NEON'S JPRIME FEE-DODGING SOFTWARE

On May 31 IBM obtained a permament injunction barring Neon from selling its zPrime product, software that enabled many general-purpose mainframe jobs to run on specialty engines.  Once moved, these jobs let users dodge software charges based on the use of general purpose computing capacity.  The technical tricks were, as IBM seems to have shown, a violation of IBM's policies and practices and a breach of IBM's mainframe software licensing agreement.  Game over.
The injunction appears to permit users of the jPrime product to continue running the code under the terms of their contracts with Neon.  Neon appears to be obliged to do everything it can to unwind these deals short of defaulting on its obligations.
The personnel behind jPrime are specifically prohibited from using their knowhow to outfox IBM.  They are also enjoined from sharing or making public their understanding of the IBM software that attempts to govern and meter workloads on IBM mainframes.  Basically, IBM found a legal solution to the problems posed by jPrime but from the looks of things Big Blue could not come up with a technical remedy for the bill-beating technology.

Communications protocol

Main article: Communications protocol

A communications protocol defines the formats and rules for exchanging information via a network and typically comprises a complete protocol suite which describes the protocols used at various usage levels. An interesting feature of communications protocols is that they may be – and in fact very often are – stacked above each other, which means that one is used to carry the other. The example for this is HTTP running over TCP over IP over IEEE 802.11, where the second and third are members of the Internet Protocol Suite, while the last is a member of the Ethernet protocol suite. This is the stacking which exists between the wireless router and the home user's personal computer when surfing the World Wide Web.
Communication protocols have themselves various properties, such as whether they are connection-oriented versus connectionless, whether they use circuit mode or packet switching, or whether they use hierarchical or flat addressing.
There exist a multitude of communication protocols, a few of which are described below.

Wired technologies

• Twisted pair wire is the most widely used medium for telecommunication. Twisted-pair cabling consist of copper wires that are twisted into pairs. Ordinary telephone wires consist of two insulated copper wires twisted into pairs. Computer networking cabling (wired Ethernet as defined by IEEE 802.3) consists of 4 pairs of copper cabling that can be utilized for both voice and data transmission. The use of two wires twisted together helps to reduce crosstalk and electromagnetic induction. The transmission speed ranges from 2 million bits per second to 10 billion bits per second. Twisted pair cabling comes in two forms which are Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) and Shielded twisted-pair (STP) which are rated in categories which are manufactured in different increments for various scenarios.

• Coaxial cable is widely used for cable television systems, office buildings, and other work-sites for local area networks. The cables consist of copper or aluminum wire wrapped with insulating layer typically of a flexible material with a high dielectric constant, all of which are surrounded by a conductive layer. The layers of insulation help minimize interference and distortion. Transmission speed range from 200 million to more than 500 million bits per second.

• ITU-T G.hn technology uses existing home wiring (coaxial cable, phone lines and power lines) to create a high-speed (up to 1 Gigabit/s) local area network.

Optical fiber cable consists of one or more filaments of glass fiber wrapped in protective layers that carries data by means of pulses of light. It transmits light which can travel over extended distances. Fiber-optic cables are not affected by electromagnetic radiation. Transmission speed may reach trillions of bits per second. The transmission speed of fiber optics is hundreds of times faster than for coaxial cables and thousands of times faster than a twisted-pair wire. This capacity may be further increased by the use of colored light, i.e., light of multiple wavelengths. Instead of carrying one message in a stream of monochromatic light impulses, this technology can carry multiple signals in a single fibe

Fundamental Computer Networks Concepts

In the world of computers, networking is the practice of linking two or more computing devices together for the purpose of sharing data. Networks are built with a combination of computer hardware and computer software. Some explanations of networking found in books and tutorials are highly technical, designed for students and professionals, while others are geared more to home and business uses of computer networks.

Wired vs Wireless Networking

Many of the same network protocols, like TCP/IP, work in both wired and wireless networks. Networks with Ethernet cables predominated in businesses, schools, and homes for several decades. Recently, however, wireless networking alternatives have emerged as the premier technology for building new computer networks.

Computer Network Topologies

Bus, ring and star network topology diagrams

By Bradley Mitchell, About.com Guide

A computer network topology is the physical communication scheme used by connected devices. These pages illustrate the common computer network topologies including bus, ring and star topology diagrams. More complex networks can be built as hybrids of two or more of these basic topologies.

CCNA

Definition: A CCNA is a Cisco Certified Network Administrator. This certification, which is good for 3 years, can be obtained in one of two ways: Candidates have the option of gaining the certification by passing two tests (INTRO and ICND), or one single test (CCNA); the two-test option has the advantage of allowing the candidate to focus on certain subjects. When the CCNA certification expires the holder must do one of the following: re-take the CCNA or ICND exam or take and pass an exam for one of the Professional (e.g., CCNP) or Specialist level certifications (excluding the sales specialist exams), or pass the CCIE written exam.

Network Administrator

Profile of a Network Administrator:

Network Administrator

A Network Administrator is a professional in charge of the maintenance of the computer hardware and software systems that make up a computer network. This includes activities such as the deployment, configuration, maintenance and monitoring of active network equipment.
The Network Administrator is typically a mid to senior level of technical/network staff in an organization and is not typically involved with direct user support. The Network Administrator will concentrate on the overall health of the network, server deployment, security, ensuring network connectivity throughout and company's LAN/WAN infrastructure, and all other technical considerations at the network level of an organizations technical hierarchy. Network Administrators are considered Tier 3 support personnel that only work on break/fix issues that could not be resolved at the Tier1 (helpdesk) or Tier 2 (desktop/network technician) levels.
In some companies, the Network Administrator may also design and deploy networks. Usually, though, these tasks would be assigned to a Network Engineer if the company is large enough.
The actual role of the Network Administrator will vary from company to company, but usually includes tasks such as network address assignment, assignment of routing protocols and routing table configuration as well as configuration of authentication and authorization – directory services. It often includes maintenance of network facilities in individual machines, such as drivers and settings of personal computers as well as printers and such. It sometimes also includes maintenance of certain network servers: file servers, VPN gateways, intrusion detection systems, etc.

Computer Networking

Computer Networking is a focus within engineering that deals with communication between computer systems or devices. Computer networking is often considered a sub-discipline of a few areas: telecommunications, computer science, information technology and/or computer engineering. Computer networks rely heavily on the theoretical and practical application of each of these engineering disciplines.

History of Information Technology:

In relative terms, it wasn't long ago that the Information Technology department might have consisted of a single Computer Operator, who might be storing data on magnetic tape, and then putting it in a box down in the basement somewhere. The history of information technology is fascinating! Check out these history of information technology resources for information on everything from the history of IT to electronics inventions and even the top 10 IT bugs.

Information Technology – A Definition:

We use the term information technology or IT to refer to an entire industry. In actuality, information technology is the use of computers and software to manage information. In some companies, this is referred to as Management Information Services (or MIS) or simply as Information Services (or IS). The information technology department of a large company would be responsible for storing information, protecting information, processing the information, transmitting the information as necessary, and later retrieving information as necessary.