European govt networks vulnerable

The EU's information security agency has warned of failings in the development of key technologies that are considered vital to the resilience of government and industry networks across Europe, states ITnews.com.

Three technologies: domain name services security extensions, Internet protocol v6 and multi-protocol label switching, were assessed by network experts at the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) on their ability to improve European e-government and e-commerce network infrastructures.

ENISA evaluated the technologies from two perspectives: first, related to the actual characteristics and network resilience-enhancing features of the systems; and second, addressing the effectiveness and security problems inherent in the technologies.

British academic network, Janet, has teamed up with carrier Verizon Business to test 100Gbps optical service, reports Computerworld UK.

Verizon says it finished the trial in April after it sent 100G signals simultaneously with 10G and 40G optical signals over a 103-kilometre section of its global network located between London and Reading.

The carrier tested the service in collaboration with Janet, the UK network used to support bandwidth-intensive educational and research projects, consisting of a backbone and 19 regional networks.

Research by enterprise ICT solutions and service provider, Damovo UK, reveals that 82% of UK organisations are concerned about their network performance, says Newswire Today.

This comes as many organisations are increasingly relying on their corporate networks to deliver converged voice and data services to their workforce.

However, rather than taking a strategic approach towards network planning, 76% of IT directors surveyed revealed that they were taking an ad-hoc approach to extending or upgrading their networks.