Podcast: Don't get 'Green Scammed' Newsmaker of the Week James Staten, principal analyst at Forrester Research, cautions IT executives not to believe all the green hype and offers tips on how to avoid falling victim to 'green-washed' technologies. (10:42)

CA partners to enhance data center automation capabilities CA, one of the big four management vendors that hasn't acquired an IT process, run-book or data center automation vendor, last week announced and OEM partnership with Opalis that will enhance those capabilities in CA ...

VMware talks green after strong Q1 VMware is talking up the green benefits of its virtualization technology after recording a strong performance in the first quarter.

Nortel spinoff Blade takes virtualization to data-center rack Blade Network Technologies, the data-center server-switch company spun off from Nortel two years ago, this week unveiled a line of Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches for rack-level network virtualization.

Meet Blade Network Technologies This newcomer is taking on Cisco with "rack-level" virtualization and improved energy consumption.

Desktop of the future Windows will evolve into the virtualized desktop, Microsoft executive promises.

5 ways of defining cloud computing As with nearly every IT trend, including service-oriented architectures and Web services, just because we're all talking about cloud computing doesn't mean we're talking about the same thing.

Beta of Virtual Machine Manager that supports Hyper-V expected next week Microsoft's Larry Orecklin, who runs the System Center and virtualization businesses, laid out Microsoft's end-to-end virtualization strategy.

Virtualization and Dell To the idea that virtualization will hurt Dell, blogger Mitchell Ashley say phooey, and he's got the revenue numbers to prove it.

Has Microsoft Deprecated your SQL code in 2008? Microsoft Subnet welcomes new blogger and SQL expert Brian Egler! He names the features Microsoft has nixed in Katmai, due out later this year.

Shipper lost another backup tape? No worries in SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Subnet blogger Brian Egler describes a new feature of SQL Server 2008 called Transparent Data Encryption, which allows a DBA to encrypt an entire database without any application code changes.

Server down - how do you know what's affected? A reader Microsoft Subnet blogger Kerrie Meyler, "If server/switch/router or application x is down, what else will be impacted?" Operations Manager (OpsMgr) 2007 has the ability to do exactly that.

Microsoft's Under Promise / Over Deliver Strategy? Blogger Mitchell Ashley writes, "Instead of filling us with sunshine about Live Mesh's five year vision (meaning it'll be five years before we see anything), Microsoft has given us hints and very basic demos, followed by rolling out some interesting functionality fairly soon afterward."

How do Starter GPOs work? Part 1 Windows Server 2008 blogger Glenn Weadock introduces the concept of Starter GPOs, which contain settings previously found in the Administrative Templates container of an ordinary GPO.

APRIL GIVEAWAYS:
Microsoft Subnet is giving away a Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 courtesy of New Horizons; and 15 copies of the book "System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed."
Cisco Subnet is giving away a Cisco training course of the winner's choosing, worth up to $3,495, courtesy of Cisco training partner Skyline-ATS. Cisco Subnet also has 15 digital downloads of the Cisco Press book "CCSP SNPA Quick Reference" up for grabs. Go here for the entry instructions for all the competitions.