Recently, Microsoft responded to customer requests to delay Windows XP’s planned “End-of-Life” (EOL) date of January 1, 2009 by offering a short reprieve of four months. For those of you who may not be familiar with Microsoft’s EOL policy, you might want to sit down first before continuing to read this article. This means that as of April 19, 2009, Microsoft will no longer offer its Mainstream support and Extended Support Options will go into effect through 2014.

Virtualization can be a double-edged sword when it comes to security. As Virtual Machines (VMs) become an increasingly commonplace method of separating hostile or hazardous code from commodity systems, the potential security exposure from implementation flaws increases dramatically. Secure isolation is one of the fundamental concepts of virtualization; confining a program to a virtualized environment should guarantee that any action performed inside the virtual machine cannot interfere with the system that hosts it. Consequently, virtual machines have seen rapid adoption in situations where separation from a hostile or hazardous program is critical. However, virtualization should not be construed as a security boundary.

Business lines consistently demand new services and support functions. Budgets rarely keep pace with additions, meaning legacy services must operate at less costs. In order to meet these demands effectively, IT leaders must continually undertake strategic planning initiatives to improve the effectiveness of their organization, its key processes, and the underlying infrastructure. Strategic planning is all about defining the desired future state, then setting a specific path to get there.

A high-performance organization depends on products and services from high performance teams, both inside and outside the organization. Getronics is no exception. Internally, we work together across functions, and we also team with professionals outside of Getronics. This approach deepens our knowledge and brings innovation to our solutions for our clients and Getronics.

Our expanded team includes our channels and alliances with companies such as Dell, Cisco, and Microsoft; think tanks like I-4; and experts in organizations that focus on best practices such as The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), and Six Sigma.

In this issue of The Workspace Wire, we share how we collaborated with Microsoft to develop a solution for a smooth transition to the Microsoft Vista platform. We are using this process internally and offering it to our clients. We explore the value of infrastructure architecture that is enabled through TOGAF, a framework including a detailed method and a set of supporting tools, for developing an enterprise architecture in support of our Future-Ready Workspace. We also introduce timely information on server virtualization risks, currency fluctuation, and governance models.

Here’s to revving up performance in 2008!