Avnet Technology Solutions UK Introduces New Professional Services Offering for Microsoft System Center

March 21, 2012 - Avnet Technology Solutions UK introduces new Professional Services offering for Microsoft System Center

Bracknell, UK -- Avnet Technology Solutions, the global IT solutions distribution leader and an operating group of Avnet, Inc.(NYSE: AVT), today announced that Microsoft System Center professional services are now available from Avnet in the UK.  This coincides with Avnet becoming the only distribution company in the UK to achieve the Microsoft Gold Competency in virtualization and management - a significant milestone that recognises Avnet's exceptional technical competency in this area. 

By combining best-of-breed Microsoft technology with Avnet's professional services capability, Avnet business partners will benefit from an effective framework for introducing server management lifecycle best practices and more simple and flexible licensing models that save time and money for end-user customers.  Avnet will work with its business partners to support SME and midsized organisations by offering a comprehensive range of services covering pre-sales consultancy, design, customisation, integration and support.

Taisha Betz, Microsoft business unit manager, Avnet Technology Solutions, UK, commented, "Today's announcement rewards our investment in high quality training and reflects our commitment to adding real value to our business partners.  Our dedicated team of professionals has the market knowledge, resources and technology know-how to help business partners offer much more than software licenses, namely the ability to implement large-scale, complex IT solutions and services that deliver tangible business value."

Stephen Ennis, services business development director, Avnet Technology Solutions, EMEA, added, "Being the first IT solutions distribution company in the UK to gain the Microsoft Gold Competency in virtualization and management is a truly remarkable achievement. Our comprehensive services portfolio enables business partners to rapidly enter and capitalise on the high growth virtualisation market. This portfolio is complementary to our business partners and augments their own in-house services."

To find out more about Avnet's new professional services offering for Microsoft System Center, please visit www.virtcentral.co.uk

About Avnet Technology Solutions

As a global IT solutions distributor, Avnet Technology Solutions collaborates with its customers and suppliers to create and deliver services, software and hardware solutions that address the business needs of their end-user customers locally and around the world. For fiscal year 2011, the group served customers in more than 70 countries and generated US $11.5 billion in annual revenue. Avnet Technology Solutions (www.ats.avnet.com) is an operating group of Avnet, Inc.

About Avnet

Avnet, Inc. (NYSE:AVT), a Fortune 500 company, is one of the largest distributors of electronic components, computer products and embedded technology serving customers in more than 70 countries worldwide. Avnet accelerates its partners' success by connecting the world's leading technology suppliers with a broad base of more than 100,000 customers by providing cost-effective, value-added services and solutions. For the fiscal year ended July 2, 2011, Avnet generated revenue of $26.5 billion. For more information, visit www.avnet.com.

GE Healthcare Announces First Graduating Class of U.S. Army Reservists from Professional Development Program

19 March 2012

GE Healthcare Announces First Graduating Class of U.S. Army Reservists from Professional Development Program

 

Externship program provides training and fosters employment opportunities for biomedical equipment specialists in the Army and private sector

MILWAUKEE – March 19, 2012 – GE Healthcare today announced the graduation of the first class from its joint externship program with the U.S. Army Reserve’s 807th Medical Command (Deployment Support) (807th MDSC). The program provides training and fosters career development for biomedical equipment specialists with the goal of producing highly skilled Soldiers for Army Reserve war and peace time missions and facilitating their employment in the civilian healthcare technology industry so Soldiers stay mission-ready.

Last year, GE established a partnership with the 807th MDSC, which manages deployment of all Army Reserve field expeditionary medical units from Ohio to California, to help address the critical need for biomedical equipment specialists both within the Command and in the private sector. The pilot program graduated seven Army Reservists. A second wave made up of seven externs is midway through the program, and a third wave will commence shortly.

The externship program aligns with GE’s commitment to strengthening America’s global competitiveness by building a more highly skilled workforce and supporting the integration of the nation’s veterans into industry. In February 2012, GE announced plans to hire 5,000 veterans over the next five years and to partner with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to support its “Hiring our Heroes” initiative through career opportunities and training for veterans in 50 U.S. cities. GE Healthcare has already hired three employees through the program.

“GE is proud to count among our employees thousands of military veterans whose leadership skills and training supports our culture of dedication and commitment,” said Richard Neff, Vice President and General Manager of Service for the United States and Canada, GE Healthcare. “We are pleased with the results of this pilot program and look forward to expanding our efforts to provide career opportunities to our service men and women, addressing needs in the healthcare industry, and helping drive ‘what works’ in the American economy.”

Biomedical equipment specialists participating in the program obtain professional qualifications for both military and civilian standards. Externs complete hands-on “mission” assignments as well as Duty Military Occupational Skill Qualification requirements and acquire experience in regional medical equipment concentration sites, advanced, multi-modality biomedical training and process management training with regular progress review.

“We are pleased to collaborate with GE Healthcare to not only help meet the need for specialized biomedical training in the healthcare industry, but to also provide important opportunities for military veterans to integrate into the civilian workforce,” said Maj. Gen. L.P. Chang, Commander, 807th Medical Command.

Sandia to Help IT Professionals w/ DNS Vulnerabilities

News release from Sandia Labs:

January 11, 2012

Sandia cyber project looks to help IT professionals with complex Domain Name System (DNS) vulnerabilities

LIVERMORE, Calif. — Sandia National Laboratories computer scientist Casey Deccio has developed a visualization tool known as DNSViz to help network administrators within the federal government and global IT community better understand Domain Name System Security (DNSSEC) and to help them troubleshoot problems. (Click here to see a short video of Deccio discussing the DNSViz tool.)

Sandia computer scientist Casey Deccio developed a software tool called DNSViz to help network administrators with Domain Name System (DNS) vulnerabilities. DNSViz provides a visual analysis of the DNSSEC authentication chain for a domain name and its resolution path in the DNS namespace. 

DNSSEC is a security feature mandated for all federal information systems by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The 2008 mandate requires that “the top level .gov domain will be DNSSEC-signed, and processes to enable secure delegated sub-domains will be developed.”

The entity that serves to translate the hostname of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) into an Internet Protocol (IP) address is known as the Domain Name System (DNS). A DNS “lookup” is a prerequisite for doing almost anything on the Internet, including Web browsing, emailing or videoconferencing.

Although the mandate made perfect sense, said Deccio, there soon emerged a problem when .gov organizations actually began deploying DNSSEC.

“DNSSEC is hard to configure correctly and has to undergo regular maintenance,” he said. “It adds a great deal of complexity to IT systems, and if configured improperly or deployed onto servers that aren’t fully compatible, it keeps users from accessing .gov sites. They just get error responses.”

The still-new DNSSEC security feature is designed to allow user applications like Web browsers to ensure that the IP addresses they have received from the DNS have not been “spoofed” by anyone with ill intent. As such, Internet-connected systems within the government can verify that the responses are authoritative and have not been altered. Still, the hiccups with implementing DNSSEC convinced Deccio that there was a need for a tool like DNSViz.

DNS, said Deccio, is inherently insecure. Without DNSSEC, tampering by third-party attackers could go undetected, thus redirecting online communications to unwanted destinations. This represents a particularly troublesome problem for .gov addresses owned by government organizations guarding national security information and other vital data.

Deccio believes DNSSEC is of little use if network administrators don’t know how to configure or use it.
He describes DNSViz as a “tool for visualizing the status of a DNS zone.” It provides a visual analysis of the DNSSEC authentication chain for a domain name and its resolution path in the DNS namespace, made available via a Web browser to any Internet user at http://dnsviz.net/. It visually highlights and describes configuration errors detected by the tool to assist administrators in identifying and fixing DNSSEC-related configuration problems.

DNSViz brings together all the components that work together for DNSSEC to function properly into a single graphical representation. The resulting visualization is a collection of configuration data and relationships that are otherwise difficult to assemble, assess and understand.

To help network administrators in their DNSSEC deployment, Sandia’s DNSViz tool functions in two primary ways: It actively analyzes a domain name by performing pertinent DNS lookups and it makes the analysis available via the Web interface. The active analysis occurs periodically to build a history of DNSSEC deployment over time and provide a historical reference for DNS administrators.

Currently, the Web interface is the primary source for viewers to observe data, though Deccio intends to expand DNSViz functionality to allow access via other means. For example, alert mechanisms might be used to inform affected parties, and application programming interfaces (API) can be designed to allow administrators to programmatically access the information instead of manually browsing the DNSViz website.
Deccio has the tool running in the background on Sandia/California’s servers, monitoring a list of some 100,000 DNS names. It performs an analysis a couple times each day and offers a situational awareness of what the DNS configuration for each name looks like from top to bottom.

Though the functionality provided by DNSViz could potentially be included in a marketable software product that’s sold by a for-profit company, Deccio says he envisions it as an open-source tool available to anyone who needs it. With further funding, he hopes to expand the tool so that it can analyze DNS health and security on a continuous basis, essentially creating a full-blown monitoring system that is scalable, versatile and more informational.