Technology Innovations
I. Technology Trends. “Sharwood says time has come for companies to embrace next-generation firewalls.” Sydney Morning Herald December 15, 2009.
II. Summary.
Simon Sharwood said on the Tuesday edition of The Sydney Morning Herald that a time had come for the world to embrace the next-generation firewalls. According to Sharwood, it was a common characteristic of many organizations to operate to operate a fleet of security appliances. These security appliances were operated together with firewalls together with protection devices against intrusion and unified threat management gadgets. All these devices basically help to build a layered defense. A firewall is a device which is designed to either authorize or rebuff transmission of network. Firewall could as well be a set of devices that regulate and control network transmission. Operations of the device are based upon laid down rules. It is normally used to protect networks against unauthorized access but on the other hand consenting to lawful communication to go through.
A lot of personal computers have operating systems that consist of firewalls which are software-based for protection in the event of a threat originating from public internet. This kind of technology emerged back in the 80s when internet was a new technology purely based on global use. However, this technology has gained popularity over the years and upgrading system has been done so that it adjusts to the technological transformations particularly on internet usage. This has seen different kinds of firewalls come into play (Ransbotham 11). They include, packet filters, application layer and proxies. The next generation firewalls has more detailed controls, in other words it has a wider 5-tuple. The firewalls have grown up and taken over most of the functions of other security appliances. The Chief Information Officers who would wish to consolidate their security infrastructure have welcomed this kind of evolution come beginning of the year 2010.
III. Opinion
I believe that Simon Sharwood’s observation of a technology innovation in the horizon is welcome and long overdue. This development comes in the wake of increasing number of cases of hacking of networks of different organizations by unauthorized users. In the process, many organizations have lost some vital information. Besides, confidential information and documents are leaked out to the public (Delfino &Gillespie 12). Firewall has therefore become the remedy of network security menace. Several benefits associated with next-generation firewalls which include: Protection of local area networks against hostile intrusion from the internet, allowing the administrators of the network to offer access to only the specific types of internet services. The selectivity is usually an important part of the program for managing information (Dauda 15).
The next-generation firewalls would in particular enhance application visibility and control thereby promoting audio and video streaming, file sharing and social networks. In addition, next-generation firewalls would facilitate identification and control of applications, content and users. Finally, they would largely help in threat prevention since they have the capacity to limit traffic to only approved applications. Therefore, it is important for the organization’s information technology directors to embrace the next-generation technology come the year 2010. This is because the security of the local networks of various companies and organizations would be guaranteed. Further, the organizations would be better positioned to control traffic to only the approved users of such applications.
IV. Keywords: Technology Trends, Simon Sharwood, Information Technology, Firewalls, Network Security, The Sydney Morning Herald.
V. Name, Date, CTR# Info. 6
Works Cited
Susanna Delfino, Michele Gillespie. Technology, innovation, and Southern industrialization:
From the antebellum era to the computer age. New York: University of Missouri Press, 2008
Yunus Dauda.Managing Technology Innovation: The Human Resource Management Perspective. New York: Peter Lang, 2008
Samuel B. Ransbotham (III.), Georgia Institute of Technology.Acquisition and diffusion of technology innovation. New York: ProQuest, 2008
