Every year vendors come out with new devices – smartphones, tablets, PCs – with the intent of getting customers to decommission older versions. The problem is these old devices are bad for the environment and could expose data. This is a green environmental and green moneymaking opportunity for solution providers.

December of last year, I traveled to New York to participate in a Windows Migration Roundtable event with Dell. I joined Dell executives, a customer and media to discuss Windows Server 2003 end of support; how we, as a channel partner, can play a critical role in migration projects; and why organizations should look to channel partners to help implement and execute migrations and infrastructure modernization projects.

It may look like an unassuming box in the server room, but your firewall is your gatekeeper, your first line of defense, shielding you from the bad stuff on the outside world of the Internet. When firewalls first came into use, it simply meant blocking certain kinds of traffic. Today’s “next-generation firewalls” need to do a whole lot more.