The most comprehensive IT reference library available

Auerbach Information Management Service

Imagine having the experience of hundreds of leading computing and networking professionals
available whenever you need it. What's something like this worth? How much would you pay to
have these experts on 24/7 call? Well, guess what? You can have this for less than you
think.

Expert Advice and Guidance

The Auerbach Information Management Service (AIMS) provides the expert advice
and guidance of hundreds of leading computing and networking practitioners and consultants.
Covering all major areas of IT management, including operations, data and database,
networking and communications, systems development, and security, control and auditing,
AIMS is the cure to what keeps IT managers up at night. AIMS is a bimonthly
reference service, available in print, on CD-ROM, and on the Web. It provides answers to
all information technology and management questions in a comprehensive, seven volume
library.

• Information Management: Strategy, Systems, and Technology
  
• Database Management
  
• Data Communications Management
  
• Enterprise Operations Management
  
• Data Security Management
  
• System Development Management
  
• EDP Auditing
  

Best Practices and More

By presenting the best practices of the top enterprises across the world, AIMS
practical, how-to approach helps IT managers, practitioners, and consultants tackle every
technical and managerial IT issue. It also provides technology evaluations, case studies,
policies and procedures and more.

Professionals at all levels of IT management, can use AIMS as a work-a-day
tool to:

• Solve on-the-job problems AIMS increases managers ability to make solid business and technology decisions depends on the accuracy and timeliness of the information at your disposal. AIMS contains precisely timed and delivered information on virtually all operational and strategic planning aspects of managing an IT department.
  
• Simplify daily planning and administration Managers can use any of hundreds of numerous checklists, tables, flowcharts, forms, and questionnaires as templates or examples for actual projects.
  
• Prepare reports for management using objective, expert opinion AIMS lets IT managers explore the advantages, disadvantages, and probable impact of new methodologies and emerging trends affecting the entire IT industry or your specialty area in IT. They can use AIMS as a guide to make business technology recommendations to their management or build a business case for new projects, purchases, or resources. They can easily cut and paste from the equivalent of hundreds of printed pages of text, graphics, and tables and import into a word processor for later use in reports.
  
• Train staff members and users AIMS is an indispensable resource for all members of the IT staff and business community at large so managers can get the maximum return on their hardware and software investments. Bring staff up to date on critical technologies and methods.
  
• Learn from the experiences of peers AIMS is an encyclopedia of information written and reviewed by established experts in the IT field and other professionals who are managing the challenges of the rapidly changing information technology profession
  
• Streamlined reading list As busy professionals, IT managers can save time by simply browsing through the table of contents, or search by keyword or title, to find precisely and quickly the information they want.
  

Real World Experience

Practical Features Increase the Ease of Access to Information

Each article contains several practical features that increase the ease of access to
information.

• Payoff Idea A highlighted section that immediately precedes the article text, the Payoff Idea presents the value you can expect to derive from reading the entire article.
  
  
• Checklists, Tables, Charts, and Diagrams These are among the most valuable features of the library and will save you hours of research by providing useful summaries of major issues.
  
  
• Recommended Course of Action The final section in each article focuses on how the you can use the information presented in the article.
  

Features of CD-ROM Version

The power of AIMS on CD-ROM is its search capabilities. A fast, powerful search
engine-using keyword, proximity or Boolean searches-lets you pinpoint in seconds the exact
information you need. It lets you simplify and speed your research, so you can spend more
time applying it where it really counts. No more wading through tables of contents looking
for clues to relevant information.

A built-in Glossary helps you decipher acronyms and terms. A What's New
button displays for a list of articles new to each supplement.

Subscribers receive a completely updated CD-ROM every other month. Brand new information,
six times a year, added to a growing reference library, keeps you current with new
techniques, problem-solving approaches and more. The CD-ROM is archival, with articles going back to 1997.

Consulting Editors and Contributors

AIMS is prepared by its consulting editors, listed below, all experts in their fields. Practitioners in each operational area submit articles and case studies to the consulting editor, who reviews them for technical accuracy and relevance. Make decisions, develop plans, and find solutions with confidence. AIMS offers hundreds of articles written by the best in their fields.

Benefits to Subscribers

• IT Managers AIMS helps maximize the productivity of the entire department by providing detailed techniques, hints, and strategies for baselining and benchmarking IT functions; software licensing and contract negotiations; and implementing and using client/server and groupware-based systems.
  
  
• Network and Communications Managers AIMS shows the latest methods for planning, designing, and administrating data and voice networks; using wireless systems; choosing between satellite and terrestrial links; managing multivendor networks; and working with bridges, routers, gateways, and switches.
  
  
• Security Specialists AIMS provides guidance on ensuring the security of hardware, software, and data without reducing user access; building a business continuity plan; and protecting PCs, LANs, and EDI.
  
  
• Systems Auditors and Managers AIMS give full coverage and expert guidance on topics such as systems design and development; test, design and execution for quality control; and auditing systems and applications.
  
  
• Database Administrators and Designers AIMS offers timely guidance on how to select, install, and maintain a database management system; design, build, and populate a data warehouse or datamart; and Web-based databases.
  
  
• Systems Development Managers AIMS delivers practical solutions to development problems in legacy, client/server, distributed, and Internet environments.
  

Why You Need AIMS

There are many reasons for organizations to subscribe to AIMS.

1. The contributors bring first hand experience, which allows you to benefit
   from their experience.
   
   
2. The articles augment in-house resources so that your IT staff can stay focused on
   their critical projects.
   
   
3. The articles are viewed as having an objective opinion and can help you
   gain consensus across different business units.
   
   

What You Get When You Subscribe to AIMS

Information Management: Strategy, Systems, and Technology

Janet Butler, Consulting Editor

Information Management provides ClOs, IT executives, and their professional
staffs information on IT management, staffing, directions in technology, delivering
information systems services, and operations. You'll get ideas and practices to help you
maximize the productivity of your information technology department, anticipate strategic
directions in technology, and make the business case for the information technology
function. Covers issues related to:

• Strategic planning and policy making--from budgets to implementation
  
• Delivery of services and systems to users--including implementations of current and
  next-generation client/server computing environments
  
• Emerging information technologies--from multimedia, to object-oriented programming,
  to high-speed networks
  
• Ongoing operations--database, data center, and enterprise network hardware and
  software
  
• Staffing and career development--hiring, staff training and motivation, and daily and
  long-term issues in managing a career and developing a talented staff in the dynamic IT
  field.
  
  

Database Management

Sanjiv Purba, Consulting Editor

Database Management explains today's leading approaches to managing and
developing enterprisewide database applications. Database Management goes far beyond
how to install and use the latest release of the hottest DBMS. It provides continuing
coverage of strategic management issues, design and development, operations and
maintenance, data resource management, directions in technology, and the organizational
interface. Dozens of case studies and analyses show you how to design, build and maintain
high-performance, high-availability databases in multiple environments. Database
Management addresses such timely and vital topics as:

• Web-enabled data warehouses
  
• Multimedia databases and data
  
• Enterprise database modeling
  
• Data conversion and migration
  
• OLAP architectures and tools.
  
  

Data Communications Management

John M. Lusa, Consulting Editor

This infobase covers every kind of communications network-LAN, WAN, and MAN
interconnections; satellite transmissions; cellular networks; next-generation broadband
networks; the Intemet-and their related technologies, service providers, equipment,
standards, and protocols. You get comprehensive coverage of strategic and administrative
issues, technology, standards and protocols, needs assessment and selection, network
implementation, and communications services and carriers. Data Communications Management
is an invaluable resource for communications network specialists, network managers, and
technical support engineers with responsibility for corporate network equipment,
facilities, and lines. Topics covered include:

• Firewall protection of Internet applications
  
• Wireless communication networks and services
  
• Techniques for optimizing Ethernet performance
  
• Frame relay services and performance
  
• Enterprise network management
  
  

Enterprise Operations Management

Steven Blanding, Consulting Editor

Enterprise Operations Management provides essential information for managing a
modem, evolving data center. This infobase is for data center managers and other technical
managers who are the first-line support responsible for the daily, efficient operation of
data center hardware and software, systems administration, help desk and technical support,
production applications, and system response times. In addition to comprehensive coverage
of these major areas-management issues, data center administration, interfacing with
vendors and customers, the physical facility, directions in technology-you'll find ideas on:

• Maintaining data in mainframe and distributed network environments
  
• Managing data storage and distribution
  
• Disaster recovery planning and business continuity planning
  
• Setting up the help desk
  
• Automated operations
  
• Budgeting and cost control
  
• Security
  

Data Security Management

Harold F. Tipton, CISSP, Consulting Editor

Data Security Management covers virtually every technical and managerial
aspect of data security, with practical insights from top industry leaders. It provides
practical information on management issues, access control, operating environment,
contingency planning, microcomputer security, and communications. You'll see how to ensure
the security of hardware, software, and data without reducing access; how to accurately
monitor security systems; how to pinpoint operating systems vulnerabilities and more:

• Establish and manage a security
  
• Build a business resumption
  
• Protect PCs, LANS, and EDI
  
• Select cryptographic systems
  
• Create effective user IDs
  
• Implement and evaluate operating system
  
• Introduce a security awareness program
  
  

EDP Auditing

Belden Menkus, Consulting Editor

The only regularly updated information service for auditors and security professionals,
EDP Auditing gives you full coverage of this ever-changing field. You get complete,
continual coverage of the IT audit, audit methodology, auditing the operating environment,
security, and auditing management controls, the latest systems and security auditing
approaches and issues, valuable management checklists, plus vital information to help you
fully understand all aspects of automated systems and operations. This newly redesigned
service covers:

• Auditing systems development and purchased systems
  
• managing the risks of outsourcing systems development
  
• Testing, designing and executing for quality control
  
• Auditing the database environment, distributed systems, object-oriented systems, the telephone switch
  
• Auditing communications systems and the Internet
  
• Planning and documenting the audit
  
• Contingency planning and auditing the disaster recovery plan
  
• Securing and auditing E-commerce
  
• Control SAP and other ERP systems
  
  

Systems Development Management

Janet Butler, Consulting Editor

This comprehensive service contains dozens of how-to articles for systems managers,
analysts and designers. It covers planning and organization, development, management and
administration, case studies and specific systems, and business and corporate issues. You
have a wealth of practical solutions to development problems in traditional, client/server
and emerging Internet environments. You'll see how to:

• Decide when to use object-oriented development and manage the transition when it happens.
  
• Evaluate and select software packages for medium- and large-scale systems.
  
• Stay competitive professionally, using proven strategies to advance your technical knowledge and your career.
  
• Reengineer applications for relational databases in client/server systems.
  
• Unlock the benefits of top-down analysis.
  
• Benchmark and enhance C, C++ and Java performance.
  
• Improve productivity using strategic and tactical components.
  
• Select hypermedia tools for systems development.
  
• Use risk to size the test effort.