Windows IT Pro Community Choice Awards

Why it won: APC has been producing uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) for longer than just about anyone, and IT pros have come to rely on the vendor for some of the best UPS products currently available. APC hardware is probably sitting in your data center as you read this, helping keep vital servers and appliances up and running.

Some IT products are more glamorous than others. Virtualization, smart phones, big-screen LCDs, and speedy CPUs are the attention-grabbing supermodels of the IT product universe, but the venerable uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is an underappreciated stalwart of business IT. Like the clock-punching janitors and maintenance staff that truly keep an office building running, the UPS works tirelessly—365 days a year, 24 × 7—to keep vital systems up and running.

American Power Conversion (APC) has been making UPS products for almost 30 years. APC’s dominance in the UPS market is led by products such as the Smart-UPS XL Series, a line of products that range in price from $450 to $1,800. Battery life varies from 3.5 to almost 9 hours, and you can add battery packs to push operational times beyond 24 hours. APC’s built-in PowerChute UPS software helps you manage your UPS environment as you see fit, and an internal accessory slot (dubbed the SmartSlot) allows for additional expansion.

—Jeff James

Silver: Smart-UPS SC Series
American Power Conversion
www.apc.com

Bronze: Back-UPS RS Series
American Power Conversion
www.apc.com

Laptop Synchronization Tools
Winner: PCsync
Laplink Software
www.laplink.com

Why it won: Rock-solid reliability and an impressive number of file synchronization features help make PCsync a must for IT pros tasked with keeping a small army of desktops and mobile devices in lockstep.

An increasingly mobile workforce has multiplied the challenges that IT pros grapple with every day. Keeping files synchronized and updated between a company desktop and mobile devices such as laptops, smartphones, and PDAs is one job that must be done without fail if end users are to be able to do their work. Laplink Software’s PCsync makes synchronization between devices easy.

This helpful tool specializes in simplifying file synchronization and data transfer between PCs. Using a USB cable, serial cable, or a wired or wireless network, you can synchronize, merge, back up, and copy files from different PCs. You can also schedule file synchronization jobs to automatically synchronize multiple files and folders at given intervals. Laplink touts its Smart- XChange synchronization definition and tracking tool as a way to make PC-to-PC transfers even more efficient and painless. Our voters agreed, helping PCsync garner the most votes to emerge as the winner of the category.

—Jeff James

Silver: Sync Logic
IPWorx.com
www.ipworx.com

Bronze: Beyond Compare
Scooter Software
www.scootersoftware.com

KVM over IP Switches
Winner: OmniView SMB KVM-over- IP Switch F1DP116G
Belkin International
www.belkin.com

Why it won: A comprehensive feature set and a competitive price help make the OmniView SMB KVM-over-IP switch hard to beat in this category.

If you have a data center packed with dozens of servers and appliances, how do you manage all of them without a tangled mess of monitors, keyboards, and mouse devices? Using a KVM switch is a good answer, and Belkin’s solution to the problem seems better than most. The Belkin OmniView SMB KVMover- IP Switch F1DP116G includes native CAT5 support and can be used to manage up to 248 servers (via daisy-chaining) from a single console.

“Our IT department considered several KVM-over-IP products for our needs, but the Belkin offered the best performance for the money,” says Darrell Bradshaw, marketing manager at Transource, a computer reseller that specializes in servicing contracts from the federal government. “The installation was straightforward, and the browser-based interface [used to access different servers] is easy to use. We’ve been using the product for about eight months and haven’t had any problems or issues to report.” Bradshaw says that his company also uses a fair amount of Avocent KVM hardware, but stressed that the cost of the OmniView SMB switch was a key factor in making that purchase.

Combine competitive pricing with advanced features, such as BIOS-level access to connected servers, 128-bit SSL encryption, and support for serial devices, and the OmniView SMB switch emerges as the most popular product in this award category.

—Jeff James

Silver: OmniView Remote IP Device with Virtual Media F1DE101H
Belkin International
www.belkin.com

Bronze: APC 16-Port IP KVM
American Power Conversion
www.apc.com