Realtime Community | Windows Server Podcast

Hyper-V High Availability (and Other Data Replication) with SteelEye

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:30:00 -0500

These days, keeping your applications running is as important as the data they serve. As such, it is critical to implement technologies that replicate applications to alternate locations in the case of disaster. These replication technologies can occur at the array level or at the host level. They ultimately accomplish the same thing, but at wildly different cost levels. Steeleye is one company that produces a host-based replication system that works for applications, data, and even Hyper-V virtual machines. Without needing to purchase expensive SAN equipment at both ends of your DR connection, Steeleye's host-based replication technology enables the block-level transfer of data from one site to another. This transfer is handled at a level "below" the file system, ensuring that even critical applications like Exchange, SQL, SAP, Oracle, and others replicate with no concerns about transactional integrity. Whether you need cluster replication support for your Hyper-V virtual machines, or high availability for your applications, Steeleye has a product that suits you. In this podcast with Steeleye product manager David Bermingham, we'll talk about Hyper-V clusters and their need for virtual machine replication. We'll also talk about the needs for data replication across other applications in your environment. You'll learn how easy and inexpensive it can be to implement the right level of replcation that makes sense for even the smallest of businesses.

Preventing Data Leakage with Safend

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:30:00 -0500

Data leakage describes the loss of sensitive corporate data through any number of end point vectors. The loss of an unprotected laptop means the loss of any data installed to that laptop. But that vector is only one way in which your critical data can leave your protected corporate environment. Pluggable devices like USB hard drives and even iPods can easily become vectors for data loss when plugged into corporate computers. Even your email system can be a source of data loss when users inadvertently or maliciously send data over the wire to outside locations. To combat these problems you need modern end point security solutions that provide lockdowns for your laptops as much as the iPods on your network. In this podcast I talk about such solutions with Edy Almer of Safend. We talk about the problems of data leakage and even learn a little about Edy's New Years predictions for the changes he expects to see in 2009. If you're in a business who is afraid of losing critical and sensitive data -- and who isn't -- this podcast will help you understand what's on the horizon.

Comprehensive Pre-Change Testing for the Systems Administrator

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:30:00 -0500

Have you ever wished there was an effective way to really and truly test out changes to your environment before implementing them? The monthly patch cycle got you down? Application updates and changes keep you up at night? With the right tools, you can actually perform comprehensive regression testing on changes like these to your production applications and operating systems -- giving you the warm fuzzy that their implemention will fix the environment instead of break it. In this podcast, I interview Dennis Powell of StackSafe, where we talk about just these types of problems. The developers in your environment have for years enjoyed rich test tools that help them validate the functionality of their code before they ever merge it into an application. But those tools haven't been around for we systems administrators until just now. In this podcast we'll talk about the problems administrators see today with doing the right level of testing on servers and services before implementing changes. We'll discuss tools like those from StackSafe that take the guesswork out of your testing process.

Getting the Network Administrator Home at Night with PacketTrap

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:30:00 -0500

The job of the network administrator appears never-ending. Constantly searching through monitoring data to isolate and solve the problem of the day means long hours and few nights home with family. The problem often isn't that there's not enough data to identify network problems and performance issues, but usually that there's too much. This week I sat down with Matt Bolton of PacketTrap, a brand new network monitoring solutions provider in the market. This company sells a network monitoring product called Perspective that is designed to assist the network administrator with just these sorts of problems. A product not unlike Orion from Solarwinds or Openview from HP, Perspective gives a new...perspective...on the network by dialing down the amount of data shown to the administrator. Matt tells me that his main priority is in "getting network administrators back home for dinner." If you're an overworked network administrator, you'll want to pull up a chair and check out this great podcast with PacketTrap where we talk about what you need to do just that.

Getting Users Connected to their Resources with Ericom

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:30:00 -0500

There's a real product-centrism problem in today's IT. An environment that buys VMware has an entirely different set of tools to manage and orchestrate user access than one that buys blades. Oracle versus SQL connections and Citrix versus Terminal Services are all other examples of the access complexities seen in today's environments as they grow. Ultimately, the real goal for IT is in getting users access to their necessary data. That access needs to occur with the data being rendered through its many applications. Today's IT gets even more complex with those applications being hosted atop multiple platforms, both virtual and physical. All this spaghetti of management utilities and user interfaces is a burden to administrators and a real issue for the non-technical user who just wants to do their job. In this podcast with Eran Heyman of Ericom software, we talk about the issues surrounding user access and common application management. We talk about Eran's 25 year history in computing and how he's seen the world change from the mainframe model to client/server and back again. You'll learn in this podcast how important it can be to centralize the management and provisioning of all your hosted resources -- whether presentation virtualization, VDI, or others -- under unified user interfaces.

Protecting Data In Transit and At Rest with Ipswitch

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:30:00 -0500

Whether your IT organization is under the heavy hand of regulatory compliance or not, the perils of unencrypted data can be a big risk for your most sensitive data. That data, whether its sitting within your data stores or being transferred around the network needs some level of encryption to protect it against prying eyes. Even worse, if you are under the microscope of compliance, you can be liable for a disclosure of that information. In this podcast, I talk with Kevin Gillis of Ipswitch about some of the more recent data breaches seen by IT organizations that didn't properly plan for hacking. We talk about the types of compliance laws that require encryption, and the tools and techniques you need to incorporate to protect yourself. Whether its HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, or even just the desire to stay safe, this podcast will enlighten you to some of the tools available today that keep that data secure no matter where it is.

Hosted Exchange: A Compelling Idea for SMBs

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:30:00 -0500

If you're a small business (or even a "medium" one) you might suffer from the "accidental IT person" syndrome. That is, the person with a knack for computers somehow accidentally becomes the IT person for the business. That's perfectly fine when it comes to keeping people's desktops running or setting up the file server. But email is growing to become a mission critical need for all businesses. When email goes down, the business goes down. Adding to the problem is that the skills required to do email correctly are hard to find and require a lot of experience to develop. Unlike a lot of Microsoft servers, you can't just drop an Exchange server in your network and expect it to work perfectly for long -- unless you build its enviornment correctly. Alternatively, you can outsource this critical service to an outside vendor with layers upon layers of redundancy. In this podcast, I talk with Apptix, one of those very vendors that prides themselves on being a perfect fit for the SMB. In fact, they're the largest email outsourcer in the world. Learn from Apptix Director of Engineering James Bond about what's cool and exciting in the world of Exchange outsourcing, and what you need to know to do outsourcing correctly. Oh, and yes, that is his name, and we even talk about a few funny stories about his time at the Pentagon...seriously... James is also an entertaining speaker, which makes this interview a whole lot of fun. Its worth a few minutes of your time...

Reporting on and Protecting Unstructured Data with Varonis

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:30:00 -0500

Unstructured data is everywhere. Its on your file shares, your NAS devices, your UNIX shared directories. Office documents, images, CAD drawings, and virtually everything that isn't wrapped up into some type of database fills up these spaces with "unstructured" information. The problem with this kind of data on these types of mediums is in keeping their permissions correctly assigned over time. With a dynamic workforce and a never-ending pattern of growth, managing permissions is a challenge. Making the job even harder are the native tools made available for visualizing and modifying permissions on this data. They're great for a few changes here and there, but intolerable when data storage gets beyond even just a few folders. In this podcast, I talk with Raphael Reich of Varonis about the problems of managing unstructured data with and how third party products are necessary to ensure it is protected. With the right products in place, you can visualize permissions all across a data share, you can see where data is being used and where its being left untouched. And, using tools from Varonis, you can even wipe your hands from the daily tasks of managing data permissions, leaving it to the data owners themselves -- a transfer of responsibility that many consider one of the holy grails of IT administration. Raphael's got a great story to tell, and one that you should consider listening to if you tire of the constant battle of resetting permissions.

Virtualization, Backups, Disaster Recovery, and Vizioncore

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:30:00 -0500

Adding virtualization to an environment solves a lot of problems: Consolidation, power use, rapid deployment, and server management to name a few. But, the move to virtualization also makes some otherwise trivial issues fairly problematic if you don't plan for them properly. Backups and disaster recovery are two of these situations. WIth virtualization, both backups and DR have the potential to grow more complicated simply because you have more options in which to best deploy them. With all the options available, its easy to go down the wrong path and implement an architecture that won't ultimately bring you the restore-ability you need. Vizioncore recognizes that both of these topics are challenging when considered within the frame of a virutal environment. So, they attempt to solve some of these complexities through a suite of software add-on products that make easy the process of backups, restore, and DR (as well as some other needs). In this highly-technical discussion with Jason Mattox, CTO of Vizioncore, we talk about the hard concepts associated with virtual backups and the best ways to resolve some of those problems. If you're a user or a potential user of VMware's products for virtualization, you definitely want to take a listen. Jason's advice could save you and your environment plenty of time and headache.

Group Policy Issues, idiosyncrasies, and Intelligent Software that Makes it All Easy

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:30:00 -0500

At TechMentor last week, I got the chance to sit down with Darren Mar-Elia, President and CEO of SDM Software to talk about some of the problems associated with Windows Group Policy. A fantastic and no-added-cost feature you get with Active Directory, Group Policy is growing as a significant solution for controlling virtually every component of your desktop environment. But Group Policies everything-for-everyone capabilities sometimes make it challenging to manage and hard to troubleshoot. So sometimes 3rd party add-on tools like those available from SDM Software are useful for making easy what can otherwise be challenging activities. In this podcast, Darren and I talk about Group Policy, the features and issues associated with good GP targeting, and how intelligent 3rd party tools shine up one of Microsoft's best selling points for the WIndows environment.

Social Sites, a New Way of Aggregating Information with NewsGator

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:30:00 -0500

One of the biggest problems with a data-centric business environment is merely finding the right data in order to do your job. Traditional search tools have some efficacy in completing these tasks, but really understanding not only what you need but what is useful in the eyes of others can be helpful as well. Social sites and the concept of social networking has been around for a while now, with tools like FaceBook connecting people all across the planet. But it also has a play inside the corporate environment as well. Finding others in the corporation who have similar interests and are working on similar projects can augment cooperation. Learning what kinds of content your peers consider "interesting" helps you better understand your job and where you fit. Best of all, leveraging content aggregation and social sites helps you better feel like part of a cohesive team rather than one person in a sea of others. NewsGator has a tool that enables much of this collaborative functionality called Social Sites. In this podcast, I speak with Brian Kellner of NewsGator about their product and how social networking within the corporate firewall can be an excellent fit for today's enterprise environments.

The State of Computer Based Training

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:30:00 -0500

Instructor-led training can be expensive, and its tough to learn through reading multiple-thousand page books. Computer-based training with all its multimedia capabilities lies somewhere in the middle -- reasonably priced, entertaining enough to keep your attention, and a visual source of learning while doing. In this podcast, I interview Roy Furr with CBT Nuggets, makers of all kinds of computer-based training for IT technologies as well as preparation for IT certifications. In this podcast, we talk about the state of CBT's today and how we think the job market is dealing with both training and certification needs. We'll talk about employers and their desire for certified employees, and how businesses can get exceptional training at exceptionally inexpensive prices through the right training channels. Even better, in this podcast we'll talk about an offer which will get your 10% off the price of some training videos through CBT Nuggets. Listen to the podcast to find out how! (Full disclosure: I am an independent trainer for CBT Nuggets)

A Smarter User Account Control with BeyondTrust Privilege Manager

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:30:00 -0500

User Account Control is for many the bane of Windows Vista. Its encompassing ideas of reducing the spread and impact of administrator rights are great in theory, but difficult in practice. But at the same time, getting rid of administrator rights in our networks is a key need that we all wish we could solve. In this podcast, I interview John Moyer, CEO of BeyondTrust. We talk about the regulatory, compliance, configuration control, and malware problems associated with the widespread distribution of administrator rights to those people who shouldn't have them. We discuss how tools exist that are improvements on UAC which eliminate this need while still providing laser-focused elevation for needed applications. I'll admit that i wasn't aware of BeyondTrust's Privilege Manager product, but after talking with John I'm impressed with how this product can secure a network, eliminate unnecessary admin rights, and do so in a manner that's easy to use and fully supported by Microsoft. This one's worth a listen.

Enabling Smarter Monitoring for Virtualization Solutions with eG Innovations

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:30:00 -0500

Monitoring in any system can be a tough game. The data from monitoring systems provides the administrator with a huge amount of data to digest. In order to make use of that information for proactive management, there's a massive level of analysis required. If your monitoring system alerts you that one virtual server has a high memory use condition, how can you correlate that information with its effect on the other systems in your virtualization environment? What you need are tools that add intelligence to that monitoring data, tools that crunch that incredible amount of data, correlate it with data from other systems in the environment, and ultimately provide you with actionable information. In this podcast, I interview Bala Murugan of eG Innovations. This company specializes in providing that intelligence to all the layers of IT. Here, we'll talk about the problems of managing monitoring information in virtualization environments and the tools that can turn this raw data into useful, actionable results.

BUMPED! FREE SOFTWARE! Reducing the Cost to Power Workstations, a Discussion on Faronics Power Save

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:30:08 -0500

The first five people who drop a comment to this post with their name, email address, and a thought about how they can save power in their computing environment will receive a free copy of Power Save, compliments of Faronics. Thanks to Faronics for graciously donating these five free holiday gifts to our community! Green computing initiatives in IT has focused heavily on the problems of power overconsumption in the data center. But its the workstations in your network that consume far more power than your servers. Did you know that 1000 workstations can consume nearly $62,000 in power alone if their power consumption isn't managed? Faronics is a software company probably most known for its tool Deep Freeze. Their newest product, Power Save, can help reduce the overall cost to power workstations by turning them off when they aren't in use. Check out this webcast on Faronics and Power Save to learn more about how managed power configurations can save power and help out Mother Nature.

Another excITing Interview: Travis Morrison of New Belgium Brewery

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:30:00 -0500

In this excITing interview with Travis Morrison of the New Belgium Brewery, we talk about what its like to be a Sr. Systems Administrator at a place that sells some of the best small-batch craft beers in the nation. We talk about New Belgium's recent migration from a Novell-based directory to Microsoft Active Directory, their success with Microsoft's Unified Communications platform, and just how much fun it can be to work in the IT Department of a major brewery. Now I'm off to kick back a few...

Replication, Disaster Recovery, and DoubleTake Software

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:30:00 -0500

In the old days, building and maintaining a backup site for disaster recovery was financially impossible for all but the most critcial of network services. Buying and managing duplicate servers in a redundant site that did little until the big event hit was a huge expense and management headache. But with today replication software, especially when combined with virtualization, in many ways these roadblocks go away. In today's podcast we'll talk with Bob Roudebush of DoubleTake software. We'll discuss today's technology in server and data replication, how virtualization drastically changes the playing field for disaster recovery options, and the specific issues associated with replicating transactional databases like SQL, Exchange, and Active Directory Domain Controllers. If you're considering the implementation of a disaster recovery site in your network environment, you'll want to spend 18 minutes with us to learn some tips and tricks to do it successfully.

IP Address Management and the BlueCat Networks Proteus Platform

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:30:00 -0500

Are you still using Excel spreadsheets to manage your IP addresses? If you do, how hard is it to keep that spreadsheet up to date? Considering the needs not only of compliance but the need in an DHCP environment to historically track IP addresses to individual computers, your Excel spreadsheet is likely not enough. Enter the BlueCat Networks Proteus Platform. This appliance-based toolset for managing the IP addresses in your network interfaces directly with your DHCP and DNS servers to provide real-time and historical reports of IP address usage and trending information. In this podcast we'll talk with David Martinek and Branko Miskov of BlueCat Networks, makers of the Proteus Platform, about the need for automated IP management and how it can improve your ability to monitor and manage your enviornment.

Email and Data Archival and Protection with Ryan Speir of Privacy Networks

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:00:49 -0500

Every industry in the United States comes under some form of regulation as to the storage, archival, and protection of its data. Whether you're in the medical industry and regulated by HIPAA, a public company that falls under Sarbanes-Oxley, or really any company that falls under the Federal Rules of Civil Provedure, you likely have some legal requirement to protect your data. If you're not doing that, then your company can be legally liable. In this podcast with Ryan Tracy of Privacy Networks, we talk about the rules and the solutions for bringing your data under control. In the same vein, tools exist that protect email against spam, viruses, and other baddies, all of which can integrate into secure archival tools. If you're concerned about the legal liability associated with your corporate data, you'll want to hear Ryan's story.

Wide Area File Services, Continuous Data Protection, and the GlobalScape Solution

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 00:30:00 -0500

Is your computing environment spread across multiple sites? Do you have file servers in a central location that sloooowly shares files to those remote locations? Did you know that replication technologies have now advanced to the point where you can distribute mirrors of those shares to multiple sites that fully supports locking and multiple user access? Did you also know that the same technology that mirrors those file shares across any number of sites can also serve as a continuous backup solution for the same data? I didn't. At least until I talked with Ellen Ohlenbusch of GlobalSCAPE who clued me in on two of their new products that solve a host of issues associated with file sharing across multiple, dispersed sites. In this podcast, we'll talk about just those issues and how the GlobalSCAPE solution resolves them.

PowerShell and Server 2008: An Interview with Don Jones of SAPIEN Technologies

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:30:00 -0500

The introduction of PowerShell has completely changed the management functionality for services like Exchange 2007. But for Microsoft's soon-to-arrive server operating system, are there any major changes to how it works? Will PowerShell's security make your environment more secure or less administerable? What are some of the best ways that you can immediately use PowerShell now to administer your Windows servers and Active Directory? In this exclusive podcast with Don Jones, evangelist for Windows scripting and automation, and author of the recent book Microsoft Windows PowerShell: TFM, we answer these questions and more. Don talks about his impressions of PowerShell, how it will work with Server 2008, and what it doesn't do. We even get to talk about some of the best scripts he's written and his personal worst career-limiting moves. Its a podcast you definitely won't want to miss.

Automated Documentation and Compliance - An Interview with Bryan Cote of Ecora Software

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:30:00 -0500

Understanding your network is one thing, but proving that you do is fully another. With compliance regulations requring a database of record showing what on your network changed and when, it is growing more and more impossible every day to fulfill the needs of documenting and auditing your environment. That's why tools like Ecora Auditor Pro exist. Inventorying and storing thousands of elements about every machine on your network, this toolset means you can pass compliance audits with ease. All the while you get a better running network because you have more information about that network. In this podcast I interview Brian Cote, senior product manager for Ecora Software. Here we talk about the challenges of network documentation and compliance and how the Ecora Auditor Pro resolves some of the critical missing auditing pieces in our native operating systems.

The Myths and Realities of Virtualization Security: An Interview with Allwyn Sequeira of BlueLane Technologies

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:30:00 -0500

There's a changing security landscape out on the horizon, and its name is virtualization. Incorporating virtualization into your network solves all sorts of problems, but unless you plan for them, it can create a host of them as well. Think about it. With traditional physical systems, they're usually powered on and operational all the time -- including during your patching and configuration management operations. With virtual machines, that isn't always the case. Your template machines, your snapshots, even your disaster recovery virtual machines may not get their regular security care and feeding like they should, simply because they're not necessarily on all the time. In this podcast, Allwyn Sequeira, Senior VP of BlueLane technologies talks with us about some of these problems and some solutions to virtualization security. He talks about the BlueLane Virtual Shield that sits between the hypervisor and the virtual machine to rip out exploit traffic as it passes by. Allwyn is a dynamic speaker and definitely passionate about the subject. You'll definitely enjoy the listen.

HowNetWorks: An Interview with its designers at Clarified Networks

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:30:00 -0500

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Jyrki Huhta, Alexander List, and Jani Kenttälä of Clarified Networks, best known for their freeware VMware Applicance called HowNetWorks. If you haven't had the opportunity to see HowNetWorks, definitely take a look at this network packet analysis tool here. This fantastic tool makes the process of network traffic analysis very easy, showing traffic streams that pass by and enabling the administrator to move backwards and forwards through time to see the relationship between network traffic and problem analysis. In this podcast, we talk about how to use network instrumentation like HowNetWorks to analyze and troubleshoot problems on the network. We talk about how the HowNetWorks tool enables even the uninitiated to recognize and trace back network traffic to isolate problems on the network. You'll learn some of the tricks they use to isolate problems on the network. Definitely check this one out.

VM-in-a-VM: VMware Workstation 6 Now Supports ESX as a Hosted Virtual Machine

gshields@realtimepublishers.net (Greg Shields) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:30:00 -0500

Holy "Holy Grail of Virtualization" Batman. The long-awaited release of VMware Workstation 6.0 also comes with the new realization that this upgrade can actually support a fully-functioning ESX instance as a hosted virtual machine. This means that if you have a powerful enough machine, you can set up an entire Virtual Infrastructure environment with VMotion and everything -- right from the comfort of your $189 VMware Workstation app. Check out the podcast for some thoughts of mine as I attempt to make it work on some new equipment I've recenty acquired. You will need the following paper because the setup is not straightforward. This paper illustrates how to install and configure VMware ESX3 Server to run within VMware Workstation 6. From this, VirtualCenter, VMotion, HA and DRS features can be configured. Although performance is significantly reduced from that of a physical server, this type of environment opens considerable possibilities for portable client demonstrations and is excellent for self training and small lab environments. Get the document here: http://www.xtravirt.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=75&func=fileinfo&id=11