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.

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Posted by Greg Shields | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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Posted by Greg Shields |