Storage Tip: Self-service storage recovery

By David Hill, Mesabu Group

There are steps you can take to make your users more self sufficient when it comes to the safety of their stored data, but not before your basic data protection infrastructure is in place.

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Unix Tip: Compiler Problems on Solaris 10

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

I recently decided that it was time that I learn a little C++. After all, I studied Computer Science back when Unix was a toddler and now have a daughter who is taking Math and Computer Science classes at UCLA. So, I started with a typical "hello, world" kind of program and tried to compile it on my newly installed Solaris 10 system. But, instead of an easy compilation of my embarrassingly simple program, I ran into a series of errors.

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Security Tip: Application security assessment options

By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Modern consumers have come to expect easy access to online services such as shopping, banking, access to healthcare, tax records and the like, but that access comes at a price. Convenience often brings increased exposure to underlying data -- attackers have long focused on the application layer as a source of vulnerability. If application security is not a part of your web commerce plans, it should be.

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Storage Tip: Application classification is not data classification

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

Classify your data by application if you wish, but do not think that you have done data classification as well. You must separate data into different classes in order to obtain the benefits of information lifecycle management, such as tiering storage. You may not get all the benefits right away, but you have to start somewhere.

Windows Tip: Managing local users and groups

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Is being able to manage local users and groups using scripts useful to enterprise administrators? Here's what Ed Wilson, author of Microsoft VBScript Step by Step, and the Microsoft Windows Scripting with WMI: Self-Paced Learning Guide has to say on the topic.

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Beyond skill: Building a career in IT

The IT market and IT technology are constantly evolving, a characteristic that Steve Bjorg, Co-founder, President and CTO of MindTouch believes keeps a career in IT exciting. In this interview, Bjorg discusses the essential elements of a great career in IT.

Unix Tip: Installing Solaris 10 with self-prepared CDs

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

Installing Solaris 10 from a set of CDs that I burned myself turned out to take four times as long as I had expected it would and to be a surprisingly annoying process. The first and most time-wasting problem turned out to be how troublesome it was to feed the CDs into the system at the right time.

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Six steps to a successful SOA

Taking an organization through a service oriented architecture implementation is an evolving process which needs the right approach to succeed. These six critical steps will put you on a sound footing.

Storage Tip: Data protection management products help reduce complexity

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

The problem: Many organizations report significant problems with data protection processes, specifically their backup and restore processes. Data protection is a must task for enterprises not only for business continuity, but also for compliance where complete and accurate recovery of data, such as financial-oriented records, is mandatory. Although the problem of improving the data protection processes may not be an intractable one, it is not necessarily an easy one to solve. Here's what you need to know.

Windows Tip: IPsec and Windows Vista

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

The biggest improvement with IPsec in Vista is that it's now easy to work with! Think about trying to use IPsec to secure traffic between your client computers and domain controllers. Have you ever tried that with an existing Windows network? It takes dozens (more likely hundreds) of IPsec filters and rules just to make it work -- if you can ever get it working. Domain and server isolation are great in theory but they're still difficult to implement and maintain on today's Windows networks.

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Unix Tip: The directory that wasn't

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

I recently found myself with a directory that didn't contain the standard "." and ".." directories that would have properly tied it into the file system. To fix the immediate problem, I moved the
troublesome directory (using mv) and created a new one. When I tried to remove the (then renamed) directory, I found that I couldn't. First, I tried the obvious. I tried removing the directory with rm, rmdir, rm -f and rm -rf. None of these commands worked for me. Here's
the process I took to remedy the problem.

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Security Tip: Three things you must know about risk assessment

By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Risk assessments are in at the moment, but they're not for the meek or the ambitious. Politics and control sensitivities are abundant. That said, a good risk assessment should provide an organization with a road map for security issues that need immediate attention, interim goals and long-term security planning. Here are three key things to consider before undertaking a full assessment project.

Storage Tip: SAS makes its way into your storage future

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

What seems to be the problem? At the high end of disk storage requirements, the use of Fibre Channel (FC) disk drives has been commonplace in a storage area network (SAN). However, the use of FC may not be cost effective for some requirements, especially for smaller configurations. At the low end of the disk storage requirements spectrum, the use of small computer system interface (SCSI) drives has had a long and proud history for direct-attached storage (DAS), but SCSI has not been able to keep up with the flexibility and manageability that is needed even for smaller storage configurations. Thus, a need exists for a storage approach that meets the need for both mid-size SANs and for DAS configurations. Serial SCSI (SAS) offers a storage approach to meet those needs.

Windows Tip: Smart cards and duct tape

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Although troubleshooting system and network problems are usually work, not fun, I had a good laugh at myself recently over one situation that initially left me stumped.

To gain remote access to a secure corporate network, I had to install a smart card reader on a machine so I could authenticate using the smart card the company issued me. The smart card reader was a USB type, and when I plugged it into the system Windows XP recognized the reader and installed drivers for it. Unfortunately the smart card reader I obtained didn't include a stand accessory, so rather than having it sitting on the desk I decided to use duct tape to fix the reader to the side of the PC beneath the desk. After all, Canadians like myself can use duct tape for almost anything, eh?

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Unix Tip: Making a device alias for your root mirror

By Sandra Hentry-Stocker

Once you have mirrored your root partition, you may still need to create a device alias for the mirror so that you can boot from it if the primary mirror ever fails. To prepare for this, you should first generate a long listing of the partition on which the mirror resides. It will look something like this:

Six steps to a successful SOA

Taking an organization through a service oriented architecture implementation is an evolving process which needs the right approach to succeed. These six critical steps will put you on a sound footing.

Developing a Successful Adoption Strategy for Utility Computing

By Darren Thomson, Symantec Global Services

Organizations that implement utility computing benefit from gaining control over IT costs, improving IT quality of service, and enhancing IT agility and flexibility. But putting utility computing to work in your organization can be a challenge. This article will help you determine which utility model is right for you.

5 tips for better browser security

By Brent Huston

My intent in this week's column is to review the top ways to harden a web-browsing environment, and not cover the entire breadth of browser security. Moreover, I'm sidestepping the argument about what browser is more secure by suggesting that you look more programmatically at what we can do to protect users regardless of browser choice. So here goes ...

Windows Tip: Locking a desktop at logon

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

A reader recently contacted me with an interesting question: Can you configure Windows XP so that it logs on automatically but into a locked state? In other words, if the AutoAdminLogon registry value found at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon has been set to 1 and the DefaultUserName and DefaultPassword values have been configured appropriately, is it possible to make Windows lock the desktop immediately after automatic logon occurs?

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