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WindowsNetworking.com - Monthly Newsletter - March 2016Welcome to the WindowsNetworking.com newsletter by Debra Littlejohn Shinder, MVP. Each month we will bring you interesting and helpful information on the world of Windows Networking. We want to know what all *you* are interested in hearing about. Please send your suggestions for future newsletter content to: dshinder@windowsnetworking.com
1. Death of the Data Center? Don’t Be So SureIf you’ve been in the IT industry for more than ten minutes, you no doubt remember the big headlines splashed across the tech press not so many years ago, announcing the “Death of the Firewall.” How many of you are still using firewalls to protect your networks? Yes, so are we. That’s not to say that the firewall hasn’t evolved during that time. Today’s multi-purpose stateful-packet-filtering, application-layer-inspecting, malware-scanning, intrusion-preventing, heuristic-learning, proxy/NAT gateway devices are definitely not your father’s simple firewalls. Given the inaccuracy of all those rumors and claims about how firewalls were going away, then, forgive me if I’m a tad skeptical of the current strikingly similar proclamations in regard to the data center. Cloud advocates left and right are telling us that it’s only a matter of time before the data center goes the way of the floppy disk, but I just don’t see it happening. Well, of course data centers are going to be around for a long time. After all, where do all those cloud servers live? In enormous data centers operated by Microsoft, Amazon, Google and other cloud providers, of course. Cloud companies are understandably reluctant to publicize details about their infrastructures, but back in 2013, when Steve Ballmer was still CEO at Microsoft, he announced that the company had over a million servers in their data centers. In 2014, Gartner’s Lydia Leong reportedly estimated that Amazon had two million. Google was estimated to have as many as a million servers way back in 2010. Microsoft is even talking about building a data center under the ocean, as a way to cut down on cooling costs: http://thehackernews.com/2016/02/microsoft-underwater-datacenter.html. Okay, but those are cloud data centers. It’s really the corporate data center that is (according to some pundits) on the verge of biting the dust. But is it, really? In January, rapidly-growing Uber expanded its data centers yet again to keep up with market growth. Other hot companies are growing their own data centers, as well, and the hybrid infrastructure, which combines private on-premises cloud with public cloud services, is still the model of choice for large numbers of businesses. A recent study by RightScale referenced on InfoWorld’s web site in February 2016 found that hybrid and private clouds are gaining in popularity: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3031364/cloud-computing/cloud-report-shows-docker-hybrid-cloud-usage-on-the-rise.html. It seems that even as the giant cloud providers attempt to push us all to give up our on-premises servers and let them take care of it all, most enterprises aren’t buying that approach, and there are many good reasons for them to maintain their own data centers even as they dip toes into the cloud waters. Perhaps the most important of those reasons is that companies when companies assess their data and applications, it becomes obvious that some are suited for cloud computing and some aren’t. Even with today’s high speed Internet connectivity and enormous amounts of bandwidth, sending data across the Internet still isn’t and probably never will be as fast as sending it within a local network. Performance issues, though, are only a part of the story – and not the biggest part. These days, it’s all about security, and the reason it’s all about security is because for companies in a growing number of industries, it’s all about compliance. With so many legalities involved, businesses want to have physical control over their stored data, at least the portion of it that falls under regulatory compliance requirements. I think there is also a distrust of the cloud providers lurking underneath the desire to maintain on-premises networks and not put all of our eggs in one cloudy basket. We live in an age of change, and we’ve learned from experience that promises made to us today won’t necessarily be kept tomorrow. We’ve seen the excitement over new technologies and services, watched them boom in popularity – and seen them fall by the wayside. We’ve been burned by investing time and money into the Next Big Thing and then having to scramble to find a replacement when it failed. Thus it’s understandable that now we want to hedge our bets; we see the advantages of the cloud but we’re wary of going “all in.” We’re a little like the old-timer who has kept his fortune under the mattress all his life and even though he knows it makes sense to put it in the bank where security is tighter and it might even draw a little interest, he’s still not ready for a cashless society and he still wants the assurance of knowing that there’s a nice big pile of currency in the safe in the closet. Once upon a time, the Prime Directive of the corporate world was “time is money.” That’s still true, but there is a rising realization that there’s another piece to the puzzle: In the modern business arena, data is dollars, too. The information that we produce, collect, process and store on our computing devices and networks is one of the most valuable assets our company owns. The data center was, not so long ago, seen as just a fancy term for a larger version of the “server room.” But another way to look at it is to take its name literally: it’s the centralized location where our precious data resides, the data that is too sensitive, too confidential, too mission-critical to be launched into the cloud like a test rocket shooting off into space, out of our sight and out of our hands. I have a feeling that it’s only when we no longer have such data will the corporate data center ever completely disappear. ‘Til next time, dshinder@windowsnetworking.com ======================= Quotes of the Month Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves. – Tim Berners-Lee I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. – Poul Anderson What we have is a data glut. – Vernor Vinge =======================
2. Windows Server 2012 Security from End to Edge and Beyond – Order Today!
3. WindowsNetworking.com Articles of InterestThis month on WindowsNetworking.com, we introduce a pair of brand new articles, continue with new installments for two other popular article series and throw in a bonus product review. Interview: Windows 10 deployment insights, Part 1 In this first of a two-part series, Mitch Tulloch goes to the experts for some insight on the best ways to deploy Windows 10, interviewing two well-known deployment gurus. Johan Arwidmark and Mikael Nyström are two Windows deployment experts based in Sweden who offered up their advice and opinions on this very timely topic. Password Recovery Tools for Windows Password recovery tools can be useful if you ever forget or lose your login credentials. They can also be handy during your work as an IT or network professional, like when doing a Windows reinstall or clean upgrades. These tools can even better help you and others to understand certain security risks, such as storing credentials unencrypted, and how to mitigate them. In the second of our new articles, Eric Geier takes a look at recovery tools for Windows account passwords, passwords saved by web browsers, email clients, and those saved for Wi-Fi networks. He also discusses capturing or sniffing passwords from network traffic. http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles-tutorials/windows-10/password-recovery-tools-windows.html Getting to Know the Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), Part 4 This is the fourth installment of an ongoing series from Deb Shinder that addresses how EMS – Microsoft’s mobile device management solution – offers organizations a more flexible, cloud-centric way of doing business. In previous parts, we discussed the components of EMS: Microsoft Active Directory Premium, Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Azure Rights Management and we provided an overview of what each one is and does and how it fits into the solution. We also discussed some of the particulars of deploying Azure AD and InTune in your organization and in Part 3, we started with an overview of how to deploy and manage the Azure Rights Management service. Here in Part 4, Deb will delve further into the details of that deployment. PowerShell for Storage and File System Management, Part 9 If you’ve been along for the ride so far, you know that Brien Posey has taken us deep into the process of building PowerShell scripts to manage file and storage systems, and if you haven’t read the first eight parts, you have some catching up to do. This is definitely not a “start in the middle” series. In this ninth part, Brien shows you how to get rid of clutter in the script you constructed. Product Review: Paessler PRTG Network Monitor Making the right decisions regarding purchase of new networking solutions can be confusing and stressful, and having an objective opinion based on hands-on trials performed by experienced IT professionals such as our authors. PRTG Network Monitor from Paessler is a comprehensive network monitoring solution designed to provide visibility and insight in to the configuration and performance of a wide variety of systems and devices running on your network. In this review, Richard Hicks – who has worked with many such systems – takes you through a concise but thorough look at its features and functionality and then concludes with his rating of the software. Be sure to check it out if you’re in the market for monitoring solutions. 4. Administrator KB Tip of the MonthA tip on how you can sort out messy network cabling Messy cabling or "spaghetti cabling" can be a nightmare to try and troubleshoot. Here's a tip that might help: Start from one end (e.g. the patch panel) and label the near termination point of one of the cables. Now loosely wrap a piece of velcro around the cable, then slowly push the Velcro loop along the cable until you reach the far termination of the cable. Label the far termination point. Repeat the process for the remaining cables. The above tip was previously published in an issue of WServerNews, a weekly newsletter from TechGenix that focuses on the administration, management and security of the Windows Server platform in particular and cloud solutions in general. Subscribe to WServerNews today by going to http://www.wservernews.com/subscribe.htm and join almost 100,000 other IT professionals around the world who read our newsletter!
5. Windows Networking Links of the MonthBe on the lookout for this one – Locky ransomware is on the rise Cisco releases critical patch for Nexus switches to remove hardcoded credentials SDN (Software Defined Networking): Does Anybody Really Know What it Is? Made-in-China servers are attracting more buyers 10 Tips to Ace that IT job interview The Many Sides of Virtual Networking 6. Ask Sgt. DebHow do I simplify data storage in a complicated network? QUESTION: Hi, Deb. Here’s my question. My company has been (slowly) moving more things to the cloud. But we don’t want to put everything in the cloud. We’ve ended up with data in both places, but it’s confusing to users. We’re looking for a way to simplify it for users while still maintaining storage in our own data center in addition to cloud storage. It would also be nice if we could make it simpler to manage for us admins, too. Does that make sense at all? Is there any hope of achieving that? Thanks! – Nicholas M. ANSWER: Hi, Nick. Your scenario sounds like a job for Microsoft Azure StorSimple (even the name fits what you’re wanting to do). This is designed to be a hybrid cloud storage solution that you can use to integrate the data stored in the cloud, in your data center and in remote locations such as branch office servers, in a way that looks to the users as if it’s all stored in the same location. This is accomplished with the StorSimple Virtual Array. It supports SMB and iSCSI and there are web-based management tools that you can use for managing all of this data. Check out Microsoft Azure web site for more information about this and to help you decide whether this will work for your organization: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storsimple-ova-overview/
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