WindowsNetworking.com - Monthly Newsletter - May 2016

Welcome 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. Virtual Reality: It’s More than just a Game-changer

In certain segments of IT, VR is has been a hot topic for a while. When you think of virtual reality, you might – like many other people – think first of the gaming industry, and certainly that field is ahead of the curve when it comes to bringing virtual and augmented reality technologies to fruition. But what many of us who are stuck in the traditional enterprise data center mode don’t realize is that VR/AR is poised to explode into areas such as healthcare, engineering, and law/law enforcement. While it might have been used in the beginning mostly by fun-seekers, in the near future VR is going to become serious business.

I first became fascinated by the idea of VR when I started reading the Net Force series of novels created by but not actually written by Tom Clancy, which are set in a future where one interacts with the computer and Internet by entering a virtual world, the environment of which can be customized to your liking. I had read a trilogy based on a similar concept called Otherland by Tad Williams, but the Net Force books did a better job of presenting VR as a viable tool for getting work done (in this case, of a military nature) rather than just a more technologically advanced version of Second Life.
The first Net Force installment was published in 1999. Various types of VR and AR have popped up in many fictional stories, movies and TV programs since then. Vanilla Sky, Total Recall, The Thirteenth Floor, Brainscan, Disclosure and of course The Matrix series are just a few examples of popular films that treat the subject in one way or another.
And as has happened so many times before, science fiction foreshadowed what was to come in the “real world.” With the advent of Oculus Rift (and Facebook’s subsequent purchase of the technology), Sony’s Project Morpheusthe HTC Vive, OnePlus, and Microsoft’s HoloLens, virtual reality is a reality and is set to get more sophisticated as we move toward the third decade of the twenty-first century.

But let’s step back and make sure we’re all on the same page here: What exactly is virtual reality and how does it differ from augmented reality? VR immerses you in a simulated environment. It generally relies on the use of a headset and is based on VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language). AR blends digital overlays into the real-world environment and provides an enhancement (or augmentation) rather than blocking out the physical world; think Google Glass or the Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) in modern vehicles.
VR and AR use similar technologies and have some uses in common – such as entertainment, medicine, crime scene reconstruction, statistical modeling, etc. However, they differ significantly in approach and the overall experience. Because augmented reality is both simpler to implement and easier to incorporate into daily life, its adoption is progressing more rapidly than all-out VR.
VR, in some form, has been around for a long time in some fields. Flight simulators for training pilots is perhaps one of the best examples. The first VR head-mounted device was developed way back in the 1960s by Morton Heilig. The actual name “virtual reality” is generally credited to Jaron Lanier and sold the first VR goggles which, interestingly enough, were called EyePhones. SEGA showed off a VR headset for its Genesis game console at CES in the early 90s but it never went on sale. Nintendo’s VR-32 (Virtual Boy) system in the mid-90s was a flop.
More recently, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear headset sold out quickly when it went on sale late last year, and with big players like Microsoft, Google and Facebook in the game (so to speak), there are indications that VR’s time may have finally come. But what does that mean to businesses and IT professionals?
From one perspective, IT has been transitioning into a virtual world for quite some time now. Today most of us run our servers on virtual machines and many of us deploy virtual desktops and/or virtualized applications to our users. But of course, what we’re talking about here is something different.

VR can be utilized in different ways in the enterprise and professions, depending on the field. In healthcare, it can be used in training doctors in medical and surgical techniques without using cadavers or training dental students before they practice on live patients. One of the most interesting uses is for medical imaging, as VR allows physicians and technicians to see three dimensional reproductions of organs and interact with them as if they were real. It can also be used to try out experimental procedures without subjecting real patients to the risk. VR is also used to treat patients; it’s been used especially in treating emotional and psychiatric disorders such as PTSD, phobias, and phantom limb syndrome. VR can also be helpful in managing chronic pain and in providing the disabled with experiences they could not have otherwise, and for rehabilitation of stroke patients and accident victims.
VR is useful in law enforcement and military combat training, to create an environment for training officers and soldiers in the use of their firearms in real life situations, and can also be used for teaching pursuit driving to police and emergency vehicle response to ambulance personnel, as well as training helicopter and aircraft pilots, ship’s officers, and so forth. In the legal field, it can be used to reconstruct crime scenes or to simulate situations related to civil lawsuits.
Marketing and sales people can use VR to demonstrate products, especially those that are difficult to transport or have to be custom-made. Real estate professionals, architects and engineers can re-create 3D images of homes and commercial buildings that are on the market or in the planning or construction stages. It can be used in the travel industry to help with destination planning and familiarization prior to traveling. In manufacturing, VR makes it possible to improve build quality and reduce manufacturing errors, as well as improving safety.
Using VR as a teaching aid can be helpful in all types of educational settings, providing a way to present complex information in a way that both children and adult learners who are visually oriented can better understand. VR can also make remote meetings more like in-person interactions. This can save money on travel expenses for businesses. It can help to overcome some of the drawbacks of phone, live chat and even video conferencing when there is a failure to capture all the nuances of intended communications due to the limitations of the media.
These are only a few of the ways that VR will be used in the future. As it becomes more and more integrated into everyday work life, IT personnel will be expected to be familiar with and able to support VR apps, and perhaps to know something about VR programming language. If VR has, for you, been something confined to science fiction, it’s time to start brushing up on this fascinating topic that is set to bring big changes to our lives.

‘Til next time,
Deb

dshinder@windowsnetworking.com

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Quotes of the Month

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality. -Nikos Kazantzakis

 When I saw how real virtual reality can be, and that we can replace human vision with virtual vision, this can be the ultimate platform. – Brendan Iribe

 I had imagined that I would just put on a helmet and be somewhere else – that’s your dream of what it’s going to be. – Thomas Dolby

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2. Windows Server 2012 Security from End to Edge and Beyond – Order Today!

Windows Server 2012 Security from End to Edge and Beyond By Thomas Shinder, Debra Littlejohn Shinder and Yuri Diogenes From architecture to deployment, this book takes you through the steps for securing a Windows Server 2012-based enterprise network in today’s highly mobile, BYOD, cloud-centric computing world. Includes test lab guides for trying out solutions in a non-production environment. Order your copy of Windows Server 2012 Security from End to Edge and Beyond. You'll be glad you did

Click here to Order your copy today

 

3. WindowsNetworking.com Articles of Interest

This month on WindowsNetworking.com, we introduce a brand new article series and continue with new installments for three other popular article series.

Interview: Maintaining Legacy Software (Part 1)

This article by Mitch Tulloch is the first in a two-part interview with a long-time IT professional, Michael L. Hallsted, that presents the case for a business decision that’s often not discussed but is often made, sometimes by default: to continue to run software applications or operating systems even after they have reached end of lifecycle according to their vendors – and how to mitigate the risks of doing so.

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles-tutorials/interviews/interview-maintaining-legacy-software-part1.html

Containerization Proliferation: The Docker Effect (Parts 3 and 4)

This month I added two installments to this multi-part series on one of the hottest current trends in IT: containers. Both parts address various aspects of container security, what the security drawbacks of containers (vs. traditional VMs) are, what’s being done to improve it, and third party security solutions that can make containers more secure.

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles-tutorials/cloud-computing/containerization-proliferation-docker-effect-part3.html

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles-tutorials/cloud-computing/containerization-proliferation-docker-effect-part4.html

Building a PowerShell GUI (Part 5)

In this fifth article in an ongoing series, Brien Posey continues his discussion of how to create a graphical interface for your PowerShell scripts, for those who are more comfortable working in a more visually rich environment rather than the text-based command line console of PowerShell. In this one, Brien examines the code that he showed you how to write in Part 4.

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles-tutorials/netgeneral/building-powershell-gui-part5.html

How to successfully create a Hyper-V cluster using Virtual Machine Manager (Part 10)

This lengthy article series by Nirmal Sharma addresses a complex topic: the steps involved in creating a Hyper-V cluster, including hosts and VMM host group requirements, shared storage requirements, networking requirements, the actual creation of the cluster with VMM, how it works, and finally, in this tenth and last part, adding the virtual machines to the Hyper-V cluster via the VMM.

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles-tutorials/netgeneral/how-successfully-create-hyper-v-cluster-using-virtual-machine-manager-part10.html

4. Administrator KB Tip of the Month

Some tips on properly configuring networking for multi-site clusters

The following tip is excerpted from a guest editorial by Symon Perriman, Senior Technical Evangelist at Microsoft who shared his expertise with us for an issue our WServerNews newsletter:

"There are several techniques used to reduce the time it takes for client to reconnect after a failover.

• Configure local failover first: It is recommended to have at least two nodes in every site and to configure the workloads to stay on the same subnet at the local site first before failing over to the secondary site. In a multi-subnet cluster this enables the client to remain connected using the same IP Address. Local failover can be configured using the preferred owner and possible owner properties for each cluster group. All the nodes at the primary site would be set as preferred owners and the nodes at the secondary site as possible owners.
• Reduce HostRecordTTL time: This cluster group property will adjust the time which a DNS record remains on a client's system before a new record is pulled down from the DNS server. By increasing the frequency that the DNS record is updated, the client will be able to see and access the new IP address sooner, allowing them to reconnect to the workload faster. By default, the record gets updated every 20 minutes, however in a multi-subnet cluster it is recommended to lower this value so that the record is replaced more frequently. For example, Exchange Server recommends a HostRecordTTL value of 5 minutes.
• Enable the RegisterAllProvidersIP setting: This cluster group property will adjust the information stored in DNS records for clustered workloads by including multiple additional IP Addresses which the workload can use (one for each subnet). Assuming that the client has the logic to try to connect to additional IP Addresses if the first address is unavailable, then this enables the client to reconnect much quicker in a cross-subnet failover. After a failover the client will first try to connect to the original IP Address they were using, and then they will try to connect to other IP Addresses in the DNS record and they should be successful."

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 Month

• Businesses can now buy apps in bulk from the Windows Store
• Cloud coding pitfalls: tips for avoiding big, bad bugs
• Network performance monitoring is dead
• Early warning signs of a DDoS attack (video)
• WLAN design best practices and challenges
• Internet of Things networking challenges

6. Ask Sgt. Deb

Help with password policies

QUESTION:

Hi, Deb. I’ve taken over the IT department for a little company and one of the priorities I’ve been given is to make sure our network is more secure and come up with better password policies. I know the obvious – longer is better, don’t use dictionary words, mix upper/lowercase/numeric/symbols etc. but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything and also I don’t want to go overboard to the point where our users can’t remember their passwords so they write them down and leave them laying around. Any tips? – Scotty B.

ANSWER:

Those criteria are a start but backing up a little, if you want the best security, passwords alone are no longer enough. Multi-factor authentication is getting easier and less expensive to implement and fingerprint, facial recognition, or cell phone authentication technologies are among those you can choose from. Windows 10 devices that support Windows Hello make alternatives to passwords simple, too. 

But that wasn’t your question, was it?  Passwords are still the most commonly used authentication method and even with MFA they usually make up one of the factors, so good policies are important. Mixing letters, numbers and symbols does increase security but remember that hackers and crackers are very familiar with the common substitutions: @ in place of a, $ in place of S, 1 in place of i, 7 in place of T and so on. After all, “1337” or “Leet” speak was invented by h@ck3r$. Password dictionaries used for brute force attacks take these “tricks” into account.
You know the old adage “size doesn’t matter?” Well, that’s not true when it comes to passwords. Longer is better, when it comes to security, and many security experts recommend a password of at least sixteen characters for maximum security. Yet I’ve seen many services, sites and applications recently that employ all the “right” directives and yet are not resulting in the most secure passwords. One unnecessary but surprisingly often-seen restriction is on password length. I recently signed onto the site of a very popular business-focused service and found that password length was capped at fifteen characters. Why?
To help users remember very long passwords, encourage the user of pass phrases. These are easier to remember and easier to type than shorter, more random passwords and they’re generally more secure than something like “P@$$w0rd3” even though it technically meets all the “strong password” criteria. Here’s a good article on improving password policy that expounds on this:

http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netsecur/network-security-policy-best-practices-101-improving-password-policy.html