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Vol. 13, #39 - Sep 22, 2008 - Issue #693
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Microsoft May Deliver Windows 7 Beta Within 8 Weeks
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- Editors Corner
- Microsoft May Deliver Windows 7 Beta Within 8 Weeks
- SMB Email Archiving Statistics
- Sunbelt Software CEO to Keynote at Virus Bulletin 2008 Conference
- VMWorld Show Roundup
- Quotes of the Week
- Webinars and Seminars
- Protecting Against the New Wave of Malware: A New Approach to Endpoint
Security
- Recovery Made Easy for Exchange, SQL, and other Critical Applications
- Admin Toolbox
- Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without
- Tech Briefing
- LeftHand SAN In A Box Technology
- 20 More IT Mistakes To Avoid
- Why Too Much Memory Can Hurt Exchange Server 2007 Performance
- Podcast: What Exchange Admins Should Know About Virtualization
- Remote Programs Can Simplify Application Management
- The Advantages Of Desktop Virtualization
- Windows Server News
- VMWorld Show Roundup
- Tip: What's There To Hate About Windows Server 2008?
- WServer Third Party News
- Just Announced: Livewire from Double-Take Software
- WServerNews FAVE Links
- This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff.
- WServerNews - Product of the Week
- Make it easy to track user access to your Windows file servers!
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Make it easy to track user access to your Windows file servers!
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Monitor your users' every action and get powerful reporting and
up-to-the-minute alerts on activity! With File System Auditor from
ScriptLogic, you'll be able to audit file access on Windows file servers,
generate easy-to-understand compliance reports, and create alerts tied to
file system events - all from a centralized management console. Create
an audit trail on your file server and know that your access controls
are working. File System Auditor protects sensitive information by
reporting attempts to access and modify files and folders, with who did
it and when. Download a Free Trial of File System Auditor Today!
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-File-Auditor
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Editors Corner |
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Microsoft May Deliver Windows 7 Beta Within 8 Weeks
ComputerWorld reported that Microsoft won't likely miss the chance to
showcase Windows 7 in the next two months at a pair of tech conferences,
and it will give developers code for hands-on work, an analyst said today.
Windows 7, the follow-on to Vista, is already on the agendas of the
Professional Developers Conference (PDC), scheduled for Oct. 27-30, and
the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), slated for Nov.
5-7, but Microsoft will likely provide early code to developers at one
or both of the shows, said Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on
Microsoft. More at:
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Windows-7-Beta
SMB Email Archiving Statistics
eMediaUSA recently did a very interesting SMB Email Archiving Study. The
numbers should make you think, as these results are disconcerting to say
the least. Over one half of small companies in the United States do not
currently have an email archiving system implemented in their organization.
And of the 421 small and medium businesses IT executives recently interviewed,
one in four companies relies on end-users to individually manage email
archiving on their own, which is in my opinion a recipe for trouble.
For those companies currently using an email archiving solution, 35 percent
rely on end-users to maintain their own email archives, while 35 percent
use an in-house solution to archive emails, and the remaining 33 percent
use tape backups. Aaugh!
Reasons mentioned for not archiving email varied from believing that
they were not impacted by compliance rules (think again); no budget;
email stored on the server; and "we're too small for this".
Well unfortunately the moment you get sued, all the above reasons are
suddenly no longer very relevant and the money it's going to cost you
to do a discovery is at least 5 times more than just getting your
archiving in place. Some more survey results:
- 47 percent have been required to search for email because of
compliance purposes.
- 29 percent indicated that it now takes less than an hour to
find an email from 15 months ago or longer.
- 25 percent archive emails indefinitely, while 21 percent keep
them 6 months to a year.
The extra operational work related to archiving will pay back for itself
in spades in Exchange performance, compliance and legal readiness.
The question is: "Is your email properly archived? Would a Court think
so?"
Sunbelt Software CEO to Keynote at Virus Bulletin 2008 Conference
Our CEO Alex Eckelberry will be delivering the keynote address at the annual
Virus Bulletin anti-malware conference, VB 2008 in Ottawa, Canada on October
1, 2008 at 11 AM. In his presentation "The AV industry: Quo Vadis?,"
Eckelberry will discuss the current state of the antivirus industry from
a business perspective. In his keynote, Eckelberry will talk about the
future of an industry currently dealing with varying levels of customer
dissatisfaction and, in some cases, the sometimes misguided perception
that new solutions -- not necessarily correct -- are needed to solve the
increasing anti-malware problem.
Virus Bulletin, regarded as the antivirus and anti-malware industry's most
trusted source, held its first conference in 1991. Today Virus Bulletin's
annual conference is the most prestigious information security event for
antivirus technologies. VB2008 will be held at the Westin hotel in Ottawa,
Canada October 1-3. For more information about VB2008, or to register:
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Virus-Bulletin
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VMWorld Show Roundup
Make sure you scroll down and read the wrap by Laura Didio of the VMWorld
conference that was just held in Vegas. It's the first item in the
Server News section below.
Quotes of the Week
"If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer,
a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and
explode once a year, killing everyone inside." -- Robert X. Cringely
"Some have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority."
-- Gerald Massey
"Always in motion is the future." -- Yoda
Warm regards, and thank you for being a WServerNews subscriber. No trees
were killed in the sending of this message, but a large number of electrons
were terribly inconvenienced. Please tell your friends about us.
They can subscribe here:
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Subscribe
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Time To Kill Those PST Files!
You all are aware of the fact that PST files are a major contributor to loss
of time, especially on the admin side of email. Importing these PST files in
a searchable archive, which is a central and transparent repository for all
users, can save enormous amounts of time for all email users and the admin
alike. PST files cause -all- kinds of storage problems, like bloated and slow
backups and backup windows rapidly expanding so that they run into the next
morning. They also cause risks in the legal and security areas like lost
email, laptops that disappear, and no oversight which is a lawyer's nightmare.
You should really check out Sunbelt Exchange Archiver. It solves all these
problems in one fell swoop:
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Sunbelt-Exchange-Archiver
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Webinars and Seminars |
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We'd like to invite you to attend the following seminars:
Protecting Against the New Wave of Malware: A New Approach to Endpoint
Security
Join Sunbelt and Mike Osterman, president and founder of
Osterman Research, Inc., for an informative seminar that will examine why
older, traditional antivirus approaches don't work and why a new approach
to endpoint security is required to better protect your users, your data
and your long-term viability as a company from malicious threats.
Hosted at Microsoft in Waltham, MA on Thursday, October 2nd. Register here:
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Protecting-Against-New-Malware
Recovery Made Easy for Exchange, SQL, and other Critical Applications
Join Sunbelt and Double-Take Software as we discuss strategies for
implementing high availability, remote availability and offsite disaster
recovery solutions for SQL, Exchange and other mission critical applications
using Double-Take. Learn about Double-Take v5.0 and Double-Take's NEW
solutions that power your keys to recoverability.
Hosted at Microsoft in Hartford, CT on Thursday, September 25th. Register here:
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Recovery-Made-Easy
Hosted at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Tampa, FL on Thursday, September 25th.
Register here (seating is limited):
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Ruth-Chris
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Tech Briefing |
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LeftHand SAN In A Box Technology
LeftHand Networks said its new Linux-based software, called SAN/iQ V8, runs
on an x86 server and uses storage virtualization technology to turn a bunch
of disk arrays into a powerful but relatively cheap, iSCSI SAN in a box.
This sounds like interesting technology:
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-LeftHand-Networks
20 More IT Mistakes To Avoid
Fall prey to any one of these common IT blunders and watch your company's
prospects suffer -- not to mention your own. Back in 2004, InfoWorld's
then-CTO Chad Dickerson polled the best and brightest to reveal 20 IT
mistakes that were surefire recipes for cost overruns, missed deadlines,
and in some cases, lost jobs. A lot has changed in the past four years,
but one thing hasn't: IT's capacity to fall prey to misguided practices,
given the complexity of the responsibilities involved. So in the spirit
of "forewarned is forearmed," we bring you 20 brand-new mistakes that
today's IT managers would do well to avoid. As before, the names have been
changed to protect the guilty, but the lessons learned are plain to see.
Here is the article at InfoWorld.
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Mistakes-To-Avoid
Why Too Much Memory Can Hurt Exchange Server 2007 Performance
One of the fundamental rules of working with Microsoft hardware and software
has been that if you want to achieve optimal performance, just add more
memory. Believe it or not, though, Exchange Server 2007 breaks this rule.
This tip from SearchExchange.com explains why more does not always equal
better: (Registration Required)
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Too-Much-Memory
Podcast: What Exchange Admins Should Know About Virtualization
Deploying Exchange Server 2007 in a properly architected and configured
virtualized environment can yield significant benefits such as the
ability to consolidate hardware, pool resources, and improve disaster
recovery and high availability uptime. Before architecting a virtualized
Exchange infrastructure, however, there are a few things you should know.
Listen to this podcast to get valuable answers to frequently asked
questions on Exchange Server virtualization:
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Virtualization
Remote Programs Can Simplify Application Management
One way to simplify the desktop application management process is to use
a new Windows Server 2008 feature called Remote Programs. It requires the
use of a terminal server, but not in the way you might expect. This tip
from SearchEnterpriseDesktop.com explains how:
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Remote-Programs
The Advantages Of Desktop Virtualization
As organizations are tasked with implementing more creative solutions to
meet their dynamically changing needs, there is a growing interest in
desktop virtualization. This tip makes the case for considering a move
to virtualization to help solve some of your desktop management issues.
(Registration Required)
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Desktop-Virtualization
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Windows Server News |
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VMWorld Show Roundup
By Laura DiDio - The VMWorld 2008 virtualization conference in Las Vegas
this week was big in both the literal and virtual sense.
VMware, the leader in server virtualization with an estimated 70%+ market
share, did not disappoint the 14,000 attendees. VMWorld 2008 was new CEO
Paul Maritz' coming out party. And the theme was "virtually anything is
possible."
VMWare announced a slew of new product initiatives - though most of the
products won't debut until sometime in 2009 -- and alliances with industry
giants including Cisco, Dell, parent company EMC, HP, IBM, Intel and NEC.
All in all VMware put on a show worthy of the Las Vegas venue.
The announcements and strategic direction centered around:
- Virtual cloud
- Virtual data center operations
- Virtual desktops
VMware's new Virtual Datacenter Operating System (VDC-OS) took center
stage. It will allow IT managers to marshal all of the company's hardware
resources and automatically and dynamically assign memory, storage,
processors and other computing resources to an application or group as
needed. The VDC-OS will let businesses transform their data centers
into an aggregated on-premise cloud - and, when necessary, transfer
workloads to external clouds for additional computing capacity.
According to VMware datacenters running on the VDC-OS are "highly elastic,
self-managing and self-healing." VDC-OS also provides a set of application
services (called Application vServices) to ensure the appropriate levels
of availability, security and scalability to all applications independent
of the operating system, development frameworks or architecture on which
they were built to run. And finally, the VDC-OS delivers a set of cloud
services (called Cloud vServices) that federate computing resources and
capacity between the on-premise and off-premise clouds.
The Virtual Datacenter OS is just what its name implies: a datacenter-based
OS that serves the entire organization and frees computing resources from
the constraints of a traditional server-based OS which is tied to a single,
specific underlying server.
It all sounds good. The biggest surprise here is that an executive with
Maritz' marketing savvy would bestow the name "VD" on this advanced
product! VMWorld 2008 was also all about partnerships and alliances. The
Palo Alto, California-based firm announced a new set of Alliance Affiliate
partners including BMC Software, Cisco, Emulex, Force10 Networks, HP, IBM,
Kingston Technology and Symantec. The partners will work with VMware to
create joint solution selling programs to launch later this year.
Each partner will construct a customized program that will incorporate
financial incentives, specialized tools and training when they sell
VMware's virtualization products along with their own offerings.
And as we've been telling you via the Sunbelt Software virtualization
surveys, the Apple Mac is assuming a much more prominent place in
corporate enterprises. VMware's newly released VMware Fusion 2.0, which
allows customers to run Microsoft Windows on Mac hardware, was very much
in evidence. The latest version of the software allows businesses to take
multiple snapshots of virtual machines to enable easy backup and restore
of the guest OS's working state.
By any standard VMworld 2008 was a success, but it was not an unqualified
success. VMware also spent the week battling news headlines from rivals
like Citrix, Microsoft and Sun all of whom made announcements of their
own and served notice that the red hot virtualization landscape is
fiercely competitive. This is good news for corporate customers.
Competition keeps everyone honest and on their mettle. It helps to drive
prices down and will hopefully spur the vendors to release innovative
offerings on time.
In order to shore up investor and end user confidence, VMware must now
deliver and execute on the promises it made this past week. The industry
will be waiting and watching. Laura DiDio is a principal at Information
Technology Intelligence Corp. (ITIC)
Tip: What's There To Hate About Windows Server 2008?
While there is a lot to like about Windows Server 2008, it's not without
a few quirks. Learn about some of the major and minor issues that you might
run into with the new OS and how to fix them. (Registration Required)
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-Windows-Server-2008
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WServer Third Party News |
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Just Announced: Livewire from Double-Take Software
Livewire - Affordable Protection for Secondary Servers
Announced this week, Livewire is an affordable software solution for
full-server data protection and on-demand recovery for secondary (or Tier 2)
servers that need to recover from an outage and resume normal operations
within 4-6 hours.
"Livewire from Double-Take Software offers a solution to a key but
underserved segment of the Disaster Recovery marketplace as identified by
IDC - protecting and recovering those servers which are "next" in importance
to the organization. Once the Tier One servers have been recovered, those
"next" in line can be recovered within an hour or two, so that most of the
IT infrastructure is back to pre-disaster levels of service," said James
Baker, IDC Research Manager for Storage Software. "Livewire works in physical,
virtual, or mixed physical and virtual environments letting the user select
the most optimal recovery point, time, and location for the organization."
Double-Take Software is offering Livewire as an affordable, feature-rich
recovery product for secondary servers that automatically protects both
physical and virtual servers with real-time replication and on-demand
recovery by:
- Providing continuous, full-server byte-level replication for both physical
and virtual environments.
- Lowering the total cost of operation with many-to-one configurations
where many production systems can be protected to a single image server
reducing the hardware required.
- Integrating with industry-leading virtualization platforms like VMware
ESX server to automatically provision virtual machines for on-demand recovery.
- Leveraging customers' prior technology investments and existing
infrastructure by not requiring specialized server or storage solutions
to provide protection.
- Offering an Enterprise Management Console interface designed to simplify
protection and recovery management for hundreds or even thousands of
production systems.
- Offering an option for mass-scale physical to virtual (P to V) and
physical to physical (P to P) migrations while providing the ability to
repurpose the Livewire licenses after migration for on-going protection.
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WServerNews FAVE Links |
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This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff.
|
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WServerNews - Product of the Week |
|
Make it easy to track user access to your Windows file servers!
Monitor your users' every action and get powerful reporting and
up-to-the-minute alerts on activity! With File System Auditor from
ScriptLogic, you'll be able to audit file access on Windows file servers,
generate easy-to-understand compliance reports, and create alerts tied to
file system events - all from a centralized management console. Create
an audit trail on your file server and know that your access controls
are working. File System Auditor protects sensitive information by
reporting attempts to access and modify files and folders, with who did
it and when. Download a Free Trial of File System Auditor Today!
http://www.wservernews.com/080922-File-System-Auditor
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