Blog Archives
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September 2, 2010
A Real Life Lesson in the Importance of Testing IT Systems
Some of you may have read the Washington Post article “Crash of Va. computer network has implications for tech world, state politics” by Rosalind S. Helderman and Anita Kumar published on Thursday, September 2, 2010. The quick summary is that a redundant data storage unit failed in a warehouse outside of Richmond last week, wreaking havoc in the computer networks of a number of Virginia agencies for more than seven days. Now, sometimes even if you do everything right, technology just fails. This is a sad reality and the disaster in VA may simply be a case of very bad luck.
Having said that, I suspect the disaster in VA more likely is an example of an all too common problem in IT: the lack of testing systems after installation and more importantly the lack of regular testing of systems to validate proper function.
I am going to hypothesize that the redundant storage system was installed and everyone just assumed it would work because they bought an expensive system and that no one ever bothered to test the failover process. You can see this attitude in the quotes in the Washington Post article, “This is surprising — it’s a selling point for them (EMC) when they talk to a major organization, that this stuff never goes down,” said Bill Kreher. This attitude to trust that a system is going to work and not take the time to test is a common problem in any field (see the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster), but it happens a lot in information technology especially.
The all too often made assumption is that you don’t need to test a product because the vendor says it will work, and because it is hard and complicated to test. So in-house IT teams and IT consultants take the easy way out and don’t go perform the initial or ongoing quality assurance that they should. Then when a real world event occurs and lo and behold the system doesn’t work and now the organization is in real trouble.
At New Signature we live by the mantra that you should regularly test information technology systems to validate that they are fully operational and perform as expected. This is one of the reasons we institute a quarterly maintenance process for our clients. Part of this maintenance process is to perform real world tests of key critical components with careful planning and during scheduled downtime (e.g., unplug the UPS and make sure it works, take one of the servers offline and make sure the redundancy kicks in, do something unexpected to the system and see how it responds, etc.). Without this regular quality assurance organizations more easily find themselves in the very bad place that the state of Virginia has been in over the past week.
If you have an IT system that hasn’t been tested or hasn’t been tested lately, please contact us at New Signature. We can help you develop a plan and execute to ensure that your information technology systems are being regularly tested and that important maintenance is being performed.
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August 16, 2010
Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1: Microsoft Dynamic Memory
As promised, this week we’ll go through the improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 with respect to “Dynamic Memory”. For the more technically-minded among you, I encourage you to bust out your reading glasses, and head over to read the epic six-part blog miniseries Jeff Woolsey penned recently.
Finished? Good.
Now that your eyeballs have glazed over from the technical wizardry, it’s time to focus on a high-level why Dynamic Memory makes sense for your business, and how it integrates well with RemoteFX and Microsoft’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure VDI platform. (more…)
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August 2, 2010
Microsoft RemoteFX: Delivering a Rich, Connected User Experience to the Virtual Desktop
Many businesses have, in the past, waited until the first service pack is released before implementing a new client or server operating system. Microsoft’s latest operating systems: Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 have a new service pack that is scheduled to be released shortly. As a Microsoft Gold Partner New Signature receives early access to these betas and we enthusiastically take advantage to experiment, learn and gain real world expertise with the improved products.We have been extremely excited to be using two of the newest features that SP1 enables: dynamic memory and RemoteFX. Both are game-changing software technologies that expand the functionality of Windows Server 2008 R2 in major ways. Both are meaty topics, so today we are going to tackle RemoteFX.
RemoteFX is the Microsoft terminology for a series of technologies they purchased two years ago and have been refining since. To get a feel for what RemoteFX enables, it’s helpful to examine the history of virtualization and how companies are looking to maximize their investment. (more…)
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July 30, 2010
Book Review: “Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Plain & Simple”
“Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Plain & Simple“, by Nancy Muir, is a step-by-step walk-through training guide to the latest version of Microsoft’s presentation creation software.Nancy does an excellent job setting your expectations for the book. She starts off on the right foot with an introduction as her first chapter, where she sets the roadmap for the book and defines what she is intending to accomplish over the following lessons. She also clearly defines the prerequisite knowledge she assumes her audience possesses—which is basically that you need to be proficient using a computer. Nancy extends her clear roadmap by highlighting the goals of each chapter on their respective cover pages. (more…)
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July 21, 2010
Book Review: “Microsoft Outlook 2010 Plain & Simple”
“Microsoft Outlook 2010 Plain & Simple,” written by Jim Boyce, provides a comprehensive, colorful, and easy-to-follow guide to Outlook. The majority of tasks that this book covers could easily be figured out with a bit of trial-and-error or a quick Google search, but this book provides an easy alternative that less tech-savvy people might find comforting. While I did learn some new things about Outlook 2010 when reading through (particularly about its new features in chapter 2: “What’s new in Outlook 2010?”), I found the steps and pictures to be a bit simplistic. Then again, this book is likely not aimed at the IT professional; on page 1, it states that “no computerspeak” will be used. However, the little Tip boxes frequently contained helpful hints and warnings. Another major strength of the book was the layout of the instructions. Each task that the book demonstrates is accompanied by carefully labeled screenshots. In addition, Boyce provides multiple methods to accomplish a given task (whenever possible). Thus, if one approach is not working, this book will probably have another. Overall, this book provides exactly what it states in the title: a plain and simple guide. While not particularly suited for IT professionals, it could be a valuable resource in the hands of a small business owner who wants to get the most out of Outlook 2010. -
Book Review: “Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Best Practices”
“Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Best Practices” is a guide ‘by Exchange geeks for Exchange geeks’. The author worked with the Exchange team when writing this book and drew on the experience of Exchange MVP’s (Most Valuable Professionals).It’s very clear from the beginning that the authors are passionate about the topic and have a firm grasp of the technology involved in Microsoft’s Exchange product as it has developed and matured over the years.
The book is written for people that already have a firm grasp on both Exchange Server and messaging in general. If you are just getting started with Microsoft Exchange administration then there are better books to start with. The book is an investigation into the nuts and bolts of the Exchange Server environment and explains how all of the pieces fit together. Knowing the changes in Hub Transport and Client Access Roles in 2010 and how they were designed go a long way in building and maintaining a proper implementation. (more…)
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June 29, 2010
Book Review: “Programming Windows Azure”
From the first few pages of “Programming Windows Azure” it’s easy to tell that the author has a great grasp of both the historical parallels to today’s interest in “Cloud Computing” as well as a good idea for where it’s going. Sriram Krishnan has a great conversational style, and the book is a tribute to good editing on O’Reilly’s part.Krishnan’s tips are quite useful, including how to get the myriad of pre-requisites setup with a minimal amount of work, setting up certificates, and which command line tools (and syntax) are necessary for full utilization and configuration. (more…)
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June 18, 2010
Book Review: “Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant”
Stanek has done it again: “Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant” is a book all Exchange administrators should have on their shelf, or dogeared on their desk. William Stanek, one of the more prolific tech writers today, adopts a professional tone early in the book, which is appropriate. This is a reference work first and foremost, not a teaching guide. Consequently, if you’re new to 2010, Exchange in general, or lack a solid base in networking and messaging concepts, this book isn’t for you. For the messaging professional, the Exchange 2007 admin, or even a network admin well versed in Exchange 2003 the book is ideal. (more…) -
June 11, 2010
Book Review: “Windows 7 Annoyances”
Let me preface this review with a caveat: “Windows 7 Annoyances“, thanks to author David A. Karp, is a great book that every single IT professional supporting desktop operating systems should read. Several chapters bridge the gap between highly technical works such as Windows Internals and the lighter marketing communications that emerges from Redmond’s own website. For this reason alone, the book is important to read, especially as it explores areas that Internals doesn’t dive into (the registry chapter is a good example).Unfortunately, the book fails to live up to those great chapters: a series of editing errors, outright mistakes, and an incurious attitude towards architectural decisions reduce the remaining chapters to an exercise in frustration. Finally, the target of the book is never entirely clear, leading Karp to make statements that target laypeople and advanced users, who are two different audiences. (more…)
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May 21, 2010
Book Review: “Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 Resource Kit”
In the Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 Resource Kit, authors Mike Volardsky, Olga Londer, Bret Hill, Bernard Cheah, Steve Schofield, Carlos Aguilar Mares, Kurt Meyer and the Microsoft IIS Team all contribute. The result is mixed.IIS 7 is a completely different product than its predecessor, IIS 6, and the book covers the improvements in modularity, security and configuration well. Even the relatively short overview of the features was comprehensive enough to warrant purchasing the book. By the time the team digs down into the xml configuration files, I was super-excited about the changes. As a long-time user of Apache, htaccess and mod_rewrite, I’ve always wished IIS would move into a more granular level of configurations from the old registry and metabase system. The new xml files should prove a boon to IIS admins the world over. By providing a series of simple steps to secure the server from the start, Microsoft has always significantly focused on security in this revision. The new logging functionality also greatly improves the ability of IIS admins to rapidly diagnose faulty components that are affecting web apps negatively. (more…)