Archive for August 2010

Aug
30

Register now for our SMBNation All-Day Training

by amy

Content? Yes, we have content.

Eriq Neale: Configuring and Using Remote Desktop Services Remote Apps – A Love Story

Dave Shackelford: Things you didn’t know were in Exchange 2007

Cliff Galiher: AutoDiscovery, DNS and ActiveSync in depth. Like seriously deep

Wayne Small: Hyper-V R2, yes is does make a difference. Configuring Disk subsystems and effects on performance

Thanks to our sponsors, Hewlett Packard, Symform and Storagecraft we are able to keep the cost down to only $50. So head on over to the store and reserve your space for this all-day training session! http://www.thirdtier.net/store Training takes place October 21st.

0 Categories : Cliff Galiher, Dave Shackelford, Eriq Neale, Events, SMB Nation, Wayne

Aug
27

Third Tier offering Technical Training at SMBNation PreDay Event!

by amy

I’ve been dying to announce this. I’m so excited! We’re doing a pre-day event at SMBNation in Vegas on October 21st. Make your flights accordingly. Very soon we will be posting a registration form. You must register in advance so keep an eye out for it.

Speakers are our own fabulous staff: Dave Shackelford, Cliff Galiher, Eriq Neale and Wayne Small

Our content has been selected by the guys to reflect the growing concern over compliance, business continuity, manageability and issues surrounding these that our customers are contacting us for help with. Case studies and examples will abound and they guys will show you how to configure the products they will be working with which including Exchange, Sharepoint, Terminal Services and Hyper-V. Expect the sessions to be intense with advanced material. Your brain will be exploding by the end of the day.

I’ll be posting more and more specifics about the content as the event gets closer. Let’s have a look at what Eriq is going to cover first:

Configuring and Using Remote Desktop Services Remote Apps – A Love Story

Many people have heard of Remote Desktop Services Remote Apps (formerly Terminal Server Remote Apps) but either haven’t had an opportunity to implement the solution or just are not sure how to. In this session, Eriq Neale will show how to configure RDS Remote Apps on a Remote Desktop Server and then go over several real-world deployment scenarios. We will also go over how to set up RDS Remote Apps to work with Remote Web Workplace on an SBS Server. Eriq will include case studies on when and why this technology is used.

Configuring RDS Remote Apps

Publishing an Application through RDS Remote Apps

Publishing an Application with multiple configuration options through RDS Remote Apps

Publishing an RDS Remote App through Remote Web Workplace

Please make your flights accordingly and plan to join us for a full day of intense training on October 21st.

Shout Out to Hewlett Packard, Symform and Storagecraft. Without awesome vendors that get the small business space and are willing to invest in partner education, this event would not be possible.

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0 Categories : Amy Babinchak, Cliff Galiher, Dave Shackelford, Eriq Neale, Events, Exchange, Hyper-V, SMB Nation, SharePoint, Virtualization, Wayne

Aug
27

Checking out the HP DataVault

by amy

HP has had this product called the DataVault for some time now, but it’s kind of been flying under the radar. Everyone seems to know about Home Server but they don’t realize that HP has taken Microsoft’s Home Server and given it a business twist by boosting the specs and changing the name to make it easier to sell to a small business.

And now we break for a moment of disclosure. While I’ve previously purchased the HP DataVault for clients, recently HP sent me one for testing and that’s what has prompted this blog post.

We bought the DataVault for a small accounting client who had 7 PC’s and a SnapServer whose password they didn’t know when they came to us. Each of these PC’s have multiple versions of Quickbooks and a couple of other accounting packages, but no two PC’s are exactly the same. Each person working there needs certain accounting packages but not others and so that’s how they’ve got the PC’s loaded. Now because they were self IT’ing, each of those packages was also using factory default settings which means that they are saving data to every PC. (RED FLAG!) Each person was responsible for backing up their stuff. Shared documents were stored on the SnapServer whose admin password they didn’t know.

“How soon before you have 8, 9, or 10 people and computers here?” Never. “Never?” Never.

That’s not unusual. A lot of small businesses are happy and content with the size they are and have no plans to grow. So we could re-organize the whole network, switch over to network controlled applications, centralize data storage, create a domain, yada, yada, yada but this business owner liked things they way they were. They were really only concerned about the SnapServer issue, until we pointed out the rest. They didn’t want a total makeover, they just wanted a solution for the problems at hand. That’s why we chose the DataVault.

The DataVault comes in 1, 2 or 3TB divided on two drives leaving 2 open internal bays, 4 usb ports and a sata port externally. We got it from Amazon for well under $1000. If you have a massive amount of data there are plenty of ports available with which to add more drive space and because it’s Home Server under the hood, you don’t even have to care what kind of drive you add later.

So the DataVault goes into place, we setup workstation backup (comes with data de-duplication technology so after the first workstation is backed up they don’t take up that much space) and we move the shared folders over. We also setup a couple of people with remote access to their PC’s so they can work those crazy accountant busy season hours from home. A happy ending for everyone! Until…

…disaster struck. (Is this a perfect case study or what?) A system board failed. After troubleshooting we placed a call to HP. HP shipped out a replacement under warranty. Now, if you know something about Home Server, then you know it’s an appliance by design. That is, you don’t install the OS it comes installed and every single one is identical. If you know about the DataVault then you know every single piece of hardware is identical. Holding our breath, we pulled the drives from the dead DataVault and put them into the new DataVault and booted.

Bling! Perfect, nothing had to be reconfigured, no new drivers loaded, no new hardware was detected…it just booted up like nothing happened. A happy ending for all. We do love the DataVault. It fits particular very small clients really well and we have several of them deployed and under management.

0 Categories : Amy Babinchak, Backup

Aug
26

Where’s Wayne?

by amy

If you are a close follower of the SMB IT community, then you may have noticed the news that Wayne Small has been hired by Storagecraft Australia as the General Manager for Technical Services. Since we’re all big fans of Storagecraft around here, we’re elated with the news and a hardy congratulations for both parties is in order.

But this makes Wayne an even busier guy than usual. He’s a man of many, many hats including: SBSFAQ, Correct Solutions, Microsoft, Kerio, Trend Micro, Third Tier, an author and an MVP. Over here at Third Tier Wayne has taken on EBS and Virtualization projects for clients. Wayne plans to continue doing everything, only maybe a little bit less of each. So Wayne will remain a Third Tier consultant and no doubt our clients will benefit from his insight on Storagecraft and business continuity issues.

0 Categories : Wayne

Aug
24

Get your basics down with Amy and the support guys at Calyptix

by amy

Calyptix has long been a friend of Third Tier and this month Amy will be a guest speaker presenting Networking Best Practices with the guys from the support staff over at Calyptix in their series, Getting to know your Access Enforcer. If it’s been a while since you reviewed the basics, or you jumped right into server work and never got the basics down cold, then this webinar is for you.

Don’t know when to use a cross-over cable and when to use straight-thru?
Fully understand how DNS and DHCP work?
What’s a CIDR?
When to segment the network into multiple subnets and when not to

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/726018419

Get the most out of your AccessEnforcer by investing 60 minutes in online training from the comfort of your own environment. Join Calyptix Security team members in this live session for a technical review and discussion covering a range of troubleshooting topics. The program will conclude with a question and answer session (time permitting). Participation in this training session is limited to current customers and authorized Calyptix Partners. The following items will be covered in this session.

The following items will be covered in this session:

o Overview of networking concepts
o DNS, DHCP, WINS servers and more…
o CIDR Ranges
o Managing Subnets and Multiple LANs
o Implementing Network Segmentation
o Using VLANs with AccessEnforcer
o Questions & Answers

Contact Calyptix Security at 704-971-8986

or info@calyptix.com with any questions.

Title: "Networking Best Practices"
Date: Tuesday, Aug 31, 2010
Time:12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EDT

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

0 Categories : Amy Babinchak, Calyptix, Networking, Webinar

Aug
18

August 19, 2010 PSSBS Meeting

by steve

For our August, 2010 Puget Sound Small Business Server User Group meeting, Kevin Brown, Vice President, Sales & Marketing for Symform, will be presenting and demonstrating their new v2.0 version of their affordable online data storage and disaster recovery solution.

Symform claims the new version is 10X faster and full of new features including:

- Flexible Contribution - contribute from anywhere – including the MSP’s office

- Resource Groups - pool bandwidth and storage across multiple nodes

- Instant Restore – keep a hot copy of the client’s data at the MSP’s office, the owner’s home, wherever…

- Laptop backup support

Symform will be covering the food/drinks for the evening and bringing a door prize.

In addition to Symform, we will also have two special guests in attendance. SBS Microsoft Most Valued Professionals, Philip Elder, and Jason Miller, are both in town working on a project over at Microsoft this week along with Steve Banks, and are excited to spend time with the group sharing the latest on the recently announced Aurora beta (http://connect.microsoft.com/sbs to sign up for it). With Symform’s Kevin Brown, and Philip and Jason all here, it will prove to be an incredible evening, so looking forward to seeing everyone there. Will be at our usual location, Microsoft’s Lincoln Square offices in downtown Bellevue (700 Bellevue Way NE - Lincoln Square, Bellevue, WA 98004).

Park in the Lincoln Square garage and meet at the elevators on the first floor by 6 PM to head up to the meeting (take a ticket when you enter the garage, but parking will be free for the evening).

Meeting will be from 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM.

Categories : Symform

Aug
10

Public Folder problem caused by Client-side Outlook Security update

by dave

Just a heads up. If any of your clients have a user that complains that they can’t access public folders, they may be having a problem with a recent client-side Outlook 2007 security update. If they attempt to access public folders and are getting this error:

Cannot expand the folder. The attempt to log on to Microsoft Exchange has failed

It’s likely that they recently installed KB980376. As of today, the only known fix is to uninstall that security update from the client machine so that they can get into public folders.

0 Categories : Dave Shackelford, Exchange, SBS 2008

Aug
1

Communicating Shrinking Databases to the Accidental DBAs

by edwin

I'm a self-proclaimed communicator (although most people say that I was born a teacher) which is why I always think of ways to simplify concepts, though they seem to be complex.

I was on IM with my former student and asking him how he was doing. During the course of the conversation, I asked if they have a full time DBA. Unfortunately, they don't and that they rely on their ERP system's tuning tool to do the performance tuning for their databases (of course, I recommended hiring my services to do it for them). One question that popped up during the conversation was shrinking the database. Most of the time, I get tempted to refer them to SQL Server MVP Tibor Karaszi's blog about why you shouldn't be shrinking your databases which I have done a lot of times when answering questions in the technical forums. But this time, I approached it differently because I was this guy's former trainer and he definitely knows that I will try to keep things as simple as possible. I started out with the concept of internal and external fragmentation, explaining what happens to the database files when you shrink them and, as auto growth kicks in due to the additional amount of data being loaded, grow back to a large file size. Imagine a room full of boxes where each box contains a bunch of items - shoes, books, other personal items, etc. Of course, a box has a fixed volume that can only contain a certain volume of items, much so occupying a certain amount of space in the room. If you need to add more items in a box full of books, what would you do? Well, you would have to get a bigger box to replace the smaller one before you can hold the additional books. So, the process of adding more books in a full box definitely requires more effort even before you can do the only task you thought about doing - storing books in a box. I bet it would take more time and effort storing books in a full box as compared to storing them in an empty one. Think of this box as your database. While we cannot auto grow boxes due to the underlying principles of nature, we can do so with databases and any files stored in the file system. However, the process of storing books in a full box is similar to adding more data in a full database. The database engine will have to grow the database even before it can add the data in it. But isn't the goal just to add records? This means that we are making the database engine do more unnecessary work than we need it to. And you wonder why database professionals complain about transactons getting blocked when the database is already full. Which is why the best practice is to allocate more than enough space on your databases so that we minimize those auto growth events during regular business hours. And this is where Tibor explained about internal fragmentation and how shrinking your databases will fragment your indexes, further hurting your database performance. Now, what about external fragmentation? Let's get back to that box analogy. If you were to replace the small box with a bigger one, wouldn't you move the other boxes around just to accomodate the new, larger box? Imagine that the smaller box is on the third column, fourth stack of the fifth row and that you have organized the boxes in the room in such a way that you have maximized the space (by the way, I'm a bit like that when arranging my personal stuff). You would then have to take the old, smaller box out of it's original location, find a place where you can place the new, larger box and, finally, store the additional books. If the new, larger box fits in the same place as your old, smaller box, then, you would have unused space in the room and, therefore, not maximizing the room space. This, from a file system and disk perspective, is called fragmentation and from the database's perspective, external fragmentation. And, because the boxes (or files for disk subsystems) are not arranged in contiguous, close-together kind of fashion, you (or the disk) will have to work harder just to get access to different boxes stored inside the room.

So, the next time somebody asks about why database shrinking is definitely not a good idea, you can tell him this story

Categories : Edwin Sarmiento

Aug
1

Continuing the SharePoint Foundation 2010 Installation

by edwin

I've been out of the blogosphere for quite a while due to travel and work but I realized that part 2 of the series on installing SharePoint Foundation 2010 is already published. Check out the last part of the article at MSSharePointTips.com

Categories : Edwin Sarmiento

Archive for August 2010

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