SonicWALL, Inc. a secure network infrastructure company, announced the availability of its Email Security and Network Security Appliance(NSA) Series for Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Small Business Sever (SBS) and Windows Essential Business Server (EBS). The SonicWALL technologies, which complement SBS and EBS, deliver a comprehensive security package that ensures SMBs have access to enterprise class-products at affordable prices.
“Microsoft aims to provide its customers a selection of products that offer them the best solutions available in the industry and Windows Essential Server Solutions continues this momentum.” said Russ Madlener, director, Windows Server Group at Microsoft Corp.. “We are pleased SonicWALL is building out additional functionality and ensuring that our mutual customers have a robust IT deployment to meet their specific needs.”
Email Security
SonicWALL’s Email Security offerings help companies of all sizes protect themselves from spam, viruses, phishing and other harmful threats in email attacks by combining the powerful protection of threat management, content filtering, policy management and compliance infrastructure functionality. The new solution brings this high-performance and easy-to-use protection against all forms of email security threats to the millions of SBS users. Available as a hardened appliance or as Windows software, SonicWALL Email Security protects inbound and outbound e-mail for organizations of less than 25 to over 100,000 users. SonicWALL Email Security for Windows Small Business Server is the latest offering in the line, specifically optimized for the Microsoft server environment to meet the needs of small businesses with an easy-to-install, easy-to-manage solution.
Network Security Appliance Series
The SonicWALL Network Security Appliance (NSA) Series applies next-generation Unified Threat Management (UTM) to enable complete protection at the network perimeter without compromising performance levels to SBS and EBS and its users. The NSA appliances incorporate SonicWALL’s patented Reassembly Free Deep Packet Inspection (RFDPI) and multi-core processing to block threats, such as hackers, viruses and spyware as well as controlling user access to the server.
“SonicWALL has worked hard to create a large portfolio of products that protect firms of all sizes from a vast array of security threats.” said Patrick Sweeney, Vice President at SonicWALL. “Taking these technologies and integrating them with Windows Small Business Server and Essential Business Server is key to our SMB customers.”
Source:pcmag-mideast.com/NewsDetail.aspx?id=2321
Showing posts with label windows server support services. Show all posts
Showing posts with label windows server support services. Show all posts
Monday, November 24, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Four Windows Server 2008 Storage Improvements
With the release of Windows Server 2008, Microsoft is making a number of improvements to the server's underlying storage mechanisms.
Here are four of these improvements and what they mean for the typical IT organisation.
SMB 2.0
First shipped with Windows Vista, SMB 2.0, alternatively known as the Common Internet File System (CIFS), is also included in Windows Server 2008 and sports a number of improvements over its predecessor.
To work with older systems, Windows Server 2008 supports both SMB 1.0 and SMB 2.0 and automatically uses the version most appropriate for communication. SMB 2.0 is used only between Windows Server 2008 systems and with Windows Vista systems. SMB communication with all other operating systems uses SMB 1.0.
BitLocker Drive Encryption
Included in Windows Server 2008 is Microsoft's BitLocker Drive Encryption software. BitLocker is also included in Windows Vista Enterprise and Ultimate editions but, for Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has made improvements to the technology (which are likely to be extended to Vista when Service Pack 1 is released).
Under Vista, BitLocker can be used to encrypt the contents of the operating system volume. If you have multiple volumes of data on your desktop computer, however, BitLocker — at present — cannot be used to protect anything except the operating system volume. In Windows Server 2008, this limitation has been removed and all server volumes can be protected via BitLocker.
Full-disk encryption is usually considered primarily for mobile computers that can be easily stolen, but this technology should also be considered for use in branch offices or areas in which physical security cannot be guaranteed.
Self-healing NTFS
It's a bad day when you have to reboot a file server just to run chkdsk.exe to correct a minor corruption in NTFS. You have to schedule downtime for a server, maybe come in after hours or, in a worst-case scenario, interrupt your users while you perform this task during the day. But no more: with Windows Server 2008 comes an online NTFS corruption repair tool. While it is not a silver bullet for volume repair, it does correct many problems without having to reboot the server to run chkdsk.exe. Self-healing NTFS is enabled by default in Windows Server 2008 installations.
Symbolic links
Earlier, I mentioned that SMB 2.0 supports symbolic links. The fact that SMB 2.0 has this feature is great but it would be utterly useless without the same feature being included in the operating system. As such, symbolic links have been added to Windows Server 2008 — a feature that is long overdue. A symbolic link is simply an object in the file system that points to another object in the file system. A symbolic link appears as a normal file or directory object and can be used by an application as if it were the actual object.
Unix and Linux users have been able to use symbolic links for a very, very long time, and this feature can make it much easier to administer a system and share data.
Source:resources.zdnet.co.uk/articles/0,1000001991,39292799,00.htm
Here are four of these improvements and what they mean for the typical IT organisation.
SMB 2.0
First shipped with Windows Vista, SMB 2.0, alternatively known as the Common Internet File System (CIFS), is also included in Windows Server 2008 and sports a number of improvements over its predecessor.
To work with older systems, Windows Server 2008 supports both SMB 1.0 and SMB 2.0 and automatically uses the version most appropriate for communication. SMB 2.0 is used only between Windows Server 2008 systems and with Windows Vista systems. SMB communication with all other operating systems uses SMB 1.0.
BitLocker Drive Encryption
Included in Windows Server 2008 is Microsoft's BitLocker Drive Encryption software. BitLocker is also included in Windows Vista Enterprise and Ultimate editions but, for Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has made improvements to the technology (which are likely to be extended to Vista when Service Pack 1 is released).
Under Vista, BitLocker can be used to encrypt the contents of the operating system volume. If you have multiple volumes of data on your desktop computer, however, BitLocker — at present — cannot be used to protect anything except the operating system volume. In Windows Server 2008, this limitation has been removed and all server volumes can be protected via BitLocker.
Full-disk encryption is usually considered primarily for mobile computers that can be easily stolen, but this technology should also be considered for use in branch offices or areas in which physical security cannot be guaranteed.
Self-healing NTFS
It's a bad day when you have to reboot a file server just to run chkdsk.exe to correct a minor corruption in NTFS. You have to schedule downtime for a server, maybe come in after hours or, in a worst-case scenario, interrupt your users while you perform this task during the day. But no more: with Windows Server 2008 comes an online NTFS corruption repair tool. While it is not a silver bullet for volume repair, it does correct many problems without having to reboot the server to run chkdsk.exe. Self-healing NTFS is enabled by default in Windows Server 2008 installations.
Symbolic links
Earlier, I mentioned that SMB 2.0 supports symbolic links. The fact that SMB 2.0 has this feature is great but it would be utterly useless without the same feature being included in the operating system. As such, symbolic links have been added to Windows Server 2008 — a feature that is long overdue. A symbolic link is simply an object in the file system that points to another object in the file system. A symbolic link appears as a normal file or directory object and can be used by an application as if it were the actual object.
Unix and Linux users have been able to use symbolic links for a very, very long time, and this feature can make it much easier to administer a system and share data.
Source:resources.zdnet.co.uk/articles/0,1000001991,39292799,00.htm
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Dublin Technology Available to Windows Server
In conjunction with the rollout of its next-generation .Net Framework 4.0 release, Microsoft is readying a new distributed application server, code-named “Dublin.”
Dublin — a first Community Technology Preview (CTP) build of which Microsoft will release during its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) — ultimately will be built into an unspecified future release of Windows Server. Before that happens, Microsoft will make the Dublin technology available to Windows Server customers as a separate download.
Steven Martin, Senior Director of Product Management with Microsoft’s Connected Services Division, chatted with me yesterday about Dublin, as well a bit about some of the new related functionality Microsoft is prepping as part of its .Net 4.0 release, on October 1.
“The lines between Web servers and application servers are continuing to blur,” Martin told me. “Web applications are becoming more stateful, and we’re seeing developers build more composite apps.”
Microsoft developers who’ve been working with the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) technologies that are part of the current release of the .Net Framework have expressed a need to have a single, end-to-end view of all of their data, pulled from multiple back-ends,” Martin said. As a result of these trends, Microsoft decided to extend the application server capabilities currently built into Windows Server, he said.
“Developers using WF and WCF today have to build a separate host for their applications. Dublin will eliminate that requirement and give developers more scalabiity and support for long-running transactions,” among other features, Martin said.
Earlier this year, during a presentation at its TechEd conference, consultant David Chappell said he believed Microsoft was building a separate process server that would be a key part of its Oslo modeling strategy. My bet — although I couldn’t get Microsoft officials to say this — is Dublin is that mystery server.
Microsoft’s Dynamics team is going to be the first group at Microsoft to build appliations using Dublin, Martin said. One of the next versions of Dynamics CRM, as well as of Dynamics AX ERP, will run on top of Dublin and leverage the .Net 4.0 technologies, he said. (Martin wouldn’t specify which releases specifically or when they’d ship.) Several third-party software vendors have committed to using Dublin and .Net 4.0, too, including AmberPoint, Epicor and Telerik.
Microsoft officials still won’t provide a ship target for .Net 4.0, Visual Studio 2010 or any of the other elements that comprise its Oslo platform. Microsoft is slated to discuss Oslo in depth at the PDC in late October.
Source:blogs.zdnet.com
Dublin — a first Community Technology Preview (CTP) build of which Microsoft will release during its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) — ultimately will be built into an unspecified future release of Windows Server. Before that happens, Microsoft will make the Dublin technology available to Windows Server customers as a separate download.
Steven Martin, Senior Director of Product Management with Microsoft’s Connected Services Division, chatted with me yesterday about Dublin, as well a bit about some of the new related functionality Microsoft is prepping as part of its .Net 4.0 release, on October 1.
“The lines between Web servers and application servers are continuing to blur,” Martin told me. “Web applications are becoming more stateful, and we’re seeing developers build more composite apps.”
Microsoft developers who’ve been working with the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) technologies that are part of the current release of the .Net Framework have expressed a need to have a single, end-to-end view of all of their data, pulled from multiple back-ends,” Martin said. As a result of these trends, Microsoft decided to extend the application server capabilities currently built into Windows Server, he said.
“Developers using WF and WCF today have to build a separate host for their applications. Dublin will eliminate that requirement and give developers more scalabiity and support for long-running transactions,” among other features, Martin said.
Earlier this year, during a presentation at its TechEd conference, consultant David Chappell said he believed Microsoft was building a separate process server that would be a key part of its Oslo modeling strategy. My bet — although I couldn’t get Microsoft officials to say this — is Dublin is that mystery server.
Microsoft’s Dynamics team is going to be the first group at Microsoft to build appliations using Dublin, Martin said. One of the next versions of Dynamics CRM, as well as of Dynamics AX ERP, will run on top of Dublin and leverage the .Net 4.0 technologies, he said. (Martin wouldn’t specify which releases specifically or when they’d ship.) Several third-party software vendors have committed to using Dublin and .Net 4.0, too, including AmberPoint, Epicor and Telerik.
Microsoft officials still won’t provide a ship target for .Net 4.0, Visual Studio 2010 or any of the other elements that comprise its Oslo platform. Microsoft is slated to discuss Oslo in depth at the PDC in late October.
Source:blogs.zdnet.com
Monday, July 14, 2008
Windows Small Business Server Support Services
Although the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference held here July 7-10 was the company’s opportunity to introduce the technologies to its partners, Microsoft will officially launch SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 Nov. 12, said Steven VanRoekel, senior director of Windows Server Solutions at Microsoft.
“We’re showcasing the Windows Server Solutions family” here, VanRoekel told eWEEK in a July 9 meeting at the conference. “SBS 2008 and Essential Business Server are tailored for midsized companies and we anticipate we’ll see a lot of companies deploying it, and it will be growing into more opportunity for us to sell into more situations where in the past we only had SBS."
SBS 2008, previously known by the code name Cougar, is ideal for organizations with up to 50 PCs, helping them protect business data, expand business productivity and present a professional image to customers, he said.
EBS 2008 is designed for midsize organizations with up to 250 desktops, Microsoft officials said.
Windows business server combines the technologies of Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Forefront Security for Exchange Server, System Center Essentials 2007, the next version of Internet Security and Acceleration Server and, in the Premium Edition, SQL Server 2008 technology, Microsoft officials said.
Windows Essential Business Server enables organizations to scale up, VanRoekel said.
“The theme is about making complex consumer technology more consumable,” he said. “We go from Windows Home Server, which is five questions during install, to SBS, which is a little more sophisticated, to Essential Business Server, which is 600 pages of documentation."
“We’ve been using Small Business Server 2008 in production since December,” said John Endter, president of Microsoft partner E Squared C. “I recently did three Windows Small Business Server 2003 installs and [am] working with ’08 now; it’s no fun to go back and install 2003. Luckily, the owner of these systems plans to upgrade to ’08 when it ships.”
Endter said the “Essential Business Server takes the Small Business Server concept up one level. Some of our customers have asked for the functionality of Small Business Server, and EBS offers that to the midmarket.”
He also said the licensing terms of Small Business Server 2008 make it flexible for small businesses to use and grow their solutions.
“We have some customers who six months into the deal want to expand, and we offer the ability to grow and scale,” Endter said.
“We made it easy to move and made the price more attractive," VanRoekel said.
Meanwhile, Endter said among the things in Essential Business Server 2008 that his customers had been asking for is the remote Web workplaces capability. “Before this they had to build that on their own,” he said.
Another highly desired feature that is now part of EBS 2008 is “centralized management,” he said. In addition, “Small Business Server has been good for us, and seeing that the midmarket is a great opportunity for us, we expect to do well with the Essential Business Server."
Meanwhile, Microsoft will be releasing SDKs (software development kits) for both SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 within the next few weeks, the company said. Both products have been under evaluation as pre-release versions.
Source: www.eweek.com
“We’re showcasing the Windows Server Solutions family” here, VanRoekel told eWEEK in a July 9 meeting at the conference. “SBS 2008 and Essential Business Server are tailored for midsized companies and we anticipate we’ll see a lot of companies deploying it, and it will be growing into more opportunity for us to sell into more situations where in the past we only had SBS."
SBS 2008, previously known by the code name Cougar, is ideal for organizations with up to 50 PCs, helping them protect business data, expand business productivity and present a professional image to customers, he said.
EBS 2008 is designed for midsize organizations with up to 250 desktops, Microsoft officials said.
Windows business server combines the technologies of Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Forefront Security for Exchange Server, System Center Essentials 2007, the next version of Internet Security and Acceleration Server and, in the Premium Edition, SQL Server 2008 technology, Microsoft officials said.
Windows Essential Business Server enables organizations to scale up, VanRoekel said.
“The theme is about making complex consumer technology more consumable,” he said. “We go from Windows Home Server, which is five questions during install, to SBS, which is a little more sophisticated, to Essential Business Server, which is 600 pages of documentation."
“We’ve been using Small Business Server 2008 in production since December,” said John Endter, president of Microsoft partner E Squared C. “I recently did three Windows Small Business Server 2003 installs and [am] working with ’08 now; it’s no fun to go back and install 2003. Luckily, the owner of these systems plans to upgrade to ’08 when it ships.”
Endter said the “Essential Business Server takes the Small Business Server concept up one level. Some of our customers have asked for the functionality of Small Business Server, and EBS offers that to the midmarket.”
He also said the licensing terms of Small Business Server 2008 make it flexible for small businesses to use and grow their solutions.
“We have some customers who six months into the deal want to expand, and we offer the ability to grow and scale,” Endter said.
“We made it easy to move and made the price more attractive," VanRoekel said.
Meanwhile, Endter said among the things in Essential Business Server 2008 that his customers had been asking for is the remote Web workplaces capability. “Before this they had to build that on their own,” he said.
Another highly desired feature that is now part of EBS 2008 is “centralized management,” he said. In addition, “Small Business Server has been good for us, and seeing that the midmarket is a great opportunity for us, we expect to do well with the Essential Business Server."
Meanwhile, Microsoft will be releasing SDKs (software development kits) for both SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 within the next few weeks, the company said. Both products have been under evaluation as pre-release versions.
Source: www.eweek.com
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