Options for passing a driver into the Windows Server 2008 install program

Windows Server 2008 makes this process a little more flexible. Here are various ways that a driver can be passed into the setup program.

• IDE floppy disk: I'm going old school here, but the Windows Server 2008 setup can read from the floppy drive during the installation process.

• USB floppy drive: The Windows setup can read from a USB drive, or the computer's BIOS will enumerate the floppy drive as an A:\ drive. It's somewhat of a cover song of the old school approach.

• USB flash drive: The Windows Server 2008 install will recognise USB storage devices, and you can have the driver located on the removable media.

• Map a network drive: This is a little more advanced, but if you boot the server from a Vista PE bootable environment, map a network drive, and then run the setup.exe program interactively from a network location that you copied from the Windows Server 2008 DVD, you can browse to another network resource for a driver for the mass storage controller. This is especially beneficial if the Vista PE boot environment can be booted from a CD instead of a DVD, which is helpful for servers without a DVD drive. (

• Place the driver on an existing file system: If you can boot the server currently, make a drive partition of NTFS or FAT, you can put the driver on that drive and ensure it is available to the Windows Server 2008 install. Don't make it available on the C:\ drive, but some location at the end of the drive. If you need to resize your drives after installation, no worries -- Windows Server 2008 makes that quite easy as well with new sizing tools .

• Additional optical drives: If your server has a DVD and a CD drive, you can make a simple disk that has the driver files contained there and browse to that location during the Windows Server 2008 install.
  

The list goes on, but this will cover most of the common scenarios for interactive Windows Server 2008 installations.

Source:builderau.com.au/

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

Latest Gmail Outage Raises Concerns for Small Business

Sometimes, your greatest assets can become costly liabilities. Google's remarkable success and rapid growth over the past few years may have set the bar too high for customer expectations of their applications, particularly Gmail.

A recent outage on the popular email server, which is in a SAAS format (Software as a Service), caused thousands of headaches when users went an entire day without functional Gmail. Google's credibility took a hit from the damaging reports.

Messaging expert Michael Osterman told CIO.com that email outages aren't uncommon, regardless of the format, and Google simply receives more of the media's negative spotlight when it fails to deliver quailty service to its users.

The Google Mail outages are given more attention, and it will give SaaS a black eye. But if you look at Google's records, Gmail is still well over 99 percent available.

Google's unique predicament reminds me of a coach or an executive who surpasses expectations earlier than expected, and as a result, they receive unfair criticism when adversity arrives. A specific example who comes to mind is former New YorK City mayor, Rudy Giuliani. In his book, Leadership, he elaborated on the the daunting challenges for maintaining approval and appeasing 14 million people with different pleas.

To control the chaos during his eight years is mayor, he followed a simple but profound principle: "Under-promise and over-deliver", and he urged his supporting staff to do the same.The logic behind Rudy's mindset was: You can't be all things to all people, all of the time, so don't make any promises you can't keep.

In an ironic twist of fate, Rudy failed to adhere to his own principle during his run in the Republican Presidential Primary. He over-promised and didn't deliver Florida, a state where he devoted the majority of his energy and attention.
The bottom line: Once you've established star power, whether it's in business,politics,sports or entertainment, you'll be held to a higher, and sometimes unrealistic standard.

Via: marketingshift.com

Small Business VOIP - Ensure Business Safety while using Wireless VoIP Signals

For every businessman, there is a necessity of storing data in the office. This data includes information on business policies and confidential information. As the data is very critical to the business organization, it is essential to keep the data safe and protect it from falling into the wrong hands. If the data is leaked, it could cause enormous amount of problems to the company sometimes to the tune of having to lose the business altogether.

For this reason, small businesses need to protect the data they have very safely. Almost everyone uses computers to store data these days. So, there should be a software installed that will protect all information about the business safely. The software that will help you do this includes anti-hacking, anti-spyware, antivirus, etc.

Another commonly used technological tool is the telephone through which you might be sharing information. So, even this mode has to be made secure to avoid anyone from listening in to what you are saying.

VoIP has gained a lot of importance these days due to the newer trends in technology. VoIP is an important tool that helps a business become better, fruitful and competent. VoIP is like any other telephone but has better features. VoIP gives the benefit of making long distance calls at much lower rates in comparison to your regular telephone. It also provides other features that are generally not available on regular telephones and if present, will be quite expensive. You get enjoy additional features such as audio and video conferencing, call waiting, text messaging, three-way calling and much more all free of cost.

For these additional benefits provided, many businesses are now switching over to VoIP from their regular telephones. A question that comes to one’s mind is how it is possible with VoIP. VoIP is through the internet where data exchanging happens free of cost. VoIP makes use of the same principle to allow the movement of audio signals.

As the audio signals are moving through the internet, it is converted into digital format which makes the sound quality in VoIP phones very crisp and crystal clear, a feature you might not enjoy while making long distance calls from your regular telephone.

With improvements in other technology, VoIP has gained importance. Having a Wi-Fi connection has enabled a user to call anybody using a Wireless VoIP phone. For this reason, Wi-Fi phones have now sprung up and are becoming popular by the day. Moreover, it is much easier to handle calls through a phone rather than having to hook up your computer to an internet connection in order to make and receive calls through VoIP.

But, again the doubts about security arises as you are handling calls through wireless technology. You would not desire any unscrupulous elements from listening into your conversations through the phone. For this reason, it is essential to have a program that secures your conversation. With the help of this program, a user who wants to access your signals should be able to get in only if they are providing an approved username and password. Also, there are new Wi-Fi phones now in the market that has integrated privacy software that prevents anyone from eavesdropping into your conversations.

There are encryption devices also available for securing your conversations. You can even find devices compatible for Wi-Fi technology. When you use these devices along with your Wi-Fi connection, it prevents any unauthorized access into your systems. You can even choose to put up a firewall to further strengthen your Wi-Fi network. All these options are easily obtainable and are very proficient in preventing anyone from getting into your network and listening in.

Look for a VoIP Wi-Fi phone that comes with lot of inbuilt features like privacy software and encryption to improve the security of your network. These may come at a higher price in comparison to your regular VoIP phones but it is money well spent.

Source:gather.com

Windows Server 2008 Installation

The installation of Windows Server 2008 has been simplified and it mirrors the Windows Vista installation in ease of use: several screens, about an hour and I was booting into Windows Server 2008. You can view my gallery of the Windows Server 2008 installation if you are curious as well.

Once the installation of Windows Server 2008 is complete, you’ll notice an Initial Configuration Tasks window. In Windows 2003 Server, you had a similar screen that allowed you to download updates, specify an administrator password, and allow inbound traffic to your server.

In Windows Server 2008, this is taken much further. On this window, you can specify an Administrator password, time zone settings, networking, download updates, configuration of your firewall, and server role customization.

In Windows Server 2008, a role is defined as what primary purpose the server is being created for. For example, if you turn on the Domain controller role, this server will be a Domain Controller. You can have multiple roles as well. You could turn on the Domain Controller role as well as the DHCP serve role. It all depends on the requirements of your infrastructure.

Windows Server 2008 offers you a vast amount of roles but you have the flexibility to choose only the roles that apply to your organization. Examples of roles include: Active Directory (AD) Certificate Services, AD Domain Services, Application Server, DHCP server, DNS Server, Fax Server, Web Server, Terminal Server, and a host of others.

By choosing only the applicable roles, you have a slim, streamlined Windows server running which increases security and decreases risk.

Source:techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=122&tag=btxcsim

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

Microsoft Philippines Announces Availability of SQL Server 2008

Microsoft Philippines recently announced the release of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, the new version of the company’s acclaimed data management and business intelligence platform. This version of SQL Server provides powerful new capabilities such as support for policy-based management, auditing, large-scale data warehousing, geospatial data, and advanced reporting and analysis services. SQL Server 2008 provides the trusted, productive and intelligent platform necessary for business-critical applications.

“Microsoft developed this release of SQL Server with the customer in mind,” said Liezl Milan, product manager for SQL Server, Microsoft Philippines. “SQL Server 2008 is the only major database and complete solution that allows companies to gain greater insight from their business information and achieve faster results for a competitive advantage.”

With its enhanced functionalities, Microsoft is optimistic that the new database management platform will enable them to expand its roster of enterprise customers.

Recently, Amkor Technology Philippines, one of the top providers of semiconductor assembly and test services, upgraded its system to SQL Server 2008. “We constantly look for ways to augment our company’s operations to improve our services to our customers. The main challenge we had was the storage of large amounts of information that we regularly receive from our factory machines. We needed a solution that could better handle data management and is capable of storing a huge volume of data. One of our biggest reasons for upgrading to SQL Server 2008 is for us to effectively process and store enormous amount of data without compromising performance,” said Hans Cruz, Information & Communications Services Manager, Amkor Technology.

“We selected SQL Server 2008 because we can entrust it with our critical business applications. Compared to our previous system, SQL Server 2008 brought about a very significant effect to our company in terms speed and ease of use. We are now able to process information faster and more accurately,” Cruz added.

TRUSTED, PRODUCTIVE, INTELLIGENT PLATFORM

With customers in mind, SQL Server 2008 was developed to provide businesses and organizations with a trusted, productive and intelligent data platform that enables them to run their most demanding mission critical applications. One of the improved features in the latest version includes Resource Governor, which allows businesses to define limits and priorities for easier management of concurrent workloads.

Source:hardwarezone.com