This is the fourth entry in a six-part blog series. In the first blog entry in this series, I revisited the YouTube clip outlining the five stages and focused on Step 1 Assess Needs/Stage 1 Denial. I can’t get enough of that video…if you haven’t watched it yet, now is as good a time as any. Step 3: Training and Discipline; or, Stage 3: Bargaining

DLT has recognized this trend and the growing demand for these types of services in our earlier report on Top Trends in ERP for 2010. In that report we suggested that new license growth would slow in 2010 to single digits and that IT Services would outpace new ERP Sales by almost 50% and register double digit growth in 2010 and beyond. To take advantage of this trend, and to better meet the needs of our customers, DLT has evolved beyond the traditional VAR model to provide our customers with the necessary services to meet this growing market. This is a business model which we feel will shortly begin to replace the traditional VAD and VAR models as license and service businesses begin to merge in order to replace the decrease in new license growth and the subsequent drop in revenue. To stay ahead of this trend DLT has partnered with SmartDog Services to deliver complementary services, fixed-priced limited engagements, and enhanced software support, to all of our existing and new customers who choose to take advantage of these services. This isn’t unprecedented and we believe that it will become more pronounced and commonplace in 2011.

I thought I would take a brief break from my Tuning NetBackup series to write about a great Symantec website called VERITAS Operations Services (VOS). VOS is a great site that can be used to “dive deep” into your particular VERITAS software configurations. This is not your standard support site where you can get lost in the sea of menus and documentation for all of Symantec products. What makes VOS special is that you can utilize the site to get customized information on Installation, Upgrades, and perform Risk Assessments.

I believe cloud computing will become the default IT delivery model for public sector organizations within the next five years. Some may think that this conclusion is “stating the obvious” while others may doubt the ability of public sector organizations to embrace a new way of delivering IT services during the worst recession in decades. In fact, budget constraints will not stop the trend towards cloud computing – rather, the current financial difficulties in the public sector will accelerate the inevitable adoption of cloud computing. Technology innovations and financial drivers have aligned to push IT organizations rapidly towards a cloud computing model. I see cloud computing as the next logical step in the steady evolution of the distributed IT service model. Cloud computing is neither radical nor new – we can see that the precursors of cloud computing were put in place over the last decade.

I have been working with clusters since the mid-90’s. Back then, for Oracle on Solaris, it was required to use Sun Cluster 2.0 for Oracle Parallel Server (OPS). I was not a fan of Sun Cluster 2.x, it had many issues, and I was hesitant when I was introduced to Symantec VCS. After working with VCS I started to see its simplicity and its benefits. I loved how easy it was to install, setup and manage. I became very familiar with it in a Sun Solaris environment.

This week SonicWall announced its TZ and NSA product lines achieved the latest in government certification requirements, having earned the Common Criteria (CC) Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL4+) certification (ISO 15408). The new EAL4+ certification is an addition to the already achieved FIPS140-2 Level 2 certification (see article here). As any federal IT engineer will tell you, having the box checked on government requirements for compliance is critically for government acceptance and implementations.

If you want to use Storage Foundation 5.1 to manage dual path disk you may run into the following: if you install SF first and the disk groups appear fine. Then if you try to configure MSCS and it can’t see the disk. You may need to add the MSCS Option, so you can also add “VRTS STORAGE FOUNDATION OPTION MICROSOFT CLUSTER 5.1 WIN FOR OS TIER ENTERPRISE EDITION STE LIC” license key and it in should indicate that the MSCS option is available. However, when you go back to Add/Remove programs to select this option, it does not appear as a choice in the add/remove SF options. The Proper way to manage MSCS using SFW is VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows (SFW) management data by creating disk groups from physical disk. These disk groups are further divided into volumes, which can be mounted from the cluster nodes.

Taking a look at the latest quarterly update on security from Symantec, there are still some basic steps that system administrators can do to protect their network and endpoints. These are the low-hanging fruit that can help prevent attacks and comprise of confidential data. Education is still one of the top three returns on investment on the security side. An educated end-user will not click on links in emails that aren’t from trusted parties, open password-protected zip files and run their contents, and question suspicious emails with the help desk. An educated management team understands that Security is not just a line item that can be eliminated or reduced. As treats become more sophisticated at penetrating networks and endpoints, increasingly more sophisticated tools are needed to prevent, find, and remove these threats.

This is the third entry in a six-part blog series. In my last blog entry in this series, I revisited the YouTube clip outlining the five stages and focused on Step 1 Assess Needs/Stage 1 Denial. Now, it’s time to talk about:

Since the beginning of time, people have had the urge to express their opinions. Even before the freedom of expression was guaranteed by law, given an outlet people have welcomed the opportunity to share their thoughts. Fast forward 30,000 years and people still have the urge to share their knowledge. The underlying practice is still the same but the digital age has changed the medium from rock and flint to blogs and keyboards.