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Volume 6, Issue 5 - May, 2011 - © 2011 by Moose Logic, All Rights Reserved
Cover Story: The Fifth Dimension of Virtualization
Tired of "Forklift" Storage Upgrades?
May Is....
Healthy Summer Drinks
The Lighter Side (Humor)
Famous Birthdays
Moose Logic Coming Events
May Recommended Reading
(Moose Views is a monthly newsletter prepared by Moose Logic to bring you information and tips on maintaining a trouble-free network)
The Fifth Dimension of Virtualization
You’re probably familiar with the “Big Three” of virtualization: storage virtualization, server
virtualization, and desktop virtualization. You may even be familiar with application
virtualization. But there’s another very important form of virtualization that you may not have
considered: user virtualization. And we’re not just talking about
roaming profiles, either.
User complexity is emerging as one of the biggest barriers in companies’ attempts to move from infrastructure-based computing to a more dynamic IT-as-a-service model.
It is estimated that by next year, there will be 1.4 Billion user devices out there. Your average user has three different devices (laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones, etc., etc.). Moreover, that average corporate user has 14 business applications and 22 personal/mobile applications that have to be delivered across those various computing platforms. Two thirds of corporate users use some form of mobile and/or wireless computing.
Your users expect all of their devices to retain their personalized settings, but how in the world can you do that, particularly across diverse computing platforms?
If you’re looking at a Windows 7 migration, you’re going to have to address that personalization issue somehow. But how? Yes, you can laboriously create scripts to migrate all of the user settings from Windows XP to Windows 7, and then allocate staff time to run those scripts for every user as s/he is migrated. That will get old very quickly. Of course, you could also simply tell your users that they’re on their own and will just have to re-create all of their favorites, desktop icons, wallpaper, etc. Just make sure you’re wearing your chain-mail underwear when you deliver the news.
And what if you have a mixed environment? What if you migrate a user to a Windows 7 system—maybe on your shiny new VDI—and something happens that requires them to log back onto a local Windows XP system again? Or what if you still have Windows 2003 Remote Desktop Servers that are delivering some of the applications to your Windows 7 client devices? Or if you’re using Windows 2008 Remote Desktop Servers to deliver applications to legacy Windows XP clients?
How confusing is it for your users to have different profiles on the different systems? And how nice would it be if all of their application settings, favorites, etc., were consistent across all of the platforms they use?
If you’ve ever wrestled with these issues, you should take a look at the AppSense Environment Manager, which is just one component of the AppSense Management Suite.
AppSense centralizes all your user settings in a central (SQL) database, and can deliver profile components as they are needed to whatever Windows system the user is logged onto. Windows XP, Vista, Win7, 2003 or 2008 Remote Desktop Servers, doesn’t matter. Profile changes made while using one platform will be there when the user accesses a different platform. And because the profile data is broken down into components, it delivers only what the user requires when the user needs it. That means logon/logoff times are faster.
And have you ever had to completely blow away a user’s profile because something got corrupted (or the user inadvertently messed it up)? Of course you have—and you know how annoying that is for both you and the user. What if you could simply roll back the profile to, say, last Tuesday’s settings (or whatever the last point in time happened to be when you knew things were working)? With Environment Manager, you can do exactly that.
Policy settings are also centralized, and can be location aware, device aware, and context aware. For example, you may have a high-resolution plotter that’s required for CAD drawings—but you certainly don’t want users printing out email messages on it by mistake. We can automatically map to that plotter when the CAD application is launched , and remove the mapping when the application is terminated.
Of course, Environment Manager is just one of the three components that make up the Management Suite. Another is Application Manager.
Nearly every IT organization I’ve ever talked with has wrestled with the user rights issue. As IT professionals, we want to lock down the user environment for the best of reasons: it’s just plan dangerous for users to have local admin rights to their workstations. But in many cases we’re stuck with legacy applications that don’t run correctly (or at all) unless the user has local admin rights.
Application Manager can grant elevated user rights to a process without requiring you to give elevated rights to a user. (How cool is that?)
Application Manager also allows you to designate “trusted installers,” and prevent an application from executing if it was not installed by a trusted installer. So the next time one of your users stumbles across a malware-laden Web site that tries to drop some kind of executable on their workstation, guess what? If the user isn’t a trusted installer, the executable will not be permitted to run.
The final component of the Management Suite is Performance Manager, which can deliver consistent quality of service to your users by insuring that a rogue application doesn’t monopolize the system processor. (This can be particularly important in a XenApp environment, when that rogue application can affect, not just the user who launched it, but also every other user on that XenApp server.)
If this all sounds too good to be true, give us a chance to prove it to you. Give us a call, and we’ll bring AppSense to the table and sit down with you to discuss how their Management Suite can enhance your environment. Sometimes, solving just one pain point can save you enough to pay for the whole project!
User complexity is emerging as one of the biggest barriers in companies’ attempts to move from infrastructure-based computing to a more dynamic IT-as-a-service model.
It is estimated that by next year, there will be 1.4 Billion user devices out there. Your average user has three different devices (laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones, etc., etc.). Moreover, that average corporate user has 14 business applications and 22 personal/mobile applications that have to be delivered across those various computing platforms. Two thirds of corporate users use some form of mobile and/or wireless computing.
Your users expect all of their devices to retain their personalized settings, but how in the world can you do that, particularly across diverse computing platforms?
If you’re looking at a Windows 7 migration, you’re going to have to address that personalization issue somehow. But how? Yes, you can laboriously create scripts to migrate all of the user settings from Windows XP to Windows 7, and then allocate staff time to run those scripts for every user as s/he is migrated. That will get old very quickly. Of course, you could also simply tell your users that they’re on their own and will just have to re-create all of their favorites, desktop icons, wallpaper, etc. Just make sure you’re wearing your chain-mail underwear when you deliver the news.
And what if you have a mixed environment? What if you migrate a user to a Windows 7 system—maybe on your shiny new VDI—and something happens that requires them to log back onto a local Windows XP system again? Or what if you still have Windows 2003 Remote Desktop Servers that are delivering some of the applications to your Windows 7 client devices? Or if you’re using Windows 2008 Remote Desktop Servers to deliver applications to legacy Windows XP clients?
How confusing is it for your users to have different profiles on the different systems? And how nice would it be if all of their application settings, favorites, etc., were consistent across all of the platforms they use?
If you’ve ever wrestled with these issues, you should take a look at the AppSense Environment Manager, which is just one component of the AppSense Management Suite.
AppSense centralizes all your user settings in a central (SQL) database, and can deliver profile components as they are needed to whatever Windows system the user is logged onto. Windows XP, Vista, Win7, 2003 or 2008 Remote Desktop Servers, doesn’t matter. Profile changes made while using one platform will be there when the user accesses a different platform. And because the profile data is broken down into components, it delivers only what the user requires when the user needs it. That means logon/logoff times are faster.
And have you ever had to completely blow away a user’s profile because something got corrupted (or the user inadvertently messed it up)? Of course you have—and you know how annoying that is for both you and the user. What if you could simply roll back the profile to, say, last Tuesday’s settings (or whatever the last point in time happened to be when you knew things were working)? With Environment Manager, you can do exactly that.
Policy settings are also centralized, and can be location aware, device aware, and context aware. For example, you may have a high-resolution plotter that’s required for CAD drawings—but you certainly don’t want users printing out email messages on it by mistake. We can automatically map to that plotter when the CAD application is launched , and remove the mapping when the application is terminated.
Of course, Environment Manager is just one of the three components that make up the Management Suite. Another is Application Manager.
Nearly every IT organization I’ve ever talked with has wrestled with the user rights issue. As IT professionals, we want to lock down the user environment for the best of reasons: it’s just plan dangerous for users to have local admin rights to their workstations. But in many cases we’re stuck with legacy applications that don’t run correctly (or at all) unless the user has local admin rights.
Application Manager can grant elevated user rights to a process without requiring you to give elevated rights to a user. (How cool is that?)
Application Manager also allows you to designate “trusted installers,” and prevent an application from executing if it was not installed by a trusted installer. So the next time one of your users stumbles across a malware-laden Web site that tries to drop some kind of executable on their workstation, guess what? If the user isn’t a trusted installer, the executable will not be permitted to run.
The final component of the Management Suite is Performance Manager, which can deliver consistent quality of service to your users by insuring that a rogue application doesn’t monopolize the system processor. (This can be particularly important in a XenApp environment, when that rogue application can affect, not just the user who launched it, but also every other user on that XenApp server.)
If this all sounds too good to be true, give us a chance to prove it to you. Give us a call, and we’ll bring AppSense to the table and sit down with you to discuss how their Management Suite can enhance your environment. Sometimes, solving just one pain point can save you enough to pay for the whole project!
Tired of "Forklift" Storage Upgrades?
When
you bought your “purpose built” SAN, how long did you expect it to last? Three years? Four
years? Maybe five? How does that investment look today?With many vendors’ SAN solutions, if you need more performance from the system, or more cache memory than the storage controllers can handle, you’re looking at a complete replacement.
Furthermore, if you've made an investment in a storage system from Vendor A, and now want to be able to replicate data to your new disaster-recovery site, you’re typically locked into buying more equipment from Vendor A...not to mention the additional software licenses to support that replication (if you didn’t have the foresight to spend the extra money when you first bought the SAN).
Perhaps you’d really like to use the shiny new stuff from Vendor B, but you can’t see any easy way to make it interoperate with your existing equipment from Vendor A—or even to move a data volume from Vendor A’s system to Vendor B’s system.
If you’d like to get off of that upgrade treadmill, take another look at DataCore. In the past, we’ve talked about the ability of DataCore’s software to turn an ordinary Windows server into a full-featured iSCSI SAN node. But there’s more than that to the DataCore story.
Because the DataCore software runs on top of a Windows Server OS, on industry-standard off-the-shelf server hardware, you’ll never have to throw away your investment in DataCore licensing just because you need more powerful hardware.
And because the DataCore software is running on a Windows platform, it can manage any storage that Windows server can see—including storage presented by another iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN. And probably give you a 2x—3x performance boost because of its ability to use inexpensive system RAM to provide massive amounts of cache memory.
If you have SAN hardware from different manufacturers with different performance characteristics,
you can front-end them with DataCore and aggregate all of your storage into a single storage
pool. You can easily create storage tiers from different generations of back-end storage
hardware. You can easily migrate a virtual volume from Vendor A’s hardware to Vendor B’s hardware
by allowing DataCore to handle that migration in the background while the volume is in
use.Perhaps you’d like to move the older hardware from Vendor A to your DR site, and replicate data from Vendor B’s hardware to Vendor A’s hardware. If you front-end them with DataCore, then DataCore can handle the asynchronous replication between the disparate vendors’ products.
Remember that your investment in DataCore software is never wasted. If you need to manage more storage than you’re licensed for, you only pay the difference between the licenses you have and the licenses you need. If you need more powerful hardware, more cache memory, or more storage capacity on the hardware side, you can go buy it and transfer your DataCore licenses to the new hardware.
Let DataCore help you get off that hardware upgrade treadmill!
May Is....
- Arthritis Awareness Month
- Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
- Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
- Better Hearing and Speech Month
- Creative Beginnings Month
- Ecodriving Month
- Family Wellness Month
- Freedom Shrine Month
- Get Caught Reading Month
- Gifts from the Garden Month
- Haitian Heritage Month
- Heal the Children Month
- Healthy Vision Month
- International Business Image Improvement Month
- International Civility Awareness Month
- International Internal Audit Awareness Month
- International Victorious Woman Month
- International Give Moose Logic Lots of Money Month (notice how I slipped that in?)
- Jewish American Heritage Month
- Motorcycle Safety Month
- National Allergy/Asthma Awareness Month
- National Barbecue Month
- National Better Hearing Month
- National Bike Month
- National Good Car-Keeping Month
- National Hamburger Month
- National Meditation Month
- National Military Appreciation Month
- National Physical Fitness and Sports Month
- National Salad Month
- National Salsa Month
- National Sweet Vidalia Onion Month
- National Vinegar Month
- Older Americans Month
Healthy Summer Drinks
Honeydew Lime Cooler
1 small honeydew melon, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup seedless red grapes
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 cup honey
2 cups seltzer water
Place
the cubed melon and grapes into the freezer for about an hour. In a blender, combine the
frozen melon and grapes with the lime juice and honey. Process until smooth. Fill Glasses until
half full, then top off with the seltzer water. Stir and serve immediately.
1 small honeydew melon, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup seedless red grapes
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 cup honey
2 cups seltzer water
Place
the cubed melon and grapes into the freezer for about an hour. In a blender, combine the
frozen melon and grapes with the lime juice and honey. Process until smooth. Fill Glasses until
half full, then top off with the seltzer water. Stir and serve immediately.
Peachy Green Tea
6 green tea bags
6 cups cold water
2 peaches, pitted and sliced
Honey to taste
Place the tea bags into a large pitcher. Put the sliced peaches in a saucepan and add the water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 3 minutes. Pour the water and the peaches over the tea bags in the pitcher. Let steep for about 10 minutes, then stir in the honey to taste. Allow to cool, then refrigerate until thoroughly cooled. To serve, spoon a few peaches from the pitcher into each glass and top with tea.
6 green tea bags
6 cups cold water
2 peaches, pitted and sliced
Honey to taste
Place the tea bags into a large pitcher. Put the sliced peaches in a saucepan and add the water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 3 minutes. Pour the water and the peaches over the tea bags in the pitcher. Let steep for about 10 minutes, then stir in the honey to taste. Allow to cool, then refrigerate until thoroughly cooled. To serve, spoon a few peaches from the pitcher into each glass and top with tea.
The Lighter Side
What's the Name?A man and his wife were driving their RV in Florida and saw a road sign for Kissimmee. They argued for a while about how to pronounce it and couldn’t figure out who was correct.
As they neared the next exit, they decided to pull into a fast food restaurant for lunch. After ordering their meal, the man leaned over to the guy behind the counter and said, “Let me ask you something. My wife and I can’t seem to figure out how to pronounce this place. Will you tell me where we are and say it very slowly so that I can understand?”
The counter guy said, “Um...OK. Buuuuurrrrrgerrrrr Kiiiinnnnggggg.”
[Editor’s note: I’ve been there. The locals pronounce it “kiss-SIM-ee,” not “KISS-a-me.”]
Wooden Leg Pig
A
man was driving past a pig farm when he noticed that one of the pigs had a wooden leg. He drove
into the farmyard and found the farmer.
“Do you really have a pig with a wooden leg?” the man asked the farmer.
“Yup. That pig saved my life,” said the farmer. “One night a few years ago, a fire started in my house. This pig smelled the smoke, came in the door, and woke me up. That is not something you easily forget.”
“That is amazing!” said the man. “I’ve never heard of a pig like this before. But tell me, how did he get that wooden leg? Was he injured in the fire?”
“No,” the farmer said, laughing. “It’s just that naturally, when you have a pig that smart, you don’t want to eat him all at one time!”
A
man was driving past a pig farm when he noticed that one of the pigs had a wooden leg. He drove
into the farmyard and found the farmer.“Do you really have a pig with a wooden leg?” the man asked the farmer.
“Yup. That pig saved my life,” said the farmer. “One night a few years ago, a fire started in my house. This pig smelled the smoke, came in the door, and woke me up. That is not something you easily forget.”
“That is amazing!” said the man. “I’ve never heard of a pig like this before. But tell me, how did he get that wooden leg? Was he injured in the fire?”
“No,” the farmer said, laughing. “It’s just that naturally, when you have a pig that smart, you don’t want to eat him all at one time!”
Famous May Birthdays
- May 1 - Jack Paar, 1918
- May 2 - Duane "The Rock" Johnson, 1972
- May 3 - Bing Crosby, 1903
- May 6 - Sigmund Freud, 1856
- May 7 - Eva Peron, 1919
- May 10 - Fred Astaire, 1899
- May 12 - Florence Nightingale, 1820
- May 14 - George Lucas, 1944
- May 15 - George Brett, 1953
- May 16 - Janet Jackson, 1966
- May 17 - Bob Saget, 1956
- May 18 - Pope John Paul II, 1920
- May 19 - Andre the Giant, 1946
- May 21 - Raymond Burr, 1917
- May 22 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859
- May 23 - Drew Carey, 1958
- May 24 - Rosanne Cash, 1955
