To quote Bruce Schneier, “well-designed security systems fail gracefully”. This means for example when the ISA firewall service fails it closes off network connectivity entirely (ie retains security) instead of opening your entire network up (ie decreases security). This week SonicWALL’s license servers suffered a glitch rendering thousands of customer units useless and leaving the […]
I often get asked which is the better Exchange certification to pursue for someone who wants to work as an Exchange administrator or consultant. The natural inclination is to the latest version, and in many cases this would be fine because learning the latest version of a Microsoft product teachs you many things about previous […]
You may encounter an issue with Backup Exec 11d performing backups of Exchange Server 2007 Mailbox Servers using Granular Restore Technology (GRT) when the backup job is targeted at tape media. The backup job fails with the following error: Backup- \SERVER.domain.localMicrosoft Information StoreFirst Storage Group V-79-57344-33928 – Access Denied. Cannot backup directory Mailbox Database and […]
The Microsoft Exchange Team Blog has a great write up by Greg Taylor who is the program manager for the MCM: Exchange Server 2007 program. The Microsoft Certified Master program is the premium credential for IT professionals and consultants working with Microsoft products such as Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, SQL Server 2008, SharePoint […]
Storage is important to Exchange performance, which means Exchange guys need to talk to storage guys from time to time. This video might help the Exchange guys understand the storage guys a little better. Link: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Storage Considerations: DAS or SAN
A System Center Essentials 2007 server may raise the following alert: Alert: Root Management Server Unavailable. Source: sce01.domain.internal Path: sce01.domain.internal Last modified by: System Last modified time: 4/11/2008 1:21:26 PM Alert description: The root management server (Healthservice) has stopped heartbeating soon after 4/11/2008 1:18:48 PM. This adversely affects all availability calculation for the entire […]
You may encounter an issue where Exchange Server 2007 storage group transaction logs are not truncated after a successful backup. In our case Backup Exec 11d was the backup application being used. Backup Exec would report successful backups however the transaction logs were not truncating, leading to disk space problems. The Application event log on […]
Finding your first contract can be a daunting task. Unless you are well qualified or have an excellent network of contacts that can tell you about available work you are probably going to have to deal with recruiters. Recruiters, are they all scumbags? Contrary to popular belief most recruiters are not scumbags. This perception is […]
One of the toughest things new contractors encounter is deciding on an hourly rate. They don’t want to aim too high and miss out on jobs, and they don’t want to go too low and end up worse off than the permanent job they just left. The rate formula My advice is to apply a […]
First let me say that I am not an accountant, nor am I giving anyone advice here to go in a particular direction setting themselves up for contracting. In fact, the best advice I can give you is to speak to your own accountant to discuss how best to set yourself up for contracting. I […]
At some stage during the career of most IT pros the opportunity comes along to spend some time as a contractor. The lure of high rates, fixed hours, frequent new challenges, and the idea of “working for yourself” are what draws most people towards contracting. Each of those carries with it some truths and some […]
