Features

Features

• What are federated databases?

  Federated databases are a possible solution to your customers' database search issues. This IT Channel Explained will explain what a federated database is and how it works and give you the info you need to determine whether it's a good fit for your ...  Continue Reading

• System Recovery and Diagnostic Tricks: Vista Recovery: Advanced Boot Options, WinRE and WinPE

  Vista's Advanced Boot Options, the Windows Recovery Environment Platform, WinRE and WinPE are all covered in this chapter excerpt from "Tricks of the Microsoft Windows Vista Masters." Learn about these options before choosing CompletePC backup.  Continue Reading

• Network IDS/IPS vendors

  Before deciding on a network intrusion detection or intrusion prevention system (IDS/IPS), check out this Partner Program Directory. Use these checklists to compare partner programs of network IDS/IPS vendors.  Continue Reading

• Top five data storage compression methods

  Data storage compression can eliminate the many redundancies of stored data and cut storage costs. Learn the top five methods of lossless and transparent storage compression.  Continue Reading

• iPod Forensics

  Read about how to conduct forensic investigations with data retrieved from an iPod.  Continue Reading

• The benefits of metadata and implementing a metadata management strategy

  This section of the chapter excerpt will introduce and explore the basics of metadata.  Continue Reading

• Managing Data in the Data Hub

  This section of the chapter excerpt deals with acquiring, rationalizing, cleansing, transforming, and loading data into the Data Hub.  Continue Reading

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager review quiz

  This section provides review questions on the material covered in the previous sections of the chapter excerpt.  Continue Reading

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager licensing

  This section of the chapter excerpt focuses on the certification and licensing opportunities of Cisco Unified Communications Manager.  Continue Reading

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager - Hardware, Software and Clustering

  This chapter excerpt covers the compatible hardware and software for Cisco Unified Communications Manager, as well as its clustering capabilities.  Continue Reading

• Five questions to ask in a data deduplication project

  When scoping out a customer's data deduplication project, there are five key questions to explore with your customers to determine the best approach to take. Learn what questions you should ask and why they're important.  Continue Reading

• What are the tangible deliverables of the security assessment?

  Learn what standard deliverables are for a security site assessment and how to tailor them to the expected audience.  Continue Reading

• What is the scope of the assessment?

  Before beginning a security assessment on IT systems, service providers should discuss the scope of the assessment. Learn why it is important to decide the scope of an assessment before its execution.  Continue Reading

• Advantages and disadvantages of Hyper-V

  Microsoft's Hyper-V is at the release candidate stage, and some companies already have it in production use. Find out the advantages and disadvantages of the virtualization tool so you can help customers at a server virtualization decision point.  Continue Reading

• Predicting data storage growth

  If your customers have deep pockets, predicting data storage growth is a relatively easy chore using storage resource management (SRM) tools. But for smaller companies with equally small budgets, you'll need to be more creative. Learn the techniques...  Continue Reading

• The benefits of storage capacity planning

  Storage capacity planning services can save your customers money and bring other benefits by balancing their storage utilization and growth rates with their tolerance for upgrade interruptions and storage architecture.  Continue Reading

• The best networking products as chosen by customers

  Choosing networking products for your line card can be a challenge. We recommend you begin by considering the hardware and software businesses like best. Here you'll find the top three networking products as chosen by SearchNetworking.com readers in...  Continue Reading

• The benefits of application virtualization

  Application virtualization can bring benefits to your customers such as ease of maintenance and greater portability. It comes after server virtualization and can be the right solution when desktop virtualization is overkill.  Continue Reading

• Managed services contracts

  Value-added resellers venturing into managed services need to consider the details of the managed services contract they provide to customers. Learn what goes into a managed services contract in this edition of Channel Explained.  Continue Reading

• What is the client's IT budget for the network design project?

  While all clients have expectations for their network design projects, not all have allocated the money needed to accomplish their objectives. Learn why asking about IT budget will help you and your customers get more clarity about what can and ...  Continue Reading

• Goals of SOA: Integration and interoperability

  This excerpt from "SOA: Principles of Service Design" defines the term "interoperability" and describes how service orientation can benefit the process of sharing data.  Continue Reading

• Understanding service-oriented technology today

  This excerpt from "SOA: Priniciples of Service Design" revisits fundamental service design elements and depicts how they work in relation to one another.  Continue Reading

• Service-oriented computing: Goals and benefits

  This excerpt from "SOA: Principles of Service Design" lays out seven goals of service-oriented computing and talks about how businesses can benefit from this technology.  Continue Reading

• Entity services and business entities explained

  This excerpt from "SOA: Principles of Service Design" explains the entity service model and how it can be leveraged to automate multiple business processes.  Continue Reading

• Conclusions about network centralization and decentralization

  Network centralization and network decentralization are about making changes. When making such pervasive changes, experts recommend that you consider these guiding principles: know what specific problem you are solving; understand your motivation ...  Continue Reading

• Becoming familiar with the Hyper-V administrative console

  This excerpt from "Windows Server 2008 Unleashed" provides a quick guide on navigating the Hyper-V administrative console and the virtual server settings available to be configured.  Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis for business continuity: Preparing the BIA report

  This excerpt from "Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery for IT Professionals" outlines some crucial features to be included in a BIA report.  Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis for business continuity: BIA for small business

  Read this example of business impact analysis (BIA) for a small business from "Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery for IT Professionals" to make the process more tangible.  Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis for business continuity: Determining the impact

  This excerpt from "Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery for IT Professionals" lists some specific impacts disasters have on business.  Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis for business continuity: Data collection methodologies

  For business impact analysis (BIA) collect data through interviews and questionnaires. This excerpt from "Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery for IT Professionals" discusses various data collection methodologies and how to carry them out.  Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis for business continuity: Identifying business functions

  This excerpt from "Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery for IT Professionals" walks you through common business functions and encourages you to assess those functionalities that are not covered and include them in your BIA.  Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis for business continuity: Upstream and downstream losses

  Learn to mitigate indirect impacts that disasters can have on businesses. In this excerpt from "Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for IT Professionals," the author discusses upstream and downstream losses.  Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis for business continuity: Recovery time requirements

  Use business impact analysis (BIA) to define recovery time requirement terms and looks at how those elements interact.  Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis for business continuity: Understanding impact criticality

  When it comes to business functions, develop a rating scale to identify your customers' mission-critical functions. This excerpt from "Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for IT Professionals" outlines a business function rating system with ...  Continue Reading

• Limitations of server virtualization

  Server virtualization has many perks but keep its limitations in mind. This excerpt from "Advanced Server Virtualization" gives examples of when server virtualization is not the best practice.  Continue Reading

• How many different types or levels of vendor certification are there?

  Learn about the different types and levels of vendor certification.  Continue Reading

• Cisco Systems Partner Program Checklist

  Value-added resellers and service providers interested in reselling Cisco networking hardware and software can learn the benefits of becoming a Cisco Systems partner with this standardized checklist. Compare Cisco's reseller partner program with ...  Continue Reading

• How to develop an effective IT consulting marketing campaign

  Learn five key steps to marketing your IT consulting services -- target your audience, develop a message, start mailing, establish yourself as an expert and form partnerships.  Continue Reading

• What kind of incentives and partner programs does VMware offer to its resellers?

  Learn about VMware's three reseller partner levels: Professional, Enterprise and Premier. These levels increase in both the commitment expected from the reseller and benefits offered by VMware.  Continue Reading

• When should orgnizations use ASIC-based network firewalls?

  Even though ASIC-based network firewalls are often much faster than their software-only counterparts, learn why deploying them within some network environments is a bad idea.  Continue Reading

• What are the disadvantages of iSCSI?

  Deploying iSCSI in mission-critical situations isn't a risk-free proposition. Customers may have to cope with higher latency and performance issues in mixed networks after an iSCSI implementation.  Continue Reading

• IT distribution channel (distributors)

  Distributors are wholesalers that act as intermediaries between vendors and value-added resellers (VARs) or system integrators (SIs). Learn more about the role of distributors in the channel -- and how it's changing.  Continue Reading

• Understanding security risk management: Recovery time requirements

  After you help your clients see the need for security risk analysis and establish a methodology and priorities for security risk mitigation, the next step is to assess recovery time. This will able you to help your clients understand the operational...  Continue Reading

• Understanding security risk management: Criticality categories

  Security risk management involves a sober assessment of your client's business operations and the relative security risks of each. Once the need for security risk analysis has been recognized by your client, the next step is to establish catageories...  Continue Reading

• Verify the CEF Forwarding Information Base table

  Learn how to take a stepwise approach to troubleshooting the Cisco Express Forwarding FIB table, a critical part of any methodology for resolving Cisco IP connectivity issues.  Continue Reading

• Verify the IP routing table

  Verifying the Cisco IP routing table is a key part of troubleshooting Cisco Express Forwarding's network switching. Learn the necessary steps for identifying and remediating problems.  Continue Reading

• Managed services, your business plan and you

  Learn why a business plan is an essential part of any reseller's successful managed services business. Discover how to use a business plan as the impetus for refining your marketing strategy, locating sources of revenue and sizing up the competition.  Continue Reading

• Snort.conf output options

  Snort offers functional equivalents for FAST, FULL and SYSLOG command line output modes, as shown here.  Continue Reading

• Snort command line output modes

  Snort command line output modes, as described here, are usually selected for testing purposes or demonstrations.  Continue Reading

• Oracle RAC: Log directory structure in cluster ready services

  When diagnosing Oracle 10g problems in cluster ready services do what Oracle support does -- examine installation log files and respective directories. Learn more in this book excerpt from "Oracle Database 10g: Real Application Clusters Handbook."  Continue Reading

• Oracle RAC: Debugging node eviction issues

  Oracle RAC's node eviction root cause analysis (RCA) is common and complex. This excerpt from "Oracle Database 10g: Real Applications Clusters Handbook" shows you how to recover from a communication failure in Oracle 10g.  Continue Reading

• Oracle RAC: ON and OFF

  Disabling Oracle's RAC options may be necessary when testing the Oracle Database 10g. Steps are outlined in this excerpt from "Oracle Database 10g: Real Application Clusters Handbook."  Continue Reading

• Oracle RAC: Database performance issues

  Oracle's RAC databases share resources with other applications which are also in demand. Sometimes resource management runs into a deadlock. This excerpt from "Oracle Database 10g: Real Applications Clusters Handbook" examines what happens to a ...  Continue Reading

• Ethical hacking tools and techniques: Password cracking

  In this portion of a tip on network penetration testing and ethical hacking tools and techniques, security consultants and value-added resellers (VARs) will learn about password cracking.  Continue Reading

• Ethical hacking tools and techniques: Information gathering

  This portion of a tip on network penetration testing and ethical hacking tools and techniques discusses information gathering for security consultants and value-added resellers (VARs).  Continue Reading

• Partnering with a managed service provider (MSP) vendor

  Managed service provider (MSP) partnerships are rarely as fruitful as both sides would like. When choosing an MSP vendor, ask these questions to determine if your partnership will be a good one.  Continue Reading

• Storage area network (SAN) risks

  Storage area network (SAN) security risks manifest as easily infiltrated gaps in your customers' storage; learn where weaknesses lie in a SAN architecture as outlined in this book excerpt from "Securing Storage:A Practical Guide to SAN and NAS ...  Continue Reading

• IDS Snort rules: False positives

  In this portion of the Snort Report on IDS Snort rules, Richard Bejtlich discusses how to identify and deal with false positives.  Continue Reading

• Common SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) package management scenarios

  Whether connecting to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), running packages or viewing package summaries, these scenarios will answer basic SSIS package management questions, from the book "Inside Server SQL Tools."  Continue Reading

• SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) tools

  Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) introduces a rich toolset that supports development, deployment and administration of extract, transform, load (ETL) solutions. Learn more about these SQL Server tools in this excerpt from "Inside SQL Server ...  Continue Reading

• Scripting creation of virtual machines in ESX shell

  Scripting the creation of virtual machines using VMware power tools is simpler that you might think. This book excerpt tells you how.  Continue Reading

• Securing wireless access points: WLAN vulnerabilities, SSID issues, WEP weakness

  This portion of the Vines penetration testing tip on securing wireless access points describes WLAN vulnerabilities, SSID issues, and WEP weakness.  Continue Reading

• Securing wireless access points: War driving and war walking

  This portion of the Vines penetration testing tip on securing wireless access points describes war driving and war walking.  Continue Reading

• Creation of virtual machines utilizing command-line tools

  Creating virtual machines for your customers is useful for them and lucrative for you. This excerpt outlines VMware ESX Server's creation and cloning tools.  Continue Reading

• Configure USB devices to Linux: task 2.4

  Configuring USB devices to a Linux system important because most accessories now interface through computers with them. Learn more here.  Continue Reading

• Set BIOS options for Linux: task 2.1

  Setting BIOS options correctly ensures that a computer will boot-up and initialize hardware properly. Get the necessary tools for a smooth Linux installation here.  Continue Reading

• Snort configuration -- snort.conf file

  This portion of Snort Report helps channel professionals understand the snort.conf file.  Continue Reading

• Using MySQL licensing: Open source license vs. commercial license

  Get an overview of the MySQL open source licensing options in this excerpt from "The Definitive Guide to MySQL 5".  Continue Reading

• What are the top MySQL features?

  Find the most important MySQL properties listed in this book excerpt from "The Definitive Guide to MySQL 5".  Continue Reading