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Engineering Operations

Leveraging Group Policy to Setup Wireless Access

Leveraging Group Policy to Setup Wireless Access

In my last post, I introduced Clonezilla as an easy way to deploy Windows-based workstations into a corporate environment. But once a workstation enters the corporate network, what sort of policy applies to it? What sort of actions can a user take on their...

Security layers on a modern website

Security layers on a modern website

Last time, we looked at a basic website design.   Now it’s time to start digging into the details around what’s really being used behind the scenes.   This time, we’ll focus on security aspects.  When a user starts their browser and connects...

Enterprise Backup – Using Bacula to save time and money!

Enterprise Backup – Using Bacula to save time and money!

One of the main areas SPK focuses on for our clients is backups. I won’t go into a long lecture about why backups are mission-critical for your business because you already know they are. Even the standard backup schemes, such as Grandfather-Father-Son, have been...

Creating a low cost, high performance ESX cluster

Creating a low cost, high performance ESX cluster

As Senior Systems Integrator for SPK and Associates, a California based IT services company specializing in infrastructure management services, I recently completed an interesting project.  The goal was to create an ESX cluster for a small engineering group...

License Management and Monitoring using X-Formation License Statistics

License Management and Monitoring using X-Formation License Statistics

Over the past year, I have been doing a lot of work with clients who use high-end CAD and/or EE software tools from respected vendors like Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor Graphics. The majority of these software tools require a license server to be setup on your local...

Solve 100 Problems with a Bootable USB Flash Drive

Solve 100 Problems with a Bootable USB Flash Drive

Unlike using MultiBootISO, which required experimentation and custom linux-configuration for each tool, setting up YUMI is a straightforward affair: Get YUMI Multiboot USB Creator from Pendrivelinux.com. Download the Internet! You can go crazy with your office’s...

How to Setup a Local Redhat 5 Update Repository

How to Setup a Local Redhat 5 Update Repository

In a previous post, my colleague Mike described how to setup a Redhat 4 (RHEL4) local update repository. With Redhat 5 (RHEL5), the procedure to setup a local repository has changed somewhat. At SPK, we often will setup a local update repository for Redhat or...

In The Trenches: A Look At The Benefits of IT Outsourcing

In The Trenches: A Look At The Benefits of IT Outsourcing

IT outsourcing has become prominent in nearly every area of the economy -- to the point that its benefits are taken for granted.  We're aware of the saving of money, of cloud technology providing cost effective high availability infrastructure, and so forth.  The...

What Happened to Google Wave? A Look at Collaboration Alternatives

What Happened to Google Wave? A Look at Collaboration Alternatives

Two years ago, Google announced a new product: Wave. Their (and I use the term loosely, since all new Google products seem to come from the same giant, faceless Googleplex) original goal was to unify messaging – have you thought about how many tools you use to...

Four Unavoidable Reasons To Take IT Out of Corporate IT

Four Unavoidable Reasons To Take IT Out of Corporate IT

In the world of IT, solutions become problems with alarming regularity.  The new software of today is the upgrade nightmare of tomorrow.  The policies that solved problems create new ones years later. The corporate IT departments that we look to for solutions are...

How to Monitor Your APC UPS Units – Part 1

How to Monitor Your APC UPS Units – Part 1

Picture your ideal company technological infrastructure. Servers to handle day to day tasks, servers to do engineering simulations, network equipment to handle communication, network-attached storage for your company critical data, and last but not least,...