VMWare is wonderful for getting full utilization of scarce resource. However, if you're on a limited budget, affording ESX clustered hosts for all needs is overkill. Sometimes a free ESXi server is enough. In the latter, we ran into challenges doing backups. ...
Traditionally, using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to connect to a remote site has been a technical – and oftentimes troublesome – requirement. With the growing popularity of using “remote programmers”, I see requests for purchasing Cisco routers and Windows...
In part 1 of this series, I introduced the APCUPSD software package which allows you to monitor APC UPS units. As we head into the winter months, having a functioning UPS is critical for your infrastructure. Just as critical as the UPS itself is the ability to monitor...
Holes in your IT infrastructure can make for some awkward situations. Whether you're dealing with sensitive customer information, upcoming product designs, or simply just don't want people messing with your stuff, maintaining system integrity can be difficult....
With today's computers, cooling is critical. When moving to a new site, it's necessary to ensure the new server room will meet your needs prior to move-in. Using some quick estimation techniques, there's ways to ensure the needed power for your servers. Here's a...
Imagine (if you dare) the worst case scenario with your company's data. Double disk drive failure, all data lost. You need to recover that data as fast as possible due to deadlines. You've been diligent about your backups using Bacula, but now they are going to be put...
The other day, I went to a presentation of FlexPOD and was impressed. FlexPOD is a collaboration of efforts from Cisco, VMWare, and NetApp. What it offers is a highly flexible framework to grow IT datacenters they are calling Infrastructure as a service (IIAS). If...
Have you ever used Git? Git has quickly grown to become one of today's most popular source code management solutions for software engineering projects large, small, professional and personal. Developed by Linus Torvalds, Git is classified as a “distributed version...
Have you ever noticed that the wireless neighborhood is seemingly always located in the bad part of town? This is especially true in the crowded wasteland of the 2400 block of Megahertz Ave. Where might you find this undesirable neighborhood? Unfortunately, the answer...
As a systems integrator, I spend my time behind a variety of applications every day. Each of these applications stores its data in some type of database. The most common databases I deal with are typically MySQL, Oracle, DB2, Postgres, and MS SQL Server. As such,...
Developed by Electric Cloud, Electric Commander is an extremely versatile tool for enhancing and automating your organization’s software development build-test-deploy cycle. Commander makes it possible to eliminate unnecessary lag time between phases of the...
Nagios is an invaluable tool to help monitor a customer's infrastructure. Last year, I explained how easy it was to be able to integrate Network Appliance health checks. In fact, Nagios provides a plethora of out of the box plugins. Additional plugins are available...