Search Results

Search found 2818 results on 113 pages for 'corporate procedures'.

Page 64/113 | < Previous Page | 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71  | Next Page >

• Mobile BI Comes of Age

  - by rich.clayton(at)oracle.com

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} One of the hot topics in the Business Intelligence industry is mobility.  More specifically the question is how business can be transformed by the iPhone and the iPad.  In June 2003, Gartner predicted that Mobile BI would be obsolete and that the technology was headed for the 'trough of disillusionment'.  I agreed with them at that time.  Many vendors like MicroStrategy and Business Objects jumped into the fray attempting to show how PDA's like Palm Pilots could be integrated with BI.  Their investments resulted in interesting demos with no commercial traction.  Why, because wireless networks and mobile operating systems were primitive, immature and slow. In my opinion, Apple's iOS has changed everything in Mobile BI.  Yes Blackberry, Android and Symbian and all the rest have their place in the market but I believe that increasingly consumers (not IT departments) influence BI decision making processes.  Consumers are choosing the iPhone and the iPad. The number of iPads I see in business meetings now is staggering.  Some use it for email and note taking and others are starting to use corporate applications.  The possibilities for Mobile BI are countless and I would expect to see iPads enterprise-wide over the next few years.   These new devices will provide just-in-time access to critical business information.  Front-line managers interacting with customers, suppliers, patients or citizens will have information literally at their fingertips. I've experimented with several mobile BI tools.  They look cool but like their Executive Information System (EIS) predecessors of the 1990's these tools lack a backbone and a plausible integration strategy.  EIS was a viral technology in the early 1990's.  Executives from every industry and job function were showcasing their dashboards to fellow co-workers and colleagues at the country club.  Just like the iPad, every senior manager wanted one.  EIS wasn't a device however, it was a software application.   EIS quickly faded into the software sunset as it lacked integration with corporate information systems.  BI servers  replaced EIS because the technology focused on the heavy data lifting of integrating, normalizing, aggregating and managing large, complex data volumes.  The devices are here to stay. The cute stand-alone mobile BI tools, not so much. If all you're looking to do is put Excel files on your iPad, there are plenty of free tools on the market.  You'll look cool at your next management meeting but after a few weeks, the cool factor will fade away and you'll be wondering how you will ever maintain it.  If however you want secure, consistent, reliable information on your iPad, you need an integration strategy and a way to model the data.  BI Server technologies like the Oracle BI Foundation is a market leading approach to tackle that issue. I liken the BI mobility frenzy to buying classic cars.  Classic Cars have two buying groups - teenagers and middle-age folks looking to tinker.  Teenagers look at the pin-stripes and the paint job while middle-agers (like me)  kick the tires a bit and look under the hood to check out the quality and reliability of the engine.  Mobile BI tools sure look sexy but don't go very far without an engine and a transmission or an integration strategy. The strategic question in Mobile BI is can these startups build a motor and transmission faster than Oracle can re-paint the car?  Oracle has a great engine and a transmission that connects to all enterprise information assets.  We're working on the new paint job and are excited about the possibilities.  Just as vertical integration worked in the automotive business, it too works in the technology industry.

  Read the article

• Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Millennials

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Christine Mellon Much is said and written about the new generations of employees entering our workforce, as though they are a strange specimen, a mysterious life form to be “figured out,” accommodated and engaged – at a safe distance, of course.  At its worst, this talk takes a critical and disapproving tone, with baby boomer employees adamantly refusing to validate this new breed of worker, let alone determine how to help them succeed and achieve their potential.   The irony of our baby-boomer resentments and suspicions is that they belie the fact that we created the very vision that younger employees are striving to achieve.  From our frustrations with empty careers that did not fulfill us, from our opposition to “the man,” from our sharp memories of our parents’ toiling for 30 years just for the right to retire, from the simple desire not to live our lives in a state of invisibility, came the seeds of hope for something better. One characteristic of Millennial workers that grew from these seeds is the desire to experience as much as possible.  They are the “Experiential Employee”, with a passion for growing in diverse ways and expanding personal and professional horizons.  Rather than rooting themselves in a single company for a career, or even in a single career path, these employees are committed to building a broad portfolio of experiences and capabilities that will enable them to make a difference and to leave a mark of significance in the world.  How much richer is the organization that nurtures and leverages this inclination?  Our curmudgeonly ways must be surrendered and our focus redirected toward building the next generation of talent ecosystems, if we are to optimize what future generations have to offer.   Accelerating Professional Development In spite of our Boomer grumblings about Millennials’ “unrealistic” expectations, the truth is that we have a well-matched set of circumstances.  We have executives-in-waiting who want to learn quickly and a concurrent, urgent need to ramp up their development time, based on anticipated high levels of retirement in the next 10+ years.  Since we need to rapidly skill up these heirs to the corporate kingdom, isn’t it a fortunate coincidence that they are hungry to learn, develop and move fluidly throughout our organizations??  So our challenge now is to efficiently operationalize the wisdom we have acquired about effective learning and development.   We have already evolved from classroom-based models to diverse instructional methods.  The next step is to find the best approaches to help younger employees learn quickly and apply new learnings in an impactful way.   Creating temporary or even permanent functional partnerships among Millennial employees is one way to maximize outcomes.  This might take the form of 2 or more employees owning aspects of what once fell under a single role.  While one might argue this would mean duplication of resources, it could be a short term cost while employees come up to speed.  And the potential benefits would be numerous:  leveraging and validating the inherent sense of community of new generations, creating cross-functional skills with broad applicability, yielding additional perspectives and approaches to traditional work outcomes, and accelerating the performance curve for incumbents through Cooperative Learning (Johnson, D. and Johnson R., 1989, 1999).  This well-researched teaching strategy, where students support each other in the absorption and application of new information, has been shown to deliver faster, more efficient learning, and greater retention. Alternately, perhaps short term contracts with exiting retirees, or former retirees, to help facilitate the development of following generations may have merit.  Again, a short term cost, certainly.  However, the gains realized in shortening the learning curve, and strengthening engagement are substantial and lasting. Ultimately, there needs to be creative thinking applied for each organization on how to accelerate the capabilities of our future leaders in unique ways that mesh with current culture. The manner in which performance is evaluated must finally shift as well.  Employees will need to be assessed on how well they have developed key skills and capabilities vs. end-to-end mastery of functional positions they have no interest in keeping for an entire career. As we become more comfortable in placing greater and greater weight on competencies vs. tasks, we will realize increased organizational agility via this new generation of workers, which will be further enhanced by their natural flexibility and appetite for change. Revisiting Succession  For many years, organizations have failed to deliver desired succession planning outcomes.  According to CEB’s 2013 research, only 28% of current leaders were pre-identified in a succession plan. These disappointing results, along with the entrance of the experiential, Millennial employee into the workforce, may just provide the needed impetus for HR to reinvent succession processes.   We have recognized that the best professional development efforts are not always linear, and the time has come to fully adopt this philosophy in regard to succession as well.  Paths to specific organizational roles will not look the same for newer generations who seek out unique learning opportunities, without consideration of a singular career destination.  Rather than charting particular jobs as precursors for key positions, the experiences and skills behind what makes an incumbent successful must become essential in succession mapping.  And the multitude of ways in which those experiences and skills may be acquired must be factored into the process, along with the individual employee’s level of learning agility. While this may seem daunting, it is necessary and long overdue.  We have talked about the criticality of competency-based succession, however, we have not lived up to our own rhetoric.  Many Boomers have experienced the same frustration in our careers; knowing we are capable of shining in a particular role, but being denied the opportunity due to how our career history lined up, on paper, with documented job requirements.  These requirements usually emphasized past jobs/titles and specific tasks, versus capabilities, drive and willingness (let alone determination) to learn new things.  How satisfying would it be for us to leave a legacy where such narrow thinking no longer applies and potential is amplified? Realizing Diversity Another bloom from the seeds we Boomers have tried to plant over the past decades is a completely evolved view of diversity.  Millennial employees assume a diverse workforce, and are startled by anything less.  Their social tolerance, nurtured by wide and diverse networks, is unprecedented.  College graduates expect a similar landscape in the “real world” to what they experienced throughout their lives.  They appreciate and seek out divergent points of view and experiences without needing any persuasion.  The face of our U.S. workforce will likely see dramatic change as Millennials apply their fresh take on hiring and building strong teams, with an inherent sense of inclusion.  This wonderful aspect of the Millennial wave should be celebrated and strongly encouraged, as it is the fulfillment of our own aspirations. Future Perfect The Experiential Employee is operating more as a free agent than a long term player, and their commitment will essentially last as long as meaningful organizational culture and personal/professional opportunities keep their interest.  As Boomers, we have laid the foundation for this new, spirited employment attitude, and we should take pride in knowing that.  Generations to come will challenge organizations to excel in how they identify, manage and nurture talent. Let’s support and revel in the future that we’ve helped invent, rather than lament what we think has been lost.  After all, the future is always connected to the past.  And as so eloquently phrased by Antoine Lavoisier, French nobleman, chemist and politico:  “Nothing is Lost, Nothing is Created, and Everything is Transformed.” Christine has over 25 years of diverse HR experience.  She has held HR consulting and corporate roles, including CHRO positions for Echostar in Denver, a 6,000+ employee global engineering firm, and Aepona, a startup software firm, successfully acquired by Intel. Christine is a resource to Oracle clients, to assist in Human Capital Management strategy development and implementation, compensation practices, talent development initiatives, employee engagement, global HR management, and integrated HR systems and processes that support the full employee lifecycle. 

  Read the article

• SQL Server Table Polling by Multiple Subscribers

  - by Daniel Hester

  Background Designing Stored Procedures that are safe for multiple subscribers (to call simultaneously) can be challenging.  For example let’s say that you want multiple worker processes to poll a shared work queue that’s encapsulated as a SQL Table. This is a common scenario and through experience you’ll find that you want to use Table Hints to prevent unwanted locking when performing simultaneous queries on the same table. There are three table hints to consider: NOLOCK, READPAST and UPDLOCK. Both NOLOCK and READPAST table hints allow you to SELECT from a table without placing a LOCK on that table. However, SELECTs with the READPAST hint will ignore any records that are locked due to being updated/inserted (or otherwise “dirty”), whereas a SELECT with NOLOCK ignores all locks including dirty reads. For the initial update of the flag (that marks the record as available for subscription) I don’t use the NOLOCK Table Hint because I want to be sensitive to the “active” records in the table and I want to exclude them.  I use an Update Lock (UPDLOCK) in conjunction with a WHERE clause that uses a sub-select with a READPAST Table Hint in order to explicitly lock the records I’m updating (UPDLOCK) but not place a lock on the table when selecting the records that I’m going to update (READPAST). UPDATES should be allowed to lock the rows affected because we’re probably changing a flag on a record so that it is not included in a SELECT from another subscriber. On the UPDATE statement we should explicitly use the UPDLOCK to guard against lock escalation. A SELECT to check for the next record(s) to process can result in a shared read lock being held by more than one subscriber polling the shared work queue (SQL table). It is expected that more than one worker process (or server) might try to process the same new record(s) at the same time. When each process then tries to obtain the update lock, none of them can because another process has a shared read lock in place. Thus without the UPDLOCK hint the result would be a lock escalation deadlock; however with the UPDLOCK hint this condition is mitigated against. Note that using the READPAST table hint requires that you also set the ISOLATION LEVEL of the transaction to be READ COMMITTED (rather than the default of SERIALIZABLE). Guidance In the Stored Procedure that returns records to the multiple subscribers: Perform the UPDATE first. Change the flag that makes the record available to subscribers.  Additionally, you may want to update a LastUpdated datetime field in order to be able to check for records that “got stuck” in an intermediate state or for other auditing purposes. In the UPDATE statement use the (UPDLOCK) Table Hint on the UPDATE statement to prevent lock escalation. In the UPDATE statement also use a WHERE Clause that uses a sub-select with a (READPAST) Table Hint to select the records that you’re going to update. In the UPDATE statement use the OUTPUT clause in conjunction with a Temporary Table to isolate the record(s) that you’ve just updated and intend to return to the subscriber. This is the fastest way to update the record(s) and to get the records’ identifiers within the same operation. Finally do a set-based SELECT on the main Table (using the Temporary Table to identify the records in the set) with either a READPAST or NOLOCK table hint.  Use NOLOCK if there are other processes (besides the multiple subscribers) that might be changing the data that you want to return to the multiple subscribers; or use READPAST if you're sure there are no other processes (besides the multiple subscribers) that might be updating column data in the table for other purposes (e.g. changes to a person’s last name).  NOLOCK is generally the better fit in this part of the scenario. See the following as an example: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_NewCustomersSelect] AS BEGIN -- OVERRIDE THE DEFAULT ISOLATION LEVEL SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ COMMITTED -- SET NOCOUNT ON SET NOCOUNT ON -- DECLARE TEMP TABLE -- Note that this example uses CustomerId as an identifier; -- you could just use the Identity column Id if that’s all you need. DECLARE @CustomersTempTable TABLE ( CustomerId NVARCHAR(255) ) -- PERFORM UPDATE FIRST -- [Customers] is the name of the table -- [Id] is the Identity Column on the table -- [CustomerId] is the business document key used to identify the -- record globally, i.e. in other systems or across SQL tables -- [Status] is INT or BIT field (if the status is a binary state) -- [LastUpdated] is a datetime field used to record the time of the -- last update UPDATE [Customers] WITH (UPDLOCK) SET [Status] = 1, [LastUpdated] = GETDATE() OUTPUT [INSERTED].[CustomerId] INTO @CustomersTempTable WHERE ([Id] = (SELECT TOP 100 [Id] FROM [Customers] WITH (READPAST) WHERE ([Status] = 0) ORDER BY [Id] ASC)) -- PERFORM SELECT FROM ENTITY TABLE SELECT [C].[CustomerId], [C].[FirstName], [C].[LastName], [C].[Address1], [C].[Address2], [C].[City], [C].[State], [C].[Zip], [C].[ShippingMethod], [C].[Id] FROM [Customers] AS [C] WITH (NOLOCK), @CustomersTempTable AS [TEMP] WHERE ([C].[CustomerId] = [TEMP].[CustomerId]) END In a system that has been designed to have multiple status values for records that need to be processed in the Work Queue it is necessary to have a “Watch Dog” process by which “stale” records in intermediate states (such as “In Progress”) are detected, i.e. a [Status] of 0 = New or Unprocessed; a [Status] of 1 = In Progress; a [Status] of 2 = Processed; etc.. Thus, if you have a business rule that states that the application should only process new records if all of the old records have been processed successfully (or marked as an error), then it will be necessary to build a monitoring process to detect stalled or stale records in the Work Queue, hence the use of the LastUpdated column in the example above. The Status field along with the LastUpdated field can be used as the criteria to detect stalled / stale records. It is possible to put this watchdog logic into the stored procedure above, but I would recommend making it a separate monitoring function. In writing the stored procedure that checks for stale records I would recommend using the same kind of lock semantics as suggested above. The example below looks for records that have been in the “In Progress” state ([Status] = 1) for greater than 60 seconds: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_NewCustomersWatchDog] AS BEGIN -- TO OVERRIDE THE DEFAULT ISOLATION LEVEL SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ COMMITTED -- SET NOCOUNT ON SET NOCOUNT ON DECLARE @MaxWait int; SET @MaxWait = 60 IF EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM [dbo].[Customers] WITH (READPAST) WHERE ([Status] = 1) AND (DATEDIFF(s, [LastUpdated], GETDATE()) > @MaxWait)) BEGIN SELECT 1 AS [IsWatchDogError] END ELSE BEGIN SELECT 0 AS [IsWatchDogError] END END Downloads The zip file below contains two SQL scripts: one to create a sample database with the above stored procedures and one to populate the sample database with 10,000 sample records.  I am very grateful to Red-Gate software for their excellent SQL Data Generator tool which enabled me to create these sample records in no time at all. References http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187373.aspx http://www.techrepublic.com/article/using-nolock-and-readpast-table-hints-in-sql-server/6185492 http://geekswithblogs.net/gwiele/archive/2004/11/25/15974.aspx http://grounding.co.za/blogs/romiko/archive/2009/03/09/biztalk-sql-receive-location-deadlocks-dirty-reads-and-isolation-levels.aspx

  Read the article

• Checking who is connected to your server, with PowerShell.

  - by Fatherjack

  There are many occasions when, as a DBA, you want to see who is connected to your SQL Server, along with how they are connecting and what sort of activities they are carrying out. I’m going to look at a couple of ways of getting this information and compare the effort required and the results achieved of each. SQL Server comes with a couple of stored procedures to help with this sort of task – sp_who and its undocumented counterpart sp_who2. There is also the pumped up version of these called sp_whoisactive, written by Adam Machanic which does way more than these procedures. I wholly recommend you try it out if you don’t already know how it works. When it comes to serious interrogation of your SQL Server activity then it is absolutely indispensable. Anyway, back to the point of this blog, we are going to look at getting the information from sp_who2 for a remote server. I wrote this Powershell script a week or so ago and was quietly happy with it for a while. I’m relatively new to Powershell so forgive both my rather low threshold for entertainment and the fact that something so simple is a moderate achievement for me. $Server = 'SERVERNAME' $SMOServer = New-Object Microsoft.SQLServer.Management.SMO.Server $Server # connection and query stuff         $ConnectionStr = "Server=$Server;Database=Master;Integrated Security=True" $Query = "EXEC sp_who2" $Connection = new-object system.Data.SQLClient.SQLConnection $Table = new-object "System.Data.DataTable" $Connection.connectionstring = $ConnectionStr try{ $Connection.open() $Command = $Connection.CreateCommand() $Command.commandtext = $Query $result = $Command.ExecuteReader() $Table.Load($result) } catch{ # Show error $error[0] | format-list -Force } $Title = "Data access processes (" + $Table.Rows.Count + ")" $Table | Out-GridView -Title $Title $Connection.close() So this is pretty straightforward, create an SMO object that represents our chosen server, define a connection to the database and a table object for the results when we get them, execute our query over the connection, load the results into our table object and then, if everything is error free display these results to the PowerShell grid viewer. The query simply gets the results of ‘EXEC sp_who2′ for us. Depending on how many connections there are will influence how long the query runs. The grid viewer lets me sort and search the results so it can be a pretty handy way to locate troublesome connections. Like I say, I was quite pleased with this, it seems a pretty simple script and was working well for me, I have added a few parameters to control the output and give me more specific details but then I see a script that uses the $SMOServer object itself to provide the process information and saves having to define the connection object and query specifications. $Server = 'SERVERNAME' $SMOServer = New-Object Microsoft.SQLServer.Management.SMO.Server $Server $Processes = $SMOServer.EnumProcesses() $Title = "SMO processes (" + $Processes.Rows.Count + ")" $Processes | Out-GridView -Title $Title Create the SMO object of our server and then call the EnumProcesses method to get all the process information from the server. Staggeringly simple! The results are a little different though. Some columns are the same and we can see the same basic information so my first thought was to which runs faster – so that I can get my results more quickly and also so that I place less stress on my server(s). PowerShell comes with a great way of testing this – the Measure-Command function. All you have to do is wrap your piece of code in Measure-Command {[your code here]} and it will spit out the time taken to execute the code. So, I placed both of the above methods of getting SQL Server process connections in two Measure-Command wrappers and pressed F5! The Powershell console goes blank for a while as the code is executed internally when Measure-Command is used but the grid viewer windows appear and the console shows this. You can take the output from Measure-Command and format it for easier reading but in a simple comparison like this we can simply cross refer the TotalMilliseconds values from the two result sets to see how the two methods performed. The query execution method (running EXEC sp_who2 ) is the first set of timings and the SMO EnumProcesses is the second. I have run these on a variety of servers and while the results vary from execution to execution I have never seen the SMO version slower than the other. The difference has varied and the time for both has ranged from sub-second as we see above to almost 5 seconds on other systems. This difference, I would suggest is partly due to the cost overhead of having to construct the data connection and so on where as the SMO EnumProcesses method has the connection to the server already in place and just needs to call back the process information. There is also the difference in the data sets to consider. Let’s take a look at what we get and where the two methods differ Query execution method (sp_who2) SMO EnumProcesses Description - Urn What looks like an XML or JSON representation of the server name and the process ID SPID Spid The process ID Status Status The status of the process Login Login The login name of the user executing the command HostName Host The name of the computer where the  process originated BlkBy BlockingSpid The SPID of a process that is blocking this one DBName Database The database that this process is connected to Command Command The type of command that is executing CPUTime Cpu The CPU activity related to this process DiskIO - The Disk IO activity related to this process LastBatch - The time the last batch was executed from this process. ProgramName Program The application that is facilitating the process connection to the SQL Server. SPID1 - In my experience this is always the same value as SPID. REQUESTID - In my experience this is always 0 - Name In my experience this is always the same value as SPID and so could be seen as analogous to SPID1 from sp_who2 - MemUsage An indication of the memory used by this process but I don’t know what it is measured in (bytes, Kb, Mb…) - IsSystem True or False depending on whether the process is internal to the SQL Server instance or has been created by an external connection requesting data. - ExecutionContextID In my experience this is always 0 so could be analogous to REQUESTID from sp_who2. Please note, these are my own very brief descriptions of these columns, detail can be found from MSDN for columns in the sp_who results here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/ms174313.aspx. Where the columns are common then I would use that description, in other cases then the information returned is purely for interpretation by the reader. Rather annoyingly both result sets have useful information that the other doesn’t. sp_who2 returns Disk IO and LastBatch information which is really useful but the SMO processes method give you IsSystem and MemUsage which have their place in fault diagnosis methods too. So which is better? On reflection I think I prefer to use the sp_who2 method primarily but knowing that the SMO Enumprocesses method is there when I need it is really useful and I’m sure I’ll use it regularly. I’m OK with the fact that it is the slower method because Measure-Command has shown me how close it is to the other option and that it really isn’t a large enough margin to matter.

  Read the article

• Running Firewall (IPCop) on Hyper-V

  - by Loren Charnley

  I currently use IPCop for our corporate firewall & VPN. I am looking to consolidate a number of servers, and am considering including the firewall server in the consolidation. I currently plan on using Server 2008 with Hyper-V for the virtualization. Has anyone out there tried virtualizing IPCop? Is there anything that I should be aware of? In particular, IPCop has somewhat limited hardware support for NICs - what hardware will the VM see for the network card?

  Read the article

• Dell Optiplex 980 vs. Dell Studio XPS 9000?

  - by Dave

  My company is allowing me to upgrade to either the XPS 9000 or the Optiplex 980. I haven't bought an Optiplex in over a decade, and the only thing I can remember is that the Optiplex is really meant for corporate IT environments, and we're not even close being large enough to have IT issues. I think the components might be of higher quality as well, like the motherboard and power supply. The XPS 9000 is about $150 cheaper than the Optiplex, but the Optiplex has 4GB more RAM, a 2nd video card, and an extra year of service. Seems like the Optiplex is a better deal overall, but since I haven't ever used one, I wanted to see what everyone else here thought.

  Read the article

• Master/Slave DNS setup vs. rsync'ed DNS servers

  - by Jakobud

  We currently have primary and secondary DNS servers on our corporate network. They are setup in a master/slave type setup, where the slave gets its DNS information from the master. I'm trying to figure out what the real advantage is for the master/slave setup instead of just setting up an automated rsync between the two to keep the DNS settings matched. Can anyone shed some light on this? Or is it just a preferential thing? If that is the case, it seems like the rsync setup would be much easier to setup, maintain and understand.

  Read the article

• filezilla Command: MLSD Response: 500 Error: Failed to retrieve directory listing

  - by solomongaby

  Hello, Recently our network was moved to the corporate network and behind the company firewall. Since the i could not access the FTP Servers using Filezilla. I can connect to them but cannot receive the directory listing. Command: MLSD Response: 500 Error: Failed to retrieve directory listing I can access the server using other softwares ( GnomeCommander ) but i would like to use Filezilla for its advanced features. I tried active and pasive mode but that doesnt work. I trace the problem to the MSLD command. I think if i could make filezilla use LIST command it will work. Any ideeas. Thanks.

  Read the article

• Access FTPS from behind Forefront TMG

  - by Maxim V. Pavlov

  I have a web server on which IIS 7 host an SSL-enabled site. The client in am trying to connect with is behind the corporate Forefront TMG. The app is Total Commander - a file manager shell, that has the ability to connect to SSL FTP by putting a checkmark over SSL/TLS in the FTP connection settings. When FTP Access Filter in FF is enabled, my connection attempt fails on Negociating TLS step of FTP connection. The same happens even if I enable Allow Active FTP in the filter's settings. But when I disable the FTP Access Filter on FF completely, I am able to connect fine. How to configure FF TMG to allow FTPS?

  Read the article

• Check if root ca certificate is installed

  - by Zulakis

  We are having a custom CA for our local-domains. The Root CA certificate is installed on all the corporate machines by default, but sometimes it happens that we have someone here who doesn't have it installed. If the user a) accesses our intranet using http or b) accepts the server-certificate I would like to redirect the user to a site which tells it what happened and how they can install the root CA. The only solution I found was the following: <img src="https://the_site/the_image" onerror="redirectToCertPage()"> This is barely a work-around and not really a solution. It can be triggered by other problems then the missing certificate. Are there any better solutions on how to solve this problem?

  Read the article

• SMTP Relay through exchange

  - by John

  Hi guys, We have a bit of a problem in that we want our printers to email our contractor whenever they develop a fault. The problem is on our corporate network we have no access through the firewall to the internet preventing us to use the external SMTP server. So i suppose the question is can we use our exchange server to do this? IE could I run an SMTP service that would forward to the exchange server which would then send the mail to the contractor? Any ideas welcome! Thanks John

  Read the article

• MySql Replication with a star topology

  - by Riotopsys

  My company currently operates in 3 separate locations connected by slow vpn links. Each site hosts a dedicated MySql server. I need to aggregate the data from all three of them onto a single server for corporate reporting. The powers that be have stated I cannot use circular replication or federated tables. Is there a third party tool for MySql that can replicate from multiple masters? Basically the diagram would be a daisy with the reporting server slave at center with multiple replication connections coming in from the master sites on the petals.

  Read the article

• Prebuilt ActiveMQ Server Based off ZeroMQ

  - by VxJasonxV

  Are there any distributions of fully built Message Brokers that are initially based off of ZeroMQ? I had thought that downloading/installing ZeroMQ would give me such, not just a handful of procedures for rolling me own. Currently we use ActiveMQ, but it is a miserable pain to configure, so I'd rather slim down the profile, unfortunately I learned that ZeroMQ was not a one step solution to achieving that goal. Alternatives are ok, but I'd prefer something less overly verbose in configuration than ActiveMQ's ludicrous amounts of Java configuration. Broker config + Java Logger Config + many other intricacies that I don't wish to deal with. (Read: Preferably not Java based in the first place.) I'm looking for reliable, basic functionality described by JMS brokers. Topics, Queues, Message Persistence, etc.

  Read the article

• Saving a modified InfoPath form to its form library

  - by Nathan Lykken

  Within our corporate SharePoint 2007 site, there is a particular form library that contains 10 separate files. 9 of these are either Excel, Word, or PowerPoint files and one of these is an InfoPath 2007 form that serves as a report. After noticing an error within this InfoPath form, I saved this InfoPath form to my local directory and then, within the design mode of InfoPath, I modified this InfoPath form. What is the proper way to save this modified InfoPath form to its form library? Everything that I have tried results in nobody except myself having access to this modified InfoPath form. I can open this InfoPath form without error but when my coworkers try to open this InfoPath form on their machines, they receive this error: “The form cannot be opened because it requires the domain permission level and it currently has restricted permission. To fix this problem, open the form from the location it was published to."

  Read the article

• Load balancing and HTTPS strategies

  - by Dan

  I am faced with the following problem: Servers get saturated since current load balancing strategy is based on client IP. Some corporate clients access our servers from behind large proxies so all clients appear with same IP to our load balancer. I think we are using some hardware load balancing device (can investigate further if necessary). We need to maintain session affinity (site is constructed in ASP), so all requests with same IP get routed to the same node. Since all the communication goes over the HTTPS, no request data (like session Id) is available to balancer as a client discriminator. Is there a way to use some other data besides the IP to distinguish between clients and route the clients even when coming from same IP to different nodes? Note: I need to maintain the traffic between the balancer and nodes safe (encrypted).

  Read the article

• Migration with SysPrep, ImageX and

  - by Jack Smith

  I know that you can use SysPrep and ImageX to create a prepared image that can be used on several systems but the question is. How well does it work in a corporate environment of moving machines from old hardware off to new harddrives and new hardware? EDIT: The system runs accounting software and databases. So would SysPrep remove all License keys and other information which means would cause problems right? Would something else be a better option even though there are heavy costs involved? Currently, when I clone/copy the drive, Windows will black screen on me. So I need something with differential hardware support?

  Read the article

• How can I telnet to an IPv6 host using Mac OS X?

  - by Nate

  I’m testing IPv6 on a corporate network and having problems with OS X. With most IPv6 commands, such as telnet -6 or traceroute6, I get the error: connect: No route to host For example, I have a web server. This fails: $ telnet -6 fe80::… 80 # this fails I know the server is reachable because ping6 works (note that I have to use the -I argument): $ ping6 -I en1 fe80::… # this works And I know the web server is running because I can telnet to it from Windows: C:\> telnet fe80::… 80 # this works I suspect there is some configuration flag or command-line argument that I am missing.

  Read the article

• Users in the field and Time Machine

  - by Bart Silverstrim

  We have several users in the field with MacBooks. Because they're not always on the network, they save files locally to their notebooks. Normally I back things up by making quick copies to other media, but with the Macs they have the option to run Time Machine (and the way OS X is designed, they're heavily encouraged to use it.) Question; for maintaining Macs and data, how reliable and thorough is Time Machine for backup/restoration? Does it just back up the user's home directory, or can it restore the Mac if, for example, the drive fails? And are there options for "securing" the data like corporate backup software for Windows does, to encrypt the data on the time machine drive?

  Read the article

• Any command line tool checking windows domain password?

  - by Chen Jun

  Does Windows provide a command line utility that lets me check a domain user's password? It is sufficient that the utility returns success(0) if I provide a matching domain user name and password. Alternatively, is there a simple VB/JS script that can do this? I'm the Intranet admin of my company and have the default password set for corporate staff, so I'd like to quickly scan which users have not changed their default password. Better yet, are there any books or websites which cover such topics so that I can get more information?

  Read the article

• SSH tunnel over http proxy with blocked 443 (SSL)

  - by Evgeny Zhulenev

  Is it possible to create an SSH tunnel over http-proxy when https access is denied? I had such configuration in .ssh\config Host home User root Hostname *my-home-pc-with-ssh-access-allowed* Port 8090 ProxyCommand corkscrew db-isa-01 8080 %h %p ~/.ssh/.corkscrew-db-isa-auth IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa Where db-isa-01 is my corporate proxy server. Today the admins blocked all https access and allowed it only for few servers on the white list. I used this command to create a tunnel: ssh -D 7070 -o 'GatewayPorts yes' -A -q -g -t root@home and now it doesn't work. As I can understand, that's because our proxy denies all https connections Proxy could not open connnection to ***: Proxy Error ( The specified Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) port is not allowed. Forefront TMG is not configured to allow SSL requests from this port. Most Web browsers use port 443 for SSL requests. ) P.S. I use Windows 7, and corscskrew with cygwin, so Linux solutions not suitable for me.

  Read the article

• Why doesn't update-manager allow me to upgrade distribution?

  - by spoulson

  I have an Ubuntu 9.04 PC behind a corporate firewall and proxy server. This requires that in order to get update-manager to fetch and apply updates, I must set the proxy and authentication settings in the Synaptic network configuration. Once done, I can check for updates and things work smoothly (except I don't get popup notifications of new updates, must manually check periodically). However, distribution updates just don't show up in update-manager, such as the newly released 9.10 Karmic Koala. I had the same issue in upgrading 8.10 to 9.04 and solved it by downloading and upgrading from the 9.04 ISO. What do I need to do to upgrade to 9.10 using the standard update-manager UI?

  Read the article

• Simple Workstation Imaging Solution?

  - by user23087

  I need a fairly cheap imaging solution for Windows XP corporate desktops. Ideally, I'd be able to set up a desktop exactly as we want it, create an image, deploy this image to a server, then boot a new desktop to a CD/USB Drive/Network and quickly set up the workstation. Ideally, each computer would also have a unique workstation name. Any ideas? Right now I'm using a custom built Linux DD solution, but it's slow, not network-based, can't image multiple computers at the same time as there's only one copy on a USB drive, and can't uniquely name the computers. Thanks, Will

  Read the article

• Is there any reason to subnet a home network?

  - by Will

  For networks I understand we set a netmask on each computer to let it know what IPs it can talk to without going through the router - IPs on the same subnet can talk directly to each other and do not have to go through a router/switch. However, in today's home networks (and I suspect corporate networks as well) every computer is connected to a router/switch (at the low cost of today's hardware I doubt there it much of a market for wired repeaters/hubs). This seems to obviate the need for a subnet mask and subnetting. Considering that in most modern home architectures every computer goes through the router, even to talk to computers on the same network, is there any reason for me to subnet a home network?

  Read the article

• Can you upgrade OEM Office with an OEM Upgrade

  - by LuckyLindy

  We have a bunch of computers at work that have OEM Office 2000. We have all the material, CDs, etc., and amazingly the computers still work well (they were top of the line when purchased in 2002). However, we'd like to upgrade to Office 2003, our corporate standard. We've found OEM Office 2003 upgrade software online for ~$60 apiece, which would save us thousands over installing retail upgrades or volume licenses. But can we do this? I haven't been able to get a clear answer from Microsoft or anyone else if OEM Upgrades can be applied by non-System Builders to OEM Office.

  Read the article

• Using the option port on my Watchguard Firebox as a 2nd gateway exit point?

  - by Donovan

  I'm working on a network project in witch I have to design our network to provide two different exit points. The points are differentiated by the path through the corporate network. One of them travels through some monitoring hardware the other does not. We have a Watchguard Firebox in use as our gateway. Currently the network side provides the unmonitored exit point. I was wondering if i hooked the option port to our lan at a point that would force traffic through the monitored path, would it cause any problems? Access to the unmonitored gateway port would be restricted by ip. That would force all others not authorized to point to the monitored gateway port. I thought with the above design i might be able to get away with not having to buy another firebox to achieve the design I want. Thanks, D

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71  | Next Page >