Most useful new content to come from Yahoo(!) in years.
This is a very good overview of the public DNS system. Kinda gives you a feel for the fragile nature of the beast. Also, it gives some great information on the role that crap DNS plays in hidden performance problems.
Of course, I love using OpenDNS for testing, as most ISP's DNS servers just plain suck.
Why is this not being shouted from the roof of the home of every content creator?
To anyone who has ever created anything of value, and had it cheapened by the culture of entitlement so pervasive in the US and the rest of the internet-connected world, Rupert Murdoch has declared that Google is mortal and, together, we can kill it.
Headlines that can be misread…
Texas Honors Student Charged In Plot To Kill Dad
http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/72568237.html
I mean, unless the guy was a real jerk or something. ๏̯͡๏﴿
Imagine if someone could compete with Wal-mart on price….
They can't of course. But just imagine that they could.
Because that is exactly what the new wave of web services are doing. See, when you write code, it doesn't normally cost you much to use it the 2nd through 9 billionth time. That first one is expensive. Stores like Amazon.com make money hand over fist because they have innovated on so many levels that they have become almost unstoppable at what they do. But thousands of little sites are popping up everwhere that are undercutting the established market leaders. Mint.com is attacking Quickbooks. MailChimp can beat out ConstantContact for most smaller tasks for free. freepdfconvert.com can handle most of the tasks that people use Acrobat Standard or Pro for.
Most people don't need a Swiss Army knife. They really just want a great knife or can opener when they need it, preferably one that is easy to use and even better, free. By focusing on very simple, individualized tasks, people can pretty easily reduce the cost of that first roll out of the software and then make a small amount on advertising revenue from there out. Expenses are very low (as are expectations), and changes can be made rapidly based on feedback.
In order to take down a skyscraper, you can either try to attack it broadside with a wrecking ball or you can go after the foundation with a super soaker.
Server 2008 R2 Considerations:
As Aaron posted over at BinaryWar.com, Windows Server 2008 R2 is the first release of Windows to be 64bit only. We knew it was coming, with SQL and Exchange having already made the jump. With the majority of us still supporting mostly 32bit clients, there are some special considerations to keep in mind when you are planning a deployment of a 64 bit server for general small office use (as opposed to a higer performance or higher demand machine, traditionally the targets of 64 bit architecture).:
- Applications compatibility - Will your companies applications run ( in a supported fashion) on a 64 bit server? Any modern application should at least have a forthcoming update to support 64bit, but there are plenty of non-modern applications out there that are lagging behind. In the event that it is not supported, your best option may be to either host a VM on your new 64 bit server, or run both of them on a hypervisor. Call your vendor and get their support statement in writing. You do not want to get halfway through a migration and find out that you will have to run beta code to make it work, sort of, in the meantime.
- Backups - Most newer versions of BackupExec support 64 bit, so you should be fine there, if that is what you are running. Obviously if you are using the built in backup, it would be supported as well. Make sure that whatever device (especially tape drives) you are using to back up to is supported.
- Printers - Ah yes, the lowly print server. Plenty of printers have either crap 64bit drivers or nothing at all. Either plan on replacing those printers or using plan b from item 1 above.
- Antivirus - Don't forget this. You need it and the chances that your existing install package will work on 64bit are basically zero
Upgrade path from Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 Trialware to Full Version…
There isn't one. That is all.
Weird Problem of the Day: Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 2003 DC’s Not Replicating
OK, one of our techs was onsite upgrading a basic single server DC/File Server/App Server. He joined the server to the domain, promoted it and ensured that the files in the sysvol share were replicating. Everything looked fine. He transferred the FSMO roles, again without error. When he ran the dcpromo on the old server to demote it, he got an errors saying that
"The directory service was unable to transfer ownership of one or more floating single-master operation roles to other servers"
Weird. So I had him do all the normal steps, moving FSMO back and forth, waiting 15 minutes, restarting netlogon and FRS services. Nothing helped. FRS was running, stuff was replicating, but apparently something was still missing.
Running "repadmin /showreps" yielded a few errors:
"Last attempt @ 2009-11-12 18:45:37 failed, result 1256 (0x4e8): The remote system is not available. For information about network troubleshooting, see Windows Help."
Bottom line, R2 and 2003 servers sometimes have security problems replicating between them. There is a hotfix, probably the worst-titled one in history, to fix it.
Crap huh? No way you would find that if you were searching for a problem with AD replication. There is a tiny note in there that one of the problems you might experience is replication-related. So we requested and ran the hotfix, rebooted and magically dcpromo worked as the maker intended it to. I hope that this makes it into a service pack or critical update at some point soon, because we have a lot of Windows 2003 servers that are eventually going to need to be replaced.
Hyper-V R2 Vs. VMware vSphere 4.0
Windows 2008 R2 is available now and one of the 4 key points of improvement is in the area of Microsoft's HyperVisor, Hyper-V. What has been lacking until recently is a side by side comparison of the features and limitations of Hyper-V R2 Vs. VMare vSphere 4.0. The killer feature that everyone has been waiting for on Hyper-V has been the live migration, designed to compete with vMotion. The devil is in the details though, and there are lots of details about this feature and others that factor into the decision as to which product is better for your environment. CTI has a great white paper that discusses the differences. You hit the side by side comparison on about page 17 of the paper (no reg required). Bottom line: here are the top 6 differentiators as far as I am concerned:
- Memory optimization: VMWare has over-commit protection. Hyper-V really doesn't. It can reserve RAM, but it is pretty hokey compared to what VMware can do. Who cares right? RAM is cheap! Not so fast. Some RAM on these higher end virtualization and blade servers can break the bank.
- Live migration: VMware wins here too. Hyper-V R2 has it, but it can only do one machine at a time, and the way it handles shared storage is weak. VMware has been at the game longer and I expect that this gap will be closed but for now it could be a dealbreaker for those who load their hosts down.
- Guest support: Another score for VMware. The only non-Windows guest supported on Hyper-V is Suse Linux. Not a huge deal if you are running Web servers I guess, but those guest tools start to get really nice if you are needing to do any of the more advanced functionality. VMware supports most *ux's including SCO OpenServer, SCO Unixware, Free BSD, Debian and CentOS. Again, not necessarily a deal breaker.
- Ability to hot-add disks: VMware can add them easily. Hyper-V can only add virtual SCSI devices, not IDE
- Number of guests: This one is a mix. Hyper-V can have 512 loaded, but only 192 running ("only," he says). VMware can run 256 at the same time, with up to 8 virtual CPUs and 255GB of virtual memory, compared to 4 CPU's and 64GB on Hyper-V.
- Monitoring: Hyper-V wins here. Since it is based on a Windows Core box that is joined to the domain, you can capitalize on the tools built into Windows, which are legion.
So who wins? Honestly, it depends on who is judging. For implementations of 30 Windows virtual servers and under, I don't see why you would pick VMware, honestly. It comes out cheaper by most people's math, you have fewer vendors to beg for support from, and you have fewer new interfaces to learn. For larger implementations, it depends a lot on how heavily you intend to stack the VM's on the hosts and what kind of downtime you can tolerate should one of the hosts fail.
As far as dollars are concerned, most calculators will show that the initial cost for Hyper-V is cheaper for similar implementations. Most, of course, except for the one that VMware provides (big shock).
Dollars for initial implementation are small potatoes though, compared to supporting a poorly planned implementation. It is always going to be good to bring in an experienced party that can help guide you through some of the pitfalls.
SHUT DOWN THE PORTS!!!…..erm, the airports, that is.
Remote Island Village May Have Swine Flu Outbreak...