October 29, 2008

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Showing posts with label network solution.
Showing posts with label network solution.


SAN benefits of improved storage utilization, high availability and data protection are well understood. Today there are two protocols available for building block-based SANs, FC and iSCSI. Both protocols use SCSI commands generated by the file systems of the servers. These SCSI commands are converted by the iSCSI or FC protocol so they can move thru a network to and from centralized disk storage systems where the commands are executed. In the case of FC the network equipment is specific to the protocol. In the case of iSCSI the network equipment type is anything that will handle IP packets, 1GB Ethernet is the most popular.There are many IT professionals considering iSCSI based IP-SAN's as a means for centralizing storage for their application servers. As opposed to FC-SANs, IP-SANs have the benefit of being based on TCP/IP allowing businesses to use standard Ethernet equipment, NICs, tools and the knowledge base within their IT staff. But when data is being read and written across an IP-SAN and not to internal disk drives, users are concerned that network latencies will degrade server performance. Similar to an FC-SAN, when using an IP-SAN the server, the network and the storage system all play a part in application performance and client satisfaction. It's important to understand how to identify and eliminate latency bottlenecks to ensure superior application performance. In many cases, a properly designed IP-SAN can deliver better performance than internal disk drives.
Attaching a server to the IP-SAN - Server CPU induced LatencyToday's most popular operating systems support an iSCSI software initiator. The iSCSI initiator is software responsible for encapsulating the SCSI command into TCP/IP and placing it onto the network. iSCSI in itself is fairly low CPU intensive software and even during heavy loads uses very little of the CPU power. But TCP/IP can consume noticeable CPU resources. If you want to eliminate latency at the server layer and not dedicate much of the CPU/s for driving IP-SAN traffic, it is recommended to use an iSCSI TCP/IP TOE NIC. A TOE (TCP/IP Offload Engine) NIC is a special interface card specifically designed for interfacing a server to the IPSAN and will offload iSCSI as well and TCP/IP encapsulation from the server CPU/s. As a general rule an iSCSI TOE NIC (also called an iSCSI HBA) is recommended if your average CPU utilization before the use of iSCSI is higher than 50% during usual business hours, above 65% during peek use periods, or nearing 75% during backup or mirroring operations. Most iSCSI TOE NICs come with their own initiators so you'll want to check compatibility with your target operating systems before selecting a TOE. Network boot is also a feature supplied by some iSCSI TOE NICs.
Attaching a server to the IP-SAN - Saturating the Ethernet link to the LAN"Server Fan-in" describes how many servers you can run thru a single GB Ethernet port within an IP-SAN before you start experiencing latency caused by excessive storage traffic. Average business servers do not generate from 50 to 200 IOP's (input/output operations) toward the storage drives. And in most cases do not generate more than 5 megabytes of storage traffic. As a general rule, assume a GB connection can support 80 megabytes of storage traffic and 10,000 IOPs. Using these figures you can attach up to 16 servers on a single GB connection assuming each server is not generating more than 5 megabytes per second of storage traffic.It's important to note that iSCSI is encapsulated into TCP/IP and thus any network that supports TCP/IP can be used as part of an IP-SAN to move storage traffic including 10/100 connections, wireless, infrared LAN/MAN/WAN and even the internet. Naturally performance across these types of networks will vary greatly depending on connection speed but all have been tested and work. For new IP-SAN deployments, 1Gb is recommended.
As you can see, understanding your server statistics relative to storage IO, MBs and CPU usage is very important when determining what equipment to purchase and what size to make your IP-SAN solution. Most operating systems have performance monitoring tools and logs you can use to collect statistics on server CPU and storage usage. For example Windows performance monitoring can be done using "perfmon" and in Linux you can use "sysstat". This information in addition to your expansion plans will help you to determine the proper configuration and equipment needed to build an IP-SAN solution that will exceed the performance requirements of your business application servers and be able to scale into the future.
IP-SAN Network Speed - Selecting an Ethernet SwitchThe main criteria for an Ethernet switch is that the switch is non-blocking. It can be either a layer 2 or layer 3 switch. Having a layer 3 switch is generally preferred for easier SAN management and monitoring. Today's IP networks are extremely fast and scalable. For example, it takes only a quarter second to send and receive a "ping command" from half way around the world. This is minuscule when compared to the time it takes to seek and read a 10K file from any disk drive. In all shared iSCSI/ IP storage models, the performance of the network is usually insignificant when compared to the performance of the disk storage system (Usually 5 to 10 times faster than the disk storage system).
IP-SAN Network Speed - Selecting an Intelligent IP-SAN SwitchIntelligent IP-SAN switches are designed to sustain very high levels of random read and write IOPs operations.Intelligent storage switches manage the IP-SAN and eliminate the need for 3rd party software and agents.Intelligent switches have high-speed internal architectures utilizing network processors, real-time operating systems and 25Gb backplanes. They provide necessary storage services like security, virtual disk creation, multi-pathing, failover and mirroring for high availability, protocol conversion to use basic SCSI or FC disk arrays, virtual disk resizing, backup and data replication. A single IP-SANs switch generally has many Ethernet ports and can sustain 300 megabytes per second or 600 megabytes per seconds when clustered of random read and write requests and over 60,000 IOPs. This delivers raw random read or write performance and complete storage services for well over 100 standard business application servers assuming all the servers do not simultaneously generate more than 5 megabytes per second and 600 IOPs. If needed, more servers can be attached assuming that all the servers not peek at exactly the same time. The transverse would also be true if you had high-end servers generating over 25 megabytes each and 3000 IOPs, the IP-SAN could reasonably only support 20 such servers. Like arrays, intelligent IP-SAN switches are available is difference sizes.
Selecting the Appropriate Centralized Disk Storage SystemIP-SANs can utilize any type of storage system. This allows the IT professional to select the storage system/s that best fit the performance and reliability needs of the organization. Moreover you can select different classes of storage. For example you can use an attached FC array rated for 200 MBs and 20,000 IOPs for servers requiring high performance (10 to 20 megabytes per second / 2000 IOPs) and use a lower cost array with slower drives and interface rated for 40MBs and 3000 IOPs for applications requiring less performance (under 5 megabytes per second / 500 IOPs). Because the IP-SAN can use different grades of storage, it's easy to construct a SAN with primary, secondary and even tertiary storage.In addition to selecting different classes of storage (different cache and drive types), IP-SANs can simultaneously read and write data to multiple independent storage systems. Unlike individual storage arrays that cannot address more than their own internal storage capacity without causing significant performance IP SAN Performance WP-013-02 Copyright SANRAD 4 degradation, IP-SANs can simultaneously read and write to multiple independent storage arrays. By spreading volumes across independent storage systems and being able to directly access those storage systems without having to pass thru another control layer, IP-SAN's can maintain line speed performance to the storage systems (up to 2GBs, 200MBs, 20,000 IOPs per storage array) regardless of the location of the data. Moreover, since the storage systems are independent of the intelligent storage switches, capacity can be increased with additional arrays without degrading performance or having to suspend application servers.In selecting a storage system for any SAN it's important to understand that the array/s will be shared among all the servers. By the nature of a shared storage system, random read and write performance is significantly more important than sequential performance specifications. This is obvious since the storage solution is shared among many application servers, each using unique volumes and reading and writing data whenever and wherever required. In general, published MBs (megabyte per second) specifications for disk drives and arrays are for sequential large block writes (1028k). This provides the optimum performance and is usually what is published. But within a SAN random IO and use of smaller block sizes (1k to 16k) is common. It's very important to work with your storage and IP-SAN supplier to understand the performance of the array within a random access environment and how to configure the array or optimum performance.For further reading please go to IPSAN Performance White Paper.
Posted by Ronak
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As the popular saying goes; the best defense is a good offense, so too can it be applied to computer security. To safely secure a computer network a passive firewall is no longer enough. Hackers have learned and adapted their tactics to bypass firewalls and antivirus software. What is needed to defend your computer network is an active and intelligent monitor and defender. Closing off a network to internet can cause companies to lose sales and lead generation on top of which can hamper office productivity.
Before 1999 hackers would work in groups to attack specific targets with flood attacks and shut them down by overwhelming their computers and servers with garbage data. To perform attacks like this required sophisticated coordination and communication, which was difficult because hackers strongly protect their privacy. In 1999, that all changed because a single hacker was able to write software which allowed him to control a flood attack all by himself.
Defense Pro by Radware is the essential piece of hardware to protect against flood and denial of service attacks. Defense Pro is an intelligent tool that constantly monitors and analyzes data packets before they reach your network and servers. Defense Pro's ability to analyze data assures that networks will continue to function even when under attack. Intelligent analysis means that Defense Pro can tell which data entering is important and which data is garbage data. Defense Pro also acts a switch controlling your bandwidth for maximum optimization. By dynamically controlling bandwidth, Defense Pro proactively isolates attack impact to prevent spread to users and applications, while ensuring wire speed forwarding of all secure traffic.
Defense Pro is so much more than a defender of networks. Defense Pro takes an active role in network security and optimization. Defense Pro does all of this with out slowing down the network, in fact Defense Pro built in switch will speed up and optimize your network usage. Do not sit on the sidelines waiting for an attack to happen, go get in the game.
To find out more about Defense Pro please visit for www.radware.com/content/products/dp/default.asp
Posted by Ronak
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It is a hierarchical representation of all the objects and their attributes available on the network. It enables administrators to manage the network resources, i.e., computers, users, printers, shared folders, etc., in an easy way. The logical structure represented by Active Directory consists of forests, trees, domains, organizational units, and individual objects. This structure is completely independent from the physical structure of the network, and allows administrators to manage domains according to the organizational needs without bothering about the physical network structure.
Following is the description of all logical components of the Active Directory structure:
Forest: A forest is the outermost boundary of an Active Directory structure. It is a group of multiple domain trees that share a common schema but do not form a contiguous namespace. It is created when the first Active Directory-based computer is installed on a network. There is at least one forest on a network. The first domain in a forest is called a root domain. It controls the schema and domain naming for the entire forest. It can be separately removed from the forest. Administrators can create multiple forests and then create trust relationships between specific domains in those forests, depending upon the organizational needs.
Trees: A hierarchical structure of multiple domains organized in the Active Directory forest is referred to as a tree. It consists of a root domain and several child domains. The first domain created in a tree becomes the root domain. Any domain added to the root domain becomes its child, and the root domain becomes its parent. The parent-child hierarchy continues until the terminal node is reached. All domains in a tree share a common schema, which is defined at the forest level. Depending upon the organizational needs, multiple domain trees can be included in a forest.
Domains: A domain is the basic organizational structure of a Windows Server 2003 networking model. It logically organizes the resources on a network and defines a security boundary in Active Directory. The directory may contain more than one domain, and each domain follows its own security policy and trust relationships with other domains. Almost all the organizations having a large network use domain type of networking model to enhance network security and enable administrators to efficiently manage the entire network.
Objects: Active Directory stores all network resources in the form of objects in a hierarchical structure of containers and subcontainers, thereby making them easily accessible and manageable. Each object class consists of several attributes. Whenever a new object is created for a particular class, it automatically inherits all attributes from its member class. Although the Windows Server 2003 Active Directory defines its default set of objects, administrators can modify it according to the organizational needs.
Organizational Unit (OU): It is the least abstract component of the Windows Server 2003 Active Directory. It works as a container into which resources of a domain can be placed. Its logical structure is similar to an organization's functional structure. It allows creating administrative boundaries in a domain by delegating separate administrative tasks to the administrators on the domain. Administrators can create multiple Organizational Units in the network. They can also create nesting of OUs, which means that other OUs can be created within an OU.In a large complex network, the Active Directory service provides a single point of management for the administrators by placing all the network resources at a single place. It allows administrators to effectively delegate administrative tasks as well as facilitate fast searching of network resources. It is easily scalable, i.e., administrators can add a large number of resources to it without having additional administrative burden. It is accomplished by partitioning the directory database, distributing it across other domains, and establishing trust relationships, thereby providing users with benefits of decentralization, and at the same time, maintaining the centralized administration.
The physical network infrastructure of Active Directory is far too simple as compared to its logical structure. The physical components are domain controllers and sites.
Domain Controller: A Windows 2003 server on which Active Directory services are installed and run is called a domain con



Your router is the doorway to your network, control it and you have a pretty good shot at getting access to just about anything else behind it. Large networks usually have a firewall located directly behind the router while smaller networks tend to have a router that serves as both a firewall and router. Regardless of which topology you use this article will help you secure your router and keep the bad guys out.
Cover the basics first. Keep your router in a secured place in your workplace, if it's in a closet, lock the door. Change all the usernames and passwords from the default. I would also suggest not using the same username and password you use for email or network logins. For a username don't use Admin, Administrator or root. For a password use a combination of numbers and letters.
Remote management of routers is usually required but don't open it up to everybody. Telnet is not secure, if you are using Cisco, 3com, Juniper or any other router that utilizes telnet to configure it look into replacing it with SSH. Your router vendor's website should have instructions on how to do this.
Now that you have SSH setup only allow certain IP addresses to access the router utilize SSH. This is one of the most effective security parameters you can do. Limit access only to the computers you know are allowed to access your router. This step is often hard to implement if you use a lot of consultants, although it is worth the effort if it can be done.
Take advantage of maximum logins. Most of the business class routers can deny access for a period of time if an IP address if it has entered 3 bad password combinations. This will prevent a hacker from using a dictionary style attack.
Keep your eye out for updates, but be cautious with them. If your network is running great and hasn't had any problems or security issues, find out what the update does for you. If the update addresses security flaws by all means use it, if it doesn't and you're not having any other issues, I would consider giving it a little a time before you install it.
Nothing is 100% hacker proof, although utilizing these security tips is a great start to help keep the hackers at bay. If you have questions or comments on implementing any of these strategies feel free to send an email to articles@allsystemsup.net. If you need some Network Support for your office give us a call.
Posted by Ronak
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Today it is almost inconceivable for a business not to have computers, whether it is a construction company or a high technology firm. When a business has more than one computer, they are almost always connected together in a local area network. These networks may be more or less advanced and therefore more or less costly.
Companies invest so much (in terms of both money and time) in a local area networks because there are many advantages that a local area network brings to a business and how it is administered.
Some businesses use a local area network in such a way they are highly dependent on it always working. If the company's network fails, then you may see all the employees chatting away in the corridors because they can't do their work. This means big losses for the company and causes stresses on the employees. All companies must consider their local area networks a vital asset and downtime must be avoided. This imposes huge demands on the network staff to keep such networks running almost 100% of the time.
The advantages of Computer Network Management
One of the main advantages of installing and maintaining LANs is the opportunity they create for better communication and cooperation between employees and customers.
Security considerations: Local Area Network security can be both a help and hindrance. Comprehensive security is beneficial because it provides a central and safe strategy for data access and disaster recovery. All information is protected by the design and implementation of the network security solution. On the other hand, interconnecting computers in local area networks creates a security risk, since doing so makes it technically possible for intruders to access many machines on the network at once.
Cost considerations: Installing a local area network is a relatively expensive project. Servers, cabling, switches, routers and software can all be expensive and should never be purchased without expert advice. Keeping the network operating and secure also requires a lot of resources and can be costly.
Surprisingly, a local area network can bring a number of cost savings. Sharing resources avoids the need to purchase equipment for each individual. Even more important is the security that a local area network can provide. Data loss could cost a business a great deal of money and in some cases, cause the business to shutdown altogether. Computer Network Management should require a consistent routine for data backups with regular checkups of data quality - a practice that will save a company huge sums in the event of a mishap.
Computer Network Management: preliminary analysis phases
The first phase of computer network management is to determine the source of the problem (a preliminary study that looks into several options of differing scope may be useful here) and defining it in a specification of requirements. Examples of what should be evaluated are different network operating systems, mail systems, and other applications. The choice of hardware components should also be evaluated. This phase is generally aimed at establishing what the system should do, not how it should do it.
Computer Network Management: design phase
The purpose of design phase is to determine how the requirements of the specification are to be met. The current approach to large, complex projects is to break them down into smaller, more manageable subprojects.
Computer Network Management: implementation phase
This phase involves the physical installation of the local area network. Cables are run, software is installed, and computers and other hardware are put in place.
Computer Network Management: integration and system testing phase
In this phase, commissioning of the network begins, and routines are adapted to users and the operating personnel. The system must be tested, both to ensure that the network meets the requirements set out in the specification and that it is stable enough to perform the central function it has in the organization.
Computer Network Management: operation and maintenance
Local area networks have complex operating routines. This is because there may be serious consequences when faults occur or unauthorized persons gain access to the system. Many companies have employees devoted solely to take care of running and maintaining computer networks. These system administrators may deal with network issues such as performance, reliability and security of both hardware and software.
Computer Network Management: tools
Although an organization may have computer administrators on site, they must also monitor the network more than eight hours a day. In fact, some of the worst trouble that arises with networks can happen during the night hours when nobody is using the network. With the right computer network management tools, your organization can receive the security of knowing that problems will be foreseen, prevented, and taken care of - and that your network administrator can be notified at a moment's notice, should anything go exceptionally wrong.
Posted by Ronak
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One of the best “tricks” in managing a PPC campaigns is creating ads that will be triggered from your competitor’s brand names. The first common question is this “legal”, to bid with their names even if they are trademarked? The answer is yes, as long as you don’t include those brand or company names inside of your ads. Google has been challenged in the courts for allowing advertisers to display ads that are triggered by user searches for names such as “AcmeCompany.com”. In all cases, Google has won the case that they have the right to allow your competitor to use your company name to trigger their ad, and vice versa. So since this is an acceptable practice, by all means you should actively pursue a competitor’s brand name campaign.Note, there are times you can use the brand name in the ads, if you are a reseller and complement their business, but you may not get away with if you compete directly. The best way to find out if this is acceptable is to try running an ad with the brand term in it. Google will very quickly return a message stating if this is acceptable. You may have to request “an exception” stating why it is acceptable to use the brand name in the ad. Give it a try, but run an alternative ad without brand terms in case the ad at a future date is rejected and this can happen.When bidding with your competitor’s names, I always like to break these up into separate ads, and when possible use like terms as in this example below. Having these ads separated is very useful for future reports to develop trends to measure which competitor has the best on-line brand presence overall or the effect of news events by spikes in daily traffic. And don’t limit the ads to your competitors terms, include an ad for your own company, because this will help you understand how your on-line presence measures up or if that recent press release generated any search excitement. An example of brand search terms that will trigger ads is as follows:www acmecompanyacmecompany.comacme company com[Acme Company] (exact match)“Acme Company” (phrase match)In the example above I avoid a broad match if the company name is somewhat common, since this will trigger a much wider search result. For in brand bidding I’m really looking for the searches people are doing who know the company name and are using Google as a quick directory lookup. You can include product names if the branding is unique and has some common usage, but I always recommend performing a search first to check out the search results to avoid association with other common terms.Will brand bidding deliver new sales? Is the effort worth it? Very often the conversions aside from your on brand terms (which should be your highest converting ad) will produce lower sales or leads from the other campaigns. But in most cases the actual costs associated with brand bidding are much lower, so the Cost Per Conversion is low, thus making it worth it. The insight in tracking your competitions on-line marketing efforts can prove to be a long-term benefit as it is often an indication of how active they are in on-line marketing.
Posted by Ronak

In the Network Sharing Center there is a Diagnose and Repair link that will scan your system for network issues. This diagnostic pings the remote host. If it is not found, you have the option to reset the network adapter Local Area Connection.In addition to the automated Network Diagnostics interface, several tools are included with Windows Vista that can be used to test network components and connectivity.Basic ToolsThe following tools are fundamental in connectivity and name resolution troubleshooting. In addition, they are useful when troubleshooting failures with applications that communicate on the network or Internet.IpconfigThe Ipconfig command line tool displays all current TCP/IP network configuration values. Used without parameters, the ipconfig command displays the IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway for all adapters. In addition, you can use the following commands:ipconfig /all – If you want to see more detailed information on the configuration for all interfaces on the computer, use this command.ipconfig /release – This command releases any DHCP addresses assigned to interfaces on the computer. You can typically use it before the next command.ipconfig /renew – This command causes the DHCP client service to request network addresses for all network connections. It is useful when you encounter connectivity problems and suspect a bad address. It is also used when troubleshooting name resolution failures to ensure the interface has the correct DNS server addresses assigned.ipconfig /flushdns – This command clears the local DNS resolver cache. When you connect to machines by name, the DNS client software on the computer stores names and IP addresses as they are resolved. This is so that the name can be resolved without sending a repeat request to the DNS server. If a remote computer's IP address changes, outdated information in this cache can cause connections by name to fail. Run this command on the local machine to clear the cache.PingThe ping command verifies IP-level connectivity to another TCP/IP computer by sending ICMP Echo Request messages. The receipt of corresponding Echo Reply messages is displayed along with round-trip times.Ping is the primary TCP/IP command used to troubleshoot connectivity, reachability, and name resolution.Because firewalls typically block ICMP traffic, ping does not receive a response from a system with a firewall configured. Check the firewall settings to ensure Ping or ICMP Echo is enabled while you are troubleshooting.TracertThe Trace Route (Tracert.exe) command determines the path taken to a destination by sending ICMP Echo Request messages to the destination with incrementally increasing Time to Live (TTL) field values. The path displayed is the list of near-side router interfaces of the routers in the path between a source host and a destination. The near-side interface is the interface of the router closest to the sending host in the path.This command is useful for troubleshooting connectivity failures when you can ping the default gateway but cannot ping Internet servers. Such a situation can indicate a failure in the routing from the client machine to the Internet.Running Tracert returns data on the failure indicating which hop in the routing is dropping the traffic. When used for Internet connectivity troubleshooting, the data gathered is often used to work with the ISP to resolve such routing issues. The output should identify the router at which the problem occurs.For more details,


is determined by many factors, the most important of which are your current bandwidth needs, your network environment, your expected future bandwidth requirements and your budget. This article will address each of these primary concerns in an attempt to help you identify which cabling solution will best meet your specific requirements.Determining Your Current Network Bandwidth NeedsYour primary concern in determining the type of cabling to use is your network's current bandwidth requirements. This figure can vary greatly based on the size of the network (i.e. the number of workstations connected to the network). A small network of 15 workstations will generally have much lower bandwidth requirements than a network that needs to support 100 workstations. Future growth should also be factored when considering network size. If your company is expecting to double the number of employees over the next two years, then you can expect your network bandwidth needs to increase accordingly. To complicate matters further, you must also factor in the type and volume of the data traffic that your network will be supporting. For example, a small multimedia and graphic design firm with only 10 workstations will likely have much greater bandwidth requirements than a law firm consisting of 25 workstations. Again, this is due primarily to the type and volume of the data one can expect in each work environment: a single user transferring a 5-minute high definition video across the network can easily consume more bandwidth than 20 users opening MS Word and Excel files.So how do you accurately determine your network bandwidth requirements?There are several ways to analyze network traffic, but the best and most accurate method is to utilize a tool called a network analyzer. Among the simplest and most ubiquitous of these tools is a utility that is built into all flavors of Windows servers called Network Monitor. The Network Monitor utility gives detailed insight into traffic on a network segment and can detail broadcast traffic and specific packets transmitted to or from a machine. There are also several other third-party products such as Ethereal (free), as well commercial analyzers such as Network General Fast Ethernet Sniffer, Cinco NetXRay, AG Group EtherPeek, Novell LANalyzer for Windows, and Intel LANDesk Traffic Analyst among many others. It is important to note than when using a network analyzer to monitor your current network's bandwidth usage, that you sample data over the course of several days (or even weeks), and that you do so throughout different times of the day. Doing this will ensure that you make the most accurate assessment of your network's bandwidth requirements.Your Network EnvironmentYour network environment plays a large part in determining the best type of cabling you should use. While optical fiber offers the fastest possible bandwidth and is the best medium for "future proofing" your network, certain environments are ill suited toward fiber optic installation. Unlike twisted copper mediums like Cat5e or Cat6, optical fiber is prone to transmission problems due to dirt and scratches on the fiber. This can be typical of dirty or dusty mechanical closets, equipment closets, and any rooms that are not clean or friendly to fiber technology. In such cases, twisted copper solutions might be the best way to go. Alternatively, certain environments cause problems with twisted copper mediums. Although Cat5e and Cat6 have much improved noise immunity than their twister copper predecessors, they are susceptible to high RF (radio frequency) and EMI (electromagnetic interference). Hospitals for example, have tremendous RF interference problems over twister pair cabling. A Cat5e or Cat6 cable running alongside a CAT scanner or NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) scanner would be rendered virtually useless due to RF interference. In such environments, optical fiber is the ideal solution as it is all but immune to such interference.Future Bandwidth RequirementsIt is rare that people think to factor in the growth of a company, or the launching of new products and services when estimating future bandwidth requirements. But, failure to make an accurate assessment of future bandwidth requirements can end up costing a lot of money. Unfortunately, estimating future bandwidth is both complex and often speculative. As an example, it might seem that doubling the number of employees in a company would result in a doubling of the network bandwidth demand. Rarely is it so straightforward, however. Consider that several of the new employees might be multimedia authors, who generally have much higher bandwidth requirements. Also consider that bringing on several new sales people means bringing on the back-and-forth communication between those sales people and all their customers. Perhaps the sales department has decided to host an in-house, web-based CRM implementation --- this could result in an increase in bandwidth requirements that are that are far out of proportion to the rest of the users on the network. Because of such factors as these, it is important that a network administrator have knowledge of the future plans for a business when planning a structure cabling implementation. Generally speaking, it is far less costly to "future proof" a structured cabling implementation than it is to replace the existing cabling once it becomes apparent that it is not sufficient to meet the demands of the network.Your BudgetWhile working within a budget is certainly something one should consider, it must be understood that the difference in costs between Cat5e, Cat6 and optical fiber is insignificant compared to the costs involved in not using the correct conveyance media for current and future network requirements. The old adage that "it's better to do it right the first time" certainly holds true when planning your network infrastructure. Not doing it right the first time could cost your company far more than it saved by choosing an older technology or less expensive conveyance media, not to mention that not choosing the correct media could cripple a network and bring about the wrath of it's users. Because of this, current and future bandwidth requirements, as well as an understanding of your network environment should play a far more important role than cost in determining which type of cabling is best suited for your needs.



a blog on Dial-up connection? Which no body uses these days. Dial-up is not used regularly. But consider the situation when you travel to your village which doesn’t have broad band connection and internet cafes and you need to send an important mail or make a travel reservation. I have faced similar situations and would like to share with you how can you go online within a few minutes.Even tough Broad Band internet is not available these days you can find a computer and Telephone in every village. I assume you will get your hand on some laptop/computer or you have carried your laptop to your village, which has an inbuilt modem and drivers installed.The next thing you need to come online is a Telephone and Internet Connection. BSNL has enabled Internet across all its telephone exchanges in India. The Dial-in number is 172233 and the user name and password would be netone. The service would be charged 60 Paise/1min and you get transfer speeds or 2-3 KBps. Not good for Bandwidth Hungry websites, but will do ok with some mails and chat and some browsing.As most PC’s have XP, I pre-assume you are using Windows XP, if you are using Windows 98 or Vista the basic process would be the same but the menus may change. Next thing is to configure a dialup connection. Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Network and Dial-up Connections. Double click Make New Connection, Select Next, Select Dial-up to Internet, Select Manually Configure Settings and enter 172233 for the Phone Number and netone for username and password, follow the wizard, complete it.A new connection should appear in the Control Panel > Network Connection. You can place a short cut on the desktop for easy accessibility. Click Connect and you get a message No Dial Tone. You check your phone and you have Dial Tone. This is where most of the people get struck.TIPS: Remembers most of the Computer Devices like Modems are designed and developed outside India and they use different communication systems. So even tough you have a Dial Tone on your phone the Modem would not recognize the Dial Tone. You need to configure the Modem not to wait for Dial Tone.To do this go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Phone and Modem Options and go to the Modem Page select the modem and click the properties. And remove the Check for Wait for Dial-tone before dialing.Now you should be able to connect to the internet without any issues.TIPS: Open Internet Explorer, Go to Tools > Internet Options. Go to the Advanced Tab. Scroll down to Multimedia and remove the checks for Play Animations, Videos and Sounds in webpage’s. This would save some bandwidth and lets pages load faster on slow dial-up connections.If you need any further clarifications you can always reach me back with a comment or a mail.
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Do you want to start a Website? The first step is to choose a domain name. Whether you are a Programmer, Web Developer, Tech Guy, or if you want to start up a website to feature your family tree, the entire process starts with choosing a domain name.The next question would be, “What’s the right domain name?”. The answer is, depends. For example, if you are the person above who wants to build a website for your family tree, then the answer is that the choice of a domain name really doesn’t matter. Why? Because you don’t expect lots of people to visit your website, your site is probably only something you are going to share with your relatives and friends, to let them know about the latest goings in your family. In a case like this, it does not matter whatsoever if you find a domain name like “ourfamilytree.com” or not, since most likely you will only be giving out the website address to a few friends and relatives.In the above example, you could call the website anything you wanted to, “familytree.com” or even “saripallifamily.com” or something even as silly as “checkmysite.com”, which really has nothing at all to do with the content of the website itself. The point is that in a case is, there is no need to get lot of visitors to the website other than friends and relatives, so there is no real harm in naming the website ANYTHING, because you will be giving out the website address to a select few people. BUT……What if the website is for online business? What if I do want it to attract more people?I think you know the answer; it helps to have a domain name that mirrors your site or business. If your website is about dog care products for example, do you really expect the average web surfer to remember the URL if it is named “buntyaurbubly.com” or some other unrelated name? The best way is to find a domain name that directly mirrors your business, whether it is the business name itself or related to the nature of business. If you take the above example, a dog care products website should have a domain name like dogcare.com or dogcareproducts.com, something that immediately mirrors the domain name with the theme of the site. It’s all about branding, and making a lasting impression on the target audience or customers.You can find domain names by checking the WhoIs database on the internet. While there are a number of places to do domain registration on the internet, I am listing three of which I have personally used.1. www.godaddy.com2. www.networksolutions.comYou can buy domain names from any of the above 3 links. After searching the domain name, the results given will instantly show whether or not the domain name is available, and if so, give you the option to immediately register it. If not, several alternative domain names will be proposed, to help you find a domain name which would be close to your requested domain, or possibly giving you an acceptable alternative domain name to register instead.Alternative there are sites which would offer you free domain names and/or free domains and/or free websites and/or free domain registrations…etc. All such sites would provide you a domain name for free but would place their Advertisements on your website and earn money from those ads. If your website is a personal website and you don’t plan to do business or make money with your website you can always go with such sites.1. . www.freedomain.co.nrYou can’t register free top level domain names like .com, .org etc but your can register yourwebsitename.tk.In my next blog, I will discuss strategies for choosing a domain name, long or short, hyphenated or not, and generic or brand names.

Threats of security continue to pervade the global market since September 11. Bombings and threats promising mayhem and destruction had led to a surge in investments around security and surveillance systems. This is fueling the change in how we capture, store, and monitor video.According to Shivanu Shukla, an industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan "There has been strong interest in being able to remotely monitor surveillance cameras, run video analytics, and integrate surveillance with other physical security systems."Shukla notes that network-based video surveillance systems are becoming popular. Frost estimates the video surveillance market to grow from $992.1 million in 2006 to $3956.7 million in 2013.Analog vs. digitalAnalog video surveillance systems consists of analog cameras connected via cables to multiplexers and in-turn connected to monitors and key boards. But what happens when the area that needs to be monitored is a significant distance away and there is a need to record 7x24?Network surveillance solutions allow existing analog cameras to be connected to a video server, which is connected to the network, and monitored by any computer that is on the network, or the existing control room."Storage of the video can be done by network video recorders (NVRs), which can be anywhere on the network, as opposed to digital video recorders (DVRs), which need to be placed close to the cameras or the switcher/multiplexer. In a complete network surveillance solution, network cameras are used to connect directly to the IP network, without the need for an external encoder," says Shukla.Video surveillance deployments in Asia are mostly analog based due in part to the market's price sensitivity. But this is changing as the security threats continue to remain high on radar of both commercial and the public.Kiran Kumar, a Frost Research Associate, notes that government and transportation sectors are spearheading video surveillance deployments, with large projects for airports, city surveillance, and other critical infrastructure surveillance."Fast developing physical infrastructure such as airports, seaports, highways, and rail networks is a key driving force for the strong adoption for video surveillance systems," says Kumar.There are three main factors limiting the continuing growth of analog video surveillance systems:Cost: Set-ups and installation costs of traditional coaxial or fiber-based cabling for analog video systems over large areas is very high. Large-scale projects for city surveillance and monitoring of harbors and ports take a significant role in effecting change to network surveillance.Scalability: Despite DVRs having improved the recording quality of analog cameras, there is still the physical restriction of its installation near the analog matrix.Flexibility: Integration of analog video surveillance systems with other systems can be cumbersome. Analog surveillance systems are limited to centralized video analytics, which requires additional hardware, cabling and is difficult to scale.Benefits of network surveillanceDigital technology is helping extend the capability of surveillance beyond what can be achieved with traditional systems.Technology now allows us to monitor an area from any location in the world in real-time without any significant investment.Storage of video can be done on NVRs that can be anywhere on the network. How much video we can store digitally is limited only by the amount of hard disk space. And because the video traverses through the network, backups can be done remotely.Scalability of network surveillance systems is easy and inexpensive. Network cameras can be connected to the network without rewiring.With network surveillance systems, intelligence can be distributed either directly at the camera or encoder, or centralized on the NVR or a separate server.Network surveillance systems are cheaper to build and maintain with reusability of existing IP network infrastructure, highly scalable with little incremental costs, low maintenance costs, and ability to reuse existing legacy surveillance cameras and other display and monitoring equipment as key factors for adoption of digital surveillance techniques.Limitations of going digitalNot everything is bright and rosy. Due to its dependence on the network, security teams will need the support of the IT department."The key challenge to adoption is to get the security and IT teams to adopt network surveillance. Existing network infrastructure makes the proposition of network surveillance stronger. However, organizations where such infrastructure is less developed would be slow to move to network surveillance," says Shukla.He concedes that network surveillance adoption is changing the dynamics between the security personnel and the IT teams within enterprises, hindering its adoption rate. The introduction of network surveillance implies the participation of the IT division in security matters."Security personnel are typically more conservative and not open to major changes in their environments. Network surveillance adoption would depend on the successful interactions and communication between the two teams within an enterprise," notes Shukla.Although Frost & Sullivan expects the trend towards network surveillance to be strong, adoption of analog system will continue to grow as well, albeit slower than network surveillance deployments."While remote access, scalability, and distributed intelligence are the key drivers for network video surveillance, price, perceived reliability, and conservative nature of security teams to change and adopt new technologies will hinder adoption," says Kumar.Traditionally, cameras have been the point of entry for vendors into the market; subsequently their offerings include DVRs, NVRs, encoders, and software, together with switchers and multiplexers.Increasingly, due to the emergence of network surveillance solutions, there is an effort from vendors to approach the surveillance solution from the NVR or DVR front, by offering better management software, virtual matrix systems and video content analytics as a solution package.As traction for network video surveillance picks up in Asia Pacific, providing complete end-to-end surveillance solutions is expected to become a key to succeed in the market.



The essence of the campaign is to provide educational institutions with a complete, fully functional, easy-to–use and extremely secure Internet sharing solution at a minimal price, which connects an entire LAN to the Internet through a single IP address, as well as monitors and controls how users access the Internet with advanced access rules and statistics.The Internet is one of the most important and easiest ways to interact and obtain educational resources, but there are several obvious issues that need to be addressed before we open this door to our children.How do we protect pupils from adult or other inappropriate content? How do we secure a school network from virus attacks and intrusions? How can we monitor and control user Internet connections? How can we know exactly how much Internet traffic each computer and/or user consumes? Entensys provides UserGate Internet Security Server, a multifunctional, stable and secure software solution that enables network administrators to set up and easily manage their network users' Internet access. UserGate is easy to install, quick to deploy and simple to manage (it doesn’t require any special knowledge) and it has a clear, intuitive interface. The whole installation, including the settings procedure, takes about 10 minutes.UserGate is not only a very sophisticated Internet connection and proxy server. It now has a built-in dual antivirus core (Panda Software and Kaspersky, both industry leaders), an advanced Authentication Client and includes many other extremely high security capabilities. There are also extensive plans for more security settings in UserGate to make it even more of a multifunctional Internet security server, so you can set it up depending on your network specifics.Within this project, Entensys is focused on providing the strongest possible package of network hardware combined with UserGate Server as a complete network solution for Internet access sharing for German schools. In this effort, Entensys is working with HardwareWelten (http://www.hardwarewelten.de/), the innovative German provider of hardware, which together will supply customized solutions for public schools, boarding-schools and other private educational organizations.Entensys Corporation recognizes the need to provide a special discount to education and to government organizations. UserGate Internet Security Server is deeply discounted to make it affordable to students, teachers, staff and schools, including home schools. Entensys provides educational institutions a 40% discount for UserGate software.For sales enquires, customer service, technical support, or to contact project management, go to http://www.entensys.com/contactus/ To contact the Entensys partner in Germany, go to