Protect your virtual infrastructure with Hytrust Appliance v2.0
Looking to get control over your virtual infrastructure? Then consider the Hytrust Appliance, which allows you to set up policies, access rules, and other security measures to segregate your virtual infrastructure from your users. It comes with integration with Microsoft’s Active Directory users and groups, and a newly designed user interface with the ability to handle extremely large virtual installations.
We tested the appliance on a network of eight VM ESXi and ESX hosts during March 2010.
Pricing: Download for free, limited to managing three hosts
Standard edition $1000 per typical host
Enterprise: $1500 per typical host including federation across multiple appliances
Hytrust.com
ITexpertVoice: Prowess SmartDeploy Eases Windows 7 Migration
SmartDeploy is a software tool that converts virtual machine disk files into Windows Image files that can be used to deploy new OSs, including Windows 7, across an enterprise. This screencast demonstrates its features. SmartDeploy is easier to use than Microsoft’s WAIK, and Kbox, both of which we reviewed earlier on ITexpertVoice.com.
You can watch the video here:
http://itexpertvoice.com/home/prowess-smartdeploy-eases-windows-7-migration/#more-1781
ITExpertVoice screencast: Using Windows AIK to Automate Windows 7 Deployment
If you are looking for a way to do massive Windows 7 migration, Microsoft has updated its own tool sets for this purpose, called the Windows Automated Installation Kit or WAIK. It has a lot of new features for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This screencast shows how it works:
http://itexpertvoice.com/home/using-windows-aik-to-automate-windows-7-deployment/
Better backups, faster restores with SEPATON DeltaStor deduplication technology
SEPATON’s S2100 is a virtual tape library backup appliance that can work to significantly reduce backup completion and restore times and cut down on storage requirements. It has a flexible capacity to hold from 10TB to over 1 PB and a wide collection of policies that can be crafted to particular applications and circumstances.
We tested a unit on a live network with actual production data with Firefox running on Windows XP in March 2010.
Price: starts at $110,500.
Backup products supported include Symantec’s NetBackup, IBM Tivoli
Storage Manager, EMC NetWorker and HP Data Protector.
SEPATON S2100-ES2 v5
400 Nickerson Road
Marlborough, MA 01752
Sepaton.com
508 490 7900
Outbound content compliance using Global Velocity
Looking to do a better job monitoring all of your network’s applications portfolio? The GV-2010 is a unit designed to give you very granular control over how your end users use particular applications, and inspect all of your content leaving your network.
We tested the appliance on a small network in February 2010.
Global Velocity GV-2010
Globalvelocity.com
St. Louis MO
314 880 2900
Kace Kbox: Best Way to Massively Migrate Windows XP Desktops to Windows 7
Kbox (which recently was acquired by Dell) is used to manage and control desktop system images that contain user files and applications and — with its Systems Management Appliance, sold separately — to do PC inventory and audits. It also works with both virtual and physical machines too. Unlike the PC Mover and Zinstall approaches, they are designed for large-scale deployments of hundreds or more PCs.
You can watch my screencast review here at ITExpertVoice.com.
Codeless Ajax Development with Alpha Five
Alpha Five is a powerful database and Web applications server and development environment that has been around for many years and continues to get more powerful but not at the expense of ease of use.
We tested Alpha 5 v10 on a Windows XP running SP2 in February 2010.
There are numerous tutorials, along with documentation, copious code examples and videos:
- http://docs.google.com/View?id=d52ghw8_92f9r2m4dx
- http://www.ajaxvideotutorials.com/videos/help/01intro/
- http://65.75.250.238/webApplicationDemoV10/default/index.a5w
Alpha Five v10
http://alphasoftware.com/products/v10/
70 Blanchard Road,
Burlington, MA 01803
781.229.4500
Prices: Developer $349
Application Server $599, both for $799
Unlimited Runtime licenses $599
Windows XP or later required with at least IE v7 or Firefox 3.0
Using Windows 7 Remote Server Administration Tools
RSAT makes it easier to manage your collection of Windows 2003 and 2008 servers remotely and securely from your Windows 7 desktop. This screencast shows how it works.
There’s plenty to learn, including setting up new file shares, managing the built-in Internet Information Server Web services, handling group policies and other sophisticated features. The installation is somewhat convoluted and you’ll want to spend some time reading the help files too.
See my screencast video at: http://itexpertvoice.com/home/using-windows-7-remote-server-administration-tools/
Using the Windows 7 PowerShell Scripting Environment
PowerShell ISE is a visual command-line editor that used to be called Graphical
PowerShell. In this video, we show you how to become familiar with its extensive
command set which can be used to automate common tasks.
You may view the latest post at ITExpertVoice here:
http://itexpertvoice.com/home/using-the-windows-7-powershell-scripting-environment/
Tune Up Utilities 2010 to tweak your PC’s performance
Make your Windows PC run faster and more reliably with this updated utility program. It can do many common tasks quickly and automatically, and clean up your hard drive and registry settings too.
http://www.tune-up.com
Price: $49.95, for up to three PCs
Supports Windows 7, Vista and XP with SP2, in both the 32- and 64-bit OSs