Small Business OS: Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003

Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 presents the most intuitive interface by far among the products in this story. Small-business end users, consultants, in-house IT experts, and VARs responsible for installing and maintaining systems will all appreciate how easy it is to navigate this OS. We also found the Web-based e-mail client Outlook Web Access unparalleled in the number and quality of features offered. And SBS 2003's integration and synchronization features for mobile devices were both impressive and unique.

Using Microsoft's remote-access feature, we felt as if we were sitting at our workplace desktop; there was simply no learning process needed. Such features are handy both for in-house IT managers working from their own workstations within a company and for administrators or VARs that manage systems remotely.

The IT-oriented set will be pleased with the many configuration wizards, which make even the most complex server installation and configuration tasks straightforward. Many server hardware manufacturers are offering the system preinstalled—a benefit for VARs, which can just perform minimal customization at their customers' sites.

SBS 2003 is the first server OS that transparently integrates Exchange, without requiring a separate purchase and dedicated configuration. With this product, Microsoft has set the standard for small business server operating systems.

Net Integration Technologies NITIX Autonomic Linux Server OS earns an honorable mention as an extremely integrated solution that is innovative and secure. This is a good choice for small businesses that want to deploy a comparatively simple infrastructure without ongoing reliance on VARs or highly qualified IT staff for maintenance and management.

Source:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1436660,00.asp

Computer Service Business Success and the Need to Focus

Do you own a small business computer service business that needs better marketing results?

Many computer consultants start out thinking the home user, or B2C (Business to Consumer) market is the right place to be; but they quickly realize the difficulty of making a profit as a one-person (maybe two-person) operation catering to the needs of home users.

If you own a computer service business that wants to provide solutions to small businesses, you need to realize that there are a lot of different types of small businesses out there.

#1: Know About Home-Based Businesses and Micro-Small Businesses. A home-based business typically just involves 1-2 computers and an individual. A micro-small business is just one very small step up from that in size, with 5-10 employees and that many or fewer computer systems. If you focus too much on home-based businesses and micro-small businesses, you’ll have a hard time selling a lot of ongoing services agreements. While both types of businesses are technically within the definition of “small business,” they may not be the best clients for your computer service business.

#2: Avoid Targeting Micro-Small and Home-Based Businesses. First off, these kinds of small businesses often have lots of consumer-grade PC’s, which will not be a big help for implementing sophisticated client/server networking solutions. Second, these kinds of small businesses often use pirated software, which will give you major problems when you start to develop long-term technology plans and complex networks. Third, most of these kinds of small businesses will be reluctant, and often unable, to pay for your sophisticated, high-end professional services. Fourth, these kinds of tiny small businesses often believe that IT is not that important to their company, so they don’t need the benefits you are offering. And finally, these kinds of tiny small businesses are usually too small to afford a real, dedicated server and a real client/server network, making your solutions overkill.

#3: Great Computer Service Business Success Resides in Small Businesses with 10 or More PCs. Computer service business owners that target companies with at least 10 PC’s are generally more successful at building strong businesses. At that point, small businesses cannot continue to run peer-to-peer networks. They also cannot afford to wait for volunteers and moonlighters to get around to responding to needs or emergencies. Small businesses services that have 10 or more systems start to get really serious about putting in real client server networks, dependable back-up solutions, reliable power protection and secure firewalls. At this size, small business decision makers usually understand the need for more sophisticated total business solutions.

Source: http://www.itworld.com/channel/58897/computer-service-business-success-and-need-focus

New Security Issues Raised by Server Virtualization

Many organizations are relying on the IT policies, processes and toolsets established in the “pre-virtual” datacenter to manage and protect virtual servers, which makes sense. However, virtualized environments do face the same operational threats and risks as traditional servers. But, there are also some specific server security implications that must be considered.

New Operating System

The virtualization layer, is effectively another operating system in the data center – the first in a long time that brings configuration and patching issues.

The good news is that hypervisors tend to carry a much smaller footprint than a traditional operating system with a correspondingly lower potential for security holes. And you will not find a hypervisor surfing the Internet and downloading code. But at the same time it is still relatively immature product, and vulnerabilities are continually found. These vulnerabilities are usually quickly fixed, but should be monitored and tracked.

The maturity of hypervisor technology also shows in its vetting and certificating infrastructure. Plug-ins and add-ons, for the most part, do not go through the testing and certification processes that we see on standard OS’s which can be problematic.

New Target in the Datacenter

Given its access to multiple Virtual Machines (VMs), the hypervisor is an obvious target for attackers, which if compromised could potentially provide access to a range of servers rather than a single “physical” server. And, you only have to look at the buzz coming out of the Black Hat conferences to understand how much of a target the hypervisor represents.

Intrahost threats

A successful guest breakout, would result in an attacker gain access to all traffic from the virtual machines. This was an attack in a lab, but you can bet these researchers are not the only ones in this race.

Referred to as “Hyperjacking”, an attack like this would lead to a compromised platform, allowing full access to all hosted guests. Malicious software could also disguise its presence from traditional security tools that reside in software layers above the hypervisor.

While from a pragmatic point of view, we have not yet heard of a working prototype or found a virus in the wild that attacks the hypervisor yet; - the writing is on the wall and it is only a matter of time before we do.

Existing Security Tools

The traffic inside the host effectively occurs on a “private LAN”, meaning that traditional network server security tools cannot see it, making it impossible to inspect or protect traffic inside this “dead zone.”

Also, many types of security and monitoring tools need to know what they are protecting and where it is in order to be effective - the mobility of VMS can be problematic here.

Other security technologies like IDS, IPS, Data Leak Prevention and Malware Prevention also can be impacted. The constant change enabled by virtualization can place dynamic demands on any “static” types of security solutions, in even small virtualized infrastructures.

Increased Risk of Sprawl

With virtualization we are now dealing with environments where traditional control systems and processes does not work very well, where IT staff is having to plug the gaps with manual process and tracking, and where new VMs can be deployed in minutes. This means a much higher risk of sprawl in the virtual world than in the physical.

In working with customers we have found that most organizations with reasonable control systems will still have around 30 percent of the VMs in their environment that are unnecessary or obsolete, but it takes an audit to figure out which ones and where they are.

Sprawl also increases complexity. Running more VMs in the environment than you need make it

* More difficult to spot the dangers
* More difficult to maintain configurations, and
* More difficult to troubleshoot

Source: itworld.com/virtualization/59445/new-security-issues-raised-server-virtualization

Microsoft updates SMB server line

Microsoft Corp. has updated its all-in-one server for small businesses, and added an additional product to its server line for mid-sized businesses with up to 300 users.

Windows Small Business Server accommodates up to 75 users, while larger businesses now have the option of Windows Essential Business Server 2008, according to Constanza Zalba, product manager for SMB servers for Microsoft Canada.

“Canada is primarily a small and mid-size country,” Zalba said. And Canadian SMBs tend to view IT differently from their American counterparts; while only 30 per cent of U.S. SMBs have an internal IT staff, 60 per cent of Canadia SMBs do, she said.

“Technology takes on a much more strategic importance in the company (in Canada),” she said.

Steve Tong, manager of information systems for Toronto Grace Hospital, said the hospital had been running the 2003 version of Small Business Server. The central management window for SQL, Exchange and SharePoint servers “made the difference” in the decision to go to EBS.

“It almost gives me a dashboard view in the morning” of the status of the network, Tong said. Using the single server package means a 30 to 40 per cent savings, and a reduction from seven servers to three.

Grace’s IT staff of three – supporting 275 users on about 100 machines -- had only a week to migrate the system onto the new platform, but since it has a similar look and feel to SBS 2003, they were confident they’d be able to go live on time, Tong said. The migration took place in 10 to 12 hours over a weekend.

An included migration tool checks for active directory and DNS issues and the like, then graphically designs the new network, saving the design as an XML file.

The server was deployed on an Intel Modular 5000 server with an integrated storage area network donated by Intel Corp.

Via:itworldcanada.com/a/Daily-News/6eaf3a92-63af-4191-98f9-b26ca224a050.html