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Sometimes we can be guilty of making assumptions. We can enable a remote access technology without much concern for impacting operations on the internal network right? Wrong! Because DirectAccess modifies the behaviour of the Windows7 machine you need to make absolutely certain all the ducks are in a line or you risk internally connected users being denied [...] It looks like 2010 could be the year most organisations kick start a desktop refresh. I suspect many held off on upgrading to Vista so for many it’s a Windows XP to Windows 7 upgrade path. I wanted to revisit some of the old challenges in these projects and look at some of the new [...] In my experiences the difference between companies that have an effective risk control function and those that don’t is night and day. Businesses take risks, good businesses take measured risks. The same approach applies to the IT department. A good risk controller needs to have the confidence of the business combined with complete respect from the [...] According to my good friend Martin Williams there is a take away restaurant in the North West where you can get a Vegetarian burger topped with Bacon and Cheese. It’s called the contradiction burger. I think the new DirectAccess feature in Windows 2008 R2 is brilliant, however, the early documentation is a little short in terms [...] Sometimes application troubleshooting when it comes to digital certificates can lead you to doing an awful lot of reading. In a nutshell there are four things you need to have clear in your mind. Does the certificate need to be trusted outside of your organisation? I remember a few years ago Microsoft created linkage between product releases (to generate cumulative sales?). I believe the trio were Exchange, Vista and Office. While the cumulative features had merit I don’t think there was a strong enough business driver. So now we have a similar linkage between Windows 2008 and Windows 7. This time [...] I recently finished an exercise defining the technical standards for one of Europe’s largest managed service providers. As part of the exercise I gathered the key capabilities across the various infrastructure silos across the Data-centre. I found that it was a trawl to separate the facts from the fiction in the vendor marketing. I have gathered [...] TOGAF has a method called the ADM (Architectural Development Method), the good news is that the same method applies to defining any Architecture (including setting up the Architecture Practice itself). The ADM breaks down into phases that are run iteratively (not always in a set sequence). So lets get started with Phase A: Phase A – Setting [...] TOGAF breaks down Architecture into the following pillars: Business Architecture Phase B on our quest to establish an EA practice focuses on Business Architecture: Terminology: Define a set of standards so that everyone is talking consistent language (formal term here is Ontology) TOGAF uses a term “Enterprise Continuum” and I wish they would think of a different phrase as it throws me each time. It’s important we know exactly what it is as it’s the key deliverable for Phase C. It relates to three elements: Architecture Continuum Consider the repository as a folder full of documents, the usual [...] The good news is that most of the legwork to get the ball rolling is done in phases A to C. Here is what is left: Phase D: Define the technology that is used within the EA practice, ideally a TOGAF aware repository. If nothing else set standards for people to follow; for example always create [...] Let’s start by establishing what does an EA practice do for your organisation. The EA practice should identify Where are you? The reason the methodology is so important is that all three of these answers are always changing. The wind of change blows in for a huge array [...] I believe the first rule of drawing comparisons is to compare apples with apples. As I mentioned in an earlier blog Vsphere is a group of products, Hyper-V is a capability of one product – namely Windows 2008. So let’s start with VMware ESX v Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V I see a lot of HyperVisor experts jumping [...] Most people see digital certificates as a black art with layers of complexity. Having designed and deployed a Public Key Infrastructure for an Investment Bank I will try and convey the simplicity and risks. A Digital Certificate has two parts, a public and private key. The public key can lock your door but only the private [...] My eye starts twitching when I see fancy marketing terminology, so I have taken a slightly overdue relook at the VMware stack. And stack is the first answer to my question, VSphere is essentially a stack of software, mostly updated versions of existing VMware products but some new and worthy of attention. ESX and ESXi: ESX(i) is [...] I met with my old friend Steve Tuppen this week who is incredibly sharp with regard to driving cost savings into large IT Service Delivery Contracts. I learned a thing or two about how financial (not capability) drivers are likely to shape IT Architecture in the future. In a nutshell organisations will expect to switch IT suppliers [...] I suspect there are certainly still a few barriers to large corporates adopting the cloud but the introduction of VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) certainly lowers one of them. This capability allows organisations to essentially create a satellite network that is linked via industry standard IPSec to their own network. As with most features this is an added [...] Culture change for the management of servers. I have been digging a little deeper into the way Servers are managed in the Amazon Cloud. To convey where I think this will lead IT (both in and out of the cloud) lets take a look at the history. In the early days a server was built using the [...] How will the cloud influence IT architecture? I suspect Legal restrictions on data will force some adopters to operate in a mix of local and cloud infrastructure. Certainly it will force EMEA adopters to position customer data into the cloud making sure its not held in the US. The nature of eggs in one basket [...] Having been in many organisations where methodologies are not talked about at parties I was keen to make sure this one was adaptable. TOGAF is iterative and oh joy the recommended first iteration sees the tuning of the methodology to suit the organisation (the methodology is called the ADM :Architectural Development Method). The Open Group book [...] I took a look at the plans Cisco have and my first instinct was to think about the management and support aspects. Often organisations don’t move as quickly as the technology does. I remember a few years ago when Blades arrived on the scene, I was [...] Time, Quality and Cost. I was talking to the boss last week and he reminded me that he was the bloke that told me this in the first place. If you do well you will achieve 2 of the 3. Its usually very difficult to get all 3. So my (erm his) advice: Before you start on any [...] |
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