The Highlander Principle » Management

Windows 7 DirectAccess internal network may become inaccessible

Mark Preston — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:21:52 +0000

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 [...]

Windows 7 upgrade and replacement from XP and Vista

Mark Preston — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:41:41 +0000

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 [...]

DirectAccess in Windows 2008 R2 with Windows 7

Mark Preston — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:21:31 +0000

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 [...]

DataCenter Buzzword Bingo

Mark Preston — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:32:23 +0000

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 [...]

How to establish a TOGAF9 Enterprise Architecture Practice – Phase A

Mark Preston — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:15:31 +0000

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 [...]

How to establish a TOGAF9 Enterprise Architecture Practice – Phase B

Mark Preston — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:15:07 +0000

TOGAF breaks down Architecture into the following pillars:

Business Architecture Application and Data Architecture Technology 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) Process: The ADM (architectural development method) is open to be tuned to suit [...]

How to establish a TOGAF9 Enterprise Architecture Practice – Phase C

Mark Preston — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:14:48 +0000

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 Solutions Continuum Architecture Repository

Consider the repository as a folder full of documents, the usual [...]

How to establish an TOGAF9 Enterprise Architecture Practice – Phase D to H

Mark Preston — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:47:01 +0000

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 [...]

How to establish a TOGAF 9 Enterprise Architecture Practice

Mark Preston — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:44:29 +0000

Let’s start by establishing what does an EA practice do for your organisation. The EA practice should identify

Where are you? Where do you want to be? How do you get there?

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 [...]

VMware vSphere v Microsoft HyperV

Mark Preston — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:48:06 +0000

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 [...]