The Highlander Principle

Has private cloud already been ‘done’?

Mark Preston — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:39:39 +0000

I have learned that things mean different things to different people. I don’t think many organisations have fully adopted private cloud capabilities (in fact some are nowhere close). (and there is probably no correct answer here – highly subjective).

So what should a private cloud offer – my 2 pennies:

1. To virtualise the existing estate and [...]

What are some of the technical challenges for cloud adoption?

Mark Preston — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:38:57 +0000

Challenge Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS) Software as a Service (SaaS) Provisioning Need to adapt in-house processes to 3rdparty providers tools.Once provisioned resources can/should be managed by internal tools. Need to adapt in-house applications/packages to deploy on a 3rd party managed platform Need to manage entitlement of users within the 3rd party application Monitoring Need performance / SLA monitoring [...]

What are the CxO challenges before cloud adoption?

Mark Preston — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:35:43 +0000

Role Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS) Software as a Service (SaaS) CEO Why did we invest in our own datacentre capacity? What’s the roadmap? Why do we not go direct to SaaS? Does this improve our business agility? Can we change business processes more quickly? CFO How do we forecast the costs if they are variable? Does this impact our [...]

Web 2.0 Architecture

Mark Preston — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:50:43 +0000

I have just finished reading Web 2.0 Architecture: What Entrepreneurs and Architects need to know. A rather good book which pulls together content from an awful lot of places.

My thinking on the topic is that Web 2.0 is a bit of a marketing type term that does not solidly define anything; here is my take [...]

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 [...]

Do we really need an IT Risk Control Department?

Mark Preston — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:31:07 +0000

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 [...]

Windows 2008 DirectAccess and Active Directory: The Contradiction Burger

Mark Preston — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:59:04 +0000

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 [...]

Troubleshooting certificates with a focus on Windows 2008 R2 DirectAccess

Mark Preston — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:53:37 +0000

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? Does the certificate have a revocation list that needs to be checked [...]

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 [...]