If you’re like me, and are familiar with setting up virtual machines (VMs) on VMware 4 & 5 ESXi servers using Microsoft Windows, then you have probably gotten used to the simplicity and user-friendliness of installing the VMware tools in the operating system. You just open the VM’s console window, log on to the desktop…
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It’s important for all workstations and servers to agree what time it is. There’s a long list of reasons for this, including log file synchronization, and avoiding the inevitable end-user complaints when their computer’s time does not match their phone’s time. Unfortunately, when I recently set up a LAN with a number of Windows Server…
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To stay on top of security you need to regularly review your server configurations. It’s helpful to build a checklist to be used as part of an internal security audit review. Below is just such a checklist, specifically tailored to audit a SQL 2008 Server running on Windows Server 2008. Most of what’s in this…
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I think the “Log On To” setting within the Account tab of an Active Directory user could easily be overlooked. As simple as this setting is, it’s very easy to forget about it in favor of something more elaborate when attempting to restrict user access to specific computers. Let’s say you want to allow a…
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Change tracking, resource allocation and security auditing are three very important issues for any IT administrator, particularly DBAs (database administrators). One item that can easily be overlooked is at the point of database creation. Why is the database needed? Who is requesting it? Will the database be used for production or testing/development? What are the…
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