Choosing an Appropriate Windows Server 2012 and Features - Assignment Example

Choosing an Appropriate Windows Server and Features Q1A. An IT team would face a number of challenges in an IT organizations. Networking is an essential practice to realize an efficient communication processes between different departments. Controlling the different parties involved in this processes is a great challenge since one needs to set up a number of policies that govern the processes, the security of the data being transacted on, the storage and retrieval of the information from the systems at any point securely, enhancing an easier to use interface for the users and a cheaper alternative for the entire organization, not leaving aside the performance of the system. These are the main challenges that befall the IT team in any organization. All these issues to be handled and mitigated there is need of using a powerful server that controls all other computers to enhance performance. This organization chose the Standard server edition over the other three Windows server 2012 editions. The organization was able to use the edition to bring about virtualization though not fully, enhancing safe and effective storage of data, automation of management schedules through the use of the PowerShell environment, and enhanced failover clustering and data deduplication services which promotes data backups and safety as well and the administration time are the main significant gains that the company enjoyed. B. The Windows Server 2012 Standard edition shares a number of features with the DataCenter edition of the same server. These features include the backup management in the cloud, clustering of the storage space, data duplication and enhanced storage space that offers a higher security for the data being stored. However, these two editions differ in one or two ways. The main differences include the cost of the DataCenter per processor is quite high compared to that of the Standard edition and also the level of virtualization in the DataCenter edition is much higher than that that is incorporated in the Standard edition. The main disadvantages of the Windows Server 2012 Standard edition is that it comes with some features that require a separate license which may be costly to the users as compared to other open source servers from the Linux vendors and also the limitation of the server on dual core processor machines is a disadvantage since it cannot install on the multi core machines. Q2A. The security of data is the main concern of the servers. Therefore the Windows Server 2012 was not left out to address this critical issue. It has a number of inbuilt security features that makes it a secure server to use. These features include the use of the ReFS file systems that ensures that the data in the disks is securely stored and retrieved. The SMB protocols and the FTP services enhance a secure transfer of data between hosts. The Applocker utility enables the administrators to manage and control the installation of applications in the organization. B. Due to the increased use of own devices in the business by employees there is need to harmonize the process of application installation and use to meet the standards of the organization. This makes the use of Applocker in the server as a good practice that controls the use and installation of applications. This also ensures that the information of the organization is safe in any case the device is lost or is tampered with. If these features are not configured and installed well the organization may operate in losses due to a number of overheads such as loss of crucial information, use of business devices for personal satisfactions, and even monetary losses due to the use of non-standard applications. Benefits of using Windows Server 2012 Disk Storage Technologies Q1A. Most workstations employ the RAID technology in disk storage. This groups a number of drives into a single logical drive that then enhances the improved performance of the system. This technology was initially used by the earlier versions of the Windows servers but the Windows server 2012 uses a well enhanced technology. This RAID technology supports the NTFS file system which in recent years it has been found venerable to corruptible issues where the metadata can be edited and hence affect the operating system from reading the original data and hence the security of data is not enhanced. B. Therefore, the Windows server 2012 comes with an inbuilt file system known as Resilience file system (ReFS) that is much secure compared to the NTFS system. This works with the principle of allocate on write which makes it much hard to corrupt the metadata crucially needed by the operating system. The other feature is a faster storage space and big enough to store data. This technology is much better than the RAID technology. It uses the just a bunch of disk instead of arrays of disks policy which makes it faster. Q2A. The Windows server 2012 comes with the features that enhance sharing of information and how it manages the sharing mechanisms. It’s the mandate of the server to ensure that the connection established during the sharing process is maintained until the information being shared is complete. The sharing strategy that was used earlier SMB (Server Message Block) was used but these system also provided a storage system that most times used to clash with the NTFS file system. B. The release of the Windows Server 2012 editions came with a well enhanced SMB protocol versions that solves the above problem. The SMB version 3 ensures that data to be shared is stored well and can be retrieved. This sharing feature also detects data errors during sharing and hence its main function is to create a connection and maintain it while the storage roles are left for the NTFS system. This has mitigated the clash to a greater extent and hence simplified the sharing processes. Printing problems and Networking implications of the Windows server 2012 Q1A. Printing in a network is done through a printer connected on the same network. Users on the same network may be sharing a printer or even two of them installed in the network. Devices in the same network are assigned unique addresses that uniquely identifies them from the other devices on the network. This makes it easier for intercommunication of devices so as correct information is sent to the right device. Printers also are given unique addresses that distinguishes them from the other workstations on the network. These addresses are known as the IP addresses. Therefore, when a user wants to print a document they send it to printer that is online and already installed on their machines. This printer then should be in the same network range with the computer device of the user. This make the communication process viable. B. However, a printer on the network may fail to print a document sent to it by a user. This may be as a result of a network failure, printer malfunction or even the printer went offline unconsciously. The problem too could be as a result of flooding of documents in the queue of the printer and hence it ends up jamming. Network failure could be an issue of the IP address assigned to the printer which may be having a different network ID from the sending user. This hampers the communication process and hence the printer ends up not printing the document. These issues could be troubleshoot by looking into the cause of the problem and then repairing it. A jammed printer could be solved by cancelling all the pending documents, a network problem could be solved by assigning a valid IP address to the printer and all the devices, and while the malfunctioning of the printer could be solved by repairing it manually or fixing the technical problem. A. The Windows server 2012 comes with a number of remote control features that enable the administrators to manage the servers and other resources from a certain central point. Some of the resources being managed from a remote point could is the storage space and network policies. B. Therefore, the RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) is a remote control feature that is used to manage the memory space from a remote point. PowerShell feature is a remote monitoring tool that automates some functions of the server. This eases the administrative of the administrator and hence saves on time and the resources of the organization. The disadvantage of this kind of feature is that failure of one node in the network may be hard to identify and hence leaving the network vulnerable to moles. Core Skills and Transformational Mind Set Q1A. Robert in his texts presents some of the key skills that a leadership body should employ to ensure that they realize success. He argues some of the main key points to put into consideration for the entire success of the system. He uses some of the points highlighted by an earlier scholar Burn and presents a number of points about transformational mindset. These points include systems thinking which is a skill that IT professionals should employ and view everything system wise so as they implement them wisely and effectively. B. Collaboration across boundaries that is social and business platforms makes the whole IT team come up with new ideas that makes them move greater heights when laying down the business informational systems. Roberts says that in today’s leadership people take different ideas and put them into one useful idea. This makes the overall outcome much effective and its output much productive. Adapting, creating and adjusting to new ways of problem solving. An IT professional team would use this method of solving problems to avoid leaving out of the real issues and handling problems that are yet to happen. This enables them to put into use the past and current methods of problem solving by bringing in the past good techniques. This three skills when well used and understood wholly they translate to an effective information system in a business and the IT professionals brag around their success. Q2A. Change is brought about an organization by the leaders who want it. Robert argues that there a number of transformational mind sets that leaders employ to bring about change. There are six of these elements but only a few of them can be put in place to realize a great success. In this case we are going to see on how some of this elements when put into use bring about the change that it is needed. B. Some of this elements include holistic thinking which focusses on the big image of the interrelationship between systems in an organization. The other element is a system thinking approach. This makes the IT leadership to see the entire parts of a system and their relationship. This makes it easy to implement the systems into the whole organization. Also the skill of social optimism which motivates the staff members to solve the most complex and urgent problems through corporation. This brings about the effective solution which translates to a change it the system. A Consultant’s Viewpoint and Relationships Q1A. Consultancy is a career like any other. Ethics and principles are needed to rightly address the problems of your clients. Before an individual considers to become a consultant they need first to put into considerations a number of issues so as to become a qualified professional. For instance to be an IT professional consultant Robert highlights a number of considerations that makes to the top ten list. This considerations include what to be consulted on, to know your clients, how to handle your clients effectively by understanding their problems and making them so confidential, understand yourself first, make sure that you do not dictate what your clients should do but leave everything for them to decide on the number of options you will have provided with them. B. Make the objective of your goals the guideline to achieve the best out of it all. This makes sure that you rely on the set procedures to be the best of you. Consider not taking sides when providing rationales since it may end up affecting your overall image and position to your clients when your advice fails to bring the desired output. IT professionals should think of their client, be positive minded and respectful to themselves and all these would make their way to the top seats in consultancy. The most single considerations is understanding the clients so as you present to them what suits them. Q2A. In any organization before putting in place of any system a number of differing opinions are brought about and this brings in the concept of accommodating the whole ideas so as to avoid hindering the relationship between different business units. As an IT professional one needs to ensure that before implementing an idea \about a system he or she comes up with the advantages and disadvantages which then place the idea on a scale that is favorable and considerable. B. Once the other business units looks into the whole idea and its positive outcomes and weighs them against its negatives they then come into a consensus and implements the system. This strategy ensures that all the business units are consulted fully and hence promotes and fosters the interrelationship between them. As an IT guy I would involve all the stakeholders and also try to be employ the core skills as outlined like the holistic thinking, social optimism and innovative and the humanistic thinking. Project Management Skills Formal and Informal Q1A. Project management is a recent discipline which equips individuals with the relevant knowledge on how to monitor and manage business or even government projects. This ensures that the project is planned, started and monitored towards its completion and a report written explaining all the stages and procedures followed to its success. B. The training skills on this field keeps on evolving since the management tools also keep on changing. A number of systems that automate the management process have been developed hence making a call to a constant review on the content of the training for project managers to fully understand the systems. This the solid reason as to why the skills and training of the managers has changed. Q2A. A Project Management Office is a central area in an organization where all the projects of the organization are drafted and initialized. The office harbors a number of project managers with the relevant skills to initiate and provide the managerial skills to see to it that the project is completed within the stipulated time and resources. Therefore, when setting up the PMO in any organization it is a good idea to understand all what the office would be handling, the location of the office and the status of the holders of the office. B. Involving a consultant firm would be a good idea but involving the owners of the office would be much better. This is because a project manager would narrow down the organization of the office to suit their interests and ensure that the office is comfortable to any project manager who would be given the opportunity to serve in it. So it would be advisable to consult a project manager so as to give an insight n what should be done to get prepared for the real mission. SEC 459 SOX Q1A. This act was drafted in the year 2001 with the US authorities to curb some frauds exhibited by a number of companies that wanted to gain competitive advantage by manipulating their audits so as to attract investors. This in turn led to a great loss since investors lost confidence with the involved companies and hence the companies lost. This act contained clauses that defined what should be considered when conducting an audit to any firm. It defines that any firms’ electronic records those stored internally and in public corporations like the stoke exchange authorities should be compliant to the law. B. The law cuts across to the IT service providers like the mail companies to be compliant with the law. Data collected through the Microsoft Office products should be considered as evidence during investigation to compliance. The electronic mails sent, received and the short messages also would be used as evidence when conducting an audit in any firm. Q2A. Commercial messages sent electronically via emails, short messages or multi messaging services to recipients without their consent is considered spam. This messages may be aiming at advertising a product or services. Mostly they get the contact information of the targeted addressees from the communication service vendors such as mail providers that keep a rich database of their clients’ information. This kind of messages are prohibited under the Spam Act 2003 but it is quite difficulty to identify them and bring those involved into conviction. B. Prosecution of this kind of crimes becomes hard since most of the time the senders are not identified, the recipients also fail to report many of this scenarios, and the communication service providers hide all the relevant evidence of their involvement and hence makes the justice bodies impossible to give out the judgments. This act also centers its operation in the Australian region which makes it hard to prosecute the crimes in other parts of the world where the act has not been fully adopted. Application Security, BCP, and Major Workforce Loss Q1A. Organizations poses a number of networks which even sometimes they fail to understand where it originates and ends. The boundary of such networks constitute the network perimeter. This perimeter has a number of network devices configured to handle the process of intercommunication. These devices include routers, switches, security cameras, workstations and overall the servers. This devices needs a management scheme that should secure the whole network from malicious attacks from loopholes not well known to network administrators of the organization especially when the network is too large. Most of these security problems are solved by employing the perimeter techniques. B. These techniques analyses the devices perimeter wise and looks into the component of the network that is vulnerable to attacks. In recent years a number of competent software have been developed that can be used with the techniques so as to examine each and every component in the network perimeter and deduce where a security threat could emerge from. For example, the NeuralStar utility is integrated to diagnose and provide information about a router connected in the network and this makes many organizations much oriented towards the perimeter techniques rather than the software and development level techniques. Q2A. Any organization focusses on the continuity of the business for its future. A focused business would always ensure that its workforce is retained even when circumstances are high difficulty. This reduces the costs of recruiting and training new staff upon loss of the existing staff members. Therefore, for an IT organization its necessary that the business continuity plan (BPC) comes with a number of effective plans to ensure that the organizations maintains its workforce even to the extremes of operation. To maintain the team I would ensure that they are entitled to compensations in case the disaster affects their well-being. B. The strategy would include a number of clauses that involve enhancing the loyalty of the employees to the business plan. This would en\sure that only the loyal staff members would be fully compensated upon loss and even motivate them to work under hard conditions. Management is the key concept here since a good management would find good credit from its staff members. Cost-Benefit Analysis and Configuration Management Q1A. There are a number of risk identification techniques. The choice on which technique to use depends on a number of things. Firstly, one needs to identify the depth of the risk to be identified, the locality, and the resources available to fund the process, the competence of the facilitators and the level of confidence needed. B. From my own discerning point I would recommend the brainstorming technique since it provides the whole team with a number of differing points and a point is wholly exhausted before it is documented. As compared to other techniques such as interviews and survey which are limited to the willingness of the respondents the above method would even reach a consensus with the involved parties so as to avoid future clashes. The brainstorming technique also saves on time and costs since only selected individuals with the knowledge are involved and on a one or two sittings everything would have been completed and the appropriate actions taken. The main inputs to this technique are ideas from the present members of the team and they are very necessary since from here a conclusions and recommendations are made. Q2A. Intrusion detection systems are software programs or devices that are used to examine and identify the entry of malicious information in network. They are mainly used to troubleshoot a networking environment and even sometime an administrator may disguise false problems or results into the intrusion system so as to gauge its effectiveness. The IDS applications or machines are very important in network administration and this makes it easy to monitor the system from malicious entrance. B. Rules are used with the IDS so as to ensure that there some exceptions that would not be hampered from taking place. This calls for a security officer to enforce false negative and false positive rules into the systems to see its effectiveness in determining and locating the malicious points in the network. This makes it ready to handle the actual problems once they occur in the network. This gives the security officers the confidence of the systems and hence no tension at all of any occurring network problem especially that of intrusion. Reference 1. Securing Your Network: Identifying and Managing Perimeter Network Devices retrieved from The Networkzone on July 6, 2015 from the http://www.kratosnetworks.com/networkzone/post/securing-your-network-identifying-and-managing-perimeter-network-devic/ 2. Risk identification methods- 12 types retrieved on 6th July 2015 from the https://manager.clearrisk.com/Resources/RiskTool/Risk_Identification_Methods_-_12_Types 3. Intrusion Detection Systems: a Primer retrieved on 5th July 2015 from the http://www.esecurityplanet.com/network-security/intrusion-detection-systems-a-primer.html Read More