Month: May 2013

To date, cloud computing has not yet gained popularity among customers, due to the lack of understanding and a normal sense of caution to all new. However, according to many CIOs, workers in the companies, the market for cloud computing and infrastructure by 2014 will be sufficiently formed to take its rightful place among the IT-technologies. Even now, in spite of the difficulties, several suppliers of commercial decisions confidently offer customers an understandable model sought solutions based on cloud computing.

Currently, among the popular destinations of Cloud Hosting, which can be confidently implemented in commercial operation, solutions can be identified with the use of virtualization technologies. Convenient to implement such solutions in private cloud environments, controlled by an organization. The benefit of large companies that will raise the jobs of employees to thin clients is obvious. This technique will minimize the costs for maintenance and administration of computer technology companies, as well as save energy, as thin clients is 10 times more economical than PC in electricity consumption.

Saving energy and support costs of IT department – Using the cloud based virtualization for development and testing, developers can expect to obtain the necessary server capacity at any time.

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The solutions offered in the cloud are efficient and profitable in real. Although it is not being implemented because hardly anyone has the time and money to do it. It’s like with a healthy lifestyle: you know you should eat a healthy diet and do sports, but there’s always something going on, which has a higher priority.

The idea of a data center is in the minds of IT gurus since I saw the first computer, and even though everyone knows that it is needed, most will never realize.

If we eliminate the concept of marketing babble of cloud hosting, it is what we are left with the outsourcing and data center automation implemented through server virtualization.

This is confirmed by the results of research conducted by Information Week – the results are strikingly similar to what it was two years ago. In short, any company is computerized, but none as much as it wanted. Both today and in 2013, only 28% of respondents reported extensive use of data centers. The reasons for this are the same – other projects have higher priority and lack of budget. The last but one on the list is the inability to quantify the return on investment, and at the end of the belief that the technologies are not mature enough.

The main benefit of finding set of investments:

Optimize the use of server resources

Improving data security, increased storage resources

Scalability and power facilities for servers

The project should not impact on income and employment. According to our research, it is impossible to estimate the ROI, since investments in IT do not have direct impact on the financial results of the company. Can only estimate that updating the existing environment in the cost of closure to the 9 x cost of upgrading the server and enforced would be an increased demand for processing power / space or disk failures.

In practice, our policy is non-interference in IT, unless it is necessary – in this case, you can simplify it for your return to equate the cost of investment in a virtual environment with the replacement / upgrade of the physical environment, ie 5-10 years.

Does your company use cloud computing? – No, but think about it….

Thus, firefighting tactics still replace strategic planning. A common rule is to meet current needs, without thinking where will be the company for 5-10 years.

Paradoxically, the transition to the cloud seems to be most likely in small firms, where according to the “all hands on deck” can be omitted embarrassing separate corporate procedures and the necessary budget.

Cloud computing is not necessarily reducing the cost incurred by the company. It may even be increased. If, however, increases productivity and competitiveness- The game is worth to play.

Google counts unified space of its Gmail product, Drive and photo albums on Google+. Now the 10 GB Gmail will be added to Google Drive 5 GB, totaling 15 GB of free space.

You no longer need to worry about the type of data: sharing space occurs automatically. Who uses very little e-mail and the Drive can store more messages, the same way that users always drive erasing emails can store more files.

The management page of space was updated to include the use of each service.

By sharing Gmail, users are no longer limited to 25 GB: buy additional cloud storage for the Google account will automatically increase the free space to be used by Gmail, since the total is shared.

The news should be released to all Gmail users free. In the coming weeks Google Apps users will also receive the unification of space, in this case getting 30GB (more common than in Gmail).

In IT, there are no limits. What 3 years ago was a utopia for many, seems to have come true. Clearly, the cloud changes both the company and the IT department of a company.

Analysts, including visionary Steve Jobs, saying that computers will enter in the “home”. We will not save the data on personal computers, the iPad, Android or Surface and we will not buy software licenses that are “in the cloud”.

What is “cloud Computing”?

Cloud computing is a technology that allows users and companies to use data and applications via the Internet. Basically, cloud allows users to use any type of application without installation and access files from any computer with internet access. This technology lets you organize, gather and process data more efficiently. Hire these services and pay exactly for you use.

The most important principle about the cloud is that these services are configurable and scalable. Connect to servers via the Internet and from there use the data and software.

An example of cloud is the email from Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail, etc.. We use a computer to connect via the Internet servers to Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail etc. as we read the email. Billions of people do this and none of us wants to purchase a email server at home. Analogy is “if you want to drink milk, do not buy the whole cow”. Email service providers dealing in all servers and their management. We benefit from them.

How cloud hosting services changed the business?

Cloud is, above all, a strategic decision taken at top management level. According to a Deloitte survey, 60% of IT companies were considered as a cost center or service provider and only 38% is considered as “value adding partner”. 2% of respondents did not answer.

In these years of economic crisis, the IT department must help to manage the growth and business transformation. Choosing cloud solutions should be aligned with the strategy, constantly developing new ideas or improving old ones.

Cloud Computing

Companies producing cloud computing solutions define their own standards through technology. The common point of these is to solve today’s challenges of any business in cloud services, integrating three components: infrastructure, platform and software:

The cost of a mail server or storage is composed of hardware cost, software cost (if not free distribution), patron of the employee cost of IT that you install, the monthly cost of the power that feeds it, the monthly cost of maintenance of special room where it is stored (16 degrees C) and costs reflected in salary, monthly management of IT administrator. Efficiency of such a server would justify a large part of these costs if they are used at fullest, which is very rare.

Some users occasionally use some type of software. And then the question arises, why the company purchase a license for software that you can rent it as long as needed and pay so much less?

In India, there are few public institutions that have solved problems using cloud solutions. The Ministry of Education has the most visited portal for admission to college. The particularity of this project is that loading systems focus on short periods, around exams.

It makes no sense to complex computer systems for a few days of the year, instead rent these systems exactly for how long they are needed and what capacity you need.

Cloud computing will come sooner or later in our lives, either at home or at work. “Cloud” technology is a step designed to help the company and naturally came to meet business and individual needs.

With the ASR, we can create sets of regular “backups”, which may be part of a plan to “Disaster Recovery”, and can be used as a last resort in cases of failure, after we have already exhausted other alternatives recovery.

Imagine the following situation: Monday morning, you just install new software or application on a dedicated server, maybe even a domain controller. After installation, during boot, the following message appears: “NTLDR is missing. Press any key to continue.” Butterflies in your stomach, you try a new boot, now in safe mode, then last mode known as good configuration, and nothing. Your server does not want to cooperate … And you need it working ASAP. Well, it seems that the only solution is to reinstall Windows again, patches, applications, drivers, security templates, etc, etc, etc ….

For such critical situations, ASR – Automated System Recovery is something that really fit the requirement, feature first implemented in Windows XP, and made available to the servers from Windows Server family.

With the ASR, we can create sets of regular “backups”, which may be part of a plan to “Disaster Recovery”, and can be used as a last resort in cases of failure, after we have already exhausted other alternatives recovery.

As the ASR works

ASR works with “Windows Setup” to rebuild the storage settings and physical disks of a server, including partitions and files “boot” and “system”, allowing the server to operate properly again. This process includes the use of a “ASR floppy disk,” which store information before the disaster, which are used to restore the server. After a complete restoration of ASR, you simply restore the user data or application files.

»Attention

The ASR does not include files or partitions that are not in the “boot” and “system” partition. Thus, any user data that may have been lost, must be restored through a backup policy. The ASR does NOT replace the backup policy users data or other information. It should be used in conjunction with such procedures.

Creating ASR backupSolutions

The ASR can be divided into two components: backup and restore. The “backup” component can be accessed through its own backup tool for Windows (ntbackup.exe), selecting the “Automated System Recovery Preparation Wizard”, as illustrated below:

Figure 1

The next step is to define where the backup file (. Bkf) will be recorded as shown below:

Figure 2

The Generated File Contains The Following Information:

– System State: set of information pertaining to the operating system essential for its proper functioning. Include the registry, COM + based, file system and boot files and Windows File Protection. The System State may also include base Certificates, the base Active Directory, plus the SYSVOL folder (if the server is a domain controller), cluster information (if it is node of a cluster) and the IIS Metabase (if IIS is installed).

This file can be generated or copied to removable media (CD media, for example), so that the restoration process occurs correctly.

After generation of the backup file (. Bkf), the “Wizard” in requesting a diskette. This diskette contains information about the backup, the disk configurations (including basic disks and dynamic volumes, and how to proceed for a restore). A message, as shown below, indicates that the process was completed correctly.

Figure 3

The illustration below shows the content generated by the ASR floppy disk:Figure 4

Restoring an ASR backup

The component “restore” the ASR and accessed as follows:

Restart the server with the installation CD of Windows Server;

During the text-mode setup, press F2 ;

ASR then reads the information from the server’s disk from the floppy disk and restores all generated signatures, volumes and partitions needed for the server can be started correctly (these discs are known as “hard critics”)

ASR then makes a simple installation of Windows and automatically starts the system restore from the archive. Bkf created by “Automated System Recovery Preparation Wizard”. All devices “Plug and Play” are also detected and installed.

After this installation, if necessary, should do a restore of user data or other information that is not in the system or boot partitions.

Tips and Best Practices

Perform ASR regularly, if possible in an automated fashion (this can be done through the “Schedule Tasks” within Windows Server);

Make sure that the media containing the file. Bkf will be available in case of need for a restoration (would not be very logical to let this file name, for example, the system partition of the server …);

Remember that the ASR does not back up partitions or volumes other than the boot or system. So, have a backup policy for such information. If you are using your own backup of Windows Server, the option “All information on this computer”, the “Backup Wizard” and copy all files and user data, also generates the ASR backup.

Make sure that Asr.sif and Asrpnp.sif are generated by ASR diskette, available and protected. If the floppy disk that contains these files are damaged, you can recover them from the systemroot \ Repair. These files can also be manually copied to another location, to increase the level of protection.

As a disaster recovery policy, the service RIS (Remote Installation Services) may be used in conjunction with the ASR to provide a completely automated process to recover.

Conclusion

We can conclude that the ASR in any way replace a good backup policy (including recovery testing) of critical data, including user information. However, if planned with this policy, becomes a powerful tool for disaster recovery, and can restore a crashed server in minutes. And of course, it will save a good effort of network administrators and systems.