Archive for the ‘Network Infrastructure’ Category
Free Junos
For some time, Juniper has been agressively trying to win converts from Cisco. Not only in terms of sales, but also the hearts and minds of the engineers who influence purchasing decisions. Aggressively going after engineers has meant that for years, Juniper has made their certifications essentially free for those of us who were certified [...]
In: Network Infrastructure · Tagged with: ccie, ccna, ccnp, Certification, infrastructure, juniper, junos, networking, routing, Security, switching
A Little Light Reading
The last book (far right, Enterprise Mac Managed Preferences) is fresh, exciting (to me at least) and unique in that it is the most comprehensive information regarding managed preferences you can find. Management en masse of Mac OS X is very lucky to have this compendium. If the chapter in our Enterprise Integration book left [...]
In: Network Infrastructure · Tagged with: Books, cisco, Exchange
Symantec Acquires PGP & GuardianEdge
Today Symantec announced that it is acquiring PGP. I certainly hope they treat the Mac PGP client better than they’ve treated some of their other Mac clients. This move brings Symantec squarely into the encryption space. They encrypt full disks (including the boot volume of Mac OS X), portables, file servers, jump drives, Blackberry and [...]
In: Mac Security, Network Infrastructure · Tagged with: fde, guardianedge, Mac OS X, pgp, symantec, Zimmerman
NAS, Clouds & Backup
NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices are a popular alternative to providing centralized file services to smaller environments. This includes devices such as the Seagate BlackArmor, the DroboShare NAS and the Netgear ReadyNAS Pro. These are inexpensive as compared to an actual server, they require less management and they often come with some pretty compelling features. But [...]
In: Network Infrastructure · Tagged with: amazon s3, Bakcup, cloud, Drobo, JungleDisk, nas, ReadyNAS, Remote, synchronization
Testing Speed
www.speedtest.net is a nice site that allows you to test the speed of your Internet connection for free. They also have a free companion iPhone app that allows you to test the speed of an Internet connection without actually opening up your laptop.
In: Network Infrastructure, iPhone · Tagged with: iPhone, network, speedtest, test, wan speed
Simple Networking Commands
Troubleshooting the network is faster and more thorough when it is done using the command line. Here are some simple command-line utilities that can perform a variety of tasks that can help when administering many services and multiuser environments: Whoami lists the user you are currently logged in as from the command line. Who lists [...]
In: Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, Network Infrastructure, Ubuntu, Unix · Tagged with: commands, networking, troubleshooting
The Cisco ASA 5500
I’ve been a fan of the Cisco ASA since it was introduced but always seemed to have a problem figuring out all the different models. Cisco now has a snappy little model comparison that can be found here. A little less helpful, but nice nonetheless is the comparison page for the 1000 Series Aggregation Service [...]
In: Network Infrastructure · Tagged with: 1000 series aggregators, asa 5500, cisco, ios, pix
Adding DHCP Options in Mac OS X Server
Mac OS X Server comes with a number of DHCP options available; most notably the options available in the GUI. But what about options that aren’t available in the GUI, such as NTP. Well, using /etc/bootpd.plist, the same file we used to define servers allowed to relay, you can also define other options. These begin [...]
In: Mac OS X Server, Mass Deployment, Network Infrastructure · Tagged with: 10.6, define options for DCHP, dhcp options, Mac OS X Server, numbers, RFC, Snow Leopard Server
Virtual Private Clouds
VPN-Cubed was a solution that Amazon listed for some time, allowing users of EC2 or S3 cloud services to VPN their resources in Amazon’s cloud to their own offices. But Amazon recently went a step further with their own offering and now provide the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud. Pricing is based on a per-VPN connection, [...]
In: Network Infrastructure, Unix, VMware, sites · Tagged with: amazon, cissp, private cloud, risk management, vpn
MiFi
MiFi, a product from Novatel Wireless, is a credit card sized device that provides a 7 Megabit connection to the internet as a portable wireless hotspot. It’s GPS-enabled and it can serve up to 5 devices using WiFi. Nice little device overall. In my testing it was about twice as fast as my Sprint USB [...]
In: Network Infrastructure · Tagged with: GPS, mifi, mobile hotspot, Novatel, Sprint, Verizon
