Tips

Tips

• VMware snapshot best practices

  Expert insights to help organizations ensure efficient VMware virtual machine snapshot mechanisms.  Continue Reading

• Implement job rotation for team motivation, productivity

  Indian CXOs are increasingly experimenting with job rotation for team motivation and productivity. Find out why job rotation helps, and how M&M practices it.  Continue Reading

• 5 non-monetary rewards for your IT teams

  Non-monetary rewards are an effective way to motivate employees. Learn five non-monetary rewards that CIOs can make use of to motivate their teams.  Continue Reading

• Data champion: Decoding role and responsibilities

  Data champion is the new buzz word. As companies invest in BI and DW, a data champion is becoming important to ensure returns on these investments.  Continue Reading

• Secure SDLC best practices

  While focus on technicalities is a given during the SDLC, this tip explains how to secure the SDLC, from the analysis phase right through to deployment.  Continue Reading

• Tier 3 data center design: The cooling checklist

  Our expert gives insights into data center cooling system considerations that will ensure adherence to tier 3 data center standards.  Continue Reading

• Identity and access management (IAM) program implementation guidelines

  The first part of this identity and access management (IAM) program guide details how to optimally structure the implementation’s foundation.  Continue Reading

• Botnet detection through DNS behavior and clustering analysis

  Botnets are fast emerging as one of the most serious threats to Internet security today. This expert tip looks at how botnets can be detected analyzing their unique fast flux characteristics.  Continue Reading

• Cloud disaster recovery services vs. traditional DR: A weigh-in

  Do cloud disaster recovery services’ benefits outweigh those of traditional DR? An expert weighs the viability of these disaster recovery approaches.  Continue Reading

• 5 data mining techniques for optimal results

  Faulty data mining makes seeking of decisive information akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Here are some tips to tweak your data mining exercises.  Continue Reading

• Advanced Wireshark tutorial: Packet and network security analysis

  This Wireshark tutorial will familiarize you with Wireshark’s advanced features, such as analyzing packets and undertaking packet level security analysis.  Continue Reading

• Mature data loss prevention: 8 questions to ask your vendor

  To determine if a data loss prevention (DLP) solution truly meet your organization’s needs, there are certain clarifications you always require.  Continue Reading

• How to stop a DDoS attack after initiation

  In this expert response, Nick Lewis explains how to stop a DDoS attack after it has been initiated.  Continue Reading

• Collaboration tools: 6 aspects to consider during evaluation

  Collaboration tools can help companies enhance their business applications and improve productivity. Consider these factors while evaluating collaboration tools.  Continue Reading

• Shodan search engine for penetration tests: How-to

  A very handy yet simple to use VA/PT tool, Shodan can be of great use to ethical hackers. Here’s a quick Shodan tutorial.  Continue Reading

• Top 7 anti rootkit software for Windows

  It can be quite a tough task to kick out rootkits from infected Windows systems. Our list of top anti rootkit software will prove handy.  Continue Reading

• Server sizing considerations for virtual environments

  Right sizing physical server capacities is the key to a successful server virtualization deployment. An expert lists down key server sizing lookouts.  Continue Reading

• Tier 3 data center specifications checklist

  Getting a data center tier 3 certified translates to high uptimes. An accredited tier designer shares insights to meet tier 3 data center specifications.  Continue Reading

• PCI DSS compliance checklist for virtualized environments

  A comprehensive Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance checklist for protection of cardholder data in virtual environments.  Continue Reading

• Test data deduplication tools with these five guidelines

  Here is a list of five critical aspects to reflect on while testing data deduplication tools for actual results after your rollout.  Continue Reading

• Employee information awareness training: PCI policy templates

  To comply with PCI DSS -- and keep cardholder data secure -- organisations must train their employees on data handling best practices. This tip explains how.  Continue Reading

• 10 identity and access management (IAM) implementation mistakes

  An overview of the common issues organizations overlook while deploying an identity and access management (IAM) solution.  Continue Reading

• IFRS implementation in India: Steps to follow

  After analyzing the impact on IT, IFRS implementation in India involves three key stages. This tip details the three steps to enable a smooth IFRS implementation process.  Continue Reading

• Crack CISSP exam with these tips

  Here are some guidelines to help you sail through the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) exam and obtain the CISSP certification.  Continue Reading

• Thin provisioning best practices for virtual server environments

  This tip emphasizes on the key factors to consider while provisioning thin storage for virtual server environments.  Continue Reading

• ETL tool buying guide

  While procuring an extract, transform, and load (ETL) tool, your considerations should range from data formats, profiling, data quality to meta data support and more.  Continue Reading

• Ensure data quality management during integration

  Data quality management is the first and crucial step to data integration. Here are some tips to help maintain the data quality in your organization.  Continue Reading

• Seven social media security best practices

  This tip aims to highlight seven crucial factors to be considered while devising a strategy for optimal social media security.  Continue Reading

• Top seven social media threats

  Discover the top seven social media threats in the first of a two-part series on social media related security threats and preventive measures.  Continue Reading

• Include penalty clauses for assured service level

  Penalty clauses in a service contract not only act as deterrents but also help in ensuring vendor accountability. These clauses help in pulling up the vendors in case of service failures through a scheme of penalties.  Continue Reading

• Exit clause in SLAs: 7 key pointers

  An exit clause is a useful tool to close a deal when any agreed and important terms of a service contract are dishonored. Here are seven points to include in an exit clause.  Continue Reading

• 10 security incident management best practices

  Here’s a quick tip on the security incident management processes an organization should adopt to combat the current dynamic threat scenario.  Continue Reading

• How to use the Microsoft FCIV command-line checksum tool

  Downloading files from the Internet always poses a risk, but there are strategies that can make the process more secure. In this tip, Michael Cobb explains how to use the Microsoft FCIV tool to check the hash values of downloaded files and create ...  Continue Reading

• Six business continuity management (BCM) lifecycle guidelines

  Presenting six steps that you cannot afford to ignore while drafting an effective business continuity management lifecycle.  Continue Reading

• A plan for crisis communication : Need of the hour

  Plans should be in place for communicating with employees in the event of a disaster. An effective plan for crisis communication is critical to this end.  Continue Reading

• Using resource allocation management to prevent DoS and other attacks

  Resource allocation management is an effective way to prevent denial-of-service (DoS) and other attacks. Find out how to allocate resources in order to increase the security of your organisation.  Continue Reading

• Best practices for (small) botnets

  Your enterprise might have a strategy to deal with a large-scale botnet attack, but how would you deal with a micro-botnet that knows how to bypass antivirus and firewalls? Get botnet help with this expert advice.  Continue Reading

• Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency

  Learn how performance metrics can evaluate the efficiency of your enterprise data storage resources in terms of capacity utilization, performance and data protection.  Continue Reading

• Develop a unified communication security plan

  Here is a handy guide to help you develop a comprehensive unified communication (UC) security strategy which covers UC infrastructure and applications.  Continue Reading

• How to use a netstat command in Windows to watch open ports

  Mike Cobb shows how a simple command line tool can provide invaluable information about what's happening on your system  Continue Reading

• How to evaluate and purchase a SAN

  The Royal Horticultural Society's network manager Martin Taylor guides users through the process of evaluating and purchasing a SAN.  Continue Reading

• Green storage best practices control costs, increase energy efficiency

  Green storage best practices control power and cooling costs, and increase energy efficiency in your data center. Tiered storage, consolidating storage arrays, solid-state drives (SSDs) and MAID can help.  Continue Reading

• How to manage firewall testing using Nmap

  Nmap includes many features that can be used to circumvent poorly implemented firewalls. Learn how the freely available tool can test your network devices.  Continue Reading

• How to find credit card numbers and other sensitive data on your users' computers

  If you worry that important and sensitive data like credit card numbers is lurking on your users' hard drives, read on to learn how to search for and corral this information.  Continue Reading

• How to plant a listening device

  Part two of our Les Goldsmith interview reveals how to plant a listening device if you feel like conducting a little industrial espionage.  Continue Reading

• Which is cheaper?: Hyper-V or VMware?

  Microsoft's Hyper-V costs less on the price list, but sometimes VMware ESXi can be cheaper to implement  Continue Reading

• FC SAN vs. iSCSI SAN Part 1: Reliability and performance

  Still undecided when it comes to the Fibre Channel/iSCSI SAN debate? The first part in our guide explains how the two differ in reliability and performance.  Continue Reading

• How to manage Hyper-V's security permissions

  Learn how to operate Hyper-V's Authorization Manager (Azman) in this How-To guide.  Continue Reading

• How do I increase network signal strength over a large distance?

  Want to build a WLAN that covers a large area? Lisa Phifer explains that you'l need mutiple access points and clever use of antennae.  Continue Reading

• Network management frameworks: FCAPS and ITIL

  Two network management frameworks exist that can be of some use for understanding and taming network management: FCAPS and ITIL. Learn more about what these FCAPS and ITIL are and how they can simplify network management in this crash course.  Continue Reading

• iSCSI SANs getting enterprise boost by shared storage, virtual servers

  Enterprises are increasingly considering iSCSI SANs for departmental applications, server workloads that aren't bandwidth-intensive, and virtual servers. In fact, the connection between shared storage and virtualised servers is changing the iSCSI ...  Continue Reading

• What are the best methods for handling rogue access points?

  Michael Gregg explains how to enforce network policy and handle rogue access points (APs) in this expert response.  Continue Reading

• What is a logical network? How do you improve one?

  Learn what logical and physical networks are and how to improve them, in this expert response with networking fundamentals expert, Chris Partsenidis.  Continue Reading

• Windows registry forensics guide: Investigating hacker activities

  Ed Skoudis explains how investigators and administrators can interact with the Windows registry to analyse a compromised system.  Continue Reading

• Recovering domain controllers after a server disk failure

  When recovering domain controllers after a system volume failure, normal restoration doesn't always work. Learn some special procedures in this tip.  Continue Reading

• Upgrade your network: Network evolution and roadmap

  Network upgrades are essential to provide availability, reliability and security when you run voice and video on your data network.  Continue Reading

• Five command line tools to detect Windows hacks

  Learn about five of the most useful Windows command-line tools for machine analysis and how they can tell if a machine has been hacked in this tip.  Continue Reading

• VoIP bandwidth: Calculate consumption

  The bandwidth needed for VoIP depends on compression technology, packet overhead and the protocol used. Learn how to figure out what bandwidth you'll need.  Continue Reading

• Mobile video conferencing and interactive multimedia

  This chapter excerpt provides an understanding of mobile video conferencing technology, standards and applications.  Continue Reading

• Enabling Windows Vista's Network Mapping feature on domain networks

  Learn how to enabling Windows Vista's Network Mapping feature on domain networks.  Continue Reading

• What's the value of unified communications?

  Implementation of unified communications as a part of your organization's strategy to increase productivity can be made easier by answering a few questions.  Continue Reading

• Understanding 802.11n wireless antennas

  Learn how 802.11n wireless antennas increase network footprint, available bandwidth and resilience to problems that crippled older 802.11a/b/g access points.  Continue Reading

• Open source network monitoring: Monitor your routers with Cacti

  Learn how to configure the open source network monitoring tool Cacti to poll your routers, gather network data and provide graphs based on what you configured.  Continue Reading

• Best practices for instant messaging security

  In this tip, Brien Posey details the steps you can take to protect your organisation from security problems when implementing an instant messaging system.  Continue Reading

• Building a UC strategy

  To create a UC strategy, you must first understand your current business processes and incorporate your business partners into the strategy.  Continue Reading

• Voice quality and MOS

  Defining the nine elements of voice quality and Mean Opinion Score (MOS), the standard numeric value used to measure and report on voice quality.  Continue Reading

• Why you need VoIP to move to unified communications

  Making the move to unified communications is an intricate five-step process that requires a solid foundation.  Continue Reading

• Using VMware to test open source network analysis tools

  Open source network analysis tools can help network monitoring. Try out the open source network protocol analyser Wireshark inside a VMware Player Guest OS.  Continue Reading

• USB storage devices: Two ways to stop the threat to network security

  USB storage devices pose a significant threat to network security. This tip discusses some basic strategies for blocking unauthorized USB device use.  Continue Reading

• Tape encryption purchases Part Two: LTO-4 considerations

  This chapter covers specific considerations for LTO-4 tape drives. After that, you'll find a series of specifications to help compare vendor products.  Continue Reading

• Bringing the network perimeter back from the 'dead'

  Many have expressed the importance of endpoint security, going so far as to say the perimeter is dead. Not so fast, says network security expert Mike Chapple.  Continue Reading

• Network analysis -- Enhancing security assessments

  Network security assessment doesn't have to rely on expensive automated tools. In this tip, learn how to use data from freely available tools to produce a comprehensive view of network security.  Continue Reading

• Secure Cisco routers against IOS flaw attack

  Learn how to secure Cisco routers against the recently announced Cisco IOS flaw, which could be exploited by hackers. Find out how to determine which routers are affected and ways to protect yourself from this vulnerability, including steps to ...  Continue Reading

• How to test Snort

  VARs should test Snort to ensure the open source IDS is detecting malicious activity.  Continue Reading

• Upcoming wireless standards promise managed WLANs

  Learn about two new IEEE standards, 802.11k and 802.11v, which aim to improve wireless the problems over overlapping wireless networks, in this tip.  Continue Reading

• BT's SDK for do-it-yourself VoIP apps

  BT's SDK takes the complexity out of VoIP application development.  Continue Reading

• Beyond Asterisk -- Other open source PBXs

  Asterisk is the most widely known open source PBX, but other developers are making competitive products in the unified communications market. Learn more in this tip from Gary Audin.  Continue Reading

• Open source PBX: Risk or value?

  Open source IP PBX systems like Asterisk have benefits and risks. Learn what they are and assess your readiness for the IP PBX implementation in this tip from Gary Audin.  Continue Reading

• Hardening your router: Increasing security with ACLs

  Learn how to harden your router to increase network security using ACLs in this step-by-step, automated, ten-minute demo.  Continue Reading

• Wireless security -- Defending Wi-Fi clients

  In this tip, Lisa Phifer examines how host-resident wireless IPS agents can help you safeguard Wi-Fi client devices to ensure strong wireless security.  Continue Reading

• VoIP/IP Telephony vendor security solutions

  Are vendors' VoIP security features all you need, or is it prudent to buy additional security tools to lock down your network?  Continue Reading

• What's in a VoIP packet -- An introduction to bandwidth for VoIP

  Learn what makes up a VoIP packet, how headers work, what protocols transport voice traffic over the Internet and how this traffic uses network bandwidth.  Continue Reading

• Manipulating VoIP Security

  This tip provides an extensive list of sites that track and document VoIP attack tools.  Continue Reading

• VoIP security -- Free IP telephony fuzzing tools

  Protect your organization's VoIP security with free VoIP security tools designed to test IP telephony vulnerability.  Continue Reading

• OSI: Securing the Stack, Layer 8 -- Social engineering and security policy

  Network security is essential at every layer of the OSI model, including the mythical eighth layer, where users interact with technology. Since hackers can use social engineering to exploit people, it is important to train your users and implement ...  Continue Reading

• What can we do to connect our wireless router to our wireless client?

  Experiencing a persistent inability to connect a wireless router from your wireless client? Lisa Phifer details how to fix this problem.  Continue Reading

• VLANs -- Controlling wired and wireless traffic

  Today, most business networks rely on virtual LANs (VLANs) to partition Ethernets and control the destinations reached by each worker. As users begin to shift between Ethernet and Wi-Fi throughout the work day, it makes sense to apply VLANs to both ...  Continue Reading

• ISCSI for beginners

  iSCSI is an Internet Protocol (IP)-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. Learns the basics in this fast guide.  Continue Reading

• How do I get my LAN computers to reach the Internet?

  Get your LAN computers to reach the Internet in this response from wireless expert Lisa Phifer.  Continue Reading

• What are the criteria for evaluating an indoor wireless network?

  In this Q&A., learn how to evaluate an indoor wireless network with criteria provided by expert Lisa Phifer.  Continue Reading

• Should I use data deduplication to manage unstructured data?

  Absolutely; there are two areas where data deduplication, or single-instance storage, can help...  Continue Reading

• Network summarization -- Supernetting and wildcard masks

  Supernetting allows one routing table entry to represent an aggregation of networks. Network engineers need to understand supernetting, how to read routes received from other providers and how to create an access list that references these multiple ...  Continue Reading

• VoIP security - problems inherited from data networking

  VoIP security problems present a challenge for voice and network staff because IP telephony brings with it not only the security problems of data networks but also new, added threats specific to VoIP. In this tip, learn about the data network ...  Continue Reading

• What are the fundamentals of ATM and ISDN?

  Lisa Phifer explains the fundamentals of ATM and ISDN and why they are used.  Continue Reading

• Intrusion detection systems -- introduction to IDS and IPCop

  This article, excerpted from the book ""Configuring IPCop Firewalls: Closing Borders with Open Source,"" explores how intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) including Snort and IPCop protect the network from ...  Continue Reading

• Access your ISA and Exchange Server from outside the office

  Learn how to configure your Linksys router so that you can access your ISA and Exchange Server from outside the office in this expert response by Lisa Phifer.  Continue Reading

• Slow response times from client/server PC's running IFS applications

  How do you find out the culprit of a network delays when you see little bandwidth being used? Read this Q&A to see what our network administrating expert, Lindi Horton, has to say.  Continue Reading

• Wireless connections with ad hoc networks

  Ad hoc wireless networking in Windows Vista with the IPv6 protocol has its risks, but it also has several built-in security mechanisms. In this tip, Brien Posey explains how these security features help counteract some risks of wireless networks.  Continue Reading

• Capacity planning: Reclaim orphaned storage

  This tip takes a look at how to maximize your storage capacity utilization by finding orphaned data and storage that can in turn be re-allocated for another productive use.  Continue Reading

• Creating a WPA2 compliant network

  Our expert, Lisa Phifer, goes through the basic principles of creating a WPA2 compliant network.  Continue Reading