Tips

Tips

• High-gain antennas and the near field effect

  In this response, Lisa Phifer explains the use of a high-gain antenna and what the near field effect is.  Continue Reading

• Wireless connection in the wilderness

  Lisa Phifer explains how to connect office buildings wirelessly where laying cable is not an option due to trees and rocky terrain.  Continue Reading

• Minimum and maximum Ethernet frame sizes

  In this Q&A, Lindi Horton answers the question "What is the minimum and maximum size of an Ethernet frame that carries an IP packet which in turn carries an ICMP packet?"  Continue Reading

• Link and port aggregation information

  Need some clarification on link and port aggregation? Here, our expert, Lindi Horton, provides us with just that in this Q&A.  Continue Reading

• Troubleshooting your network

  In this Q&A, our expert, Lindi Horton, helps with troubleshooting a network that has problems staying up in the evening.  Continue Reading

• The most commonly used network operating system

  In this Q&A, Lindi Horton answers the question "What network operating system is more currently and commonly used?"  Continue Reading

• Convincing management to approve your networking project

  Network pros must have great technology know-how, coupled with major league pitching abilities. This list of project dos and don'ts can help you over your managers.  Continue Reading

• How to prevent former employees and administrators from accessing your server

  What do you do if you have ex-employees or even ex-administrators accessing your server remotely? How do you prevent them from doing this? Our expert, Lindi Horton, can tell you how.  Continue Reading

• Does having a CCNA and MCSE equal a higher-paying job?

  David Minutella answers the question, "How helpful will it be if I get a CCNA certificate or MCSE certificate to fetch a high-paying job?" Read on to see our expert's response.  Continue Reading

• Find the right work path in the field of IT

  Our expert, David Minutella, answers the question of what path in IT is the right one.  Continue Reading

• What to certify in when new certification tracks are pending

  In this response, our expert, Ed Tittel, answers the question, "Will it be wise to invest in MCSE security certification or to wait for Microsoft to launch new certification tracks before starting my training?"  Continue Reading

• Making the career change -- work corporate mid-level in security

  In this Q&A, Ed Tittel advises on the right certifications for a person at the end of their military career.  Continue Reading

• Migrating to MPLS

  As more organizations begin to take advantage of MPLS' offerings, network engineers must learn how to prepare their current networks for transition. This tip explains basic MPLS implementations and shows you some common configurations for MPLS VPNs....  Continue Reading

• Validity of certification

  In this response, David Minutella talks about the validation of certification and what IT managers should be aware of.  Continue Reading

• The best book for CCDA certification

  In this Ask the Expert, David Minutella recommends the best book resource for CCDA certification.  Continue Reading

• BackTrack: The gotta-have, free, network security tool you've never heard of

  Get the power of Linux-based security tools on Windows with this free suite of open source security tools. Contributor and vulnerability assessment expert Kevin Beaver introduces BackTrack and explains its network security testing features.  Continue Reading

• iSCSI network configuration, design and optimization

  It's a must to consider more than just cabling when designing an iSCSI-based storage network. Learn to look at the bigger picture when configuring or optimizing an iSCSI-based storage network.  Continue Reading

• Secure network against illegal users

  Lisa Phifer gives advice on how to handle illegal users on a network.  Continue Reading

• Testing iSCSI SAN performance with Iometer

  Iometer, a performance test tool for tuning Windows environments, can also be used to tune performance in iSCSI SANs. The tool lets you simulate the SAN's performance by setting many of the parameters and running tests. Repeated runs with different ...  Continue Reading

• NAS: How does a client access files?

  NAS expert Randy Kerns offers advice to a reader who asked: "How does NAS appear to machines accessing files from it?"  Continue Reading

• Remote backup: What are the alternatives to tape?

  Archiving expert Bill Tolson offers advice to a reader looking for alternatives to shipping tape offsite, including a graphical representation of the remote replication backup process.  Continue Reading

• NAS: Can you add capacity non-disruptively?

  Storage expert Randy Kerns offers advice about adding capacity to a NAS system non-disruptively in this Q&A.  Continue Reading

• How to create and enforce employee termination procedures

  In this Ask the Expert Q&A, Shon Harris, our security management expert, reviews how the the security group, HR and management should work together to define and enforce employee termination policies, and reviews what should be done during each ...  Continue Reading

• ISCSI SANs: How to alleviate the congestion

  Careful configuration of an iSCSI SAN will usually preclude most problems. But for slow network performance, adapter and switch settings can help speed things up.  Continue Reading

• Zoning 101: Why zone?

  Zoning can offer a number of benefits for your SAN. This tip details the advantages of zoning and offers an explanation of the different methods.  Continue Reading

• Archiving unstructured data

  Companies must find ways to automate and simplify the process of archiving files and e-mail messages. ECM software addresses this large pool of unstructured data.  Continue Reading

• CDP: Super snapshots -- eventually

  This tip details two different definitions of CDP, the offerings from vendors in each camp and how continuous data protection differs from snapshots.  Continue Reading

• How to use NAS gateways

  What you will learn from this tip: NAS gateways are moving off the array and into the network. Here's how to manage them.  Continue Reading

• How to create a business continuity plan

  In today's business environment, the only acceptable data loss is none at all. Find out how to create a business continuity plan that really works.  Continue Reading

• Five ways to secure iSCSI

  Storage expert Stephen Foskett outlines five specific ways to secure an iSCSI SAN.  Continue Reading

• Pros and cons of disk-to-disk backup

  Some of the characteristics of disk-to-disk can make it a poor choice for your only form of backup.  Continue Reading

• Microsoft supports iSCSI SAN clusters -- kind of

  This expert tip outlines how to get the support you need for iSCSI SANs using more than two clusters.  Continue Reading

• A beginners guide to iSCSI

  After five years of working with Fibre Channel storage area networks (SANs), I have personally been quite confused about iSCSI, about exactly what it really does and more importantly how it works and how we can actually use it to solve real customer...  Continue Reading

• Zoning, part 2: Hard zoning vs. soft zoning

  Zoning is a fundamental management technique that basically controls who can see what in a storage area network (SAN). The following is part 2 of a three-part series on zoning.  Continue Reading

• Zoning, part 1: An overview of zoning

  Zoning is a fundamental management technique that basically controls who can see what in a storage area network (SAN). The following is part 1 of a three-part series on zoning.  Continue Reading

• Zoning, part 3: Zoning schemas

  Zoning is a fundamental management technique that basically controls who can see what in a storage area network (SAN). The following is part 3 of a three-part series on zoning.  Continue Reading

• Capacity planning in the enterprise

  Capacity planning is becoming an increasingly important way to balance future hardware costs with computing needs.  Continue Reading