Picture your ideal company technological infrastructure. Servers to handle day to day tasks, servers to do engineering simulations, network equipment to handle communication, network-attached storage for your company critical data, and last but not least,...
Engineering Operations
Top 5 Hottest IT Outsourcing Trends
As the global economy remains turbulent, corporate decisions-makers continue to remain laser-focused on cost containment and finding new ways of generating additional productivity and value to their organizations. As a result, these macro factors are shaping many of...
How to Install Software Packages Using Ninite
This week we want to have a look at a useful website that enables us to quickly and accurately install any of a large number of useful software packages. The website, www.ninite.com, presents a large number of current freeware packages, along with trial versions of a...
What Happened to Google Wave? A Look at Collaboration Alternatives
Two years ago, Google announced a new product: Wave. Their (and I use the term loosely, since all new Google products seem to come from the same giant, faceless Googleplex) original goal was to unify messaging – have you thought about how many tools you use to...
How to Backup an ESXi Server with GhettoVCB
VMWare is wonderful for getting full utilization of scarce resource. However, if you're on a limited budget, affording ESX clustered hosts for all needs is overkill. Sometimes a free ESXi server is enough. In the latter, we ran into challenges doing backups. ...
Leveraging Netapp’s Deduplication Feature
We recently obtained the necessary licenses required to enable one of our clients' FAS2050 filers for deduplication. Currently, deduplication is offered by Netapp for free. You simply need to get in touch with your reseller and request both ASIS licenses...
How to Setup a Local Redhat 5 Update Repository
In a previous post, my colleague Mike described how to setup a Redhat 4 (RHEL4) local update repository. With Redhat 5 (RHEL5), the procedure to setup a local repository has changed somewhat. At SPK, we often will setup a local update repository for Redhat or...
Four Unavoidable Reasons To Take IT Out of Corporate IT
In the world of IT, solutions become problems with alarming regularity. The new software of today is the upgrade nightmare of tomorrow. The policies that solved problems create new ones years later. The corporate IT departments that we look to for solutions are...
Five Reasons To Use Application Management Services
Application management services sounds intriguing; have a company host and run your applications, and separate your business from your infrastructure. Anyone who's dealt with the stress of IT planning and purchasing understands the temptation to use application...
Using Unix and Windows Groups with ClearCase
In this week’s blog entry, we want to have a look at how Unix and Windows groups work together in a mixed Unix/Windows environment. This topic can sometimes be a bit confusing, and here we hope to contribute to clarifying the subject. Many companies and development...
Solve 100 Problems with a Bootable USB Flash Drive
Unlike using MultiBootISO, which required experimentation and custom linux-configuration for each tool, setting up YUMI is a straightforward affair: Get YUMI Multiboot USB Creator from Pendrivelinux.com. Download the Internet! You can go crazy with your office’s...
In The Trenches: A Look At The Benefits of IT Outsourcing
IT outsourcing has become prominent in nearly every area of the economy -- to the point that its benefits are taken for granted. We're aware of the saving of money, of cloud technology providing cost effective high availability infrastructure, and so forth. The...