Bladewatch.com

Microsoft

Executive Summary

This security update resolves nine privately reported vulnerabilities and one publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Internet Explorer 6 on Windows clients, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 on Windows clients. For Internet Explorer 6 on Windows servers, this update is rated Important. And for Internet Explorer 8 on Windows servers, this update is rated Moderate. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

The security update addresses these vulnerabilities by modifying the way that Internet Explorer verifies the origin of scripts and handles objects in memory, content using encoding strings, and long URL. For more information about the vulnerabilities, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

Do check out this article, it appears that Microsoft have released a number of Internet Explorer Patches for Windows 2000/2003/2008 etc, they are rated as critical for a number of platforms, so do check if your systems will be in scope and as ever, remember that applying all the patches will be one of the first things a service provider/vendor will ask when logging a call.

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http://www.appsense.com/uservirtualization/

User virtualization solutions provide consistent and seamless working environments across a range of application delivery mechanisms, making the working environment predictable and responsive, simplifying IT administration and reducing costs.

I spoke with the guys over at AppSense the other day, it sounds like a great concept, and it was something I was speaking with a colleague today in terms of being able to separate user, application and client data, the problem being that we need to abstract the user from the underlying infrastructure to reach the next level of application and user virtualization, very cool, I’m off to read up more.

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Blade.org

Building on the discussions around network and server consolidation in previous webinars, Blade.org members will discuss  benefits, several new technologies, and some additional items to consider when planning for storage consolidation. Whether you are considering a server or network consolidation project today or in the future, the opportunities for improved storage efficiency through increased consolidation are available to you today.

• NetApp will review trends in storage virtualization and present features that deliver increased storage efficiency, performance, and productivity.
• Virtensys will describe how I/O virtualization brings the efficiency of storage virtualization to the storage infrastructures, including direct-attached storage (DAS) and storage area networks (SAN)
• Emulex will provide an update on network convergence, with an emphasis on storage protocol performance.

Date: Thursday, April 1, 2010

Time: 10:00am PST (1 hour event)

I’ll need to make sure I attend, it will be interesting to see what NetApp, Virtensys and Emulex are talking about particularly in the storage consolidation space, do register for the webinar if it’s of interest.

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Hi Martin,

What option is it to configure the iDRAC/DRAC and is there anything specific to know about configuring it?  When are you doing a guide?

Regards

Keith

Thanks to Keith for this email, I’ve actually written a quick guide about configuring the DRAC/iDRAC, in summary you press Ctrl-e when prompted to, it shows a configuration menu allowing you to set the ip information as well as the network speed and duplex. I should have the guide finished and posted by the end of the week.

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HP

In addition, energy-efficiency innovations in the HP ProLiant platforms, combined with the new AMD Opteron 6100 Series processors, deliver a 27 times performance-per-watt increase.⁽¹⁾

Delivering a 23:1 consolidation ratio, HP ProLiant G7 servers with AMD Opteron™ 6100 Series processors increase operational efficiencies, paying for themselves in as little as two months.⁽¹⁾ The line includes the HP ProLiant DL165 G7 and HP ProLiant DL385 G7 rack-optimized servers, as well as the HP ProLiant SL165z G7 scale-out “skinless” server.

HP ProLiant servers are part of the HP Converged Infrastructure portfolio, which integrates servers, storage, network devices and facility resources into a common environment, allowing IT to rapidly respond to business demands. HP ProLiant servers provide modular, standards-based building blocks that advance clients toward a converged infrastructure.

MLS Property Information Network Inc. (MLS PIN) is one of the largest multiple listing service (MLS) companies in the United States, serving nearly 30 thousand subscribers. The company turned to HP ProLiant servers on AMD processors to improve customer experience.

“We face seasonal demand that increases by more than 500 percent during the spring and, until recently, this strain on our server infrastructure affected our ability to provide great service to our customers,” said Matt Lavallee, director, Technology, MLS PIN. “Now, we’ve doubled the number of concurrent users we can support while delivering dramatically faster page load times. HP’s integrated Thermal Logic technology will help us reduce our total power and cooling costs by 60 percent over the long term.”

Built for energy savings
HP ProLiant servers include HP Thermal Logic technologies to reduce power consumption by as much as 96 percent.⁽²⁾ Power savings are achieved through the combination of the following energy-saving features:

— HP Sea of Sensors – optimizes system cooling and increases efficiency by automatically tracking thermal activity through a collection of up to 32 smart sensors placed strategically throughout the server. The sensors automatically adjust system components such as fans, memory and input/output processing to reduce energy usage.

— HP Dynamic Power Capping technology in HP Insight Control – improves data center utilization and reclaims overprovisioned energy by enabling IT managers to accurately monitor and control the power used by each server. By capping server power usage, clients can triple their data center capacity.⁽³⁾

— HP Power Advisor – enables clients to improve energy efficiency by more accurately configuring systems based on real-time power guidance for their specific workloads.

It’s great to see continued innovation of the Proliant platform based on the new AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor, the quoted energy savings and efficiency improvements are impressive, it will be interesting to see if there will be any further innovation around the systems management and administration, I’m off to read up more about them.

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Finextra

With a general election imminent, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has earmarked £180 million in new funding for the Post Office, which will see a “major expansion” of the financial services it offers.

Says Mandelson: “Since the global banking crisis we have set about reinventing the financial services industry piece-by-piece, building a system that is fairer, trusted and more responsible. Today is the next step in that process. The Post Office is a well-loved community institution and this move will bring more banking services back to the heart of those communities.”

I wonder if this might mean new applications and services to bring us the Post Office Bank, I’ll need to read up more.

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Microsoft.com

This is an advance notification of an out-of-band security bulletin that Microsoft is intending to release on March 30, 2010. The bulletin is being released to address attacks against customers of Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. Users of Internet Explorer 8 and Windows 7 are not vulnerable to these attacks. The vulnerability used in these attacks, along with workarounds, is described in Microsoft Security Advisory 981374. The out-of-band security bulletin is a cumulative security update for Internet Explorer and will also contain fixes for privately reported vulnerabilities rated Critical on all versions of Internet Explorer that are not related to this attack.

This bulletin advance notification will be replaced with the revised March bulletin summary on March 30, 2010. For more information about the bulletin advance notification service, see Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification.

To receive automatic notifications whenever Microsoft Security Bulletins are issued, subscribe to Microsoft Technical Security Notifications.

Microsoft will host a webcast to address customer questions on the out-of-band security bulletin on March 30, 2010, at 1:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada). Register now for the March 30, 1:00 PM webcast. After this date, this webcast is available on-demand. For more information, see Microsoft Security Bulletin Summaries and Webcasts.

Microsoft also provides information to help customers prioritize monthly security updates with any non-security, high-priority updates that are being released on the same day as the monthly security updates. Please see the section, Other Information.

Microsoft have released an out of band update relating to Microsoft Internet Explorer across a range of operating systems, do make sure you check if your systems are in scope.

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CNN Money

VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud today announced it is offering its VMware vSphere Essentials product package at up to 50% off the list price* through June 15, 2010.

With a low up-front investment, vSphere Essentials delivers enterprise-class virtualization capabilities that enable small offices to consolidate and manage application workloads while reducing hardware and operating costs. Through this promotion, VMware will offer SMBs award-winning virtualization starting at less than $500.

“VMware vSphere allows SMBs to do more with less,” said Timothy Stephan, senior director, product marketing, VMware. “We’ve helped thousands of SMB customers more effectively utilize their storage, network and computing resources to control costs and respond more quickly to business demand. With this promotion, we are happy to make the benefits of virtualization more affordable for offices of all sizes.”

Anything VMware can do to lower the cost of virtualization whether it’s the desktop or the server has to be a good thing for the industry and the end user community alike. I’m off to check out more.

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ComputerWeekly.com

An internal Legal & General e-mail has revealed the company could soon outsource its IT infrastructure and some IT services to either IBM or Fujitsu, and warns employees to prepare to be transferred to the supplier that is chosen.

The company that wins the contract will host Legal & General’s IT infrastructure and possibly provide other IT services.

Legal & General said it wants to ensure its IT infrastructure can support future business growth and reduce the risks associated with creating its own bespoke datacentre.

Other services that could be outsourced include infrastructure and operations, IT security operations and assurance, and parts of IT procurement and IT supplier relationship management.

An interesting post talking about outsourcing and how it can be seen as a vehicle for achieving cost savings or business transformation, that it meets the business requirements in terms of agility and affordability. It will be interesting to see how such deals are affected by all the discussions in the cloud space.Will we outsource elements of the IT function to cloud providers, the backups/restores, the email or the storage, or will we hand the challenges over to a third party to provide.

The only challenge I see with cloud, and with outsourced vehicles is the concept of billing and disclosure, everyone wants transparent costs until they receive the bill, until everything is suddenly billable,  “..sorry you want an engineer to build servers, fine the book value cost is £500 per day”, where as before that cost might have been hidden amongst the general IT cost base. At the same time, the more we commoditize the cost, I need a server built, which might take 3 hours, it might take minutes, can we bill on a half day on a per minute basis or is it by the day?

The challenge is one of economics, a value to cost ratio, we can supply a guy to come in and swap your system board, but and this is it, he or she isn’t traveling for three hours to earn 1 or 2 hours pay and consider that if you called a vendor today and said “..send an engineer to fix my server” the cost would be a call out fee, hourly engineer cost plus parts, the business would have typically been hidden from such things. How does this transform the economics of the IT function, of the way you handle your IT applications and services?

As we look at outsourcing, at cloud or buying in services, we need to establish the key drivers, is it 24/7 we want, always on, always available and what SLA is it that we want and are willing to pay for? What economic value do we place on an outage, and are we able to inform business units that if their server dies, going forward we log a call with a vendor/service provider who will send an engineer to fix it next business day? Are we in a state where reloading the application is possible in days rather than weeks? How tied to the hardware, to the network and the storage is that device?

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Finextra

Deutsche Börse has outlined plans to axe and relocate jobs and bring IT services in-house as part of a cost cutting programme designed to save EUR100 million a year.

Check out this article talking about how Deutsche Borse is planning to achieve savings through reorganization, it’s always interesting to see what practices are being used in order to achieve the business needs, whether it’s savings, or transformation in delivery and agility.

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