In today’s world, disruption or outage of business operations directly translates to financial losses and a decrease in employee or customer satisfaction, and therefore, the urge for backup and disaster recovery has arisen. According to a report conducted by Consoltech, 70% of small businesses close within a year of a large data loss. Additionally, Statista, indicates that the global average cost of a data breach in 2022 was $4.35 million. Take a moment to let that sink in.  The average cost of a data breach worldwide from 2014 to 2022 (in million U.S. dollars) When aiming to persuade t ..read more

Networking problems frequently challenge administrators. Introducing a virtualized switch to the mix adds another layer of complexity and multiple failure points. We can use the popular Wireshark tool to analyze traffic and uncover problems. Requirements for Success with Wireshark First, you need the software. You can download Wireshark from Wireshark.org. The site includes substantial information and links to more. Due to the extensive depth of the tool, the value that you get from Wireshark depends directly on how well you’ve learned it. Ideally, you’d go through a guided course and practic ..read more

Microsoft Azure enables you to create different workloads and host them in the cloud. These workloads are virtual machines, databases, NSG, load balancers, and many others. They are stored within resource groups (logical boundaries). Ingress and egress traffic is something that is continuously cycling, and they need to be properly protected. Microsoft does everything it can to protect cloud workloads against malicious security activities. They provide us with controls such as ACLs and network security services such as DDoS protection, NSG (Network Security Groups), WAP (Web Application Firewa ..read more

Windows Admin Center is now available in Azure to manage Azure Stack HCI on-premises. Register Windows Admin Center with Azure – Azure Stack HCI | Microsoft Docs With Windows Admin Center on Azure, you gain another option to manage Azure Stack HCI and also use the Azure Portal to administrate Azure Stack HCI. But, because the Azure Portal is limited to its capabilities and not every configuration can be set in Azure Stack HCI remotely, Windows Admin Center on Azure is limited. In this post, I’m going to explain the differences between HCI administration and how to connect it to your Azure Sta ..read more

Azure Benefits is an offer from Microsoft that enables customers to use older operating systems and extend their support free of charge. You can see the major three benefits listed below. Workload Versions supported What it is Windows Server Datacenter: Azure Edition 2022 edition or later An Azure-only guest operating system that includes all the latest Windows Server innovations and other exclusive features. Extended Security Update (ESUs) October 12th, 2021 security updates or later A program that allows customers to continue to get security updates for End-of-Support SQL Serve ..read more

Normally your Azure Stack HCI environment consists of the following components: Azure Stack HCI Server Hardware Azure Stack HCI Network Equipment Azure Stack HCI Operating System Windows Admin Center Azure Stack HCI Cluster Azure Stack HCI Azure Integration Services Running on Azure Stack HCI Depending on your deployment, the support will be given by these three parties: Microsoft Support Hardware Support of the Server Vendor Hardware Support of the Network Vendor Support for Network Equipment The network equipment is normally supported by the network vendor, there is currently no implica ..read more

Long ago, near the beginning of my technical career, I worked for a company that serviced a niche PC peripheral. One customer’s system behaved so poorly that she needed a service call almost weekly. Once, a frustrated technician asked, “Our competition sells better products, why do you stay with us?” Her response: “You show up.” Few lessons in my career have served me as well as that one. With that frame of reference, I will explain where I believe that Microsoft fails its customers and ultimately itself. The Face of Microsoft Hopefully, most of you have watched videos from Ignite and similar ..read more

For many years, a home IT lab was a “requirement” for any budding IT Pro – you needed a place to test out new software and learn. In some ways, this requirement has lessened with the rise of cloud computing but many of our great DOJO contributors continue to use a home labs setup. In this article, we’ll hear from them, what their setup is, why, choices they made along the way and what they plan for the future. Andy Syrewicze Altaro/Hornetsecurity Technical Evangelist – Microsoft MVP Why do you have a lab? The main reason I’ve always maintained a lab is to keep my skills current. Not only does ..read more

Today, there is no question that IT admins are busier than ever, juggling multiple tasks and responsibilities. These include managing and administering Exchange email services, both on-premises and in the cloud. Exchange Online is an extremely popular solution for organizations to host mail services as many businesses have migrated email and file storage to the public cloud. PowerShell is a great scripting language that allows admins to make the best use of their time by automating common tasks and day-to-day activities. Why use PowerShell? Before considering PowerShell specifically in the co ..read more

Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS) is the defacto directory service in today’s enterprise. Most organizations run Active Directory on-premises to provide access to internal resources, such as file services, email, intranets, SharePoint sites, and to provide role-based access control. Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is the cloud equivalent to Microsoft’s legacy AD DS solution. Both technologies share similarities and differences, including authentication protocols. Active Directory Domain Services has traditionally used Kerberos for authentication. What is Kerberos, and how is ..read more