Posts made by alexntg

The thing with interviews is that you haven't actually lost anything. To compare it with relationships, it's like asking someone out and being rejected. It's a very different thing from being dumped. After a while, you get used to it. I've had my share of pitfalls along the way. I interview well, but in discussing the position, I more often than not get the hiring manager to realize that they need something different, thereby retooling or sometimes even eliminating the position. Needless to say, by the time I'm done talking, those jobs are no longer a good fit.

Take each interview as a learning experience and apply what you learn to the next one. Wash, rinse, repeat.

@Dashrender said:

I know it's still useful for Linux, but really - is that enough reason to go forward with this audit?

Perhaps? Perhaps not? If someone's still paying the auditor, I'm sure they'll keep on auditing.

Interesting mixed-bag results.

@JaredBusch said:

@scottalanmiller said:

Office 365.... Dont use PSTs, keep it all in Exchange. 50GB is the starter mailbox size before you add archiving.

50GB isn't so big today.

Some of these people need to be sued and have a discovery notice sent to them to help encourage them to delete old crap in the future. I know Office 365 allows it, but sheesh, that is a LOT of email.

Some regulations require that companies keep every email for x number of years. This is where services like Mimecast come into play. They can enforce retention yet allow users to purge their mail as desired/needed.

@Dashrender said:

Is SSO even something that is truly real?

SSO's real. In its purest sense, it's connecting systems together for authentication without further user interaction. An example would be using ADFS to facilitate a seamless login into a partner's extranet or binding Samba to LDAP. A step down is like DirSync where it synchronizes the second system's credentials with the first, allowing users to use the same user and password, even though each system is its own login.

The kicker is that some compliance needs prevent use of SSO for fear of a single username/password allowing for an attacker to be able to access nearly any system.

*Edited for spelling

NTG's actually a good example of a company that doesn't need AD. Everything's handled via Office 365, and the end users are more than capable of caring for their devices.

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg said:

Thanks for telling us after the fact?

Oh it's over? They didn't give much notice.

1PM Central today.

Thanks for telling us after the fact?

@IRJ said:

There are a few Spicy Peppers that avoid me now because of my participation on here. Anyone else on Mangolassi experience this?

I don't see any difference in behavior. Then again, I'm not there to socialize.

@JaredBusch said:

@Carnival-Boy said:

Don't you use AD to control access to your cloud applications? Or if you don't, how to do you control and secure multiple cloud applications other than having to have a different user account and password for every application you use?

Very little in the SMB space authenticates to AD. Not even Office365.

Some do use AD to authenticate to Office 365 using DirSync. It makes it a bit simpler for the users to have only one password for both their computer and their email.

It really comes down to a couple points. The first is topology. If it's a distributed environment with hosted resources, AD makes less sense, as it would require VPN (DirectAccess or otherwise) to manage the computers properly. The second point is the tech prowess of the user base. If they're good at taking care of their endpoints, AD's less of an issue. If they need help with passwords frequently and otherwise neglect their endpoints, AD's the way to go.

Edit: Jared gave more detail before I could post this. Friends don't let friends use O365 SMB tenants.

@Carnival-Boy said:

Any issues migrating a VM from a G8 server to a G6 (and vice versa). I recall there can be issues when running different CPUs, although am I right in think that this only effects vMotion? We don't have vMotion, and so shut down the VMs and start them up on the new host.

If it's a cold move, you're fine. vMotion is where it gets tricky, and there's even ways around that.

@Dashrender said:

@alexntg said:

@scottalanmiller said:

Apple can get everyone to leave Snow Leopard but Microsoft is still struggling to get people off of XP!!

Custom applications, manufacturing systems, and SCADA environments aren't typically running on Mac. Until that changes, it's a bit hard to compare the two.

Are you really making excuses for companies who make poor business decisions? Those companies all decided to write software that only works on a platform that from at least 2005 they SHOULD have been aware would see an end of life (I say should because if they would have read about it, they would have known).

I suppose this gives a possible excuse to those running who made things on XP from 2001-2004, but come on... again, MS isn't supporting windows 95/98.

For those environments that can't be bothered with keeping security updated, or whatever excuse they want to use - fine. Segment your networks completely so this isn't a problem.

I simply can't understand a company that doesn't keep it's core business requirements covered. Clearly these companies don't have a disaster plan, etc.

Let's say that you're an IT person for a power plant. Sure, the critical systems are air-gapped from Internet-connected systems. However, upgrading critical components takes time. The platform has to be evaluated and show years of consistent reliability before even being a consideration. From there, there's the implementation and validation phases to go through.

For a manufacturing firm to upgrade can be incredibly costly. Let's say there's a 27-person firm with a $1m piece of equipment that has an ancient amber-screen DOS interface. The manufactuer of the equipment supplies replacement parts, but otherwise makes new models of the equipment. Other than the interface being old, the equipment works great, and will for years to come. The company then has 3 choices:

1. Buy a new one for $1m
2. Hire someone to reverse engineer the system and make a new interface for $50-100k
3. Leave it as-is
   Which do you think they'll do?

A 4000-person company is moving to Windows 7. Their LOB software doesn't support anything after XP. The company's working on switching over to a new software package, but that involves finding one that's a good fit, retraining their developers to write custom modules for the new system, implementing the custom code, training 4000 people, then implementing the new system globally without causing major work stoppage. They're working on it, but right now are on XP.

Would you consider these to be excuses, or valid business cases?

There's plenty of things to factor in. How energy efficient are the new servers? If it's a healthy gap, you're losing money by keeping the old stuff running, and once you do the required math, you'll have a better idea on the lost cost savings by waiting. It might be a little, or it might be a lot, depending on the types of servers and configuration. Also, there's the consideration of density. A G8 has much more computing power than a G6, allowing it to hold a greater number of VMs. Theoretically, you could reduce the number of servers total, requiring less management overhead and operational cost.

Why are you still on ESXi 5.1? Your vSphere environment should be under maintenance. If your hosts are on the HCL for 5.5, go ahead and upgrade ESXi. If the hosts aren't on the HCL, it's a good sign that it's time to upgrade.

I used to work for a place like that, and left back in 2012.
Edit; Yes, all 9 items.

@scottalanmiller said:

Apple can get everyone to leave Snow Leopard but Microsoft is still struggling to get people off of XP!!

Custom applications, manufacturing systems, and SCADA environments aren't typically running on Mac. Until that changes, it's a bit hard to compare the two.

Not any time in the near future. For smaller environments, it may be an option, but present CPUs and busses don't have the horsepower to handle a heavy workload like ASICs currently can. 10 years from now, perhaps.

@Carnival-Boy said:

You should watch his video on how to build a lab for testing. Basically, you should avoid virtualisation because you'd need $10k for a SAN and instead should buy half a dozen laptops from flea markets and use those. Erm...interesting idea.

Totally need a SAN for a single-host lab... not!

@RAM. said:

I would've loved to attend but... time with friends... ya know?

That's ok. At least I know where we stand now.

A 2-hour video? That's on the TL;DW side.

Won't people need to buy the phone in quantities large enough to impact marketshare first?

As an update, CERT even put out an advisory to have folks not expose their management interface: http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA13-207A. I'd like to suggest taking it a step further. Other management interfaces, such as hypervisors, web control panels, SSH logins, etc. should not be exposed to the Internet.