No Pressure, VMM
Karen Forster got it right with IT Pro Perspective: "Virtual Machine
Manager's Significance" (June 2007,
InstantDoc ID 95994). Until now, I've
only attempted to virtualize servers
that don't require a lot of processing
power. With quad-core processors
becoming available from both AMD
and Intel by the end of the summer
and Microsoft Virtual Server R2
SP1 taking advantage of the performance-boosting technology in
the new processors, the only thing I
plan to leave on their own boxes are
heavily used terminal servers and
maybe SQL Server. (I'll be upgrading
to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 next
year and will try it virtualized first.)
If Microsoft doesn't do well with
Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)
before this virtual machine explosion takes off, I expect it will get shut
out by VMware, especially in larger
companies that are going to require a good management tool.
—Nate McAlmond
Disappointed in Exchange Article
I was quite excited to read Brien
Posey's Required Reading article,
"Configuring Exchange Server 2007"
(July 2007, InstantDoc ID 96044).
Because I'm in the middle of a global
implementation of Exchange 2007,
every tip and trick are welcome, and
with that in mind, I found the article
to be sad and disappointing reading.
The article is a simple walk-through
of the guide the console presents,
and it didn't even point out the
main problems you will meet by
following the guide. These issues are
connected to the fact that Exchange
2007 extensively uses Secure Sockets
Layer (SSL) for client communications and has started using a hard-coded host name of autodiscover
.yourdomain.com for configuration
of Outlook 2007. Without using this
host name as a valid DNS name on
the SSL certificate, the configuration
will not work. Further, all the commercial Certificate Authorities (CAs) I have tried require that the certificate
request contain values for subject
and country. The instructions in the
article for creating a request don't use
these values. Finally, the article doesn't
mention that
Exchange
2007 requires
a certificate
with an
extended set
of properties,
to allow more
than one host
name within the
same certificate.
—Thor Milde
Thank you for your feedback, Thor.
Required Reading articles are intended
to provide basic-level information for
readers who don't have the depth of
experience that you obviously possess. We try to cover a broad range of Exchange topics both in Windows
IT Pro and on our Exchange & Outlook Pro VIP Web site. One example
is the article "My Exchange Server
2007 Migration Story," an Exchange
administrator's account of his
Exchange Server 2007 deployment.
You can access this article for free on
the Exchange & Outlook Pro VIP site
at http://www.exchangeprovip.com
with InstantDoc ID 95906.
—Brien Posey
Where's Symantec?
I read John Green's "Policy-Based
Management of Desktop Antivirus
Products" (May 2007, InstantDoc ID
95568). It's a very good article. The
management side of antivirus isn't
always looked at; other concerns
usually come first, but if you don't
have a good way of managing the
product, you won't have good security, regardless of how well the antivirus client finds viruses.
Several of my customers are running Symantec antivirus software. I'd
like to think that John didn't include Symantec's product in his review
because it didn't fit the review's
scope: "products that offer central,
policy-based management of desktops and servers." Is this correct, or
was there another reason
for not testing Symantec's
product?
—Magnus Bostrom
I approached Symantec
about participating in this
comparative review, and
the company declined.
Considering Symantec's
prominence in the
market, I would have
preferred to include its
product in my review.
—John Green
Batch-File Solution
Logoff Script
Many thanks to Michael Dragone for
solving my problem in Anne Grubb's
"It's 10:00 P.M.: Do You Know Who's
Logged On?" (June 2007, InstantDoc
ID 95922). Unfortunately, the "excerpt"
of Michael's script that I downloaded
(i.e., the logon script) is the only piece I
already had. Can he provide the logoff
script, and explain how to execute it? I
just can't figure that part out. I do volunteer work for a couple of non-profits, and we really need this code.
—Gil Brand
Sure, Gil, I'm happy to help out. The logoff script looks like this:
echo %username% logged out on %date% at %time%.>>
\\SERVERNAME\Audit\Clients %computername%.txt
echo Logged out of %computername% on %date% at %time%.>>
\\SERVERNAME\Audit\Users %username%.txt
Save this as a batch file and run it
from a Group Policy Object (under
User Configuration>>>Windows Settings>>>Scripts (Logon/Logoff)).
—Michael Dragone
