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Dear CIO/IT managers,
This
CPTTM CIO newsletter is to bring useful news to you, CIO/IT managers in
Macau, for references without obligations, so that you can do your jobs
easier and better! Hope you like it. if you'd like to unsubscribe or
recommend your friends to subscribe, just email me at kent@cpttm.org.mo.
Old
issues
are available here.
Topics in this issue:
Four
signs of a highly efficient IT organization
What is a highly efficient
IT organization like? It has to automate repetitve and time
consuming tasks like OS installations, application installations,
configuration changes and user provisioning:
- Automated OS installation. Given a bare metal
computer, one should be able set up the OS with corporate
customizations automatically. At Cyber-Lab, the tools we use for this
are: sysprep,
Vista
Automated Installation Kit (AIK) and clonezilla.
- Automated application installation and
configuration management. One should be able to install a new
application, an upgrade, or a new setting to all
desktops automatically. At Cyber-Lab, the tool we use is wpkg.
- Centralized user accounts. For a new user, one
should just add a single new user account and he will be able to access
multiple systems and applications (Windows logon, email, VPN, etc.). At
Cyber-Lab we are still working in this direction. Common tools are
Active Directory or LDAP.
- Check lists. There are repetitve tasks that
can't be easily automated. For such tasks, one should have a check list
so that anyone on your staff can do it and do it right. This will avoid
a lot of mistakes and thus saves time. However, I am still
looking for ways to encourage the colleagues to write check lists.
Can
you trust that certification?
Recently I have interviewed some candidates for
our IT engineer post. One of them had the MCSE 2003 certification. I
asked him about the purposes of DNS and GPO and
surprisingly, he couldn't answer. And I've seen people
finishing IT certification exams in less than half a hour but getting a
full mark. These have got me convinced that there are indeed real exam
questions circulating on the net and people are really using them. What
can we do as IT managers? Never fully trust certifications and always
conduct our own tests when recruiting.
Are
you using a fake Cisco router without knowing it?
According to a study,
10% of all IT equipment is fake. Last year, the network at the
LA airport broken down and delayed 20,000 passengers because it was
using a fake Cisco router (without knowing it). These fake routers look
like the real thing but costs only 1/5. They could introduce
reliability problems (duplicate MAC addresses, power supply catching on
fire) and security problems. So, how do you know that you're buying the
real thing? Always buy from authorized resellers. If you're obtaining
the equipment from system integrators as part of a system integration
project, you may want to request them to do the same and ask for proper
purchase documents. For more information, please see here.
Saving
2 million USD with a simple green policy
The US Massachusetts state
has issued a policy requiring the government's non-critical computers
be turned off when they're not in use. It is estimated that
this simple policy will save the 2 million USD and reduce carbon
dioxide emmission by 5,000 tons annually. At Cyber-Lab we do something
similar by choosing the "laptop" power scheme in Windows for all
desktop computers and using a script to shut down the training room
computers at 11:00pm. This is a very simple change that can be done
automatically (using GPO
or wpkg).
Highly recommended.
Upcoming courses
for CIO/IT managers
In addition, there are some interesting IT courses
for your kids:
Feedbacks
Any
questions, ideas or experiences to share? Contact me at
28781313 or kent@cpttm.org.mo. We also
have two other newsletters: Network
administrator newsletter and Software
developer newsletter, your staff may like to subscribe.
Until
next time,
Kent
Tong
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