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CPTTM
Network Admin newsletter issue #17,
Alan Au, Chief Editor
Supervised by Kent Tong, Manager for CPTTM-IT Department
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Dear
Network Administrators,
This
CPTTM NetAdmin newsletter is to bring useful news to
you, Network Administrators 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 alan@cpttm.org.mo. Old
issues
are available here.
Topics
in this issue:
The
new features of Windows Server 2008
Windows
Server 2008
brings along with some new featuers, among which, I
would like
to share 3 with you :
- Self-healing
NTFS file
system - A special process will running in
the background to look for corrupted files
in the NTFS
file
system and
then fix them in the background.
- PowerShell
-
The next
generation of command line tool for
administering the operating system. You can basically perform all the
system adminstration with this shell.
- Server
Core -
The
'bare' version of Windows Server 2008 that has no
GUI, for providing services like : file server, DNS and DHCP.
For
more details, please
see : http://www.betanews.com/article/Top_10_New_Features_in_Windows_Server_2008/1180045346/1
How
easy it is to
upgrade a Linux OS
Recently,
we have
upgraded one of our Debian servers from v3.1 to v4.0. This
server
is running Routing, Firewall and VPN server roles etc. It is a major
upgrade but took only
1.5 hours
with very little downtime (about 15 mins) and interruption
to the services that it provides. The reason is that the
process
upgrades package by package and then restarts the corresponding
services if needed, until the kernel is upgraded, it performs a reboot.
To perform
the upgrade, you may need to modify the APT sources and
then, with a few commands, you can finish the upgrade.
On the other hand,
quite some users find it difficult and takes hours to upgrade from
Windows XP to Windows Vista. See some comments here.
Hybrid
drive works while it sleeps
The
hybrid hard drive(HHD) is
a new type
of
large-buffer computer hard disk drive. It employs a large buffer
of
non-volatile flash memory to cache data during normal use.
Unlike
most standard hard
drives, the hybrid drive in its normal state has its platters at rest.
Incoming data is directly recorded to the chip. When the chip is about
full, the hard drive wakes up, takes the data, records it and goes back
into idle. The reduced spinning of the platters also greatly decreases
power consumption and the amount of heat generated.
Because
the
hybrid drive utilizes nonvolatile flash memory (such as those in a USB
key), as opposed to volatile memory (such as RAM), the buffe is able
to retain all the data even in the event of a sudden power failure or
reboot, and can even store boot-up data into the buffer.
It
offers several
benefits, decreased power consumption and the amount
of heat generated, improved
reliability, and a faster boot process.
For
details, please see : http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39196323,00.htm?r=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive
Voice
over IP
VoIP
- "Voice over IP" is
an technology to transmit voice signal over
IP network, which enables us to make phone calls using computers or
VoIP handsets over computer network. It has the following benefits:
- Easy
administration: An VoIP system can
potentially replace
traditional PBX in your company, so merging the PBX and computer
networks into one. This makes administration easier and your IT
personnel can handle it after proper training.
- Easy
manipulation: As the call is now digital
data, it can be
manipulated by computers, e.g., stored, forwarded, broadcast,
multi-cast, emailed or handled by Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
applications.
- Mobility:
Using
a WiFi laptop or WiFi VoIP
phone, you can talk
while you're walking around.
Some
casinos/hotels in
Macau has implemented or going to implement VoIP
System. To
learn about VoIP,
consider to take our course : Implementing
VoIP System
Coming
networking related courses at CPTTM
Feedbacks
Any
questions, ideas
or experiences to share? Contact me at
28781313 or alan@cpttm.org.mo.
We also
have two more
newsletters named : CIO
newsletter and Software developer newsletter. If you are interested,
you can read them from the following links: CIO
newsletter, Software developer newsletter.
Until
next time,
Alan
Au
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