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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. Also printable version for this newsletter.
Topics
in this issue:
Apache
Directory Server
In September 2007, Apache released Apache Directory Server
1.5.1 and
Apache Directory Studio 1.0, a toolset for use with any LDAP solution
but with special integrations with Apache Directory Server.
Features include:
- LDAP directory
browser and editor
- LDAP schema
editor for Apache Directory Server and OpenLDAP schemas
- Advanced editors
for binary data such as jpegPhoto
- Connection
management
- LDIF editor with
code completion and templates
- Bookmarks for
entries
- Stored searches
- Batch operations
For more information, please visit http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=46822
--
by Eric Chan
VMware
converter
 VMware
converter is free, quick and reliabe and can convert local and
remote
physical machines into virtual machines without any disruption or
downtime. Also it can convert other virtual machine formats such as
Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server or backup images of
physical machines such as Symantec Backup Exec LiveState Recovery or
Ghost 9 to VMware virtual machines.
VMware Converter is
available in two editions, Starter
and Enterprise.
VMware Converter Starter is a free download available to everyone. For
more information, please see http://www.vmware.com/products/converter
--by
Eric
Chan
Who
are using OpenSource VoIP system?
Asterisk
is an OpenSource
VoIP system, which is simple, easy configurable and widely used in
foreign countries. Here are some samples :
- Adairs Retail
Chain in Australia
has
deployed Asterisk throughout its seventy stores.
- The
Brisbane-based American Express help
desk runs on Asterisk.
- The University
of Queensland and Charles Sturt
University have deployed Asterisk for students and staffs.
To
see more comments and details, please click here.
--by
Alan Au
ATA
over Ethernet
If
you want to
deploy Storage Area Network (SAN) but cannot afford the cost, now you
have a simple and economic alternative : ATA over Ethernet
(AoE)
- A protocol that enables storage of data to ordinary ATA hard drives
via Ethernet. The more common SAN technology is
"iSCSI". Let's see the Pros and Cons of these two technologies :
- AoE
uses ATA hard disks while iSCSI uses SCSI hard disks. So, the disk
price would be bit cheaper for AoE.
- AoE
runs directly over Ethernet and is not "routable", i.e. The servers and
the disk system must be in the same segment. iSCSI runs on TCP and
doesn't have this restriction.
- But,
the benifits are more than the limitation. iSCSI needs to wrap data by
TCP and than IP before reaching Ethernet. This requires more processing
that special hardware card is needed to accelerate the process to meet
the data transfer rate. AoE directly put data into Ethernet
frames, so the OS is capable to handle it.
- The
technical specification of iSCSI is more advanced and complex than AoE.
This means that it require higher technical knowledge to implement
iSCSI SAN.
Is
ATA over Ethernet common now? The current operating
systems
that support AoE are : Linux 2.6.11 or later, Windows XP with
additional
driver and application. AoE compatible hard drive includes
"Etherdrive" from Coraid. How much is it? According to Coraid
web site, it can be down to
USD$1.25/Gigabyte including disk cost.
How
about the performance of AoE? According to Coraid's report, one of its
EtherDrive, SR1521 can achieve a reading throughput of 98,338KB/sec
with 14 disks RAID5 configuration with 2 x 1G Ethernet links. See
page 4 of this report.
For
more informaiton, please see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATA_over_Ethernet.
--by Alan Au
Office
2003 SP3 blocks older file formats
Office
2003 SP3 was launched in September this year, but recently in December,
it is revealed that Office 2003 SP3 no longer supports some older file
formats by default, including : Word 6.0 and Word
97 for Windows, some
older versions of Excel, PowerPoint, Lotus Notes, Corel Quattro
spreadsheet, and Corel Draw graphics etc. There is no warning
when one donwloads Office 2003 SP3.
Microsoft explains
that it is due to
security reason - The older file formats are prone to have security
risks. Although there is a workaround to allow access to those older
file format, it is needed to modify the Registry and is quite complex.
For details, please see here.
Luckily, somebody has made some registry update files, that you can use
them to restore the access easily, check here.
--by
Alan Au
Upcoming
courses for network administrators
Feedbacks
Any
questions, ideas
or experiences to share? Contact me at
28781313 or alan@cpttm.org.mo. We
also
have 3 more
newsletters: CIO
newsletter, Software developer newsletter and E-flow newsletter. If you are interested,
you can read them at the following links: CIO
newsletter, Software developer newsletter and E-flow newsletter.
Until
next time,
Alan
Au
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