You can easily use the Get-Counter cmdlet to check the value of a performance counter. If you use the -Continuous switch, the up-to-date value will be displayed. Simply pass the name of the counter you want to view and the server the counter should be monitored on. For example, to monitor the IO Writes counter on CSV Volume 1 on the server SAVDALVS01, run the following command. PS C:\> Get-Counter '\\savdalvs01\Cluster Shared Volumes(\ClusterStorage\Volume1)\IO Writes' -Continuous Timestamp CounterSamples --------- -------------- 3/18/2009 1:23:35 PM \\savdalvs01\cluster shared volumes(\clusterstorage\volume1)\io writes : 1545503 3/18/2009 1:23:36 PM \\savdalvs01\cluster shared volumes(\clusterstorage\volume1)\io writes : 1545504 3/18/2009 1:23:37 PM \\savdalvs01\cluster shared volumes(\clusterstorage\volume1)\io writes : 1545512
Note that you can easily monitor a value on any server, not just the local server. Related Reading: PowerShell 101, Lesson 1 PowerShell Got Smart About Smart Quotes Q. How can I use Windows PowerShell to return a list of machine services in a designated state? VMware and PowerShell: Managing ESX Server from the Command Lin.
Source: http://windowsitpro.com/mobile/pda/Article.cfm?ArticleID=101749&FAQ=1
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A Security Threat - Filesystem Fragmentation
Filesystem fragmentation is a problem with which many computer users are familiar. Many, however, are not.
Filesystem fragmentation reduces performance so that we have to wait for long time to get applications to respond.
One who know these basic problems of filesystem fragmentation also know about defragmentation programs & even even use them. A lot of people don't use them nearly enough. That can be especially important considering the security implications.
The list of immediate security concerns is short, but considering the relative ease with which defragmentation can (usually) be accomplished, they're important enough to go to the trouble when you need it.
Security problems include three key issues:
- disaster recovery: If your system suffers some kind of filesystem corruption, and you need to recover the data, many recovery tools can do so using a file allocation table. If that is corrupt, though, a longer and more difficult process needs to be used--and if your filesystem was significantly fragmented, that can increase the difficulty of a successful recovery quite a lot, as recovery tools will tend to have a harder time reconstructing complete files. Obviously, you should have good, up-to-date backups, but if the filesystem is corrupted between when critical data arrived and when the next backup was scheduled, this may be a very real problem for your data security.
- I/O activity: The more fragmented the data on your drive, the more physical operations a drive has to make to read the data your system needs and write data you wish to save. This can consume more power, generate greater heat, and degrade your system more quickly because of wear on the moving parts. Standard SSDs (solid-state drives) are limited to a particular number of write operations due to integral design characteristics required to make them maintain state when power is cut, which means that greater fragmentation can reduce operational lifespan as well, though the defragmentation process itself will also reduce the life of an SSD. Such circumstances can threaten data security in the long run due to the growing likelihood of an eventual crash.
- performance: You may think that reduced performance is just an annoyance, but it isn't. It also affects the speed, efficiency, and effectiveness of security software such as application layer firewalls and virus scanners. Virus scanners in particular are affected, because they are not only directly affected when the scanner applications and their virus definitions are fragmented, but also because they have to be able to scan the entire filesystem regularly to provide complete protection. Making backups can also suffer.
Friday, March 13, 2009
H.P. Home Server Embraces Both Mac and PC
Like cats and dogs, confirmed Mac and PC believers have a few things in common. The USB port, for instance, is one. And both systems use electricity.
Now Hewlett-Packard, while not exactly playing matchmaker, has arranged a way to bring together both sides digitally, if not philosophically.
Home servers — devices that work mainly in the background — are part of a category that doesn’t resonate much with consumers, especially since the options for storing data have become so inexpensive and even fashionable . But H.P. is skewing its new home server, the MediaSmart, as one with a dual personality: it provides a centralized media storeroom — for photos, music, video, and more — for both Windows and Apple computers. And it’s priced not to break the bank, starting at about $600 for the 750-gigabyte version, and expandable to up to nine terabytes.
So what can a home server do?
* Centralize files from all your PCs at home, and provide access to those files over the Web from just about anywhere you can get to broadband via a wired connection;
* Provide a method for backing up data. In the case of the H.P. model, it automatically saves content on machines running Windows or Mac OS X Leopard’s integrated Time Machine system;
* Become a super-jukebox, distributing iTunes content all around the house;
* Push images, from H.P.’s Photo Publisher location, to sharing sites like Facebook or to your family and friends;
The MediaSmart is about 10 inches high, 5.5 inches wide and just over 9 inches deep. It will sit neatly in place of that old beige box on a desktop.
Source: gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com
Now Hewlett-Packard, while not exactly playing matchmaker, has arranged a way to bring together both sides digitally, if not philosophically.
Home servers — devices that work mainly in the background — are part of a category that doesn’t resonate much with consumers, especially since the options for storing data have become so inexpensive and even fashionable . But H.P. is skewing its new home server, the MediaSmart, as one with a dual personality: it provides a centralized media storeroom — for photos, music, video, and more — for both Windows and Apple computers. And it’s priced not to break the bank, starting at about $600 for the 750-gigabyte version, and expandable to up to nine terabytes.
So what can a home server do?
* Centralize files from all your PCs at home, and provide access to those files over the Web from just about anywhere you can get to broadband via a wired connection;
* Provide a method for backing up data. In the case of the H.P. model, it automatically saves content on machines running Windows or Mac OS X Leopard’s integrated Time Machine system;
* Become a super-jukebox, distributing iTunes content all around the house;
* Push images, from H.P.’s Photo Publisher location, to sharing sites like Facebook or to your family and friends;
The MediaSmart is about 10 inches high, 5.5 inches wide and just over 9 inches deep. It will sit neatly in place of that old beige box on a desktop.
Source: gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
10 reasons why Linux isn't triumphing over Windows
1: Cost comparisons are often misleading
Let’s get what may be the most controversial point out of the way early. First, in the server space especially, we should try to compare apples to apples. This means comparing Windows Server to paid Linux. By far the most dominant flavor is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), with about a two-thirds share of the paid enterprise Linux market, so this seems the most logical comparison. While there are plenty of free options out there, such as CentOS, for a business running mission-critical workloads, an unsupported operating system is a hard pill to swallow.
There are a couple of ways we can look at cost, neither of which is nearly as flattering to Linux as one might expect. First, we can look at the costs directly related to the acquisition of the platform. RHEL is a subscription-based license, meaning that rather than pay for the software itself, you pay for server support. This doesn’t mean just phone tech support or troubleshooting (although that is included too, whether you want it or not) but also includes standard patches and bug fixes. Standard support for RHEL 5 Advanced Platform is $1,499 per year per server, or $4,047 for three years. Compare this with $3,999 for Windows Server 2008 Enterprise edition with free patching and bug fixes, and you can basically call it a wash unless you use a ton of phone support. And there are also features that aren’t included and must be purchased separately, such as Red Hat Directory Server — thousands more per year.
The other way of looking at cost is total cost of ownership (TCO) of the platform, and this leads into our next issue.
2: Expert talent is more readily available
When looking at TCO, we’re not just looking at the software costs but also at staffing and administration costs, costs due to downtime, hardware costs, etc. Of these, staffing is the largest, accounting for more than half of the TCO. Here, Windows wins out because IT pros experienced with Windows are much more plentiful and generally cheaper to hire than Linux experts and because they can often be more productive.
With Linux, efficient management over many machines usually means going to the command line and pounding out a script to automate a process — which is cool. However, with Windows Server 2008, PowerShell is now built in, which means the Windows guys can do that too, arguably better. Add that to the System Center family of tools, where virtually all management tasks are available at the click of a button (and which really have no peer on the Linux side), and Windows is simply easier to manage.
3: Linux isn’t actually trying to compete head-to-head
The last reason Linux isn’t triumphing over Windows in the server space is that it’s not really the primary focus. Right now, both Linux and Windows are gaining in server market share. How is that possible? Old granddaddy UNIX is being thrown under the bus to make it happen. Today, companies are dumping their old mainframe or proprietary UNIX servers for cheaper x86-based commodity hardware. It’s easy for a Linux sales guy to come in and make the value proposition: “It’s essentially the UNIX you know and love, but it runs on hardware a fraction of the cost.”
Unfortunately, the market for UNIX conversions and mainframe modernization is drying up. When those deals are gone, Linux will have to compete head-to-head with Windows to continue its growth, and this is a much harder proposition to make. Why should an organization already using Windows change platforms and have to build whole new skill sets around Linux?
4: Windows offers familiarity and ease of use
Let’s face it: Whatever else you might say about Windows, it is easier to use. We love our Start menu and our Task Manager and our system tray. Some of us are even starting to love our Vista Sidebar and gadgets. Young adults today never had to use MS-DOS, even if they started using computers at an early age, so they aren’t going to be comfortable at a Linux command line.
Don’t get me wrong — Linux has come a long way. But remember how far back it has had to come from — where just managing to install the operating system for a non-expert was considered a major triumph. There are still too many things in the Linux world that are expected to be done manually, like program installation. A majority of users will say, “I might have to compile something myself? No thanks.”
5: More software is available
Here’s another one that’s a pretty clear edge for Windows. It isn’t about being able to play the newest games, even if that is one of the most often raised issues against using Linux. Simply because Windows is the dominant operating system, there is much more software available for it than for Linux. Much of it comes from evil Microsoft itself.
A good example goes straight to one of open source’s greatest recent successes: OpenOffice. OpenOffice is great software… considering it’s free. I use it when I’m in a pinch on somebody else’s computer. It’s almost certainly adequate for a light user or a student typing up a couple of essays. As a writer, however, I can’t imagine being stuck without Microsoft Office for long. When it comes to features like SmartArt, quick table generation, editing and review functions, and inserting basically any kind of object into a document, there is no comparison. When you go beyond the word processor to the presentation software or spreadsheets, the gap grows even wider.
Now of course much of our favorite Windows software can be run using an emulator such as Wine, or on a virtual machine running Windows — but if we find ourselves doing that all the time, why use Linux in the first place?
For next five reasons you can visit here: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=556
Let’s get what may be the most controversial point out of the way early. First, in the server space especially, we should try to compare apples to apples. This means comparing Windows Server to paid Linux. By far the most dominant flavor is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), with about a two-thirds share of the paid enterprise Linux market, so this seems the most logical comparison. While there are plenty of free options out there, such as CentOS, for a business running mission-critical workloads, an unsupported operating system is a hard pill to swallow.
There are a couple of ways we can look at cost, neither of which is nearly as flattering to Linux as one might expect. First, we can look at the costs directly related to the acquisition of the platform. RHEL is a subscription-based license, meaning that rather than pay for the software itself, you pay for server support. This doesn’t mean just phone tech support or troubleshooting (although that is included too, whether you want it or not) but also includes standard patches and bug fixes. Standard support for RHEL 5 Advanced Platform is $1,499 per year per server, or $4,047 for three years. Compare this with $3,999 for Windows Server 2008 Enterprise edition with free patching and bug fixes, and you can basically call it a wash unless you use a ton of phone support. And there are also features that aren’t included and must be purchased separately, such as Red Hat Directory Server — thousands more per year.
The other way of looking at cost is total cost of ownership (TCO) of the platform, and this leads into our next issue.
2: Expert talent is more readily available
When looking at TCO, we’re not just looking at the software costs but also at staffing and administration costs, costs due to downtime, hardware costs, etc. Of these, staffing is the largest, accounting for more than half of the TCO. Here, Windows wins out because IT pros experienced with Windows are much more plentiful and generally cheaper to hire than Linux experts and because they can often be more productive.
With Linux, efficient management over many machines usually means going to the command line and pounding out a script to automate a process — which is cool. However, with Windows Server 2008, PowerShell is now built in, which means the Windows guys can do that too, arguably better. Add that to the System Center family of tools, where virtually all management tasks are available at the click of a button (and which really have no peer on the Linux side), and Windows is simply easier to manage.
3: Linux isn’t actually trying to compete head-to-head
The last reason Linux isn’t triumphing over Windows in the server space is that it’s not really the primary focus. Right now, both Linux and Windows are gaining in server market share. How is that possible? Old granddaddy UNIX is being thrown under the bus to make it happen. Today, companies are dumping their old mainframe or proprietary UNIX servers for cheaper x86-based commodity hardware. It’s easy for a Linux sales guy to come in and make the value proposition: “It’s essentially the UNIX you know and love, but it runs on hardware a fraction of the cost.”
Unfortunately, the market for UNIX conversions and mainframe modernization is drying up. When those deals are gone, Linux will have to compete head-to-head with Windows to continue its growth, and this is a much harder proposition to make. Why should an organization already using Windows change platforms and have to build whole new skill sets around Linux?
4: Windows offers familiarity and ease of use
Let’s face it: Whatever else you might say about Windows, it is easier to use. We love our Start menu and our Task Manager and our system tray. Some of us are even starting to love our Vista Sidebar and gadgets. Young adults today never had to use MS-DOS, even if they started using computers at an early age, so they aren’t going to be comfortable at a Linux command line.
Don’t get me wrong — Linux has come a long way. But remember how far back it has had to come from — where just managing to install the operating system for a non-expert was considered a major triumph. There are still too many things in the Linux world that are expected to be done manually, like program installation. A majority of users will say, “I might have to compile something myself? No thanks.”
5: More software is available
Here’s another one that’s a pretty clear edge for Windows. It isn’t about being able to play the newest games, even if that is one of the most often raised issues against using Linux. Simply because Windows is the dominant operating system, there is much more software available for it than for Linux. Much of it comes from evil Microsoft itself.
A good example goes straight to one of open source’s greatest recent successes: OpenOffice. OpenOffice is great software… considering it’s free. I use it when I’m in a pinch on somebody else’s computer. It’s almost certainly adequate for a light user or a student typing up a couple of essays. As a writer, however, I can’t imagine being stuck without Microsoft Office for long. When it comes to features like SmartArt, quick table generation, editing and review functions, and inserting basically any kind of object into a document, there is no comparison. When you go beyond the word processor to the presentation software or spreadsheets, the gap grows even wider.
Now of course much of our favorite Windows software can be run using an emulator such as Wine, or on a virtual machine running Windows — but if we find ourselves doing that all the time, why use Linux in the first place?
For next five reasons you can visit here: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=556
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