Recently, Cisco and Microsoft joint forces to launch a new product called Windows Server on WAAS.

This product allows companies to deploy applications and infrastructure services among branches and datacenters located in various locations though the integration of Windows Server 2008 with Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS)

With this product, organizations can substantially reduce the need to manage multiple servers within branches, thus eliminating any redundancy and duplication issues. Imagine if each branch manages its own set of domain controller, it can be difficult to consolidate later on when there is a need to centralize all applications.

Many organizations in the past chose to maintain their own server within their branch simply because of connection issues to main office data centers. But with Cisco WAAS’s WAN Optimization solution, it’s capable to significantly improve the performance of the centralized applications to branch users with decreasing WAN usage.

To improve remote branch management, Windows Server on WAAS can be deployed at branches as well as in the data center.

The branch appliance includes Windows Server 2008 Server Core installation on the Cisco WAAS platform, which communicates over the WAN to a Cisco WAAS appliance in the data center.

Windows® branch services include:

• Active Directory read-only domain controller
• Microsoft Domain Name System (DNS) Server
• Microsoft Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Server
• Microsoft Print Services

WAN optimization functionality is managed by the Cisco WAAS Central Manager, while Windows Server can be managed remotely by Microsoft System Center.

So if your organization is seeking for ways to reduce the number of devices within your branch offices as well as the need to mantain many servers, do check out the new Windows Server on WAAS

Are you a technical writer in your organization? 

If you’re one then you must be looking for a good tool to assist in generating help files.

With a good HTML Help (.chm) generator, gone were the days when technical writers need to write technical documentations in Microsoft Word or even Wordpad, then send it to a HTML programmer for conversion purposes.

A good HTML Help generator should have the capabilities of Microsoft Word and at the same time be able to easily export the technical content to various supported formats such as pdf, html or chm

One such software is HelpSmith Continue Reading »Create Microsoft HTML Help (.chm) with HelpSmith

Recently our organization purchased for a senior management one of the latest and priciest notebook in town, a Lenovo X300 ThinkPad priced at about USD 2,900 (July 2008).

The notebook at that time was not available in stock on many outlets since we called numerous notebook shops to enquire about its availability. In the end, we contacted Lenovo directly and was forwarded to a distributor who told us that we had to wait for at least 2 weeks in order to get hold of the notebook. Since the decision was already made to purchase this unit, we ordered the notebook and it did indeed reached us in 2 weeks time.

The initial comments we’ve got from people who looked and felt at it for the first time:

• It doesn’t look good.
• Wow, it’s damn light.
• The notebook bag seems heavier that the notebook itself.
• It doesn’t really looks like it’s worth about USD 2,900. Oh well.. maybe it’s whats inside that matters most.
• Wow, this notebook is worth more than my 7 year old car!

Once the notebook arrived, I never thought I needed to do anything to it and just passed the notebook the the senior management staff.

A few weeks later, I was requested by the senior management staff to assist in transfering Microsoft Outlook emails and data from the old notebook to the new X300 ThinkPad with Windows Vista Business installed. During this time, I had to activate the wireless connection on the X300 in order to connect to the Internet. Upon successfully setting up the wireless connection, I managed to connect to the Internet for a few minutes before the whole machine just freezed. Moving the mouse didn’t work. Pressing Ctrl + Alt+ Del didn’t work as well. In the end, it just hang and freezed and all I could do was hard reboot by holding on to the Power On button for a long time. Continue Reading »My Lenovo X300 ThinkPad Notebook experience

By Loraine Lawson

CIO involvement with SOA is a bit of a chicken/egg quandary. Are SOA implementations failing because CIOs don’t get involved? Or are CIOs smart not to get involved with a failing trend? It’s tricky to tell who failed first.

To be perfectly honest, if I were a CIO and I’d drug my feet on SOA, I’d be pretty darned pleased with myself this week - particularly after reading “Are You Being Played in the SOA Game Plan?”

PCWorld.com ran the piece on Monday, and it’s a great headline. But I read it with reservations, because I know there’s nothing more thrilling for a journalist than to reveal that someone’s getting played. If journalists are biased - and, really, everyone has several biases - then this is the big one for reporters. They live for exposing people, places and things.

During my tech journalism tenure, I’ve learned that most technology trends do, indeed, follow that infamous Gartner hype cycle - and ultimately, they emerge from it somewhat successful. So, I’ve grown just as suspicious of the “Wow, it’s a rip-off” articles as I have the “Wow, it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread” headlines. Continue Reading »Shift in SOA Marketing Could Mean Cost Savings For You