QuikNews April 2003 E-Mail Newsletter




Quality Technology Solutions, Inc. QTS QuikNews – April 2003 – Issue 2003.4 April 30, 2003 ************************************************************************ Welcome to the April edition of QTS QuikNews, our Monthly E-Mail newsletter. In this monthly e-mail, you will receive an update of what's new at QTS - new products we support, new patches and upgrades, solution ideas and promotions to save you money, and information about our company and our clients. As a QTS client, a prospective client we have had discussions with, or a “friend of QTS,” you have been automatically added to our newsletter distribution list. To unsubscribe from this mailing please see the instructions at the bottom of this page, or call your QTS Account Manager. Please do not respond to this e-mail. This is an unmonitored account. ********************************************************************** IN THIS ISSUE ********************************************************************** 1. QTS News 2. Events 3. Patches & Upgrades 4. President’s Corner 5. Special Offers & Featured Solutions ********************************************************************** QTS NEWS ********************************************************************** CHECK POINT FIREWALL-1/VPN-1 END OF LIFE NOTICE Customers running Check Point FireWall-1 and/or VPN-1 version 4.1 (also known as the “2000” edition) should note that support for this platform is discontinued effective June 30^th, 2003. After this date, Check Point will not provide any bug fixes, security fixes or other code updates. Customers should upgrade to the NG (“Next Generation”) code base before that date. Contact your QTS Account Manager if you would like assistance with this. APC SAFETY RECALL FOR BACK-UPS UNITS Customers running APC Back-UPS models BK350, BK500 and BK500BLK should contact APC foe replacement of the UPS. Not all models are affected – if the first six characters of the serial number fall within the following ranges, your unit should be immediately unplugged and you should call APC at (866)272-7359 to arrange a replacement. AB0048 through AB0251 BB0104 through BB0251 JB0125 through JB0251 This problem does not affect Smart-UPS models, which is the majority of what QTS sells and recommends, but some of you may have units that are affected. +++ FROM THE WEB +++ QTS ANNOUNCES SUPPORT FOR WINDOWS 2003 SERVER 4/24/2003: QTS today announced support for Microsoft’s Windows 2003 Server family of network operating systems. Read more at http://www.QTSnet.com/stayinformed/l3_stay_pr40.htm ********************************************************************** EVENTS ************************************************************************ QTS will be presenting at Microsoft’s “Discover How” seminar series on Information Security. Attendees will discover how to: * Create a more secure infrastructure, generally and around Microsoft technologies; * Protect your systems from internal and external threats; * Keep secure while rolling out web services; * Respond rapidly to security incidents, and to detect and prevent them; * Learn to boost staff productivity, minimize network risks, and safeguard corporate profitability. The events are targeted for IT staff responsible for system security. QTS presented the first NYC event in the series on Tuesday, April 30^th. Future events are scheduled for the following (registration URLs below): May 20^th in NJ http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032230745 June 17^th in NYC http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032230776 June 19^th in NJ http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032230777 Please join us to learn important techniques to get your networks secure, and keep them secure. ************************************************************************ PATCHES & UPGRADES ************************************************************************ Call the Customer Support Center to have us apply QTS-standard patches and keep your systems current. The following patches have been recently released and are generally recommended by QTS: * Microsoft SMS 2.0 Service Pack 5 Novell has recently released numerous service pack updates to NetWare, GroupWise, ZENworks and BorderManager, as well as the Novell client. We are presently evaluating these updates and will note a recommendation in the next release of QuikNews. Call the CSC if you do not wish to wait. Also, please check http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/current.asp for applicability of Microsoft Security Bulletins to the products in use at your environment. Contact your QTS Account Manager if you would like our Customer Support Center to monitor these bulletins for you and advise with recommendations for your environment upon release of new bulletins. Symantec (formerly Norton) Antivirus Corporate Edition signature files are currently at version 50430d (4/30/2003). CA InoculateIT 4.x signature files are currently at version 43.10 (4/28/2003) and 6.x signature files are currently at version 23.61.12 (4/30/2003). McAfee VirusScan/NetShield signature files are currently at version 4260 (4/30/2003). Please keep your antivirus signatures, and your scan engines, current! If you do not have your system set up to automatically distribute updates from your server to your PCs, please call your QTS Account Manager or the Customer Support Center. Some patches can cause problems, especially in combination with other software programs or patch levels. Please talk to us to verify whether we see any possible problems in your environment before patching your systems independently. We make best efforts to test patch combinations but cannot guarantee compatibility between software and hardware manufacturers’ products. ************************************************************************ PRESIDENT’S CORNER ********************************************************************** On this past Thursday, Microsoft officially launched Windows 2003 Server (formerly known as .Net Server), along with Visual Studio .Net and the 64-bit edition of SQL Server 2000. This is the first new release of Microsoft’s server operating system since 2000, and has been long-awaited. Those of you who are familiar with QTS, and who know me, may be surprised that QTS has taken a relatively proactive, aggressive stance with the operating system release and announced support for Windows 2003 Server upon launch. We sent most of our engineers to pre-release training on the product, and have developed our checklists, documentation and other supporting materials on pre-release code during our testing. Normally, QTS has tended to be much more conservative with new releases, particularly something as significant as a server operating system. Our long history in the legal market has tended to reinforce a conservative approach in our line support. However, Windows 2003 Server is an “evolutionary” release of the operating system, rather than a “revolutionary” release. If you look back to Windows 2000, compared to Windows NT Server 4.0 (which, believe it or not, dates all the way back to 1996), that was a revolutionary release. Active Directory was a huge jump from the NT Domain model, both in terms of the technology and in terms of the design considerations. The scope of differences created the gap between versions that caused many people to wait on Windows 2000 Server, based on lack of knowledge, fear of bugs and problems, or simply not having enough incentive to change. Windows 2003 Server has a plethora of new features and capabilities, but nothing so radically different from Windows 2000 to hold back adoption. And for Windows NT Server shops, the upcoming cutoff of support for this 7 year-old operating system will drive the need to move to something new. The key here is Active Directory. This was the huge paradigm shift from Windows NT to 2000, and I’m happy to say that it is largely unchanged from 2000 to 2003. There are certainly administrative, performance and scalability improvements to Active Directory in Windows 2003 Server, but the core concepts and operation of AD are essentially unchanged, which means the same design principals, methodologies and considerations apply. This will make it easier to move to this platform. Microsoft’s “marketing pitch” for Windows 2003 Server is “do more with less” – it has significant performance enhancements that allow for server consolidation, especially when deployed on newer, faster hardware. Microsoft has attempted to address the Total Cost of Ownership issue by helping to reduce server headcount through consolidation, and by improving the management and administrative tools to make the remaining servers less work to maintain and manage. A variety of improvements address the issue of reliability, to provide for increased uptime and dependability. One of the major areas that Microsoft addressed was security. If you remember, in 2002 Microsoft froze development for about 3 months while all of its developers were sent to security training. This resulted in a few changes (and the delayed release date). First, the code is tighter to prevent or minimize code related security exposures such as buffer overruns – which are potentially huge vulnerabilities, and almost always the result of poorly written code. Second, the attack surface against the operating system is minimized because unnecessary services are not turned on by default. Rather, most services are now off by default and need to be affirmatively turned on. Other than the Web Server version of the product, IIS is no longer even installed by default, and when it is added, the IIS Lockdown Wizard is automatically launched to secure it and minimize the attack surface against it. This is a huge change for Microsoft, as a result of the Bill Gates Trustworthy Computing initiative, and reflects a long-overdue recognition on the part of Microsoft that improved security is essential, and can only be achieved at the cost of some convenience and ease of use/installation. It is a necessary trade-off. The way I see it, businesses running Windows NT Server have a choice now. Remaining on NT Server is not a viable long-term option based on its upcoming end of life. So one can either be conservative and move to Windows 2000, or be more aggressive and move to Windows 2003 Server. Those who are more aggressive will benefit by skipping an entire upgrade cycle, and all of the associated service costs, time costs and disruption elements that go with this. For many, it will be the right choice, especially in our current fiscally responsible times. And those organizations will reap the performance, reliability and security benefits of Windows 2003 Server, plus the new features and capabilities of the operating system. However, for some organizations a more conservative approach will be dictated, particularly if applications compatibility or third party support reveals problem in moving to Windows 2003. I don’t think I’d classify this release as “bleeding edge” from what I’ve seen, but some folks just are never comfortable on the leading edge and would rather run at the “back of the pack” – for them, an interim step to Windows 2000 Server would be an appropriate approach. And since AD is fundamentally similar between versions, it is possible to run a mixed environment and transition gradually. The upcoming months will yield numerous questions, and it will be interesting to see how perspectives on this issue evolve. I look forward to your comments and input based on your experiences, and will share our perspective on this later in the year in another column. As always, feel free to email me your comments or thoughts at nrosenberg@QTSnet.com. Thank you. Neil Rosenberg President & CEO Quality Technology Solutions ********************************************************************** SPECIAL OFFERS & FEATURED SOLUTIONS ********************************************************************** SYMANTEC SECURITY SOFTWARE Symantec is offering a 10% discount on many of its security software programs (Intrusion Detection, Vulnerability Management, etc.) to customers who purchase a Vulnerability Assessment utilizing Symantec’s NetRecon software, from QTS. Contact your QTS Account Manager for more details. SURFCONTROL ENTERPRISE SUITE SurfControl is offering a free Antivirus Agent to customers who purchase the Enterprise Bundle (Web and Mail content filtering). Other promotions may apply, so contact your QTS Account Manager if you are interested in deploying SurfControl technology. ********************************************************************** To Comment on this newsletter, send an email to QuikNews@QTSnet.com. ********************************************************************** To Remove yourself from this mailing list please send a reply to this message with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject field. Or call or email your QTS Account Manager. ********************************************************************** To Subscribe to this Newsletter, tell your friends and colleagues to go to http://www.QTSnet.com/QuikNews. ********************************************************************** To View an archive of all QTS QuikNews editions, please visit http://www.QTSnet.com/stayinformed/QuikNews/QuikNews_Index.htm. ************************************************************************ ^{ã 2003 Quality Technology Solutions, Inc.} This site last updated 05/26/03 © 1999 Quality Technology Solutions, Inc. 201 Littleton Road, Morris Plains, New Jersey 07950 telephone: 973.984.7600 fax: 973.984.7650 email: info@qtsnet.com