QuikNews September 2001 E-Mail Newsletter




Quality Technology Solutions, Inc. QTS QuikNews – September 2001 – Issue 2001.9 September 29, 2001 ************************************************************************ Welcome to the September 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: Disaster Recovery & Business Contingency Planning 5. Special Offers & Featured Solutions ********************************************************************** QTS NEWS ********************************************************************** QTS ADDS SYMANTEC TO PARTNER LIST QTS has added Symantec’s Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition software to its supported product list, and established a partnership with Symantec to deploy best of class network virus protection to its customers. A press release will follow as partnership arrangements are finalized. QTS RESPONDS TO NIMDA Although most of our client base was not affected by the NIMDA worm, a number of newer customers were attacked, and QTS responded promptly to isolate and remove NIMDA from their systems. Note that NIMDA re-propagates every 10 days, and exploits the vulnerabilities of Code Red as well as MAPI script vulnerabilities. We remind our customers and friends that it is critical that: (1) all IIS servers be patched to remove the vulnerabilities NIMDA and Code Red exploit; (2) Code Red IIS propagation traffic be blocked, inbound and outbound, by your firewall; and (3) antivirus signatures be auto-updated on a regular (preferably daily) basis, on all systems; If you have any concerns or would like us to audit your system, please contact your QTS Account Manager. QTS ADDS AT&T VOICE AUTHORIZATION QTS is now authorized by AT&T to sell voice services, in addition to the Managed Internet Service, Private WAN and Managed Hosting Services it currently offers. This allows us to provide a single point of ownership for ordering and managing AT&T services for our customers. +++ FROM THE WEB +++ QTS ANNOUNCES QUIKCHECKUP PRODUCT OFFERING FOR NOVELL AND MICROSOFT SERVERS 9/28/2001: QTS announced that it is now offering a new service to proactively check Novell and Microsoft servers for health and performance, distinct from but building upon our QuikAlert service. The service is available remotely or on site, and can be scheduled as frequently as our customers desire, with affordable pricing based on volume. Read more at http://www.qtsnet.com/stayinformed/l3_stay_pr19.htm ********************************************************************** EVENTS ************************************************************************ QTS TECHNOLOGY ROUNDTABLE SCHEDULE – OCTOBER & NOVEMBER QTS continues its Technology Roundtable series through the fall, with focused, small group technology roundtables for its customers and active prospects (upon invitation/approval by the account manager). The roundtables will be held on Tuesdays from 12:30 to 1:30, over lunch. The current roundtable schedule is: * October 9^th – Introduction to Novell NetWare 6 * October 23^rd – Citrix MetaFrame XP and NFuse: New Features and Benefits * November 6^th – Introduction to Microsoft Windows XP * November 20^th – Introduction to PKI and Digital Certificates (with RSA Security) See our web site at http://www.QTSnet.com/roundtables for any changes or updates, and to register. QTS SEMINAR SCHEDULE QTS will continue its seminar series this fall, with a focus on educating our customers on hot technology topics. QTS seminars are held from 9:00AM to 12:00PM, at QTS unless otherwise noted. The current seminar schedule for September is: * October 18^th – Fundamentals of Internet Security: VPNs and Authentication (with Check Point Software and RSA Security), second of a three event series * November 15^th – Fundamentals of Internet Security: Bandwidth and Content Management (with Check Point Software and Aladdin), third of a three event series * November 27^th (New Jersey) and November 28^th (New York) – Secure Remote Access (with Cisco, Citrix and RSA Security) Note that the SharePoint Portal seminar with Stratis Group and Microsoft has been cancelled, and the date of the New Jersey Secure Remote Access seminar has been moved to November 27th. Also, presentations from the first Fundamentals of Internet Security seminar are now posted at http://www.qtsnet.com/SecuritySolutions/security_presentations.html for attendees. See our web site at http://www.QTSnet.com/seminars for any changes or updates, and to register. ************************************************************************ 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 recommended by QTS: * Novell GroupWise 6 Wireless Enhancement Pack (adds Palm support) * Novell BorderManager Proxy Patch for Code Red – Pxy018a.exe (8/10/2001) * Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 2 CA InoculateIT 4.x signature files are currently at version 28.20 (9/28/2001) and McAfee VirusScan/NetShield is at version 4163 (9/26/2001), and Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition is at version 30927i (9/27/2001). Please keep your antivirus signatures 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 ********************************************************************** Although I had planned to allocate the next few months’ columns to a hot topic, security, recent events have forced me to change this decision. The column I planned to use, which is also appearing in the New York State Society of CPAs’ newsletter the Trusted Professional, is now posted on our web site under our updated Security section, at http://www.qtsnet.com/SecuritySolutions/security_artlcles.html. The 8 part column will provide a strong introduction to computer security, both for technical professionals and business managers. ------- The terrible events of September 11^th are difficult to talk about, and leave me with a feeling of helplessness, frustration, and anger. Although QTS as a company, and as individuals, did our part to contribute in a number of ways, at a business level it strikes me that this serves as a clear “call to arms” for us as technology professionals to establish at least a minimum level of business contingency planning. Of the businesses in the World Trade Center, and in the area around it, there are two groups – the ones who will continue operations semi-normally, and the ones who will be severely impacted or go out of business. Putting all of my personal feelings about these events aside, this is an unfortunate reality that all of us as professionals must consider. There are many levels of Business Contingency Planning, ranging from the most simple (keeping copies or key business records and tape backups offsite) to the most involved (“Hot Sites” where complete systems can be recreated and staff can report to the next day with the ability to resume normal business operations). In this column, I will focus on some fundamentals that our small to medium business customers (and even our larger ones) need to focus on at a minimum. The first issue is having a copy of your data at a different, distinct location. In the smallest of businesses, this means the network administrator takes a tape home every night, and brings tapes back and forth so that the needed tapes are onsite, but some older tapes are offsite. Some of our law firm customers take advantage of the legal courier services or records storage companies that visit their buildings every day to manage this with or for them. Other businesses hire service companies to manage this process. I know of one customer that stores their tapes in a fireproof safe in a bank in the building, and another firm that exchanges tapes with another firm in an adjacent building. All of these approaches have some advantages and disadvantages, but the operative concept is the same – in the event of a fire, natural disaster, or “un-natural disaster” it is important to have a backup copy of your data in a different location unaffected by the disaster. As recent events show, the building next door may not be far enough away. On the subject of fire, it is desirable to have your on-site tapes stored in a fireproof safe. However, be careful as there are different definitions of fireproof, and the safe needs to protect the tapes not only from fire, but from heat as well. Saving $100 when buying the safe is probably not a bargain if your tapes can’t be used. What you have to restore from is another matter entirely. Many of our clients don’t like the annoyance of having to change tapes daily, and although QTS sets our systems up for daily full backups, they choose to change to a weekly rotation with incremental or differential daily backups. This is more effective time-wise, and solves backup window problems, but the net result is that if I am rotating tapes weekly, then my offsite tape is AT LEAST a week old, and probably older. Depending on your business, the cost of data loss may be very, very high, so consider this carefully when planning your tape rotation scheme. Backup window concerns are very real (not being able to back up all of your data on a given evening), but can usually be addressed by higher capacity, faster tape drives, high-speed connections between systems, and other approaches that may involve spending some money. You have to assess cost versus benefit, or in this case versus risk and exposure. Project capacity, and if making an investment plan for it to scale for 3 years of growth. As to your tapes, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of doing a test restore at least once a month to make sure your data is actually on the tapes. You cannot trust the logs and reports, exclusively, to tell you your backups are successful. Tapes can wear out, become warped, de-magnetize or suffer damage after a backup. Many administrators do not turn on CRC checking or comparisons to ensure data is successfully written to the tapes. The safe thing to do is a test restore each month, just to be sure. While you are at it, review your system to ensure open files are being backed up, and that special databases like email and SQL servers are being properly protected. You don’t want to find out you have a problem when you’re in the middle of an emergency restore. If your business suffers severe losses for each hour of downtime, then you will want to purchase the Disaster Recovery Option for your backup software. This will cut as much as a day out of the recovery process by allowing you to bypass reinstalling the operating system, reinstalling the backup software and merging the tape. However, you will need these diskettes offsite as well. For our current customers, we have no doubt reviewed these considerations with you as part of administrator training, but now is a good time for a re-evaluation of your procedures and processes. Look at your rotation scheme, taking tapes offsite, where and how you are storing them, and whether your backups are in good condition. Plan the changes that are necessary, and test the plan. Then set a monthly schedule for testing the plan and ensuring you are covered. The difference could be your job, or it could be your business. If you would like us to help you, contact your Account Manager and we’ll be happy to help. In next month’s newsletter, we’ll talk about hot sites and some of the more involved options you can consider. In the interim, please take a look at these basics and ensure you have them covered. Feel free to email me your comments or thoughts at nrosenberg@QTSnet.com. Neil Rosenberg President & CEO Quality Technology Solutions ********************************************************************** SPECIAL OFFERS & FEATURED SOLUTIONS ********************************************************************** QTS “QUIKWIN” WINDOWS 2000/XP MIGRATION SERVICE – ASSESSMENT REBATE QTS is offering customers the ability to conduct an assessment of your computers and network, for upgrading to Windows 2000 or XP Professional, and to have a portion of the assessment cost credited to your implementation project. This offer expires on November 15^th, so contact your QTS Account Manager for more details! NETWARE 5.1 UPGRADE PROTECTION (INCLUDES UPGRADE TO NETWARE 6) QTS and Novell are offering customers the ability to upgrade to NetWare 5.1 today, and NetWare 6 when it ships, by purchasing Novell VLA Upgrade Protection, plus get a year of future updates for free! NetWare 5.1 is a reliable, manageable network operating system platform, and is the mainstay current release of NetWare. NetWare 6 will expand on 5.1 by adding improved scaleability and performance, clustering support, Internet Printing, full NSS volume support and native client access (no client is required!). Contact your QTS Account Manager soon for more details! ********************************************************************** 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. 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