Tonight was the first event of 2012 so we thought we would start out with something simple… Like an Introduction to Cisco Routers and Switches. Well, it turns out that you can’t just have a simple Cisco presentation without having to get some basic networking concepts out of the way first. That’s where Waseem Ahmad comes in.

Waseem Ahmad, CCIE and Network Engineer at Equitable Life of Canada, was kind enough to give an introductory presentation on the differences between Cisco Routers and Switches but in the process he covered a lot of basic networking terms. Waseem’s presentation was like an accelerated Networking course, it was a lot to take in but he had a lot to cover. He started us out on the OSI model, moved into Layer 2 and Layer 3 Switching, talked about the Cisco Design principles (old and new) then moved into the difference between Routers and Switches and when / why you need to use them.

Waseem wanted to show a 10 minute video but we ran out of time but here it is for you to view at your leisure http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reXS_e3fTAk&feature=player_detailpage 

Terry Edwards
President WWITPRO
Terry @ wwitpro.com

 

Novembers Event featured two speakers, Martin Patzold (Windows 8 Demo) and Tim Jackson (Improvements in the latest Spiceworks version).  

Our night started out with Martin, a long time WWITPRO member talking about Windows 8. What Martin showed us was only a Beta but it was still quite impressive. Some of the new features displayed were the integration with Hotmail, The new titled interface, the low requirements that Windows 8 needs to run and the ability to still drop back to a familiar Windows 7 style desktop. It’s always great to see live demo’s and that’s exactly what this was, Martin showed us all the features live on screen and was able to give updates about the newer changes that were still being made for the upcoming RC.

After the break Tim Jackson showed the group some new and updated features in Spiceworks 5.1. I was actually surprised that so many people had come out to specifically see the Spiceworks talk. Tim was barely able to get through his presentation he had so many questions! There will definitely be another Spiceworks session but in the meantime, if you are looking for Training or more information on Spiceworks, please contact Tim directly “Tim @ WWITPRO.COM”

Terry Edwards
President WWITPRO
Terry @ wwitpro.com

 

October’s event was presented by yours truly. I presented on using Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 with Websense Web filter to build a Proxy Server. There was quite a bit of installation slides in the beginning but I had to explain a lot of the little details, things to look out for an issues. It also doesn’t help that The installation order doesn’t match your understanding order. What I mean by that is the installers ask you to configure things that you don’t understand yet. It’s not until later on in the installation that you see why you need to pick certain options earlier in the install.

Once we got out of the installers I was able to give a live demo of setting of configuring Forefront TMG 2010 in preparation for installing Website. One of the Key points about Forefront TMG is that it really locks the server down! So much so that you can’t even connect to the machine from any other machine until you modify the system settings and add additional machines / networks to the list of things that are allowed to access TMG. Even when you go to install Websense Web filter on TMG you need to configure a special rule or Web filter can’t install.

The Websense Web filter Demo was where all the fun was at. It was here that we created a couple of new policies and started locking down access to sites. The thing to look out for with this is that the rules can take up to a minute to take effect. When I was showing this part as a demo I felt like at times that I might have configured something wrong or missed a setting but then after the 4 refresh the site was finally blocked. Talk about frustrating!

I’ve posted the slide under the Documents setting of the site but I try to use the “Presentation Zen” style of presentation (lots of pictures not a lot of writing) so I’m not exactly sure how much you will get out of them. At very least it shows a pretty much step by step installation of Forefront TMG with Websense Web filter in Single Network Card Mode.

Anyway, for those of you that attended, I hope you enjoyed it and next time I would be so “Installer” heavy ;)

Terry Edwards
President WWITPRO
Terry @ wwitpro.com
 

September's event featured Jason Eckert and Windows Phone 7 (WP7). Since we are mainly a group of IT Administrators, Jason tailored his talk to start with the Administration / Technical details about WP7 and switched gears in the second half to give an insight into how to deploy / publish a WP7 app.

The Administration section covered WP7 hardware requirements, why having hardware requirements was so important in making WP7 so fast, configuring Active Sync in your Exchange environment, what type of certificates you should use, the prerequisite to getting your WP7 device to automatically connect to Exchange, configuring policies on your WP7 in Active Sync and how SharePoint can leverage your Exchange credentials to login to your corporate SharePoint Site.

On the Development and Deployment side of things we saw the different tools used to create an app, limits around using custom built apps on your developer device and how to setup a Market Place account / publish your app.

The slides are posted under the "Documents" Section of the site or check out Jason's Blog for more details:
http://jasoneckert.net/blog/Entries/2011/9/26_WWITPRO_Windows_Phone_7_Talk.html


Terry Edwards
President WWITPRO
terry @ wwitpro.com

 

 

June was our Forums night and it turned out to be a big success! This month we had three speakers and I was actually pretty good this time at keeping them on time so everyone got to present and take questions.

 

Paul Nijjar gave us an introduction on how to use LDAP to authenticate to AD. Fred Gregory talked about Windows Small Business Server 2011, gave us a comparison of the different versions in 2011 and some strategies around the licenses and how to determine the best options for your clients. Rounding out the night was Cal McLennan who told us all about Windows Multi-point server and how it isn’t for just the education market anymore. Cal gave us some practical examples where it could be used in business call centers and some other applications

 

Here are some notes that I took from the presentations.

 

Authenticating against AD:

Authenticating against AD with third party tools

Overview of how to use LDAP to search for things

Thing of AD as a hierarchical folder structure

Need to use a user account that has read access to AD

Some examples of applications that can use ldap are Apache and custom trouble ticket systems using pearl

 

Small Business Server 2011:

Two new versions: Essentials and Standard.

Premium add-on is separate that can be added on to Essentials or Standard

Gave a breakdown of what is included in each version

Talked about how backup works between the versions (They are different)

 

Windows Multi-point Server:

Educational market is where it originated from

One host computer with networked peripheral devices

Up to 20 users

Each user is basically a terminal service session

You can use a management interface to manage multiple multi-point server

You can send messages to users or even block their access to a session

A good applications for this is in a call center environment

 

Terry Edwards
President WWITPRO
terry @ wwitpro.com

 

 

 

May's Event was on the "Path to Virtualize your entire IT Enterprise", specifically around VDI and the three major players: VMware, Citrix and Microsoft.

Micheal Tuss from Compugen talked about the Major players, what they use for VDI, how they are different from each other and why he thinks one is better than the other in particular areas. This is the part that I found interesting, they each have their own strengths and it really depends on what you are doing or trying to do that could make the difference in which solution or combination of solutions to go with.

The great thing about this presentation was that Micheal was taking questions about anything that was Virtualization related which made this presentation to be more like a fire side chat with lots of member interaction. We talked about Scaling out, spinning up and tearing down desktops on demain, Citrix virtualizing an IPAD, how VMware has an IPAD application to serve Windows 7 Desktops and how companies deal with allowing user to bring in their own hardware to connect to the corporate network (How the HelpDesk supports them and what they do to prevent virus and malware coming from home machines).

Thank you Micheal for the great presentation and we hope to have you back soon!

 

Terry Edwards
President WWITPRO
terry @ wwitpro.com

 

 

The slides from April's event have been uploaded:

http://www.wwitpro.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Nv1WIu7bMVE%3d&tabid=64&mid=400

Terry Edwards
President WWITPRO
terry @ wwitpro.com