Does Your Office Need a Windows Server Domain Controller?

Network, ,
30
Mar 2015

Server_Domain_Controller

Find out if your office really needs a Windows server domain controller. Here’s what you need to know to help you decide what is best for your business.

What are domains?

To understand the need for domain controllers, let’s first look at what a domain is.

computer_network

Domains relate to any given network that hosts a large number of computers and devices. When a business uses Windows domains, this usually is to help manage a large network. For instance schools, large businesses, hospitals and government institutions will all have a domain that defines their large network.

The role of a domain controller

Now that we’ve looked at what constitutes a domain; we can relate the use of domain controllers.

  • Just as the name suggests, a domain controller is a role that network administrators assign to a server to help them manage computers and the network. The advantage of having domain controllers in a network pertains to the ease that administrators can enjoy when managing all the computers from one single point.
  • A typical domain will be made up by a large number of computers within the local network. However, it is possible for computers to join the domain via an Internet connection or through a Virtual Private Network ( VPN) connection.
  • Network administrators are then able to manage portable devices that connect to the network externally. This is useful for remote workers and people who need to work from home, as well as students who need to access study material.
  • Domain controllers are also used to authenticate user login sessions. Its role is to manage user accounts and passwords, which allows for users to log onto any computer with the same credentials within the domain.
  • Domain controllers also allow network administrators to assign and edit group policies which can be deployed out to the computers on the domain. Any policies pushed out from the Domain controller will override any individual computer policy set up by the user.
  • This allows for much more control over a network, where computers are locked down. For instance, a group policy can specify for all computers to display the same corporate wallpaper. This will add many restrictions to users on the domain from making any system changes.

When a Domain Controller is needed

There are only a couple of hard technical requirements to needing a domain controller:

  • Managing many different users for logins and various user access rights to shared resources over the network such as printers or shared drives.
  • If you have more than 25 computers accessing a resource on the network such as a shared drive or application on a server.

If a business doesn’t need to meet these requirements, and your setup is much simpler, then it’s best not to have a domain controller.  When a domain controller goes offline, this will create a period of business downtime, therefor it’s better to forgo this risk and added layer of complexity.

When a Domain Controller isn’t required

  • You have a simple home or office network.
  • All access to business email and file sharing is carried out through the cloud. For instance, the use of Gmail for email or Dropbox for file sharing.
  • Your office is phasing out Window PCs and uses Macs or other devices instead. LDAP services can still be used to authenticate Linux and Mac computers as well as other devices.
  • Looking for more flexibility in a directory that doesn’t limited a domain to a physical setup. A service known as DaaS (Directory as a Service) allows for a centralized  cloud-based directory that exists to securely authenticate users and assists with device management.
  • Access to certain folders on the network needs to be restricted to certain users, however this can be accomplished with a NAS device.

Here is a list of top selling servers on Amazon.

For more ways to simplify and secure your office networks, contact your local IT professionals.

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Best Hard Drive to Invest In

hardware, Office IT, ,
27
Mar 2015

hard-drive-pile

Which is the best hard drive to invest in? With many brands to choose from, we’ll disclose our findings from our best source so you can secure your data.

Backblaze, a large data center that offers online backups, has published a new report to advise on the best hard drives to use. Their results are based on the numerous hard disks they use to run their business.

With over 34,000 active hard drives onsite holding 100 petabytes, they have plenty of experience for anyone interested.

Last year we published an article based on the best hard drives for reliability and durability. To recap on our research, the most reliable brand was Hitachi GST 1.5TB and 3 TB capacities and the least were the 3TB Western Digital and Seagate drives.

Note that Backblaze’s observations are based on a limited range of brands which include Western Digital, Hitachi and Seagate drives. They do use Toshiba and Samsung drives, however, their numbers are not quite as many to provide statistical results.

In this article, we’ll drill down to which drive models last the longest and work the best.

Considerations based on this study

Since Backblaze is a growing online backup business, they need cost effective solutions that give the best results, which is why there are more hard disks being used in particular brands than others. That’s not to say that they’ll never try out more expensive hard disks out in their data center.

Another consideration from their study is the exclusion on energy efficient drives, such as the Seagate LP (low power) 2TB drives and Western Digital Green 3TB drives. These two drives are just not suited for running a 24/7 online business as their power saving feature makes the drives spin down aggressively when not in use, causing them to wear down faster. They had also noted plenty of errors with these drives due to the latter.

Seagate drives

seagate-logo-100410502-large

  • With the 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda LP drives, it’s been observed that they’ve been consistently good with an average age of nearly 4 years. Their annual failure rate is not the best at 9.9%, but it’s not the worst either.
  • On the other hand, the 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 has around the same durability as the LP model but with 25.4% annual fail rate, which worsens as they age.
  • The larger 2TB to 4 TB, like their smaller 1.5 TB versions, are also very reliable but do play up as they age. These include Seagate Barracuda 3TB, Seagate Barracuda 3TB XT and Seagate Barracuda 3TB LP, which all have over 7 % annual failure rate at an average of 1.5 to 2 years.
  • The exception is with the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD.15, with an average age of 0.3% and a reliable 3.8 % annual fail rate.
  • Seagate drives are consistent in their performance, perhaps not the best, but they’re really affordable, which is why they make up most of Backblaze’s Hard disk inventory.

Hitachi drives

Hitachi-Logo

  • The 2TB Hitachi GST Deskstar 7K2000, 3TB Hitachi GST Deskstar 5K3000, 4TB Hitachi Deskstar 5K4000 and 3TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 all have an average annual failure rate ranging between 0.9 to 1.5%.
  • Their average age is 2 years. These are really reliable, as shown in the statistics and are by far the best performing brand out of the lot.
  • The only drawback is their premium price.

Western Digital

western_digital_logo

  • The 1 TB Western Digital Green (WD10EADS) and 1TB Western Digital Green (WD10EACS) are durable drives with an average age of 4years.
  • However 3TB Western Digital Red (WD30EFRX) has only an average lifespan of 0.5 years.
  • The average annual fail rate of these, with the exception of 3TB drive, is 3.4%.
  • These drives are the second favorite to the Hitachi ones, but are also priced higher than the Seagate ones.

Smooth drive operation statistics

In a large data center, such as Backblaze’s data center environment, certain brands run smoothly and work well within their disk array configuration-without creating too much work!

The following are the percentages of untroubled operation by brand:

  • Out of 12956 Hitachi drives, 99.99% are active pretty much all of the time with only a mere 0.01% trouble rate.
  • Out of 933 Western digital drives,  they’re active 99.83% of the time and only recorded to trouble 0.17% of the time.
  • Out of 12459 Seagate drives, they’re active 99.72% of the time and have a 0.28% trouble rate.
  • Out of the three brands, Hitachi offers the most resilient hard drives with 96.9% survival rate in three years.
  • The batch of Western Digital Drives have some dying off near the start of implementation.
  • The ones who survive the start are likely to keep going and have a survival rate of 94.8% after three years.
  • The Seagate drives start off strong but drop off as they age. Their survival rate after 36 months is 73.5%.
  • Seagate drives have a reputation for good performance but can suffer as they age and are really affordable.
  • Hitachi offers the best performance in terms of reliability and durability but at the cost of a higher than average price for a hard drive.
  • Western digital is a good all-rounder brand to use.  Backblaze highly recommends the Western Digital 3TB Red (WD30EFRX).
  • The ones they advise to avoid are Seagate 2TB LP and Western Digital 3TB Green drives, as they’ve not worked well in their environment.

Overall summary of Drives

It’s been approximately three years since Western Digital acquired Hitachi’s 2.5″ hard drive business. Toshiba has also acquired Hitachi’s 3.5″ hard drive business. Could this mean a change, possibly an improvement of quality in any of these brands? We will have to wait and see.

For more ways to secure your data and systems, contact your local IT professionals.

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Microsoft Security Essentials Has Little Effect

Security, Uncategorized, ,
26
Mar 2015

microsoft-security-essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials is not as effective as you may think. Here’s a summary of the last two AV testing evaluations carried out by AV-Test.org.

There mare any anti-virus programs available to install, some are free, like Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) and others, like Trend Micro, Kaspersky and the like are paid with free versions available providing less features such as real time scanning.

Are paid ones any better than free AVs? A better option is to run Malwarebytes. We’ll conclude a little later.

AV-Test Results

AV-Test.org is an is an independent test center based in Germany  where they  carry out tests to evaluate which anti viruses can withstand a variety of malware. This particular test involved approximately 12,327 different malware, along with 153 emulated zero-day attacks, on Windows 7 machines.

Out of the 28 tested AV programs tested, Microsoft fared poorly by failing to protect its own operating system. In fact it came in last compared to all their 27 competitors.  These tests were carried out in December 2014 and they measured usability, performance and protection, which resulted in classifications.

This is not the first time Microsoft came last here.  They’ve also come last in the previous run of tests in 2013. They had gained top marks for MSE usability and were above averaged in performance but scored a big fat zero in the most critical part, to protect against malware!

Microsoft’s Perspective

In defense of Microsoft’s AV-test results, Joe Blackbird, representing Microsoft, wrote in a blog about it. He spoke out against the malware attacks tested by AV-Test, and stated that they’re unlikely to occur in the wild to pose a major risk to users. To support his statement, he mentioned that 94% of the samples carried out in the test were not picked up by MSE and didn’t even end up infecting their systems, hence not posing a serious risk.

Overall, Microsoft has made it clear that the AV-test results in the past does things differently as opposed to prioritizing their protection based on actual real malware threats.

Are paid anti-virus programs any better than the free ones?antivirus

Based on AV-test results, it seems like it’s highly likely. However, not all paid solutions offer the best protection. For instance, McAfee Internet Security is a paid solution and it was not far off from being the worst in protecting from the list of Malware threats. They were next to last on the list, with being only slightly better than MSE.

The highest rated AV from the test results to offer the best protection against malware attacks is Kaspersky, which happens to be a paid solution.

You do not need to necessarily go out and spend money on an AV. However, if you do run MSE, a better option is to run Malwarebytes, which is effective and free.

For more ways to secure your data and systems, contact your local IT professionals.

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What is browser hijacking and why is it so common?

Security, ,
22
Mar 2015

Major-Browsers

Browser hijacking is very common nowadays. Whilst it may not seem like a trivial issue at first, it can turn into a big nightmare!  Read on to find out why.

What is browser hijacking?

Browser hijacking occurs when a web browser is taken over by an unauthorized program, which runs without the user’s permission. We’ll outline three factors as to why it’s common.

  1. Homepage is taken over
    Automated changes are made to the browser’s settings, which usually leads it to replace the current homepage settings with its own designated search page.
  2. Tracks browsing habits
    The aim of such hijacking is to spy on your browser activity and record your personal information.  This information is then sold to advertisers.
  3. Forces users to search through a specific search engine
    Searching through an unknown search page will allow your data to be tracked. Web page redirection may also happen over to a website in order to make money from visitors by presenting search results from paid advertisers.

Some web browser hijacking can be easily cleared, whilst others can persistently remain on your system and reappear even after any attempts at clearing it.

How does browser hijacking happen?

 

No ads when browsing the internet

Many such hijacking programs present themselves as an offer on a website or are commonly bundled with free software. They are designed to trick people into installing browser hijacking programs. This strategy can also invite additional malware to become installed onto the system, creating further problems, to only end up with a heavily infected computer.

Some examples of hijacking browsers, from hundreds and thousands out there, include:

  • Astromenda Search
  • TV Wizard
  • Onewebsearch
  • CoolWebSearch
  • Conduit Search
  • Coupon server

A truly infected computer will open the doors to a barrage of undesirable hacker activity, which is why this problem should be addressed ASAP.

How to prevent browser hijacking

The main causes of browser hijacks to originate from free software download sites and from advertising. These downloads and malicious ads bundle spyware and, what we like to state as, “pretend-ware” – useless programs.

Even “trusted” vendors who offer free software may include unwanted software to be installed by default. Therefore we suggest being extra vigilant and follow our advice, which we’ll disclose later on.

Examples of added software may include, for instance, search tool bars, pc cleaners, registry fixers, and even nastier programs such as other Trojans and viruses.
What is deemed as “free” will eventually come at the cost of the user, who contrary to what most people think, is the desired product! To elaborate further on this, it’s actually people and their information that are worth a lot more than free software. The ones who fair the best are the companies behind it all, and that’s why freeware is free- it’s the incentive to attract people.

There seems to be a fine line between what is considered acceptable and what is, to put it in other words, criminal activity.

If downloading Freeware is a must …

hijack1-e1269202797108-670x670

For more ways to secure your data and systems, contact your local IT professionals.

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Fix Failed Windows 7 Update
Fix Failed Windows 7 Update

What To Do When Windows Update Won’t Work

Office IT, ,
19
Mar 2015

5-installing-updates

Windows updates are always around the corner. Fixing Windows update when Windows update isn’t working is as important as keeping your antivirus up to date.

Just when you’ve finished installing that large update that took forever finish, another 20 pop up the next time you boot. It’s annoying but it is a necessary evil for every PC user. The updates patch security holes in your system so hackers and other cyber criminals can’t exploit them to gain your information or take control of your computer. Sometimes Windows update won’t work however.  Not being able to install these updates leaves the users computer vulnerable to attack.

Here are a few ways to make sure the updates are pushed through to maintain your business’ security and stability.

1. Use a system restore

A system restore point is a snapshot of your computer’s working state at that moment in time. Many Windows events automatically create restore points of your system but you can also manually create your own.

System_Restore

Chances are that you have a few restore points in your system already. To restore your system to an earlier state, you need search for system restore using the Start Menu and open it. Once open you will be greeted with a page to start a restore, click Next. Check the box on the bottom left to show more restore points.

SystemRestore

Each restore point will have a date and time stamp to indicate when it was created. All you need to do is pick one prior to when you were having the Windows Update issue and restore to that point. This should fix most of your issues.

2. Manually download the update installer

Each Microsoft update also comes in its own installer package that you can download directly from the Microsoft website. In order to download the update you must know its update KB number, which you can find from the windows update page on your computer.

Win7-SP1RC-windows-update

Next all you need to do is install the update like you were installing any other program and hopefully your windows update will come out of its rut.

3. Download the Windows Update and Automatic Update Reset tool

Windows_Update_Reset_Tool

If all else fails you can install this handy tool created by the Microsoft Fix it team. This program should resolve most of your issues. You can run the program in default mode first and if that fails then you can run it again in aggressive mode to make sure everything gets patched.

 For more ways to keep your business data safe and your operations running smoothly, contact your local IT professionals.

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