pantscat

@dankingdon - I'd thought of 2012 - but I'd rather use a dedicated NAS I think.

Is anyone aware of rack-mount NAS box with a decent amount of storage that will dedupe? I'm looking to replace my disk-based backup target and would like to have more long term retention on it. My full backups are approaching 2.7TB so that's why I'm thinking about the dedupe route. Ideally I'd use it for daily differentials and a weekly full and then duplicate it off to LTO5 tapes for good measure. Any suggestions?

Having VLANs to separate the traffic would be sensible - and Ruckus has a really nice "guest pass" facility that allows you to set how long guest access is valid for each individual device or user. The WAPs don't come with power adapters but they're available as an optional extra. PoE injectors would work fine too... Radius can be a little bit daunting if you've never implemented it before, but in reality (in my opinion) with a Windows network is very easy to implement. The best thing is that you can setup various SSIDs with Ruckus and so mess around with Radius without affecting anyone.

Basic Ruckus install takes about 10 minutes. I'll do it for you. For half what the "partner" charges...

We're due to replace out Netapp next Summer and I've been keeping an eye on Nimble for the last 12 months or so - it looks really good and cost seems to compare well with Netapp. I'd be very interested to hear how you find the kit once you've got it installed!

This might be of some use: Understanding SMTP Failover and Load Balancing in Transport: Exchange 2010 Help

I'd imagine that you need something to do some sort of load balancing. For example, how do you configure your clients? which server do you point them at? Are you virtualising your servers at all?

Looks to me like it's some kind of web-based secure FTP thing. Looking at the link @plexer found it appears you can purchase it for £60-ish per annum so just continue to pay!

I very much doubt it!

Ok - in that case I think Microsoft's best practice is to have an Edge server (or something to do some load-balancing). Not exactly sure what you do with a two server DAG with Hub Transport roles on both... I'll have to have a read!

Do they both have send connectors?

Are they both setup with the same roles? Ideally you'd set your firewall to forward to whatever server(s) has the Hub Transport role.

Do they have a firewall on them? Different subnet with no route from your PC?

Does that not make it a taxable perk?

Yes, I've also heard good things about Citrix Netscaler... but I think they're a tad pricey. I'll have to sell a technician...

Having said that - I have just spotted this: LoadMaster Microsoft TMG Load Balancer | Endpoint Load Balancing | Load Balancer | Europe, Africa

Exactly. No idea yet... although my initial thoughts are that it'll need to "boxes" to replace it entirely. I'll probably end up with a firewall of some sort and then UAG in order to publish OWA/ActiveSync/SharePoint etc. I am trialing Smoothwall Advanced Firewall at the moment but I'm just not terribly keen on using it at the edge... I've got a bit of a dislike for Linux that I can't really justify!

Sorry - missed this! Basically it's a case of going through all the rules and removing any references to hostnames and substituting them for IPs or IP ranges. Didn't take too long and it solves this particular problem. Oh, and RIP TMG... replacing this is causing me a headache!

Thanks @DaveP I've had a look at that site before... I think maybe I'm a bit odd and in the minority but I do like to learn from a book!

Has anyone got any good recommendations for books or any other resources so that I can stop limping through PowerShell and get a bit more fluent with it? Cheers!

@SpuffMonkey has got that pretty much nailed. The general idea of a DR plan is to identify the potential disasters (so flood, fire, destruction, student/guinea-pig infestation) and then identify what the impact would be, and the possible steps for recovery with services prioritised accordingly. I'd also include a list of all important contacts (suppliers, manufacturers, contractors, internal staff etc), where your software can be found if required (e.g. I keep a copy of most ISOs on a couple of USB memory sticks in a fire-resistant safe along with backup tapes) , and other relevant info - software and maintenance agreements etcetera!

I use QA... haggle. A lot. You'll get the price down.

How many domain admins do you have?!

Here's a vote for EverSoClear - been using them for years!

Yes, indeed -some firewalls are particularly unhappy about this. I had a similar issue whereby we had some firewall rules that were based on destination hostnames rather than IP addresses and all the additional DNS lookups caused issues.