Digital Engineering Firm Enhances the Security of Its Wireless Network Connectivity

Digital engineering firm Silicon Image wanted to enhance the security of its network by increasing and enforcing compliance requirements for users who wirelessly connected to its network. Windows Server® 2008 was the logical choice after previously using Internet Authentication Service (IAS). The firm partnered with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner PC Professional to implement the new and improved security-related features.

Business Needs
Silicon Image generates $320 million in annual revenue by implementing architecture and semiconductors in the consumer electronics and personal computing markets to securely store, distribute, and present high-definition content. Its 620 employees collaborate through a mixed operating system environment (Windows® and Linux) using 50 servers from various sites. Many of those network users—employees, vendors, and company guests—connect to the Silicon Image network through wireless connections, an invaluable tool for campus-wide access to the Silicon Image network.

Previously, Silicon Image used IAS technology in Windows Server® 2003 to authenticate wireless access to its network and Enterasys network tools for further network security. However, it was concerned about who was accessing its network and the security of the local laptop configurations. Silicon Image wanted to enhance network security by gaining more control over who connected wirelessly to its network and by enforcing stricter policies for wireless connections to the network. It also needed an affordable solution that integrated well within its mixed server environment, with its Enterasys security tools, and eventually with the UNIX clients it plans to add to the environment.

Solution
Silicon Image evaluated solutions from Enterasys, another Microsoft Certified Partner. Although the Enterasys solution is still an integral part of the client’s solution, Silicon Image ultimately decided that Windows Server 2008 was the next logical step after IAS. The security enhancements in Windows Server 2008 (available when deployed with Windows Vista and Windows XP SP3) were of particular interest to Silicon Image for focusing on manageability, security compliance, and policy-driven access features.

Network Policy Server (NPS) enables Silicon Image to centrally configure and manage its network policies with the following three features: RADIUS server, RADIUS proxy, and Network Access Protection (NAP) policy server. With NPS, Silicon Image can now authorize and authenticate network connections through a variety of network access servers, including IEEE 802.1X authenticating switches and wireless access points, virtual private network (VPN) servers, dial-up servers, and computers running Windows Server 2008 with Terminal Services Gateway (TS Gateway).

Benefits
Besides the ease of implementation, Silicon Image benefits most from the new and improved security in Windows Server 2008. It can now be confident that computers connecting wirelessly to its network must first meet certain security requirements. According to Silicon Images, the ability to control the software and security level of systems as they authenticate to a wireless network is a critical benefit.

With Windows Server 2008, they can also easily configure separate roles by computer, block access, or enable restricted access to the network based on the client computer’s software level. Silicon Image has several Windows Vista clients in production, which are authenticating well with Network Admission Control (NAC) policy.

“Windows Server 2008 was surprisingly more robust and complete over Windows Server 2003. Our pre-implementation lab testing and validation was very smooth, without any road blocks. This paved the way for us to create a project plan and perform the site implementation without disruption to the client’s end-user environment,” says Neil Pearlstein, Executive VP of Sales and Marketing for PC Professional.

Windows Server 2008 also enables Silicon Image to do the following:
* Check the health and status of roaming laptops and verify compliance of unmanaged home computers (desktop and laptop).
* Determine the health of visiting laptops and enforce application layer data inspection by checking for malware. Simplify administrative tasks such as system updates and application installations.
* Check policy-based quality of service to prioritize and manage the sending rate of outgoing network traffic and filtering of outgoing and incoming traffic.
* More securely extend and protect information and applications to business partners.
* Reduce the risk of unauthorized access through strong authentication.
* Reduce the number of user accounts and repositories that need to be managed.
* Securely manage user accounts and information outside the data center.

Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008, with built-in Web and virtualization technologies, enables you to increase the reliability and flexibility of your server infrastructure. New virtualization tools, Web resources, and security enhancements help you save time, reduce costs, and provide a platform for a dynamic and optimized datacenter. Powerful new tools like IIS 7.0, Server Manager, and Windows® PowerShell, allow you to have more control over your servers and streamline Web, configuration, and management tasks. Advanced security and reliability enhancements like Network Access Protection and the Read-Only Domain Controller option for Active Directory Domain Services harden the operating system and help protect your server environment to ensure you have a solid foundation on which to build your business.

Who is Going to Win the Virtualization War?

With a couple of announcements by VMware directly tied to the release of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the upcoming release of Microsoft's virtualization hypervisor Hyper-V, it appears these companies are starting to gear up for a heavyweight showdown.

VMware delivered the first blow by announcing it's agreements to embed VMware ESX 3i Hypervisor on HP, IBM, Dell and Fujitsu-Siemens servers. It's a "bare metal" system, meaning that it doesn't run on top of an installed operating system. Instead, the machine's resources can be sliced and diced into virtual servers directly from the hardware interfaces themselves.

"Just plug it in, and it's ready to run virtual machines," as one happy customer puts it. "You just start the server, answer a couple of questions, and you'll be up and running in a couple minutes," said Robin Prudholm, senior systems engineer at VMware.

VMware also said it will not support Windows Server 2008 immediately.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is set to release Windows Server 2008 which will allow "easy" integration with the upcoming release of Microsoft virtualization hypervisor Hyper-V. Server 2008 is a fairly safe bet and Microsoft's sell on the ultra-cheap (some would say free) Hyper-V makes for an enticing proposition.

But caution should abound, with experts on the company suggesting a waiting and testing period before using Hyper-V.

VMware will most likely win the early rounds, but like with other wars Microsoft has won, Microsoft could end up being the champ when it is said and done?

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/default.mspx

http://www.vmware.com/

Symantec Energy Efficient Data Center Solutions

Gartner Group has identified Data Center power and cooling as the highest priority issue facing IT organizations worldwide. The problem is serious and exacerbating. Gartner is presently advising IT organizations to focus on reducing Data Center power and cooling because of:

1. Power unit cost increases well in excess of inflationary increases
2. Doubledigit annual growth in Data Center power consumption
3. Data Centers running out of power and cooling capacity
4. Internal and external CO2 emissions reduction pressures consequent to International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reporting.

Used as part of a holistic Data Center Greening approach, Symantec's server and storage management software products are uniquely capable of helping reduce Data Center power consumption and consequent CO2 footprints while increasing power and cooling efficiency. Symantec also has a skilled services organization that can help IT organizations implement these products effectively.

Executive Summary

Data Center power and cooling challenges are a chronic, inescapable fact for many enterprises. While server virtualization will provide some measure of relief, the relief will usually prove temporary. In the final analysis, it is important to recognize that, while hardware produces power and cooling challenges, software is a critical ingredient in its mitigation.

Symantec provides a range of software products that enable enterprises to significantly reduce their energy requirements throughout the entire IT infrastructure. These products work with existing, inplace current hardware and can assist enterprises plan for and optimize new hardware as it arrives. Consequently, enterprises can immediately begin to address power and cooling challenges because Symantec's solutions do not require a capital investment cycle.


http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/stn/pdfs/Articles/energy_efficient_data_center_solutions.pdf