Brandon Lee

The vSphere 8 release includes many new features that are exposed in the new vCenter Server 8 and ESXi 8 releases. With the release of vSphere 8, many organizations will look at upgrading to the latest VMware vSphere.

It is common for organizations to host websites and other resources that may be accessible from external and internal clients on the LAN. Traditionally, organizations may have maintained two different DNS servers for this reason. Microsoft’s split-brain DNS deployment using DNS policy helps consolidate these resources using Active Directory-integrated zones.

Are backups required for Microsoft 365? We look at the reasons you should back up your Microsoft 365 data and the new Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v6 features to protect your Microsoft 365 data.

Your Wi-Fi isn’t working? When it comes to building out, configuring, and troubleshooting a wireless network, there are valuable tools that help with all three of these tasks. Utilities that allow you to analyze wireless networks are called Wi-Fi stumblers.

User Account Control helps to implement proper permission levels for users accessing systems. Instead of needing administrator privileges, UAC allows admins to set up standard user permissions for users and escalate privileges in a granular way. In corporate networks, admins can use Group Policy to configure various UAC settings, including disabling UAC. Thanks to Windows Hello, you can now use a PIN for UAC.

Historically, businesses have used RAID technologies to avoid data loss when disks fail. However, Windows Server offers a pure software-based alternative for resilient storage called Storage Spaces. It combines internal and attached drives to a single storage pool, where you can create virtual volumes. This feature supports multiple options for data redundancy.

To run virtual machines, most organizations use commercial virtualization solutions on the market, such as VMware, Hyper-V, and Nutanix. As an alternative, you can consider the free kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) that turns Ubuntu Linux into a hypervisor host.

Network load balancing distributes traffic across multiple backend servers and provides redundancy for critical applications. Windows Server includes a Network Load Balancing (NLB) feature that allows admins to use the resources of multiple application servers evenly.

As hosts come online and go offline, there is a constant churn of hosts communicating on a local area network (LAN). Scanning networks with an IP scanner allows IT, network admins, and SecOps professionals to see which IPs are communicating and what types of devices occupy which IP addresses. It also helps to spot rogue, unsanctioned hosts that may be connected to the network. Several network IP scanners are freely available for download and help network administrators and IT admins discover devices on the network and manage IP resources. Let’s look at the following tools:

Learn how ManageEngine ADManager Plus allows easy management for on-premises Active Directory and cloud applications, such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, as well as easy Active Directory automation and permission delegation.

Windows 11 22H2 is the first feature update for this operating system since its release last year. Accordingly, the focus is on removing some rough edges and improving the overall user experience. Nevertheless, the 22H2 release offers some innovations that are welcome for professional use.

Backing up domain controllers is a crucial part of any disaster recovery plan for organizations leveraging Active Directory on-premises. There are two types of restores: authoritative and nonauthoritative. Which one do you use where? We can perform both using Windows Server Backup. Let’s look at this process with the nonauthoritative restore.

Windows Server 2022 has many robust enterprise features that allow IT admins to create resilient and highly available infrastructure services. With transparent failover, admins can take advantage of features found in SMB 3.0 and higher to provide continuous access to file shares.

One challenge with Remote Desktop printing is the issue of drivers. If users want to output documents on locally attached printers, for example, in work-from-home environments, organizations might have to deal with various printer models. Remote Desktop Easy Print offers a solution with a single driver.

Running a simple network speed test is often a good start when troubleshooting or verifying network performance. Such a test may measure speeds between two computers or the Internet download speed from an ISP. Many free network performance test tools are readily available for testing network performance.

Windows Fax Server has been around for quite some time and is still part of Windows Server 2022. So what does it take to install and configure Windows Fax Server in Windows Server 2022?