Welcome to Brendon Davis

Group Policy Center

Autor brendon | 21.01.2010 | Category 7, Server, TechStuff, VISTA

Alan Burchill, one of the organisers for the Brisbane Infrastructure Group and a speaker at last year’s auTechEd has started up a web site for the thing he loves most. The Group Policy Center is now online and answering all those questions you didn’t know you asked.

On a serious note though, Alan and Lilia did an awesome presentation at TechEd and I’m sure this site will show the same level of awesome-ness. Rock on Al.

New version of ISA – FFTMG

Autor brendon | 14.12.2009 | Category Comms, Server, TechStuff

Well it has been a long time coming but Microsoft have finally released a new version of their awesome Internet Acceleration and Security (ISA) server. The last major upgrade was 2004 and since then the product has become a little long in the tooth. There are several new ways the internet is being used and ISA 2004/2006 in my opinion just couldn’t keep up.

Jump over to http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/threat-management-gateway/en/us/default.aspx and check out the details on Forfront Threat Management Gateway (FFTMG). Building on the new Windows Server 2008 network stack there are several new features that administrators (myself included) have been crying for:

• Support for dual/ failover internet links. (using a separate fibre service for remote access and publishing plus a DSL2 service for web access.)
• Publishing (Static NAT) rules apply to both inbound and outbound traffic. (ISA would always NAT outbound connections on default IP address.)
• Category based Access lists (requires additional licenses) to filter traffic for “Social Networking” or “Known Virus URL’s”.
• Support in a Hyper-V or ESXi or XenServer virtualised environments.
• ONLY RUNS on Windows Server 2008 x64 eddition!!!

The old ISA server team blog has been updated to reference TMG now also; there are half a dozen articles available here that may help with deployment considerations.

Domain Controller out of Sync

Autor brendon | 13.10.2009 | Category Server, TechStuff

“Oh no! My Domain Controller has been turned off for too long and lost kerbose synchronization with the domain! What can I do?”

Have you ever been in a situation where a domain controller has lost synchronisation with the domain? I know I have….

Well worry no more. Thanks to the good folks at Microsoft we can now easily reset the computer account and get your DC up and working in no time.

Don’t believe me? Well follow these 5 easy steps to get your DC’s back on track.

Now how much do we want for this wonderful tool? Nothing!

This service is completely free AND if you are not 100% satisfied, we will give you no money back.

That’s right, don’t call us and you too can have your DC’s operational.

Running Win08R2 w/ Hyper-V as a Desktop

Autor brendon | 17.09.2009 | Category Server, TechStuff, Virtualization

You would think by now that Virtual PC or ‘WindowsXP Mode’ on Win7 would be able to run x64 guests. In the Microsoft world, the only way to do this is with Windows 2008 Server and the Hyper-V Role. When the hard drive in my work laptop died, I decided to install the RC of Server 08 R2 with Hyper-V. I have been running this for about two months now as my main OS and am reasonably happy with it.

There are several roles, features & options you can configure on the OS to give it the look and feel of Windows 7. But it still didn’t feel quite right. At TechEd Mark Tigwell suggested I look over this list of configurations posted on TechNet blogs for running Server 08 as a desktop OS.

The settings listed shaw up the differences but do not include instructions to permit local User (non-admin) account managing rights in Hyper-V. Instructions for that can be found here.