HP pardoned PC biz, but WebOS is still on death row

HP pardoned PC biz, but WebOS is still on death rowJust a day after HP announced that it wouldn't be spinning off its PC division, with its new CEO Meg Whitman citing "together we are stronger", the same feeling does not extend to WebOS. British newspaper The Guardian reports on Friday that the company plans to shut down the division and more than 500 jobs could be cut.

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HP acquired the rights to WebOS through its acquisition of Palm in April 2010. The software was meant to power HP's line of Palm smartphones and the TouchPad, but following the scrapping of both lines in August, the future of WebOS was uncertain.

Both the ditching of the PC division and the end of WebOS were the swan song of ousted CEO Leo Apotheker. The appointment of Whitman led some to believe that there may be some chance that Apotheker's moves would be reversed. The surprising success of the TouchPad at $99 also added to the chance that WebOS may still have a chance.

Top-level executives in the WebOS division have been fleeing the company, The Guardian notes, with the general consensus of the department being that it would be closing down by the end of the year. HP has apparently also attempted to find a suitor, but there appears to be no interest in the mobile operating system.

This could be due to the fact that both Android and iOS have become so dominant in the mobile space: the two platforms control a large majority of the market, with RIM's BlackBerry stumbling and Microsoft's Windows Phone platform unable to gain traction in the market. WebOS would likely struggle to make any appreciable dent in the dominance of Apple and Google in the space.

HP didn't respond to our requests for comment on the status of WebOS were as of press time.

Why Google would want Yahoo: A few opportunities could make it worth the effort

Google is reportedly in early talks about a bid for Yahoo. Can these opportunities make the likelihood of regulatory scrutiny worth it?

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That “person familiar with the matter” is talking to the Wall Street Journal again - and this time, that person is whispering tales of early-stage discussions between Google and some potential partners to make a bid for Yahoo.

Now, before anyone starts hollering “antitrust” in a building filled with government regulators, remember that there’s still no formal proposal yet and it’s very possible that Google might not pursue a bid at all. Instead, it seems like we’re at the stage where the key players are just scribbling out their lists of pros and cons about a possible deal.

Imagine the advertising possibilities, what with those hundreds of millions of faithful Yahoos who check in several times a day. But consider the sort of scrutiny that the deal would experience. Are the growth possibilities or the potential dollars-and-cents for the long run worth the efforts of defending the deal to regulators?

Maybe. If I were scribbling some thinking points on a Google bid for Yahoo, here’s what some of those random thoughts might look like:

Search: Google walked away from a search advertising deal with Yahoo once before - almost three years ago - after the Department of Justice said it would file an antitrust lawsuit against it. They went big, pared down and still couldn’t shake the feds - and so they walked. A year later, Microsoft inked a 10-year search deal with Yahoo. Certainly, regulators will be interested in search and how a Yahoo-Google-Microsoft love triangle impacts it. In terms of Google taking out a search competitor in Yahoo, that feels like less of an issue. Yahoo hasn’t been a search powerhouse for years and Carol Bartz, before she was shown the door, had been pushing the “Don’t compare us to Google” message at every opportunity.

Content: The other half of the We’re-not-Google mantra was a “We’re a media company” message that Yahoo backed with partnerships and acquisitions. Going after the likes of AOL, Yahoo stepped up its game in original content - not just YouTube style snippets that Bartz was fond of - but also original news. Remember that news has always driven advertising and Yahoo has millions of eyeballs visiting the site daily. Bartz wanted to make sure that the content they see - both news and advertising - on login and logoff pages, as well as other strategic locations, kept them on the site as long as possible. That’s counter to the Google experience that most people have - where they find what they were looking for and then click away to another site.

Advertising: Speaking of advertising, it’s always been funny to me that most observers still refer to Google as a search engine when, in fact, Google is an advertising company. Sure, search drives advertising. But Google execs have been saying for years that Google makes money when people spend time on the Web because that’s where they’re exposed to the advertising. Yahoo’s advertising strategy has struggled to compete against a giant like Google, but there’s still some value there. In fact, regulators should probably spend more time looking at how a deal might change the advertising business - and industries that are tied to it - rather than focusing their energies on the search issue.

Brand Loyalty: You really can’t downplay the significance of the value of the Yahoo brand and the power that comes with hundreds of millions of daily visitors, many of whose loyalty goes beyond what other Web companies experience. (Between email, finance and news, I’ve already visited a dozen or more Yahoo pages today - all before lunch.)In part, that “stickiness” is due to the company’s long-standing presence on the Internet. It was one of the first to offer Web-based email - and, as such, signed up people before Google could. Still, it’s kept the offerings fresh and relevant in a changing landscape for communicating with others and sharing information.

Other opportunities: The first thing that popped into my head when I thought about Google getting its paws all over those content relationships that Yahoo has established was how it could impact the efforts around Google TV. Like Apple TV, Google TV is still a work-in-progress. I’ve long said that I’m a fan of the concept - making both broadcast content and Internet content searchable for a more customized TV watching experience - but Google had a tough time getting the content providers on board. With Yahoo’s content offerings, Google TV - and Google News, as well - could get a boost in inventory. Now, if only they could work on that technology.

Some might argue that the time is right for Google to make a bid for Yahoo. The competitive landscape has changed, the technology has evolved, the global economy is in a different state and the political climate in Washington has shifted since the last time the mutterings of a Google-Yahoo deal were heard. Others might argue that the many tentacles of both businesses could prompt a long review of the deal while regulators sift through it all.

I wouldn’t be quick to place any bets on a deal happening - but it’s good that Google is at least exploring the possibilities. Yahoo has been through a lot in recent years and while it’s future might not appear to be so rosy, there’s a lot of life left in the company. And if Google (or Microsoft) could get their hands on it - or key pieces of it - the landscape in the tech industry could have some interesting twists and turns on the road ahead.

Microsoft signs Android licensing deal with Samsung

Microsoft has signed a cross-license patent agreement with Samsung Electronics that grants Microsoft royalties from Samsung's Android-based smartphones and tablets, Microsoft said in a statement on Wednesday.

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Microsoft didn't disclose details on how much money Samsung will have to pay Microsoft for every Android-based device it sells. Last year, HTC, which together with Samsung dominate the market for Android-based smartphones, also signed a licensing deal with Microsoft.


In the past three months, Microsoft has signed Android deals with Acer, General Dynamics Itronix, Onkyo, Velocity Micro, ViewSonic and Wistron, Microsoft's general council Brad Smith and deputy general council Horacio Gutierrez wrote in a blog post.

That leaves Motorola Mobility, with which Microsoft is currently in litigation, as the only major Android smartphone manufacturer in the U.S. without a license, they said.

It seems unlikely that Microsoft and Motorola Mobility will agree on a licensing deal without litigation. Motorola Mobility is in the process of being acquired by Google. "Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies," Google CEO Larry Page said about the $12.5 billion acquisition.

Smith and Gutierrez had this message for Google in their blog post: "We recognize that some businesses and commentators -- Google chief among them -- have complained about the potential impact of patents on Android and software innovation. To them, we say this: look at today's announcement. If industry leaders such as Samsung and HTC can enter into these agreements, doesn't this provide a clear path forward?"

Samsung signing a deal with Microsoft makes more sense. The company is already busy battling with Apple in courts around the world. Samsung did not reply to questions about the deal.

Also, earlier this week, Samsung announced the Omnia W, its first smartphone based on Windows 7.5, also known as Mango. In addition to the licensing deal, the companies also agreed to cooperate in the development and marketing of Windows Phone, Microsoft said on Wednesday.

Samsung and HTC are close partners to Microsoft, so signing licensing deals make their lives easier, according to Francisco Jeronimo, research manager at IDC.

But, on Tuesday, Samsung joined Intel to help develop Tizen, a new OS that merges MeeGo and Limo. So the company is keeping its options open when it comes to OSes.

Microsoft to talk cloud at Tech Ed

Cloud computing will once again be a major theme for this year's Microsoft Tech Ed conference, according to the company. And attendees seem to be interested in finding out how the cloud can be used in conjunction with their own operations.

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"Over the past six months, Microsoft has thrown new words at us -- like 'hybrid cloud' -- so I think a lot of people will be there to try to get their minds around these terms," said Rod Trent, the CEO for myITforum.com, which will provide the community forums for Tech Ed.

Participants, Trent said, seem eager to "understand how the cloud will fit within their organization. How much data can they push to the cloud? How much costs savings will it offer?"

Microsoft reckons that many of their customers are testing cloud deployments, evaluating these services and products for production use in the years to come. So this year's show, being held May 16 through May 19 in Atlanta, will focus on Microsoft's cloud offerings, and explain the development tools from the company and partners that were designed to help organizations better use the cloud.

The conference will kick off 9 a.m. Eastern Time Monday with a keynote by Robert Wahbe, Microsoft corporate vice president for server and tools marketing. He will be joined by Jason Zander, corporate vice president overseeing Visual Studio, who will showcase new technology.

Microsoft plans to run the keynote as a webcast. Additional interviews and sessions will be broadcast over Microsoft's Tech Ed site.

As far as cloud computing, the company will have much to discuss. Over the past few months Microsoft has touted a number of higher-profile customer adoptions. The Target chain of department stores, for instance, now runs 15,000 virtual machines across its retail stores, using Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and System Center. Toyota is using Windows Azure for its next-generation telematics services.

But the company also has had its share of high-profile mistakes. Just this week, users have been complaining of outages from Microsoft's hosted Exchange offering.

Attendees should pay very close attention to how Microsoft details its cloud strategy, advised Charles King, principal analyst for the firm Pund-IT. Like Microsoft itself, companies such as VMware, Red Hat, Rackspace, Google and others have all made significant progress in their cloud software and offerings. "How does Microsoft think its approach is better than the competitors?" he said.

"If you've watched Microsoft over the last year or so, and all the reorganizations, it looks like they may be heading more quickly to the cloud than they were a few years ago," Trent said.

Trent set up a page, called Twitter Army, for attendees who wish to file reports of what they have learned at the show, so the knowledge can be shared with others.

Not to say that other topics won't be addressed at the conference. In addition to cloud computing, session tracks are also dedicated to topics such as databases, business intelligence, developer tools, middleware, Microsoft Office and SharePoint, unified communications, security, virtualization and Windows for the client, server and the mobile phone.

For one attendee, learning about Microsoft's Lync unified communications server will be one of the chief draws of the show.

Scott Ladewig, information services networking and operations manager for the Washington University in St. Louis' Olin Business School, is attending the show "to see what is current and what is coming" from Lync and other Microsoft technologies, he said.

The business school, like several other schools within the university, runs Microsoft Office Communications Server, Lync's predecessor. Ladewig will be looking for information on how to unify these systems, as well as get them to interoperate with other unified communications offerings, such as the one offered by Cisco.

"OCS has pretty much everything we are looking for but obviously we want to stay current," he said.

Apple, Oracle and EMC part of Microsoft-led patent LLC

Apple, Oracle and EMC are involved with CPTN Holdings LLC, the Microsoft-led consortium that is purchasing 882 patents from Novell for US$450 million, according to a Dec. 9 posting on the website of German antitrust authority Bundeskartellamt, or Federal Cartel Office.

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News of the sale emerged last month when Novell announced it was being purchased by Attachmate for $2.2 billion.

Little remains known about which patents CPTN Holdings will acquire, although speculation has run rampant in recent weeks. Many had also wondered which other companies were involved in the LLC, and the nature of their interest in the patents.

An Oracle spokeswoman declined comment. Apple and EMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There seems little cause for immediate alarm, according to open-source advocate Florian Mueller, who flagged the Bundeskartellamt notice on his blog Thursday.

"I don't have a crystal ball that would tell me what their business plan with those patents is, but those organizations have a track record and, very importantly, they have a reputation to protect," Mueller wrote. "They all want to enjoy excellent relations with software developers, and software developers expect large players to make reasonable and constructive use of whatever patents they own. I guess that's exactly what will happen in this case."

Microsoft: Windows Azure will outcompete Amazon Web Services on features, total cost

Despite unveiling prices for its upcoming Windows Azure cloud platform that appear merely on par with incumbent rivals such as Amazon, Microsoft Corp. says Azure will gain ground with Web developers by offering more and better features for the money.

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Free from today until its official launch in November, Azure's still-in-beta services range from a hosted .Net platform to an online version of the SQL Server database called SQL Azure.

At its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans on Tuesday, Microsoft detailed three pricing models for Azure: a consumption model, a subscription model for partner resellers, and an option for volume-license customers such as large enterprises.

The first "pay-as-you-go" model aimed at small developers attracted the most attention, though, because the pricing was closely comparable to services offered Amazon.com, Salesforce.com's Force.com and Google Inc.'s Google App Engine.

Microsoft is charging 12 cents per CPU/hour, 15 cents per gigabyte of data per month, and 10 cents per 10,000 transactions for storage purposes.

While The Register declared Azure to be cheaper than Amazon.com's price for hosted Windows and more expensive than a Linux instance, Silicon Valley Insider called Azure's price "not significantly different than either Google or Amazon."

"The actual per-unit pricing is totally uninteresting in my mind," Prashant Ketkar, director of marketing for Windows Azure, told Computerworld on Tuesday. "What will it cost me end-to-end?"

Ketkar says that Azure offers a number of standard features that, if purchased as add-ons for most competing platforms, cause their prices "to be substantially more expensive than us."

He cited Azure's automated service management as a "killer feature" that enables apps on a downed server to be reloaded onto another server with minimal interruption using Microsoft's "fabric controller".

Azure is also able to dynamically scale on demand, and automatically create two extra backups of data, Ketkar said.

Iein Valdez, product development director for Appirio Inc., a SaaS systems integrator that supports both Google App Engine and Force.com, disputed Ketkar's cost calculations.

"On Google App Engine, you're only paying for the resources you use, unlike Azure where you pay for any running compute instances even if your application is unused," Valdez said.

He said also that Google App Engine is easier to use and more scalable than Azure.


"App Engine has completely transparent auto-scaling, with Azure you'd need to correctly provision and tear down instances as demand fluctuates&and this can be real headache," Valdez said. "From the database [datastore] perspective, the business edition of SQL Azure appears to max out at 10GB, unlike App Engine, which has no data limitations. This can be a real problem for even small-scale applications."

Meanwhile, an Amazon.com spokeswoman said that the company's prices are "intended to give users the most flexibility possible in building their applications." She invited developers to use Amazon.com's online calculator to check the cost of running services such as its S3 storage or EC2 application-hosting service.

While Microsoft is counting on the loyalty of legions of .Net developers moving their apps to Azure, Ketkar said, it also believes it can win over developers who have already moved to rival cloud services.

"It's still 15 minutes into the first quarter, as my senior VP likes to say," Ketkar said. "It's still evolving technology. So I don't think any good developer has committed to any platform."

With its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), Microsoft is letting third parties such as CSC sell a version that is hosted on their own servers, not Microsoft's data centers.

With Azure, Microsoft is remaining more restrictive. Neither partners nor enterprises will be allowed to host Azure at launch, Ketkar said, but that may come "a few years down the road."

Such services, which would parallel the long-term unification of the Windows Server and Azure roadmaps, would likely be called something other than Azure, he said.

Apple's enterprise approach: Passive aggressive

Apple’s approach to the enterprise is passive aggressive. The expenses involved with courting the enterprise highlight why.

Apple could be a bigger player in the enterprise, but chasing CIOs around could be damaging to its operating model.

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In a talk arguing that Google and Apple were disruptive to Microsoft in corporate IT, Gartner analysts Tom Austin and David Mitchell Smith commented on the company’s corporate ambitions. With Steve Jobs’ passing, a few of us expect Apple to be more aggressive about the enterprise.

Jason Perlow recently outlined the case for Apple focusing more on corporate sales. Indeed, Apple CEO Tim Cook is an IBM alum and mentions the enterprise frequently on earnings conference calls. In fact, Cook is just about the only one that talks about Apple’s enterprise gains via consumerization.

Also see: Apple in the enterprise: The road forward

Apple’s R&D spending hits bottom as percentage of revenue

“It’s not that Apple doesn’t care about the enterprise, but the enterprise doesn’t drive product development,” said Smith. “It let’s consumerization happen and then does limited tweaks for the enterprise as long as it doesn’t affect product design.”

You can go through years of earnings call transcripts and find Cook mentioning the enterprise regularly once the iPhone launched. However, I’ve been told that Jobs chose to look the other way about budding enterprise sales—who can argue with profits falling out of the sky. Jobs tolerated small enterprise focused projects—say the B2B App Store and swat teams looking to poach verticals from RIM—but saw corporate customers as a distraction.

It’s a distraction that may pay off though. The room here in Orlando was packed for a presentation about the prospects of Google and Apple as vendors. For our purposes, we’re focusing on Apple here. A separate post looks at Google.


Smith and Austin called Apple’s approach passive aggressive. There’s a good reason for Apple’s approach though—targeting the enterprise is expensive. They said in their presentation:

Apple’s operating expense (OpEx) numbers explain their passive aggressive approach to enterprise business. Enterprise direct selling and enterprise-specific requirements would severely distort that model. Apple wants enterprise business, but not at the type of price paid (in R&D and SG&A) by enterprise providers. Apple’s vertical integration allows it not only to reduce cost of goods but also to exploit new technologies more quickly than competitors who are not as vertically integrated.

This is where consumerization gets so interesting for Apple. the company may not have to focus on selling to corporations because its customers will bring devices into the workplace anyway. In many respects, Apple fans are the enterprise sales team. And they happen to work for free.

Microsoft aims Office 365 at small businesses

For the launch of its first full-fledged online office suite, Office 365, Microsoft is paying particular attention to how the new service could help small and medium-size businesses.

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"While we launched Office 365 for all customers, we wanted to focus today on the small and mid-sized opportunities," said Kirk Koenigsbauer, Microsoft corporate vice president within the Microsoft Office Division product management group, in an interview with the IDG News Service.

During his presentation in New York, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer dropped the names of large companies already using Microsoft cloud services, including DuPont, Hyatt, Starbucks and Volvo. However, the company's overall marketing emphasis was centered on making Office 365 as appealing as possible to small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), which spend US$800 billion annually on IT products, according to Gartner estimates.

That market is fragmented in terms of what Microsoft products are being used, Koenigsbauer elaborated. Some may be using older versions of Exchange or Microsoft Office, or may just may be using a mish-mash of different products. Worse, many organizations have small, if not non-existent, IT departments.

"Cloud services are a great value propositions for SMBs," Koenigsbauer said. "They have very small IT staffs. They don't have the infrastructure. They don't have the capital to buy new racks of servers."

More than 70 percent of the users of the Office 365 beta versions were small and medium-size businesses, Ballmer said. He ticked off a list of potential types of users for the new service, including real estate agents, accountants, lawyers, cleaning services and auto dealerships.

Office 365 can be exciting "particularly for companies that have little or no IT support and very little time and financial resources to dedicate to technology," he said. "Office 365 ... is a big step forward. These businesses really will be able to let their employees share information in new ways."

At the press event, Microsoft gathered representatives from a number of small and mid-sized organizations that have tried Office 365 in its beta form. Chiefly, these businesses seemed most interested in using Office 365 as a way to avoid maintaining in-house Microsoft Exchange servers.

One company considering its use is the Hendrick Automotive Group, which operates 75 car dealerships throughout the U.S.

"For us, one of the reasons we're looking at Office 365 is that we have a very small IT department. By moving services to the cloud we will be able to realign those resources to those applications that are unique to our industry," said Robert Taylor, who is the director of information technology for Hendrick. "We'll be able to deliver applications faster to our users."

Currently, the company runs a centralized pool of Exchange servers. Its IT services department supports around 4,000 users with a staff of only 13. The company also uses Microsoft SharePoint as an aid to help train employees, and get personnel from new dealerships up to speed.

Another company testing the technology is Perkins Eastman, an architecture firm. Based in New York, the firm has 600 employees across 13 offices worldwide, which are supported by an IT staff of 14. "We're constantly looking for ways to be more efficient," said Hamilton Esi, who is director of practice applications for the firm. "Office 365 was a natural transition for us, because of its value proposition."

The company has been testing the service since December, first with 15 e-mail accounts, then with 50 mailboxes. "Down the road, I see the entire organization moving over to the cloud," Esi said.

Chief to the appeal of Office 365 for Esi is the ability to quickly spin up new accounts for new offices. The company is rapidly expanding, and plans to open two offices this year. With Office 365, the company can centrally provision email accounts without the need to set up separate servers in new locations. Employees can get their email accounts even before the office is fitted with a new Internet connection. "We now have the ability to set up the office in record time," Esi said.

One area in which Microsoft will still have to prove its mettle is with the service's up-time. The company's precursor to Office 365, BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), had experienced a number of outages.

Koenigsbauer has noted that Office 365 apps inherently are different from BPOS ones in that they were designed to work in multi-tenant environments, which should minimize troubles. Ballmer promised that the SLA (Service Level Agreements) for Office 365 will be "the best in the industry."

Office 365 may ultimately prove to be more reliable, agreed Scott Gode, vice president of product management and marketing for Azaleos. Azaleos offers a service to manage federated Active Directory instances, which will be essential for blending internal office use and Office 365 deployments under a single-sign-on.

The mistakes Microsoft made with BPOS come with the territory of ramping up a new service, he explained. However, Office 365 is a higher profile service for the company, and so Microsoft has probably devoted more resources to keeping it running. Engineers have also probably learned from running BPOS.

"We've been affected by the [downtime], but we don't expect it to be totally without hitches," said Chris Robert, senior manager for information security for Scripps Network Interactive, which runs a number of cable channels such as the HGTV.

When Scripps was spun out from its parent company, Scripps Co., management decided to switch over to BPOS for all employee e-mail needs. The company has been using the service for several years now. "Overall, we're pretty happy with the [BPOS] service. It is quite a bit more stable," than a typical in-house implementation, Robert said, noting that in-house email servers can go offline as well. "People have forgotten. It's not like we've never had downtime," he said.

Emissions from Microsoft, Dell data centers worry residents

Some residents of Quincy, Washington, home of massive data centers operated by Microsoft, Yahoo and others, are growing concerned about pollution from backup diesel generators at the data centers, and on Wednesday they'll have the chance to discuss the issue.

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The Washington State Department of Ecology is holding a public meeting on Wednesday evening in Quincy for residents to comment on an application from Dell for permission to use 28 generators powered by diesel engines.

Quincy, a town of around 6,000 people, will have 141 back-up generators once those belonging to Dell, and others that have been permitted or are in line for permission, are put in place. While the generators are designed to be used only in the rare case of an electricity outage, the data center operators turn them on regularly for testing.

On average, the companies are permitted to turn on each generator for 103 hours per year. If they use that maximum running time, data center generators in Quincy would run for the equivalent of 40 hours per day on average.

The Department of Ecology says diesel emissions, when breathed in, have been known to create or worsen a variety of health problems, including heart disease, asthma and lung cancer.

Some residents, including former mayor Patty Martin, wonder about the health impact of the diesel emissions on the community. She thinks the generators should use the same types of devices to reduce emissions that are required by other Washington cities such as Olympia and Moses Lake.

Such devices aren't necessary in Quincy, said Karen Wood, section supervisor for air quality in Eastern Washington for the Department of Ecology. Because Olympia is a much bigger city it already has high diesel emissions from other sources, so a new data center there was required to reduce its emissions, she said.

"Whereas in Quincy, the background emissions are very low. There's not a lot of industry there. And the wind blows 325 days a year," she said.

Each time one of the data centers applies for permits to add new generators, Ecology studies the impact, taking into consideration diesel emissions from nearby sources such as trucks and the railroad, the agency said. It models the emissions based on the maximum permitted use of the generators to determine if they will cause pollution that harms nearby residents.

Still, Martin worries that many people in Quincy may not be aware of the potential risks of the emissions. "The people have to say we're willing to accept the risk based on the benefits. But the people don't know what they are," she said.

According to Martin, nearly three-quarters of the population of Quincy is Hispanic, yet most of the public notices about the data center permission process are posted in English newspapers. Earlier this year, Ecology said it ran ads about meetings regarding Yahoo's request to add new generators in the local Spanish language newspaper, but it later admitted the ads weren't published due to an error.

However, Wood said Ecology has done more outreach about these permits than it has for any others. It has bought display ads in several newspapers and issued news releases, and recently began placing ads in the Spanish-language paper, she said.

Ecology has another public meeting scheduled for Aug. 3 about a permit request from Sabey for 44 diesel generators.

Martin, who is one of a handful of residents asking questions about the generators, doesn't have high hopes for the meetings. "I've been to two so far on this and they downplay the risks," she said. She thinks that Ecology disregards some important risks like the impact from deposits into the soil from the emissions and risks beyond cancer.

Dell did not comment directly about the concerns being raised in Quincy. "Dell is very much looking forward to being part of this community. Our commitment to the environment and safety is a leading priority in the communities where we work and live," it said in a statement.

Certkingdom 70-647 Exam Q & A

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QUESTION 1
You work as an enterprise administrator at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named
Certkingdom.com. All servers in the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2008.
The Certkingdom.com network has a file server named ABC-SR07 that hosts a shared folder named
ABCDocs. Several Microsoft Word documents are stored in the ABCDocs share. You want to
enable document version history on these documents. You also want the documents in the
ABCDocs share to be accessed through a Web page.
Which of the following roles or services would you install on ABC-SR07 to achieve the desired
results cost effectively?

A. FTP Server role.
B. Application Server role.
C. Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0.
D. File and Print Services role.
E. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007.
F. SMTP Server role.

Answer: C

Explanation:
To achieve the desired results without requiring any additional cost, you need to use Microsoft
Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0.
Reference: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the Mobile Workplace
http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/b/6/bb6672dd-252c-4a21-89de-
78cfc8e0b69e/WSS%20Mobile%20Workplace.doc

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QUESTION 2
You work as an enterprise administrator at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named
Certkingdom.com with a single site named Site
A. All servers in the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server
2008.
You reorganize the Active Directory infrastructure to include a second site named SiteB with its
own domain controller.
How would you configured the firewall to allow replication between SiteA and SiteB?

A. Enable IPSec traffic to pass through the firewall.
B. Enable RPC traffic to pass through the firewall.
C. Enable SMTP traffic to pass through the firewall.
D. Enable NNTP traffic to pass through the firewall.
E. Enable FTP traffic to pass through the firewall.

Answer: B

Explanation:
You should permit RPC traffic through the firewall to enable the domain controllers to replicate
between the two sites because the Active Directory relies on remote procedure call (RPC) for
replication between domain controllers. You can open the firewall wide to permit RPC's native
dynamic behavior.
Reference: Active Directory Replication over Firewalls
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727063.aspx

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QUESTION 3
You work as an enterprise administrator at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named
Certkingdom.com. All servers in the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2008.
Certkingdom.com runs a critical application that accesses data that is stored in a Microsoft SQL Server
2005 database server named ABC-DB02. Which of the following options would you choose to
ensure that the database is always available?

A. Two Windows Server 2008 servers running MS SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition in a
Network Load Balancing (NLB) cluster.
B. Two Windows Server 2008 servers running MS SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition in a
Network Load Balancing (NLB) cluster
C. Two Windows Server 2008 servers running MS SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition in a failover
cluster.
D. Two Windows Server 2008 servers running MS SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition in a
failover cluster.

Answer: D

Explanation:
To ensure the high availability of the data store, you need to use a Windows Server 2008 failover
cluster with shared storage.
Failover clustering can help you build redundancy into your network and eliminate single points of
failure.
Administrators have better control and can achieve better performance with storage than was
possible in previous releases. Failover clusters now support GUID partition table (GPT) disks that
can have capacities of larger than 2 terabytes, for increased disk size and robustness.
Administrators can now modify resource dependencies while resources are online, which means
they can make an additional disk available without interrupting access to the application that will
use it. And administrators can run tools in Maintenance Mode to check, fix, back up, or restore
disks more easily and with less disruption to the cluster
You should not use Network Load Balancing (NLB) because it only allows you to distribute TCP/IP
requests to multiple systems in order to optimize resource utilization, decrease computing time,
and ensure system availability.
Reference: High Availability
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/high-availability.aspx

---

QUESTION 4
You work as an enterprise administrator at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named
Certkingdom.com. All servers in the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2008. Certkingdom.com has its
headquarters in Chicago and sub-divisions in Boston, Atlanta, Miami and Dallas. All domain
controllers are currently installed in the Chicago.
You need to have new domain controllers installed in the Boston, Atlanta, Miami and Dallas subdivisions.
Certkingdom.com issues a security policy for the new domain controllers that states the
following:
• Unauthorized user must not be able to access the Active Directory database.
• Unauthorized user must not be able to boot a domain controller from an alternate boot disk.
Which of the following options would you choose to implement the security policy?

A. Modify the permissions of the ntds.dat file.
B. Configure a read-only domain controller (RODC) in the Boston, Atlanta, Miami and Dallas.
C. Disable replication of the Sysvol folder on the new domain controllers.
D. Configure Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption (BitLocker) on the new domain controllers.
E. Disable the Global Catalog role on the new domain controllers.
F. Configure EFS encryption on the new domain controllers.

Answer: D

Explanation:
To configure domain controller at each branch office to ensure that no unauthorized user should
be allowed to copy the Active Directory database from a branch office domain controller by starting
the server from an alternate startup disk, you need to use Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption
(BitLocker)
BitLocker allows you to encrypt all data stored on the Windows operating system volume and use
the security of using a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) that helps protect user data and to ensure
that a computer running Windows Vista or Server 2008 have not been tampered with while the
system was offline.
In addition, BitLocker offers the option to lock the normal startup process until the user supplies a
personal identification number (PIN) or inserts a removable USB device, such as a flash drive, that
contains a startup key. This process will ensure that users can only access all files on the servers
if they have the PIN. You cannot use an alternate startup disk to boot the server.
Reference: BitLocker Drive Encryption Technical Overview
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/a2ba17e6-153b-4269-bc46-
6866df4b253c1033.mspx?mfr=true

---

QUESTION 5
You work as an enterprise administrator at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named
Certkingdom.com that runs at the domain functional level of Windows Server 2008.
Which of the following options can be used for tracking any modification to Active Directory
Objections?

A. Configure a Group Policy to run the Security Configuration Wizard on all computers in the ABC
network.
B. Configure the Default Domain Controllers Group Policy to audit Directory Services.
C. Configure the Default Domain Group Policy to audit Directory Services.
D. Enable auditing of the ntds.dat file in the Default Domain Group Policy.
E. Enable auditing of the ntds.dat file in the Default Domain Group Policy.

Answer: B

Explanation:
To implement an audit and compliance policy and ensure that all changes made to Active
Directory objects are recorded, you need to configure a Directory Services Auditing policy in the
Default Domain Controller Policy
In Windows Server 2008, you can enable Audit Directory Service Access policy to log events in
the Security event log whenever certain operations are performed on objects stored in Active
Directory.
Enabling the global audit policy, Audit directory service access, enables all directory service policy
subcategories. You can set this global audit policy in the Default Domain Controllers Group Policy
(under Security Settings\Local Policies\Audit Policy).
Reference: Windows Server 2008 Auditing AD DS Changes Step-by-Step Guide
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/a9c25483-89e2-4202-881cea8e02b4b2a51033.
mspx?mfr=true

---

QUESTION 6
You work as an enterprise administrator at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named
Certkingdom.com. All servers in the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2003.
You want to install a read-only domain controller (RODC) without uABCrading the existing domain
controllers Windows Server 2008.
What action should you take? (Each correct option will form a part of the answer. Select TWO.)

A. Raise the forest functional level to Windows 2000.
B. Raise the forest functional level to Windows 2003.
C. Raise the forest functional level to Windows 2008.
D. Raise the domain functional level to Windows Server 2000
E. Raise the domain functional level to Windows Server 2003
F. Raise the domain functional level to Windows Server 2008

Answer: B,E

Explanation:
To create an Active Directory forest and domain functional levels to support Read-only domain
controllers (RODC) and Windows Server 2003 domain controllers, you need to create both the
forest and domain functional levels of Windows Server 2003. This is because only when you use
both the forest and domain functional levels of Windows Server 2003, you will be able to support
Read-only domain controllers (RODC) and Windows Server 2003 domain controllers.
Reference: Appendix of Functional Level Features
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/34678199-98f1-465f-9156-
c600f723b31f1033.mspx?mfr=true

---

QUESTION 7
You work as an enterprise administrator at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a forest named
and Certkingdom.com that runs at the forest functional level of Windows Server 2003. Certkingdom.com has a
subsidiary company named TestLabs, Inc. The TestLabs, Inc. network has a forest named and
testlabs.com that runs at the forest functional level of Windows Server 2003. All domain controllers
on both the Certkingdom.com network and the TestLabs, Inc. network run Windows Server 2008.
Certkingdom.com users do not have access to network resources in TestLabs, Inc.
TestLabs, Inc. has a file server named TESTLABS-SR07. Certkingdom.com users must be able to access
shared folders on TESTLABS-SR07. However, Certkingdom.com users must not be able to access any
other network resources in TestLabs, Inc.
Which of the following options would you choose to accomplish this task? (Each correct option will
form a part of the answer. Select TWO.)

A. By raising the forest functional level of Certkingdom.com and testlabs.com to Windows Server 2008.
B. By raising the domain functional level of all domains in Certkingdom.com and testlabs.com to Windows
Server 2008.
C. By creating a forest trust between Certkingdom.com and testlabs.com.
D. By setting the Allowed to Authenticate for TESTLABS-SR07.
E. By setting the Allowed to Authenticate right on the computer object for the testlabs.com
infrastructure operations master object.

Answer: C,D

Explanation:
To ensure that the users in ABC-south.com are denied access to all the resources ABC-north.com
except the resources on ABC-SR07, you need to create a forest trust between ABC-south.com
and ABC-north.com so that resources can be shared between both the forests. You can however
set the trust authentication setting to selective authentication so that only selected authentication
is allowed.
Next you need to set the Allowed to Authenticate right on the computer object for ABC-SR07 so
that each user must be explicitly granted the Allowed to Authenticate permission to access
resources on ABC-SR07.
You should not set the Allowed to Authenticate right on the computer object for the ABC-north.com
infrastructure operations master object because Allowed to Authenticate right is set for the users in
a trusted Windows Server 2003 domain or forest to be able to access resources in a trusting
Windows Server 2003 domain or forest, where the trust authentication setting has been set to
selective authentication, each user must be explicitly granted the ‘Allowed to Authenticate’
permission on the security descriptor of the computer objects (resource computers) that reside in
the trusting domain or forest.
Reference: Grant the Allowed to Authenticate permission on computers in the trusting domain or
forest
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/b4d96434-0fde-4370-bd29-
39e4b3cc7da81033.mspx?mfr=true

---

QUESTION 8
You work as an enterprise administrator at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named
Certkingdom.com. All servers in the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2008. Certkingdom.com has its
headquarters in Chicago and branch offices in Boston. The Boston office is connected to the
Chicago by a WAN link. The Chicago office has a DNS Sever named ABC-SR04 that is configured
as a single DNS zone. The Boston office has two servers named ABC-SR07 and ABC-SR08.
ABC-SR08 hosts shared folders that are only accessed by Certkingdom.com users in the Boston office.
You work in the Chicago office while a network administrator named Rory Allen works in the
Boston office.
Certkingdom.com wants you to ensure that users at the Boston office can log on to the Certkingdom.com domain
and can connect to the shared folders on ABC-SR08 even when the WAN link is down. You must
allow Rory Allen to configure the servers in the Boston office without allowing him to modify the
Active Directory configuration.
Which actions should you take to accomplish this task? (Each correct option will form a part of the
answer. Choose THREE.)

A. By promoting ABC-SR07 to a domain controller.
B. By promoting ABC-SR07 to a read-only domain controller (RODC).
C. By installing USMT role on ABC-SR07.
D. By installing ADMT role on ABC-SR07.
E. By installing DNS role on ABC-SR07.
F. By adding Rory Allen to the Domain Admins group.
G. By creating an organizational unit (OU) for the Boston office.
H. By assigning administrative rights to Rory Allen.

Answer: B,E,H

Explanation:
To ensure that the users in the branch office are able to log on to the domain even if the WAN link
fails, you need to promote the member server to a read-only domain controller (RODC) because
the RODC works as a domain controller and allows log in to the domains except allowing
modifications and changes to the Active directory domain.
Delegating administrative rights to the local branch office administrator after promoting a member
server to a RODC will make sure that branch office administrator is not allowed to initiate any
changes to Active Directory but should be allowed to make configuration changes to the servers in
the branch office.
Configuring the DNS role to the member server, will ensure that the users are allowed to access
file shares on the local server in the absence of the WAN link. Without name resolution and the
other services that are provided by DNS servers, client access to remote host computers would be
prohibitively difficult. DNS servers need to be configured because in intranets computer users
rarely know the IP addresses of computers on their local area network (LAN).
Reference: DNS Server Role: Read-only domain controller support/ Who will be interested in this
server role?
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/533a1cfc-5173-4248-914c-
433bd018f66d1033.mspx?mfr=true

---

QUESTION 9
You work as an enterprise administrator at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named
Certkingdom.com and a workgroup named ABCGROUP. All servers in the Certkingdom.com network run Windows
Server 2008 and all the client computers run Windows Vist
A. The Certkingdom.com network has
unmanaged network switches and has two servers named ABC-SR07 and ABC-SR08. ABC-SR07
is configured with the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), the Active Directory Certificate
Services (AD CS) and the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) service while ABC-SR08
is configured with the Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS), the Network Policy Service
(NPS) and Health Registration Authority (HRA).
You notice that the latest Microsoft updates have not been applied to all client computers that are
part of the ABCGROUP workgroup. You are concerned that Certkingdom.com users are accessing the
local area network (LAN) from these client computers.
You want to implement Network Access Protection (NAP) to secure the network by preventing
client computers that are not members of the Certkingdom.com network or do not have the latest Microsoft
updates from accessing any network servers that are members of the Certkingdom.com domain.
Which of the following option would you choose?

A. TCP/IP
B. 802.1z
C. PPTP
D. DHCP
E. L2TP
F. IPsec

Answer: F

Explanation:
To ensure that only the computers that have the latest Microsoft updates installed should be able
to connect to servers in the domain and that only the computers that are joined to the domain
should be able to connect to servers in the domain, you need to use the IPSec NAP enforcement
method. IPsec domain and server isolation methods are used to prevent unmanaged computers
from accessing network resources. This method enforces health policies when a client computer
attempts to communicate with another computer using IPsec.
Reference: Protecting a Network from Unmanaged Clients / Solutions
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/midsizebusiness/topics/serversecurity/unmanagedclient
s.mspx
Reference: Network Access Protection (NAP) Deployment Planning / Choosing Enforcement
Methods
http://blogs.technet.com/nap/archive/2007/07/28/network-access-protection-deploymentplanning.
aspx

---

QUESTION 10
You work as an enterprise administrator at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named
Certkingdom.com. All servers in the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2008. The Certkingdom.com network
has two web servers named ABC-SR07 and ABC-SR08. Certkingdom.com wants to hosts the company's
e-commerce Web site named sales.Certkingdom.com on the two web servers. You receive instructions
from the CEO to ensure that the Web site is available even when one of the Web servers is offline.
The CEO also wants the session state of the web site to be available should one of the web
servers be offline. Additionally, you must be able to support the Web site on up to six Web servers
with each Web server having a dedicated IP address.
What action should you take?

A. Configure a two-failover cluster on ABC-SR07 and ABC-SR08.
B. Configure multiple ports for the sales.Certkingdom.com web site.
C. Configure Network Load Balancing on ABC-SR07 and ABC-SR08.
D. Configure the sales.Certkingdom.com web site on each server with the site content on a network share.
E. Configure multiple host headers for the sales.Certkingdom.com website.
F. Configure multiple IP addresses for the sales.Certkingdom.com website.


Answer: C


Explanation:
To ensure that the users of the website would be able to access the Web site if a single server
fails. The website should be scalable to as many as seven Web servers and the web servers
should be able to store session-state information for all users. It should also provide support for
multiple dedicated IP addresses for each Web server.
The Network Load Balancing (NLB) feature in Windows Server 2008 enhances the availability and
scalability of Internet server applications such as those used on Web, FTP, firewall, proxy, virtual
private network (VPN), and other mission-critical servers. NLB provides high availability of a
website by detecting and recovering from a cluster host that fails or goes offline.
You should not use failover clustering in this scenario because failover clustering requires shared
storage which is not mentioned in this question.
Reference: Overview of Network Load Balancing
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/11dfa41c-f49e-4ee5-8664-
8b81f6fb8af31033.mspx?mfr=true

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How Microsoft Research helped Craig Mundie speak Chinese

Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, doesn't speak Chinese. But on Tuesday he did, via a life-like virtual avatar shown at the company's offices in Beijing that can simulate his voice and speak in other languages.

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"What was spoken in Mandarin today I never recorded," he said after seeing the demonstration. "But it is my voice. They have a computer model of my voice box."

The virtual avatar, which was designed for language translation, is just one of the new technologies the company has been working on at Microsoft Research.

The research group started on Microsoft's Redmond campus, expanding to five other labs around the world, and now has more than 850 researchers with PhDs. It celebrated its 20th anniversary on Tuesday, beginning with an event at the Microsoft Research Asia facility in Beijing at which Mundie spoke.

Mundie oversees Microsoft's research group, and is also charged with planning the company's long-term strategy, as far as 20 years in the future. He has frequently promoted the idea of so-called natural user interfaces that operate via touch, voice commands, or even reading a person's facial expressions.

"When we think of natural interaction, we think of emulating all of the human senses," Mundie said in an interview. "Touch, vision, speech synthesis and recognition, the ability for all of these to be operated together, they will be the most important in the next few years."

Microsoft's Kinect, an add-on to the Xbox 360, is just the company's latest products to adhere to this concept, allowing users to play games simply with body movements. While Microsoft intends for Kinect to move beyond gaming and PCs, other natural user interface technologies are also in the works. On Tuesday, Microsoft researchers showed off an image search tool that will allow users to find pictures by sketching the general outline of the object they are looking for. The image search will then find the best matches by mining the Internet.

But the natural user interfaces Microsoft is building also extend to virtual environments. Avatars that not only look like actual users, with photo-realistic effects, but can also mimic their voices and approximate the lip movements of speech, could provide life-like exchanges among users without the need to leave their computer, Mundie said.

"Another dream we have is that I should be able to sit in my office, send my avatar to meet somebody in Beijing, and I can speak in English and the avatar speaks in Mandarin in real-time," he said. "We want the computer to be a simultaneous translator."

Natural user interfaces will be a future game changer that will reshape the market, according to Mundie. But to reach that point means refining smaller-scale technologies while also finding new ways to apply them, he said. One of the best examples of this has been Kinect, which was the culmination of seven to eight research activities occurring at Microsoft Research.

"There's no reason to believe we won't see these natural user interface elements become a more integral part of the Windows experience," he said.

On the other hand, it's hard to predict where tablet devices will fit in the overall picture of computing, Mundie said. He noted that tablets fit in a special area among devices too large to fit in one's pocket, but also lacking in the complete computing features of a PC.

"I think there will be a whole range of products that fall in that gap. And that they will be applied to a whole range of tasks: reading, writing, annotation." he said. "I think there will be demand for those things and that the tablet form factor may be with us for a long time. Or it might be displaced by some other more radical technology."

Microsoft throws support behind USB 3.0 with Windows 8

Microsoft is incorporating a software stack in its upcoming Windows 8 OS to natively support devices based on the USB 3.0 interconnect, which is in a battle for adoption with Intel's Thunderbolt.

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USB 3.0 is the successor to USB 2.0 standard and can transfer data 10 times faster between computers and external peripherals such as cameras and storage devices. Most laptops and desktops today come with USB 2.0 ports and many PC makers are offering USB 3.0 ports as an option. The current Windows 7 OS does not include native support for USB 3.0, but device makers offer drivers to ensure products are compatible with the OS.

The growing support for USB 3.0 and wide usage of USB 2.0 was a compelling reason to improve the USB software stack, said Dennis Flanagan, Microsoft's director of program management for the devices and networking group, in an entry on the company's Building Windows 8 blog.

"By 2015, all new PCs are expected to offer USB 3.0 ports, and over 2 billion new 'SuperSpeed' USB devices will be sold in that year alone," Flanagan wrote.

Microsoft is writing a new software stack and controller for Windows 8 based on the "design principles" of USB 3.0, which will bring plug-and-play support for new devices such as external storage, webcams and keyboards, Flanagan wrote. The company is retaining the existing software stack to support older USB devices.

But there are few USB 3.0 devices available today, so to create the new software stack the company had to simulate and build virtual USB 3.0 hardware, including ports, hubs and devices.

The hardware support for USB 3.0 is also growing. Intel has already said it will integrate USB 3.0 support in chipsets for processors code-named Ivy Bridge, which will reach PCs early next year. AMD has already integrated support for USB 3.0 in its Fusion chipsets, which are already shipping for PCs.

USB 3.0 transfers data at speeds of up to 5 gigabits per second, which is slower than the transfer speed of rival interconnect technology Thunderbolt. Developed by Intel, Thunderbolt can transfer data between host computers and external devices such as displays and storage at up to 10 gigabits per second. Thunderbolt has been viewed as an alternative to USB 3.0, but Intel has the said the technologies are complementary. Apple uses Thunderbolt in its products.

Thunderbolt currently supports the PCI Express and DisplayPort protocols, and the interconnect does not require any OS support beyond existing software stacks for those protocols, an Intel spokesman said in an e-mail.

But Microsoft's backing will aid the fast growth of USB 3.0 and provide higher transfer speeds for consumer devices, said Jim McGregor, research director at In-Stat.

"Thunderbolt will be one of many peripheral options available, just like IEEE1394 and Firewire, but I think USB will be the predominant interface because it is so heavily tied to the largest growth segment of the market, mobile devices, for both interconnectivity and power," McGregor said.

Thunderbolt is based on copper wires, but ultimately will be based on optical technology. That will boost the interconnect's transfer speed and distance, Intel has said.


"[USB 3.0] will still not be as fast as the Thunderbolt optic link, but copper never will be as fast as optics," McGregor said.

Wireless charging could trump both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt, provided it takes off, McGregor said. The transfer speeds may not be as fast, but device makers are showing interest in the technology, he said.

"It may eventually eliminate the need for peripheral connectors on mobile devices and then everyone will look to wireless interfaces," McGregor said.

Other than enthusiast users, drivers aren't something average PC users need to worry about, but native support for USB 3.0 in Windows 8 can't hurt, said Nathan Brookwood [CQ], principal analyst at Insight 64.

"When they are talking about the history of Windows 8, they are going to be talking about the user interface and ... touch," Brookwood said.

Microsoft slates IE bug fix for next week

Microsoft today said it will ship eight security updates next week to patch 23 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer (IE) and several other products in its portfolio.

The company sketched out the upcoming patches in an advanced notice of Patch Tuesday's line-up.

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Two of the eight updates, which Microsoft refers to as "bulletins," will be rated "critical," the most-serious threat ranking in its scoring system. The remaining six will be labeled "important," the next-most-severe tag. Most of the bulletins, including four of the six pegged as important, are to patch vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to execute malicious code, and potentially commandeer the computer, the company acknowledged.

Microsoft said that the eight updates will fix 23 security flaws. The company usually delivers a larger number of updates that patch a higher number of vulnerabilities in even-numbered months, leaving a lighter load for odd-numbered months.

In August, for example, Microsoft issued 13 updates that patched 22 vulnerabilities, while in September it delivered five updates that quashed 15 bugs.

This month's tallies were slightly sub-par for an even-numbered month: So far this year, Microsoft has patched an average of 26.2 bugs in those months. In odd-numbered months, Microsoft fixed an average of 9.4 flaws.

"In 2010, the up and down from odd- to even-numbered months was more recognizable," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security. "This year, the numbers have been flatter lately. They're in the double digits almost every month. So IE is really the difference. We know we get an IE update every other month."

Storms is right: Since July, Microsoft has patched an average of 18.5 vulnerabilities in the odd-numbered months, and 22.5 bugs in the even-numbered months.

The IE update will probably be the one most users should deploy first, said Storms, advice he and other security experts almost always give every other month. That update is one of the two rated critical by Microsoft, and affects all currently-supported versions of the browser, including this year's IE9.

"I doubt there will be a story this month from Microsoft about how IE9 is more secure than its other browsers," said Storms, referring to the critical label Microsoft assigned to the new version's update.

The other critical bulletin will patch one or more vulnerabilities in the .Net framework included with every version of Windows, from 2001's XP to 2009's Windows 7. The same update will also plug a hole in the Silverlight 4 development tool.

Marcus Carey, a security researcher with Rapid7, pointed out that the .Net and Silverlight update sounds similar to MS11-039, a critical bulletin Microsoft issued in June.

"When exploit developers look for bugs disclosed in products, they usually find similar bugs which result in the same type of vulnerabilities," said Carey in an email. "I'd expect the implications of this one to mirror MS11-039: specifically, that server and client side attacks may be perpetrated through .Net or Silverlight."

Other updates will patch a denial-of-service issue in Microsoft's Host Integration Server, a gateway that connects Windows-based networks with IBM mainframe and mid-range AS/400 systems, and a remote code flaw in Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010, the company's VPN (virtual private networking) platform that lets enterprise workers connect with corporate applications when outside the office.

Microsoft last quashed a bug in the VPN platform in November 2010.

Last month, Microsoft inadvertently published information about September's security updates four days early. Although it caught the embarrassing error and removed the pages from its website inside an hour, some security researchers grabbed copies before they were deleted.

Storms doesn't expect a repeat performance this month.

The eight updates will be released at approximately 1 p.m. ET on Oct. 11.

On Changing One’s Mind about School Reform

I Used to Think…And Now I Think is an interesting compendium of twenty education notables’ views on school reform, responding to a prompt devised by Richard Elmore of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, which doubles as the title of the book. Obviously, in the compass of a relatively brief review, it is impossible to do justice to all two, but here are some of their individual conclusions about the current status quo:

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1) Genuine K-12 educational reform, while badly needed if American democracy is going to flourish in the contemporary world, is extraordinarily difficult to accomplish, given the intersection between schools and an increasingly incoherent society;

2) Our schools are extraordinarily disparate in their level of effectiveness, ranging from excellent in some of the more affluent suburbs to mediocre in many of the urban centers;

3) There is no one delivery system that can respond adequately to the needs of an increasingly diverse population. Our current system is entirely too bureaucratic and monolithic;

4) There is no one formula for special education students. “The child should attend the school he should attend if he were nondisabled” is too simplistic a notion to serve everybody’s needs.

5) Charter schools have an important role to play in the improvement of the public education sector;

6) Teacher unions, despite their traditional role as advocate of better conditions for teachers, could be instrumental in adding to their objectives, i.e. specific attention to student academic outcomes;

7) Teachers play a pivotal role in schools. No reform efforts can possibly succeed without their support.

While many of these conclusions might seem self-evident to those, like myself, who have been involved in the field of educational reform over a significant period of time, this is a useful volume because so many of the authors, like Larry Cuban, have taught in challenging circumstances before becoming policy analysts, which allows them to connect the two spheres in an illuminating fashion. Furthermore, the capacity for candid self-reflection and for change, in many cases from idealist to realist, is both sobering and enlightening. All in all, a thoughtful collection of essays.

Business paper use remains high

Businesses aren't rushing to create paperless offices; in fact, some are relying on paper documents more than ever, according to a new study by CompTIA.

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The computer industry trade association's survey of 400 IT and business executives on the use of printers found that most companies expect to maintain or increase paper usage over the next two years.

The survey found that 38% of the companies are printing more paper documents than two years ago, and another 8% said they are doing significantly more printing. Of the balance, 27% said there was no change, 23% said they were doing less printing, and 3% said they were doing significantly less printing.

Those surveyed were also asked to forecast their printing needs in the next two years, and for the most part, the percentages show little variance.

"I was surprised it wasn't on the wane more," said Tim Herbert, vice president of research at CompTia.

Herbert believes personal printing, such as printing out boarding tickets or directions, is on a downward trend, but commercial printing is maintaining its pace.

While some businesses have moved away from the use of paper, sectors like education, government and health care remain extremely paper-intensive, said Herbert.

Printer sales seems to back up the trend, according to IDC data cited by CompTia. In 2010, IDC reported that 125.2 million printers were shipped worldwide, up 12.1% from the prior year.

The study is aimed at companies in the managed print services market. With the results, CompTia advises that such companies must offer customers more than printer maintenance services. They must also move to provide services around document management, such as document retention and workflow.

Certs: Added value or minimum requirement?

I've got a Bachelors Degree in Information Systems Management, my Certified Information Security Systems Professional (CISSP) certification, the SANS GIAC Systems and Network Auditor (GSNA) certificate and I used to be a CCNA. I spent two years getting my B.S. by attending night courses, the CISSP took me 6 months of constant study, the GSNA required a week's worth of intense instructor lead study, and I spent the better part of a school year taking the official Cisco course work at the local junior college before taking the test. And with the exception of the CCNA, the time I spent earning my degree and getting my certifications was aimed strictly at filling in a check box on an HR person's list rather than learning something. Not to say I didn't learn something in studying for each, but my goal was fulfilling a job requirement instead of education.

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I have mixed feelings about certifications in the IT and security professions; certifications show that someone has the minimum knowledge required to pass a particular test. It shows they understand their profession well enough to know what certificates are going to be required to get a job in their field. It shows that the person is dedicated enough to their profession to take and pass these tests. But what it doesn't show is real-world knowledge of security.

Obviously I'm not opposed to certifications, since I hold several myself. But I've never liked the fact that many people think certification and skills are the same thing. The fact that having the right certification can mean a significantly higher level of pay for professionals who otherwise are of the same skill level only further complicates the situation. It encourages people to accumulate as many different certifications as possible to help bolster their income, something I'm as guilty of as anyone else.

I remember the early days of the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and "paper MCSE's" who had passed all the tests, but could barely remember how to change a password when they got their first job in the real world. I often hear accusations that the CISSP is heading in the same direction, despite increased efforts by the ISC2 to validate candidates and verify levels of experience. But I think both of these miss the real point of certification; they show that someone has spent the time and effort to pass a test, not that they have the skills required to work in the real world. After all, no one expects a kid fresh out of college to know everything about their chosen career, so why should a certificate be any different?

Silver Surfers are past it? Never!

Well, much to my amusement I recently discovered that there's a new name for Internet users in my age group: We are now called "Silver Surfers" (with apparently no nod to Marvel and its superhero of the same name).

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Yep, we of the SS ... wait, that doesn't sound good ... er, we SSers (nope, that's not much better) ... um, we Online Baby Boomers (OBBs ... yeccch), that is to say, those of us born between 1946 and 1964 who use the 'Net, are a huge cohort.

And those of us Silver Surfers who have, in particular, been in the Information Technology world, have also been through the mill: We were around to grapple with mainframes and we were there to wrestle with minicomputers.

We know punched paper tape from punch cards. We know what green bar paper is. We've mounted mag tape and manhandled diskpacks the size of hat boxes (if any of that makes no sense to you, dear reader, you aren't a Silver Surfer).

We Silver Surfers then tamed PCs when they put in an appearance and we built local area networks out of them with what today looks like baling wire, chewing gum and hope.

Even better, we made the Internet explosion happen and then we enjoyed the Internet Bubble and were dismayed when it burst. We have been around the block and we've been back again.

Solid Gold technology of the 1980s

And from all that experience we have wound up with complex, rich skill sets derived from decades of hacking (the good kind) every piece of gear put in front of us, as well as from building every kind of systems and subsystems you can think of, along with coding, debugging, tracing, analyzing, documenting and wrangling the barely wrangleable.

In short, we are IT heroes. Hell, we're Business Heroes ... or rather we should be.

But the reality is that despite our unarguable chops and our glorious histories, the Silver Surfers are often looked at as "past it" (or maybe that should be "past IT").

The truth is that we are anything but.

Sure, you can bring in Young Turks with all sorts of qualifications; They can have an MCTS, MCITP, Oracle OCA/OCP, CCNA, RHCE, CISSP, CET, CWNA, LPI, SCJP, CIW, MOS, PM, or an ABCDEFGHIJK but, seriously, what do they know?

On the other hand, what many Sliver Surfers have that the Young Turks don't have is "insight"; that almost magical ability to see the architecture of systems and processes and how they relate to business along with their opportunities and flaws.

Most of the young 'uns take one look at an existing infrastructure and the first thing that occurs to them is to tear it all down and start again. The Sliver Surfers are different; they "grok" that there's a working machine to be dealt with and that when you interfere with something in the enterprise world that is functional, no matter what problems it may have, you risk business "meltdown."

Nope, the Young Turks most often want to rebuild from the ground up rather than face the realities of business which are, essentially, that money has been invested and instituting wholesale change is equivalent to tearing the business apart. If they were dealing with a car this would be like replacing the engine when what you're trying to do is fill the tank.

One of the things I know from some of my Silver Surfer IT friends is that this economy hasn't been kind to them. These are guys who have incredible technical abilities and if they haven't architected it, they coded it, and if they didn't do that, they most likely project managed it.

But over the years they have become almost too knowledgeable. They can't work for some guy half or even two-thirds their age who doesn't have a clue. They really do know the answers or, if they don't, they know how to do the analysis to find out.

And when the Young Turks pick the latest and, in the opinion of the salesman they dealt with, greatest solution and ignore that the Silver Surfers who actually know BS when they see it and smell it, it's a standoff: Age against energy, knowledge versus belief, warranted cynicism over reckless enthusiasm, and, ultimately, pearls before swine.

So, if you are a CxO who gets to deal with IT in any way, keep in mind that the Silver Surfers may be old and wrinkled, they may be unwilling to work 16 hours a day, they may (occasionally well, maybe often) be cranky and even rude when they think you're talking crap but, you know what? If they think you are talking crap when it comes to IT then you probably are and they are probably right.

The Silver Surfers have been there and back, around the block and up at the pointy end. And if you listen to them they'll save you money, waste far less time and make your life easier.

IBM beats Microsoft in market value --- here's how Microsoft can take back the lead

IBM has surpassed Microsoft in market worth, an ironic turn of events considering that Microsoft outsmarted IBM years ago and left the company practically for dead. It's a sign of how Microsoft hasn't been able to adequately adjust to a changing world. Microsoft would do well to examine how IBM turned around its fortunes, and learn some lessons from the company's revival.

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Bloomberg reports that as of the close of the market yesterday IBM had a market value of $214 billion, surpassing Microsoft's $213.2 billion. It was the first time since 1996 that at the close of a trading day IBM had a greater market value than Microsoft, Bloomberg says. Apple, meanwhile, had a market value of $362.1 billion as of yesterday, Bloomberg calculates.

Decades ago, the tiny upstart Microsoft outsmarted the computing beheamoth IBM when Microsoft bought the rights to a clone of Digital Research's 86-DOS operating system, tweaked it and renamed it MS-DOS, as part of a deal with IBM to provide the operating system for the new IBM PC. Microsoft got a significant amount of money from the deal, and still retained the rights to DOS, leading the way to a flood of clones that eventually swamped IBM.

When Microsoft thrived and IBM stumbled, it was seen as symbolic of the rise of the personal computer and the decline of mainframes. Microsoft was the future; IBM the past.

IBM, though, eventually recast itself, getting out of the PC business entirely by selling off its PC division to Lenovo. And it focused instead on software and services. It was a prescient move, not only because of the great demand for software and services, and the high margins there, but because even though no one noticed, the PC itself will eventually be surpassed by other devices such as smartphone and tablets, and demand for it further hurt by the growth of the cloud.

So what can Microsoft learn from IBM? That sometimes you have to ignore your own company history and culture, and set a very different direction. IBM became immensely successful because of hardware, but after its decline it became immensely successful because of its focus on software and services.

What's the equivalent for Microsoft? To end its heavy reliance on Windows to prop up the company. Windows will remain a cash cow, but PCs don't lead the way towards growth. If the company wants to grow, it needs to better target mobile devices and the Internet, and not necessarily view the world through Windows. It's not clear that will happen. At the 2011 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC 2011) in July, CEO Steve Balmer made it clear in his opening speech that he believes that Microsoft's future is Windows, saying:

"Windows is the backbone product of Microsoft. Windows PCs, Windows Phones, Windows slates. Windows Windows Windows Windows Windows."

I don't believe that's the way to the future, though, and there's evidence that Ballmer might not believe that either. In August Microsoft laid out in a blog its vision about the future of TV, entertainment and the living room. Windows wasn't in that vision. Instead Microsoft sees the Xbox 360, Kinect, and Bing teaming up to transform entertainment-related technology.

That willingness to abandon what's worked in the past is what saved IBM. If Microsoft does the same, it can help the company regain its position as the pre-eminent tech giant.

70-649 Exam

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at http://www.actualkey.com

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QUESTION 1
You work as the enterprise administrator at ABC.com. ABC.com has a domain named ABC.com.
The ABC.com network servers run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the client computers run
Microsoft Windows Vista. ABC.com has a Routing and Remote Access computer named ABCSR01
running Network Access Protection.
How should you configure ABC-SR01 to ensure Point-to-Point (PP) authentication is used?

A. By using the Microsoft Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (MS-CHAP) protocol.
B. By using the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol.
C. By using the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) protocol.
D. By using the Kerberos v5 protocol.

Answer: C

Explanation:
To configure the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) authentication method on ABC-SR01, you need to
configure Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) authentication method.
Microsoft Windows uses EAP to authenticate network access for Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
connections. EAP was designed as an extension to PPP to be able to use newer authentication
methods such as one-time passwords, smart cards, or biometric techniques.
Reference: Making sense of remote access protocols in Windows / DIAL-UP AUTHENTICATION

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1058239.html

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QUESTION 2
You work as the enterprise administrator at ABC.com. ABC.com has a domain named ABC.com.
The ABC.com network servers run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the client computers run
Microsoft Windows Vista. ABC.com has a computer named ABC-SR01 using the default security
settings to run Remote Desktop.
How would you configure the Remote Desktop connection to ensure secure connections between
ABC-SR01 and accessing clients?

A. By configuring Windows Firewall to block communications via port 110 on the firewall.
B. By obtaining user certificates from the internal certificate authority.
By allowing connections to Remote Desktop client computers that use Network Level
Authentication only.
C. By configuring Windows Firewall to block communications via port 443 on the firewall.
D. By obtaining user certificates from the external certificate authority.
By allowing connections to Remote Desktop client computers that use Network Level
Authentication only.
E. By configuring Windows Firewall to block communications via port 1423 on the firewall.

Answer: B

Explanation:
To ensure the RDP connections are as secure as possible, you need to first acquire user
certificates from the internal certificate authority and then configure each server to allow
connections only to Remote Desktop client computers that use Network Level Authentication.
In the pre-W2008 Terminal Server, you used to enter the name of the server and a connection is
initiated to its logon screen. Then, at that logon screen you attempt to authenticate. From a
security perspective, this isn’t a good idea. Because by doing it in this manner, you’re actually
getting access to a server prior to authentication – the access you’re getting is right to a session
on that server – and that is not considered a good security practice.
NLA, or Network Level Authentication, reverses the order in which a client attempts to connect.
The new RDC 6.0 client asks you for your username and password before it takes you to the
logon screen. If you’re attempting to connect to a pre-W2008 server, a failure in that initial logon
will fail back to the old way of logging in. It shines when connecting to Windows Vista computers
and W2008 servers with NLA configured it prevents the failback authentication from ever
occurring, which prevents the bad guys from gaining accessing your server without a successful
authentication.
Reference: Server 2008 Terminal Services Part 2: NLA – Network Level Authentication

http://www.realtime-windowsserver.com/tips_tricks/2007/06/server_2008_terminal_services_2.htm

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QUESTION 3
You work as the enterprise administrator at ABC.com. ABC.com has a domain named ABC.com.
The ABC.com network servers run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the client computers run
Microsoft Windows Vista. ABC.com has a computer named ABC-SR18 configured to host the
Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server role and SMTP gateway role.
ABC.com has a Marketing division using ABC-SR18 to send and receive e-mail from the Internet.
The ABC.com Marketing division accesses the Internet using the SMTP gateway on port 25.
How would you configure ABC-SR18 to send e-mail to Internet recipients after configuring the
SMTP gateway to relay messages?

A. By creating an SRV record for the SMTP gateway on an internal DNS server.
B. By creating a host (A) record for the SMTP gateway on an internal DNS server.
C. By configuring the SMTP email feature for the website on ABC-SR18.
D. By creating a CNAME record for the SMTP gateway on an internal DNS server.

Answer: C

Explanation: You need to configure the SMTP email feature for the website on ABC-SR18. The
Simple Message Transfer Protocol allows the emails to be sent to a specific address.
Reference: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/4ade618d-ff7a-4359-
b6ba-4982f0bdf4a51033.mspx?mfr=true

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QUESTION 4
You work as the enterprise administrator at ABC.com. ABC.com has a domain named ABC.com.
The ABC.com network servers run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the client computers run
Microsoft Windows Vista. ABC.com has a computer named ABC-SR15 configured to host the
Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) service.
How would you replicate Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) to a newly
deployed server?

A. By using the ADSI Edit Snap-in to replicate the AD LDS instance.
B. By creating and installing a replica of AD LDS running the AD LDS Setup wizard on ABC-SR15
C. By using the xcopy command to copy the entire AD LDS instance.
D. By using Active Directory Sites and Services to replicate the AD LDS instance.

Answer: B

Explanation: You need to run the AD LDS setup wizard on the computer in the lab to create and
install a replica of AD LDS. In the AD LDS setup wizard there will be an option to replicate the AD
LDS instance on another computer.

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QUESTION 5
You work as the enterprise administrator at ABC.com. ABC.com has a domain named ABC.com.
The ABC.com network servers run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the client computers run
Microsoft Windows Vista. ABC.com has a computer named ABC-SR01 configured to host
virtualization role service and virtual machines installed with the KingSales application.
How would you configure the virtual machines to be recovered to the original state if installation of
KingSales fails?

A. By using an Automated System Recovery (ASR) disk on the virtual machine when the
application fails.
B. By installing and configuring third party backup software on Virtual machine.
C. By creating a snapshot of the virtual machine through the Virtualization Management Console.
D. By using the Windows Backup utility to backup the Virtual machines.

Answer: C

Explanation: To ensure that you can restore the Virtual machine to its original state if an
application installation fails, you should create a snapshot of the virtual machine using the
Virtualization Management Console. You can always restore the virtual machines in its original
state by using the snapshot you created.

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QUESTION 6
You work as the enterprise administrator at ABC.com. ABC.com has a domain named ABC.com.
The ABC.com network servers run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the client computers run
Microsoft Windows Vista. ABC.com has two computers configured as follows:
• ABC-DC01 – configured as a domain controller.
• ABC-DC02 – configured as a Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC).
ABC.com Marketing division members makes use of ABC-DC01 to log onto the domain.
How would you ensure that ABC-DC02 can be used by the Marketing division to log onto the
domain?

A. By deploying a computer running Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS).
B. By using a Password Replication Policy on the RODC.
C. By installing and configuring an Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) front-end server.
D. By deploying a computer running Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) and
Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS).

Answer: B

Explanation: You should use the Password Replication Policy on the RODC. This will allow the
users at the Dallas office to log on to the domain with RODC. RODCs don’t cache any user or
machine passwords.

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QUESTION 7
You work as the enterprise administrator at ABC.com. ABC.com has a domain named ABC.com.
The ABC.com network servers run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the client computers run
Microsoft Windows Vista. ABC.com has a computer named ABC-SR21 in the default Web site
running WSUS for updates.
How would you configure a group policy with the port and intranet update location to ensure the
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is used on ABC-SR21?

A. By using https://ABC-sr21: 80 to indicate the default port and intranet update location.
B. By using https://ABC-sr21 to indicate the default port and intranet update location.
C. By using http://ABC-sr21: 1073 to indicate the default port and intranet update location.
D. By using http://ABC-sr21: 110 to indicate the default port and intranet update location.

Answer: B

Explanation: You need to use https://ABC-sr21 to configure a group policy object (GPO) that
specifies the intranet update locations on a default port. You also need a URL for a secure port
that the WSUS server is listening on. You should make use of a URL that specifies HTTPS. This
will secure the client computer channel. However, if you are using any port other than 443 for SSL,
you need to include that port in the URL, too.
Reference: WSUS SSL Client Configuration

http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsoft-support/windows-nt-2000-2003-server/115983-wsusssl-

client-configuration.html

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QUESTION 8
You are employed as an enterprise administrator at ABC.com. The ABC.com has a domain
named ABC.com. All servers on the domain run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and all client
computers run Microsoft Windows Vista. ABC.com has a computer named ABC-SR20 that hosts
the Internet Information Services (IIS) Web Server role though being configured not to utilize the
Windows Performance and Reliability Monitor. During the course of the day ABC.com instructs
you to install and configure Reliability Monitor.
How can you ensure ABC-SR20 collects reliability information keeping the system stability share
current?

A. By configuring the Remote Access Auto Connection Manager service to start automatically on
the ABC-SR20.
B. By configuring the Net Logon service to start automatically on the ABC-SR20.
C. By configuring the Task scheduler service to start automatically on the ABC-SR20.
D. By configuring the Error Reporting Services service to start automatically on the ABC-SR20.

Answer: C

Explanation: To configure the ABC-SR20 to collect the reliability monitor data, you need to
configure the Task scheduler service to start automatically.
Reliability Monitor uses data provided by the RACAgent scheduled task, a pre-defined task that
runs by default on a new installation of Windows Vista. The seamless integration between the
Task Scheduler user interface and the Event Viewer allows an event-triggered task to be created
with just five clicks.
In addition to events, the Task Scheduler in Windows Vista / Server 2008 supports a number of
other new types of triggers, including triggers that launch tasks at machine idle, startup, or logon.
Because you need Task Scheduler to collect reliability monitor data, you need to you need to
configure the Task scheduler service to start automatically.
Reference: Network Monitor 3.1 OneClick … now what? / Task Scheduler Changes in Windows
Vista and Windows Server 2008 – Part One

http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/

Reference: What allows the Reliability Monitor to display data?

http://www.petri.co.il/reliability_monitor_windows_vista.htm

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QUESTION 9
You work as the enterprise administrator at ABC.com. ABC.com has a domain named ABC.com.
The ABC.com network servers run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the client computers run
Microsoft Windows Vista. ABC.com has three computers configured as follows:
• ABC-SR11 – configured with Event Log subscription monitoring
• ABC-SR12 – configured as a domain controller.
• ABC-SR13 – configured as a domain controller.
During the course of the day ABC.com instructs you to create the subscription using ABC-SR12 or
ABC-SR13 which fails as the operation does not complete.
How would you ensure that the subscription can be created using either ABC-SR12 or ABCMicrosoft
70-649: Practice Exam
SR13? (Choose two)

A. By running the command wecutil cs subscription.xml on ABC-SR11.
B. By creating subscription.xml custom view on ABC-SR11.
C. By running the wecutil qc command on ABC-SR12.
D. By running the winrm connect command on ABC-SR13.
E. By running the winrm allow command on ABC-SR13

Answer: A,B

Explanation: To configure a subscription on ABC-SR11, you need to first create an event
collector subscription configuration file and Name the file subscription.xml. You need to then run
the wecutil cs subscription.xml command on ABC-SR11.
This command enables you to create and manage subscriptions to events that are forwarded from
remote computers, which support WS-Management protocol. wecutil cs subscription.xml
command will create a subscription to forward events from a Windows Vista Application event log
of a remote computer at ABC.com to the ForwardedEvents log.
Reference: Wecutil

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/0c82a6cb-d652-429c-9c3d-

0f568c78d54b1033.mspx?mfr=true

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QUESTION 10
You work as the enterprise administrator at ABC.com. ABC.com has a domain named ABC.com.
The ABC.com network servers run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the client computers run
Microsoft Windows Vista. ABC.com has a computer named ABC-SR11 configured to run Internet
Information Services (IIS) Web server role hosting confidential company information.
ABC.com has a Marketing division accessing the confidential information which loads excessively
slow. During the course of the maintenance you discovered ABC-SR11 uses a high percentage of
processor time.
How would you gather information regarding the processor utilizing high percentages of processor
time?

A. By using Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor to check percentage of processor
capacity.
B. By using a counter log to track the processor usage.
C. By using the Performance Logs and Alerts.
D. By checking the security log for Performance events.
E. By checking the error log for performance events.

Answer: A

Explanation: Explanation
To gather additional data to diagnose the cause of the problem, you need to use the Resource
View in Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor to see the percentage of processor capacity
used by each application.
The Resource View window of Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor provides a real-time
graphical overview of CPU, disk, network, and memory usage. By expanding each of these
monitored elements, system administrators can identify which processes are using which
resources. In previous versions of Windows, this real-time process-specific data was only
available in limited form in Task Manager
Reference: Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755081.aspx

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at http://www.actualkey.com