What is Thunderbolt technology and How it Function?

1. Many of us aware of USB (Universal Serial Bus)port,which is used to plugin the Pen Drive to our System,is one of the fastest data access mechanism till date.A USB port allows you to plug in a device to your computer and instantly access it from the system(Operating System). Each USB port only allows one device (when you use a USB hub to extend it to support multiple devices, it is still theoretically a one-one connection) and whenever users buying their Laptops they always look toward the number of USB ports it have.Thunderbolt eliminates all these problems and adds a new dimension to how you connect your external devices to your computer.

ThunderBolt Port

2. Thunderbolt technology is a new emerging technology that work much better than the USB port, which allows you to easily chain multiple devices (up to 6 devices) together. All Thunderbolt devices use the same connector (unlike USB technology that uses a male – female type of connection), so you can connect one device to another with inter operable cables. You just need one Thunderbolt port to chain them all, and you don’t have to worry how many USB ports your computer comes with, and whether you need a USB hub or not.

Thunderbolt-cable

3. It is Developed by Intel (code name Light Peak), and brought to market with technical collaboration from Apple 2011 MacBook Pro. Thunderbolt technology is a new, high-speed, dual-protocol I/O technology designed for performance, simplicity, and flexibility. This high-speed data transfer technology features following things:

• Dual-channel 10 Gbps per port

• Bi-directional

• Dual-protocol (PCI Express* and DisplayPort*)

• Compatible with existing DisplayPort devices

• Daisy-chained devices

• Electrical or optical cables

• Low latency with highly accurate time synchronization

• Uses native protocol software drivers

• Power over cable for bus-powered devices

Must See This Video: Live Working Of Thunderbolt

4. Thunderbolt technology enables use of the thinnest and lightest laptops and connecting to the extra power and performance of other devices when needed, using a single cable. Adding new performance devices is simple and easy—just plug and play—making Thunderbolt technology powerful and flexible.Thunderbolt technology was specifically designed with professional audio and video applications in mind, where the inherently low latency and highly accurate time synchronization features play a crucial role.

• Advantage Of Using Thunderbolt Technology

1. It has ability to daisy chain multiple devices together is a job of Single Thunderbolt . The true advantage of Thunderbolt technology is the communication speed between itself and the connected devices. The Thunderbolt technology can transfer data at the rate of 10Gbps (compared to USB 2.0 – 120MBps and USB 3.0 – 400MBps).

Architecture of Thunderbolt:

ThunderBold PCI

Thunderbolt_Block_Diagram

ThunderboltLayout

ThunerboltIC

With the 10 Gbps performance of Thunderbolt products you can

• Transfer a full-length HD movie in less than 30 seconds

• Backup 1 year of continuous MP3 playback in just over 10 minutes

2. That is how fast Thunderbolt technology is. What makes it even better is that it is bi-directional, which means that you can transfer and receive data at the same time, both with the same 10Gbps bandwidth. Best of all, the last device in the daisy chain will enjoy the full bandwidth as well. Imagine the massive library of music and videos you have in your computer, you can now transfer them in/out at lightning speed.

Thunderbolt vs others

• In Feature We Will See Thunderbolt Enable Monitors?

1. In today’s technology, you still need a dedicated port to connect your monitor to the computer. Most of monitors having VGA, or DVI or the latest HDMI connection, still there is no way to connect HD-capable monitor to the USB port.

2. The Thunderbolt port utilizes the DisplayPort protocol to deliver high display performance on your PC. With the use of adapter, it can also support the existing VGA, DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI interface. This means that you can now hook up your monitor onto the Thunderbolt port and enjoy HD performance.

• Benefits of Thunderbolt

1. Users will get fast transfer speed that comes with Thunderbolt.

2. Users can play in TB instead of MB,GB & take any typr of backup within second, or even do faster video editing.

3. The size of PC will decrease ,because thunderbolt can replace traditional PCI Card Slot user don’t need dedicated slots for graphic card, sound card,Hard Drive or even a Gigabit ethernet card. All these hardware will exist as external devices and hook up via the Thunderbolt port in feature.

Hyper-V vs. VMware Comparison

Hyper-V vs. VMware Comparison



Choosing the right Virtualization software for your datacenter is a complex task. Microsoft's Hyper-V has become a formidable competitor to VMware, especially with Windows Server 2008 R2. So i thought we would share our experience via this comparison of VMware versus Hyper-V, the leading server virtualization solutions.

 Hyper-V versus VMware - Pricing


If you already have a Windows Server 2008 OS platform, you can download Hyper-V Server at no cost. The only cost is for the System Center management framework. Microsoft includes management of physical and virtual environments along with Hyper-V and VMware.Hyper-V provides you with migration capabilities: Live Migration is included in Windows Server 2008 R2 at no extra charge. We are using it and can attest to R2's robustness. With VMware, VMotion in both Foundation and Standard editions, there is an additional charge if you want to add migration capabilities.

Take a look at the following table, you will see side-by-side the cost comparison of Hyper-V vs VMware. All of VMware feature comparisons use Virtual Infrastructure Enterprise and most of its pricing comparisons use Virtual Infrastructure Foundation. Costs are for five physical servers. We've made the assumption that you've already paid for the host server OS in this comparison.

Hyper-V R2 versus VMware - Feature Comparison



The following chart compares VMware Enterprise core features with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V (r2) and System Center Management core features.

VMI: VMware Infrastructure WS08: Windows Server 2008 R2

VCB: VMware Consolidated Backup SMSE: System Center Server Management Suite
VMM: Virtual Machine Manager DPM: Data Protection Manager
WS08: Windows Server 2008 R2
SMSE: System Center Server Management Suite

DPM: Data Protection Manager

 Notes:



With Microsoft, virtualization with Hyper-V was built into Windows Server 2008. For heavy Microsoft shops, this means tighter integration with your existing infrastructure and management tools. Since Hyper-V is part of Windows Server 2008, your IT staff will use it seamlessly because they are familiar with the Windows look-and-feel.


Fewer virtual machines, in some situations, can be run on Hyper-V than you can on ESX Server, but Hyper-V is based on Windows Server 2008 and because of that you can run these machines on pretty well any hardware configuration, any hardware configuration that is designed to support Windows. You can only run VMware on maybe dozens or fewer number of server configurations than you can run Windows. That means that Hyper-V can be run on hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of configurations whereas because ESX Server, VMware is a more limited product because of that.


One thing that Microsoft has done very well is that they have tried to add as many management tools for virtualization as possible and of course, the market leader in terms of virtualization management tools is VMware. Microsoft has almost as many tools as VMware in terms of virtualization management.


Microsoft, by the way, just upgraded the number of cores that you can run with Hyper-V by releasing support for Intel’s new 6-core processors, so that means you can now run up to 24 cores.


Microsoft supports a limited number of Linux distributions (today SUSE), so keep that in mind. If you have a wider number of platforms to support, VMware ESX is your choice.


Hyper-V lets you manage virtual and physical environments and uses common deployment, provisioning, monitoring, and backup methodologies across both. VMware’s answer to management is to use Virtual Infrastructure Enterprise and Virtual Center, but even these tools won't allow to manage multiple hypervisors, physical resources or applications.




Source: Internet

Daily Security Checklist

Daily Security Checklist

In today's connected world, hacking is a 24/7 business. Whether approaching it as a job or a hobby, hackers don't punch a clock. Maybe your company doesn't have the budget for 24/7 security managers, but that doesn't mean you should just give up on security.

If your security staff is on a 9-to-5 schedule, your network can still remain secure in the 16 hours in-between. You just need to focus activities to provide maximum coverage for the network. Develop a methodical, comprehensive task list that provides the most efficient means of securing your network. To jump-start your planning, here's a sample list of basic tasks you should be sure to check off every day.

MORNING

After arriving at work, get some coffee, check your email, and do the following:

 Verify the current connections

Inspect all the connections going through your firewall — both in and out. Look for anomalies and investigate them this could include outbound FTP or inbound Telnet/SSH sessions.

 Look at network traffic statistics

How much activity took place while you weren't there? What type of traffic was it? What was the destination and source? Use Network monitoring to achieve this.

 Look at your antivirus logs

Did a virus hit your email system last night? Are the antivirus signatures up to date?

Check antivirus server logs, update logs, etc.

 Read the security logs on your domain servers

Did the system lock out any accounts last night? Pay special attention to any accounts with

Administrator access. Verify that lockouts were human error — and not part of a breach attempt.

 Check for new security patches

Determine whether any of your vendors released patches for any software in your baseline. (If you don't have a baseline, I highly recommend developing one.) If a new patch is available, read the release notes thoroughly. Then, make a decision or recommendation whether to implement it now or wait for scheduled system downtime. Test the new patch roll on test environment, rather than implementing directly to production.

AFTERNOON

When you arrive back from lunch, there's still a lot left to do:

 Meet & Brief

Managers like to know what's going on, so don't wait for them to ask — tell them. Meet and brief on anything that occurred during the evening and the actions you've taken so far. This is also a good time to pitch new ideas, such as tools that could help you defend the network or staff training.

 Check more logs

Take an in-depth look at IDS, firewall, and Wireless devices logs .Who on the Internet is knocking on your door? What are they looking for? Who on the inside of your network is doing something they shouldn't be? If you find unauthorized and/or illegal activity, report it immediately and take action to stop it.

 Turn knowledge into action

Now that you know what went on while you weren't there, develop an action plan to prevent the behavior in the future. Do you need to adjust your firewall rules? Is your IDS catching and reporting the proper events? Do you need to archive logs to save space on your servers? Do you need to give a final briefing on any actions that occurred during the last 24 hours?

 Final thoughts

A lot of companies don't run 24/7 security operations, and sometimes you might be the only person providing security for a network. It's easy to get caught up in events and miss important items on your security checklist, but you'll never know what you're missing if you don't create a list in the first place. Network security shouldn't be reactionary — don't wait for events to drive you into action.

The above list isn't complete, but it's a starting point. Create your own security to-do list that's specific to your organization's needs, and keep your security on track.

Wipe Data using windows command line.

There are various tools out there you can buy or download for wiping hard drives, but it's easy to do this using the built-in Windows commands Diskpart and Format. Just take the drive you want to wipe out of the computer and insert it into another computer, then open a command prompt window on the second computer and type the following commands:


Diskpart


Select Disk N


In the above command N should be the disk number of the disk you are going to wipe.


Clean
{clean [all]Create Partition Primary

Use the clean command to remove partition or volume formatting from the current in-focus disk by zeroing sectors. By default, only the MBR or GPT partitioning information and any hidden sector information on MBR disks is overwritten. If you specify the all parameter, each and every sector can be zeroed, and all data that is contained on the drive can be deleted.}

Assign
Exit
Below Snapshot: 

 Now type the following command where X is the drive letter assigned to the new partition using the Assign command above:

Format X: /p:1 /v:CleanDisk /y

By scripting the above series of commands you can easily wipe all data from the drive in a single pass.


Source:

• By Mitch Tulloch ( seven-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award and widely recognized expert on Windows administration, deployment and virtualization.)
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415
• http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/diskpart.mspx?mfr=true