On April 19thGITCA and Microsoft are running an event called “24 Hours in the Cloud”. There will be 24 one hour sessions around the world covering a wide range of Cloud Computing topics. The presenters will be live on Twitter to answer your questions. There is something for everybody, developer, IT pro and SQL enthusiast. There is no question that Cloud Computing is here to stay and this is a unique opportunity to be educated and gain an insight as to where Cloud Computing is going. Stay tuned for more details, such as how to join the “Cloud 24 hour party”, as the event date approaches.
Do you have an Excel spreadsheet that takes hours or day to complete?
Do you have that really fast computer with the note on it that says "Do not touch" while the computer working doing complex calculations complex..
Have you played the game of buying faster and faster computer to get you excel spreadsheet processing done faster
Yes you could go to Excel 2010 version 64 bit to address more memory, but if I am using custom XLL UDF there may not be a version of the custom UDF for 64 bit so what one to do ? And does that make my spreadsheet much faster? Excel allows you to create custom functions, called "User Defined Functions" (UDF’s) that can be used the same way you would use SUM() or some other built-in Excel function or I can user Automation add-ins are suitable if your UDF deals a lot with the Excel object model; XLL add-ins are faster in financial and mathematical calculations. Note however that native code XLL add-ins work faster than managed UDFs.
I have clients who have these problems and have just resolved themself to it is just going to take day to get the data out; for example;
Insurance company
• Insurance company who need to do reserve requirements calculation which answer the question do the company have the minimum reserves require buy regulators’ this is based on Hundreds of thousands of policies and can take 4 weeks to calculate each monthly.
• A controller at big company who doing, what if scenarios on budgets and forecasting the same formulas over and over again and the process takes 1 week s each time
• Assist with Monte Carlo simulation for risk analytics and other suitable scenarios in Financial Services and Energy trading in Oil & Gas industry verticals.
If you look at your company you probably find this is an issues for someone who user the big, complex, spreadsheet I have a solution for you!
HPC Services for Excel 2010
Here is a way to have MUTIPLE Computers share the workload
*** What new is now you can use Excel 2010 PLUS edition and have multiple computers share the workloads ***
HPC Services for Excel 2010 – HPC is part of Microsoft Technical Computing solution
HPC stand for High Performance Computing
HPC is a group of computers or a cluster of computer consists of several servers networked together where each server in the cluster performs one or more specific tasks. Cluster components include Head Nodes, and Compute Nodes, Job Scheduler and sometimes Broker Nodes (for SOA enabled clusters.)
(Graphic from Microsoft HPC site)
Head Node – is point of management and job scheduling for the cluster. It provides failover and controls and mediates access to the cluster resources.
Compute Node(s) -Carries out the computational tasks assigned to it by the job scheduler.
There are many ways that you can run a cluster, here are the methods.
Method 1: use 7 computer that at night or during the week end can be used as computer nodes
Overview I will be presenting a webinar for a cyber disaster makes recovering from one much easier. Still, as important as disaster planning is, it’s often overlooked or put off until it is too late. In this webinar, I will discuss planning for the unexpected, and he’ll teach simple tricks to reduce your company’s downtime before, during, and after a disaster.
Using a fictional company as an example, I will walk you through the disaster planning process a security professional should use.
Outline
What a disaster is
How to plan
Techniques to reduce the impact of a disaster
What BCP is
Five rules for creating a good disaster plan
Testing your disaster plan
Funding the plan
How and where to get help with your disaster planning process
Date: April 27, 2011 Time: Noon – 1 PM ET To Registration Here
I get ask all the time for tools or tricks that a administrator can use here a great one. AD Unlocker Pro.
You and administrator of a Active Directory Domain you don your due diligence and set a group policy that say after x tries lock user account , Now how do you audit and see what accounts are locked?
Here a very small utility that you can run that will show you what accounts are locked and Unlocking them with only one click.
This application also can use alternate login (useful if your Active Directory Administrator account is not your default user account).
See the accounts
Choose what account to unlock
and you can ever have application running to show when account is locked
For those of you who read my blog daily here a great deal
TODAY 2/24/2011 you can download and get a free copy
Microsoft today announced a free planning guide to help with Malware.The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Malware Responseempowers readers to take action quickly in the event of a malware incident by matching the technology solution to the business need and aligning business and IT from the beginning. This guide discusses three primary recovery methods: cleaning the system, recovering system state, and rebuilding the system. Each method presents different risks and benefits to the organization. The guide also describes approaches to investigating outbreaks and cleaning infected systems. Read this guide to make an informed decision about how to return the systems to operation while limiting the likelihood of the malware infecting additional systems.
The guide empowers readers in the following ways:
Shortens the time required to recover from a malware outbreak by describing the decisions to be made.
Provides a cost-effective and straightforward solution by matching the most suitable technologies to the business needs.
Prompts decisions to be made in choosing one of three courses of action: clean, restore, or rebuild a system.
To learn more about Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Malware Response click here. To download the guidance, click here.
The first webinar, "Protecting Your Network with Authentication and Cryptography," is scheduled for 12 pm EST Wednesday, February 9, and will focus on password protocols, user verification, symmetric and asymmetric encryption, and using cryptography to protect data.
In the second cyber security webinar, " Securing Communications," scheduled for 12 pm EST Wednesday, February 23, attendees will learn how to put into practice the cyber security concepts covered in the first webinar. They will learn about using cryptography to secure services and wireless networks and about using rights management for protecting data.
"In this cyber security webinar series, we’ll discuss using cryptography, authentication, and encryption from theory to practice," said Ferron. "Grasping these concepts will help you understand the basics of keeping your data secure."
Microsoft is giving away a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate to the ten (10) best Windows stories from IT Professionals. Stories can be related to how Windows 7 saved your company money, solving your application compatibility issues, deployment, management of your installations, and virtually anything else. The more compelling your story, the better chance you have to win.
With the introduction of Windows 7 and Server 2008 r2 there are new security features that an auditor or IT professional should be aware of. As you roll out the new operating system, what are the issues and benefits that your company will see? What are the risks, benefits and issues that need to be planned for?
In this session I will be covering these important issues with the use of lecture, demos and group discussions.
If these are questions that you and your organization are asking, then we invite you to attend our session, “Windows 7 and Server 2008r2 New Security Features.”
OUTLINE
The educational session will introduce attendees to the key issues surrounding deploying these new operating systems and using features that help reduce risk for enterprises and organizations.
SEMINAR TOPICS
· Windows 7 new features
o Demo of new features
o Tricks and demos
o Hard drive encryption
o Bitlocker to go
· Server 2008 R2
o New group polices
o New Audit and logging features
o NAP – Network Access Protection
o Direct Access
o Hyper-v (Server virtualization)
· Deployment Issues
o XP to Windows 7
o Discussion
o MDT 2010
o XP Mode
· Analysis of Windows Event Logs
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
● Audit and risk professionals whose organizations are considering Windows 7 and Server 2008 r2 Security Risks.
● Information Security professionals interested in learning about Windows 7, and Server 2008 r2 deployment issues, new features and benefits.
This Session is being offered to the
ISACA- Connecticut Chapter on January 31 from 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
