It’s actually an acronym for Disk to Disk to Tape, an archiving process where data is first backed up on a disk system, then spooled to a tape or optical storage system. The D2D2T process keeps a copy of the data on-site and readily available while providing archive/disaster recovery protection with off-site tapes.

Today we have completed the implementation of our home-grown D2D2T system, leveraging our 2 TERABYTES of space and gigabit network speed.

Check out my comparison between the old and new, as well as some details of the tools involved.

Ouch! My arm doesn’t bend that way, can someone else pat me on the back?

TC

We have a group of eight users that share two PCs. Roaming profiles seemed a perfect fit! Well, almost perfect. The amount of files and folders created caused a blip on the backup radar screen. I remembered that there are ways to reduce profile size and logon processing, and a search revealed just such a Microsoft page! Off I go to put these Group Policy recommendations into place. Once in place I can implement roaming profiles at another office that has shared PCs.

TC

We use Symantec Brightmail as a spam filter. Very pleased with the results, in fact there have been no false-positives (legitimate emails marked as spam, the #1 user concern) since moving to this platform over a year ago. The 24 hour report for yesterday shows that 78% or 159,470 of email received was spam. During business hours over 90% of all email received was spam.

Spam filter products such as Brightmail have become indispensible. In fact, the fight against junk mail requires more than a single weapon. Junk mail filters in Outlook, blacklisting spam domains, as well as DNS and firewall techniques can keep spam at a manageable level.

TC

In my disaster recovery testing, I ran upon an excellent tool for extracting data from our Exchange backups. We us NT Backup for our single Exchange 2003 Server, performing a full backup nightly. That backup file is duplicated to two servers providing immediate redundancy and access to the near-line backup. If you have used NT Backup, you know that it requires an Exchange server to restore the backup to. What if you don’t have one OR if the Exchange server you have is named differently than when the backup was performed? That happened in my testing, and it isn’t pretty. It might be possible, and I came close by using a Recovery Storage Group and changing some of the parameters of the restore, but when I found Power Controls all the testing stopped!

Power Controls offers an extraction tool to bypass the need for an Exchange server. You simply extract the .edb files from the backup, then load them into Power Controls. You are able to browse the various mailboxes and export to .pst. We will be purchasing this product as part of our disaster recovery toolkit. Highly Recommended!

TC

We use Outlook Web Access to allow our users to access email remotely. While using OWA on my recently upgraded to Vista PC, I couldn’t compose a message. When I opened a message I could type the address and subject, but the message area was a little red x. Did  search and found that Exchange needs an update. Works like a charm now! Link to the update below.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911829

TC

After testing Acronis True Image  Echo Workstation (build 8,039), I found it faster, easier, and more accurate than Symantec Ghost.

So far ATIEW has made imaging a reference PC seamless; no searching for new NIC drivers! It found the driver automatically and presents a graphic interface to browse the network, provide credentials and save the image. Additionally, creating and restoring an image is noticeably faster than Ghost ever was, though I don’t know if ATIEW has multicast capabilities as Ghost did.

I am also happy to see that it is fairly intuitive. From booting the CD and taking an image I was able to quickly move through the process without using the help menu once! Impressive product, recommended.

TC

Updated the style sheet to more closely match the main site style. I am impressed with the flexiblility of the WordPress blogging system. GoDaddy offers a wizard type install of WordPress and it is a straightforward process.

If you are looking for a hosting/blog solution I highly recommend Go Daddy and WordPress, though you will quickly tire of GoDaddy’s ad emails to your registered address.

TC

I enjoy automating repetitive tasks, and scripts are a powerful way to do that. But scripts have more power than simply reducing mundane activities; organization-wide changes in the IT environment can be implemented at a greatly reduced cost. Printer and drive mappings, security settings, and home directories can be controlled through scripting.

In a Windows environment, I have found Kixtart to be an excellent vehicle for scripting. Kixtart is a free-format scripting language, and I use ASE (Admin Script Editor) to write and edit my scripts.

I implemented Kixtart logon scripts over a year ago, so it’s time to tweak and update. I also want to write an install script for staging new PCs that require a particular set of applications, reducing the time required for installation.

Installed WordPress and created new blog.