Cabling is one of the most basic parts of most IT environments, but its ubiquity leads people to make assumptions...
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Laptop Overheating Due to Turbo Boost? Here’s What You Can Do.
Kyle Haas
April 10, 2019
I’ve never actually touched a computer with a physical turbo button, but once upon a time it was common for...
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What Is SD-WAN? Beyond the Buzzword
Tim Lewis
April 3, 2019
If you’ve been in IT for more than a few years, you’ve experienced The Next Big Thing in the industry....
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Backup Power Series: Setting Up UPS Alerting, Preprogrammed Shutdowns and Maintenance
Brent Earls
March 27, 2019
Welcome back to our backup power blog series! If you’re joining us for the first time, feel free to go...
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Backup Power Series: Sizing a UPS
Brent Earls
March 20, 2019
Welcome back to our series on everything backup power for your IT environment. If you’re seeing this series for the...
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Backup Power Series: Meet the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
Brent Earls
March 13, 2019
Welcome to our second installment in our backup power series. Check out our first post on why you want a...
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Backup Power Series: Why You Want A Well-Maintained UPS
Brent Earls
March 7, 2019
Electricity is one of the things that IT most commonly takes for granted, which is kind of amusing since all...
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Introducing Veeam Instance Licensing
Leah Weisman
February 27, 2019
Hold onto your hats, folks, because the way Veeam’s Instance Licensing works is an industry first. Veeam is focusing on...
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Stop Using 8.8.8.8 for Your Production Network
Kevin Oppihle
February 20, 2019
We have all done it. You don’t know your ISP’s DNS off the top of your head or your ISP...
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Identifying Malicious Emails: Microsoft Disable Email Scheme
Russ Telford
February 14, 2019
One of my clients received an email this morning. On the one hand, he had the foresight to question it....
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There Is A Way to Roll Back to Hosted Skype for Business from Microsoft Teams
Michael Patrick
February 1, 2019
Beginning October 1, 2018, Microsoft began converting Office 365 accounts to Microsoft Teams. For most organizations out there, adopting Teams...
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Office 365 Services Aren’t Responsible for Your Data. Sorry.
Leah Weisman
January 23, 2019
Ah, the Cloud, looked upon fondly by many who won’t miss the maintenance and cost of on-premises hardware. Cloud services...
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Bye, Bye Skype for Business! All New Microsoft Cloud Voice Implementations Must Be Teams
Leah Weisman
January 16, 2019
It’s an exciting time at Microsoft, as they converge all unified communications to a single platform. New Microsoft cloud voice...
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Dell S4128 Firmware Issues: Why You Should Make Time to Patch and Upgrade
Tim Lewis
January 9, 2019
In recent years, Dell has come a long way in the networking department. The days of shuddering in disgust at...
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What is VMware vSphere Platinum and Do I Need It?
Jason Thomas
January 2, 2019
It sounds cool, but do you need it? The release of vSphere 6.7 Update 1 came with a new edition...
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Our Most Popular Blogs of 2018
Leah Weisman
December 27, 2018
What a year it's been! With SQL Server 2016 going EoL to Windows Server 2019 going GA, from Veeam's new...
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VMware Enterprise Support Extended to 2022
Jason Thomas
December 18, 2018
As of July 2017, VMware Enterprise was no longer available for purchase. While most news outlets out there still says...
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Choosing Your New Phone System: PRI vs. SIP; Cloud vs. On-Premises
Russ Telford
December 7, 2018
When considering a new VOIP phone system for your office, among all the discussions surrounding requirements, usage cases and call...
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Get New Hardware or Software and Use the Section 179 Tax Deduction
Michael Patrick
November 30, 2018
Have you had a good year? Considering buying some much-needed hardware or software before the end of 2018? The Section...
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Introducing the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) Initiative
Guest Blogger
November 21, 2018
Today’s post is written by Greg Kamer, a consulting systems engineer for Ruckus Networks. Greg has been in the IT...
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High Availability versus Disaster Recovery
Brent Earls
November 14, 2018
The main point of disaster recovery (DR) is to decouple it from your production environment. This is the reason that...
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VMware 6.7 Update 1 Compatibility with Veeam
Jason Thomas
November 7, 2018
VMware released Update 1 to vSphere 6.7 the end of September with a lot of cool, new features. However, like...
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How to Back Up an Azure Server for Local Restore
Kevin Oppihle
November 1, 2018
There are a lot of backup and DR tools out there, Veeam being one of our favorites. However, if you...
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How to Migrate Windows Server 2003 File Shares to a New OS
Kevin Oppihle
October 24, 2018
Migration. It’s not just for animals heading south this winter. Sometimes we need to migrate our files within the infrastructure....
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Multiple Internet Connection Options
Leah Weisman
October 17, 2018
Being able to connect to the internet is mission critical for most organizations today. We use the internet to access...
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Windows Server 2012 End of Support Is Now
Brent Earls
October 9, 2018
Windows Server 2012 is dead, long live … anything newer Today, October 9, marks the end of mainstream support for...
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Password Policy Guidelines
Brent Earls
October 5, 2018
Creating strong passwords and corporate policies surrounding them have been under debate the past few years. When passwords were originally...
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Using Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 v2
John Ross
September 26, 2018
There has been a glaring piece missing from the Office 365 suite: the ability to backup and recover files and...
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Options for Dialing on Microsoft Teams
Leah Weisman
September 19, 2018
Microsoft Teams, collaboration tool, Slack killer … phone system? If you’re unfamiliar with Teams, get out from under that rock!...
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Windows Essentials Server Office 365 Integration Breaks with Windows Update
Kevin Oppihle
September 12, 2018
The Essentials Server to Office 365 integration tool is great because it automatically replicates the same credentials from in house...
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Things Your Internet Service Provider May Not Be Telling You
Leah Weisman
September 5, 2018
We can’t function without our internet and phones. Most businesses can’t. And although the internet connection is becoming the most...
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If Your IT Consultant is Not Asking You Questions, Fire Them
Leah Weisman
August 22, 2018
I know my title is harsh, but I don’t want you ending up with software or hardware that doesn’t work...
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Here’s to You, Accidental Project Manager
Leah Weisman
August 15, 2018
Yes, I stole my headline from Bud Light commercials. In IT, there’s a likely chance you’ll find yourself spearheading a...
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Walking Through Windows Admin Center (WAC), The Artist Formerly Known as Project Honolulu: Tools
Brent Earls
August 9, 2018
Last time I introduced the new Windows Admin Center (WAC) and walked through the simple setup and the Overview. Now...
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Walking Through Windows Admin Center (WAC), The Artist Formerly Known as Project Honolulu: Intro & Install
Brent Earls
August 1, 2018
Microsoft has a new way of managing their servers. It’s great, simple, fast, and makes your life much easier. Several...
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3 Important Things to Know About Your Internet Domain
Leah Weisman
July 26, 2018
Your domain, usually the web address you build your website on and attach your email addresses to, like Mirazon.com, is...
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PII Data Management Practices and IT (GDPR Or Not)
Jason Thomas
July 18, 2018
Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation went into effect on May 25, 2018 and stipulates new requirements for how organizations...
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Why You Should Love Monthly Office 365 Subscriptions
Leah Weisman
July 5, 2018
Rolling out monthly subscriptions to software, like monthly Office 365 subscriptions, has been met with mixed reviews from our clients...
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New Features in Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 4
Jason Thomas
June 27, 2018
At Veeam’s annual conference, VeeamON, Veeam revealed what the roadmap was for new features in Backup & Replication. You may...
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New Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 Features
Jason Thomas
June 20, 2018
Office 365 Backup for Microsoft Office 365 v2 is in beta! Here’s what v2 has in the way of new...
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When Being Cheap is Expensive
Leah Weisman
June 6, 2018
We all cut corners, sometimes to save money, sometimes time. Me, I buy cheaper shoes. They fall apart faster but...
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PowerShell: Multi-threading, Progress Bars and GUI Input, Part 3
Russ Telford
May 30, 2018
Before we dive in, if you’re just joining us now on this third installment, here’s part one and here’s part...
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Lync Phone Edition Devices Incompatible with Office 365 By November 2018
Guest Blogger
May 23, 2018
This post is written by Daryl Hunter, voice solution architect at AudioCodes. Daryl previously worked at Mirazon as a solutions...
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Announcing the Microsoft Surface Hub 2
Russ Telford
May 15, 2018
Exciting news JUST BREAKING TODAY from Microsoft on the next generation of Surface Hub, the aptly named Surface Hub 2!...
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The Shift in Business Technology Spending: Breaking Down Managed IT Services
Leah Weisman
May 9, 2018
The world is moving to the monthly subscription. You might’ve noticed this with your music streaming service (instead of buying...
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Using Microsoft Teams for File Sharing Group Permissions in SharePoint and OneDrive
Jason Turpin
May 2, 2018
I had a client request that we help set up the primary company file storage using Office 365. They had...
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Chrome Update Freezes Computers: Disable Chrome’s Background Processes to Protect Your Processor
Leah Weisman
April 25, 2018
Honestly, it felt like one of those days where nothing was working. After startup, my mouse was stuttering across my...
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Windows Server: Migrations vs. In-Place Upgrades
Brent Earls
April 18, 2018
We’re close to end of life on certain common operating systems, so naturally, upgrading has been a frequent topic lately....
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Direct Routing with Microsoft Teams Online, Available Later This Year
Jason Turpin
April 11, 2018
Many organizations would like to move their existing phone systems online to reduce costs and maintenance while increasing access and...
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Why You Should Buy Your Business Technology from Trusted, Verified Sellers
Leah Weisman
April 4, 2018
Price shopping. We all do it. I can’t tell you how many times I was at a big box store...
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Why You Should Keep Your Vendor Support Up to Date
Leah Weisman
March 28, 2018
Nowadays, most hardware and software come with additional support fees. We know, it can sometimes seem like adding insult to...
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Why Your Storage or RAM Size Doesn’t Add Up
Brent Earls
March 21, 2018
There has been confusion in the IT industry for years about how large storage devices actually are. Manufacturers say they’re...
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Office 365 Security and Compliance Search
Kevin Oppihle
March 14, 2018
If you’re trying to track down who sent out those company secrets or correspondence regarding a legal issue, you can...
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Rethinking Antivirus
Leah Weisman
March 7, 2018
They don’t call ‘em computer viruses for nothing, right? Originally the term was coined to illustrate their ability to spread,...
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An Introduction to Microsoft Azure Security Center
Kevin Oppihle
February 28, 2018
It’s a common misconception that once servers are in the cloud, the cloud provider is responsible for the security on...
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Microsoft Teams Calling Feature is Live!
Russ Telford
February 21, 2018
Happy February, folks! I wanted to get a quick post in for any of you who are interested in Microsoft...
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Veeam Per-VM Subscription Licensing Is Out
Jason Thomas
February 14, 2018
Veeam has been our go-to backup solution for virtual environments for about ten years. They constantly improve upon the product,...
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A Comprehensive Guide to Microsoft End of Support
Brent Earls
February 7, 2018
UPDATE: We have changed the color codings to reflect what's overdue and what's upcoming in terms of support expirations. Additionally,...
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Critical Alert: Pause Spectre BIOS Updates from Dell and HP
Kevin Oppihle
January 31, 2018
This week Dell and HP are playing the Hokey Pokey on the BIOS updates: “Put your BIOS update in, take...
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Meltdown and Spectre: Frequently Asked Questions
Brent Earls
January 24, 2018
Since the announcement of the CPU vulnerabilities that allow Spectre and Meltdown attacks, there has been a lot of FUD...
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Free Download: How to Configure FortiGate Single Sign On
Rance Reinhardt
January 17, 2018
FortiGate firewalls come with a single sign on feature that allows you as an administrator to control user access without...
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Meltdown and Spectre Intel Vulnerabilities: What You Need to Know
Leah Weisman
January 9, 2018
While the KRACK vulnerability is only barely forgotten (but not dead), here come more catastrophic, widespread cybersecurity problems: the Intel...
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Our Most Popular Blogs of 2017: Windows 10 Bugs, Firmware, Veeam and End of Support
Leah Weisman
January 2, 2018
As 2017 comes to a close, it's always interesting to look back and see what we posted over the past...
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Licensing Microsoft Exchange: On Premise
Seth Rodriquez
December 19, 2017
Email. We all love it. We all hate it. For better or worse, it’s here to stay. So if you’re...
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Not Upgrading Old Server Hardware Could Be Dragging You Down
Brent Earls
December 7, 2017
Historically in IT, it’s been very obvious when upgrades were needed. You run equipment until things seem slow, the hardware...
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Why Managed IT Services?
Logan Holmes
December 6, 2017
When talking managed IT services solutions, many people ask the same question, “Why would an IT consulting company want to...
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Free Download: Power and UPS Management
Brent Earls
November 30, 2017
Understanding what plugs go to what outlets, how the cables interact, and how much voltage and amperage to account for...
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PowerShell: Multi-threading, Progress Bars and GUI Input, Part 2
Russ Telford
November 28, 2017
And we're back! Please see the first installment to get started with building your PowerShell scripts. So, we’ve got our...
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PowerShell: Multi-threading, Progress Bars and GUI Input, Part 1
Russ Telford
November 10, 2017
UPDATE: A brief note from the author: This week I learned a valuable lesson about maintaining a consistent development platform....
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How to Protect Against Ransomware
Leah Weisman
November 8, 2017
Bad Rabbit, Locky, Petya, Cerber, Jigsaw … no, these aren’t street names for narcotics, they’re variants of ransomware, and the...
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How to Do Internal Segmentation with a FortiGate
Rance Reinhardt
November 7, 2017
Your size does not always dictate your need or desire for enterprise-grade performance and security. Luckily, it’s possible to implement...
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Common Missteps in Basic Networking
Jason Abbott
November 2, 2017
Your network is a hyper-logical pathway for your devices to connect to each other. However, if you don’t explicitly and...
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VLAN Basics
Jason Abbott
November 1, 2017
Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) are commonly used within networks to organize and segment. Originally, VLANs were developed to break...
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Semi-Annual Channel versus Long-Term Servicing Channel Windows Server Updates
Brent Earls
October 26, 2017
Microsoft has been threatening for a while to implement a semi-annual channel for servers (much like Windows 10) that will...
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OneDrive Files On-Demand
John Ross
October 25, 2017
OneDrive for Business allows for storing files in the cloud for individual users and as a replacement for company file...
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Microsoft Teams Walkthrough: Meetings, Planner, and Apps
Russ Telford
October 24, 2017
Hey hey, welcome back! I do hope that you came here to learn more about Microsoft Teams and you aren’t...
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Microsoft Teams Walkthrough: Activities, Search, Chat and Files
Russ Telford
October 19, 2017
Welcome back! In part one, I discussed Microsoft Teams and how they can be used for collaboration, discussion, record keeping,...
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What You Need to Know About the WPA2 Vulnerability, KRACK
Leah Weisman
October 17, 2017
WPA2 isn’t all it’s KRACKed up to be. Okay, sorry, bad pun in a bad situation. While any new vulnerability...
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Microsoft Teams Walkthrough: The Basics
Russ Telford
October 12, 2017
Microsoft Teams. If you haven’t heard about it yet, it’s Microsoft’s latest collaboration and productivity tool, and they’ve obviously put...
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Security isn’t Just Antivirus
Kevin Oppihle
October 11, 2017
With growing cybersecurity threats, many organizations have implemented antivirus and basic cybersecurity practices. But when it comes to vulnerability, there...
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Microsoft Ignite 2017 Recap Part 1: New Product Releases
Brent Earls
October 10, 2017
The big push and talk at Ignite this year was all about Azure, Office 365, AI and the combination thereof....
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Tips for Running Antivirus in VMware
Brian McCleskey
October 5, 2017
Traditional agent-based antivirus does not play well in virtualized environments, whether it be server or desktop. When resources are consolidated,...
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VXLAN Encapsulation in FortiGate
Justin Cottrell
October 3, 2017
Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) is a Layer 2 overlay scheme utilizing a Layer 3 network. VXLAN uses MAC Address-in-User Datagram...
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You Only Have One Default Gateway in ESXi. Use It Wisely.
Jason Thomas
September 28, 2017
An ESXi host has access to multiple different networks, but most of them are only for guest VMs to traverse....
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What engagement level of Managed IT Services do I need?
Logan Holmes
September 27, 2017
Managed IT Services appears to be the hot topic amongst IT companies and what they offer their clients. It makes...
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CCleaner v5.33.6162 Compromised with Back Door: Uninstall or Update Immediately
Kevin Oppihle
September 26, 2017
The Piriform program CCleaner is an admin’s best friend. It helps you reclaim some storage on your laptops or workstations...
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To Stretch or Not to Stretch Layer 2
Brent Earls
September 21, 2017
For highly available environments, extending the network between two locations has been common practice for years. For example, if you...
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Modifying MTU in a Fortinet FortiGate
Rance Reinhardt
September 19, 2017
What is it? In the simplest of terms, the maximum transit unit, or MTU, is the set of data in...
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Security Goes Beyond Cyber
Robert Anderson
September 14, 2017
Security measures to protect ourselves from situations such as cyberattacks, ransomware, hacks and identity theft are very important. On top...
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Tips for Microsoft Project for Efficient IT Project Planning
Nick Coffman
September 13, 2017
Whether you are opening Microsoft Project for the first time or you use it frequently, you will realize how easy...
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Deprecation of vCenter on Windows Server
Brent Earls
September 12, 2017
The writing has been on the wall for many years now, but it’s finally happening. With the next numeric version...
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Considerations When Thin Provisioning Your SAN or Virtual Disks
Brian McCleskey
September 7, 2017
Storage is kind of expensive, so oversubscribing where possible is a good way for you to get the bang for...
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What to Consider When Configuring Virtual Snapshots
Jason Thomas
September 5, 2017
Correctly calculating the storage space required for your virtual snapshots can be tricky to determine and can have devastating effects...
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12 More Common Virtualization Missteps
Brian McCleskey
August 31, 2017
Since virtualization encompasses so much in your environment, there are a lot of small ways it can go wrong. When...
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File Sharing with Office 365
John Ross
August 30, 2017
One of the first things organizations wish to do with Office 365 is to allow for easy sharing of files...
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10 Common Virtualization Missteps
Jason Thomas
August 29, 2017
In all the years we’ve consulted in the virtualization space, we’ve seen environments of all kinds of shapes and sizes....
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Basic Guidelines for Sizing Servers
Jason Thomas
August 24, 2017
So you’re building out a new server, but you need to know where to start. While this seems like this...
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Using DynSite Dynamic DNS with DNS Made Easy
Kevin Oppihle
August 22, 2017
Why Use Dynamic DNS? Your DNS records -- the internet’s phonebook, essentially -- for your website, security camera system, remote...
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What is the Cloud? Are You Ready for It?
Kevin Oppihle
August 16, 2017
Someone once asked me if the cloud is a bunch of satellites or something “up there” that store your data?...
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What Should I Move to the Cloud?
Brent Earls
August 16, 2017
Choosing what to move up to the cloud is a tough decision that comes up regularly in current times. If...
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An Admin’s Guide to Office 365, Part 2: Office 365 Groups
John Ross
August 15, 2017
One of the most important items to understand in Office 365 is the concept of an Office 365 group. We...
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Spring for the Business-Grade Computers. Here’s why.
Jason Thomas
August 10, 2017
There are so many computer options out there today and with the bring-your-own-device movement, choosing the right ones for your...
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Should You Upgrade Your FortiOS Firmware?
Rance Reinhardt
August 8, 2017
Fear of and Confusion with Firmware Are you ever concerned about updating your network to the latest version of firmware?...
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Tips for Datacenter Migration Planning
Brent Earls
August 3, 2017
Datacenter migrations are challenging in their own right. Not only do all of the concerns in my previous blog, Planning...
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Does Your Managed Services Provider Fit Your Needs?
Logan Holmes
August 2, 2017
My last story was of a customer who switched from break-fix to a managed services solution. Now I would like...
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Planning a Datacenter
Brent Earls
August 1, 2017
A datacenter on its face seems like a very simple thing. You take a room, you stick some servers in...
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Veeam Backup & Replication v10: What to Look Forward to
I recently attended Veeam’s conference, VeeamON, and got to preview what’s coming in Backup & Replication v10, and there are...
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Skype for Business Client Fails to Sign Into Skype for Business Online
Russ Telford
July 25, 2017
It’s been a bit of a quiet year so far filled with routine maintenance, but as we all know, even...
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Nano Server is Dead! Long Live Nano Server!
Brent Earls
July 20, 2017
Microsoft made a big splash with Windows Server 2016 by launching Nano Server, a ridiculously stripped down version of Windows...
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Linux Containers on Windows?!
Brent Earls
July 6, 2017
Microsoft’s professed love of open source and Linux specifically is really starting to show in a real way with the...
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DattoCon 2017 Recap
Michael Patrick
July 5, 2017
Well, that’s another DattoCon for the books. This year’s event was the fifth annual and we met in Denver, Colorado...
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Choosing a Cloud Provider
Brent Earls
June 29, 2017
Let’s start this blog by pointing out the elephant in the room: the “cloud” is the fastest evolving thing that...
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It’s Always DNS: A Horror Story
Tim Lewis
June 27, 2017
I’ve been an IT consultant for nearly 15 years. During that time, I’ve run across countless horror shows involving all...
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An Admin’s Guide to Office 365: Part 1, Introduction
John Ross
June 22, 2017
My background in IT is in infrastructure – Windows Server, Exchange, firewalls, networking, etc. I used Microsoft Office to type...
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When Should I Switch to Ongoing Managed Services for IT?
Logan Holmes
June 21, 2017
Increasingly today many organizations are examining the business impact of transitioning from capital expenses for their technology support to an...
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Microsoft Update KB4021558 Breaks Print from Explorer Functionality
Leah Weisman
June 20, 2017
Last week Microsoft pushed updates, KB4021558, KB 4022719, KB 4022725 and KB4022727 to Internet Explorer that seems to have broken...
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Microsoft Office 2007 End of Support is October 10
Seth Rodriquez
June 13, 2017
If you are still using Office 2007, then you have a problem on the horizon: Office 2007 is reaching end...
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How Do I License Virtual Desktops for Windows?
Seth Rodriquez
June 8, 2017
Sometimes the most obvious way to do something is not how you actually get it done. My two-year-old son likes...
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Manage Office 365 Licenses Simply
Nick Coffman
June 7, 2017
The Office 365 Admin center allows an administrator to manage active user licenses for a single user or for a...
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Has the Crying Stopped Yet? The WannaCry Attack Aftermath
Robert Anderson
June 6, 2017
Two weeks have passed since the global incident of WannaCry. The media coverage of WannaCry ransomware has been dwindling as...
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Trend Micro Worry Free Client Systems Unresponsive After KB890830 Windows 10 Defender Update
Kevin Oppihle
June 1, 2017
I've had several clients contact me alarmed that their computers stopped responding. After digging into the causes, I realized that...
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Mirazon Is A Key Skype for Business Implementer
Daryl Hunter
May 30, 2017
We are delighted to announce that we are one of a small number of handpicked Microsoft partners across the globe chosen...
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Fibre Channel Switch Options Update
Brent Earls
May 25, 2017
In a previous post we talked about the death of QLogic switches. At the time, there was not a cost...
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Selecting the Best Workstations for Your Needs
Cody Marshall
May 24, 2017
Purchasing new workstations for your home or business is easier than ever these days, but understanding exactly what will meet...
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Double Check Your DNS
Brent Earls
May 23, 2017
It’s always DNS. Anyone who has worked at Mirazon for more than a week can tell you that we say...
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WannaCry About IT?
Robert Anderson
May 17, 2017
“Ooops, Your Files Have Been Encrypted!” is what displayed on the monitors of over 200,000 Windows PCs in over 150...
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Why Windows Server 2016 is Awesome for Veeam
Jason Thomas
May 16, 2017
Of course, you’re an avid Mirazon blog reader and you’ve kept up with everything we’ve posted here, but if you...
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Update: Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Project
Nick Coffman
May 10, 2017
Curious about future updates for Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Project? In the near future, Microsoft will be rolling out product...
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Get Office 365 for Nonprofits Through TechSoup
Michael Patrick
May 2, 2017
Microsoft offers significant discounts to nonprofit organizations. One method for claiming these is through TechSoup, an authorized reseller. If you...
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Critical Windows OS Exploit Needs Patching
Tim Lewis
April 27, 2017
If you follow the news in the slightest, you’ve probably heard of WikiLeaks, the organization responsible to for publishing volumes...
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What’s New in Office 365 These Days?
Seth Rodriquez
April 25, 2017
Microsoft’s Office 365 offerings are always changing, so it’s helpful to revisit this topic every now and then to see...
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Veeam and vSphere 6.5 Backup Gotchas
Jason Thomas
April 18, 2017
While vSphere 6.5 came out with a bunch of great enhancements and features, Veeam may take a really large performance...
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What to Know About Upgrading to Windows Server 2016 with Software Assurance
Seth Rodriquez
April 13, 2017
Do you have Software Assurance (SA) on your Windows Server licenses? If so, you may be wondering how your licenses...
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Office 365 Groups Manages User Licensing
Drew Harper
April 11, 2017
Microsoft recently announced the public preview of group-based license management in Office 365. Here are a few key facts about...
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Windows 10 Enterprise E3 & E5: User-Based Subscription for Windows
Seth Rodriquez
April 6, 2017
Windows as a subscription? Windows licensed per user? You just blew my mind. Microsoft continues to break paradigms that have...
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New Features in VMware Horizon 7.1
Jason Thomas
April 4, 2017
Earlier last month, VMware released Horizon 7.1, which has major features and improvements. Today I’m going to focus on a...
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Proofpoint: Better Spam Filtering
Michael Patrick
March 30, 2017
Spam email is junk or malicious. It’s unwanted email. It got its name after Hormel’s canned pork product and the...
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Project Management 101
Nick Coffman
March 29, 2017
With a proper understanding, project management can benefit your business in a multitude of ways. It can enhance your bottom...
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What Are Containers?
Brent Earls
March 28, 2017
Containers are something that people tend to really struggle to understand. It’s a layer of abstraction and virtualization that we...
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The AudioCodes 450HD is the newest/latest phone in the 400HD series of IP Phones. It is a full color, touch...
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Sometimes you need support … sometimes you need extended support … but sometimes you need extended-extended support! For instance, what...
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The Internal Revenue Service reported a marked increase in W-2 email phishing scams. Hackers are now sending email spam to...
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One of the products we have been using in the Mirazon R&D team has been the preview (read: beta) version...
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Passwords. Can’t live without them, and yet we can’t stop forgetting them. Of course, you probably have a great system...
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Confused about Microsoft Office these days? Join the club. For the last few years, Microsoft has been transitioning from a...
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Designing and/or updating business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plans and processes is not necessarily anyone’s favorite task. It’s complex,...
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(This post is an update to “Do I Need SQL CALs When Using SharePoint?” first posted on the Mirazon blog on...
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Get an email similar to this? While there are a significant number of phishing scams out there right now pretending...
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We’ve recently been asked about, and wanted to implement internally, self-service password resets via Office 365. Not only do we...
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Hardware Compatibility Lists (HCL) are an often overlooked, yet they are a very important part of any new deployment that...
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As with remote access VPNs, the site-to-site VPN has been around for several decades. The notion of using encryption over...
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February 2, 2017
Have you ever run into an issue with Skype for Business that no matter how hard you look for an...
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Kevin Oppihle
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You’ve got yourself a new computer, but what do you do with the old one? Before you dispose of it...
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January 31, 2017
Alternate titles: Audio Drops Both Ways When Call Placed on Hold or Yet Another Reason to Use a Microsoft Certified...
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January 26, 2017
The VPN has revolutionized the way we work. For over 20 years it's allowed everyone from executives on down a company’s organizational...
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Jason Thomas
January 24, 2017
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Running Windows 10 with OneDrive Next Gen Sync client in a non-persistent VDI environment is challenging on the backend storage...
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Darin Haysley
January 18, 2017
Utilize these tools for a more productive workday. Microsoft Office 365 offers all the applications that you as a small...
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“I was adding new tasks and the project auto-saved. Now I can’t click “undo” to revert some of my unwanted...
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Before we begin, I just want to say that Fortinet's documentation is always a great resource. It's best to secure the...
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January 4, 2017
Strong and reliable Wi-Fi or wireless network access is critical for many organizations. As a small business, every second counts....
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Your Network Address Translation (NAT) takes your public IP address, which is assigned to you by your ISP, and tells...
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Leah Weisman
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We're all looking forward to 2017, but we had a lot happen this year, like the monster release of Windows Server...
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December 27, 2016
As you may have heard, with the recent purchase of QLogic by Cavium, QLogic’s 8 Gbit Fibre Channel (FC) switches...
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December 22, 2016
VMware released a variety of great features in vSphere 6.5, including support for HA for NVIDIA GRID technology. This is...
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Darin Haysley
December 21, 2016
Computer viruses are scary things. They can wipe out hard drives and render information unusable before you even know what happened....
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Brent Earls
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So we’ve talked in a previous blog about the different types of cloud computing (colocation, HaaS, IaaS, SaaS, PaaS) and how they...
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If you are a current Veeam Backup & Replication user, you are eligible for one or two years of free...
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Tim Lewis
December 13, 2016
Early in 2016, the news cycle was dominated by Apple’s and others’ use or encryption and the legal ramifications of...
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“How many licenses of Windows Server 2016 do I need for my environment?” Simple question, but getting an answer can...
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December 7, 2016
We know, that dethroned Nigerian prince needs your help, and in return he'll deposit $5,000 in your bank account. All...
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December 6, 2016
Virtualizing your desktop infrastructure can come with a bevy of benefits: centralizing your hardware investments and your management or allowing...
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December 1, 2016
Veeam Backup & Replication v9.5 is officially out! One big thing that Veeam did was rewrite a lot of the...
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Microsoft threw everyone for a loop with the release of Windows Server 2016. In an instant, Windows Server licensing went...
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We’ve all heard of viruses that infect our computers after we go to a website or download a file we...
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I was recently invited to attend the AudioCodes North American Partner Forum. This is the US version of the forum...
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The Good News: Windows Server 2016 has been released! The Bad News: Things just got a lot more complicated. We’ve...
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November 10, 2016
Windows Server 2016 is generally available, which means that you can’t buy licenses of Windows Server 2012 R2 anymore. On...
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November 9, 2016
Too many of us will have to deal with data loss at some point or other. Maybe it will be...
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Simplifying Should Present Less Issues, Right? Recently we had an interesting routing conundrum with a client when we consolidated their...
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November 3, 2016
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November 1, 2016
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October 27, 2016
Sometimes it's necessary to change an internal client's IP address to talk with the internet. For instance, it is always important...
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October 26, 2016
Your business runs on a variety of software. So does ours. So do most. And it’s pretty common knowledge that...
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October 25, 2016
The Cloud! Hurray for buzzwords! (No puns or bad jokes were harmed in the writing of this blog post. You can...
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October 20, 2016
VMware released vSphere 6.5 this week to a surprisingly low amount of fanfare, which is interesting because there are actually...
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Brent Earls
October 18, 2016
Well, Windows Server 2016 is finally generally available, and there is still so much more to explore. Another major feature...
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October 13, 2016
While it may seem burdensome to have to sit down and document everything necessary to support your environment, trust me...
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October 11, 2016
Hey everyone! Welcome back! I know I promised in my last post that we’d be continuing to talk about AudioCodes IPP Manager...
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October 6, 2016
Fortinet has done a great job with their update, FortiOS 5.4. It's a departure from 5.2, but once you get going with...
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Justin Cottrell
October 4, 2016
The other day I had the need to plug a Ruckus Wireless access point (AP) directly into a FortiGate firewall. The...
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Brent Earls
September 29, 2016
Customers frequently come to us for assistance when they are building a new virtualization cluster, or upgrading an existing one...
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Leah Weisman
September 27, 2016
In the opening keynote for Ignite yesterday, Microsoft announced that Windows Server 2016 will be generally available by mid-October. The...
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September 22, 2016
Sometimes there’s only a need to restore the changes made to a VM and not the full enchilada, and using...
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September 20, 2016
When it comes to configuring your virtual environment, it’s very important that you select the right disk types for your...
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September 15, 2016
Greetings folks! I’ll be walking you through the install and setup of one of AudioCodes’ most awesome -- and more...
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Jason Thomas
September 8, 2016
On Tuesday, August 23, Veeam announced an array of new products for your backup environment to better suit the diverse...
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Jason Thomas
September 1, 2016
VMware released vSphere 6.0 Update 2 back in March, but it came with a host of bugs and problems. Since...
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August 30, 2016
Change Block Tracking (CBT) is a functionality in VMware that allows you to keep track of the changed blocks within...
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Kevin Oppihle
August 23, 2016
If you are using wireless or a physical connection on your Windows 10 system and you want to use one or...
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August 18, 2016
Real troubleshooters know there comes a time when you really need to dig in to the details of what is...
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Brent Earls
August 16, 2016
A substantial amount of time ago, a blog was published about iSCSI compared to Fibre Channel that walked through several...
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Kevin Oppihle
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With normal network maintenance and hardware replacement cycles, it is best practice to also keep an eye on the age and...
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Russ Telford
August 9, 2016
Greetings and salutations once again to all you folks out there that read the things I write! Today’s fun topic...
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Kevin Oppihle
August 4, 2016
If you are building a new domain, best practices dictate that you should be using an internal domain that is...
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Jason Thomas
August 2, 2016
Veeam Backup & Replication v9 has been out for about eight months now, and it introduced a few great features,...
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Greg Turner
July 28, 2016
Have you ever wanted to export data to a CSV file from within PowerShell only to find that the results...
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Nick Coffman
July 26, 2016
Have you been looking for a simpler way to track, organize, and assign project tasks without paying for additional Microsoft...
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Seth Rodriquez
July 21, 2016
In my last post, I discussed the basics of SQL licensing. In this post, I will answer the question: How do...
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Brent Earls
July 19, 2016
DataCore’s recent SPC-1 published numbers have been making quite the splash in the industry. If you missed them, here’s a...
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Kevin Oppihle
July 14, 2016
Malicious macro exploits have been a security issue for Office users since the day macros were introduced, and the newest...
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Brent Earls
July 12, 2016
Resilient File System (ReFS) was introduced with Windows Server 2012. Unfortunately, the supported deployment scenarios were very small, and the...
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Russ Telford
July 7, 2016
Welcome back to another episode of “Hey, I did something!” Check out my author page for the other somethings I've...
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Jason Turpin
July 5, 2016
Changing licensing and options on an individual user in the Office 365 web GUI is simple, but what happens when...
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Kevin Oppihle
June 30, 2016
If you haven’t started your deployment plan already you may end up paying for your procrastination. If all of your...
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Seth Rodriquez
June 28, 2016
As of June 1, 2016, Microsoft SQL Server 2016 is available for purchase. In May, I published a preliminary report...
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Brent Earls
June 23, 2016
If you’ve paid any attention whatsoever to the storage industry in the last few years, the word deduplication has come...
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Brent Earls
June 21, 2016
Making storage highly redundant has been arguably the single largest challenge for storage engineers for years. Keeping data in multiple...
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Russ Telford
June 16, 2016
Greetings everyone! Once again I bring you a gripping tale of daring and exciting adventure! Okay, so it’s not really...
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Brent Earls
June 9, 2016
Storage Spaces has been around for many years in one form or another. The primitives for it started with Windows...
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Tim Lewis
June 7, 2016
It’s the email that makes your blood run cold. “Our website is distributing ransomware.” Surely there must be some mistake....
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How to Create a GRE Tunnel within FortiGate
Justin Cottrell
June 2, 2016
GRE Tunnel Overview Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) can provide a private, secure path for transporting packets through an otherwise public network....
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Understanding Network Bottlenecks
Brent Earls
May 31, 2016
In Louisville, Time Warner Cable recently started massively upgrading its internet network to compete against an imminent Google competition. While many...
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Brent Earls
May 24, 2016
When it comes to vendor recommendations for implementing their products, there tend to be two camps: people who ignore them...
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Brent Earls
May 19, 2016
For a few years, jumbo frames have been all the rage for storage and network people. However, a lot of...
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Discount on Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Until June 30, 2016
Seth Rodriquez
May 17, 2016
From now until June 30, 2016, Microsoft is offering a 15 percent discount on the purchase of Windows Server 2012...
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Seth Rodriquez
May 12, 2016
On May 2, Microsoft announced that SQL Server 2016 will be generally available on June 1, 2016. Here’s what we...
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Jason King
May 10, 2016
While we'd love for everyone to have completely redundant firewall setups, that isn't always a viable possibility. That's why FortiGates...
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Kevin Oppihle
May 5, 2016
SPF: What is it? Why it is important? The SPF (Sender Policy Framework) in this article is related to email flow,...
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Seth Rodriquez
May 3, 2016
Go big or go home! It’s time to continue our series on the best way for you to purchase your...
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Enabling Ransomware Protection in Trend Micro
Tim Lewis
April 28, 2016
These two checkboxes could save you thousands of dollars and hours of your life. If you have been living under...
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A Modern Reprise of IISADMPWD vs. Azure Premium
Daryl Hunter
April 26, 2016
Many moons ago, Microsoft had a tool called IISADMPWD that was a web-driven password change tool based on IIS. This...
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Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE 1.5 Is Out
Jason Thomas
April 19, 2016
Veeam has been very diligent on their development of their free physical backup product and has brought some great features to...
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FortiOS 5.4: Blocking Geographic Regions
Justin Cottrell
April 12, 2016
Every once in a while, clients will ask me how to block certain countries (that are known vectors of cyber attacks, such...
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What’s New in Horizon 7 from VMware
Jason Thomas
April 7, 2016
As VDI and application delivery become higher priorities for more organizations, streamlining the process and the management of it has...
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Brocade to Acquire Ruckus … and We Couldn’t Be More Excited About It
Jason King
April 5, 2016
Brocade is seeking to cause a ruckus and Ruckus Wireless is saying, "Hello Brocade." Yesterday plans for Brocade to acquire Ruckus...
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Understanding Hard Disk Sector Size, Part 1: The Change
Brent Earls
March 29, 2016
When was the last time you really had to care about the geometry of a hard disk? I would wager...
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Understanding Your Microsoft Open Licensing Agreement
Seth Rodriquez
March 24, 2016
So you’ve taken the plunge! You’ve ordered your first Microsoft Open Licensing agreement! You get the order confirmation in your...
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Empowering IT with AppSense
Brian McCleskey
March 22, 2016
AppSense is a suite of tools that allows IT to effectively manage, secure and personalize a consistent user experience across multiple...
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Top 3 FortiOS 5.4 Enhancements
Jason King
March 17, 2016
When it comes to your network's security, it's an increasingly complex and moving target. However, the line of solutions Fortinet...
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Microsoft SQL for Linux
Brent Earls
March 15, 2016
Microsoft is making a version of SQL for Linux. No, you’re not asleep. No, this isn’t the Twilight Zone ......
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Setting Up a Hyper-V Lab
Brent Earls
March 10, 2016
So, VMware workstation is dying… Or at least it appears that way. Apparently, VMware (conspiracy theories say VMware, under pressure...
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Kevin Oppihle
March 8, 2016
So you installed Veeam’s Endpoint Backup FREE on a physical system in your environment. Yes, it's a FREE physical backup solution....
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Office 365 Hangs Due to Old Server References
Kevin Oppihle
March 3, 2016
Recently I had an issue in which multiple workstations at a site with the latest Office 2016 suite started having intermittent...
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VMware Licensing Structure and Pricing Changes
Jason Thomas
March 1, 2016
VMware will be consolidating their six licensing packages down to three: vSphere Standard, vSphere Enterprise Plus, vSOM Enteprise Plus. The...
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Craig Stein
February 25, 2016
Technology can be expensive. It can be complicated, and it can be a downright pain to upgrade. Whatever the reason,...
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Need to Upgrade from SQL Server 2005? Here’s a Licensing Roadmap
Seth Rodriquez
February 18, 2016
Microsoft has made it crystal clear that “Extended support for SQL Server 2005 ends on April 12, 2016.” What exactly...
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Stable Versions of VMware!
Brent Earls
February 16, 2016
UPDATE: Well, that was short lived. There are now two new issues popping up for vSphere 6 that are pretty...
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Hard Matching Identities with Office 365 ImmutableID
Ed Buford
February 11, 2016
Disclaimer: I’m not going to actually do any Hard Matching in this blog post. I’m going to give you a...
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What About the Little Guy? Upcoming Changes to Microsoft’s Enterprise Agreement
Seth Rodriquez
February 9, 2016
There has been a lot of chatter the last few weeks about some upcoming changes to Microsoft’s Enterprise Agreement. Microsoft...
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Office 365 Group Policy Settings: Not All Plans Are Equal
Brian McCleskey
February 4, 2016
Group Policy is an important feature within Microsoft Office for many organizations. If you've got hundreds of computers to manage, Group Policies...
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FortiOS 5.4: Changing the Interface Theme
Justin Cottrell
February 2, 2016
In FortiOS 5.4 you now have the option to change the interface color. I was excited about this since I wasn't much...
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Veeam Licensing Editions: Standard vs. Enterprise vs. Enterprise Plus
Jason Thomas
January 28, 2016
Virtual backup software Veeam is licensed per socket, which is a very simple way of doing things when it comes...
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One-Way Audio Issue in Skype for Business and AudioCodes
Daryl Hunter
January 26, 2016
We have recently dealt with and resolved a one-way audio issue with Skype for Business and AudioCodes internally. Mirazon uses Microsoft...
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Veeam Backup & Replication V9 is out: BitLooker, Guest Interaction Proxy and Per-VM Backup File Chains
Jason Thomas
January 21, 2016
So, we’ve already covered at a high level some of the new features and improvements to Veeam Backup & Replication...
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How to Implement a FortiGate Login Banner
Justin Cottrell
January 19, 2016
The FortiGate login banner is a great way of explicitly asking users if they are authorized to log in, display legal terms,...
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Ed Buford
January 14, 2016
SSO... what does it really mean? For some time now we have understood SSO to mean Single Sign On, but...
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Brent Earls
January 7, 2016
If our first post focused on how “sharing is caring” when it comes to containers, this one focuses on the “trust...
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Leah Weisman
January 5, 2016
As we begin the new year, let's take a look back at our most popular blog posts of 2015. It appears that last...
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What’s New in Windows Server 2016: Containers, Part 1
Brent Earls
December 29, 2015
“Sharing is caring!” At least, that’s what we were always told growing up. Windows Server 2016 containers are (despite the...
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What’s New in Windows Server 2016: Nano Servers
Brent Earls
December 17, 2015
By this time you might have noticed that Windows Server 2016 has quite a lot of new features and functions....
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What’s New in Windows Server 2016: Failover Clustering
Brent Earls
December 15, 2015
We're up to the fourth technical preview of Windows Server 2016 and my coworkers and I have been digging into...
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Windows Server Licensing Changes in 2016: Core-Based Licenses
Seth Rodriquez
December 10, 2015
The only constant in the IT industry is that things are always changing. The next major change on the horizon...
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Office 365 Sync Issues: Guest Account
Daryl Hunter
December 8, 2015
For the last few months, we have been working on an Internal IT project pushing more of Mirazon’s resources up...
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AudioCodes Partner Priority Circle 2015 Reflections
Daryl Hunter
December 3, 2015
Recently, both myself and John Ross were invited to attend a small Partner Priority Circle at AudioCodes. This event was...
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Justin Cottrell
December 1, 2015
First Off, What is Cloudpath? Ruckus recently purchased Cloudpath networks, a wireless onboarding company. Cloudpath specializes in getting users, whether...
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What’s Included in Office 365 E5?
Seth Rodriquez
November 24, 2015
Back in July, I wrote a post on the upcoming release of Office 365 Enterprise E5. At the time, the...
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What’s New in Windows Server 2016: Hyper-V
Brent Earls
November 19, 2015
We're getting close to the release of Windows Server 2016 (looking at early next year) and currently, we're on the...
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How to Set Up CLSLogging in Lync 2013 and Skype for Business
Russ Telford
November 17, 2015
Greetings and welcome to the blog! Today I want to talk a bit about CLSLogging setup. CLSLogger is part of the...
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Jason Thomas
November 10, 2015
This year was Veeam’s second conference, VeeamON. This conference is a great place to focus on technical learning and preview...
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Kevin Oppihle
November 5, 2015
If you’re upgrading or replacing your domain, now is the perfect time to leave your .local behind. If you’re on...
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How Does Windows 10 Licensing and Activation Work?
Seth Rodriquez
November 3, 2015
In a couple of recent articles on ZDNet, Ed Bott explains how to activate your free Windows 10 upgrade license....
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Three Ways to Upgrade to Windows 10
Andy Cook
October 29, 2015
At the time of writing this, Windows 10 is pushing about seven percent of market share. And while it's outclocking...
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Can I Still Buy Traditional Licenses of Office 2016?
Seth Rodriquez
October 27, 2015
It’s here! Office 2016! The latest version of a classic Microsoft product. In the past, the release of a new...
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Cisco Duplicate IP Address 0.0.0.0 Error is IP Device Tracking
Justin Cottrell
October 22, 2015
I've been seeing this error pop up on many Windows desktop clients: The system detects an address conflict for the IP...
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Automating Office 365 Login in PowerShell
Ed Buford
October 20, 2015
I find logging into Office 365 in PowerShell can be cumbersome, so I always try to do it by using...
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Licensing Office 365 in a Remote Desktop Environment
Seth Rodriquez
October 15, 2015
Last month I wrote a post on licensing Office for a Remote Desktop Environment. In that post, I covered the...
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How to Deploy Office 365 / 2016 in Your Environment
Kevin Oppihle
October 12, 2015
With the newest Office 2016 released, there are new links and changes to the xml files and some added notes...
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Top 10 Misunderstandings in Microsoft Licensing
Seth Rodriquez
October 8, 2015
Everyone knows that Microsoft licensing is confusing. First, there are the products themselves, which are all licensed differently. Desktop operating...
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Sorry, Office 2016 Does Not Support Exchange 2007
Kevin Oppihle
October 6, 2015
...and yet another reason to consider moving to Office 365. Office 2016 has been rolling out for a couple of...
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Causes of Latency: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding IT’s Menace
Brent Earls
October 1, 2015
Did you know that fiber optics aren’t inherently faster than copper? How about the fact that almost all of the...
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Do I Need SAN-Based Snapshots in Veeam?
Jason Thomas
September 29, 2015
Let me start this article out with a disclaimer: it all depends. Using Veeam’s SAN-based snapshots definitely has its upsides,...
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Technical Guide: Integrating AudioCodes and Skype for Business (Lync)
Daryl Hunter
September 24, 2015
Hello again! Over the years, we have had a growing OCS and Lync and now Skype for Business consulting practice....
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Using FortiGate Radius SSO with Windows NPS
Justin Cottrell
September 22, 2015
What I'm about to show you is an amazing method for assigning users to their correct groups in FortiGate firewalls. We can apply...
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VMware NSX: The Basics
Brent Earls
September 17, 2015
VMware NSX was heavily talked about two years ago when VMware first launched it, but no one seemed to truly...
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NVIDIA GRID Is Revolutionizing VDI
Jason Thomas
September 15, 2015
VDI is often a pie-in-the-sky idea for many organizations. In certain use cases, it has vastly improved the efficiency of...
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How Do You License Office in a Remote Desktop Environment?
Seth Rodriquez
September 10, 2015
Update: The following article provides information about how to properly license Office in a remote desktop environment using traditional, perpetual...
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Failover or Alternative Routing with AudioCodes SBC
Daryl Hunter
September 8, 2015
A question that comes up from time to time both with customers – and even internally on our own UC...
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RAID Performance Considerations
Brent Earls
September 3, 2015
When it comes to deciding what RAID levels to configure, it’s important to understand how parity impacts performance. Most everyone who...
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Audiocodes and Lync/Skype for Business SIP 488 Unrecognized Transport Profile
Daryl Hunter
September 1, 2015
Recently, we have been engaging with a customer to unravel their Lync 2013 Enterprise Voice. Over the years, they have...
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How to Enable Telephone User Interface in Exchange Online to Modify Auto Attendant Greetings
Russ Telford
August 27, 2015
A recurring question that clients seem to have after a Lync 2013 or Skype for Business deployment is, “How do...
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Understanding Relative Storage Performance
Brent Earls
August 25, 2015
A common mistake made when laying out storage, be it in a SAN or in a server, is not fully...
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IT Services for Nonprofits: What You Need to Know
Michael Patrick
August 20, 2015
There are many amazing nonprofit and not-for-profit organizations who provide services for the community. Many of them have a nice influx of...
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CPU Utilization
Brent Earls
August 13, 2015
CPU utilization is one of the most important aspects of virtualization. RAM has gotten cheap and plentiful, motherboards have more...
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Datto Backup Now Supports Linux
Michael Patrick
August 11, 2015
Great news for Linux users! Datto just released an agent to back up and protect Linux. In fact, you can...
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Can I Upgrade to Windows 10 for Free?
Seth Rodriquez
August 6, 2015
Windows 10 is here! On July 29, 2015, Microsoft released Windows 10 to the world. Since then, Mirazon has been...
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Optimizing Windows for VDI
Tim Lewis
August 4, 2015
A Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) allows you to have a computer desktop that is available from anywhere. It lives in...
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Fighting a 0-Day Ursnif.h PDF Virus
Chris Compton
July 30, 2015
What brought a local manufacturer to its knees for a week? A PDF. On a Thursday afternoon, one of the...
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Free Message Encryption in Office 365 E3 and E4
Michael Patrick
July 28, 2015
Microsoft quietly announced in February 2014 that its Office 365 Message Encryption service will be available to all companies with...
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Common RDS Errors and What to Do About Them
Jason Thomas
July 23, 2015
Remote Desktop Services (RDS) is a service that IT uses fairly often. Many of its components are well known to...
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Office 365 Enterprise E5: Microsoft’s New Deluxe Bundle
Seth Rodriquez
July 20, 2015
The biggest and best offering in Office 365 just got bigger and better! Last week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner...
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New Improvements to VMware vSphere 6 Web Client
Jason Thomas
July 15, 2015
In vSphere 6, it’s clear that VMware worked hard to match the general look and feel of the thick client...
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Windows 10 Series: What to Expect and What You’ll Love
Andy Cook
July 14, 2015
This is a continuation of a post, Windows 10 Series: What You Need to Know. IT admins always have a...
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Windows 10 Series: What You Need to Know
Andy Cook
July 9, 2015
...And What You Didn't Know You Needed to Know The full, non-preview version of Windows 10 releases at the end...
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How to Choose the Fastest, Most Reliable SSD Storage Array at the Least Cost per I/O
Guest Blogger
July 7, 2015
Today's article is by X-IO Technologies' 13-year veteran Storage Systems Engineer Jeff Boling. Jeff frequently serves as a storage subject matter...
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Installing Office 365 to Your Domain from a Local Share via Script and/or GPO
Kevin Oppihle
July 2, 2015
Your company is signed up for a version of Office 365 that includes deployment of the latest Office Suite --...
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Basic Vocabulary of Microsoft Licensing
Seth Rodriquez
June 30, 2015
In my continued effort to help average people understand Microsoft licensing, I offer the following list of basic vocabulary you...
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Using Windows Task Scheduler to Run Scripts or Anything Else for VPN Users
Tim Lewis
June 25, 2015
How I Learned to Automate Almost Everything on a Windows System You’re about to rest on your laurels after a...
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Upcoming CALs Price Increase: If You Need More, Buy Them Now!
Seth Rodriquez
June 23, 2015
Over the last few months, Microsoft has been quietly letting people know that there will be a price increase this...
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Microsoft User CALs vs Device CALs: Which Should I Buy?
Seth Rodriquez
June 18, 2015
We often get questions about the differences between User CALs and Device CALs, and which is more appropriate. What exactly do...
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Using Ruckus Wireless’s Guest Pass Portal
Justin Cottrell
June 11, 2015
In the latest firmware release for Ruckus Wireless's ZoneDirector, there is a new feature for self-service guest passes. Check the...
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Windows 10 for Small and Medium Businesses
Seth Rodriquez
June 9, 2015
“Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows 10 Enterprise, Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise!…Aaagh! I’m so confused! What...
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Applying Updates: Someone Has to Do It
Brent Earls
June 2, 2015
Updates are by far one of the most trying things in IT, but they need to be a priority. The potential...
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New Features in DataCore SANsymphony V10 PSP2 Update
Jason Powell
May 28, 2015
It's no secret DataCore is one of our favorite products for larger companies. Not only does it seamlessly abstract the...
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Microsoft Ignite 2015: What to Keep Your Eye on
Charles Mix
May 21, 2015
A few folks from the Mirazon team recently attended Microsoft's first-ever Ignite conference. Ignite is the new hybrid conference based off...
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Lync 2013 Call Pickup Groups Oddity
Daryl Hunter
May 19, 2015
During one of our recent Lync 2013 installations, the customer needed Call Pickup Groups. The basic premise of which is that...
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PowerShell with Office 365: Getting Connected
Ed Buford
May 14, 2015
There are a lot of things you can do in Office 365 in the web portal to manage your Office...
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How to Allow Users to Change Passwords in Office 365 with DirSync
Kevin Oppihle
May 12, 2015
If you do directory sync from Active Directory (AD) to Office 365, users will not be able to change their...
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Enabling LLDP in Ruckus Wireless
Justin Cottrell
May 7, 2015
Basically, LLDP is the Link Layer Discovery Protocol and it's a very useful feature in networking. How does it work?...
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Multi-User MIMO: Why Ruckus Wireless’s R710 is Tops
Guest Blogger
May 5, 2015
Today’s guest blog is by Greg Kamer, systems engineer for wireless equipment manufacturer Ruckus Wireless. It’s here: the newest, baddest access...
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Mirazon’s Day at the Downs
Leah Weisman
May 1, 2015
Louisville has put her Derby hat on and the festivities are in full swing. Before the city swells with a couple...
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New Features in IT Monitoring Tool Solarwinds 11.5
Jason Thomas
April 21, 2015
Solarwinds is one of our preferred IT monitoring tools. We’ve been using it for years with our enterprise clients and...
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Skype for Business Licensing: The Issues
Seth Rodriquez
April 21, 2015
Update: Good news! The pricing for Skype for Business Server 2015 is the same as it was for Lync Server...
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Office 365 DirSync Users Getting domainname.onmicrosoft.com as Default
Kevin Oppihle
April 13, 2015
I've had a few clients set up Office 365 DirSync and the default domain for the users ended up being domainname.onmicrosoft.com instead...
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Lync 2013 Becomes Skype for Business: What to Expect
Daryl Hunter
April 9, 2015
There have been many blogs on this subject hit the Twitter #lync and #skype4b community. The following are some of...
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Top New Features of VMware vSphere 6
Jason Thomas
April 7, 2015
VMware recently released vSphere 6 with a few noteworthy new features. It's important to try vSphere 6 out in a...
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Microsoft Office: One License, Two Devices (Some Restrictions Apply)
Seth Rodriquez
April 6, 2015
In a previous post, I provided a list of seven licensing benefits that many people are unaware of. One of...
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EWS Not Fully Initialized: Lync 2013 On-Premises & Exchange Online
Daryl Hunter
March 26, 2015
We recently ran across an interesting issue with a customer. They are currently divesting from another large healthcare company and...
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Veeam Repository Best Practices
Jason Thomas
March 24, 2015
If your Veeam backups and restores are taking a lot longer than you expected them to, take a look at your...
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Rules to Restore Sanity to Your IT Monitoring Tools
Tim Lewis
March 19, 2015
“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.” – Abraham Lincoln....
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Office 365 for Android: OK for Business Use? Don’t Count On It
Seth Rodriquez
March 15, 2015
Last November, Microsoft updated their free Office apps for the iPhone and iPad and suddenly allowed users to create and...
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Properly Configuring Your Filesystem Block Size
Brent Earls
March 12, 2015
In modern IT, it’s easy to lose sight of fundamentals. We get so caught up in VMware, Exchange and SQL...
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Which Microsoft Lync Device is the Best for Audio/Voice Use?
Daryl Hunter
March 10, 2015
That’s not the right question. A better question is which device is best – for you? You see, there are...
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VMware Patches CBT Bug in ESXi 5.x
Jason Thomas
March 5, 2015
There has been a known bug in VMware ESX’s Changed Block Tracking (CBT) for some time now. Veeam released a workaround for this problem...
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How to Deploy Office 365/Office 2013 in Your Environment
Kevin Oppihle
March 3, 2015
Your company is signed up for a version of Office 365 that includes deployment of the latest Office Suite, currently...
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Redundant Power Supplies for Smaller Businesses
Kevin Oppihle
February 26, 2015
While it’s great to fantasize about having everything you could possibly need to achieve high availability, oftentimes in smaller customers we...
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Configuring Redundant Power Supplies for Maximum Uptime
Brent Earls
February 24, 2015
Generally, critical servers in a rack have two power supplies. The theory behind that is – since all your critical...
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Email Overload: How to Tame Your Dragon — I Mean Inbox
DuRand Bryant
February 17, 2015
4,000+ messages. That’s how many items I had in my inbox a few weeks ago. As I stared blankly at...
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Wi-Fi Calling: Ruckus Wireless is Ahead of the Game
Craig Stein
February 12, 2015
With the release of iOS 8 and the update to Android's iMessage counterpart, Hangouts, Wi-Fi calling is starting to hit...
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Windows 10: What’s Changing in the OS
Andy Cook
February 10, 2015
As a member of the Windows 10 Technical Preview community, I'm very excited for the enhancements and changes that are...
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Windows 10 Keynote: A Glimpse into Our Future
Andy Cook
February 5, 2015
I watched the Windows 10 keynote and I found a couple of trends interesting. A Fundamental Shift We are all familiar...
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Weak Wi-Fi Signal: What’s Causing It?
Andy Cook
February 3, 2015
A wise person once said, "Want to hold a family meeting? Turn off the Wi-Fi and wait in the room...
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A Hidden Wi-Fi Killer: Interference
Justin Cottrell
January 30, 2015
Like we've explained before, there are a lot of factors that play into getting your wireless network right. From the materials...
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Windows 10: Your Next Windows Upgrade Could Be Free
Seth Rodriquez
January 26, 2015
On January 21, Microsoft provided its first sneak peek at Windows 10. Naturally, it showed off all the new bells...
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Is Your IT Service Holding You Prisoner?
Michael Patrick
January 20, 2015
Here’s a question you’ve probably never thought about: If your IT service (whether it be a consulting group or a...
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5 Phenomena That Impact Wi-Fi Signal
Andy Cook
January 19, 2015
When designing a wireless network, there are quite a few factors that one must consider. For example, it's extremely important to...
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Transmit Beamforming vs. Dynamic Beamforming
Guest Blogger
January 19, 2015
Today’s guest blog is by Greg Kamer, systems engineer for wireless equipment manufacturer Ruckus Wireless. When it comes to comparing the...
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3-2-1: The Golden Rule for Backups
Michael Patrick
January 16, 2015
Planning for a disaster can be a difficult task. Of course nobody wants to think about all the terrible things...
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Perception vs. Reality in IT
Jason Thomas
January 15, 2015
I have clients that ask me to look at their environments all of the time, citing that “it just feels slow.”...
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I Want Wireless for My Business, but I Need Help
Andy Cook
January 8, 2015
We live in an age of ubiquitous wireless technology and it has become an expectation. We expect wireless at work, home, play, shopping,...
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Windows 10 Technical Preview: Why Your Feedback Matters
Andy Cook
January 8, 2015
For years, we in the technical community have been murmuring in our offices and behind closed doors about how much we...
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Veeam Backup & Replication 8 Patch 1 Released
Jason Thomas
January 8, 2015
While Veeam Backup & Replication version 8 has been out since early November, its first patch was released on Christmas...
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Installing Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE
Jason Thomas
January 6, 2015
Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE is Veeam's new beta for physical backups to an internal or external hard drive, a NAS...
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Most Popular Blogs of 2014: Microsoft Licensing, Lync and Office 365
Leah Weisman
December 30, 2014
As we close out this year, let's take a look back at our most popular blogs of 2014. It was...
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Should I Buy Software Assurance with My Microsoft Licenses?
Seth Rodriquez
December 23, 2014
If you are in the market for Microsoft licenses, one question you should be asking is: "Should I buy Software...
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Upgrading Microsoft SBS with Expired SA
Kevin Oppihle
December 18, 2014
I recently had a call with Microsoft to try and upgrade a client off of Small Business Server (SBS) 2011....
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How Do I License Windows Server 2012 for Virtualization? Part 2: Moving VMs Around Your Server Farm
Seth Rodriquez
December 16, 2014
In my last post, we covered the basics of virtualization rights with Windows Server 2012. Now let’s talk about moving...
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Lync 2013 Response Groups Not Responding
Daryl Hunter
December 11, 2014
Recently I wrote about an internal Lync Server CMS replication issue we were experiencing. While we were fixing that issue,...
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How Do I License Windows Server 2012 for Virtualization? Part 1: The Basics
Seth Rodriquez
December 9, 2014
In the last few months, I have received questions from a few Mirazon engineers about this topic so I figured...
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Troubleshooting Lync CMS Replication
Daryl Hunter
December 4, 2014
Recently, I ended up troubleshooting Lync CMS replication in our internal environment. We tried many different things to resolve the...
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So You Want to Go to VDI: Planning a Successful Proof of Concept
Jason Thomas
December 2, 2014
Since adopting VDI will effectively uproot how your organization does basic computing, it's important to look at it from all...
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CRITICAL: Windows Update Rollup Breaks Hyper-V Backups
Jason Thomas
November 26, 2014
Microsoft released its November Windows Update Rollup for Windows Server 2012 (KB3000853) this week and it was quickly discovered that...
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DataCore SANsymphony New Release 10.0 PSP1: New Features
Brent Earls
November 25, 2014
DataCore recently launched 10.0 PSP1. While the name sounds like it is just another incremental upgrade on their admittedly already...
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So You Want to Go to VDI: Thin Clients vs Zero Clients vs Soft Clients
Jason Thomas
November 20, 2014
Don't miss the previous post on the infrastructure considerations for VDI. When you’re planning to adopt VDI at your organization,...
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Windows SChannel Bug: Update Now
Charles Mix
November 17, 2014
Last week Microsoft released a patch for a critical remote code execution vulnerability in its security channel (SChannel). The SChannel is...
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Veeam Workaround for VMware CBT Bug
Brent Earls
November 13, 2014
VMware recently released a notice about a bug that's been around since VMware 4.0. If you've ever had a failed...
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Purchasing Microsoft Azure Through Volume Licensing: What You Need to Know
Seth Rodriquez
November 13, 2014
On August 1, Microsoft started offering Azure subscriptions through their volume licensing programs. So, what is this new offer and...
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So You Want to Go to VDI: Infrastructure
Jason Thomas
November 11, 2014
More often than not, businesses are on a path to becoming 100 percent virtualized. That can include the desktop infrastructure....
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Not a Small Change: More Functionality for Office Apps on More Devices
Seth Rodriquez
November 6, 2014
"This is not a small change." Those were the words of John Case, Microsoft's VP of Office Marketing, this morning,...
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So You Want to Go to VDI: Why
Jason Thomas
November 4, 2014
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is the new trend. As businesses virtualize more and more of their infrastructure, VDI is often...
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So You Have a .local Domain. Now What?
Daryl Hunter
October 30, 2014
Let’s start here: It’s not your fault. No, really. You were unfortunately misdirected for a number of years and now...
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Windows Server 2008 Mainstream Support Ends January
Brent Earls
October 30, 2014
While the end of life (EoL) for Windows Server 2003 extended support has been dominating the news, it's important to know that...
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Veeam Announces Free Desktop Backup: Veeam Endpoint Backup
Jason Thomas
October 28, 2014
Along with the fanfare that was the VeeamON conference and the previews of v8, Veeam announced something big. They will...
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CBT Bug in VMware ESX: What it Means for Virtual Backups
Jason Thomas
October 27, 2014
A KB article by VMware was published earlier this month outlining a CBT bug in all the versions of ESX(i)....
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IT Horror Stories: When Lync Unified Messaging Integration Broke
Daryl Hunter
October 23, 2014
We had an issue recently with a customer using Server 2013 on premise and Office 365 for unified messaging (voicemail and...
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Top 6 Features of Veeam Backup & Replication v8
Jason Thomas
October 21, 2014
Veeam’s latest version of its backup and replication software, v8, is expected to come out this quarter. Two weeks ago...
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IT Horror Stories: The Dead Shall Rise (Rebuilding a Server Back to Life)
Charles Mix
October 16, 2014
We have all heard the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This sentiment holds true...
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OpenDNS: Protect Your Network
Michael Patrick
October 14, 2014
Computer infections have greatly increased in both the home and the work environment. There are many tools available for fighting...
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New Ransomware Threat: CryptoWall
Charles Mix
October 14, 2014
Remember Cryptolocker? It's bigger, badder brother is in town... literally. We've had several local clients hit with this devastating ransomware. CryptoWall...
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My Favorite Windows 10 New Features
Jason Turpin
October 14, 2014
So the Technical Preview for Windows 9 -- I mean Windows 10 -- is now out and after a little bit of...
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IT Horror Stories: The Air Conditioning Disaster and Why You Need Redundancy in IT
Brent Earls
October 9, 2014
The phone rang at 7am one morning: “Hey, we’ve got a big problem.” “What’s up?” “I just got a call that...
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What’s the Best Way for Me to Buy Microsoft Licensing? Part 5: Open Level C and Open Value Level C
Seth Rodriquez
October 7, 2014
In the previous few posts of this series, we have discussed various solutions that fit the needs of small and medium...
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IT Horror Stories: Anti-Piracy Witch Hunt
Kevin Oppihle
October 2, 2014
Recently a client received an unexpected email from what looked like a legitimate software company. Here's the gist of the email...
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7 Gotchas of Wi-Fi
Andy Cook
September 30, 2014
Wireless is becoming more ubiquitous every day. However, achieving a quality Wi-Fi network -- stable and fast -- has quite a...
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Setting Up Antivirus and Sandbox Features in FortiGate
Brent Renninger
September 25, 2014
Every day we are made aware of new threats to our network environments. Many security companies offer solutions that should...
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Sonus SBC SIP Calls Fail with SIP 405
Daryl Hunter
September 23, 2014
This week we had a strange customer issue. We were migrating a customer from one building to another, one Windows...
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Seven Benefits of Microsoft Licensing You Never Knew You Had
Seth Rodriquez
September 19, 2014
Everyone likes to complain about Microsoft licensing … “It’s too expensive.” “They make you pay for every little thing.” “They...
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Seven Security Risks from Public Cloud File Storage
Leah Weisman
September 16, 2014
Public cloud services, such as Google Drive, present many challenges to businesses that require control and visibility over their sensitive...
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How Mobile Device Management Works
Guest Blogger
September 11, 2014
Everyone knows a person who cannot seem to keep track of his or her mobile device. When that person keeps confidential company...
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What’s the Best Way for Me to Buy Microsoft Licensing? Part 4: Open Value Company-Wide and Subscription Program
Seth Rodriquez
September 11, 2014
Once upon a time, I was writing a series on the various Microsoft licensing programs, bringing valuable knowledge to the...
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Are Your Backups Worthless? Part 2: SureBackup
DuRand Bryant
September 9, 2014
In part one of this series, we discussed how success notifications from your backup tool of choice can create a...
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Windows 8.1 Enterprise Licensing: Now a Stand-Alone Product
Seth Rodriquez
September 4, 2014
Last year, I wrote a blog post about Windows 8.1 Enterprise. At the time, the only way to get Windows...
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What’s This 802.11ac I Keep Hearing About?
Guest Blogger
September 2, 2014
Today's guest blog is by Greg Kamer, pre-sales systems engineer for wireless equipment manufacturer Ruckus Wireless. Simply put, it’s the...
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Are Your Backups Worthless? Part 1
DuRand Bryant
August 28, 2014
Before writing the first part to this blog series, I decided to do a Bing search of “backup best practices”. Now,...
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Windows Server 2003 End of Life: July 14, 2015
Leah Weisman
August 26, 2014
Microsoft made the end of life announcement for Windows Server 2003 about a year ago. While that’s no longer breaking...
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Got Backup? You Sure? Test Your Backups First
Michael Patrick
August 22, 2014
One of a client’s bigger pain points is dealing with backups. My task is to define the correct solution for...
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FortiOS 5.2 Update: SSL VPN Configuration on FortiGate
Justin Cottrell
August 19, 2014
Fortigate has changed a lot in FortiOS 5.2* and at Mirazon we like to experiment with new software and upgrades...
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Microsoft a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications
Daryl Hunter
August 14, 2014
Last week, Gartner released its yearly Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications (UC) report with Microsoft as one of the industry leaders. The...
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Choosing a Firewall
Brent Renninger
August 12, 2014
When choosing a firewall or router for your business, it’s about two things: having features you need and the performance...
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UPDATED How To: Add McAfee SaaS To Office 365
Michael Patrick
August 7, 2014
When I first published this blog it did not occur to me that the Office 365 accounts have some restrictions...
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Addressing VDI Performance Problems
Brent Earls
August 7, 2014
A virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environment is quickly becoming the choice for many organizations to manage their ever-growing number of...
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How to Renew Your DataCore Certified Implementation Engineer (DCIE) Status
Jason Powell
August 5, 2014
DataCore released its newest version of SANsymphony back in April. Of course, there are new features to it, so if...
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Setting Up a Virtual DataCore SANsymphony-V 10 Lab
Jason Powell
August 1, 2014
Before you deploy any updated software, it's important to test it in a lab first. DataCore recently released the newest...
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Worldwide Partner Conference 2014: Nadella’s Vision for Microsoft
Craig Stein
July 29, 2014
A couple of Mirazon employees attended the Worldwide Partner Conference 2014 (WPC) in Washington, D.C. a couple weeks ago. Microsoft CEO...
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Microsoft Announces New Tradeshow Hybrid
Barry Martin
July 22, 2014
Yesterday Microsoft announced a big change to its IT tradeshow strategy. As Microsoft continues to focus on a holistic strategy...
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Microsoft Office for $8 a Month? New Office 365 Bundles Coming in October
Seth Rodriquez
July 17, 2014
Microsoft is shaking things up with their Office 365 offerings. In a blog post released July 9th, Microsoft announced that...
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Hey Mr. Administrator, Think You Are Doing a Good Job?
Michael Patrick
July 10, 2014
No matter how good a job you may think you are doing, you need to get an outside opinion. Over...
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OWA for Android
DuRand Bryant
July 8, 2014
As announced earlier this year (for the third time to date, mind you), the OWA app for the Android platform...
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How Is SQL Server 2014 Licensed? Part 4, Virtual Environments
Seth Rodriquez
July 3, 2014
In our last few posts, we have covered the basics of SQL licensing, the breaking points between the main versions,...
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How Is SQL Server 2014 Licensed? Part 3, The Licensing Changes
Seth Rodriquez
July 1, 2014
In our last two posts, we have covered the basics of SQL Server licensing and we have examined the breaking...
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How Is SQL Server 2014 Licensed? Part 2, Weighing the Options
Seth Rodriquez
June 26, 2014
In my last post, I covered the basics of SQL Server 2014 licensing. We discussed the three main versions: Enterprise,...
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How Is SQL Server 2014 Licensed? Part 1, The Basics
Seth Rodriquez
June 24, 2014
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is now available for purchase. So how is it licensed? Is the license model much different...
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This Is What Your 21st Century Conference Room Looks Like
Barry Martin
June 19, 2014
Up until now, collaborating during meetings and conference calls was difficult. Even with modern technologies, running a conference call, screen...
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Datto Partner Conference #2: The Sequel, Vegas Style!
Michael Patrick
June 12, 2014
Nine months from the first sold-out Datto partner conference in Washington, DC, the Datto team did it again! They promoted and sold out their second conference, which...
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How Mondopad Revolutionizes the Classroom
Barry Martin
June 10, 2014
Engaging students all day is a challenge. On top of that, learning standards are becoming more and more stringent and...
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TechEd 2014 Takeaways
Tim Lewis
June 6, 2014
Microsoft TechEd is always a really fun experience and this year was no exception. There were a lot of really...
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iSCSI Compared to Fibre Channel
Brent Earls
June 3, 2014
The current general feeling amongst lay IT people when it comes to iSCSI and Fibre Channel is that iSCSI is...
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Corporate Network on the Go: Fortinet Remote AP
Brent Renninger
May 30, 2014
I have been told that home is where the Wi-Fi connects automatically. That’s when I thought, "Why can't your work...
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vMotion Permissions in Microsoft Licensing: What About Earlier Versions?
Seth Rodriquez
May 23, 2014
Last September, I wrote a blog post called vMotion Permissions (and Denials) in Microsoft Licensing, which summarizes Microsoft’s current approach to...
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Time to Rethink Wireless: Next-Generation Wi-Fi
Andy Cook
May 20, 2014
We live in a day and age where every device and or piece of technology is or is becoming wireless. Wireless...
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How to Survive a Microsoft Audit: Part 3, Software Asset Management Review
Seth Rodriquez
May 16, 2014
In this series we are discussing the various types of Microsoft audits you may encounter and how to work through...
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How to Survive a Microsoft Audit: Part 2, Self-Certification Microsoft Audit
Seth Rodriquez
May 13, 2014
In our last post, we provided an overview of the two types of Microsoft audits you may encounter. In this...
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How to Survive a Microsoft Audit: Part 1, Overview
Seth Rodriquez
May 8, 2014
So things are rolling along: your business is doing great, your clients are happy, your employees are content, and you...
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Changes Coming for Azure Active Directory Sync
Drew Haney
May 6, 2014
We’ve been talking a lot about DirSync lately, and today will be no exception. Check out my article on Password...
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Upcoming Mondopad Update
Michael Patrick
April 29, 2014
The latest update for the Mondopad is here. The 1.8 software update includes over 50 improvements and new features for your favorite tablet....
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Why We Work with Peak 10
Craig Stein
April 29, 2014
At Mirazon, we’re always on the forefront of technology and we like to work with best of breed partners. For...
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Implementing Office 365: Setting Up DirSync with Office 365
Drew Haney
April 24, 2014
So far in this series we’ve discussed the merits of Password Sync vs ADFS and the different migration types available...
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Heartbleed: Change Your Passwords
Guest Blogger
April 23, 2014
Last week the news was on fire with this security flaw called Heartbleed. While some of the details seem hard...
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Heartbleed: Enterprise IT, Change Your Passwords
Barry Martin
April 22, 2014
We are finally in the aftermath of the Heartbleed security flaw hysteria, but it's important for enterprise IT to examine...
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Office 365 Email Account Licenses and Saving Money
Kevin Oppihle
April 17, 2014
Office 365 is, in itself, not an expensive email hosting product. However, its costs can add up quickly as your...
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Implementing Office 365: Migration Options for Exchange
Drew Haney
April 15, 2014
Now that we’ve established how to get users up into the cloud when implementing Office 365, it’s time to discuss your...
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Implementing Office 365: Password Sync vs. ADFS
Drew Haney
April 10, 2014
So you’ve heard about Office 365 and all it has to offer, perhaps even from us. You want to take...
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Datto Backup: More Options than Ever
Michael Patrick
April 9, 2014
Recently Datto, my favorite backup and disaster recovery (BDR) vendor, released an expanded line of devices. Datto has expanding its market...
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Finally! Your Office 365 Plan Can Evolve
Michael Patrick
April 8, 2014
One of the drawbacks for businesses was the limitation in growth of the Office 365 plans. Scale your Office 365...
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Office 365 Partner of Record: Setting or Changing the Delegated Admin
Michael Patrick
April 3, 2014
Office 365 is an amazing product with lots of features. This also means there is lots of complexity. If you...
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Office for iPad: How Will this Affect My Business?
Seth Rodriquez
April 1, 2014
It seems that everyone in cyberspace is talking about the new “Office for iPad” that was released on March 27....
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Say Goodbye to Windows Azure
Barry Martin
March 27, 2014
And say hello to Microsoft Azure! Microsoft announced earlier this week that it will rebrand Windows Azure as Microsoft Azure...
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X-IO ISE Series: Addressing Hard Drive Performance
Brent Earls
March 25, 2014
A solid storage hardware solution is often elusive. We've discussed why hard drives fail so often and how X-IO has addressed...
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What Is SDN? Why Is It Important?
Justin Cottrell
March 20, 2014
Some may argue that software-defined networking (SDN) is just another buzzword in the world of IT. However, it’s actually a...
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X-IO ISE Series: Addressing Hard Drive Failures
Brent Earls
March 18, 2014
In previous blogs we’ve discussed the fact that hard drives “fail” far more frequently than they should based on manufacturer’s specifications,...
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Yet Another Reason for a Solid Backup Solution: Cryptolocker Ransomware
Charles Mix
March 13, 2014
Cryptolocker ransomware is making its rounds. This virus basically infects your computer or network, encrypts all of the data, and...
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How to Convert Virtual Machines When Migrating from VMware to Hyper-V 2012
Kevin Oppihle
March 11, 2014
After many Bing searches for how to convert virtual machines when migrating from VMware to Hyper-V 2012, you are more...
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Why Are Hard Drives Slow? Part 3: Interconnect
Brent Earls
March 4, 2014
We've reviewed how physics and the manufacturers' practices of generalization both negatively impact a hard drive's speed. Today we are...
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Lync Conference 2014 in Brief
Drew Haney
February 27, 2014
Recently, my colleague Daryl Hunter and I attended Lync Conference 2014 alongside 1,600 of our dearest Lync aficionados. The conference...
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Why Are Hard Drives Slow? Part 2: Generalization
Brent Earls
February 25, 2014
Last week we discussed the prevailing attitude that hard drives are slow and how physics plays into slowing down hard...
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Business Continuity: Datto Alto
Michael Patrick
February 24, 2014
As small businesses struggle to manage their resources, safe guarding data often times gets left to the, “I’ll get around...
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Why Are Hard Drives Slow? Part 1: Physics
Brent Earls
February 20, 2014
With the advent of solid state drives (SSDs), everyone now accepts the fact that hard drives are slow. This has...
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Veeam Named 2013 Software Product of the Year
Barry Martin
February 18, 2014
Veeam Backup & Replication v7 was named 2013 by Storage Magazine-SearchStorage.com in the category of Product of the Year in...
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Common Causes of Hard Drive Failures
Brent Earls
February 13, 2014
Hard drives fail, this is a fact. We talked in a previous article about how long hard drives, given optimal...
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Why Windows XP Is Like the Death Star
Michael Patrick
February 12, 2014
We are about two months away from Windows XP’s end-of-life date, which barely gives most businesses enough time to transition....
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What’s the Best Way for Me to Buy Microsoft Licensing? Part 3: Open Value Program (Non-Company-Wide)
Seth Rodriquez
February 11, 2014
Continuing our series on the best way to purchasing Microsoft licensing (see here and here for previous posts), today we...
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Why Do Hard Drives Fail So Often? The MTBF
Brent Earls
February 6, 2014
Hard drives fail, this is a fact. Anything that moves will, given time, stop moving. When hard drives fail, it...
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What’s the Best Way for Me to Buy Microsoft Licensing? Part 2: Open Business Program
Seth Rodriquez
February 4, 2014
In a previous post, we explored the ups and downs of purchasing Microsoft licensing from hardware manufacturers (OEM licenses) and...
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How Do I Upgrade from Windows XP? The Licensing Issues
Seth Rodriquez
January 30, 2014
It should not be news to anyone that support for XP is ending soon -- April 8, 2014 to be exact. So...
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Veeam Backup & Replication
Barry Martin
January 28, 2014
Virtualization is the future. In fact, virtualization is the now. And, like any systems you use today, you need to...
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Transitioning From Windows XP
Drew Haney
January 23, 2014
As you have probably heard from us before, Microsoft is ending support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014. This...
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Disaster Recovery Series: Care and Feeding
Brent Earls
January 16, 2014
One of the biggest problems that plague a DR plan is atrophy. DR plans get set up, tweaked and perfected...
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Microsoft’s New Licensing Program: The MPSA
Seth Rodriquez
January 14, 2014
Microsoft has recently announced a new way for businesses to purchase their software licenses. Please give a warm welcome to...
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Disaster Recovery Series: Management Buy-In
Brent Earls
January 9, 2014
“What’s the most important factor when it comes to Disaster Recovery?” Management buy-in and acceptance, hands down. You can have...
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Blocking Phone Calls in Sonus
Daryl Hunter
January 7, 2014
Recently I had a customer contact us with a unique request. There is a lady in a nursing home who...
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Disaster Recovery Series: End Users
Brent Earls
January 2, 2014
Wouldn’t IT’s job be much easier if it wasn’t for those pesky end users? DR plans likewise are much easier when...
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Spend Your Year-End Budgets With Mirazon
Barry Martin
December 19, 2013
Before 2014 rolls along with a whole new budget, make sure you’ve wisely spent the rest of your 2013 money...
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Disaster Recovery Series: Technical Documentation
Brent Earls
December 17, 2013
Well, I suppose we can’t forget to actually document how to recover the servers themselves. The best thing that has ever...
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We Are A Trend Micro Beta Site
Kevin Oppihle
December 12, 2013
Right before Thanksgiving, Mirazon was again proud to be one of the few U.S. companies chosen to be a live,...
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Disaster Recovery Series: How to Construct A Proper Plan
Brent Earls
December 10, 2013
The first thing that should be done before any server recovery is planned is to figure out four things for...
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How Do I License My Office 365 Users for On-Premise Versions of Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint?
Seth Rodriquez
December 5, 2013
So, let’s say you moved your organization to Office 365. You're tired of shelling out a ton of money every...
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Disaster Recovery Series: What Is A Disaster?
Brent Earls
December 3, 2013
One of the biggest mistakes that most people make when planning for a Disaster Recovery (DR) plan is that they assume...
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Disaster Recovery Series: What’s Most Important?
Brent Earls
November 26, 2013
Let’s start with a question: What’s the most important factor when it comes to Disaster Recovery? Did your answer in any...
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Top Features of Server 2012: Microsoft System Center 2012 and 2012 R2
Andy Cook
November 21, 2013
Talking about Microsoft System Center seems like the best possible way to put a nice bow on this whole 10-part...
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IT Nation — Mecca for the Managed Services Provider
Michael Patrick
November 19, 2013
Please read the full article on Mirazon Small Business's site here.
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What is Windows 8.1 Enterprise and How Do I Get It?
Seth Rodriquez
November 14, 2013
In his usual witty style, my colleague Drew Haney provided a review of Windows 8.1 last week. In his post,...
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No-Shave November Raises Cancer Awareness
Kevin Oppihle
November 12, 2013
Our clients may be wondering "Why is my normally clean shaven neatly dressed IT professional from Mirazon still neatly dressed,...
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Protecting Your Business from Disaster: RPO and RTO
Michael Patrick
November 7, 2013
Read the full article on Mirazon Small Business's site here.
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What’s the Best Way for Me to Buy Microsoft Licensing? Part 1: OEM and FPP Licenses
Seth Rodriquez
October 31, 2013
There are a variety of ways of purchasing Microsoft licensing. You can buy licensing through retail stores, hardware manufacturers, value-added...
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Windows 8.1 Is Here!
Drew Haney
October 29, 2013
It's Here! Windows 8.1 was released officially the week before last and brought with it all the goodness, and not...
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What is a Software License?
Seth Rodriquez
October 24, 2013
When I started as the Purchasing Coordinator for The Mirazon Group in 2007, I had no clue what I was...
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We’re At The Church IT Roundtable!
Barry Martin
October 22, 2013
We're at the annual Church IT Roundtable this week in Leawood, Kansas at Church of the Resurrection! CITRT is a great event...
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Enhancements To Datto SIRIS
Michael Patrick
October 17, 2013
Please read the full article on Mirazon Small Business here.
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Top Features Of Server 2012: Hyper-V
Andy Cook
October 15, 2013
Hyper-V is Microsoft’s virtualization platform that allows you to run multiple virtual machines on one physical host. Hyper-V is by...
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Lync Persistent Chat: Topic and Ego Feeds
Drew Haney
October 9, 2013
In my article about Microsoft Lync Persistent Chat, I talked about all the wonderful things one can do with Persistent...
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Top Features Of Server 2012: Failover Clustering
Andy Cook
October 8, 2013
Server 2008 created a system that allows for servers that are independent of each other to work as a group...
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Persistent Chat With Microsoft Lync
Drew Haney
October 3, 2013
Microsoft Lync, in its 2013 iteration, has added a bevy of features beneficial to your business’ effective unified communications. Amongst...
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Faith-Based 501(c)(3) Organizations Now Eligible For TechSoup and Office 365 Donations
Daryl Hunter
October 1, 2013
Earlier this month, TechSoup, an authorized reseller of Microsoft products, announced that it will now provide donations to faith-based nonprofits....
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How To Build A Test Lab
Drew Haney
September 26, 2013
How to Build a Test Lab You may be wondering how the Engineers here at Mirazon stay on the bleeding...
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XP, Office 2003 and SBS 2003 end of life in April 2014. What does that mean for Small Business?
Michael Patrick
September 24, 2013
Read the full post on Mirazon Small Business's blog here.
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Troubleshooting: When Lync Server 2013 Melts
Daryl Hunter
September 20, 2013
A few weeks ago, a customer contacted me to tell me that voicemail wasn't working correctly for a few users....
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vMotion Permissions (and Denials) in Microsoft Licensing
Seth Rodriquez
September 17, 2013
Microsoft licensing continues to evolve as Microsoft reacts to the rise in virtualization. Things seem to be leveling out, but...
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Top Features Of Server 2012: Better With Windows 8
Andy Cook
September 12, 2013
If you missed last week’s installment, learn about Active Directory and Group Policy. The correlation between Windows 8 and Server 2012...
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Windows XP Users Will Be Non-Compliant April 8
Barry Martin
September 11, 2013
Microsoft first announced that it would discontinue support for Windows XP, Office 2003 and Exchange 2003 in April to give...
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Do I Need SQL CALs When Using SharePoint?
Seth Rodriquez
September 3, 2013
“Do I need SQL CALs when using SharePoint?” This question came up recently while we were putting together a SharePoint...
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Make Life Easy With Mondopad
Michael Patrick
August 29, 2013
Please read this post on Mirazon Small Business's blog here.
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Top Features Of Server 2012: Active Directory & Group Policy
Andy Cook
August 27, 2013
How can a portion of the Server Operating System that has been around over a decade be a feature that...
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We’re At VMworld!
Barry Martin
August 26, 2013
VMworld 2013 started yesterday in San Francisco, and a few Mirazon employees are there. This year is the tenth anniversary...
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VMTurbo Is A Vendor To Watch
Barry Martin
August 22, 2013
We'll be at VMWorld next week! Maybe we'll see you there or you can follow us on Twitter, @Mirazon, for...
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Windows Server 2012 R2: Price Increase for Datacenter and Other Upcoming Changes
Seth Rodriquez
August 20, 2013
Sometime in the next few months, Microsoft will release the R2 version of Windows Server 2012. Here is what you...
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Coverage Vs. Capacity: The Changing Landscape Of Office Wi-Fi
Guest Blogger
August 15, 2013
Today's article is written by guest blogger Greg Kamer, former Mirazon employee and pre-sales system engineer at Ruckus Wireless, a...
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What Windows Server 2012 Virtualization Rights Do I Have?
Seth Rodriquez
August 13, 2013
So you’ve upgraded to Windows Server 2012 Standard and you’re ready to virtualize. What do you need to know? Licensing...
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Top Features Of Server 2012: Remote Desktop Services
Andy Cook
August 8, 2013
Remote Desktop Services in Server 2012 goes to a level that is beyond the area of influence this portion of...
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Take Advantage Of Outlook 2013’s Caching Feature
Kevin Oppihle
August 6, 2013
Outlook 2013 has quite a few beneficial features to it and one that I recommend you use is the caching...
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PowerShell Scripts In Hyper-V
Jason Powell
August 1, 2013
Hyper-V 2012 is great and completely viable for production environments. However, there are bits of information that aren’t easily obtainable...
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Top Features Of Server 2012: Storage Innovation
Andy Cook
July 30, 2013
Last week we talked about PowerShell. Among the most captivating features of Microsoft's Server 2012 has to be the way...
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Disaster Recovery Plan Or Just A Disaster?
Barry Martin
July 23, 2013
Bob Jones is the IT director for ACME Rocket Company. He considers himself very cutting edge and is already utilizing...
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My Favorite Backup & Disaster Recovery: Datto
Michael Patrick
July 19, 2013
Please review this post on Mirazon Small Business's blog here.
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Top Features Of Server 2012: PowerShell
Andy Cook
July 11, 2013
PowerShell has taken huge strides and leaps in the newest release PowerShell 3.0. Within the context of Server 2012, the...
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Can the Surface Pro Be Your Next Workstation?
Drew Haney
July 9, 2013
The Surface Pro is hailed as a laptop in tablet form, but can Microsoft deliver on the promises made in...
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Top Features Of Server 2012: Server Manager
Andy Cook
July 3, 2013
Shift in Management of Servers with Server Manager In Server 2012 there is a new idea being utilized for administration...
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Windows 8.1 First Impressions
Drew Haney
July 2, 2013
Last week saw the preview release of the latest in Windows Operating Systems, Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1. We've...
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Top Features Of Server 2012: Server Core
Andy Cook
June 27, 2013
Microsoft unveiled some new features of Server 2012 at TechEd North America earlier this month. There are a lot of...
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Lync Troubleshooting With 2010 & 2013 Mix
Daryl Hunter
June 25, 2013
We have recently deployed Lync 2013 Server at a local client with about 400-500 users. They have mixed version licensing...
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DataCore Software A Top Finalist for the 2013 Microsoft Partner of the Year Award
Barry Martin
June 20, 2013
We are excited to announce that our partner, DataCore Software, a premier provider of storage virtualization software, is a top...
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Veeam Gets Recognized By Microsoft & Gartner
Barry Martin
June 18, 2013
Mirazon is a proud partner of Veeam Software, an innovative provider of backup, replication and virtualization management solutions for VMware vSphere...
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Hyper-V Processing Matrix Via PowerShell
Jason Powell
June 13, 2013
In a typical week at Mirazon, we are often called in to evaluate a customer's virtual environment. The conversation often...
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X-IO Wins Twice At The Annual UK Datacentre Solutions Awards
Barry Martin
June 11, 2013
Our high-quality storage solution provider X-IO won big this year at the annual UK Datacentre Solution Awards on May 23!...
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Lync 2013 New Device Troubleshooting
Daryl Hunter
June 6, 2013
Mirazon has been fully on Lync for a couple years now. We use all modalities and are quite happy with...
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