What’s Hot, September 2006

Easy Print Management for Terminal Servers
triCerat's ScrewDrivers

For David Clark of Lisle, Illinois, the biggest problem with using Terminal Services was making printers work for connected users. Before purchasing triCerat's ScrewDrivers, he would set up each client printer individually on the terminal server and install a new driver whenever a new printer was purchased. Oftentimes, the printer drivers wouldn't work, especially for old printers or certain printer models. Troubleshooting also was a problem because users needed to be offsite for troubleshooting to take place.

ScrewDrivers is a print application solution that helps manage printer drivers in Terminal Services and Citrix environments. The product installs a small application on the server and the client computer. When a remote session is initiated with the terminal server, ScrewDrivers automatically grabs all printer attributes from the client machine—whether for shared or networked printers—and creates a virtual printer. "ScrewDrivers saved our company a lot of time wasted on troubleshooting printer drivers," says Clark.

Secure Remote Access to Windows and Linux Servers
3SP's SSL-Explorer Community Edition

Steve Atwal of Vancouver, British Columbia, had no way to provide secure remote access to his series of Windows 2003/2000/NT and Linux servers. He wanted to leverage Active Directory (AD) so that only users who were granted access could log on to a site to launch remote-access tools such as Remote Desktop, PuTTY (an open-source Secure Shell—SSH—client), or UltraVNC (an open-source desktop-control application). Atwal purchased 3SP's SSL-Explorer Community Edition to get control over which users were connecting to his servers. "Previously, a user only needed a password to connect to the server. Now, users are forced to log on to SSL-Explorer first, which allows us to use AD to lock out any compromised accounts," says Atwal. SSL-Explorer also provides two-factor authentication, and that helps him conform to the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standard, which requires that servers that accept online payments be protected by a two-factor authentication scheme.

For Atwal, the biggest benefit is that he now provides secure connections for all his Windows and Linux servers without opening lots of ports in the firewall or installing any additional software on his servers.

Simple Disaster Recovery Solution for Exchange
XOsoft's WANSynchHA Exchange

Setting up a disaster recovery site has never been as important as it is today. Whether you're facing a virus, a natural disaster, or simply user error, the challenge is to keep your environment up and running. Dan Roesler of Houston, Texas, purchased XOsoft's WANSynchHA Exchange as his messaging disaster recovery solution. "Setup couldn't have been simpler. I remotely installed the agents on the master and replica systems and WANSynchHA did the rest," says Roesler. The product evaluated his database structure on the master system, then created the same structure on the replica and began synchronization. Additionally, the Assured Recovery feature lets him use the replica database without affecting production.

When it's time to fail over, WANSynchHA protects clients by changing the DNS entry for the master server to point to the replica server's IP address. Users need only exit Microsoft Office Outlook, then re-open it. With one click, Roesler can fail over his entire Exchange environment to the disaster recovery site. After the disaster is over, one more click brings him back to the production site. "WANSynchHA is truly a wonderful product that has made my life much easier," says Roesler.

Exchange High Availability Solution for SMBs
Teneros Application Continuity Appliance for Microsoft Exchange

For William Cumming of Santa Monica, California, electronic communications—and specifically the availability of Exchange Server—are mission critical. His maintenance window was shrinking while the importance of keeping email up 24 hours a day, seven days a week was increasing. In need of a solution that gave him Exchange high availability without adding to his IT staff, Cumming purchased the Teneros Application Continuity Appliance (ACA) for Microsoft Exchange. "The Teneros ACA is a complete solution that monitors the Exchange environment and fails over automatically—using Instant-On technology—in the event of a critical service issue. The product kept me from clustering and from introducing another server that I had to monitor and maintain."

The Teneros ACA gives small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs) high uptime for Exchange while reducing their IT workload. The product requires no configuration or modification of the Exchange server or network infrastructure and installation of no additional software. Contact Teneros for pricing information.