Tech & Tools Watch, August 22: NetApp, Netwrix, Advanced Systems Concepts

NetApp Adds Hybrid Cloud Storage for Azure
NetApp Inc. is now offering a private storage solution that supports Microsoft private clouds and the Microsoft Azure cloud service. The new NetApp Private Storage for Microsoft Azure is designed to provide storage for hybrid clouds, letting organizations elastically extend storage capacity from their own datacenters to the public cloud service. The offering utilizes the Microsoft FlexPod private cloud solution consisting of converged storage, compute and network infrastructure from Cisco Systems Inc., NetApp and the Windows Server software stack. Organizations can create internal private clouds with the Microsoft Cloud OS, which includes the combination of Windows Server, System Center and the Windows Azure Pack.  Those which require scale can use the Azure cloud service and Microsoft's  new Azure ExpressRoute offering, which through partners such as AT&T, BT, Equinix, Level 3 Communications and Verizon Communications, provides high-speed, dedicated and secure links rather than relying upon the public Internet. NetApp Private Storage for Microsoft Azure offers single or multiple region disaster recovery and uses the public cloud service only when failover is necessary or for planned scenarios such as testing. When used with System Center and the NetApp PowerShell Toolkit, customers can manage data mobility between the private cloud and on-site storage connected to the Azure cloud.

Netwrix Adds Compliance to Auditor
Organizations faced with meeting regulatory compliance requirements need to ensure their IT audits are in line with various standards. The new Netwrix Auditor for 5 Compliance Standards addresses five key standards: the Payment Card Industry Data Security Specification (PCI/DSS), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). Netwrix Corp. released the new compliance tool last month. It's designed to help ensure IT passes compliance audits by accessing the mandated reports from the Netwrix Auditor AuditArchive, which the company describes as two-tiered storage that can hold data for upward of 10 years. It tracks unauthorized changes to configurations and can issue real-time alerts. It also comes with 200 preconfigured reports. In addition, it monitors user activities and audits access control changes, which helps discover and preempt theft of confidential information. It builds on the built-in auditing capabilities of widely used platforms including Active Directory, Exchange Server, file servers, SharePoint, SQL Server, VMware and Windows Server, though the company said it covers others, as well.

Advanced Systems Concepts Ties to Configuration Manager
Advanced Systems Concepts Inc. is now offering an extension for Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager. Along with its other System Center extensions, the new release provides common management across on-premises, services provider and Azure environments. By integrating ActiveBatch with Configuration Manager, the company said IT organizations can reduce administration requirements and lower overall cost of PC ownership by automating such functions as OS deployment, patch management, client device management and other systems administration functions. It's designed to eliminate the need for scripting. Among the Configuration Manager functions it offers are production-ready job steps, which include commonly used Configuration Manager objects and functions such as creating job steps to build packages, deployment programs and folders. Among other job steps, it lets administrators modify and delete, as well as assign packages to distribution.  ActiveBatch already supports most other key components of System Center. It already has extensions for System Center Operations Manager, System Center Service Manager, System Center Orchestrator and System Center Virtual Machine Manager, as well as Active Directory, SQL Server, Exchange, Azure and Windows Server with the latest rev of Hyper-V. It also works with other key platforms including Amazon Web Services EC2 and VMware ESX.

Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 08/22/2014 at 11:43 AM