Educational Episodes: Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI)

KEMP’s main product is LoadMaster, a load balancer, which allows you to work with dozens of web applications. The problem is that some web resources do not include an authentication form, as for example SSO. Therefore, moving to these applications through Kemp, the security of your data is at risk. But don’t worry! ESP or Edge Security Pack is an authentication form provided by Kemp and presented to clients before accessing the web applications.

A webhook is a method of extending or changing the behavior of a web page or web application using custom callbacks. In the case of SharePoint, webhooks allow you to track all changes that are on the site as well as receive notifications about specific events. With Azure Functions, you can host your SharePoint webhooks in a romp!

Building a virtualized environment with VMware Workstation is a bit different from the scenario discussed before. Today, I use VMware Workstation 15 Pro – a virtualization platform that supports hypervisor virtualization and allows administrating small VMware infrastructures. Yes, Workstation is a vCenter-like platform, but it has rather limited functionality. Anyway, it allows building a vSphere lab for free! This being said, the solution is good for this article.

A reverse proxy is a service that sits in front of one or more servers and accepts requests from clients for resources that are located on the server or servers. From a client point of view, a reverse proxy looks like a web server and can be easily used for remote access. The Kemp LoadMaster platform provides reverse proxy services that expand the range of workloads and provide access to dozens of web applications via a single IP address/port. Set up a reverse proxy server on the LoadMaster and get the perfect point in the network to control traffic and optimize performance!

In October 2018, SharePoint Server 2019 became available to the public. Compared to SharePoint 2016, the new release attempts to prepare the user for the hybrid route and moving to the cloud. Do you need to design and build your SharePoint based solutions and infrastructures with the cloud in mind, even if you still install the on-premise version?

The golden rule for the safety of your data is as follows: always back up and distribute copies to different locations. However, the choice of backup environments can be accompanied by high-cost issues, security concerns, the risk of service interruption/termination, and so on. Storing your data in the cloud seems to be the most optimal solution. But even here you may encounter certain troubles such as the need to pay for all services, subscriptions, service plans, and configuration of a public cloud storage provider. Do you want to know about a backup storage solution that eliminates the drawbacks of costly backup processes and meets regulatory data archival and retention requirements?

Mellanox, an Israeli company, is a leader when it comes to FPGAs and all kinds of programmable logic in the switches and NICs. The latter allow having 25Gbps at a cost and quality level traditional network companies won’t allow. Recently rumors about an acquisition of Mellanox by Microsoft began to circulate. The only decision assessment does not exist, as well as the determination of reasons for which Microsoft decided to take this move. Why does Microsoft want to buy Mellanox?

While writing my previous article, I remembered the days when I was only building my first lab. It was a bit tough, you know, as vSphere yet was a black box for me. Those thoughts brought me to the idea of writing this article. The article in which I share my know-how of building a minimalistic lab using… only a PC, switch, and laptop. I’ve divided this topic into 2 parts as I am unsure whether you guys like long-reads. In this part, I discuss how to build an ESXi environment using PC and ESXi 6.7 U1. The next article addresses creating a lab using PC and VMware Workstation 15 Pro. I hope that both of them will be really handy for you!

The flawless operation of your Office 365 infrastructure directly depends on the updates installed on time. An SSL certificate provides secure communication between Office 365 components. If it expires, your infrastructure becomes unprotected. This is where the Azure AD Connect tool comes in. With its help, you can update the SSL certificate for both AD FS and WAP Servers quickly and easily.