In this issue:
Electricity costs *how* much?!? Fines and penalties for cyber breaches. News about Windows, Linux and the cloud. Swiss PowerShell meetup in Bern. Get this Windows 11 Migration Guide. Miscellaneous tips and tutorials. With homage to Miles. Top Gun with a Cat. Aliens hide big rock behind sun’s glare. Plus lots more — read it all, read it here on WServerNews!
Everything’s going up nowadays. I wonder if the cloud computing balloon will pop? Photo by Max Harlynking on Unsplash
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Editor’s Corner
The promise of cloud computing for enterprises has always been threefold: reliability, scalability and savings on cost. Many organizations who have migrated some or all of their IT infrastructure into the cloud have realized the truth of these promises, though some businesses have discovered they’re paying more than expected (Gartner). But predictable costs have made budgeting IT easier for many organizations who have moved to the cloud.
All this is likely to change in the near future, especially in Europe. Why is that? Because of huge increases in energy costs. Datacenters, whether owned by enterprises or managed by cloud providers, need lots of electrical power in order to run. Power for the compute and storage devices, power for the cooling systems—lots and lots of power. And electricity costs have been skyrocketing in Europe, driving up Microsoft’s datacenter power budget for example by more than $800 million this year (DataCenter Knowledge). And it’ll likely be worse next year, and perhaps for several years after that.
Where will Microsoft, Amazon, Google and other public cloud providers get the additional money in order to fund this massive increase in electricity costs they have to deal with? From their customers of course! That’s you and me, if you use the cloud for some or all of the IT needs of your business.
Maybe it’s time to sharpen your pencil and look at ways for cutting costs before your business gets hit with a sudden increase in the cost of the cloud services you’re consuming. Maybe you might even want to consider migrating some of your infrastructure or data back on-premises, for example by deploying Microsoft Azure Stack or VMware vSAN or Red Hat OpenShift or some other hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution depending upon your particular needs.
Or maybe you can find other fat you can trim from your IT budget to make room for rising cloud costs. For as sure as the sun rises every morning, the cost of the cloud will soon be increasing, despite efforts by providers to use innovative ways of making their datacenters more energy efficient.
Has your organization recently experienced rising costs for the cloud services you consume? How much of an increase in cloud costs can your business handle before things get difficult for you? Share your thoughts and stories with us.
We hope that you enjoy this week’s issue of WServerNews, feel free to email us your comments or questions about anything in this newsletter.
This Week in IT
A compendium of recent IT industry news compiled by Your Editors. Feel free to email us if you find a news item you think our newsletter readers might be interested in. And for more tech news coverage see the News section of our TechGenix website.
It can get pretty expensive to be a large tech company nowadays. For example TechDirt has word that the French government has hit Clearview with the maximum fine for GDPR violations. And News.com.au tells us that down under in Australia companies could face much harsher penalties if their customer data is compromised in cyber security breaches.
Meanwhile more than half of IT pros surveyed are likely to look for a new job over the next 12 months according to TechRepublic. So maybe it’s time to update your resume since what happened at Microsoft recently might signal a recession is coming soon (TechGenix).
Windows news
Some interesting news on the Windows front as it blows across our newsdesk. Bleeping Computer reports that Microsoft and Canonical have teamed up to add support for systemd in WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) on Windows 11. BetaNews has word that a bug in Windows 11 2022 Update is causing problems safely removing USB storage devices. Born’s Tech and Windows World informs us that in Windows 11 22H2 network printers will now communicate by default using RPC over TCP instead of just RPC.
Plus all the usual stuff about new vulnerabilities and patching problems etc. A good place to keep abreast in those areas is by following Born’s Tech and Windows World.
Linux news
And speaking of systemd, the latest blog post by Lennart Poettering the creator of systemd puts for the idea of improving Linux boot security by cryptographically signing unified kernel images. It’ll be interesting to see whether this gets implemented as there’s still a sizable portion of the Linux community that opposes systemd as this article on How-To Geek explains.
Cloud news
And for Azure lovers (or those who just have to bite the bullet and use it) there’s the news from Microsoft that Azure Firewall Basic is now in preview (Azure Security Blog). Aiden Finn also has some skinny on this. And for movie lovers everywhere comes the documentary titled Clouded – Uncovering The Culture Of Cloud from Dark Matter Film. IT guru Thomas Maurer is in it as he shares on his blog.
Upcoming webcasts, workshops and conferences
Got an event, conference or webcast you want announced in our newsletter? Email us!
Nov 9 – EMEA Manufacturing & Industrial Symposium 2022 by AWS – Free registration
Nov 15-16 – The Ransomware Crisis… From every business perspective – from SC Media – More info
Nov 22 – SwissPowerShell in Bern, Switzerland – Meetup
Dec 6-7 – Data Strategy & Insights by Forrester – Austin, Texas and online – Register
Also be sure to check out the following event listings:
- Redmond Channel Partner’s calendar of upcoming Microsoft conferences for partners, IT pros and developers.
- Past and upcoming Windows Events from Microsoft.
- TechRepublic’s 2022 tech conferences and events to add to your calendar.
- FOSS Force’s list of upcoming Open Source Events.
Got comments about anything in this issue?
Email us! We love hearing from our readers!
Meet the Editors!
MITCH TULLOCH is Senior Editor of WServerNews and is a widely recognized expert on Windows Server and cloud technologies. He has written more than a thousand articles and has authored or been series editor for over 50 books for Microsoft Press and other publishers. Mitch has also been a twelve-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award in the technical category of Cloud and Datacenter Management. He currently runs an IT content development business in Winnipeg, Canada that produces books, ebooks, whitepapers, case studies, courseware, documentation, newsletters and articles for various companies.
INGRID TULLOCH is Associate Editor of WServerNews. She was co-author of the Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking from Microsoft Press and collaborated on developing university-level courses in Information Security Management for a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) program. Ingrid also manages Research and Development for the IT content development business she runs together with Mitch.
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IT Workshop – tools, guides and useful stuff
Got a product or solution or some other resource you’d like to tell our readers about? Email us!
Our TOOL OF THE WEEK was recommended to us by reader Michael Hallstead. Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files. Here’s what Michael says about this tool:
And talking about freebies, whoever wrote this program [oops, they’re called apps now-a-days, aren’t they] is a freaking genius: https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html. You just can’t have a “space” in the name of the ISO file, otherwise, it’s just an incredible, and, useful piece of software!
Try Windows Update for Business with Microsoft Graph (Windows IT Pro Blog)
Get this Windows 11 Migration Guide from ITPro Today and learn how to perform a successful migration to Windows 11.
Learn how you can map your business needs to features of a WAN optimization solution in this whitepaper from GFI Software and then find out more about GFI Exinda NetworkOrchestrator.
Here are five marketing tools from IgniteTech that can help you grow your business:
- Infer can help identify your most promising prospects, build hyper-targeted segments and personalize outreach at scale to significantly increase conversion rates.
- On Brand is brand asset & guideline management software to control, protect, create and collaborate — on all aspects of your brand.
- Placeable drives online and offline revenue through location data management, local marketing and digital advertising.
- Synoptos helps you understand what’s transpiring in the media, identify pathways to influence key stakeholders and improve operational decision making.
- Zumobi helps you extend the scale of your top-performing content while providing highly curated brand experiences via dynamic content.
Tips and Tutorials
Got tips or tutorials you’d like to recommend for our readers? Email us!
This week we have a miscellaneous bunch of tips and tutorials about this and that which may be of interest and usefulness to our enterprise readers. Enjoy!
Group policies update/refresh without gpupdate.exe (Emin Atac)
Get-ADUser Syntax and examples post refresh (Command Line Ninja)
Debugging Certificate Errors (Signs of Triviality)
VIDEO: SSH Is Magic, But Tunnels are Even Better (Hackaday)
Mapping Azure file shares on Windows devices (All about Microsoft Endpoint Manager)
Introduction to Network Trace Analysis Part 0: Laying the Groundwork (Core Infrastructure and Security Blog)
IPv6 Unique Local Addresses (ULA) Made Useless (ipSpace.net)
Fixing VPN Error: Can’t Establish Connection, Change Network Settings (Windows OS Hub)
Freebies!!
Got a freebie you want to offer our readers? You can reach almost 200,000 IT pros worldwide with our newsletter—email us!
Ready to try Google Cloud? Start your free trial today!
Try out SANS Security Awareness Training for free for 30 days!
Factoid: With homage to Miles
Our previous factoid was this:
Fact: Buttons beat touchscreens in cars, and now there’s data to prove it (Ars Technica)
Question: Do any readers of our newsletter actually prefer in-car touchscreens to plain old physical buttons, and if so, why?
Several of our newsletter readers responded to this one. Michael Hallsted for example said:
Touchscreens are pretty much everywhere now. Aargh, I must be getting old, I prefer function over form any day of the week. Physical buttons, physical knobs, shoot, give me a good ol’ toggle switch. Touchscreens can be so “touchy” that, sometimes, I’m not sure if I pressed it right. LOL sort of thing. My twitchy fat fingers just don’t like them thar touchscreens. Anyway, thanks again for the newsletter.
Michael also recommended a free software tool our readers might be interested in learning about. See the IT Workshop section above for this. Meanwhile here’s a much longer comment on touch screens vs buttons from Wayne Hanks who lives in Perth, Australia:
Ah the old button/versus screen debate. With the focus on mobile phones being a major distraction for drivers, I am surprised that car companies are allowed to use touch screens solely for information and controls.
I have a fairly old Landcruiser Prado, which has a combination of buttons and touch screen to control not only the sound system but navigation,various external cameras and telephone. The buttons take you to the area you want to be in (Maps, phone, audio, etc) and the touch screen changes based on this. Even so, it can take your attention off the road when you need to change something as you still need to look at the screen to make sure you are pressing the right spot on the screen.
I see the attraction for manufacturers with touch screens as they do not have mechanical (or electronic) linkages to break and can be relatively easily reprogrammed over the air even. The problem is that sometimes the screen becomes so busy that you are distracted from your chief role, driving and watching out for the other idiots on the road. I feel that a combination of tactile switches for the gross functions and big chunky screen graphics (ala Apple Carplay or Android Auto) allow for the best of both worlds. Also some way to bypass the blocking of typing whilst driving so that your passenger can type in addresses while you are moving. Even if it is a second display that is only visible to the passenger. I find that this can be extremely annoying for my passenger ( generally my wife) because I am happy to hand over the music and navigation roles to someone who is not occupied in controlling the vehicle.
I have taken to using the Waze app on my mobile because it is constantly updated (uses Google maps) and I can easily tell it where I want to go on the move using the google voice control. Bonus is that it displays upcoming obstructions (road works and stationary vehicles) and police speed traps 🙂
My wife recently took delivery of a new Kia Stonic for work and I am happy to say it still makes use of a combination of touch screen and physical buttons. However there are multiple screens that need to be addressed as the driver’s display also has a menu option for turning various functions on and off. For example, we regularly put out sales signs on a weekend, and the automatic locking mechanism (when the car reaches a certain speed the doors are locked) was a major PITA as we had to remember to unlock all the doors before getting out of the car. Fortunately there was a function in the driver menu that allowed us to turn this off 🙂 so the doors stay unlocked. Obviously this functionality is useful if you are driving in an area that you do not feel comfortable in, or if you have young children in the car who might open the door at speed, but most people are not too fussed. However it still has the annoying passenger lockout from typing whilst moving.
Now let’s move on to this week’s factoid:
Fact: Dangers from blue light exposure worsen with age: ‘Detrimental to human health’
Source: https://studyfinds.org/blue-light-expsoure-harmful/
Question: Do you experience any negative effects from blue light? Has using a tool like f.lux made it easier for you to sleep well after a busy day on the computer? Does playing Kind of Blue by Miles Davis help you fall asleep?
Email us your answer and we’ll include it in our next issue!
Fun videos from Flixxy
Top Gun with a Cat – A parody of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ – with scenes from the original movie – starring OwlKitty.
https://www.flixxy.com/top-gun-with-a-cat.htm
0% Luck – 100% Skill – From drawing the perfect circle to incredible driving skills, these people have the most amazing skills and talent!
https://www.flixxy.com/0-percent-luck-100-percent-skill.htm
Visualizing The Speed Of Light On Earth – How would it look like if you could travel around the earth at the speed of light?
https://www.flixxy.com/visualizing-the-speed-of-light-on-earth.htm
Dancing With The Early Stars – The best classic movie stars dancing to ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Is King’ by the Electric Light Orchestra.
https://www.flixxy.com/dancing-with-the-early-stars-rock-n-roll-is-king.htm
And Finally
The odd, the stupid and the remarkable. Good for your mental health.
23-Year-Old ‘Crypto King’ Has Luxury Cars Seized After $35 Million of Investor Money (Gizmodo)
https://gizmodo.com/crypto-king-bitcoin-price-luxury-cars-seized-35-million-1849561634
[Here we go again, another “free rider” scams us gullible Canadians—sheesh!]
Scottish Nightclub Will Now be Powered by Dancers’ Body Heat (MixMag)
https://mixmag.net/read/glasgow-music-venue-powered-by-dancing-news
[And they serve free Solyent Green hors d’oeuvres to accompany martinis!]
Japan Declares ‘War’ on the Humble Floppy Disk in New Digitization Push (Bloomberg)
[Doesn’t the Japanese constitution prohibit that?]
Scientists Find Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Hiding In the Sun’s Glare (Gizmodo)
https://gizmodo.com/scientists-find-potentially-hazardous-asteroid-hiding-i-1849722873
[Maybe aliens hid it there.]
Hey reader! Got an amazing or weird or funny link you’d like to suggest for this section of our newsletter? Email us! But please make sure that it’s G-rated as in “Gee whiz”, “Golly!”, “Good grief!”, “Gaaahh!!” and so on. Thanks!
Please tell others about WServerNews!
We hope you enjoyed this issue of WServerNews! Feel free to send us feedback on any of the topics we’ve covered—we love hearing from our readers! And please tell others about WServerNews! It’s free and always will be free—and they can subscribe to it here. Thanks!!!