Useful Features in Outlook and Exchange

System administrators generally have no problem at all when it comes to performing backups and restores on the server backend – perhaps even with their eyes closed.  While capability upgrades such as increased mailbox sizes and the ability to handle more simultaneous users are undoubtedly important, there is a lot more to be gained in deploying Outlook with Microsoft Exchange.

Today, I want to look at a number of useful features in Outlook and Exchange that you might have missed out on.

Share that Calendar

Want to call a meeting, but unsure about the best time to schedule it?  Why not share calendars with key colleagues?  This will allow you to consult their work schedule for when they will be out of the office or other scheduled meetings, and can be particularly useful for personal assistants.

Enable Threaded View

Microsoft Outlook 2010 comes with the ability to display emails in conversation view.  Depending on your installation parameters, it might not be enabled by default.  To activate it, click on the “View” tab and look out for “Conversations” on the ribbon.  Select “Show as Conversations” to enable it; you can also control how threads are displayed by accessing the settings immediately below it to display conversations from other folders, expand conversations by default or to enable indents.

Encrypt data between Outlook and Exchange Server

The evolving state of security means that the use of encryption to protect network traffic is no longer optional.  Even the relative sanctity of the local area network is no guarantee that local clients might be inadvertently infected with a malware to snoop on local traffic.  Enabling encryption in Microsoft Outlook is simple, and involves selecting the “Encrypt data between Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange” option.  This can be found under the “Security” tab of the “More Settings” button, which can be found on the dialog box for modifying account settings.

Connect to multiple Exchange Servers

In a radical departure from its past stance, Microsoft has incorporated Outlook 2010 with the ability to connect to multiple Exchange accounts.  While the number of users who might benefit from this feature is probably limited, it can be invaluable to power users who need to access multiple user accounts.  In addition, smaller organizations with limited resources can tap into this feature to transition to a new server.

Connect to Exchange via HTTP

Maybe you currently deploy your Microsoft Exchange on the corporate LAN, but you are thinking of hosting it in a data centre to increase its reliability and gain access to cheaper bandwidth.   Or perhaps you want to open up Exchange to the increasing number of laptop-toting users, but are uncomfortable about the level of exposure; the mail server is running other mission critical applications.  The simplest solution here would be to put you Exchange behind a firewall, and allow users to connect via HTTP.  This way, only a minimum number of ports (port 80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS) need to be opened on the firewall.

On Microsoft Outlook, you can access it under the “Account Settings” menu option.  Click on the Exchange mailbox that you want to modify, and click on “Change.”  Then go to “More Settings” and click on the “Connection” tab.  You should see “Outlook Anywhere” near the bottom with the option to “Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP.”  Select the option, after which you will be able to go into “Exchange Proxy Setting” to tweak the settings.  And yes, for heightened security, do ensure that you select “Connect using SSL only.”

Make use of Exchange ActiveSync

An increasing number of smartphones and tablets now come with Exchange ActiveSync, which counts the Palm Pre, Android and the iOS platforms as having implemented support for it.  The capabilities of the latest Exchange ActiveSync specification means that it can reasonably be considered a full-fledged method of accessing Exchange services, on par with the new Exchange 2010 Web interface and Outlook. In fact, it can be said that Exchange ActiveSync encapsulates far more capabilities than traditional email clients deployed using IMAP or POP.  So while it is certainly not without its quirks, Exchange ActiveSync does come with the potential to replace the desktop client in some circumstances.

10 Core Concepts that Every Windows Network Admin Must Know

Introduction

I thought that this article might be helpful for Windows Network Admins out there who need some “brush-up tips” as well as those who are interviewing for network admins jobs to come up with a list of 10 networking concepts that every network admin should know.

So, here is my list of 10 core networking concepts that every Windows Network Admin (or those interviewing for a job as one) must know:

1.     DNS Lookup

The domain naming system (DNS) is a cornerstone of every network infrastructure. DNS maps IP addresses to names and names to IP addresses (forward and reverse respectively). Thus, when you go to a web-page like http://www.windowsnetworking.com, without DNS, that name would not be resolved to an IP address and you would not see the web page. Thus, if DNS is not working “nothing is working” for the end users.

DNS server IP addresses are either manually configured or received via DHCP. If you do an IPCONFIG /ALL in windows, you will see your PC’s DNS server IP addresses.

Figure 1: DNS Servers shown in IPCONFIG output

So, you should know what DNS is, how important it is, and how DNS servers must be configured and/or DNS servers must be working for “almost  anything” to work.

When you perform a ping, you can easily see that the domain name is resolved to an IP (shown in Figure 2).

Figure 2: DNS name resolved to an IP address

For more information on DNS servers, see Brian Posey’s article on DNS Servers.

2.     Ethernet & ARP

Ethernet is the protocol for your local area network (LAN). You have Ethernet network interface cards (NIC) connected to Ethernet cables, running to Ethernet switches which connect everything together. Without a “link light” on the NIC and the switch, nothing is going to work.

MAC addresses (or Physical addresses) are unique strings that identify Ethernet devices. ARP (address resolution protocol) is the protocol that maps Ethernet MAC addresses to IP addresses. When you go to open a web page and get a successful DNS lookup, you know the IP address. Your computer will then perform an ARP request on the network to find out what computer (identified by their Ethernet MAC address, shown in Figure 1 as the Physical address) has that IP address.

3.     IP Addressing and Subnetting

Every computer on a network must have a unique Layer 3 address called an IP address. IP addresses are 4 numbers separated by 3 periods like 1.1.1.1.

Most computers receive their IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS servers from a DHCP server. Of course, to receive that information, your computer must first have network connectivity (a link light on the NIC and switch) and must be configured for DHCP.

You can see my computer’s IP address in Figure 1 where it says IPv4 Address 10.0.1.107. You can also see that I received it via DHCP where it says DHCP Enabled YES.

Larger blocks of IP addresses are broken down into smaller blocks of IP addresses and this is called IP subnetting. I am not going to go into how to do it and you do not need to know how to do it from memory either (unless you are sitting for a certification exam) because you can use an IP subnet calculator, downloaded from the Internet, for free.

4.     Default Gateway

The default gateway, shown in Figure 3 as 10.0.1.1, is where your computer goes to talk to another computer that is not on your local LAN network. That default gateway is your local router. A default gateway address is not required but if it is not present you would not be able to talk to computers outside your network (unless you are using a proxy server).

Figure 3: Network Connection Details

5.     NAT and Private IP Addressing

Today, almost every local LAN network is using Private IP addressing (based on RFC1918) and then translating those private IPs to public IPs with NAT (network address translation). The private IP addresses always start with 192.168.x.x or 172.16-31.x.x or 10.x.x.x (those are the blocks of private IPs defined in RFC1918).

In Figure 2, you can see that we are using private IP addresses because the IP starts with “10”. It is my integrated router/wireless/firewall/switch device that is performing NAT and translating my private IP to my public Internet IP that my router was assigned from my ISP.

6.     Firewalls

Protecting your network from malicious attackers are firewalls. You have software firewalls on your Windows PC or server and you have hardware firewalls inside your router or dedicated appliances. You can think of firewalls as traffic cops that only allow certain types of traffic in that should be in.

For more information on Firewalls, checkout our Firewall articles.

7.     LAN vs WAN

Your local area network (LAN) is usually contained within your building. It may or may not be just one IP subnet. Your LAN is connected by Ethernet switches and you do not need a router for the LAN to function. So, remember, your LAN is “local”.

Your wide area network (WAN) is a “big network” that your LAN is attached to. The Internet is a humongous global WAN. However, most large companies have their own private WAN. WANs span multiple cities, states, countries, and continents. WANs are connected by routers.

8.     Routers

Routers route traffic between different IP subnets. Router work at Layer 3 of the OSI model. Typically, routers route traffic from the LAN to the WAN but, in larger enterprises or campus environments, routers route traffic between multiple IP subnets on the same large LAN.

On small home networks, you can have an integrated router that also offers firewall, multi-port switch, and wireless access point.

For more information on Routers, see Brian Posey’s Network Basics article on Routers.

9.     Switches

Switches work at layer 2 of the OSI model and connect all the devices on the LAN. Switches switch frames based on the destination MAC address for that frame. Switches come in all sizes from small home integrated router/switch/firewall/wireless devices, all the way to very large Cisco Catalyst 6500 series switches.

10. OSI Model encapsulation

One of the core networking concepts is the OSI Model. This is a theoretical model that defines how the various networking protocols, which work at different layers of the model, work together to accomplish communication across a network (like the Internet).

Unlike most of the other concepts above, the OSI model isn’t something that network admins use every day. The OSI model is for those seeking certifications like the Cisco CCNA or when taking some of the Microsoft networking certification tests. OR, if you have an over-zealous interviewer who really wants to quiz you.

To fulfill those wanting to quiz you, here is the OSI model:

• Application – layer 7 – any application using the network, examples include FTP and your web browser
• Presentation – layer 6 – how the data sent is presented, examples include JPG graphics, ASCII, and XML
• Session – layer 5 – for applications that keep track of sessions, examples are applications that use Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) like SQL and Exchange
• Transport – layer 4 -provides reliable communication over the network to make sure that your data actually “gets there” with TCP being the most common transport layer protocol
• Network – layer 3 -takes care of addressing on the network that helps to route the packets with IP being the most common network layer protocol. Routers function at Layer 3.
• Data Link – layer 2 -transfers frames over the network using protocols like Ethernet and PPP. Switches function at layer 2.
• Physical – layer 1 -controls the actual electrical signals sent over the network and includes cables, hubs, and actual network links.

At this point, let me stop degrading the value of the OSI model because, even though it is theoretical, it is critical that network admins understand and be able to visualize how every piece of data on the network travels down, then back up this model. And how, at every layer of the OSI model, all the data from the layer above is encapsulated by the layer below with the additional data from that layer. And, in reverse, as the data travels back up the layer, the data is de-encapsulated.

By understanding this model and how the hardware and software fit together to make a network (like the Internet or your local LAN) work, you can much more efficiently troubleshoot any network. For more information on using the OSI model to troubleshoot a network, see my articles Choose a network troubleshooting methodology and How to use the OSI Model to Troubleshoot Networks.

Summary

I can’t stress enough that if you are interviewing for any job in IT, you should be prepared to answer networking questions. Even if you are not interviewing to be a network admin, you never know when they will send a senior network admin to ask you a few quiz questions to test your knowledge. I can tell you first hand, the questions above are going to be the go-to topics for most network admins to ask you about during a job interview. And, if you are already a windows network admin, hopefully this article serves as an excellent overview of the core networking concepts that you should know. While you may not use these every day, knowledge of these concepts is are going to help you troubleshoot networking problems faster.

An Epigrammatic Account of Sql

An Epigrammatic Account of Sql

The time gone by of SQL begins in an IBM laboratory in San Jose, California, where on earth SQL was urbanized in the late 1970s. The fundamental pose for Structured Query Language and the language itself is time and again referred to as “sequel.” It was in the inauguration built-up for IBM’s DB2 item for consumption as a basic criterion of a relational database management system, or RDBMS.. In fact, SQL creates an RDBMS achievable. SQL is a nonprocedural language, in disparity to the procedural or third-generation languages such as COBOL and C that had been created up to that time. The quality that categorizes a DBMS from an RDBMS is that the RDBMS provides a set-oriented database language. For most RDBMSs, this set-oriented database language is SQL. Two standards association, the American National Standards Institute and the International Standards Organization, currently prop up SQL standards to exchange. The ANSI-92 standard is the customary for the SQL used throughout this article. Although these standard-making bodies systematize standards for database system designers to tag along, all database products differ from the ANSI standard to some degree. In addition, most systems provide some proprietary extensions to SQL that extend the language into a true procedural language. We have used various RDBMSs to prepare the examples in this article to give you an idea of what to expect from the common database systems.

It was an inquiring feeling whether there is a modest background on the evolution of databases and database conjecture would facilitate us value the workings of SQL. Database systems stock up in sequence in every feasible business environment. From outsized pathway databases such as airline proviso systems to a child’s baseball card collection, database systems store and hand out the data that we depend on. Until the last few years, large database systems could be run only on large mainframe computers. These machines have traditionally been expensive to design, purchase, and maintain. However, today’s generation of powerful, inexpensive workstation computers enables programmers to design software that maintains and distributes data quickly and inexpensively.

Replica of Database

1. The largest part of popular data storage model is the relational database, which was bedded on a formative paper named “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks,” written by Dr. E. F. Codd in 1970. SQL steps forward to service on the conception of the relational database introduced by Dr. Codd who had promulgated such new exploration for creating and building object orient programming software to be based on the 13 rules, referred to as Codd’s 12 Rules, for the relational model which are the basic milestone in RDBMS concept.:

2. The following rules have been explored by Dr. Codd which are basically known as ‘Dr. Codd’s Database rules.

1. All information in a relational database (including table and column names) is represented explicitly as values in tables.

2. Every value in a relational database is guaranteed to be accessible by using a combination of the table name, primary key value, and column name.

3. The DBMS provides systematic support for the treatment of null values (unknown or inapplicable data), distinct from default values, and independent of any domain.

4. The description of the database and its contents is represented at the logical level as tables and can therefore be queried using the database language.

5. At least one supported language must have a well-defined syntax and be comprehensive. It must support data definition, manipulation, integrity rules, authorization, and transactions.

6. All views that are theoretically updatable can be updated through the system.

7. The DBMS supports not only set-level retrievals but also set-level inserts, updates, and deletes.

8. Application programs and ad hoc programs are logically unaffected when physical access methods or storage structures are altered.

9. Application programs and ad hoc programs are logically unaffected, to the extent possible, when changes are made to the table structures.

10. The database language must be capable of defining integrity rules. They must be stored in the online catalog, and they cannot be bypassed.

11. Application programs and ad hoc requests are logically unaffected when data is first circulated or when it is reallocate.

12. It ought not to be potential to get around the integrity rules defined through the database language by using lower-level languages.

A good number database has had a “parent/child” relationship; that is, a parent node would contain file pointers to its children. This method has several advantages and many disadvantages. In its favor is the fact that the physical structure of data on a disk becomes unimportant. The programmer simply stores pointers to the next location, so data can be accessed in this manner. Also, data can be added and deleted easily. However, different groups of information could not be easily joined to form new information. The format of the data on the disk could not be arbitrarily changed after the database was created. Doing so would require the creation of a new database structure. Codd’s idea for an RDBMS uses the mathematical concepts of relational algebra to break down data into sets and related common subsets. Because information can naturally be grouped into distinct sets, Dr. Codd organized his database system around this concept. Under the relational model, data is separated into sets that resemble a table structure. This table structure consists of individual data elements called columns or fields. A single set of a group of fields is known as a record or row. For instance, to create a relational database consisting of employee data, you might start with a table called EMPLOYEE that contains the following pieces of information: Name, Age, and Occupation. These three pieces of data make up the fields in the Job holder table.

Job holder table.

Name Age Occupation

Mehedi 12 Electrical engineer

Gias 44 Museum curator

Kaium 42 Assistant Chef

Abdul Karim 29 Student

Mohammad 32 Game programmer

Kamruzzaman 46 Singer

The six rows are the records in the Job holder table.

. To retrieve a specific record from this table, for example, Dave Davidson, a user would instruct the database management system to retrieve the records where the NAME field was equal to Dave Davidson. If the DBMS had been instructed to retrieve all the fields in the record, the employee’s name, age, and occupation would be returned to the user. SQL is the language that tells the database to retrieve this data. A sample SQL statement that makes this query is

SELECT *

FROM EMPLOYEE

It is important to note that the exact syntax is not important at this point. Due to the fact that the various data items can be grouped according to obvious relationships, the relational database model gives the database designer a great deal of flexibility to describe the relationships between the data elements. Through the mathematical concepts of join and union, relational databases can quickly retrieve pieces of data from different sets (tables) and return them to the user or program as one “joined” collection of data. The join feature enables the designer to store sets of information in separate tables to reduce repetition.

Duty table.

Name Duties

Skender Cook

Lily Huq Teacher

Shovon Dancer

Idiorty Superintendent

Designing the Database Structure

The vital decision for a database designer, after the hardware platform and the RDBMS have been preferred, is the structure of the tables. Decisions made at this stage of the design can affect performance and programming later during the development process. The process of separating data into distinct, unique sets is called normalization.

Modern Database Panorama

Computing technology has made a permanent change in the ways businesses work around the world. Information that was at one time stored in warehouses full of filing cabinets can now be accessed instantaneously at the click of a mouse button. Orders placed by customers in foreign countries can now be instantly processed on the floor of a manufacturing facility. Even though 20 years ago much of this information had been transported onto corporate mainframe databases, offices still operated in a batch-processing environment. If a query needed to be performed, someone notified the management information systems (MIS) department; the requested data was delivered as soon as possible. In addition to the development of the relational database model, two technologies led to the rapid growth of what are now called client/server database systems. The first important technology was the personal computer. Inexpensive, easy-to-use applications such as Lotus 1-2-3 and Word Perfect enabled employees (and home computer users) to create documents and manage data quickly and accurately. Users became accustomed to continually upgrading systems because the rate of change was so rapid, even as the price of the more advanced systems continued to fall.

The second important technology was the local area network (LAN) and its integration into offices across the world. Although users were accustomed to terminal connections to a corporate mainframe, now word processing files could be stored locally within an office and accessed from any computer attached to the network. After the Apple