Latest Postings
November 4 2008
This is exactly the question that I asked Tom Shinder, a Microsoft MVP on the Forefront Security product. He spent some time and came up with this posting for us to help you understand Microsoft’s offering around Forefront.
What is Microsoft Forefront?
Have you heard friends or colleagues mention Microsoft Forefront and wonder what they were talking about? If so, you’re not alone, as Microsoft Forefront is relatively new and just beginning to get real traction in the network security market.
The first thing you need to know is that there is no “Forefront” product. Instead, Forefront is a collection of Microsoft security products. This collection of Forefront security products is referred to as the “Forefront Security Suite”
More »
September 25 2008
It’s often we have requests from customers on Proclarity, but few know that it is part of a much more complete Business Intelligence (BI) package from Microsoft called Microsoft PerformancePoint Server. This solution encompasses more than just traditional charts and graphs. It provides modules that integrate with the applications you use on a daily basis. Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007 is built from Microsoft’s Proclarity Analytics product.
Traditionally we think of BI as just the reports we run off of our database. While this model works, it is a limited view of what it can provide your organization. This is why Microsoft has invested heavily in this space and came up with PerformancePoint. Their goal was to provide a tool that can become a framework for delivering reporting across your organization. Without a standard tool it is difficult to see trends in your data outside of your group.
How many excel reports do you get? Do you use more than 1 tool to perform reports within your company? Do you have Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Reporting Services but only have a few reports to show for it? PerformancePoint is a solution that can give you a consistent, common data model to work from for monitoring, analytics and planning.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are tools you can use to make quick decisions. The challenges are getting all of this information in a format that can be used for reporting. The other challenge is how to disseminate this information to the masses in a way that is secure, easy to understand and highlights the right information. This is one of the many features such as dashboards and scorecarding built into PerformancePoint. You can deliver this information via SharePoint Web Services to your employees, also incorporating security from the various sources such as Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Reporting Services.
Finally, if your business has to do financial reporting, this is a tool that can help you with the planning and delivering of these reports.
ISInc has recently put together a number of PerformancePoint courses that will help you get up to speed on all of the available features in this application. We have courses on just the planning modules, or on the end-to-end solution. This is a great compliment to SharePoint Training.
September 17 2008
Did you plan on how you would train your employees for an upcoming software migration/upgrade?
More »
August 5 2008
DOD 8570 Requirements and Training
– The Department of Defense has put together a requirements list for anyone who works in Information Architecture (IA). You have to obtain at least one of the “approved certifications” to meet the minimum requirements for each category.
They have skills broken down into 6 certifications:
- Technical Level 1
- Technical Level 2
- Technical Level 3
- Management Level 1
- Management Level 2
- Management Level 3
Each of these levels requires you to have at a minimum one of the professional certifications listed below:
Technical Level 1
- A+ – CompTIA A+
- Network+ – CompTIA Network+
- TICSA – TruSecure ICSA Certified Security Associate
- SSCP – System Security Certified Practitioner
Technical Level 2
- GSEC – GIAC Security Essentials Certification
- Security+ – CompTIA Security+
- SCNP – Security Certified Network Professional
- SSCP – System Security Certified Practitioner
Technical Level 3
- CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional
- SCNA – Security Certified Network Architect
- GISO – GIAC Information Security Officer
- GSE – GIAC Security Expert
Management Level 1
- GSLC – GIAC Security Leadership Certificate
- Security+ – CompTIA Security+
- GISO – GIAC Information Security Officer
- TISCP – TrueSecure ISCA Certified Security Professional
Management Level 2
- CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional
- GSLC – GIAC Security Leadership Certificate
- CISM – Certified Information Security Manager
Management Level 3
- CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional
- GSLC – GIAC Security Leadership Certificate
- CISM – Certified Information Security Manager
If you need to quickly get one of these certifications and you don’t see the class on our public schedule, please contact us. Also, we can provide on-site, customized training to help your group meet these requirements as well as online via our e-Learning training that utilizes Microsoft Lync to create a virtual classroom. Click here for additional information on our e-Learning training.
Please follow the link below for detailed DOD 8570 information:
DOD 8570 FAQ
The full DoD directive 8570 can be read or downloaded online.
April 19 2008
Eclipse is a fantastic IDE for PHP development. The best part is that it is free! It is a Java development environment that can be extended to edit Ruby, Perl, Python, PHP, C++ and many other obscure languages.
I went through a number of hurdles to get my development environment setup, but I came across this posting the other day that highlights all the necessary steps. The article covers SVN, Eclipse, PHP and Mysql installation.
Setup PHP development in Windows
April 11 2008
While working remotely I noticed my bandwidth would drop when I connected to our VPN. It appeared that all internet packets were being routed through our VPN connection. While this normally wouldn’t be a problem, I often found myself downloading large files and my connection performance was limited to the available bandwidth to the VPN connection. That’s when I learned about what a “split tunnel” vpn connection is. I wrote this article to walk you through the process of setting up your VPN to take advantage of this option in Windows Networking. More »
March 18 2008
Information is at the heart of all computer systems. The storage, retrieval and manipulation of information is a core function of virtually all applications whether those applications reside on the desktop, a server, or the web. Most modern applications make use of relational databases (RDBs) to deliver these functions and the computer language that is most often used to with RDBs is SQL (often pronounced as the English word “sequel”). Because of the importance of information management and pervasiveness of RDBs in modern computing a passing familiarity with the SQL language can be a strong benefit to virtually anyone who works with computer technology. More »
February 22 2008
How many times have you banged your head against the keyboard trying to get a Javascript function to work, only to find out the problem was with your browser? There are a number of tools out there that will make your life easier. This is a list that has helped not only my hairline, but my sanity too! More »
February 4 2008
Have you ever had a question from your boss wondering what are the users really finding important on our website?
It becomes even more important if your website sells products. What do you spend your limited marketing dollars on? Do you focus on one product or a suite of products? Do you know if your campaign is successful or not? More »
January 23 2008
As you may have noticed, ISInc.com has gone through a major face lift. For years we were leveraging a home grown website that served us well. But, over time, we found it difficult when users needed to add content to the site. At that point, we started looking at open source projects that might be able to suit our needs.
More »
