How to install and configure Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)

Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) are a “must have” feature in business environments. WSUS dramatically improve network bandwidth effiency and allow a granular control of the updates.

Setting up WSUS is not difficult but involves several steps, especially if you are configuring the services for an existing Active Directory Domain.

We have three major steps to complete.
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How to configure an FTP server on FreeNAS

FreeNAS is a powerful operating system to build customizable NAS solutions. With this tutorial we are going to see how to configure an FTP server to allow a user or a group of users to store and download data to/from the NAS.

The configuration will take a few minutes but it’s not as intuitive as it should be.
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Configure a multiscope DHCP server to work with VLANs on Windows Server 2012

In order to take advantage of the full capabilities of LAN segmentation (VLAN), you need to properly configure a DHCP server with different scopes (multiscope setup). Windows Server offers a simple solution to the problem and we are going to see how to perform the operation.

Before starting, it’s important to say you need a configured layer-3 switch with multiple VLANs (check this tutorial for further information). Following these steps you’ll be able to automatically assign VLAN-aware IP addresses to the devices connected at the physical ports of the switch. The switch will also need to forward DHCP requests to the Windows Server.
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How to create an iSCSI target on Windows Server 2012

iSCSI is a powerful technology that may come in handy even for sharing a network volume to a bunch of users. While iSCSI was developed for much more complex operations, being able to connect a network volume to a client PC has its advantages over a network share.

Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 can “natively” manage iSCSI targets while older versions needed the installation a Microsoft package.

In this tutorial we’ll see how to create an iSCSI target and how to connect a client PC to it.
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The best temperature for your HDs

Flash storage has become more affordable and reliable than it was, but still tons of data are saved on mechanical HDs. In order to get the maximum lifespan from your hardware it’s important to have stable temperature in your server room.

But what temperature is the best?

If we talk about air temperature, we can’t give you an answer. Because the temperature of your HDs may vary depending on case ventilation, hardware density and dissipation. The delta between air temperature and HD temperature isn’t fixed, of course.

Talking about HD temperature, we can get useful insights from a Google research paper that is – sadly – no longer available online. But you’re lucky because we have a copy you can download from here.

Google has literally tons and tons of hardware in its datacenters, so we can consider these tests reliable. They found that temperature and workload have little effects on drive lifespan.

Contrary to previously reported results, we found very little correlation between failure rates and either elevated temperature or activity levels.

Surprisingly, the temperature range that seems to achieve the highest reliability is between 25 and 35 celsius degrees. Temperature lower than 25° brings higher failure rates.

High activity levels didn’t cause high failure rate.

The paper is dated to February 2007 so it refers to almost a decade old HDs. Anyway, while data density improved, HD technology isn’t much different from its past so we can consider the insights useful.

With this data is possible to optimize hardware costs, air condintioning doesn’t come for cheap and a datacenter a couple of degrees hotter may result in important savings.

Active Directory: how to restrict sites in IE 10 and IE 11 with a Group Policy

Site restrictions are common in business networks. Mangers and entrepreneurs want to limit potential distractions and Microsoft offers a range of solutions to achieve the objective. An usual practice is to adopt a proxy server but you can enforce site restrictions on Internet Explorer – even the latest versions – using a simple Active Directory Group Policy.

In this tutorial we’ll take advantage of the Content Advisor functionalities of Internet Explorer, a feature Microsoft hid in IE 10 and IE 11.
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