Migrating to the cloud? Start with a readiness assessment

 This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

After careful consideration you’ve decided it’s time to migrate a major on-premise software solution to the cloud. But how do you create and execute a plan to make sure your migration stays on time, on budget, and delivers on your expectations? Effective planning is critical, and it should start with a thorough assessment of your infrastructure by an experienced vendor who understands your specific objectives.

Usually available as a service engagement from a hosting vendor or, better yet, from the software vendor whose solution is being migrated to the cloud, this cloud readiness assessment is part checklist and part roadmap. It audits the entire environment so you can plan and execute an efficient and effective migration.

Why should you consider such a service? It takes the pressure off. Too many organizations attempt to go it alone, which usually means asking overworked IT staff to try to “fit it in.” Today, the average IT department is already responsible for multiple systems, often as many as seven or eight. Trying to add a project as large and complex as an enterprise cloud migration to is simply not realistic. Not only is that approach a disservice to those tasked with making it happen, it also sends the wrong message about the size and importance of the project. Future problems are usually inevitable.

A cloud readiness assessment may also help you achieve a faster time to value. Remember, when you go to a SaaS model, ROI has a completely different meaning. For example, you are no longer looking to recover your long-term capital investment, but instead, expecting to gain instant value from your new OpEx spending. A cloud readiness assessment can help you carefully plan the migration so you can achieve a faster time to value.

Finally, a vendor’s cloud readiness team can usually deliver skills and specialized expertise required for the specific solution that you or hosting provider might not have in-house. These teams are truly cross-functional, with a mix of expertise in project management, technical implementations, business processes, industry-specific insights, and more. Additionally, these teams usually have dozens, if not hundreds, of migrations under their belts.

While no one can say they’ve seen it all, these teams are typically astute and can help you identify potential obstacles – challenges you may not have been aware of – before they become unmanageable.

For example, a cloud readiness team will carefully evaluate your existing environment and document all aspects of your infrastructure that could be affected. This includes your entire architecture, including databases, applications, networks, specialized hardware, third-party interfaces, extensions, customizations, and more. Then, they create a comprehensive report that details these findings as well as their recommended action plan to achieve the most successful migration possible.

Cloud readiness in action
To better understand how a cloud readiness offering could work – and its ultimate benefits – consider the example of moving an on-premise workforce management solution to the cloud. Workforce management solutions are generally large, enterprise-level implementations that span employee-focused areas such as time and attendance, absence management, HR, payroll, hiring, scheduling, and labor analytics.

The example of workforce management is especially relevant because recent research shows that an increasing number of workforce management buyers are adopting SaaS tools. Research shows that SaaS will be the main driver in growing the global workforce management market by almost $1.5 billion from 2013 to 2018. Additionally, Gartner research indicates, through 2017, the number of organizations using external providers to deliver cloud-related services will rise to 91 percent to mitigate cost and security risks as well as to meet business goals and desired outcomes.

This research demonstrates that a majority of companies will soon be moving their on-premise workforce management systems to the cloud. But will they be successful?

They have to be. Workforce management systems manage processes and data related to paying employees, managing their time and balances, storing sensitive HR information, complying with industry regulations, and other critical functions. Errors can be extremely costly, especially if they lead to missing paychecks, employee morale issues, lost productivity, grievances and compliance, or even potential lawsuits. Failure is simply not an option.

A cloud readiness service is the perfect way to minimize these risks and maximize the results. Specifically, a readiness service is ideally suited to address specialized areas of a workforce management deployment, including:

* Data collection terminals. While many employees still refer to these as “timeclocks,” the fact is that today’s data collection devices are sophisticated proprietary technology consisting of hardware, software, and network/communication capabilities. As part of a migration, a readiness audit would assess the organization’s data collection methods. It would also provide recommendations for transitioning them to a secure network model that meets the organization’s security and performance objectives while ensuring that service is not interrupted when the switchover occurs.

* Interfaces and integrations. Like other enterprise-level technology, workforce management solutions tend to use many different interfaces and custom integrations to feed applications such as ERP systems, outside payroll systems, or third-party analytics applications. In this example, the readiness assessment evaluates the entire integration strategy, including database settings, to make sure mission-critical data continues to flow to support existing business processes.

* Customizations and configurations. Most organizations have custom reports, products, or database tables. Here, the cloud readiness service will thoroughly review existing customizations and configurations, and will provide recommendations to maintain, or even improve, the value they deliver.

When it comes to something as significant — and important — as migrating a major enterprise solution to the cloud, don’t go it alone. Investing in a cloud readiness service can help you assess where you stand today, plan for the migration, and execute against the plan. This helps free up valuable IT resources to focus on what’s really important – implementing strategic initiatives to help the business grow.

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Your next digital security guard should be more like RoboCop

Machine intelligence can be used to police networks and fill gaps where the available resources and capabilities of human intelligence are clearly falling short

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

Humans are clearly incapable of monitoring and identifying every threat on today’s vast and complex networks using traditional security tools. We need to enhance human capabilities by augmenting them with machine intelligence. Mixing man and machine – in some ways, similar to what OmniCorp did with RoboCop – can heighten our ability to identify and stop a threat before it’s too late.

The “dumb” tools that organizations rely on today are simply ineffective. There are two consistent, yet still surprising things that make this ineptitude fairly apparent. The first is the amount of time hackers have free reign within a system before being detected: eight months at Premera and P.F. Chang’s, six months at Nieman Marcus, five months at Home Depot, and the list goes on.

The second surprise is the response. Everyone usually looks backwards, trying to figure out how the external actors got in. Finding the proverbial leak and plugging it is obviously important, but this approach only treats a symptom instead of curing the disease.

The disease, in this case, is the growing faction of hackers that are getting so good at what they do they can infiltrate a network and roam around freely, accessing more files and data than even most internal employees have access to. If it took months for Premera, Sony, Target and others to detect these bad actors in their networks and begin to patch the holes that let them in, how can they be sure that another group didn’t find another hole? How do they know other groups aren’t pilfering data right now? Today, they can’t know for sure.

The typical response
Until recently, companies have really only had one option as a response to rising threats, a response that most organizations still employ. They re-harden systems, ratchet-up firewall and IDS/IPS rules and thresholds, and put stricter web proxy and VPN policies in place. But by doing this they drown their incident response teams in alerts.

Tightening policies and adding to the number of scenarios that will raise a red flag just makes the job more difficult for security teams that are already stretched thin. This causes thousands of false positives every day, making it physically impossible to investigate every one. As recent high profile attacks have proven, the deluge of alerts is helping malicious activity slip through the cracks because, even when it is “caught,” nothing is being done about it.

In addition, clamping down on security rules and procedures just wastes everyone’s time. By design, tighter policies will restrict access to data, and in many cases, that data is what employees need to do their jobs well. Employees and departments will start asking for the tools and information they need, wasting precious time for them and the IT/security teams that have to vet every request.

Putting RoboCop on the case
Machine intelligence can be used to police massive networks and help fill gaps where the available resources and capabilities of human intelligence are clearly falling short. It’s a bit like letting RoboCop police the streets, but in this case the main armament is statistical algorithms. More specifically, statistics can be used to identify abnormal and potentially malicious activity as it occurs.

According to Dave Shackleford, an analyst at SANS Institute and author of its 2014 Analytics and Intelligence Survey, "one of the biggest challenges security organizations face is lack of visibility into what's happening in the environment." The survey of 350 IT professionals asked why they have difficulty identifying threats and a top response was their inability to understand and baseline “normal behavior.” It’s something that humans just can’t do in complex environments, and since we’re not able to distinguish normal behavior, we can’t see abnormal behavior.

Instead of relying on humans looking at graphs on big screen monitors, or human-defined rules and thresholds to raise flags, machines can learn what normal behavior looks like, adjusting in real time and becoming smarter as they processes more information. What’s more, machines possess the speed required to process the massive amount of information that networks create, and they can do it in near-real time. Some networks process terabytes of data every second, while humans, on the other hand, can process no more than 60 bits per second.

Putting aside the need for speed and capacity, a larger issue with the traditional way of monitoring for security issues is rules are dumb. That’s not just name calling either, they’re literally dumb. Humans set rules that tell the machine how to act and what to do – the speed and processing capacity is irrelevant. While rule-based monitoring systems can be very complex, they’re still built on a basic “if this, then do that” formula. Enabling machines to think for themselves and feed better data and insight to the humans that rely on them is what will really improve security.

It’s almost absurd to not have a layer of security that thinks for itself. Imagine in the physical world if someone was crossing the border every day with a wheelbarrow full of dirt and the customs agents, being diligent at their jobs and following the rules, were sifting through that dirt day after day, never finding what they thought they were looking for. Even though that same person repeatedly crosses the border with a wheelbarrow full of dirt, no one ever thinks to look at the wheelbarrow. If they had, they would have quickly learned he’s been stealing wheelbarrows the whole time!

Just because no one told the customs agents to look for stolen wheelbarrows doesn’t make it OK, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20. In the digital world, we don’t have to rely on hindsight anymore, especially now that we have the power to put machine intelligence to work and recognize anomalies that could be occurring right under our noses. In order for cyber-security to be effective today, it needs at least a basic level of intelligence. Machines that learn on their own and detect anomalous activity can find the “wheelbarrow thief” that might be slowly syphoning data, even if you don’t specifically know that you’re looking for him.

Anomaly detection is among the first technology categories where machine learning is being put to use to enhance network and application security. It’s a form of advanced security analytics, which is a term that’s used quite frequently. However, there are a few requirements this type of technology must meet to truly be considered “advanced.” It must be easily deployed to operate continuously, against a broad array of data types and sources, and at huge data scales to produce high fidelity insights so as not to further add to the alert blindness already confronting security teams.

Leading analysts agree that machine learning will soon be a “need to have” in order to protect a network. In a Nov. 2014 Gartner report titled, “Add New Performance Metrics to Manage Machine-Learning-Enabled Systems,” analyst Will Cappelli directly states, “machine learning functionality will, over the next five years, gradually become pervasive and, in the process, fundamentally modify system performance and cost characteristics.”

While machine learning is certainly not a silver bullet that will solve all security challenges, there’s no doubt it will provide better information to help humans make better decisions. Let’s stop asking people to do the impossible and let machine intelligence step in to help get the job done.

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Is your social media presence hurting your job search?

You hear a lot about what you shouldn't post on social media, but employers are starting to grow weary of hiring candidates who lack a social presence all together. Take control of your brand by balancing your personal and professional image to attract recruiters.

Social media can make or break your career. We’ve all heard at least one story of an employee getting fired over a Tweet or Facebook post. And when you apply to a job, most hiring managers will first turn to Google to vet your background and qualifications.

Whichever way you swing it, you can’t avoid social media anymore, and how you manage -- or don’t manage -- your social presence can make or break your job hunt. It’s time to take control of your image and start thinking of social media as personal branding.

Why does it matter?
Managing a Twitter feed and updating your LinkedIn profile might not seem important, but these outlets have become strong elements in recruitment. If you have a lax attitude to your social media accounts, it can hurt you just as much as having no social presence at all.

According to a 2015 survey from CareerBuilder of more than 2,000 employers, “35-percent of employers say they are less likely to interview job candidates if they are unable to find information about that person online.”

You might think keeping your personal profiles set to private is the right thing to do, but many employers are starting to view a lack of public social presence as a red flag.

Take control of your brand
It’s important to be aware of your social presence and to take control of what you put out there. Recruiters aren’t really searching for salacious details about your life; most are looking to confirm that your skills and qualifications make you the best person for the job.

John Jersin, former Google executive and current CEO of Connectifier, says “you should have updated and accurate information everywhere someone might look. It helps you look consistent and organized, but it also gives you an opportunity to briefly emphasize important parts of your resume.”

And don’t forget, just because hiring managers and recruiters might be checking your social profiles, that doesn’t mean you can’t take a look at theirs. Learning more about the company you are working for as well as the hiring manager or recruiter can better prepare you for the interview.

Industry matters
In CareerBuilder’s survey, 76 percent of information technology recruiters and 64 percent of financial services recruiters turned to social media to find and vet potential candidates. Other industries that rely heavily on social media include sales, professional and business services, manufacturing, healthcare and retail. If you work in any of these industries, it’s definitely time to take your social media seriously.

Get Recruited
If you aren’t actively searching for a new job, but are open to interesting positions, maintaining a strong social presence can help recruiters find you. Controlling your personal brand can help ensure that potential job offers come straight to your inbox, rather than finding job listings and applying directly.

You should take note of not only LinkedIn as a strong recruitment platform, but Twitter as well. More recruiters are turning to Twitter to find potential candidates, and it is quickly becoming a resource for job seekers and recruiters.

In a recent study, Twitter was cited as having more job listings than any other platform, and 174 of the companies on the Fortune 500 have a dedicated Twitter account for recruitment. Your Twitter profile might not only help you find an opening with a company, but it might help the company find you.

A little mystery is good
Don’t run off and unlock all of your social media profiles right away. Some things are better left private, such as your Facebook profile or a personal Twitter account.

Dawn Edmiston, clinical associate professor of marketing at the College of William and Mary, says “I would definitely wonder about the background of a tech professional who had zero presence on social media, rather than the individual who has a well-managed LinkedIn and Twitter presence, but prefers that their personal social media such as Facebook remains private.”

The keyword here is “well-managed,” try to draw a line between your professional image and your personal image. Keeping your Facebook account private is probably a smart idea, but you might consider having two separate Twitter accounts – one professional and one personal.

What are they looking for?
The CareerBuilder study also revealed the top five things recruiters are looking for in your social profile, which includes inappropriate photos, alcohol or drug use, negative posts about past employers or coworkers, a lack of communication skills as well as any discriminatory or inflammatory content regarding race, gender, religion, and other issues.

“Forty-eight percent of hiring managers who screen candidates via social networks said they’ve found information that caused them not to hire a candidate -- down slightly from 51 percent last year,” according to CareerBuilder.

However, the survey also revealed what type of social content made recruiters move forward with a candidate. This included any background information that supported the candidate’s qualifications, signs that the candidate’s personality would be a good fit for the company, a professional image, strong communication skills, and creativity.

Proving to recruiters that you can maintain professionalism on social media is a good sign that you will carry that over into your working life.

Time to get on board
If you’re waiting to see if social media is a passing phase, you’re going to be left behind. Recruiters using social media to find candidates has gone up 43 percent since last year and 39-percent since 2013, according to CareerBuilder.

“Researching candidates via social media and other online sources has transformed from an emerging trend to a staple of online recruitment,” said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder.

It’s time to get smart about your social presence and view it as a personal brand, rather than a personal outlet.

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Exam 70-243 Administering and Deploying System Center 2012 Configuration Manager

Exam 70-243 Administering and Deploying System Center 2012 Configuration Manager

Published: 16 April 2012
Languages: English
Audiences: IT professionals
Technology: Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
Credit towards certification: MCTS

Skills measured
This exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below. The percentages indicate the relative weight of each major topic area in the exam. The higher the percentage, the more questions you are likely to see on that content area in the exam.

Please note that the questions may test on, but will not be limited to, the topics described in the bulleted text.

Design and plan System Center Configuration Manager infrastructure (10–15%)

Plan System Center Configuration Manager hierarchy and site system roles

Pre-installation requirements, examining the current computing environment, CAS, primary and secondary sites, branch cache, designing and recommending System Center Configuration Manager server architecture, extending the Active Directory schema (DNS service records, WINS), managed providers, discovery methods and planning migration

Plan and configure security

PKI or self-signed certificates, HTTP or HTTPs implementation, NAP, FEP and planning role-based security

Define the Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

Disaster recovery and site maintenance

Preparation resources

Planning for Configuration Manager sites and hierarchy
Security and privacy for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
Backup and recovery in Configuration Manager

Manage operating system deployment (OSD) (10–15%)

Configure the OSD environment

Configuring WDS, configuring PXE, configuring the VM build environment and integrating with MDT

Build and capture an image

Updating base images, task sequences

Deploy an image

New (bare metal) and upgrade images, VHD deployment

Manage images

Drivers, servicing

Preparation resources

Planning for PXE-initiated operating system deployments in Configuration Manager
Planning for Deploying operating system images in Configuration Manager
Planning for boot image deployments in Configuration Manager

Deploy applications and software updates (10–15%)

Create an application

Defining deployment types, deploying applications to RDSH, MSI, and App-V, and converting a package

Deploy an application

User device affinity, compliance settings, Software Center and task sequences

Monitor application deployment

Resolving issues, managing application distribution points, distribution point groups, Content Library, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), log files and In Console Monitoring

Manage the software library and application catalogue

Web portal configuration, work schedule and definition of primary machines for users

Create and monitor software updates

Automatic Deployment Rules (ADR), SSRS, creating update groups, creating deployment packages, log files and In Console Monitoring

Configure FEP clients by using System Center Configuration Manager

Creating and managing policy by using Configuration Manager, configuring definitions within the client policy, exporting from Configuration Manager, choosing which template to use and select exclusions

Preparation resources

How to deploy applications in Configuration Manager
Software updates in Configuration Manager
Configuring Endpoint Protection in Configuration Manager

Manage compliance settings (10–15%)

Build a Configuration Item (CI)

Creating a CI, importing a CI, setting CI versioning and remediation rules

Create and monitor a baseline

Importing a configuration pack, building a custom baseline, SSRS, log files, In Console Monitoring, deploying a baseline

Preparation resources

Compliance settings in Configuration Manager
How to create Windows configuration items for compliance settings in Configuration Manager
How to monitor for compliance settings in Configuration Manager

Manage sites (10–15%)

Manage collections

Setting maintenance windows, defining rules for collections (collection membership, query-based collections), collection-specific settings

Monitor site health

SSRS, log files, In Console Monitoring, Toolkit

Configure software updates

Sync schedule, catalogues, products, WSUS and superseded updates

Manage site communications

Configuring bandwidth settings for a site address, configuring senders, secondary sites (file-based replication, SQL replication paths), resolving DP connections

Manage boundary groups

Creating boundary groups, using boundary groups in more than one DP, client roaming, Internet-based clients

Manage role-based security

Security scopes, custom roles, cloned security roles and permissions

Preparation resources

Site administration for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
Configuring software updates in Configuration Manager
Implementing role-based administration

Manage clients (10–15%)

Deploy clients

GPO, WSUS, logon scripts, manual, client push, OSD task sequence, monitoring client health

Manage mobile devices

Enrolling mobile devices, Exchange Connector, AMT enrolment point (out-of-band management) and wiping mobile devices

Manage client agent settings

Desired configuration settings, mobile device client agent, NAP client agent, configuring power management, configuring remote control agent, hardware inventory agent, software inventory agent, software metering agent, advertised programs agent, computer agent

Preparation resources

Deploying clients for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
System Center: Managing mobile devices
Deploying and managing ConfigMgr clients

Manage inventory (10–15%)

Manage hardware inventory

Configuring MOF, export and import settings, enabling or disabling WMI classes, extending hardware inventory to other client assets, WMI or registry reporting

Manage software inventory

Standardised vendor name, list of tracked inventory, report inventory data, asset intelligence, software metering (enable or disable rules, report software metering results)

Monitor inventory data flow

Client-to-site, site-to-site

Preparation resources

Hardware inventory in Configuration Manager
Software inventory in Configuration Manager
Technical reference for site communications in Configuration Manager

Manage reports and queries (10–15%)

Build queries

Console queries, WQL, sub-selects

Create reports

Cloning and modifying reports, creating custom reports, import and export reports

Manage SSRS

Configuring security, configuring caching, configuring subscriptions

Preparation resources

Configuring reporting in Configuration Manager
Reporting in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1
How to create queries in Configuration Manager

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QUESTION 1
You recently migrated from System Center Configuration Manager 2007 to System Center 2012
Configuration Manager. Your network contains a client computer that runs the 64-bit version of
Windows 7 and the 32-brt version of Widows 7. Some client computers have the Microsoft Application
Virtualization (App-V) client installed. You have an Application named App1. You have a 64-bit version
of App1, a 32-bit version of App1, and a virtual version of App1. You need to deploy the Application to
all of the client computers. The solution must minimize the amount of administrative effort. What should
you do?

A. Create a new Application that has three different deployment types and create a target collection
for each of the deployment types.
B. Create a new Application that has three different deployment types and configure global
conditions for each of the deployment types.
C. Create a new package for each version of App1.
D. Create a new Application for each version of App1.

Answer: B

Explanation:
Applications contain multiple deployment types that contain the files and commands necessary to
install the software. For example, deployment types for a local installation , a virtual application
package or a version of the application for mobile devices. MSI 64, 32 deployment types
Deploy multiple type to multiple collection ( x64, x32, VirtualUserCollection) You don’t choose to deploy
a specific deployment type. Instead, you deploy the application itself. It’s pretty simple in this case, with
only one deployment type, as it’s fairly obvious which one will be installed. But if you had multiple
deployment types, you would need to specify rules to determine which one is used.

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QUESTION 2
You have an Application named App1. You need to ensure that users in the finance department can
install App1 by using the Application Catalog. What should you do?

A. Create a required user deployment and target the deployment to all of the finance department users.
B. Create a required user deployment and target the deployment to all of the client computers in the finance department.
C. Create an available user deployment and target the deployment to all of the finance department users.
D. Create an available user deployment and target the deployment to all of the client computers in the finance department.

Answer: C

Explanation:
By selecting “Available” it will be selectable for the users in the Application Catalog. The “Required”
option would force the installation to all users in the finance department.

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QUESTION 3
Your company uses System Center 2012 Configuration Manager with Microsoft Forefront Endpoint
Protection integration. You deploy Forefront Endpoint Protection to all client computers. The company
uses a management Application named App1. You discover that Forefront Endpoint Protection blocks
App1. You need to ensure that App1 can run. How should you configure the Default Client Malware
Policy? (Each correct answer presents a complete solution. Choose two.)

A. Create a software restriction policy.
B. Add a process exclusion.
C. Add a file location exclusion.
D. Modify the schedule scan settings.
E. Click the Use behavior monitoring check box.

Answer: BC

Explanation:

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QUESTION 4
Your network contains a System Center 2012 Configuration Manager environment. You deploy a
Microsoft Office 2007 package to all client computers by using Configuration Manager. Your company
purchases Office 2010. You need to ensure that all users can install Office 2010 from the Application
Catalog. What should you do?

A. Deploy a new package for Office 2010.
B. Deploy Office 2010 by using a Group Policy Object (GPO).
C. Update the Office 2007 source file and redeploy the package.
D. Deploy a new Application for Office 2010.

Answer: D

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QUESTION 5
You deploy Windows 7 by using Operating System Deployment (OSD). The development task
sequence contains steps to install software updates and Applications. The amount of time required to
deploy the Windows 7 image has increased significantly during the last six months. You need to
recommend a solution to reduce the amount of time it takes to deploy the image. What should you
recommend?

A. Synchronize software updates before deploying the image.
B. Use offline servicing for the image.
C. Create a new automatic deployment rule.
D. Add an additional Install Software Updates step to the deployment task sequence.

Answer: B

Explanation:
By updating an image in the Software Library instead of performing a new build and capture of the
operating system image you will gain a few distinct advantages. You will be able to reduce the risk of
vulnerabilities during operating system deployments and reduce the overall operating system
deployment to the end user. You will also reduce the administrative effort to maintain your operating
system images. The feature is applicable for Component Based Servicing (CBS) updates and for the
following operating systems:
Microsoft Windows Vista SP2 and later
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2 and later
Microsoft Windows 7 RTM
Microsoft Windows 2008 R2
* At the launch of ConfigMgr 2012 Beta 2 Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
are not supported. They will be supported with Configuration Manager 2012 RTM.