Week Twelve -Final Blog Posting
What is SNMP and Why is it Important in an Enterprise Setting?
Most organizations
have an IT department that runs their technological departments with numerous network
devices that often function after-hours in order to store, send and receive
data from end-users. For this process to function, those devices need to be
constantly monitored in case of an outage or if they do down for one reason or
another.
In this case, IT
departments are forced to rely on a network management software, such as
SolarWinds or AccelOp monitoring software. These applications run on production
servers that operate 24/7 and monitor the organizations IT equipment through
the use of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). SNMP, “is a
communication protocol that lets you monitor managed network devices including
Routers, Switches, Servers, Printers and other devices that are IP enabled all
through a single management system/software, (What is SNMP? Basic Tutorial on NMS, MIBs, OIDs,
Traps & Agents, n.d.) ”.
This week’s post
concludes my assigned blog named “TweakNews.” I have rather enjoyed writing
this blog, as it helps me keep up-to-date with our current IT industries’ happenings
and innovations. Writing this blog didn’t necessarily help me in my current
career as a Support/System Administrator, but it helped keep me updated on the
IT happenings in our world.
Honestly, I cannot
see myself blogging in the future. However, I believe that Blogging is a good
idea for someone that wants to make themselves more “hirable” in this era where
being able to communicate is a highly desirable attribute.
References
What is SNMP? Basic Tutorial on NMS, MIBs, OIDs,
Traps & Agents. (n.d.).
Retrieved from www.pcwdld.com:
https://www.pcwdld.com/what-is-snmp-and-tutorial#versions
What is SNMPWeek Eleven - What is Social Engineering?
According to
Google, social engineering is “the use of deception to manipulate individuals
into divulging confidential or personal information that may be used for
fraudulent purposes. People with an online account should watch for phishing
attacks and other forms of social engineering". There are multiple ways
that malicious entities can employ social engineering attacks, (www.google.com, n.d.) . According to
PCWorld, there are five types of social engineering attacks, (Heary, 2014) .
1)
Familiarity Exploit- The perpetrator makes
others feel as if he/she is their friend and cons them once their guard is
down.
2)
Creating a hostile situation- Method employed to
physically enter a secure area where the perpetrator creates a scene to avoid
being searched or challenged for entry.
3)
Gathering and Using Information- Multiple
methods that perpetrators use to gain personal information from their victims:
social networking, professional networking, public records, following them to
known places, unattended vehicles or other forms of property that has personal
information.
4)
Get a Job There- Perpetrators might get a job at
a place in hopes of using their position to gain trusts and access to sensitive
information or valuable resources.
5)
Reading
body language- This type of social engineering is the most common and
traditional form. Perpetrators can use calming body language and reassuring gestors
to convince the victim or target that they are the good guy.
Number three, or
gathering and using information is the easiest method that gets employed
nowadays. Social networking and professional networking sites make the path
easy for cyber criminals to find out personal and sensitive information from
their marks or victims. Also, starting email-chains with malicious attachments
are also very successful forms of attacks as some end-users are quick to open
attachments, especially if the attachment secretly opens a script to forward that
same email from the user’s address to other users in that exchange environment.
This action can spread in seconds to minutes and can have devastating
consequences for IT resources.
References
(n.d.). Retrieved from www.google.com:
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=what+is+social+engineering&*
Heary, J. (2014, Nov 14th). Top 5 Social
Engineering Exploit Techniques. Retrieved from pcworld.com:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/182180/top_5_social_engineering_exploit_techniques.html
Week Ten - Which Cloud Storage Solution is the Best?
We live in an era where you no longer need to lug around 3.5 inch floppies, writable DVDs or thumb drives to have your data with you. Now you have free cloud storage services such as: Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive and Box to choose from to access your data wherever you may be located at the time. In the 1990s, this wouldn’t have been the case.
However, we have free accessible Wi-Fi almost wherever we go, whether it is to a friend’s place or a business. Which service you choose to use is really determined by your personal preference and the devices being used. For most students or organizational employees that regularly access and save data, it is likely OneDrive or Google Drive as many use Chrome and many have windows 10.
Also, the solution that you choose may be determined by ‘what’ you will be storing and how much space is needed. Amazon has a paid service that offers unlimited storage for photos and videos. However, it isn’t free and requires a yearly subscription. If you are only saving documents for school or work, OneDrive or Google Drive will undoubtedly workout fine if you have OneDrive capabilities or use Google Chrome. Since. Google Drive offers 15GB of ‘free’ storage whereas Microsoft only offers 5GB of storage without cost, that may dictate your solution-decision. For ease of access, OneDrive would be the best choice as it works seamlessly with your Windows desktop. The article from CNET puts this question into great detail and can be viewed at https://www.cnet.com/how-to/onedrive-dropbox-google-drive-and-box-which-cloud-storage-service-is-right-for-you/.
Works Cited
OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive and Box: Which cloud storage service is right for you? (2016 , February 1st). Retrieved from www.cnet.com: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/onedrive-dropbox-google-drive-and-box-which-cloud-storage-service-is-right-for-you/
Week Nine - MDM needed?
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Mobile device management (MDM)
has been around for many years now. Although not everyone understands the
importance of it more than your organization's Information Technology department. Why do we need a
piece of software on our phone that has full control of it? Why do I have to
type a pass code or push my thumbprint after one minute of inactivity? The answers
to those questions: because too many aren’t careful with their data and they
need a hand in securing their devices. Without mobile security, devices with
sensitive organizational data can become compromised and hurt the company or its
employees financially. Many people carry their company mobile phones with them
to bars, restaurants, football games, or numerous other public activities and
places. We are humans and we sometimes misplace those devices or lose them
while we are attentive to something else. It happens and that is why we have
MDM.
There are numerous providers
of MDM and not all offer the same features. The most important features are
probably remote wipe and remote lock. These features protect a device from
revealing any sensitive data that it had if it is lost or stolen.
Works Cited
FERRILL, P. (2016, JUNE 13th). The Best Mobile Device Management (MDM) Solutions of 2016. Retrieved from pcmag: http://www.pcmag.com/article/342695/the-best-mobile-device-management-mdm-software-of-2016
Week Eight - Internet Protocol Version 6, when?
I
know that most people have at least seen a four octet IPv4 address at some
point in their technological life, (Whether by accident or on purpose). However, most don't realize that IPv4 is doomed
to be used up at some point and have no idea what IPv6 is. IPv6 is the superior
replacement to IPv4 standard. It is deemed as more secure, faster and it works
better with mobile devices versus IPv4. Interesting fact though, Asia ran out
of IPv4 addresses in 2011 and has since turned to providers to dish out IPv6 addresses.
In the United States, it may take a lot longer with better implementations of
Network Access Translation or NAT. However, according to the blog article by
John Koetshier, (a TUNE contributor at
Venturebeat.com), we won't see the full implementation of IPv6 until the year
of 2048! Again, that is due to the cost of companies upgrading and the vast
improvements of the NAT methods found in many IT environments across the world.
References
Free4arab. (2013, March 23). Internet Protocol
Version 6 (IPv6) By Eng-Yasser Ramzy. Retrieved from http://free4arab.com:
http://free4arab.com/?p=5129
KOETSIER, J. (2013, JUNE 7th). At our current rate
of progress, IPv6 will be fully implemented on May 10, 2148. Retrieved
from http://venturebeat.com/:
http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/07/at-our-current-rate-of-progress-ipv6-will-be-fully-implemented-on-may-10-2048/
Wikipedia. (2017, February 02). IPv6 deployment.
Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_deployment
Week Seven - Benefits to utilizing Virtual Private Networks for business and personal reasons
Virtual private networks, or (VPN)s are logical and secure tunnel remote network connections that utilize either Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) or Layer Two Tunneling Protocol/Internet Protocol security (L2TP/IPsec) over an in-between network such as the Internet. Although there are many benefits to using VPN for businesses, the major reason to have it available is the benefit of organizational employees being able to continue their work from outside of their company's offices. Those organizations' infrastructure departments may also utilize VPN tunnels to connect different networks together from different locations. There are also personal reasons to use VPN connections. One, you can use it to encrypt traffic while you use a public hotspot such as a guest network at a hotel. That allows all of your traffic to be safe from outside sources that could otherwise exploit your personal information. There is another way to benefit personal VPN users. PC gamers may use a VPN connection from another country or state to play a newly released video game before its release date at that user's time zone. As some time zones allow an earlier game release date, this can benefit VPN users with gaming. However, that action is risky as those gamers can be banned to access that game further by that game's publisher if they are caught using an outside VPN to play early in their own time zone.
References
Geier, E. (2013, March 19th). How (and why) to
set up a VPN today. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2030763/networking/how-and-why-to-set-up-a-vpn-today.html
virtual private network (VPN). (2016). Retrieved from www.bdconnectctg:
http://www.bdconnectctg.net/vpn.php
What Is a VPN, and Why Would I Need One? (n.d.). Retrieved from www.howtogeek.com:
http://www.howtogeek.com/133680/htg-explains-what-is-a-vpn/
Week Six - Difference between HTTP and HTTPS
Hello all! This week were are going to discuss the differences between Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure - (HTTP/HTTPS) as well as where HTTPS originated.
HTTP is the protocol that your computer's web browser utilizes to talk back and forth with whatever web server it's connected too at the time. By itself, HTTP is considered very unsecured because it uses plain text for transmitting data. That means that user names, passwords and other confidential data are being exposed while transmission is taking place. When you open a website that has an HTTPS connection, you are actually using the Secure Sockets Layer - (SSL) to receive a public certificate to your browser and then you perform a SSL handshake with by responding with your private key, in the form of a challenge user name and password. Outside of where you save the password/key to remember it for later, the only other place that holds that data is the secure web server. Here is a little interesting back-story for HTTPS technology. Netscape Navigator was the first browser to utilize the SSL Protocol. However, Microsoft owns Netscape now, after it purchased all of AOLs patents in 2012.
References
Beal, V. (2017). HTTP - HyperText Transfer
Protocol. Retrieved from http://www.webopedia.com:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/HTTP.html
Week Five - The World of Networking before a TCP/IP Standard
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| TCP/IP Five Layer Software Model |
Hello all! This week I am going to share some history of life before a TCP/IP networking standard. In March 1982, the US Department of Defense made it official that the new standard military computer networking standard will be based on TCP/IP. However, from the 80's to the 90's, it was still not used by everyone. Many organizations were using a variety of network protocols such as: System's Network Architecture's SNA-IBM, AppleTalk, Novel Netware's IPX/SPX, Microsoft's NetBIOS/NetBEUI and UNIX people were utilizing the TCP/IP protocol. Each Protocol was being pushed by it's developer as a mainstream solution. Netware was considered to be the protocol that made things simple and it just worked for many because the NetBIOS/NetBEUI protocol that Microsoft rolled with was pretty bad when it started out. However, in 1999, long-time competitor Microsoft finally got better and topped Netware for the new on the shelf leading market position. Microsoft then started utilizing the TCP/IP standard along with it's own Group Policy to sort out networking in a more simple way for organizations. Since that time, Netware and the other protocols have since been replaced by the growing popularity of the TCP/IP Protocol Standard for multiple operating systems and a wide variety of hardware configurations rely on it to function while communicating. As you can see by the above graphic, it is comprised of five easy to understand layers and it very much resembles the traditional OSI model of networking.
References
AppleTalk.
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://docwiki.cisco.com:
http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/AppleTalk
Chapter 1. Networking Models. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.safaribooksonline.com:
https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/packet-guide-to/9781449308094/ch01.html
Novell is dead and Microsoft has eaten its heart. (2010, November 22). Retrieved from
http://www.itworld.com/: http://www.itworld.com/article/2751716/networking/novell-is-dead-and-microsoft-has-eaten-its-heart.html
Novell through the years. (2010, November 22). Retrieved from
www.networkworld.com:
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2196090/data-center/novell-through-the-years.html
TCPIP.
(n.d.). Retrieved from www.history-computer.com:
http://www.history-computer.com/Internet/Maturing/TCPIP.html
tcpip:tcp-ip-five-layer-model. (n.d.). Retrieved from microchip.wikidot.com:
http://microchip.wikidot.com/tcpip:tcp-ip-five-layer-model
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| Basic Network Diagram |
Week Four - Setup a basic network
Happy New Year’s everyone! I am back from a long break with school
and work. This week's blog will focus on setting up a basic network for your
home or small business. This project really depends on knowing what you need,
how much money is available and initially purchasing the right tools and
devices that will be used depending on the type of network and floor-plan of
the intended networked area. For instance, if you are going to have a few
network drops that are spaced out throughout the building, you will need to
purchase the best type of cabling in box for a long run, solid-core twisted
pair cabling would do the job for this part. For the long cable run, you would
also need the proper tools: cable tester kit, crimp tool, wire cutter, stripper
tool, sheet-rock cutting tool, stud finger and depending on the length of the
run, a fish tape puller tool. The costs of those tools can vary based on what
features you want.
Running the cable and allocating the space for the network
gear, (router, switches, patch panel) should be done first. If you are just
going wireless, you will need less tools, but maybe a more expensive router or
business grade wireless access points - (WAPs) would be better. Also, if
running a wireless alongside your cabling or for wireless only networks, you
would want to first conduct a site survey for your wireless network area. This
survey would help decide where to run cable for WAPs and what grade of WAPs
that you will purchase for the site. If your network will do more than
provide internet access and have file-sharing or other user based necessities,
you will need a client-server setup too. This will consist of a server, racked
or standing that likely runs a version of Microsoft Windows Server or Linux. There
are so many more things to consider before laying out the network. Will you
have a professionally setup server room? Then you will need a server cabinet or
U-rack, unless you have a desktop style server that sits upright.
For setting up a basic-home network, it could be much easier
and you likely won’t need a server, managed-switches or enterprise level WAPs
for wireless connectivity. However, even setting up a basic network could be
somewhat complex, depending on the needs of the network and what type of entity
that it supports. There are so many things to consider and layout scenarios
that are possible, planning and funds availability are really the most
important factors to setting up even a basic network.
Works Cited
Campbell, S. (2010, June 4th). how-to-set-up-a-small-business-computer-network.
Retrieved from http://www.makeuseof.com:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-set-up-a-small-business-computer-network/
CS Odessa Corp. (1993-2017). How-To-Guide/basic-network-diagram.
Retrieved from http://www.conceptdraw.com:
http://www.conceptdraw.com/How-To-Guide/basic-network-diagram
Week Three - History of Ethernet
Hello All,
Last week we talked about different network cables/wires that are available. This week I would like to talk about something more narrow. The history of Ethernet cabling. Many would not think of this fact, but the founder of Ethernet technology was actually Xerox Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated - (PARC), a division of Xerox Corporation. Xerox is a company that manufactures printers and multi-function devices in support of office document management. On May 22, 1973, PARC members Bob Metcalfe and David R Boggs utilized an IBM Selectric Typewriter to create the schematic for Ethernet. Months later, Xerox patented Ethernet technology and later on, the young PARC Engineer (Metcalfe) left Xerox to form the company called 3Com. More on this history can be found at the website: http://standards.ieee.org/events/ethernet/history.html.
References
HISTORY OF ETHERNET. (2016). Retrieved from http://standards.ieee.org/:
http://standards.ieee.org/events/ethernet/history.html
Week Two - IT Cabling and Wiring
Nowadays, businesses along with other types of organizational buildings and even many residential homes have commercial-rated network wiring. This type of setup can vary with an assortment of different connectors, linking hardware and different types of cabling such as coaxial cable, unshielded twisted pair (UTP), screened (foil) unshielded twisted pair (F/UTP), shielded twisted pair (STP) and multimode or singlemode fiber optics. The network diagram or topography type of a network can dictate what type of cabling to use. Also, environmental factors and even the weather can effect the decision of what types of cabling to layout for a cabling installation.
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UTP |
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F/UTP |
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Coaxial |
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S/FTP |
References
Coaxial cable. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_cableISO/IEC 11801. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_11801#Category_7IT & Ethernet Network Cabling and Wiring
Introduction. (n.d.). Retrieved
from http://www.siemon.com/: http://www.siemon.com/network-wiring.aspMulti-mode optical fiber. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mode_optical_fiberTwisted Pair. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair
Week One - Introduction NAND Shortages
Hello all,
This is my first blog entry as required by my class in the Information Technology Bachelors Degree Program at Bellevue University. I am going to be sharing topics and articles from the IT world each week and putting my two cents into the blog about them.
While conducting a simple Google search this evening, I came upon an interesting article from the ASI Blog found at asipartner.com. The topic covers a current shortage in some popular sized SSDs, since the cost per gigabyte is steadily going down as we see the rise of 3D NAND technology and bigger sized SSDs emerging in the market. If you are a hardware enthusiast, this article will definitely interest you!
Stay tuned for other articles every week for the next 12 weeks.
Thank you!
