Wednesday 31 July 2013

DELL Marketing Update

Mark your calendars! The 2013 Dell World Software User Forum
December 9-13, 2013
The annual KACE User Konference has for years been the premier educational event for the KACE community, bringing together both the new and seasoned users, KACE experts and complementary technology partners to share their knowledge and uncover new ways to improve the art and science of systems management. And now that KACE is part of the new Dell Software organization, the KACE Konference will now be part of the Dell World Software User Forum 2013 that includes Dell software users from AppAssure, SonicWALL, Quest and others.

On Demand Webinars

Dell vWorkspace Demo
During this 30-minute webcast, you will learn how vWorkspace drives down the cost of desktop virtualization by enabling the deployment of a blend of technologies including hosted and local VDI, TS/RDSH and application virtualization, based on the specific needs of each user. See powerful vWorkspace Hyper-V Catalyst Components in action – along with integrated real-rime monitoring and diagnostics powered by Foglight for Virtual Desktops by viewing the recording here.

Addressing the Multi-Device Reality: Unified Endpoint Management
Guest speaker, EMA lead analyst Steve Brasen, author of the recent report Unified Endpoint Management, discusses the realities of multi-device proliferation and the need for such core considerations as data loss protection for mobile devices and BYOD policies. New features of the KACE K3000 v1.1 Mobile Management Appliance release are also demonstrated. 
Check out the recording here and the report here.

Unleash the full potential of your financial applications—with desktop virtualization
Join Craig Mathias of Farpoint Group to find out what desktop virtualization can do in financial applications and what applications deployment strategies can minimize cost with no compromise to visibility and control. 
You can find the recording here.

Creating (and Maintaining!) Consistent Windows Desktops: Are These 15 User Settings in Your Desktop Management?
Today’s PC user expects personalization in their Windows desktop. However, some user settings will always need IT configuration. Find out how controlling 15 user settings will ensure stability and personalization for Devices, Applications and Identities. 
View the recording here.


Case Studies

Banks Holdings Limited (BHL) sought a centralized systems management solution to get an accurate, real-time picture of its IT infrastructure.

Benefits:
  • BHL has much better visibility into its IT environment and can improve license compliance
  • IT team can easily track and manage costs for each business unit and department
  • Solution simplifies management and standardizes infrastructure
  • Company reduces IT operating costs by 25 percent
  • Support staff can respond to requests faster than before
Available on Dell.com and KACE.com.

Noel-Baker School wanted to create a highly engaging learning environment for students at a new £40 million campus by deploying a flexible and reliable IT infrastructure.

Benefits:
  • Students enjoy more engaging learning environments
  • Teachers receive improved support for delivering classes to pupils
  • Students and teachers boost results with faster access to applications
  • IT cuts management time by half for greater services to users
  • IT team saves hours of patching time with automated management
Available on Dell.com and KACE.com.


Desktop virtualization management from vWorkspace
Optimus is Portugal’s third largest mobile network operator, with approximately 2.9 million customers (about 20 percent of the nation’s mobile carrier market). To improve the security of its network, Optimus turned to Dell™ for a desktop virtualisation management solution.

Performance Monitoring from Dell SonicWALL
Mobile marketing firm sees spike in adoption of mobile marketing tools. ZapFi secures and analyses Internet traffic from millions of Wi-Fi users using Dell SonicWALL SuperMassive
Mobile marketing firm sees spike in adoption of mobile marketing tools


Dell Software in the News

Spotlight on Monitoring:

Spotlight on Endpoint Systems Management:

Spotlight on Windows Migration: MessageStats nominatedPeople’s Choice Award
Business Insights is a new component of MessageStats -it mines Exchange email providing business managers with insights that can help them improve and protect the business. Finalists were chosen by more than 140 business professionals nationwide during preliminary judging in April and May. Winners will be announced on September 16th in San Francisco.

Tuesday 23 July 2013

Microsoft TechReady 17 - Come Join Us!


As you probably have guessed from the marked paucity of blog posts over the last few days, I am travelling again.

Now on the West Coast with Microsoft and enjoying the buzz of Microsoft's internal TechReady Convention.

So, if you are a Microsoft employee, and currently in Seattle, and more importantly need to find all about ChangeBASE and how it can address application compatibility issues, then please join us for our Instructor Led Lab at the Seattle Convention Centre. We start at

Learn how Dell ChangeBASE can enable your customers to quickly address their desktop, IE, server and virtualized application compatibility issues. Our lab will be conducted by myself (Greg Lambert) and Todd Mera and is called CISMIL306 and starts today at 12:15.


This ChangeBASE lab/session is a hands on lab involving;

  • An overview of Dell ChangeBASE 
  • Step by step scenario based training on how to capture, load, test and report on compatibility issues of desktop, IE, server and virtualized applications 


And here are some of the take aways from the session:

  • Ability to capture, load and test applications and browsers for compatibility testing 
  • Ability to identify which virtualization platform is best suited to the application 
  • Ability to interpret the ChangeBASE RAG reports produced dashboards to share information effectively with customers 
  • Ability to speed associated fixing and aid migrations to Windows 7/8, virtualization platforms and server platforms

Hope to see you there!

Friday 12 July 2013

Marketing Update for DELL Quest Software

Loads going on this month - Check out some of our live and on-demand events...

Live Events

July 10 at 11 am PT
Managing Configurations in the User Environment without Scripts
Still using login scripts to configure user environments? If so, it’s time to reconsider – login scripts are cumbersome, inaccurate and time consuming. In this webcast, discover the power of automation when delivering applications, controlling configurations across desktops, virtual desktops, and remote sessions and much more.
Register here .

July 11 at 11 am PT
Bring IT Together: Dell KACE + Desktop Authority Enabling Flexible User Privileges without Sacrificing Security  In this webcast, you’ll see how—used together—Dell KACE and Desktop Authority Management Suite answer complex user management challenges in an easy-to-use and affordable way. 
Register here .

July 17 at 8 am PT
Unleash the full potential of your financial applications—with desktop virtualization
Join Craig Mathias of Farpoint Group to find out what desktop virtualization can do in financial applications and what applications deployment strategies can minimize cost with no compromise to visibility and control. Register here .

July 18 at 10 am PT
Addressing the Multi-Device Reality: Unified Endpoint Management
Join guest speaker, EMA lead analyst Steve Brasen, author of the recent report Unified Endpoint Management, as he discusses the realities of multi-device proliferation and the need for such core considerations as data loss protection for mobile devices and BYOD policies. New features of the KACE K3000 v1.1 Mobile Management Appliance release will be demonstrated. 
Register here .

July 18 at 11 am PT
Creating (and Maintaining!) Consistent Windows Desktops: Are these 15 User Settings in Your Desktop Management?
Today’s PC user expects personalization in his or her Windows desktop. However, some user settings will always need IT configuration. The challenge in desktop management lies in finding the right balance between user and IT control. Join the experts for this informative webcast and learn how controlling 15 user settings can benefit your organization today. 
Register here.

July 25 at 10 am PT
From Out of Time to Under Control: 3 Steps to Automating Windows Migrations and Application Compatibility Windows migration doesn't need to be a complex and time consuming task – automation tools and best practices can dramatically simplify system deployments. Find out what time traps are waiting, how to avoid them and how to automate your windows migration process. 
Register here .

July 27 at 11 am PT
Solving Desktop Challenges in Healthcare
Today, healthcare IT professionals are forced to do more with less while staying in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accessibility Act (HIPAA). To deal with the many challenges of managing your IT environment, join us for our live webcast and learn how you can enforce HIPAA compliance while ensuring confidentiality and integrity of all your health data. 
Register here .


On-Demand

Software License Audit: Breeze it and Beat it with Dell KACE
Learn about new capabilities of the Dell KACE K1000 Management Appliance that will allow you to track and optimize the utilization of purchased licenses, avoid liability for under-license violations, and proactively monitor and enforce organization-wide compliance. 
Register here .

Wednesday 10 July 2013

Microsoft Patch Tuesday - July 2013

With this July Microsoft Patch Tuesday update, we see a set of 7 updates; 6 of which are marked as “Critical” and 1 rated as “Important”.

The Patch Tuesday Security Update analysis was performed by the Quest ChangeBASE Patch Impact team and identified a small percentage of applications from the thousands of applications included in testing for this release which showed amber issues.

Of the seven patches, 2 "require a restart to load correctly", and 4 "may require a restart", whilst only one definitely doesn't need a restart (MS13-058), so as usual, it is probably best to assume all require a restart to be installed correctly.
Sample Results 

Here is a sample result showing an amber warning generated as a result of the MS patch MS13-056

Here is a sample summary report:


Testing Summary

MS13-052
Vulnerabilities in .NET Framework and Silverlight Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2861561)
MS13-053
Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2850851)
MS13-054
Vulnerability in GDI+ Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2848295)
MS13-055
Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2846071)
MS13-056
Vulnerability in Microsoft DirectShow Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2845187)
MS13-057
Vulnerability in Windows Media Format Runtime Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2847883)
MS13-058
Vulnerability in Windows Defender Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (2847927)


Security Updates Detail
MS13-052
Vulnerabilities in .NET Framework and Silverlight Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2861561)
Description
This security update resolves five privately reported vulnerabilities and two publicly disclosed vulnerabilities in Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft Silverlight. The most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a trusted application uses a particular pattern of code. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the logged-on user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
Payload
No specific file information
Impact
Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS13-053
Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2850851)
Description
This security update resolves two publicly disclosed and six privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The most severe vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user views shared content that embeds TrueType font files. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system.
Payload
Spuninst.exe, Win32k.sys
Impact
Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS13-054
Vulnerability in GDI+ Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2848295)
Description
This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Lync, and Microsoft Visual Studio. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user views shared content that embeds TrueType font files.
Payload
D2d1.dll, Fntcache.dll, Dwrite.dll, D3d10level9.dll, D3d10_1.dll, D3d10_1core.dll, D3d10.dll, D3d10core.dll, D3d10warp.dll
Impact
Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS13-055
Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2846071)
Description
This security update resolves seventeen privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted webpage using Internet Explorer. An attacker who successfully exploited the most severe of these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
Payload
Spuninst.exe, Browseui.dll, Html.iec, Ieencode.dll, Iepeers.dll, Mshtml.dll, Mshtmled.dll, Mstime.dll, Shdocvw.dll, Tdc.ocx, Url.dll, Urlmon.dll, Vgx.dll, Wininet.dll
Impact
Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS13-056
Vulnerability in Microsoft DirectShow Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2845187)
Description
This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted image file. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
Payload
Spuninst.exe, Qedit.dll, Wqedit.dll
Impact
Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS13-057
Vulnerability in Windows Media Format Runtime Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2847883)
Description
This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted media file. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
Payload
No specific file information
Impact
Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS13-058
Vulnerability in Windows Defender Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (2847927)
Description
This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Windows Defender for Windows 7 and Windows Defender when installed on Windows Server 2008 R2. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege due to the pathnames used by Windows Defender. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could execute arbitrary code and take complete control of an affected system. The attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. An attacker must have valid logon credentials to exploit this vulnerability. The vulnerability could not be exploited by anonymous users.
Payload
No specific file information
Impact
Important - Elevation of Privilege
  
* All results are based on the ChangeBASE Application Compatibility Lab’s test portfolio of over 1,000 applications

Tuesday 9 July 2013

Patch Tuesday: July Advance Notification

A quick post today, warning about a larger than average update from Microsoft for the July release of Patch Tuesday updates.

As you can see from the image listing below; there are 7 patches for July with six rated as Critical and one update rated as Important.

From the large number of updates for the year so far, Microsoft looks like it is on track for new record of releasing Critical updates to it's Windows (desktop and server) platforms.

In addition, to these platforms, we expect to see updates to the Windows Surface and RT platforms.

Check back on Wednesday for the full ChangeBASE Analysis of the potential impact of these Microsoft updates.

You can find the Microsoft Advance Notification page here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/gg309152.aspx

And, you can find the soon to be updated Patch Tuesday detail page from Microsoft here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms13-jul


Monday 1 July 2013

July Upcoming Events – Online & In Person

Upcoming Customer Events – On-line & In Person
graphic
Toad World Virtual Expo / July 11-12



We’re inviting world-renowned database experts from around the world to present during our no cost, 24-hour event. In addition to our live keynote sessions, we’ll host four breakout tracks covering database development, database administration, business intelligence, and emerging technology. Register here
On-line Webinars:
Reduce complexity & cost with Dell Data Protection & Systems Management solutions
Join experts from Dell Software Group to discover how Dell KACE Systems Management Appliances and Dell backup and recovery products make it easier to protect Dell and non-Dell servers, notebooks, and desktops, increasing data protection coverage whilst reducing workloads for IT teams.
  • Register here for English – 23 July
  • Register here for German – 24 July

In-Person Seminars:
How to Migrate Apps to Windows 7/8 When Time Is of the Essence
Dell Software can simplify, automate and accelerate your migration, while reducing risk and cost. Join the experts at Dell Software and see how you can plan, migrate and manage your applications to Windows 7/8 the fastest and easiest way possible.
  • Register here for Dublin – 9 July
  • Register here for  Manchester – 11 July

  
Privileged Account Management
Dell Software solutions for privileged account management help companies to control and verify access.
Register here for Rome - 4 July
Customer Lunch & Learn:
Empowering Your Mobile Workforce
Join Dell experts for an interactive discussion and first-hand demonstrations to learn more about the Dell solutions that can help IT to better manage, secure and optimise any user device for enterprise mobility.
Register here for Munich – 9 July

Breakfast Briefing:
Foglight APM
Join us for an live demonstration of this solution - learn how Foglight Network Management System performance monitoring tools allow you to map, manage, and discover network components.
Register for  Paris – 9 July

Product Information

Products News & Releases
Endpoint Systems Management Solutions:
This latest release significantly enhances the Management Appliances ability to assist customers with their software deployment and license compliance pain points. The K1000 now comes fully integrated with the Dell Application Catalog (DAC), which is a web-based catalog containing approximately 110 million unique executable files and nearly 50,000 software products from thousands of publishers.
  
Database Solutions:
With version 8.0 users will have the ability to deliver changed data to other structured and unstructured database platforms facilitating real-time data integration for business intelligence, data warehousing and analytics in databases such as SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, Netezza, Teradata, Hadoop, Greenplum, and more. Download the datasheet here.

The Toad™ Business Intelligence Suite is an integrated, unified solution that improves decision making by enabling analytic provisioners and analytic experts to fully leverage their business intelligence environments and corporate information. It increases productivity by empowering both technical and non-technical users to easily and securely access the data they need, when they need it, unlocking the value in existing IT and BI investments. Download the datasheet here.

  
Security Solutions:
As the sophistication of cyber criminals continues to increase, firewalls need to stay ahead. The new Dell™ SonicWALL™ NSA Series of products brings the advancements of the SuperMassive architecture to small and medium businesses, classrooms, branch and government offices. This new line, including the NSA 3600, 4600, 5600 and 6600, represents the absolute latest in security and performance available today. 
View the presentation here.

White Papers
European Migration Survey – Key Challenges in IT Migration
Migrations are a constant challenge for IT departments. The advantages of upgrading are countered by the benefits of staying with known and tested platforms, yet migration is a necessary evil to avoid business disadvantage. Dell Software recently teamed up with IDG Connect to conduct a European research study on migration: what are the challenges, who’s migrating and to what? In this research paper, you’ll discover that migrating to Windows 7 is one of the top priorities for organizations in the European market and the biggest challenge they face is ensuring application compatibility.