If you aren't familiar with Network Monitor, it's a packet sniffer that's a Windows component on the server builds (Control Panel >> Add/Remove Programs >> Add/Remove Windows Components >> Management and Monitoring Tools >> Network Monitor Tools if you're using Windows Server 2003). The version that has previously been released with SMS has always been more robust than the one that can be added via the location I just gave. Microsoft has built a 3.0 version which is now free for download through connect.microsoft.com. You can read more about it here at the Network Monitor blog:

Network Monitor 3.0 has released!!

A lot of times when I'm troubleshooting connectivity issues between a SQL Server and a client I fall back on packet sniffer and Network Monitor usually does the job. Even when I was strictly a DBA I found this to be a great tool in my toolbelt. However, most organizations have strict rules on who can use sniffers and when they can use it because of the security implications. Before you download and install it, verify that you're allowed to so by your organization. And before you use a packet sniffer, always be sure to clear it first in writing (such as via email).

Although this is free, some prefer the tried and true Ethereal. I'm partial to it myself, but it requires the installation of WinPcap, which you may not necessarily be able to get permission to install on the server. Network Monitor 3.0 doesn't require any additional installations.



Technorati Tags: Windows 2003 | Windows XP | Windows Vista | Security | Database Security | Network Security | Windows Security

It wasn't too long ago that Mark Russinovich announced he was becoming a Microsoft employee (new link as his old blog redirects to his new blog on TechNet). Now there is a new SysInternals section of the TechNet website. You can find the majority of the old SysInternals tools here:

Microsoft: SysInternals TechCenter

There is also a new tool, Process Monitor, which basically combines FileMon and RegMon (since it's not unusual to need to use both together). If you are a fan of the SysInternals tools, check out the new site. In addition, there is a SysInternals blog that may be of interest to some. This blog is different from Mark's.


Technorati Tags: Windows 2000 | Windows 2003 | Windows XP | Windows Vista | Security | Network Security | Windows Security

Encrypting File System, or EFS, first debuted in Windows 2000 and gave users to encrypt files without a 3rd party tool. There were some limitations in EFS under Windows 2000, among them the default Data Recovery Agent was the local Administrator account. This meant that if you tried to use EFS on, say, a laptop, while the files would be encrypted if someone tried to use a Live CD or a Linux boot disk, should the administrator account be cracked, the files could still be accessed. Changes within Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 did away with vulnerabilities such as this one. There are still ways around this, since laptops usually have cached credentials which can be cracked, but it's another step an attacker would have to take. If you aren't familiar with EFS, check out this short article, appropriately titled:

Understanding EFS

EFS isn't "whole disk encryption," but secures files and folders. That means that on a laptop, you are dependent on the user to place files in the proper locations. Tightening down file permissions works when the users aren't running with administrator privileges, but with quite a few apps still requiring more than normal user rights, this isn't so easy. Until Vista's BitKeeper comes on the scene, that means a 3rd party solution is required.

On servers EFS can be used to encrypt files such that only the service account has access to them. I wrote about this with respect to SQL Server, but the article is a little out of date, being written for Windows 2000. I'll need to update it one of these days. Be aware, that as with any encryption, you are likely to experience some performance degradation. After all, the encrpytion/decryption does require additional cycles than straight data access. But the performance hit under Windows 2000 was often less than 5% and I doubt it has gotten worse with Windows XP and 2003.


Technorati Tags: Security | Database Security | Network Security | Windows Security | DATABASE | SQL | T-SQL | SQL Server | Microsoft SQL Server | SQL Server 2000 | SQL Server 2005 | Windows 2000 | Windows 2003 | Windows XP | Windows Vista

If you're keeping up with Windows Vista and you're interested in the security aspects of it, there's a new blog, with an appropriate title, from Microsoft:

Windows Vista Security

Microsoft has said it has designed Windows Vista to be more secure than previous operating systems, having learned a lot from its Trustworthy Computing initiative. Comparing the difference between Windows XP SP1 and Windows XP SP2, that was definitely a step in the right direction. Now MS has a whole track devoted to Vista at the BlackHat conference (days 2 & 3). Given what Microsoft is saying about Vista, it certainly seems like Microsoft is attempting to walk the talk. Having played with Vista on a decent laptop I have at work, I'm annoyed at all the pop-ups whenever I try to work with the configuration of the system, but then, this isn't something the regular work user would be doing, so I'm not too displeased. I know there will be some finetuning of these pop-ups before RTM ships as too many pop-ups can lead to a fatigue where the user just clicks yes without thinking about it.



Technorati Tags: Security | Windows Security | Windows Vista

Channel 9 has posted a 25 minute interview with Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer for Microsoft. You can find the Channel 9 page here:

Microsoft Platform Vision in the Post Bill Era: Meet Craig Mundie

It was an interesting interview on several points, so I'll only summarize the things which made me stop and think for a moment.

Mr. Mundie talked about how Live was a change for Microsoft. When you think about MSN, you might be tempted to say, "They're just expanding on it to compete with Google and others." Yes and no. Microsoft had operated under a business model where folks would buy a perpetual license for a particular version of software. Now they are transitioning to include a platform with deployed services and applications. I think back to a few weeks ago when my pastor brought this up at a men's Bible study. He's in his 60s and I'm in my 30s and we both understood and accepted this change in how computing seems to be going. But what was surprising is the young men of the group, who have grown up around computers, had a hard time wrapping their heads around this idea that they wouldn't be given a CD to install new software but rather would connect and receive the software by connecting online. Those who got Half Life 2 via downloads are probably thinking, "Yeah, some are already doing that so why is this news." I guess it's just a reminder that it does represent a fundamental change in business.

He also commented on changes in the next 3-15 years (that's his range of focus within MS), and one of the ones he saw coming was our concepts on microprocessor architecture are likely to change. Yes, we'll still be able to pack more transistors into the same area, but where we are slowing down is with respect to clock rate (no pun intended). So how do you get more processing power? We get it by going to parallel architectures like we're seeing with dual core. This has an impact on the rank and file programmer because that means design challenges around parallel processing won't be relegated to high computing and large datacenter environments any longer. He also thinks we'll see more specialized architectures and more diversity in hardware. What this means for Microsoft is that Microsoft must develop new programming tools to help developers build highly concurrent applications the right way.

A question came up about length of release cycles and his comments were on how software engineering is not much like traditional engineering disciplines. This is very true. He gave as an example formal composition. Other engineering disciplines continue to build on the work of others and software engineering does to a limited extent. But we don't have very formal structures where we can modularize components, with structures that we continue to re-use. On the other hand, look at bridges and buildings and how certain "patterns" are repeated with just a change in materials. He feels we need to improve on software engineering as a discipline which is, of course, something that has been echoed in the industry for quites some time now.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft | Windows Vista

Check out this post:

Things to consider before submitting an incident to Microsoft

Getting the information together before you make that phone call can speed up resolution to the issue. Also, if you do have a Technical Account Manager, that person can help drive the support call to a happy resolution (or as happy as the problem allows for).

Another point is to take a look at the MPS reports (a link to the KB is given in the blog post). From them you can glean what bits of information  Microsoft PSS personnel are interested in. Knowing what they're interested in points us to the information we should be interested in. And that can often put us a step ahead in ourown troubleshooting efforts where we might not have to make the support call in the first place!


Technorati Tags: SQL Server | Microsoft SQL Server | SQL Server 2000 | SQL Server 2005 | Windows 2000 | Windows 2003 | Windows XP | Windows Vista

A blog posting from the WinFS team caught me a bit by surprise today. Apparently I wasn't the only one, judging by the comments. WinFS was supposed to give us a relational file system. There are security ramifications with doing that, as demonstrated in this video from BlueHat 2006 (from Channel 9), where the first part has a security program manager from WinFS talks about some of the things he learned.

However, when you consider what the benefits can be (a comment gives the example of deleting thousands of files and how long that takes... this would be near instantaneous with a properly implemented relational database structure), many folks were looking forward to getting WinFS. And Vista was supposed to deliver it. But then Microsoft made the announcement that WinFS wouldn't ship with Vista. Instead, it'd be stand-alone and it could be installed later. Now today we learn that it won't be shipped later. Mature parts of WinFS are being integrated into Katmai, the next version of SQL Server.

I'm still considering what all this means for SQL Server and for the OS. Certainly it's a loss on the OS side. We're not going to get that relational file structure we've been looking forward to. The venerable NTFS is going to have to plod on a bit longer. But on SQL Server's side, there certainly is gain. And with file integration, there is the potential to deal with BLOBs better. That makes sense given that Microsoft is trying to get more into the enterprise document management sector with Sharepoint Server 2007. But I know that integrating a file system hasn't always been as great as it sounds. Exchange Installable File System (ExIFS or just IFS) is an example. It sounded great in Exchange Server 2000, but they scaled it back in Exchange Server 2003. It'll be interesting to see how they make this work in Katmai.