HOB Techtalk :

HOB's Predictions and Insights for 2012

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:53:00 +0100

The servers where the data and applications reside are becoming fewer but more powerful. What was a supercomputer in the past will now be a server for the applications accessed by laptops, thin clients, tablets or smartphones. Using less, but more efficient servers also helps achieve Green IT, which saves energy both for the servers directly, as well as that used for cooling them, thus helping the environment. These servers can also be referred to as the "cloud."

Cloud services, where the name "cloud" is given to what we have long known as accessible servers, are becoming ubiquitous and manifold. Even small enterprises and freelance organizations, such as those of doctors, dentists or lawyers, will start to deploy their own personal clouds, which means their computer systems will be accessible from their owners over the public Internet.

For more on HOB's predictions and insights for 2012, please visit: http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2011/12/15/2012-prediction-hob-inc

Infographic: Public vs. Private Cloud?

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:15:00 +0100

HOB Secure Communications Server

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:57:00 +0100

Posted by Dietmar Schmidt on Monday, 31. May 2010

HOB has created a flexible complementary operating system platform which can be added to the HOB server and security products called HOB Secure Communications Server (SCS).

For quite some time HOB has thought about supplying a secure and stable operating system with their high quality, specially developed products.

In 2006 the HOB Operating Systems department was founded with this goal in mind. HOB Operating Systems predominantly deals with open source operating systems, primarily GNU/Linux and FreeBSD.

Although FreeBSD has some advantages over GNU/Linux, GNU/Linux is used as the basis for SCS because it has more driver support (alternatively the FreeBSD application is currently being considered).

During the initial development of HOB SCS, there were thoughts of customizing an existing Linux distribution. Several Linux distributions are available. DistroWatch lists over 600 varieties which are almost all customized to existing distributions.

Thoughts of customizing an existing distribution were quickly thrown out because the distributions either looked too broad or too inflexible for our use. The well-known Linux builders like SuSE Studio or rPath do not offer the amount of flexibility that we desired either. For this reason HOB SCS was completely redeveloped by using the available source codes. The process of creating a standalone operating system without including an available distribution is certainly more tedious but for HOB the decision won’t be regretted because we have managed to get the maximum possible influence over our operating system.

HOBmin was developed for administration and configuration of HOB SCS. Managing the HOB SCS operating system using a browser is an option because of HOBmin. This way the connection to the administration interface is encrypted with SSL.

After a good two years of development, in November 2008, the time had come. It was possible to deliver HOB SCS together with HOB RD VPN, the HOB software solutions family for remote connectivity access.

The reaction on the market was absolutely positive. HOB SCS combined with HOB RD VPN become a software appliance which can be used just like any other SSL VPN solution with the advantage of being free of choosing which hardware to use. HOB SCS with RD VPN, unlike all other SSL VPN appliances, isn’t a hardware solution but instead just software based. Another advantage of software appliances is the ability to be a virtual machine. This is why HOB SCS is offered with VMware tools to import for VMware vSphere in Open Virtualization Format (OVF).

The availability of the operating system SCS provides HOB (and thereby also its customers) with many advantages such as nearly eliminating problems caused between the operating system and the application. The customer receives patches, updates, and add-ons all from one source.

At the moment HOB SCS is actively being further developed. The next version (which should be made available in a few weeks) along with the updated packages are going to be integrated with other HOB products (HOBLink VPN, HOB RD VPN Compact etc.). Additionally, HOBmin, our administration service, will have significantly broader functions making sure to grant every wish.

For more information about HOB SCS

Translated by I. Peterson on Monday, 19. September 2011

Secure Remote Access to Mac Desktops

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:50:00 +0200

According to recent statistics, telecommuting roles are expected to increase by 65 percent by 2012. Additionally, numerous studies continue to confirm the importance of flexible hours and workplaces in today's economy. Simply put, organizations today are looking to provide employees with flexibility via anytime, anywhere secure remote access. Those who can benefit include employees on business trips and sales representatives or service personnel who are required to work off-site. Many enterprises also want or need to integrate customers or partners into their corporate networks in order to ensure faster and improved service performance.

Although Windows-based computers make up the largest portion of the overall PC market, the consistent growth of Macs can't be ignored. Per new NPD data cited by Barclays Capital, Mac sales grew by 26 percent in the United States in July, a healthy surge, compared with PCs, which saw only a four percent rise in unit sales that same month. From graphic artists to office employees, there is clearly a need for businesses to securely and remotely access Macs on the road or at home. Another issue is security. Since many agencies utilize freelancers, data protection is paramount. With secure remote access, all data is safely and centrally stored on company networks. One technology solution meeting this business need is HOB MacGate.

With HOB MacGate, an employee can access his or her company's Mac from any remote computer (for example, from the employee's own personal Mac). Once logged in, users see the desktop of the remote system on the client computer, and can work with it as if they were in the company.

A great advantage of HOB MacGate is that users need not install any software on the client. A remote desktop session to the Mac is launched seamlessly through a Web browser. In addition, access to Macs is possible from any client platform including Windows, Linux or even from another Mac. Moreover, in contrast to other desktop-on-demand solutions, HOB MacGate includes a “hidden screen-mode”, i.e. the screen of the remote computer displays the login screen, preventing people in the company from reading along. HOB MacGate is powered by the company’s HOB Remote Desktop VPN.

For more information, please visit: http://www.hobsoft.com/products/connect/macgate.jsp.

The Notebook Affair September 2010

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:38:00 +0200

Brandenburg Secretary of the Interior, Rainer Speer, Resigns!

Keeping Confidential Data Confidential

If money from banks were transported in laundry baskets then put in the back seats of convertibles and driven across the country, everyone would marvel and realize that something here was definitely being carelessly dealt with. The carelessness with which personal and confidential data is dealt with over mobile devices isn’t perhaps as obvious as a convertible filled with loose cash but is, in current common practice, comparable.

The notebook affair which surrounds Rainer Speer who recently resigned as Brandenburg’s Secretary of the Interior, is only one example of many involving irresponsible dealings.

The former Secretary of the Interior of Brandenburg, Rainer Speer’s notebook was stolen. A fate shared by many, around 10,000 notebooks per week are stolen in U.S. airports alone and the trend is growing. This situation, in which some of the data in the minister’s notebook were opened including numerous emails, certainly caused unpleasant repercussions to his political career.

Why do people treat their confidential data so carelessly, carrying it around on PDA’s and notebooks while going for a walk? Why don’t they ask the responsible IT specialists who have advanced technical knowledge to prevail against disaster? The desire to use mobile devices won’t go away and that is a fact even though the results could be unpleasant. Data encryption and password protection of mobile devices are widely used protection methods but they don’t prove to be any kind of insurmountable obstacle for the experienced computer specialist.

There is only one effective and reasonable protection – confidential data doesn’t belong on mobile devices!

Of course all data, even confidential data, should always be accessible at any time and be workable but it shouldn’t be possible to save it on these mobile devices. Confidential data belongs on storage media on the central computer in locked, secure spaces behind firewall systems. Responsible IT personnel put in a lot of effort and businesses invest a great deal of money for the security of data.

It is entirely enough to limit these efforts to secure central storage of data because there is no need to carry data around on decentralized mobile devices. If data is just carried around, then the security of confidential data can no longer be ensured.

The employee, who can potentially let confidential data get out in the open, even though involuntarily and carelessly, takes full responsibility simply because notebooks or PDA’s are easy to steal.

The Solution:

HOBLink Mobile and HOBCOM Universal Server. A highly secure, extremely effective solution whenever using mobile devices which allows access to data and applications just as if they were saved locally to the storage media of the mobile device itself. All alterations to the data which are made over the mobile device will remain but will be saved, no matter at what time, in the central computer.

For more information about HOBLink Mobile and HOBCOM Universal Server

Related Information:

HOB eSecure SDK - SSL Software Development Kit for Mobile Security Apps

Source- "Notebookklau":
Ponemon Institute

25.10.10 Klaus Weinbrenner

Translated on 16.09.2011 by I. Peterson

HOBLink Mobile – Greater Independence when Accessing Company Data via Smartphones

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:14:00 +0200

Do you use your smartphone for business purposes and need to access company resources, e.g., e-mails or data, at any time without restrictions? An outage – such as the one reported by the BlackBerry manufacturer RIM yesterday – is not acceptable (http://on.wsj.com/pl18Qy) ? Since yesterday, users of BlackBerry have to bear with huge disruptions , amongst others when trying to access e-mails. This holds true for customers in Europe and other parts of the world. RIM stated that the disruptions have been caused by a breakdown of a main switch within RIM´s infrastructure. A backup does not work properly, either. When the problem will be solved completely is not yet known.

With HOBLink Mobile you may deal with such situations really stress-free. You do not need to fear an interruption of your business continuity. HOBLink Mobile allows for a fast, secure and around-the-clock access via a smartphone to company e-mails, for example.

HOBLink Mobile is based on two components which communicate with each other. The HOBLink Mobile Client is installed on the smartphone. The second component, HOBCOM Universal Server, is placed within the DMZ or in the company LAN. This solution allows for secure access to data, without downloading any data to the smartphone. Only the data that are currently needed are sent to the smartphone. In addition, this has the major advantage that data are never stored on the smartphone, i.e., in case of loss or theft sensitive data will not get into wrong hands.

This provides the user with a great amount of independence. Service disruptions on the part of your service provider will not worry you in the future. Learn more about our HOB solution HOBLink Mobile at http://www.hobsoft.com/apps/apps.jsp.

Sabrina Sturm
10/13/2011

What about Business Continuity in the Event of a Natural Disaster?

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:13:00 +0200

Today´s interview deals with ensuring business continuity in the event of (natural) disasters and the importance of this topic for companies. We are very pleased to chat with Domenick Cilea, president of Springboard, marketing, public relations and social media agency based in New Jersey. To keep the agency fully operational, Springboard had to ensure that its business activities were not interrupted by the recent hurricane - “Irene.” Domenick Cilea (and his employees) experienced the hurricane first-hand and is therefore able to assess this topic from a personal perspective.

Hurricane Irene hit the U.S. East Coast last weekend. In advance of the impending hurricane, state and local officials ordered evacuations of more than two million residents in coastal areas. Furthermore, many flights were cancelled and mass transportation was halted. In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, experts are estimating the damage to reach billions of dollars from flooding and fallen trees. Three million customers lost power in the days after the hurricane and many more are still without access to electricity. In this context, the question arises: How do you ensure business continuity in event of a nature disaster?

How did you personally experience Irene?
Unfortunately, the aftermath of Hurricane Irene – trees and floods damaging distribution lines – impacted electrical service at my home and office. While our agency office’s lost power for most of one business day, my home did not get restored until four days later.

Did you think of what to “do” with your clients and how to fulfill your business tasks during this time?
Absolutely. In advance of the storm, we provided all employees with updates on the availability of our network resources. In fact, we shut down all of our virtualized servers as a precaution. Because the storm took place over the weekend, the shut down did not impact our ability to service clients. On Monday morning, when realizing there were widespread outages throughout New Jersey, we quickly mobilized employees to alert clients of our situation. Each employee worked remotely using their laptops, tablets and smartphones and they were able to use several cloud-based applications to ensure business operations.

Springboard’s corporate email was not accessible as a result of the power outage but employees leveraged Gmail and social media services such as Twitter to communicate internally and with clients.

How did the option to remotely access your company data ensure business continuity?
Because our file server was unavailable (during the power outage), employees were able to access backed up files which are stored in the cloud.

Where do you see major advantages for companies to have a disaster recovery plan including a remote access solution?
Without a disaster recovery plan, a company’s business is at significant risk. In the event of a disaster, network failure or other disruptive events, business continuity must be ensured from both a data protection and remote access perspective.

In order for a business to maintain operations, employees should have access to pertinent IT resources.

In addition to application, network and file availability, organizations must also consider the connectivity options associated with remote access. Both physical and wireless connectivity should be built into business continuity initiatives in order to give employees access to their applications and data.

Are You Prepared for a Disaster?

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:56:00 +0200

Natural disasters, data center outages and pandemics – these are unfortunate words that have been popping up in the media way too often in the past. Recently, hurricane “Irene” hit the US East-Coast. A state of emergency prevailed across the entire coastal area, many people were evacuated. For hours, public life at Washington stopped and there was no train or bus service in New York; air travel also came to a standstill, as many flights were cancelled. In this case the question arises: How to maintain business continuity if one cannot get to the company or your home office is flooded or must be evacuated?

Many outside influences can negatively impact business processes and thus interrupt a company's business continuity. These outside influences cannot, unfortunately, be controlled or foreseen by any company. The best solution is to be prepared for any disaster or data center outage.

With a disaster recovery plan in place, organizations can ensure business continuity even in emergency situations. The capability to leverage remote data centers and co-location facilities allows organizations to safeguard their technology resources and spread them across multiple locations, ensuring business continuity and mitigating the risk of an outage. For example, important e-mails can be answered remotely via an Internet browser and deadlines can still be met.

By leveraging secure remote access solutions, enterprises are also better equipped to recover from all types of disasters and emergencies.

The only way to be sure that your data is safe, is by deploying a remote access solution before disaster strikes; only then can the full benefits of secure, smooth and uninterrupted business continuity be expected.

For more information on disaster recovery, please visit: http://www.hobsoft.com/solutions/pandemic_preparation.jsp.

‘Going Green’ with a Virtual Workplace

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 07:53:00 +0200

At an increasing rate, today’s enterprises are being driven to lower operational costs and improve employee productivity. Between the continual rise of fuel prices and the way the economy has been affecting people, telecommuting is starting to become a trend that companies are drawn to. The concept of a virtual workplace, or telecommuting, has increasingly been implemented as a way to boost employee satisfaction and productivity as well as reduce their carbon footprint and energy expenses, in an effort to be more environmentally friendly.

Companies are ‘going green’ by using environmentally-friendly and resource-sparing applications of information technology. In most cases, telecommuters are reducing their companies’ carbon footprint by shifting energy consumption to their own homes. Secure remote access solutions utilizing SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) offer access to individual PCs, whether at the company office, home or on the road. In addition to providing employees with the flexibility to work inside and outside of business hours, remote access offers significant energy savings.

As virtual workplace programs grow in popularity within enterprises, there continues to be no shortage of studies and surveys indicating its bright future. In a analyst report by Forrester Research it is predicted that the U.S. telecommuting ranks will swell from 34 million in 2009 to 63 million by 2016 -- fueled by broadband adoption, better collaboration tools and growing management experience.

With remote access solutions at the backbone of virtual workplaces, employees are always connected to their corporate networks while visiting customers, business partners, at home or while in the field. The ability to securely, economically and reliably access enterprise resources from diverse platforms and terminals is, now and in the future, a not-to-be underestimated competitive advantage.

For more information on the virtual workplace, please visit: http://www.hobsoft.com/news/news081210.jsp

HOB Stress Test for Windows Remote Desktop Services

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:07:00 +0200

Task

As a manufacturer of remote desktop solutions HOB is repeatedly asked how many users can work simultaneously on a Windows Server. Unfortunately, there is no blanket statement for this question. Therefore HOB has performed a load test with defined hardware HOB.

Following question should be answered:

"How many users can use the remote desktop services on a defined hardware platform at the same time, and also use these reasonably?"

In this test, the emphasis was placed on the load behavior perceived by the user and less to the collection of performance values of the operating system. This was done through working parallel in a session and at the same time conducting a simulated background load - by means of a increasing the number of test sessions.

Description of the Test Environment

This test should be well understood and therefore importance was placed on common hardware and standard applications.

Remote Desktop Session Host:

Hardware:

HP ProLiant DL 380 G6, 2 x W5590 (3.33 GHz) processors with 8 cores (and hyper-threading / are 16 threads), 96 GB RAM, 2 x 300 GB SAS HD (mirror) on HP Smart Array P410i (512 MB cache), 1 GB/s Network Card

Operating system and software environment:

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, Microsoft Office 2010 (Word, Excel and PowerPoint used for this test), updates and hotfixes as of 21.01.2011, no virus scanner, no further adjustments (only default values), no page file

400 local user accounts, no Active Directory

Remote Desktop Services Client Simulation:

Hardware:

HP ProLiant DL 380 G6, 2 x W5590 (3.33 GHz) processors with 8 cores (no Hyper-Threading), 96 GB RAM, 8 x 300 GB SAS HD (RAID 1 + 0), 1 GB/s Network Card

Client software used:

HOBLink JWT 3.3.0579:

Scenario 1:

Screen size 1024 x 768, color depth 15-bit, compression on, audio off

Scenario 2:

Screen size 1280 x 1024, color 32-bit, compression on, audio off

Implementation of the Test Sessions

25 User sessions in the 5-seconds interval have been signed up by a batch file. The Users were newly registered and no re-connect s was carried out to existing sessions. The User-profiles already existed, therefore no effect by the first-time creation of the User-profiles from the default profile.

A Macro was generated for the creation of the load test on the server. For this the following software was used:

MacroMaker 3.0.0.6 (http://members.ij.net/anthonymathews/MacroMaker.htm)

This software was selected because in the process it causes very little CPU- and RAM-load on the host. Because the process is running in each User-session, it can have a noticeable additional burden and thus affect the result.

All Macro activities were carried out exclusively through the keyboard. Control via Mouse was not utilized because there are too many depending factors on the correct location of the various menus, buttons, and so on. Also it would not be possible to respond to a changing screen resolution by the client via Mouse control.

The Macro initiates Word first and enters a text. This is printed via a HP PCL printer driver on device ": nul". Then, Excel is started and performs simple calculations - multiple multiplications of random numbers. The results are processed into two diagrams and printed (as above). Then, a PowerPoint presentation is played, a Notepad is briefly opened, text entered and closed.

This Macro was executed in a loop with short pauses 100 times. Because there are no long pauses in the flow of the macro and i.e. also print jobs were simulated, you can definitely speak of a heavy-load profile, which is also mentioned in relevant reports/reports as power users.

Test Results

Results for Scenario 1: Display size 1024 x 768, Color depth 15-bit, Compression on, Audio off

User Count	Committed Memory in GB	Ø CPU-Usage in %	Noticed Stress Reaction
1 (Admin) Idle	4	~ 0
25	9	~ 5
50	14	~ 10
75	19	~ 15
100	24	~ 20
125	30	~ 30
150	35	~ 35
175	41	~ 40
200	47	~ 45
225	53	~ 50
250	60	~ 65	Occasional minor disruptions
275	66	~ 75
300	74	~ 90	Noticeable delays
325	81	~ 95	Starting program clearly takes longer, writing (Word) is still performing well
350	88	~ 100
375	95	~ 100	Additional connections no longer possible

Results for Scenario 2: Display size 1280 x 1024, Color 32-bit, Compression on, Audio off

User Count	Committed Memory in GB	Ø CPU-Last in %	Noticed Stress Reaction
1 (Admin) Idle	4	~ 0
25	9	~ 10
50	14	~ 15
75	21	~ 20
100	27	~ 25
125	33	~ 35
150	40	~ 45
175	46	~ 50
200	51	~ 55	Noticeable delays
225	59	~ 70
250	66	~ 80
275	72	~ 90	Starting program clearly takes longer, writing (Word) is still performing well
300	79	~ 100	Starting Explorer takes 5 seconds
325	89	~ 100	Slow responsiveness
350	95	~ 100	Additional connections no longer possible

Conclusion

In the first scenario, up to 250 sessions could be established simultaneously without any problems. Beyond 250 meetings first delays and stalling were noticeable. Nevertheless, working in an existing session was possible without disturbing side effects. At 300 sessions there were disturbing delays and with 325 sessions, the startup took significantly longer, although working was still possible.

With the higher resolution for the clients in the second scenario, you could operate up to 200 sessions without any problems. Then at the beginning there were minor disruptions, and then an increased deterioration of the subjective procedure. By 275 sessions work is affected and at 300 sessions there were clearly noticeable delays for users.

This test also reveals that the 64-bit technology allows significantly more users to work on a Windows Server, than with the previous 32-bit operating systems, even though the comparative figures are missing here due to the ability to use much more memory. Blanket statements that only about 30-50 simultaneous users can work on a Windows Remote Desktop session host probably stem from the period of the 32-bit Windows operating systems and are a thing of the past.

Hans Herrgott / Kai-Uwe Augustin