I own a small structural engineering consulting firm. We do a lot of CAD work and structural analysis. My CAD software is old (AutoCad 2000) but it’s working fine for us now (running Windows XP Pro 32 bit). We also use the RISA suite of structural analysis software and keep that up to date. I am also an amateur videographer, using the Adobe Creative Suite CS4 (includes After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Flash, etc.). I’d like to build a new PC, very similar to this. It’s a 64-bit system with an Intel i7 processor. I’m also looking at using a 64-bit Vista ...

I’m an IT Manager in a medium-size special education center. I am running a shop with 100-plus VMs running on Windows Server 2008 virtualization hosts. How do I minimize time/resources/disruption, while migrating to Windows Server 2008 R2? As per Microsoft recommended best practices, all the VHDs are a fixed size, and each VHD file is on its own individual LUN. Even though some of the VHDs are stored in mirroring capable hardware, I don’t see any alternative to doing a file copy of the VHDs, because I want to deploy multiple VMs on a single Clustered Shared Volume (LUN). The file copies ...

I am the IT Manager at a major craft brewery with over 200 employees scattered over 10 locations. Data retention and collaboration seem to be a major hurdle throughout our day-to-day operations. With a fairly limited security protocol, users have free will to create whatever they please, save the information wherever they please, and share it with whomever they see fit. Shared resources are difficult to manage and policing users doesn’t seem to be working either. Information databases as well as files pertinent to marketing such as photographs, videos, and design files are saved on an individual’s PC, rather than on the ...

I am an admin in a large virtualization shop. I have friends working in a virtualization hosting provider who have the same question as I do. The idea is to have a mix of VMs on each virtualization host that are a good mix of I/O intensive applications and CPU bound applications. Is it a good idea to host two Exchange VMs on a single physical host? Or is it better to mix an Exchange VM with a SQL host? Should I instead mix seven desktop VDI VMs with a single Exchange VM? I am looking for recommendations and best practices that advise ...

I own an entertainment company that employs numerous in-house employees as well as six outside field representatives that work from home. Our field representatives travel throughout the day meeting with clients and surveying spaces to have events. During the course of the days the reps work on their laptops and update data in the Act database as well as take notes during meetings.  At the end of the day, I need this information to be transmitted back to our servers over a VPN so that it is accessible to the rest of the inside staff. My problem is I do not know how ...