Guides

As the demand for seamless user experiences continues to skyrocket, digital resource providers attempt to satisfy modern consumer needs with edge networking. Starting in the 1990s, content delivery networks (CDN) were the first instance of traditional data centers extending to regional and local servers for faster delivery of digital content. A handful of communication and distributed systems emerged in the 30 years since, including peer-to-peer,...

Data administrators must adopt effective management practices like edge caching to ensure the availability of digital resources such as files, systems, and applications. Caching and edge computing play a critical role in enabling modern content delivery networks (CDN) and telecommunications providers that offer web services to billions of users. Edge caching refers to the practice of using intermediate storage between traditional or hyperscale data centers...

Configuration management (CM) is an effective strategy designed to help organizations govern control policies and maintain server and data integrity. Configuration management provides visibility into how systems and controls rely on each other, informing network stakeholders of the potential impact of change to network components, or "controls." Once called configuration management databases (CMDB) and also referred to as configuration management systems (CMS), these tools offer...

Maintaining and safeguarding code is an inherent part of the software development lifecycle. For developers, software programs are a never-ending work in progress. From adding new features, revising code, and resolving vulnerabilities, software publishers release updates or patches to ensure their software applications remain fully functional and secure. For clients, legacy or outdated software tools can appear harmless — but the reality is that most...

When you have a fleet of devices, multiple printers, or geographically distant office locations, a print server is a mechanism that provides adequate management and control. Print servers are high-powered appliances or software that help organizations manage files in a printing queue and facilitate the user-printer workflow.  Today, print servers can be physical or cloud-based systems that connect devices to specific network printers. Office staff...

For network access and policy management capabilities, Microsoft’s RADIUS server and proxy tool is the Network Policy Server (NPS). NPS offers authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA), enables the use of heterogeneous network equipment and ensures the health of network devices.  The RADIUS protocol provides the configuration and management of authentication for network clients central to NPS functionality. Current editions of NPS are installable via the...

Powering the apps, programs, and tools we've come to love, servers devoted to the operational use of data are known as database servers. Database servers are high-powered computers that store and manage data stored on a server for a network of users and devices. The terms database servers, database management systems (DBMS), and relational DBMS (RDBMS) get used interchangeably, but RDMBS is the most often...

A file transfer protocol (FTP) server is an intermediary for transferring files between computers on a network. While FTP servers traditionally were a physical unit in an organization’s back end, the adoption of SaaS technology brings those capabilities to the cloud. In either environment, FTP servers are the storage mechanisms that provide the secure transfer of files of varying weights and file formats.  On-premises FTP servers...