What's Hot: Products From Idera and Kerio Technologies

ASP.NET Version Switcher

Why pay for something when a free toolwill do the job? Systems ProgrammerAshok Batla was looking for a way tochange the .NET Framework versionwhen ASPX pages are compiled. Aftera bit of searching the Web, Bhatlacame acrossASP.NETVersionSwitcher, afreeware utilitycreated by DenisBauer.

“We [beganusing] a newplatform for ourWeb sites. All ofour applicationswere using differentversionsof the .NET Framework,” says Bhatla.“In IIS 5.0, we could switch the versionof the .NET Framework by using the IISadmin tool. After we moved to IIS 6.0 ona 64-bit OS, we had many versions of the.NET Framework, and different Web sitesneeded different versions to run—and IIS6.0 wouldn’t let us switch the .NET Frameworkversion. ASP.NET Version Switchersolved that issue for us. It worked like acharm, and it was super easy to install anduse.”

Bhatla says that Denis Bauer has developedmany useful tools for .NET developers,and he hopes to see Bauer developeven more useful utilities. “Denis Bauer’sASP.NET Version Switcher was an excellentfreeware utility that solved a problem for us,” says Bhatla. “Installation was very easy,and we haven’t had any issues with theproduct.”

Kerio Mail Server 6

Despite the dominance of Microsoft Exchange Server in theenterprise, many people prefer to look for an alternative. There areseveral reasons why someone might snub Exchange: Perhaps itwas too complex, or too expensive, or didn’t have the specific featureset needed. Such was the case with Akis Fotakelis, a systemsadministrator (and Windows IT Pro contributor) who needed anExchange alternative.

“Back in 2003, I was looking for a solution to replace ourSolaris mail server withone running on Windowsthat would also integratewith AD,” says Fotakelis. “Iexcluded Exchange dueto its complicated nature,and a colleague suggestedKerio Mail Server (KMS).I tested KMS against twoother solutions, and KMSprevailed.”

Fotakelis says that KMSwas easier to use, lessexpensive, and providedmore functionality thanother products he examined,and it provided theintegration with ActiveDirectory (AD) that heneeded. “[KMS integrates]with AD when I need it, butit also lets me create usersand mailboxes withouthaving to associate themwith a domain account,”says Fotakelis. KMS was alsoconsiderably less expensivethan other solutions he considered, and that was clearly a bigfactor in his purchase decision. “The price was a real bargain. Not only could I install it on a workstation—saving the license for a Windowsserver—but I saved moneyfrom buying separate programsfor antispam, antivirus, backup,archiving, monitoring, and mailinglist management.”

The lack of cluster support isone negative that Fotakelis pointsto, and he also ran into a fewother minor issues with the product. “I encountered two problemswith Kerio. The first one was due to a domain security policy thatwe tightened and KMS stopped working—but thanks to [the KMS]error log file I easily found the solution in minutes,” says Fotakelis.“In another case we forgot the admin’s password, and the procedurethat Kerio mentions on its site to reset it did not work. [Wesolved that] by restoring the settings file and restarting the KMSservice.”

SQLconfig

Database migration can be a stressful time for DBAsand IT pros, as it was for Systems Programmer AshokBhatla when he found himself working on a migrationproject. “We were migrating approximately 200 databasesfrom standalone SQL instances to a four-nodeactive/passive cluster [running on the 64-bit version]of SQL Server2005,” says Bhatla.“As part of thismigration, we hadto keep track of allthe changes to thedatabases, because the databaseswere for critical financialapplications which were withinthe scope of the Sarbanes-Oxleyauditing process.”

Bhatla said that the projectinvolved more than 65 applicationsand a host of engineeringand IT personnel. When Bhatlalooked for an enterprise SQL Server configuration management product to help simplify the task, he came across SQLconfig fromIdera.

“It worked on our three-tier architecture [and offered] easyintegration with Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) and NetIQAppManager. As we were using MOM for our server monitoring,[SQLconfig] worked with our monitoring system also.” Bhatla isplanning to standardize on SQLconfig for auditing all platforms.“It’s a cool product if you have lots of SQL Server systems anddatabases to migrate.”