MaximumASP Knowledge Base Articles

Windows Updates

8/19/2008 4:17:11 PM

Q. Which Windows updates do you manage on my server?

A. We manage all security and critical updates on all Virtual, shared, and dedicated servers. If you have any problems with updates installing on your servers, contact us at support@maximumasp.com.

2008/07/31 MaximumASP Partnership With Quest Software Integrates LiteSpeed for SQL Server

7/31/2008 7:54:06 PM

MaximumASP, a Microsoft Gold Certified Provider of web hosting and IT services today announced a partnership with Quest Software (Nasdaq: QSFT), a leading provider of application, database, Windows infrastructure management solutions and virtual environments, to offer Quest LiteSpeed for SQL Server to provide the fastest, most secure backups available for SQL Server. The enhancement of services in the MaximumASP supplemental SQL support package will give customers unparalleled performance, flexibility and strengthened security.

Upgrading to the supplemental SQL support package with Quest LiteSpeed will increase backup speed, add a centralized view of backups and restores and reduce backup size by on average of 75-90% or better. The use of LiteSpeed maximizes disk space and process efficiency while greatly reducing server load, thereby resulting in greater overall performance.

"Quest LiteSpeed for SQL Server provides another great incentive for our customers to get the most out of their hosting services with MaximumASP. We like to stay one step ahead with the latest technology to give our customers the tools and benefits necessary to maintain a competitive edge," said Sarah Barela, Manager of Database Services at MaximumASP.

Quest Software's LiteSpeed for SQL Server is a backup and recovery product, whose low impact, high performance compression technology allows companies to reduce storage costs and backup/recovery windows, while maintaining complete control over the backup and recovery process. Recover individual database objects and encapsulate a complete database restore into a single file to speed up restore times.

"Quest and MaximumASP are both huge supporters of SQL Server professionals, specifically the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS)," said Kevin Kline, director of technology for the SQL Server Solutions at Quest Software. "It is great that two organizations that have done so much for the community have come together to add even more value with this supplemental support for LiteSpeed."

Visit http://www.maximumasp.com/products/dedicatedServers/faqs/support.aspx or contact sales@maximumasp.com today for more information on our support package with LiteSpeed for SQL Server.

2008/07/15 MaximumASP Obtains SAS 70 Type I Report

7/17/2008 7:04:03 PM

MaximumASP a Microsoft Gold Certified provider of web hosting and IT services, today announced it has received the SAS 70 Type I report, an internationally recognized auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Performed by Chilton & Medley, a major public accounting and auditing firm, the SAS 70 is an independent report on the design of MaximumASP's business processes.

"MaximumASP obtained the SAS 70 report to demonstrate to regulated and security conscious companies that we have internal controls and procedures related to our data center operations and services," said Wade Lewis, Managing Partner, MaximumASP. "The SAS 70 Type I report is valuable to our customers because they can provide it to their clients to verify the security of their data."

The SAS 70 Type I report shows that MaximumASP's description of certain relevant controls over information technology related to its Louisville and Chicago data centers and hosting operations is presented accurately and that such controls have been properly designed to achieve their specified control objectives.

MaximumASP's controls description is broader in scope than many other hosting providers. In addition to the physical security measures covered in typical data center facilities, MaximumASP's report covers a full range of information security, network performance, network monitoring, data back-up, disaster recovery, and other controls such as Service Level Agreements.

What is Redundant Block Elimination (RBE)?

7/17/2008 2:23:10 PM

Redundant Block Elimination (RBE) is a technology in Recovery Solution that is similar to delta-byte differencing. The concept is that if a file on a Recovery Solution client computer has changed since the last backup, only the differences are transmitted to the Recovery Server. This improves backup efficiency on the client computer, minimizes bandwidth consumption, and reduces disk space.

What is Redundant File Elimination (RFE)?

7/17/2008 2:21:51 PM

Redundant File Elimination (RFE) is a technology in Recovery Solution that is similar to delta-file differencing. The concept is that if the Recovery Server already has an identical copy of a file in the repository, the agent does not back it up again. This works across computers, so if multiple computers have a copy of xyz.dll, only one copy of the file is created with associations to all computers that have that identical file. This saves on disk space and improves efficiency of backups.

2008/02/01 New Server Operations Center Goes Online at MaximumASP

7/16/2008 8:47:46 PM

MaximumASP, a Microsoft Gold Certified Provider of web hosting and managed IT services opened a new server operations center to accommodate expansion needs. The state of the art "SOC" occupies 1,500 square feet of the 11,000 square foot corporate offices.

"Our steady growth over the past eight years, along with the popularity of our managed IT services, prompted the upgrade," said Wade Lewis, Managing Partner, Operations. "In addition to monitoring servers for ping response and terminal service port response, we offer customized monitors that send alerts via email for overall server health, HTTP, SMTP, POP, FTP, disk space, process status and service status. We are delighted to provide our customers proactive options for monitoring the health of their servers in this fully-equipped up to date environment," Lewis added.

Senior Systems Engineer Mike Schneider commented, "The SOC provides a more dynamic atmosphere for MaximumASP support engineers – collaboration on issues in real time allows for a more tightly integrated support team with even better response to the customer."

Highlights of the new server operations center include:

1,500 sq feet
Seating for 21 engineers
Dedicated power backup via UPS and natural gas generator, designed to stay online in the event of catastrophe
Supports 16 separate monitoring aspects on main display wall including server health, server response, data center environmental, outside weather, internal and external security feeds, application status, bandwidth monitoring and utilization, and database performance
Purpose-built from the ground up for advanced server monitoring
Located in the same physical building as the data center
Located in center of office space and protected from external threats
All display data is protected from line of sight of unauthorized users by screening walls and protective film on windows of entry points

2008/07/08 MaximumASP Rolls Out Hyper-V Based Dedicated Servers

7/15/2008 4:33:09 PM

MaximumASP, a Microsoft Gold Certified provider of web hosting and IT services, today announced the release of Hyper-V technology as part of their dedicated server line-up. MaximumASP was among a handful of hosting providers selected for the Hyper-V Go Live program and first to launch hosted betas for IIS 7/Windows Server 2008 dedicated servers.

"MaximumASP has a long history of working closely with Microsoft in adopting new technologies and providing feedback on their development. Our customers should feel confident knowing when we deliver a product or service it is thoroughly researched and tested to ensure that it is the best solution available in the marketplace. Hyper-V meets our criteria because it provides a scalable, reliable, and highly available virtualization platform." said Dominic Foster, Chief Technology Officer at MaximumASP.

Bringing virtualization to the market is another way for MaximumASP to help businesses consolidate resources, reduce support costs, and decrease operational expenses. Hyper-V dedicated servers are available in a secure, hosted environment backed by MaximumASP’s around the clock superior support. With a firm commitment to this technology and plans to further develop dynamic service offerings built around the new virtualization platforms from Microsoft, this release is the first of several major product releases slated for 2008.

SmarterStats on a 64 bit OS

7/14/2008 6:36:08 PM

These are the instructions for getting SmarterStats to run in a 64 bit environment.

Switch IIS to run in 32 bit mode by following the instructions in this Microsoft KB

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894435

Download the latest version of the manual installer from the following link: http://www.smartertools.com/downloads/SmarterStats/manual_installs/SmarterStats_3_3_2950_ManualInstall.zip

Create the folders on the server and then extract the files to the c:\program files (x86)\smartertools\smarterstats - after the extraction there should be two additional folders under SmarterStats called MRS and Service.

You will need to add Network Service security permissions with Modify rights to the following folders:

C:\program files (x86)\SmarterTools\SmarterStats\MRS\Config

C:\program files (x86)\SmarterTools\SmarterStats\MRS\Temp

C:\program files (x86)\SmarterTools\SmarterStats\MRS\Skins

In order to install the SmarterStats service, open a command prompt window and run the following command:

c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\Installutil "C:\program files(x86)\smartertools\smarterstats\Service\sssvc.exe"

Start the SmarterStats Service in the Service Control Manager

Create an Application pool just for SmarterStats

Create an IIS site for SmarterStats IIS

1) Right click New, Website

a. Next

b. Add Description – SmarterStats

c. Next

d. Select IP Address, Appropriate Port Number

e. Next

f. Enter Path C:\Program Files (x86)\SmarterTools\SmarterStats\MRS

g. Next

h. Click to enable run scripts (such as ASP)

i. Next

j. Finish

2) Right click on the SmarterStats website you just create and choose Properties

a. Click the Home Directory tab

i. Select the SmarterStats application pool

ii. Make sure that Execute permissions are set to Scripts Only

b. Click the Documents tab

i. Make sure that Default.aspx is there and at the top

SmarterStats is now installed and running.

Is Symantec Endpoint compatible with Windows 2008?

6/5/2008 7:51:21 PM

Yes, Symantec Endpoint maintenance release 2 (11.0.2000.1567) is compatible with Windows 2008.

"Support for Windows Server 2008 Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter/Web (32-bit or x64 edition), including Server Core installation, has been added to the Symantec Endpoint Protection and Symantec Network Access Control clients. Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager and the deployment tools have also been modified to support the management of Symantec Endpoint Protection and Symantec Network Access Control clients that run on Windows Server 2008. However, the management components cannot be installed on a computer running Windows Server 2008."

http://service1.symantec.com/support/ent-security.nsf/854fa02b4f5013678825731a007d06af/2c62c4ee0e697aae882573b000034ded?OpenDocument

Symantec "Faulting application SmcGui.exe" errors

6/5/2008 7:49:57 PM

You may receive a SmcGui program error window on your server if the Symantec Endpoint client crashes when importing rules from the Endpoint Manager or conflicts with a program on your server.

You may also receive one of the two following errors in your server's application event log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Error
Event Category: (100)
Event ID: 1000
Date: -
Time: -
User: N/A
Computer: -
Description:
Faulting application SmcGui.exe, version 11.0.1000.1091, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.2.3790.3959, fault address 0x0004ccad.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 53 6d 63 ure Smc
0018: 47 75 69 2e 65 78 65 20 Gui.exe
0020: 31 31 2e 30 2e 31 30 30 11.0.100
0028: 30 2e 31 30 39 31 20 69 0.1091 i
0030: 6e 20 6e 74 64 6c 6c 2e n ntdll.
0038: 64 6c 6c 20 35 2e 32 2e dll 5.2.
0040: 33 37 39 30 2e 33 39 35 3790.395
0048: 39 20 61 74 20 6f 66 66 9 at off
0050: 73 65 74 20 30 30 30 34 set 0004
0058: 63 63 61 64 ccad

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Application Error
Event Category: (100)
Event ID: 1004
Date: -
Time: -
User: N/A
Computer: -
Description:
Reporting queued error: faulting application SmcGui.exe, version 11.0.1000.1091, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.2.3790.3959, fault address 0x0004ccad.

This error is usually fixed when the Symantec client is upgraded to the latest maintenance release (11.0.2000.1567). As seen above, the errors commonly occur when the client version is at (11.0.1000.1091). You can check the version of the Symantec client on the client interface. To do this, open the Symantec tray icon, click "Help and Support", and "About". You will see the version number there. If it is at version (11.0.1000.1091) and you want the client upgraded to (11.0.2000.1567), send an email to support@maximumasp ATTN: Antivirus team, give us a 30 minute window to upgrade the client and reboot your server.

We are currently upgrading all of our clients, but notifying each customer before the upgrade is scheduled in order to prevent any unexpected outages.

Maintenance Release 2 (MR2) details:

http://service1.symantec.com/support/ent-security.nsf/854fa02b4f5013678825731a007d06af/2c62c4ee0e697aae882573b000034ded?OpenDocument