Project Management

Project is a temporary endeavor to create unique product, service or to achieve a unique result. There are nine knowledge areas for project management. Scope, time, cost and quality management are core areas. HR, communication, procurement and risk management are facilitating areas. Project integration management combines the other eight areas. Projects are constrained by cost, time and scope.

Defining scope of project, identifying and managing stakeholder relationship, developing detailed task lists, estimating time requirements, developing initial project flow chart, identifying resources and budget, evaluating project requirements, identifying and evaluating risks, preparing contingency plans, identifying interdependencies, identifying and tracking critical milestones, participating in project phase reviews, securing needed resources, managing change control process and reporting project status are 15 main responsibilities for a PM.

Communication, organizational, team-building, leadership, coping and technology skills are invaluable for a PM. PMs also need to use system thinking, which involves systems philosophy, systems analysis and systems management. Systems management involves managing business, organizational and technology areas. Organizations are understood from structural, HR, political and symbolic angles. Standards and guidelines help in effective project management. Project is managed in phases. Activities for each phase include work to be performed, deliverables, who is involved and management control.

Installing Mac OS X server

A variety of installation methods are available for Mac OS X server. G5 Xserve and the later models of G4 comes with a built-in DVD drive that may be used for installation. Alternatively hard disk cloning by using Synchronize Pro. X or native OS utility 'Disk utility' may be used. Take out a disk from the target server and plug-in the source server. Use synchronize pro to create a bootable disk out of the imported hard disk. Put the disk back in the target server and use Synchronize Pro X again to clone it to other disks. Disk utility can be used to create RAID sets featuring the disk. It can also create partitions from single disk. Remote installation can be done by using 'Server Assistant' utility which is part of Server administration tools. The tools can be installed on either Mac OS X or Mac OS X server.

Startup option in system preferences allow to choose a disk to boot from.

Concurrent Versions System (CVS)

cvs (concurrent versions system) is used for keeping track of file versions. Below are its features and useful commands:

*** cvs uses revisions and releases terminology instead of versions. Revision refers to versions of a file and release refers to versions of a project.
*** cvs project is a single development project constrained within a single directory. All development files are within this directory. cvs is an excellent version tool for multiple files.
*** cvs keeps all revisions of a file in a repository which can be over a network via a SSH connection. Repository can be initialized by 'cvs -d [directory] init' command
*** A new project can be created by 'cvs import [name] [name] initial' command. It has to be run within the working directory.
*** Before modification, files have to be checked out using 'cvs checkout [project name]. The command will create working directory within current directory.
*** After modification, files can be checked in using 'cvs commit' command within working directory. CVS directory within working directory contains cvs administrative information.
*** Sometimes files cannot be checked-in as other user has already checked-in a different check-out file. Manual modifications of files within working directory may be required in such cases
*** CVSROOT environment variable can be set to repository directory path
*** It is possible to checkout a particular revision of a file using '-r' command option or a file of a particular day by using '-D' option
*** New files can be added by using 'add' option and remove using 'remove' option

Problem solving and decision making

Five problem scenarios and associate tools to resolve them are listed below:

1) Complex and/or confusion situation requires clustered and systems (loop) thinking. Clustered thinking requires coming up with possible causes and grouping them in groups (clusters) Clusters are then linked to understand deep lying causes.
2) Something has gone wrong. Failure analysis is used for finding immediate cause, which is functional failure. FA is a five-D process, involving defining a problem, describing a problem, determining possible causes, destroying weak hypothesis and developing action plans. A three-C approach to define changes, contrast and characteristics helps to identify possible causes. A matrix matching possible causes against questions (what, where, when & who) helps in this regard.
Root cause is due to organizational issues, which is resolved by cause and effect tool such as the five why's methodology. Solution has to be provided for each why.
3) Making a choice requires decision making. Effecting decision making requires stating a purpose, defining performance requirements (both critical and relevant), picking an option and doing risk assessment and finally proposing an action plan.
4) Something might go wrong. Problems are avoided by failure prevention planning, which lists down both protection and prevention plans. Mission, objectives and success indicators are also mentioned in the plan.
5) Improving current performance requires creative thinking for generating new ideas. Four approaches can be employed. Random item involves listing random words or phrases and linking them with the given situation to create ideas. Ideal situation requires considering an ideal scenario regardless of resource constraints. Contextual transposition requires visioning a change in culture and values. Whereas iteration approach means defining new context in terms of achievements.
Implementing a change is also included in this problem definition. Force field analysis is used to identify helping and hindering forces. These forces are marked according to their potency and then action plans are devised to strengthen helping forces and weaken hindering forces.

Deployment of 8260 Symantec mail security devices

Following are the important steps in deploying symantec 8260 mail security devices.

-- Choose a suitable deployment model. Basic gateway, gateway deployment with multiple appliances, gateway deployment in the DMZ, gateway deployment in DMZ with SMTP gateway, multi-tier gateway and post-gateway deployment are the possible options. Basic gateway deployment is recommended by symantec, where 8260 sits at the outermost gateway layer processing both inbound and outbound emails and relaying mails to internal mail or relay servers.
-- Select a suitable role. 8260 device can take on of the three roles of scanner, control center or scanner and control center. Scanner filters emails. Each scanner has a control center, which can configure and monitor scanner through web based interface. Scanner can also be setup from control center using 'Add Scanner Wizard'.
-- It also serves as a email firewall which can block directory harvest attack and spam and virus attacks. Spammer sends emails to a list of users within a domain to receive NDR for invalid users and can glean valid users from the results. Symantec device supports directory replication from mail server directory service to block such an attack by refusing an NDR. Spam and virus attacks can be slowed down by deferring SMTP connections from culprit servers, if the attack exceeds pre-configured limit.