Pcs Are Better Than Macs For Home Users Essays - Steve Jobs

Pcs Are Better Than Macs For Home Users For years, Macs and PCs have been competing for home users. Apple has recently released the new iMac, and the notebook version of the iMac ? the iBook. Even though several years ago, Macs were better than PCs, now, PCs are better than Macs for home users in terms of performance and expansion options. To some consumers, performance is often the most important factor in buying a computer. Performance doesn't necessarily mean how well the computer performs potentially, but only on specific tasks. Both iBook and iMac are designed for home users, most of whom neither care about number of floating-point operations per second, nor know what it means. Very few home users will pay $500 for Photoshop 5.0 to edit photos on their PC. The more likely uses for home computers are: word processing, browsing the Internet, and 3-D gaming. Since the most popular word processor is developed by Microsoft and allegedly optimized for Windows, it would be unfair to compare the Mac version of MS Word with the Windows version. However, comparing the performance in 3-D games and the Internet is fair. Even though PC Magazine specializes in PCs, it reviewed the iBook as soon as it came out. The article focused on performance of the iBook and compared it to a similar IBM-compatible notebook. Since there are no new IBM-compatible notebooks that match iBook's specifications, PC Magazine decided to use the notebook they believed to be closest to iBook ? the IBM ThinkPad iSeries 1480. They have very few similarities: the both notebooks are available in different colors, and neither notebook has the fastest processor from its platform. Apple claims that its notebooks are ?up to twice as fast as comparable Microsoft Windows-based portables? (qtd. in Hill 53). This statement is very vague ? it doesn't say how they compared the portables, and what Apple meant by ?comparable?. Since similar statements have been made about iMac, speed will be discussed in the next section; for now, let's make sure that PC Magazine selected an appropriate notebook. The G3 processor from the iBook is one generation behind Mac desktops, whereas the ThinkPad's Celeron is two generations behind other IBM-compatible notebooks. Even though Celeron is somewhat obsolete, it runs at 466 MHz versus G3's 300 MHz. Since neither processor is top-of-the-line, and both notebooks are in the same price range, it is safe to conclude that the two notebooks are comparable. Apple declares that ?fast, easy access to the Internet? is among the ?features [that] made the world fall in love with the iMac? (Apple). As mentioned earlier, the Internet performance is one of the uses for home computers and should be thoroughly tested. In their review, PC Magazine uses i_Bench to test the Internet performance. According to i_Bench tests, ThinkPad outperforms the iBook on almost every test (Hill 53). The only exception is the test of QuickTime Transition Effects ? the iBook is faster than the ThinkPad (Hill 53). Apple's QuickTime is one of many formats for viewing compressed video on the Internet and is rarely used because of poor compression quality. QuickTime should not be used to test the computer's performance for several reasons: it is rarely used, and is most likely optimized for Macs. On the other hand, The Java Virtual Machine test should be looked at more carefully. Java is a platform-independent programming language originally designed by Sun Corporation for another operating system, and is currently used for writing programs for the Internet. This test runs several Java programs within a browser, which simulates ordinary Internet browsing better than QuickTime. The ThinkPad impressively outperformed the iBook with the a score of 43,766 versus just 23,872 (Hill 53). Comparing the iMacs with IBM-compatible desktops creates the same problem ? finding the PC that is comparable to the iMac. Dave Glue, a programming student, sums up this problem in one sentence: ?If you're going to downgrade the PC to exactly match the iMac's MHz rating and hard disk, you'll have a significantly cheaper PC than the iMac.? Even when comparing computers of equal price, another problem appears ? they run two completely different operating systems. Apple uses BYTEmark (Apple), which tests the processor's integer

Active Directory Recovery Planning Essay Example

Active Directory Recovery Planning Essay Example Active Directory Recovery Planning Essay Active Directory Recovery Planning Essay Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations By Alan Klietz Algin Technology LLC Algin Technology Copyright  © 2007 Algin Technology LLC. All Rights Reserved. Microsoft ® Windows ® and Active Directory ® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Algin Technology LLC 3055 Old Highway 8, Suite 35 Minneapolis, MN 55418 E-mail: [emailprotected] com Telephone: +1 866 488 6657 +1 612 235 2100 Fax: +1 612 235 2108 Table of Contents Introduction Small Organizations Scenario: Grace Community Church Large Organizations Scenario: General Products Corporation OU-level and object-level recovery Branch Office Recovery Disaster Recovery Forest-wide recovery Testing Major or Irreversible Changes Staff Training Domain Consolidation and Restructuring Recovery Best Practices Backup Schedule Restore Order SYSVOL Best Practices for Restoring SYSVOL Recovery Technical Issues AD Database Size ESE page corruption SYSVOL Recovery SYSVOL Restore Types Group Policy Containers and Version Synchronization EFS Key Recovery Guidelines for EFS Key Recovery USN Rollback What is USN Rollback? How to Avoid USN Rollback How to Fix USN Rollback 10 10 11 11 11 12 12 1 1 1 3 3 3 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 9 9 Backup Expiration Lingering Objects What are Lingering Objects? How to Remove Lingering Objects Administrator Password Recovery 12 13 13 13 13 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations Introduction Active Directory ® (AD) is a distributed directory system developed by Microsoft ® Corporation to serve a wide variety of organizations from small offices to large multinational corporations. In addition to traditional irectory information such as phone numbers and job titles, Active Directory contains the Identification and Authentication (IA) credentials for the users of a Microsoft Windows ® network. AD determines the security boundaries (â€Å"domains†), access rights, and usage policies for your network. Because Active Directory is a central component of Windows IA, developing a recovery plan is essential for reliability and availab ility of your network. The requirements of your AD recovery plan will be influenced by several factors, including your organizational size, your security and reliability requirements, and your budget and resource availability. Small Organizations A small organization usually has a limited budget and staff. Often the most significant requirement is the need to limit Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) while serving the mission of the organization. Scenario: Grace Community Church Mary is a volunteer who runs the computer system for the church staff at Grace Community Church. Because it is a small organization with a limited budget, Mary needs to be frugal in budgeting expenses. In planning church’s Windows network, Mary decides on Microsoft Small Business Server with Active Directory as the most economical choice. Mary now needs to develop an AD maintenance and recovery plan. Mary’s AD recovery plan includes the following considerations: Running a small domain with a single server. Recovering AD if the single server fails. Minimizing capital and maintenance costs. Running a domain with a single server: Microsoft generally allows only one Small Business Server (SBS) domain controller in an Active Directory forest (Q884453). Intended for small organizations, the SBS computer is often the only domain controller for the entire organization. Recovering AD if the single server fails: With one server there are three basic methods for recovering AD: 1) Restore the entire System State and the Windows files from the system disk. 2) Move only the AD database and related data files. 3) Rebuild the AD forest. Method 1: Restore the System State and Windows disk. This method copies the entire Windows operating system and all related files from the system disk (typically C:). 1 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations The advantage of this method is that all settings and installed applications are copied with complete fidelity, and it can be accomplished without any external tools. The disadvantage is that the replacement computer must be hardware compatible. In addition, any bugs, viruses, bad drivers, or other causes of system instability will also be copied to the new computer. Microsoft does not support restoring a system state backup from one computer to a second computer of a different make, model, or hardware configuration (Q249694). Even if the source and destination computers appear to be identical makes and models, there may be driver, hardware, or firmware differences that can prevent successful transfer between the source and destination computers. Method 2: Move only the AD database. This method copies only the Active Directory database and related data files. These include NTDS. DIT, EDB*. LOG), the System Volume (SYSVOL), DNS settings, and security credential files. The advantage is that you can move AD to a computer running on different hardware. The new computer can be any make or model. And you can install AD on a â€Å"clean† computer, eliminating any instability issues. The disadvantage is that you need to re-install applications and re-apply settings. Method 3: Rebuild a new AD forest. This is the default fallback option. It requires unjoining and rejoining all member computers, creating all new user accounts, and issuing new passwords. All user desktop settings will be lost, including icons and desktop application settings. Private user files and folders, such as My Documents, saved e-mail messages, and Web Favorites will need to be manually copied on each desktop computer from the old dead accounts to the new accounts. Because of the amount of work required this should be considered the method of last resort. Minimizing capital and maintenance costs: Running AD on a single server instead of two can cut in half the initial hardware and software capital expenses as well as ongoing maintenance and Software Assurance fees. However you need to take into account the organizational cost of having your AD server down during the time it takes to replace it. A plan should take this into account and consider options to limit downtime. For example, you can select in advance a designated non-server PC that you can press into service on short notice. A single server environment can work to your advantage in controlling costs if you understand the tradeoffs when developing your AD recovery plan. 2 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations Large Organizations Large organizations have diverse and complex IT requirements. These often dictate the need for sophisticated AD recovery management techniques. Scenario: General Products Corporation General Products Corporation is a large corporation with several divisions and branch offices. It recently acquired another corporation and is in the process of consolidating domains and servers. Robert has been tasked with creation of an AD recovery and management plan for General Products. The AD forest contains several domains, some of which were independently managed prior to consolidation. Robert’s AD recovery management plan includes the following considerations: OU-level and object-level recovery Branch-office recovery Disaster recovery Testing major or irreversible changes Staff training Domain consolidation and restructuring OU-level and object-level recovery Active Directory is a distributed database system. Within a domain AD uses multi-master replication between domain controllers (DCs) such that each DC contains the same copy of the domain’s objects. Queries for objects in other domains are delegated via referral to a domain controller for the target domain. Computer and user objects in a domain can be grouped into an Organizational Units (OUs). The number and grouping of OUs usually reflects the business structure of the organization. AD allows delegation of management at the OU level. The objects in AD are managed using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). MMC provides a tree-like structure for managing OUs, computers, and users (see figure). 3 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations OU-level or object-level recovery is needed when an administrative user inadvertently deletes or modifies an OU or an individual object. AD does not provide a way to recover from administrative errors. (In other words, there is no â€Å"undo† capability. ) Recovery of OU or individual objects is possible using an object-level database recovery utility such as NetProâ„ ¢ RestoreADminâ„ ¢. These utilities create a shadow database to track changes to AD in order to provide an â€Å"undo† capability. Object recovery is important for domains that require high availability, or that have many domain controllers hosting the domain, or that have other requirements where a domain-level restore would be inconvenient or impractical. Object recovery does not undo global or irreversible changes (page 5) or system errors (page 8). Deleted user accounts or group memberships can be restored manually using an authoritative restore with NTDSUTIL. However the procedure is complex and error prone and is not recommended. For details see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article â€Å"How to restore deleted user accounts and their group memberships in Active Directory† (Q840001). 4 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations Branch Office Recovery General Products has several branch offices, with a small number of employees at each site. As a general rule your Active Directory topology should match your organizational topology. At General Products each branch office has its own domain. Since a domain is also a security boundary, having separate domains helps to limit the propagation of a security breech in a branch office from compromising the main computer center. (OU-level delegation is mainly functional and does not provide strong protection. ) Depending on reliability and budget requirements, a branch office can be assigned one domain controller. The case of a single domain controller at a branch office can be handled similarly to the Small Organization scenario. Your plan will need to judge the tradeoff between reliability and cost. Disaster Recovery Floods, fires, and earthquakes can cause damage or loss of your entire computer center. Offsite backups are essential, and backup tapes/discs should be rotated to a secure remote location on a regular basis. The root domain of the AD forest and other important domains should have offsite replication, with remote accessibility via VPN or dedicated links. Two or more geographically separated computer centers should house DCs for important domains to provide distributed redundancy to mitigate against power failures or network disconnections. The consolidation of WAN network providers means that you need to carefully consider the physical routes of the alternate connections between your sites. Otherwise, a backhoe digging a trench in Chicago may cut all your backup connections between your west-coast and eastcoast operations. A VPN connection using the public Internet (using a high hopcount in the routing table) can take advantage of the Internet’s dynamic routing capability to temporarily replace broken dedicated links. Your recovery plan should include a contingency for moving operations to a replacement data center in case of a long-term outage. For example, you can establish a reciprocity agreement with another organization or contract with a commercial data recovery center to host your servers. Forest-wide recovery Some changes to the AD configuration are permanent and irreversible. These include adding new types of objects to the database schema or elevating the Forest Functional Level. Global changes will propagate throughout the entire forest and affect all domain controllers in your organization. Once made, these changes generally cannot be rolled back. The only supported recovery method is to restore the entire AD forest. For more information on AD forest recovery procedures see the Microsoft technical paper, â€Å"Best Practices: Active Directory Forest Recovery†, microsoft. com/downloads/details. aspx? familyid=3eda5a79-c99b-4df9823c-933feba08cfe 5 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations While forest recovery might be an option for a small site, it is clearly a disastrous situation in a large organization. Your AD recovery plan should focus on preventative steps. The best preventative method is to carefully test major or irreversible changes on an offline copy of the AD forest (see below). Testing Major or Irreversible Changes Microsoft recommends that you validate the compatibility of all security-related configuration changes in a test forest before you introduce them in a production environment (Q823659). This is especially important before making major or irreversible changes to your AD configuration, such as elevating the Domain Functional Level or the Forest Functional Level. You can use either a physical computer or a virtual machine (VM) for your testing. A VM is the recommended choice, as it is easier to â€Å"reset† and can guarantee network isolation because it does not run on real network hardware. UMove works with VMware ® and with Microsoft ® Virtual Serverâ„ ¢. VMware Server is a free product that allows you to run Windows Server as a virtual machine. It can be installed on any host computer that is already running Windows Server. vmware. com/products/server/ Offline testing is also important before attempting domain consolidation or types of major restructuring (see below). When conducting your testing it is generally not necessary to clone AD from every domain controller. Usually cloning one domain controller from each affected domain is sufficient. Exception: if you are testing changes to replication settings you should clone all of the affected DCs. ) Staff Training In addition to offline testing, offline training is important as a preventative measure to avoid administrative errors. Staff responsible for managing Active Directory should have access to an offline copy at least one domain controller for training purposes. Ideally it should be a VM with a snapshot capability for quick reset. Domain Consolidation and Restructuring Corporate mergers or reorganizations often require the consolidation or restructuring of a number of domains. Domain consolidation can be accomplished offline, with new replication and DNS settings established in a virtual environment. When tested and approved, the restructured forest can copied en masse to the live environment. 6 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations Recovery Best Practices The following guidelines are recommended when writing the recovery procedures in your AD recovery plan: Backup Schedule Establish a procedure to make periodic backups of Active Directory. For a small organization where AD is relatively static a weekly backup may be sufficient. A large organization where AD is changed frequently should be backed up daily. Backups can be incorporated into your standard backup procedure for the System State. Also be sure to back up the system disk (usually C:). This is because the System State does not include all information required to move AD to a replacement computer. For a list of all files required to move AD to a replacement or test computer see http://utools. com/help/StagingFolder. asp. UMove can be used to create a minimal-sized . BKF file so that you do not need to back up the entire C: disk daily. An object-level recovery utility should also be considered where changes are frequent or high availability is important (page 3). Establish a snapshot schedule for the shadow database, at minimum daily and more often if needed. Restore Order When restoring multiple domain controllers, Restore the forest root domain before other domains. Restore the parent domain before the child domain(s). In each domain, restore the domain controller with the PDC emulator role before non-PDCs. Restore DCs offering DNS before other DCs. SYSVOL Best Practices for Restoring SYSVOL The System Volume (SYSVOL) contains a shared copy of the domains public files. It includes the files that define the domains Group Policy settings and the domains user logon scripts. Using the File Replication Service (FRS), the files in SYSVOL are kept identical on every domain controller in the domain. When restoring SYSVOL, If the domain has only one domain controller select authoritative restore of SYSVOL. When restoring a non-PDC select non-authoritative restore of SYSVOL. 7 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations When restoring all the domain controllers, first restore the PDC and select authoritative restore of SYSVOL. For the remaining domain controllers select non-authoritative restore of SYSVOL. For more information on SYSVOL recovery see page 9. Recovery Technical Issues The following technical issues need to be considered in the operational section of your AD recovery plan. AD Database Size The file WindowsNTDSNTDS. DIT contains the bulk of the Active Directory database. The size is roughly proportional to the number of objects stored therein. It is typically 200 MB for a small organization and 1-10 gigabytes for a large organization. It rarely exceeds 10 gigabytes except when a single domain contains a very large number of users/computers (100,000 or more). If you have a very large number of users or computers, you should consider splitting up your organization into multiple domains to reduce the size of the NTDS. DIT file. This will make it easier to create daily/weekly snapshots without running out of disk space. It will also improve your security by allowing you to subdivide your organization into smaller security domains. Remember, a domain is a security boundary. ) Smaller security domains help to compartmentalize and reduce the impact of security breeches. The NTDS. DIT file can become fragmented due to many additions and deletions of objects. If the file is excessively large, you can defragment it offline (Q232122). Minimizing the size of the NTDS. DIT reduces the risk of exposure to ESE page corruption (see below) . ESE page corruption Due to the demand for disk manufacturers to produce disks at lower prices and higher data densities, hard disk drives (HDDs) are not as reliable as those manufactured several years ago. In particular, bad disk sectors are more common. Bad disk sectors can be ignored in many cases (e. g. , in media files). However, a bad disk sector in the NTDS. DIT file is catastrophic. NTDS. DIT is an Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM) file. The software component that accesses the file is called the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE). ESE stores ISAM data in pages. The size of each page is 4096 bytes (the same as the size of a disk block in the NTDS file system). Each page contains a checksum. The checksum is used to detect corruption of the data page, typically due to a bad physical disk block or a bad bit in a memory DIMM. When backing up Active Directory with NTBACKUP, ESE copies the data out of NTDS. DIT and feeds it to NTBACKUP. During the backup ESE recomputes the 8 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations checksum of each data page and compares it to the value stored on the disk. If the ESE checksum does not match, the entire backup is aborted. NTBACKUP will terminate prematurely and the backup will be unusable. The Event Log for Directory Services will report â€Å"a read verification error occurred† (0xC80003FA) or â€Å"a disk I/O error occurred† (0xC80003FE). The error message will include the page number of the ESE page that contained the bad checksum. There is no documented way to fix a page with a bad ESE page checksum. The only recovery option is to restore the entire Active Directory database from a clean backup. The best way to prevent ESE page corruption is to use a high reliability disk system with RAID (Reliable Array of Independent Disks) and a high-reliability memory system with ECC (Error Correction Codes) in a server-class computer system. It is important that you detect ESE page corruption early so that errors do not compromise the integrity of Active Directory. The best way to detect ESE page errors is to make daily backups of the AD database. UMove can create daily scheduled backups of the AD database. During the backup it will report ESE page corruption via e-mail notification. You can then restore a clean AD database from the previous day’s backup. Replication from other DCs will bring the restored DC up to date. Running AD on a desktop-class computer system that does not have RAID or ECC protection increases the risk of ESE page corruption. SYSVOL Recovery SYSVOL and the Active Directory database are closely coupled. They contain cross-reference links between them. When you restore the AD database you must also restore SYSVOL. The File Replication Service (FRS) replicates the contents of SYSVOL to all of the domain controllers in the domain. Its purpose is to ensure that the files in SYSVOL are always identical. SYSVOL Restore Types There are three types of methods for restoring SYSVOL: authoritative, nonauthoritative, and normal. An authoritative restore causes other domain controllers to replace their copies of SYSVOL with the copy on the restored computer. Conversely, a non-authoritative restore causes the restored computer to replace SYSVOL with a copy from an authoritative domain controller. You can select an authoritative versus non-authoritative restore of SYSVOL by checking the box in NTBACKUP, â€Å"When restoring replicated data sets, mark the restored data as the primary for all replicas. † (See figure) 9 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations Group Policy Containers and Version Synchronization The Active Directory database is tightly coupled to SYSVOL and they must be restored together as a unit. This is because the AD database contains Group Policy Container (GPC) objects, which are connected to the Group Policy files in SYSVOL. GPC objects are stored in AD under a Distinguished Name (DN). The DN is CN={GUID}, CN=Policies, CN=System, DC=your-domain, DC=com, where {GUID} is a globally-unique identifier for the Group Policy object. The GPC object contains the attribute versionNumber. It must match the Version attribute in the corresponding file at WindowsSYSVOLdomainPolicies{GUID}gpt. ini. If the version numbers go out of sync the system will refuse to apply the Group Policy objects. The result is that your policies may not be enforced (Q814609) If you do an authoritative restore of AD using NTDSTIL and include the GPC branch, you need to also restore SYSVOL authoritatively as shown above. Otherwise the version numbers may go out of sync. UMove automatically synchronizes the GPCs in AD with the GPOs in SYSVOL. EFS Key Recovery The Encrypting File System (EFS) encrypts folders and files on the NTFS file system. EFS provides for a recovery agent to protect against the accidental loss of your encrypted files. A recovery agent is a privileged user who can recover data from an encrypted file if the original user forgets his/her password (or if the original users account is deleted). 10 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations When the Administrator account logs on to the first domain controller in a domain, Windows Server will automatically generate an EFS Recovery Agent certificate and store it in Active Directory. This allows the Administrator account to recover encrypted files. However, the private key for the EFS Recovery Agent certificate is stored outside of Active Directory, in an undisclosed location. It is stored only on the first domain controller in the domain. This means the Administrator must directly log on to the first domain controller in order to recover encrypted files. (This is presumably for security reasons. ) If you shuffle domain controllers, for example by adding a second domain controller and then deleting the first domain controller, you will lose the private key for your EFS Recovery Agent certificate. You will not be able to recover any previously encrypted EFS files. Once the private key is lost it can never be recovered. Guidelines for EFS Key Recovery If your organization uses EFS, you should take into account the recovery of the EFS Recovery Agent private key in your AD recovery plan The EFS Recovery Agent private key is stored on the first domain controller promoted in the domain. If you lose the first domain controller you will lose the EFS private key. UMove will copy the Administrator EFS private key when moving AD to a new domain controller. USN Rollback What is USN Rollback? A domain controller tracks objects in AD based on their Update Serial Numbers (USN). Every object in AD has a USN. As objects are modified, the USN increases monotonically, like an odometer on a car. The latest USN on each DC is called the â€Å"high water mark†. During replication each DC compares its USN high water mark with the USN high water mark of its neighbors. USN rollback happens when an older copy of Active Directory is restored but the computer fails to notify the other domain controllers that it was rolled back to an out-of-date copy of AD (and therefore that its high water mark has rolled back). If you restore AD from a . BKF file, the restored computer recognizes that its high water mark has rolled back, so it notifies the other DCs (by changing its invocationID). The other DCs respond by â€Å"playing back† all changes made to AD since then, bringing the restored computer up to date. However, if you restore AD from the image of a dead computers disk that is outof-date (for example, if you restore an old disk image created with Norton Ghost), the computer will be unaware that it has been rolled back. If the restored disk is 11 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations lder than the most recent actual disk that successfully replicated with the other domain controllers, any more recent changes made to AD on other domain controllers will not be â€Å"played back† to the out-of-date DC. This is because the restored DC is unaware that it has been rolled back. How to Avoid USN Rollback To avoid USN rollback, use one of the following procedures: Restore AD from a . BKF file instead of a disk image. Restore AD from an image of the most recent disk that had replicated with the other domain controllers. You can create a disk image using Norton Ghost. How to Fix USN Rollback To correct USN rollback use one of the following procedures: Restore AD again, this time using a . BKF file instead of a disk image. Restore AD again, this time using the image of the most recent disk that had replicated with the other domain controllers. Last-ditch recovery method: Run DCPROMO. EXE to demote the domain controller, then re-promote it again. You may need to erase the metadata for the demoted DC before promoting it again. (See the Knowledge Base articles below. For more information about USN rollback see the Microsoft Knowledge Base articles â€Å"How to detect and recover from a USN rollback in Windows 2000 Server† and â€Å"How to detect and recover from a USN rollback in Windows Server 2003†. http://support. microsoft. com/kb/885875 http://support. microsoft. com/kb/875495 Backup Expiration When restoring a backup file, Active Directory generally requires that the backup file be no more than 60 days old. The limit is 180 days if the AD forest was originally created using Windows Server 2003. Your AD recovery plan should require that backups of AD be made at regular intervals, at least monthly (and preferably weekly or daily). In an emergency situation, UMove can restore an expired backup. However you may encounter problems due to lingering objects (see below). 12 Active Directory Recovery Planning for Small and Large Organizations Lingering Objects What are Lingering Objects? If attempt to you restore an backup that is expired, you may encounter problems due to â€Å"lingering objects†. When a DC deletes an object it replaces the object with a tombstone object. The tombstone object is a placeholder that represents the deleted object. When replication occurs, the tombstone object is transmitted to the other DCs, which causes them to delete the AD object as well. Tombstone objects are kept for 60 (or 180) days, after which they are garbagecollected and removed. If a DC is restored from a backup that contains an object deleted elsewhere, the object will re-appear on the restored DC. Because the tombstone object on the other DCs has been removed, the restored DC will not receive the tombstone object (via replication), and so it will never be notified of the deletion. The deleted object will â€Å"linger† in the restored local copy of Active Directory. How to Remove Lingering Objects Windows Server 2003 has the ability to manually remove lingering objects using the repadmin console utility from the Windows Server 2003 Support Tools, located on the Windows Server CD. Use the option /removelingeringobjects. See below for more information. For more information on lingering objects and how to remove them, see â€Å"Outdated Active Directory objects generate event ID 1988 in Windows Server 2003† and the topic â€Å"Lingering Object Removal† in the TechNet white paper How the Active Directory Replication Model Works. ttp://support. microsoft. com/kb/870695 http://technet2. microsoft. com/windowsserver/en/library/1465D773-B763-45ECB971-C23CDC27400E1033. mspx Administrator Password Recovery Good security practices dictate that you change passwords regularly, especially passwords for privileged accounts. You can use Group Policy to enf orce a password-change policy, requiring passwords to be changed at a regular interval. (When enabled the default is 42 days. ) If you restore AD from a backup made prior to the last password change, it is possible that you may no longer remember the old Domain Administrator password in the estored database. To avoid being â€Å"locked out† your AD recovery plan should arrange to record the prior passwords for the Domain Administrator account, going at least as far back as your AD backups. If you forget the old Domain Admin password UMove can overwrite it during the restore process. The account will be re-enabled if necessary. 13 Conclusion Active Directory is a critical component for implementing your organization’s computer security policy in a Microsoft Windows environment. Every organization, large and small, should have a plan in place for recovering Active Directory. Your recovery plan should consider and explore possible types of failure (hardware, administrative error, network disconnection) and analyze the necessary tradeoffs between reliability versus cost in recovering from each type of failure. Preventative steps (for example, offline testing) should be included in your plan where practical. This is especially important to avoid the need for forest-level recovery. 14

Two Kinds of Homage

Two Kinds of Homage Two Kinds of Homage Two Kinds of Homage By Maeve Maddox Way back in elementary school when we learned about feudalism, we were told that the medieval vassal paid homage to his lord. My teachers pronounced the word homage: [hom-ij]. Note: Some English speakers don’t pronounce the h in this homage. When I became interested in movie criticism, I came across the word homage in connection with the practice of incorporating a name or a scene or a bit of dialogue from an old movie within a new production. When I read the word in my head, I pronounced it [hom-ij]. The first time I heard the pronunciation [oh-mazh] in an interview with someone from the film industry, I thought I was hearing a new word. I soon realized that when movie people talk about homage, they give it a French pronunciation. That’s when I realized that homage is a kind of heteronym. heteronym: A word having the same spelling as another, but a different sound and meaning. Both versions have to do with showing respect for someone or something, but the latter is used in the context of art. In general use, homage now means â€Å"acknowledgement of superiority in respect of rank, worth, beauty, or some other quality.† It’s usually used in the expression â€Å"to pay homage to.† The other kind of homage is â€Å"a work of art or entertainment which incorporates elements of style or content characteristic of another work, artist, or genre, as a means of paying affectionate tribute.† It can also refer to an example of such a tribute within a work. I noticed one in an episode of the television police drama Castle. The episode was presented as a frame story. The â€Å"frame† was the present day investigation. The story within the frame followed the usual Castle characters in a plot set in the 1930s. The homage [oh-mazh] reenacted a scene from the James Cagney movie Public Enemy (1931). See if you can tell which kind of homage is meant in the following examples from the Oxford English Dictionary: He must do homage to Philip for his lands in Normandy and Anjou, accept Philip as his overlord. Before leaving the mountains Picasso embarked on a major homage to El Greco. There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. That vice pays homage to virtue is notorious; we call this hypocrisy. Her first volume, however, was not the battle cry of a new poetry; it was a homage to Keats. This character is named after Humphrey Bogarts Fred Dobbs in the 1948 film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but its an homage that doesnt appear to make much sense. Proust pens homages to such modern inventions as the railroad, the telephone, the airplane. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Beautiful and Ugly Words15 Words for Household Rooms, and Their SynonymsFew vs. Several

Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Judicial System Research Paper

Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Judicial System - Research Paper Example Generally, racism may be considered as the social practice that apportions merits or attributes values to people who belong to groups that have been racially categorized exclusively based on the race they belong to (Mann and Zatz 3). There are about three different aspects associated with racism including personal prejudice: institutional racism that involves policies that operate to create differences between various races and ideological racism where biology and culture are the justification for the superior position of a dominant culture. One of the characteristics associated with institutionalized racism is petit apartheid which is a concept that entails hidden or informal interactions between police and minorities in a daily basis including various policing activities that could or could not lead to apprehension and subsequent entrance into the justice system. Petit apartheid has continued to be addressed recently hypothetically and also based on practices which could be include d in its range of definition with the emphasis of petit apartheid appearing to be attitudinal aspects that have an effect on policing and other choices in the system including beliefs and actions that are culturally biased such as rough treatment, insults and quality of judicial instructions along with other discretionary actions that may exist within the system.

Job Redesign and Workplace Rewards Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Job Redesign and Workplace Rewards - Essay Example Different companies have diverse issues that need to be dealt with in order to ensure that employees are up to the level that is required for enhanced motivation and productivity. It requires that a company develop the right strategies to enhance performance of a respective organization. Every department in an organization is unique and therefore, requires different motivational strategies to enhance performance (Cooper et al, 2009). Kroger is an established pharmacy that deals with a wide range of drug substances. It has a number of customers both locally and internationally. In the local set up, the company receives many customers at different intervals within a day. It, therefore, requires that every department work round the clock to ensure that the customers are well served and their expectations met as appropriate. On the hand, the employees are vital to the wellbeing of the company. Case in point is that the technicians are very essential components of the company. It has been argued that the technicians in the company are the most motivated and productive in the company. There are a number of issues that enhance the motivation and productivity of the company. A technician at the pharmacy has a wide range of duties in the company. Case in point is that the technician is in charge of all the issues that related to the technical issues in the company. One of the duties of the technician is to ensure that there are no faults in any department within the organization. The technician is in charge of every department in terms of technical issues. At the Kroger pharmacy the technician is charged with the responsibility of supplying the drugs to the patients either on prescription or at the counter. Consequently, the technician is charged with the responsibility of assembling the different drugs for the purpose of prescribing. On the other hand, the

The Cola Wars Essay Example for Free

The Cola Wars Essay There are a few reasons why the soft drink industry has been historically profitable for so long. One such reason is that soft drinks have been seen as a great and delicious alternative to drinking just water. Though water is essential to life and its even a main ingredient in soft drinks, its naturally very bland in taste and unexciting to the consumer. Soft drinks however are funs, flavorful, and delicious to drink so they give the consumer something else to desire and are bought to break up the monotony of drinking just plain water. A second reason that the soft drink industry has been historically profitable would be because of the fact that soft drinks have been a cheap buy for the consumer in comparison to anything else on the market. Soft drinks have been sold for as little as a nickel per a drink for varying sizes and quantities of the beverage, while other non soft drink beverages have gone for rate that are much higher than this. Even in todays market a consumer can go out to a store and buy any kind of soft drink product off the shelf and it would cost the a great deal less than it would for a bottle of juice or even a case of the healthy option, water. With a low purchase cost they have been able to entice consumer to continue to buy their products. A third reason that soft drink industry has been has a strong history of being profitable would be that they have always had strong marketing campaigns that appeal to their consumer base and audience. With campaigns such as the Pepsi Generation which lasted for more than a decade to help them set target those who were young, or at least young at heart, and even had the catch phrase â€Å"For those who think young† at one point helped them capture and steal away from Cokes large market share, and even brought them to within a 2-1 sales gap, while Coca-Cola used it’s a Coca-Cola lifestyle to market its soft drinks, even going as far as being a sponsor of the U.S. armed services and offering soldiers a flat rate for their products during WWI. Marketing campaigns such as these help boost sales of soft drinks over several decades and gained them loyal customers who have stuck by and continued to purchase the product that they like to drink. This way of marketing has help create a type of lifestyle for the consumer, which can have a strong benefit for them in the next generation, because if the parent of children have a certain kind of drink that they get their children on , then they are helping create the next generation of consumers for a product.

DSL Technology :: Technology Computers Internet Essays

DSL Technology Introduction The accelerated growth of content rich applications and online gaming, which demand high bandwidth, has changed the nature of information networks. High-speed communication is now an ordinary requirement throughout business, government, academic, and home office environments. Internet access, telecommuting, and remote LAN access are three of the clearly defined services that network access providers are offering now. These rapidly growing applications are placing a new level of demand on the telephone infrastructure. In particular, the local loop portion of the network (i.e., the local connection from the subscriber to the local central office) has become a challenge for telephone companies. Historically, this local loop facility has been provisioned with copper cabling which cannot easily support high bandwidth transmission. This environment is now being stressed by the demand for increasingly higher bandwidth capacities. Although this infrastructure could be replaced b y a massive rollout of fiber technologies, the cost to do so would be insupportable in today's business models and, more importantly, the time to accomplish such a transition is unacceptable because the market demand exists today! Telephone companies are already faced with growing competition and unprecedented customer demands A new category of companies, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), has emerged in this market as providers of data services. Traditionally ISPs have used the telephone company infrastructure. However, thanks to deregulation, they now have direct access to the physical cable plant. ISPs will be formidable competitors in this quest for the customers. Network service providers around the world fill this moment with great potential for remarkable success. A new technology called high-speed Digital Subscriber Line (xDSL) has emerged onto this scene. xDSL, which encompasses several different technologies, essentially allows the extension of megabit bandwidth capacities from the service provider central office to the customer premises on a customer by customer basis over the existing copper cabling, without the need for massive infrastructure replacement and at very reasonable costs. These new xDSL solutions satisfy the business need to provision the network in a fast, cost effective manner, while preserving the infrastructure and allowing a planned migration into newer technologies. xDSL has the ability to meet the customer demand for high bandwidth right now, at costs that make sense. xDSL is a group of emerging Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) modem technologies for supporting high-rate traffic transmission over POTS lines. X stands for asymmetric in ADSL, rate adaptive in RADSL, high-speed in HDSL, and very high speed in VDSL.

Hamel & Prahalad: Core Competency

Business performance was primary based on the position of an organization in its industry and this view was criticized by Hamel and Prahalad as no common goal or corporation existed between the units. Alternatively, Porter believes that an organization should be viewed as individual business units. However, he does consider sharing resources between them which earlier idea planning ignore. This essay is going to discuss what competency is and compare with portfolio of individual business units. A core competency is something a firm can do well and meets the following three conditions pointed out by Hamel and Prahalad.Firstly, it can provide customers benefits. Secondly, it is hard for competitors to imitate. Finally, it can be use widely in many products and markets. Hamel and Prahalad introduced this concept in 1990 Harvard Business Review article. A core competency is a bundle of skills and technologies for a firm to provide customers benefits. Sony is an example use this idea, Son y must ensure that technologists, engineers and markets have a share understanding of customers need and of technological possibilities. There are three test must meet when firm consider to use core competency as a management strategy.These three test are can provide customer benefits, hard for competitors to imitate and can used widely in the market and product. There are many companies have the potential to build core competency but failed to do so because the top management are unable to conceive the company as anything other than collection of discrete business. Hamel and Prahalad define a business unit as focusing on end products or markets. However, the core competency is not product specific. It can be seen in broad sense which offering a wide rang of competitive advantages.For example, ‘user friendliness’ at Apple Company. Core competency can be enhanced when it is being applied and shared, but it still needs to be nurtured and protected. Core competency is the glue that binds existing business. It is also the engine for new business development. Porter’s view of positioning, cost leadership and differentiation are all based on the final product. This is also the reason why Hamel and Prahalad and Porter have different views on whether the competency as a portfolio of core competency rather than as a portfolio of individual business units.Hamel and Prahalad opinion is that competition is base on core competency much more than product. Glaxo is a company that supports Hamel and Prahalad’s idea. It suggests that if and organization is viewed as separate business focusing on the end product, future opportunities may be missed. Once the existing markets become matured and become a commodity if no new products have been envisaged. It is hard to maintain a core competitive advantage. However, if the organization based itself on core competency they to not diminish, the more they are applied, the more useful they will become.The view of core competency is towards the future, while competition for individual business units focusing on end products is about the present. Considering the organization as a portfolio of core competency take an inside out approach. Hamel and Prahalad’s view only focus on internal analysis of the organization but not the external environment. However, the alternative view is the market based view taken by theorists such as Porter. This supports that in order to gain a competitive advantage, the organization needs to find a successful position for the product or service within the market.This takes an outside in approach as it is based on positioning and then reviewing the organizations value chain to accommodate the external requirements. To sum up, it is very important and essential for a firm to build core competency. Core competency can bring several advantages and allow future opportunities to be identified as skills from different business units and can be combined to creat e new products. It is also a long term strategy and should be combined with the focus on end product to achieve competitive advantage.

How does Tim Butcher emphasise the problems and possible dangers faced on his journey during this passage?

There are many ways in which Tim Butcher emphasises danger during this passage; he does this through his language and through using other techniques such as using triplets. One example of danger is at the very start of the passage (bottom of page 59) and this is where we see the first use of a triplet – using this technique emphasises just how dangerous the Congo can be: â€Å"Thoughts of assassination, acid baths and dismembered bodies† This triplet is used to show the possible, brutal ways of facing death in the Congo – the fact that these are Butchers thoughts imply that he is worrying about facing his death in this way, the horror of it is something no one wants to experience. Butcher also uses an accumulative effect with this list of three as the next situation appears to be worse than the previous. Regardless of this, these three horrific examples are murders which are clearly planned and they show no respect for the dead. An assassination is usually an intentional act aimed at specific subject. As for the other two, acid baths and dismembered bodies seem to be two ways of hiding evidence and getting rid of a body. Neither of these three acts are accidents; all of them are intentional and done on purpose. Following on from this sentence, he mentions that the list of three were the only dark images on his mind. By saying that they weren’t the only images shows that there are many other situations he could be faced with, all of the same sort. The word ‘dark’ conveys the idea of how negative each of his thoughts are as it has connotations liked with is such as death and violence. Already from this first paragraph in the passage, we can see how much potential danger Tim Butcher could be faced with. Another way in which Tim Butcher presents danger is by using an anecdote of a friend who came close to death at the exact same airport he is at now – this makes the potential danger towards Butcher seem higher. The fact that his friend came close to death at the same place as him shows just how high the chance of him also facing death is. What really puts more emphasis on how dangerous the area is is when Butcher mentions his friend covers international crisis. This shows that he will have experienced many types of problems in his past – but none as bad as the Congo. Tim Butcher during this passage shows the majority of danger and problems through his choice of diction and emotive language. During the anecdote, he mentions that troops loyal to Mobuto were becoming increasingly desperate and were hoping to escape. Desperate’ shows how much troops wanted to escape from the power of Mobuto and the phrase ‘hoping to escape’ makes us think that the troops know escaping may be hard or even impossible, but they still try. The Congo is evidently a dangerous place especially for Journalists, as journalists are suspected to be Spies – Congolese people have no time to waste and judge this very quickly, we can tell this as Butcher tells us his friend was Seized. Being seized shows that an arrest was sudden and there was no hesitation in doing it. It comes across as forceful and out of the blue. After being seized, journalists are also stripped at Gunpoint – this shows a sense of danger as stripping someone to their underpants is immediate humiliation and shows vulnerability. Being held at gunpoint means that his friend was facing death, but to make this situation worse, the guards had him in this way for several terrifying hours. We can see here that the experience was being prolonged over seven hours; this makes the situation tenser for the victim as they could be shot at any minute – this is what makes it so terrifying. This section of the passage instantly tells us that the Congolese people are willing to kill. Shortly after this it is mentioned that it took hours of desperate pleading to convince the guards they were simply journalists. Desperate pleading shows how innocent the journalists are as they know having tapes gave the Congolese people the wrong impression. By the use of the word convincing, it implies that the guards weren’t taking their word for it and genuinely believed they were spies. Tim Butcher has again used the idea of the situation being prolonged over a long period of time to emphasise how serious it was. By mentioning they were ‘simply journalists’ it shows how strict the guards are in the Congo; it must have been obvious that the visitors were just journalists and the Congolese people should know they get visitors but they take things too far. During this passage, there is another example of vulnerability being shown; this occurs when an Asian lady lands into the airport and has her luggage taken off her and she has to auction for it to given back to her.

Characther Essay For Lamb To The Slaughter Essays - Fiction

Characther Essay For Lamb To The Slaughter Essays - Fiction Characther Essay For Lamb To The Slaughter Character Essay Characterization, a method that an author chooses to develop his/her character, is a very important element in a story. In Lamb to the Slaughter, Roald Dahl, effectively develops the protagonist both directly and indirectly; however, the use of indirect characterization is more dominant because it reveals her actions and how she deals with her conflict, her words, and creating a dynamic character with her words, and her personality. First, she seems like a typical house-wife longing for her husband to return, but something is odd about this particular day; There was a slow smiling air about her, and about everything she didwas curiously tranquilthe eyes, with their new placid look, seemed larger, and darker than before (108). It was almost as if she is expecting something unusual to happen, and that she is preparing for that specific moment. In addition, her actions change from being a wife-pleasing-husband, to a self-conscious woman that knew all of a sudden, exactly what to do, as if she had been prepared for months. Also, in the beginning of the story she is described as a inoffensive, harmless person, but immediately after her husband reveals his burden, she becomes unstable and almost naturally she hits her husband. She simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamband brought it down as hard as she could (111). And as strange as it looks, she goes somewhat through a metamorphoses, from being a content house-wife, to a maniac, possessed woman, to the point of killing her husband. Second, she reveals through her words, her duplicity and deceitfulness by exterminating all the evidence left. When the police arrived she trying to hide evidence, asks for her husbands whiskey, Jackwould you mind giving me a drink?You mean this whiskey?Yes, pleaseWhy dont you eat up that lamb that is in the oven? (115,116), and the reader realizes that she tries to convince others with her deceitful lies, and with a concrete set of credible words, she gets away easily; She tried a smile. It came out so peculiarThe voice sounded so peculiar tooShe rehearsed it several times more (112). Mrs. Maloney, had thought about it even before the incident happened, for she tries to look as normal as possible, by acting it out her daily routine. Finally, her personality creates in her a dynamic characterization, and as the reader observes it when she is talking to the shopkeeper, by saying something very odd: I got a nice leg of lamb from the freezerI dont much like cooking it frozenbut Im taking a chance on it this time. You think itll be alltight? (112). What she was really referring, was what she had done just minutes ago. But when she said , at the end, to him if itll be allright? she revealed a weak, fragile nature as if she had been pulled out of a protective coat all of a sudden and left naked, for she is described by the narrator as a loving and faithful wife, who is willing to do anything for her husband. Moreover, at the end when she offers the leg of lamb to the officers, she does another extraordinary act; And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle (116). And by doing so, she was declaring that she was indeed independent, and was mature enough to make her own decisions based on what she thought was the b est, not others. Roald Dahl, developed the protagonist successfully in Lamb to the Slaughter, through a way that is important in this short story. Where indirect characterization is the most predominant in the protagonists actions, words, and how the author creates a convincing dynamic character, which reflects it in the body itself.

Boston Matrix - Refresher Essay Example for Free

Boston Matrix – Refresher Essay According to those two figures and based on some sales figure from Unilever’s marketing department, it is clear that most of its products are in the maturity stage and ‘Cash-Cow’ products except for some new products which are undergoing the introduction stage or growth stage because there are many similar new products which are developed in China and focusing on Chinese consumer. The annual sales figure appear that, in personal care sector, its products have been kept in a slightly increase or decrease lever and tend to grow to a stable maximum level. However, because of in the huge market, the amount of sales normally is significant. This situation, therefore, could be effective for Unilever China run and maintain its business owing to the enormous cashflow. It also contributed to launching Unilever’s sixth Research and Development (R & D) Laboratory in China, 2000 in order to meet the everyday needs of the Chinese consumer and develop more products for the Chinese market. Facing the pressure form not only another large firm ‘P & G’ but also a lot of local booming manufactures, Unilever China has adopted a lot of effective measures in order to compete with them. For instance, frequent products promotion with the purpose of offering more profits to the customers and keeping the lower price. In addition, in order to maintain the awareness of brands, Unilever launches a lot of brilliant advertisements by using many famous pop stars in every season. Commentary on the three underlying systems: Technical, People, Economic (including: Organisational use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) A. Technical When I was working in ChinadotCom corporation Shanghai branch, I had had a lot of opportunities of communicating with IT staff of Unilever China. According to the information which I have gained form them, it is clear that if there was no supporting from Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), possibly, all of its business and management would be out of control. ICT plays a significant role of management in lots of successful western firms as well as in Unilever. Thus, when Unilever re-entered China in 1990, it also brought some advanced management systems especially Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software which it had already operated in most of its subsidiaries into Unilever China. Throughout six years’ development, based on original ERP system, Unilever China has been building a brand-new Management Information System (MIS) which is different between the common MIS during current years. This new MIS concentrates in generating and analysing date source which forwards to provide efficient reports rather than the function of information communication. Unilever China has launched a number of separated information systems such as Dealer Management System (DMS), Sales Information System (SIS) and Supplier Management System as well. All of them have integrated with MIS through ERP in order to offer standard data source. Moreover, it has planned to launch a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system owing to maintain high proportion of royalty among its consumers. As we know, most multinational companies adopt single united globe standard for their IT equipments including hardware and software as well as Unilever. It should be easy and effective for the companies to manage and maintain the whole systems for example, once any engineer of Unilever turns on any PC of Unilever, there would be the same operation system and application software in the PC. However, for Unilever China, this situation could lead to some problems when it would like to merge other companies. It also has cost Unilever China much money and labour to integrate all the different systems which the fourteen joint ventures had been used, when it was carrying out the two revolutions. B. People In a world where technologies and markets are speedily changing, as well as in China, both local knowledge and globe proficiency have been required to deeply understand and meet the complex needs of the 150 million customers who choose Unilever’s products everyday. It is very important, therefore, for Unilever China to make its employees localising as possible as it could. At its beginning stage, Unilever China had employed more one hundred foreign staffs including managers and professionals. Although they had more working experience and good management approaches, there still had been some disadvantages of this state. Firstly, it had led to the high cost of labour because Unilever should pay nearly six times more than employing local people. Secondly, most of foreign staffs, they had not had enough knowledge of Chinese economy environment. This might provide some wrong decisions in both marketing and manufacture areas. Finally, because they had been so proud of their characters and positions, they tended to be difficult to communicate with local people. All in all, thus, Unilever China has modified its mind to reduce the number of foreign staffs and offer more opportunities to local employees. (Unilever China, 2001) In every recent year, Unilever China has sent numbers of its local managers abroad to practise for senior positions in their own countries. Its target of 95 percent local management in China includes five percent of local managers who are also working overseas at any given time. On the other hand, in purpose of reducing the cost of workforce, Unilever China decided to cut down the number of workforce in Shanghai which is in the highest level of working payment in China, and move its manufactures to the lower cost place. C. Economic Inside Unilever China, the significant motive of two revolutions is to decrease their working expenditures and utilise all the business resource efficiently. The production lines of most its products such as shampoo and shower are quite similar including the raw material as well. There had been several same production lines among the fourteen joint ventures, before Unilever China re-structured them. In addition, the waste also happened to the IT departments, administration department and supporting department. Once Unilever China had held a new joint venture, it had had to build an individual business system for it. It seems to be more efficient and having more abilities of competition, when the two revolutions have been accomplished. Furthermore, the changes also facilitate Unilever to concentrate its brands in order to meet the needs of different markets. For instance, in Shanghai which is the huge developed city in China, its key products are in the personal care and wash area including Lux, Dove, Hazeline and Ponds. Due to the changing of Chinese government economy policy, China is going to be more open for the foreign companies. As a result that China has joint World Trade Organisation (WTO), more foeign companies will enter China. Most local manufactures tend to become stronger because they will have more chance to gain the advanced management approaches and learn the business skills by competing with more foreign companies. They also could the big challenge to the Unilever China. Another purpose of its changes, thus, is to maintain its leader position in China. Since these changes, Unilever China becomes more flexibility because it clearly to allocate its business targets to three groups. Every group has its own responsibility of manufacturing and selling particular products. Thus, both of them could be the professional in their own economical environment. Discussion of management activities and approaches (including â€Å"typical† errors) Until this section, it seems that there has been no obvious evidence which could show that Unilever China has made some clear mistakes of management so far. However, there might be no completely perfect result once you have accomplished some changes. In the short-term, we could regard it as more positive than negative but no one could image the future. Also, before the two revolutions happened, there had been some typical management errors which Unilever China had made. Inside most of joint ventures in China, there are two different manager teams: one group of them are assigned straight by foreign companies; another are the people who have already worked in the companies which are going to co-operate with the foreign companies. However, both of them have the responsibilities of managing the new companies which we exactly classify as Chinese-foreign joint ventures in China. Thus, because of different working background in different economics system, these two manager teams provide two different management styles. For the managers who have been worked in Unilever world group for a period of time, because of underlying the western developed management theory, their management approach could be considered as ‘Proactive & Positive’. The management approaches have been argued and developed by a lot of western researchers for a long time. Those effective management approaches, such as ‘team work’, ‘business culture’ and ‘management information system’, have been widely utilised in Unilever. This also could contribute good forecast of marketing and sales, efficient decision making and powerful capability of competition. Those advantages could be clearly embodied in the two revolution of Unilever China. In particular, in order to avoid more waste of resource, Unilever China terminated some business in 2002 in Shanghai and transferred them to the low cost place which was in HeFei. During this process, certainly, it should deal with the loss of re-investment and high risk of changing. Nevertheless, due to some typical management errors which it had made at the beginning of re-entering China, it has had to change its temporal situation. The typical mistakes could be ‘Market Share wars’ and ‘The â€Å"big project†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ. The evidences of these errors could be discovered by some investigation in its process of growth. For instance, only in a decade, it had constructed fourteen joint ventures in China to take the leader position of Chinese market and compete with ‘P & G’. Following its step, ‘P & G’ China also carried out some measures which might beat its challenge. Finally, that lead to both of these two firms had to reduce their products’ price in order to obtain more market share. Those fourteen joint ventures had caused numerous waste of fix assets, labour and operation cost. Boston Matrix – Refresher. (2017, Aug 20).

Marketing Plan for Victoria's Secret Case Study

Marketing Plan for Victoria's Secret - Case Study Example Other important applications include informing the details of the company to the sales personnel, suppliers and others so that they become aware of company's goals and achievements. Let's look at the essential elements of marketing plan Victoria's secret. The launch proposal for Victoria's secret would be as below mentioned. Feasibility study is an important phase in the Victoria's secret development process. It enables the advertiser to have an assessment of the product being launched. It refers to the feasibility study of the product in this case Victoria's secret in terms of outcomes of the product, operational use and technical support required for implementing it. The best media to promote Victoria's secret would be electronic media like Television and Internet. The below are the feasibility study for the media like electronic and internet. Economic Feasibility: It refers to the benefits or outcomes. We are deriving from the product as compared to the total cost we are spending for developing the product. If the benefits are more or less the same as the older system, then it is not feasible to develop the product. In the present system, the development of the new product greatly enhance the accuracy of the system and cuts short the delay in knowing the brand to the general public as well. The errors can be greatly reduced and at the same time providing great level of security. Hence, we do not need any additional equipment except advertising strategy of required capacity. No need of spending money on Victoria's secret for maintenance because the database used is web enabled database. Operational Feasibility: It refers to the feasibility of the product to be operational. Some products may work very well at design and implementation but may fall in the real time environment. It includes the study of additional human resources required and their technical expertise. Technical Feasibility: It refers to whether the software that is available in the market fully supports the Victoria's secret's advertising. It studies the pros and cons of using particular software for the development of the ad and its feasibility. It also studies the additional training need to be given to the people to make the advertisement.. To stay in the present marketing world a company should have good customer support services. The competition among companies is high and they to stay at the top they are using aggressive marketing strategies. The operational management and the Human Resource (HR) departments have a bigger role to play in the development of the respective companies. The quality of the product should always be of high standard. The service side concentrates mainly on providing knowledge about the brand to the guilible buyers. Buyers care section plays an important role on deciding how good a company and should be taken seriously at all times. To become a multinational company the management has to expand its units across the country. As company and its other units are slowly expanding so does the problems are increasing