ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a set of best practices for Information Technology (IT) service management. The United Kingdom’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) created ITIL in response to the growing dependence on Information Technology to meet business needs and goals. ITIL provides businesses with a customizable framework of best practices to achieve quality service and overcome difficulties associated with the growth of IT systems. ITIL is organized into sets of texts which are defined by related functions: service support, service delivery, managerial, software support, computer operations, security management, and environmental. In addition to texts, ITIL services and products include training, qualifications, software tools, and user groups such as the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF).

Let’s see the ITIL Benefits: ITIL offers a systematic, professional approach to the management of IT service provision. Adopting its guidance can provide benefits such as:

• Increase Customer Satisfaction with IT services
• Reduce the risk of not meeting business requirements for IT services
• Reduce costs when developing procedures and practices within an organization
• Better communication and information flows between IT staff and customers
• Standards and guidance for IT staff
• Greater productivity and better use of skills and experience
• A quality approach to IT services

ITIL Benefits to IT service Customers, such as:
• Reassurance that IT services are provided in accordance with documented procedures that can be audited
• The ability to depend upon IT services, enabling the customer to meet business objectives The identification of contact points for enquiries or condition changes
• Provision of feedback from SLA monitoring

ITIL is from the concept no check list, as one has to develop the ideal-typical management of a IT infrastructure. The advantage and ITIL Benefits are rather in the fact that one falls back with the structure of an individual IT management to documented Best Practices and so that can jump over expensive learning curves. In addition the advantages of the standardization represented by ITIL are obvious: Modules and process goals of the IT management are defined and can be compared and evaluated with one another.

Many organizations have embraced the ITIL concept because it offers a systematic and professional approach to the management of IT service provision along with other ITIL Benefits. There are many benefits to be reaped by adopting the guidance provided by ITIL. Such ITIL Benefits include but are not limited to:

• Improved customer satisfaction
• Reduced cost in developing practices and procedures
• Better communication flows between IT staff and customers
• Greater productivity and use of skills and experience

ITIL provides IT professionals with the knowledge and resources they need to run and maintain an effective and efficient IT Infrastructure that meets the needs of their clients while keeping costs at a minimum.

ITIL Benefits of using the ITIL framework:
• Increase customer satisfaction with IT services
• Reduce risks and costs
• Standards and guidance for IT staff
• A quality approach to IT services

Let’s see Why ITIL Can Help along with other ITIL Benefits: Many executives express frustration as they attempt to reign in the chaos and expense associated with their IT investments but find little in the way of substantive guidance. The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) has emerged as the worlds most widely accepted approach to the management and delivery of IT Services.

Gartner measurements on ITIL Benefits show that the overall results of moving from no adoption of IT Service Management to full adoption can reduce an organization’s Total Cost of Ownership by as much as 48%. ITIL currently has over 100,000 certified (trained) professionals and consultants, primarily in Europe, Australia and Canada, with only a small fraction of those certified professionals residing or practicing in the U.S.

By adopting IT best practices, what type of ITIL Benefits can an organization expect?

Beyond the quantifiable ITIL Benefits, delivered from the implementation of ITIL, there are also qualitative ITIL Benefits. Successful introduction of IT Service Management with ITIL should deliver type of ITIL Benefits to organizations:

• Improved Customer Satisfaction
• Improved ROI of IT
• Improved Morale of Service delivery and recipient staff
• Reduced staff turnover
• Lower costs of training, especially as the ITIL standard become widely adopted
• Improved systems/apps availability
• Improved IT employee productivity
• Reduced cost/incident
• Reduced hidden costs that traditionally increases substantially the TCO
• Better asset utilization

The economic impact of an organization adopting ITIL along with other ITIL Benefits will be felt in all of the areas listed above. The ITIL Benefits can also be viewed in terms of direct savings and indirect, the later being derived as a result of the strategy but not directly related to the actions being taken, such as minimizing the missed opportunity costs, the cost of not been able to operate. These indirect ITIL Benefits as well as the direct benefits may vary greatly from one organization to another.

The presentation start bit late but it was wonderful session I had and meet up with the guys both from Telenor- Pakistan and Tameer Bank. They give us the information about the product and its salient features

The main feature which is being covered during the presentation jointly given by the representative from Tameer bank and Telenor Pakistan are as follows:

• Easypaisa Mobile Accounts are bank accounts opened for Telenor subscribers to access from their mobile phones at any time

• Users only have to go to a Merchant to ‘Deposit Cash’ or ‘Withdraw Cash’ from their easypaisa Mobile Account. All other services can be accessed on the user’s mobile phone at any time

• This service is available for only Telenor subscribers

• Registration is only available only at Telenor SSCs, Telenor Franchises and Tameer Bank Branches for now

• The mobile account can be accessible from any mobile handset so it removes the dependability of new mobile handsets usage and also the GPRS things

• No GMS Chareges being implied during any sort of transaction and also the security feature related to it is the usage of USSD channel

• Through Mobile Account you can pay your utility bills , money transfer, mini statement or balance enquiry and in coming future they also offered e-load purchase / Persona Bill Payments , Fund Transfers to any Bank in Pakistan ,ATM Cards, Other Payments *

The main target market are

• Any person with a Telenor SIM who wants to have instant access to a Bank Account from his mobile phone

• Any person with a Telenor SIM who wants to have the freedom to send/receive money to other people or pay utility bills from his mobile phone at any time

• Any person with a Telenor SIM who wants to be part of the largest Bank with thousands of branches in Pakistan and the facility to withdraw cash or deposit cash from these branches (Merchants) at any time

easypaisa Merchants are not only Telenor Franchises , Telenor Sales and Service Center but also the Tameer Bank Branches and Retailers all across Pakistan through them you can do Cash Deposit and Withdrawl but the easypaisa account can be open on later three not on retailers points .

easypaisa Account – Product Details

• A Customer has to come to an Telenor Franchise/SSC or Tameer Branch to open an easypaisa Mobile Account

• Account Opening Request takes 10 minutes to enter into the system

• Subscriber will be called back in 3 hours after Nadra CNIC verification. Account will be activated and Subscriber will be asked to select a PIN which is of 5 digits

• Transactional Limits Rs.10,000/day, Rs.20,000/month, Rs.1,20,000/year ( These limits do not apply on Transfer In)

• Maximum Balance of Rs. 60,000 in the account at any time

• SBP requirements dictate the account limits that need to be in place. For higher limits, the Customer needs to open a bank account with Tameer Bank first.

• Account Opening Fee = Rs. 50 + tax (non-refundable)

easypaisa Secure Online Web Login

• Subscribers can log into the secure, online web portal through the Internet to perform all easypaisa Mobile Account transactions from the web

• http://www.easypaisa.com.pk/account

• Additional Services on the online web portal:

• Complete Account Statement and History of all Transactions

• Schedule recurring payments

• Web login idle time out for subscriber is 30 minutes

Conclusion:

In the end I can summarize that this product seems to be effective one where the Telenor subscriber are in good numbers and also the early adapters will get benefit from it (I hope so). This thing turns out to “Star” only time will tell. But its bit early to say about anything more about this product as its needs to be reached out to Masses of Pakistan and specially in the rural areas of Pakistan where it can be utilized more effectively and in a better way.

Its being offered initially for individuals if I am remembering it correctly AND will later on will be offered to Corporate Customer as well ( Correct me if I am wrong). You can get more information about the product on “www.easypaisa.com.pk”

I hope it will fit into the theme as they provide “Any Person Any Place Any Time” .

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us through Tel #: (92-21) 34520390 & 34247126 or Email: training@ahmedfarid.com

COBIT also provides an effective mechanism for managing and measuring progress in implementing ITIL processes by helping the organization understand its goals and measure progress in achieving them. In addition, COBIT provides a mechanism for measuring improvement, and continual improvement.
Specifically, COBIT provides management directions for getting the enterprise’s information and related processes under control, monitoring achievement of organizational goals, monitoring performance within each IT process, and benchmarking organizational achievement. These directions include:

 Assurance Guide — Provides an audit guideline for each of the high-level control objectives. The guideline permits review of IT processes against the detailed control objectives listed under the high-level control objective, providing management assurance and indicating potential areas of improvement.

 Maturity models — Helps the organization determine where it is today, and where it wants to be.

 Critical success factors — Presents the most important management-oriented implementation guidelines to achieve control over and within IT processes. In COBIT, the Key Management Practices are the main management practices that the process owner needs to perform to achieve process goals.

 Key goal indicators — Provides measures that tell management (after the fact) whether an IT process has achieved its business requirements, usually expressed in terms of information criteria.

 Key performance indicators — Defines measures that determine how well the IT process is performing in enabling the goal to be reached. They are lead indicators of whether a goal will likely be reached or not, and are good indicators of capabilities, practices, and skills. They measure the activity goals, which are the actions the process owner must take to achieve effective process performance.

We can divide the COBIT into 4 different domains which tell us that what we can offer to the organization

1. Plan and Organize
2. Acquire and Implementation
3. Deliver and Support
4. Monitor and Evaluate

Now we can further discuss in detail about the above mentioned points

Plan and Organize:

• Provide tools to automatically discover the current IT infrastructure and Configuration Items (CI) likes of IT services, hardware, software, users, relationships, etc. The services likes of Help desk solutions, Asset Management, User Authorization Database. etc which currently we are not following to keep a particular database for them and software for implementing them
• Include asset and financial information about the costs associated with each CI. For example raising C.E.R. we have to fill up the form and in it we get approvals for it from the higher management. It all based on the paper work what we can do is that by analyzing those facts which are involved in it and get the system be running on our Enterprise Solutions(Paperless Environment).
• Allow for identification of risk through the relationships among critical IT services and CIs, and correlation with past incidents and problems .For example the risks being involved in providing Internet access to the end users which things are necessary for making sure of those facts that our network will be secured , which products(hardware) we need in order to implement them, those practices can be adapt in analyzing those facts and figures
• Support the management of IT resources, such as staff, budgets, and hardware.

Acquire and Implementation

• Manage the full lifecycle of IT asset procurement, placement, configuration, allocation, maintenance, and retirement. For example these days we do not know which hardware is purchased (few of those from some quite few years we are maintaining the data when the hardware is purchased) but we do not know under which circumstances why we purchased it, how much maintenance costs has been put on it etc. etc.
• Capture the costs associated with the entire lifecycle of IT assets (hardware and software)
• Ensure that all pertinent information related to the IT assets is maintained in a database
• Track the changes from the moment they are proposed, through the implementation in the live environment, to the evaluation of the end result, and also provide us the ability to track the change requests through stages of review, authorization and implementation with routing and approval path determined by various criteria. For example the implementation of Payroll application on BaaN, the system was first running on the Windows Based environment and on SQL server database, there were many problems while running the application based on Windows environment , the suggestion put on the application on BaaN – Live (Change Request), but we do not know when this suggestion for change had been put up and by whom, when we get the approval for it and how the system going to be designed by designated rules, who are the concern person during its implementation and what we can do in order to enhance our capabilities for its changing. We do not have the track record that what changes have been made during the implementation of application so that we can compare the old application with the newly designed.

• Permit determination of technical and business impact, impact on other services, the effect of not implementing the change and the resources required, and also facilitate gathering changes from all stake holders into the change management database. It also helps us in integrating the help desk solution to automate the raising of the incidents.

Deliver and Support

• Provide support for the various security disciplines as by Global recognized Security Standards, Centralized management of identities and access privileges, also enable us in the bi-directional provisioning of various security target systems. For example the ISO 27001 which tells us about the security control objectives and recommends a range of specific security controls by following it in conjunction with the CoBIT we can implement the Information Security Management System in our organization.

• Enable us in managing self service password management and password synchronization procedures, and also provide us the intrusion detection from external and internal sources, timely provisioning of security patches and settings and making us ensure how to take corrective actions in response to security policy violations for example the user the can get his login password change by them selves if we can use the such type of systems and policies which enables to maintain at one place. Firewalls can be used to protect the systems from intrusion.

• Employ certified best practices and IT process alignment to consolidate, log, track, manage, and escalate all types of incidents and problems from users , third- party organizations and other IT applications. For example we can deploy the help desk solution in here which can tell us the related IT problems whether it can hardware related to software related or ERP related.

• Provide an integrated, searchable knowledge base of common solutions and workarounds to known errors for example we can deploy the knowledge base management system based upon the facts and knowledge we own from our previous experiences and we can adapt these practices later on for the known errors and timely solved them.

• Log historical changes that are available for audit purposes, and also provides us the standard and easily configured reports that allow analysis of standards compliance, security audits and financial cost and recovery. For example we can enable audit logs on the operating systems’ level that like of when the user logged in last time.

• Enable management of enterprise database application and platform consistently and also provide us automation to support the data change management, performance tuning, database security management, backup and recovery and database archiving.

Monitor and Evaluate
• All IT Processes must contain logs, audit trails and reports to assist in evaluating and monitoring IT Performance which can only be adapt with the help of some sort of database system and in it by defining the write parameters and stuff.

• Provide automation for continual evaluation of internal control effectiveness.

• Provide support for IT Governance best practices likes of ITIL, CGEIT, ISO27001 etc etc.

Everything works okay doesn’t it? Modern businesses require up-to-date computer systems which are flexible, adaptable and efficient. Businesses need to utilise a range of technical and business-orientated skills to consistently evaluate the use of the latest technical developments using the latest techniques.

Keeping abreast of recent technological developments is challenging for technologists. Research can be a time-consuming activity, and experimentation is not always possible.

THE ALIGNMENT TRAP

Within the IT industry, there is a growing problem known as the “alignment trap”. Research undertaken by MIT Sloan in the United States which was a survey of more than 500 senior business and technology executives worldwide, followed up with in-depth interviews of 30 CIOs, reveals a troubling pattern:

“Those IT systems which are directly embedded into business performance sometimes go astray and IT departments can be stuck in the maintenance zone leaving little time for strategic or pro-active operational/ tactical management. Corporate management budgets for the amounts necessary to keep the systems running, but IT doesn’t offer enough added value to the business and often isn’t expected to.”

The alignment trap is problematic for business executives and the IT industry. Dealing with it won’t be easy. What is required, and examples of this exist, is to embed a culture of managing complexity down, sourcing IT resources (staff, software and hardware) wherever it makes sense and create start-to-finish accountability connected to business results. This allows for alignment of the entire IT organization to the strategic objectives of the overall business. Using governance that crosses organizational lines and making business objectives responsible for key IT initiatives. In conceptual terms this is addressing the mystical middle ground between IT and the business.

Process management for IT systems has been around since the 1980s and IT good practice methods are successfully being used in the public and private sectors world-wide. Over 75% if the FTSE 100 companies in the UK deploy them. Historically those interested in IT have developed sophisticated technical skills which are “fit for purpose”. Developing more business orientated skills is increasingly taking place. The role of the Chief Information Officer is undergoing a subtle change. Expected to be more “business savvy”, they need to evolve their skills to provide different leadership ideologies.

BEYOND TECHNO-CENTRIC

The pervasive nature of technology has created a hiatus of understanding by business of the real potential of IT-based systems. To further complicate this, IT middle and higher managers have usually been promoted from technical positions, which have given a techno-centric feel to the IT decision making process. Emerging technologies and the impact on their business will further add to the worry of business managers.

Question: How can this evolve to be a more collaborative business/IT endeavor?

Perhaps the management of IT through Service Management Practices.

One approach would be to see IT as a distinct group within the business rather than a function alongside it. IT departments would then be more market orientated and be:

• market driven;

• able to tap into diverse opportunities;

• developing a set of products and services;

• providing end-to-end production line;

• efficient and effective at utilizing resources (staff, skills, technology);

• Identifying costs of production.

Technology is pervasive in all aspects of modern life. Understanding and exploiting the technology for business-driven criteria will be the next challenge.

Paul JJ Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor, said “The words we use in high technology continue to become even more obtuse even as they move out of the realm of jargon and into the language at large.”

The Most Confusing Yet Frequently Cited High Tech Words of 2008 with Commentary follow:

· Cloud Computing – Distributing or accessing programs and services across the Internet. (The Internet is represented as a cloud.)

· Green washing – Repositioning your product so that its shortfalls are now positioned as environmental benefits: Not enough power? Just re-position as energy-saving.

· Buzzword Compliant — Including the latest buzzwords in literature about a product or service in order to make it ‘resonate’ with the customer.

· Resonate – Not the tendency of a system to oscillate at maximum amplitude, but the ability to relate to (or resonate with) a customer’s desires.

· De-duping – shorthand for de-duplication, that is, removing redundant data from a system.

· Virtualization – Around since dinosaurs walked the planet (the late ‘70s) virtualization now applies to everything from infrastructures to I/O.

· Web 2.0 – Now there’s talk of Web 3.0, just when we were finally getting used to Web 2.0.

· Versioning – Creating new revisions (or versions) with fewer bugs and more features.

· Word Clouds – Graphic representations of the words used in a text, the more frequently used, the larger the representation.

· Petaflop – A thousand trillion (or quadrillion) floating point operations per second Often mistaken as a comment on the environmental group.

The Most Confusing Yet Frequently Cited Acronym for 2008: SaaS — software-as-as-service to be differentiated, of course, from PaaS (platforms as a service) and IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-service).

Others words under consideration include the ever popular yet amorphous ‘solution’, 3G and SEO.

In 2007 IPOD, Flash, Cookie, Nano and Cookie lead the list with SOA as the most confusing acronym

In 2005, HTTP, VoIP, Megapixel, Plasma, & WORM were the leading buzzwords.

The analysis was completed using GLM’s Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI), the proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in the media and on the Internet. The words are tracked in relation to frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets. This analysis was performed earlier this month.

Source:-http://www.languagemonitor.com/news/top-10-most-confusing-high-tech-buzzwords030

Specialists say the theft technology is the most advanced they have seen, and a person close to the British law enforcement said it affected big retailers, including a British unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Tesco Ltd.

The account data have been used to make repeated bank withdrawals and Internet purchases, such as airline tickets, in several countries, including the US. Investigators haven’t pinpointed the culprits. Early estimates of the losses range of $50 million to $100 million, but the figure could grow, said the person close to the British law enforcement.

The scheme uses untraceable devices inserted into credit-card readers that were made in China. The devices selectively send account data through a wireless connection to computer servers in Lahore and constantly change the pattern of theft, so it is hard to detect, officials say.

“Pretty small but intelligent criminal organisations are pulling off transnational, multi-continent heists that only a foreign intelligence service would have been able to do a few years ago,” said Joel F Brenner, the US government’s top counter-intelligence officer. The US intelligence officials, including senior National Security Agency officials, are monitoring the case in part because of ties with Pakistan. The scheme comes on the heels of the August indictment of a fraud ring that stole more than 40 million credit-card numbers from the US companies, including TJX Cos, the parent company of the TJ Maxx.

In March, the security officials at the MasterCard Inc saw a pattern of potential fraud in northern England. Meanwhile, a security guard at a UK grocery store noticed suspicious statistics on his cell phone and alerted authorities. The Scotland Yard learned of the report and eventually connected it with the warning from the MasterCard, according to the person close to the British law enforcement. Examining the store’s credit-card readers, investigators discovered a high-tech bug tucked behind the motherboard. It was a small card containing wireless communication technology.

The bug would read an individual’s card number and the corresponding personal identification number, then package and store the data. The device would call a number in Lahore once a day to upload the data to the servers there and obtain instructions on what to steal next.

A MasterCard spokesman declined to discuss details of the case but said safeguarding the financial information was a top priority for the company. There is no obvious visual indication that a machine has been altered, but those with the bugs weigh about four ounces more. For the past several months, teams of investigators have been weighing thousands of machines across Europe with a precision scale.

So far, investigators have found hundreds of machines in five countries: Britain, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark. They have turned up at European grocery chains, including Asda, which is owned by Wal-Mart; Tesco; and J Sainsbury PLC, according to the person close to the British law enforcement.

A spokeswoman for Asda said: “It’s subject to a police investigation, so we can’t comment.” A spokeswoman for the Sainsbury denied its stores were hit by the scheme. A spokeswoman for the Tesco said: “We’re aware that this was an issue for retailers.” She said the Tesco tested its devices and was confident that they were secure now.

The device can be told to copy certain types of transactions — for example, five Visa platinum cards or every tenth transaction. It can also be instructed to go dormant to evade detection. On average, only five to 10 card numbers would be phoned in to Pakistan, the person close to the British law enforcement said.

Source : News

First we install some packages to speed up yum and prevent problems with packages.

yum install yum-fastestmirror yum-skip-broken

SELinux should be disabled. If you’re not sure if it is disabled enter:

cat /etc/selinux/config | grep SELINUX=

Disable SELinux if it is enabled:

vi /etc/selinux/config

Set

SELINUX=enforcing

to

SELINUX=disabled

Afterwards reboot the system:

reboot

yum install samba

Now because the firewall has been setup during the installation of Fedora 8 e have to open a few ports so that the clients can connect to Samba:

system-config-firewall-tui

You will get the interface in which you have to select the desired interface as for example “eth0” in “Trusted Interface” and also you need to configure the service of ‘Samba” as the ‘Trusted Services“

Now we enable the automatic startup of the needed services.

chkconfig smb on
chkconfig nmb on
chkconfig swat on

Afterwards reboot the system.

reboot

Now go to the /etc/samba/smb.conf for eiditing

i used the text editor and made the  desired changes as required . here is the sample of smb.conf which i am using for  your reference

# This is the main Samba configuration file. You should read the

# smb.conf(5) manual page in order to understand the options listed

# here. Samba has a huge number of configurable options (perhaps too

# many!) most of which are not shown in this example

#

# For a step to step guide on installing, configuring and using samba,

# read the Samba-HOWTO-Collection. This may be obtained from:

# http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/Samba-HOWTO-Collection.pdf

#

# Many working examples of smb.conf files can be found in the

# Samba-Guide which is generated daily and can be downloaded from:

# http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/Samba-Guide.pdf

#

# Any line which starts with a ; (semi-colon) or a # (hash)

# is a comment and is ignored. In this example we will use a #

# for commentry and a ; for parts of the config file that you

# may wish to enable

#

# NOTE: Whenever you modify this file you should run the command “testparm”

# to check that you have not made any basic syntactic errors.

#

#—————

# SELINUX NOTES:

#

# If you want to use the useradd/groupadd family of binaries please run:

# setsebool -P samba_domain_controller on

#

# If you want to share home directories via samba please run:

# setsebool -P samba_enable_home_dirs on

#

# If you create a new directory you want to share you should mark it as

# “samba-share_t” so that selinux will let you write into it.

# Make sure not to do that on system directories as they may already have

# been marked with othe SELinux labels.

#

# Use ls -ldZ /path to see which context a directory has

#

# Set labels only on directories you created!

# To set a label use the following: chcon -t samba_share_t /path

#

# If you need to share a system created directory you can use one of the

# following (read-only/read-write):

# setsebool -P samba_export_all_ro on

# or

# setsebool -P samba_export_all_rw on

#

# If you want to run scripts (preexec/root prexec/print command/…) please

# put them into the /var/lib/samba/scripts directory so that smbd will be

# allowed to run them.

# Make sure you COPY them and not MOVE them so that the right SELinux context

# is applied, to check all is ok use restorecon -R -v /var/lib/samba/scripts

#

#————–

#

#======================= Global Settings =====================================

[global]

# ———————– Netwrok Related Options ————————-

#

# workgroup = NT-Domain-Name or Workgroup-Name, eg: MIDEARTH

#

# server string is the equivalent of the NT Description field

#

# netbios name can be used to specify a server name not tied to the hostname

#

# Interfaces lets you configure Samba to use multiple interfaces

# If you have multiple network interfaces then you can list the ones

# you want to listen on (never omit localhost)

#

# Hosts Allow/Hosts Deny lets you restrict who can connect, and you can

# specifiy it as a per share option as well

#

workgroup = yourgroupname

server string = Samba Server Version %v

netbios name = yourgroupnetbiosname

interfaces = lo eth0 172.16.100.240/24

hosts allow = 127. 172.16.100.

# ————————— Logging Options —————————–

#

# Log File let you specify where to put logs and how to split them up.

#

# Max Log Size let you specify the max size log files should reach

# logs split per machine

log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m

# max 50KB per log file, then rotate

max log size = 50

# ———————– Standalone Server Options ————————

#

# Scurity can be set to user, share(deprecated) or server(deprecated)

#

# Backend to store user information in. New installations should

# use either tdbsam or ldapsam. smbpasswd is available for backwards

# compatibility. tdbsam requires no further configuration.

; security = user

; passdb backend = tdbsam

# ———————– Domain Members Options ————————

#

# Security must be set to domain or ads

#

# Use the realm option only with security = ads

# Specifies the Active Directory realm the host is part of

#

# Backend to store user information in. New installations should

# use either tdbsam or ldapsam. smbpasswd is available for backwards

# compatibility. tdbsam requires no further configuration.

#

# Use password server option only with security = server or if you can’t

# use the DNS to locate Domain Controllers

# The argument list may include:

# password server = My_PDC_Name [My_BDC_Name] [My_Next_BDC_Name]

# or to auto-locate the domain controller/s

# password server = *

; security = domain

; passdb backend = tdbsam

; realm = MY_REALM

; password server = <NT-Server-Name>

# ———————– Domain Controller Options ————————

#

# Security must be set to user for domain controllers

#

# Backend to store user information in. New installations should

# use either tdbsam or ldapsam. smbpasswd is available for backwards

# compatibility. tdbsam requires no further configuration.

#

# Domain Master specifies Samba to be the Domain Master Browser. This

# allows Samba to collate browse lists between subnets. Don’t use this

# if you already have a Windows NT domain controller doing this job

#

# Domain Logons let Samba be a domain logon server for Windows workstations.

#

# Logon Scrpit let yuou specify a script to be run at login time on the client

# You need to provide it in a share called NETLOGON

#

# Logon Path let you specify where user profiles are stored (UNC path)

#

# Various scripts can be used on a domain controller or stand-alone

# machine to add or delete corresponding unix accounts

#

security = user

passdb backend = tdbsam

domain master = yes

domain logons = yes

# the login script name depends on the machine name

; logon script = %m.bat

# the login script name depends on the unix user used

logon script = %u.bat

logon path = \\%L\Profiles\%u

# disables profiles support by specifing an empty path

logon path =

# add user script = /usr/sbin/useradd “%u” -n -g users

# add group script = /usr/sbin/groupadd “%g”

# add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -n -c “Workstation (%u)” -M -d /nohome -s /bin/false “%u”

# delete user script = /usr/sbin/userdel “%u”

# delete user from group script = /usr/sbin/userdel “%u” “%g”

# delete group script = /usr/sbin/groupdel “%g”

add user script = /usr/sbin/useradd -m ‘%u’ -g users -G users

add group script = /usr/sbin/groupadd %g

add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -s /bin/false -d /var/lib/nobody %u

add user to group script = /usr/sbin/usernod -G %g %u

delete user script = /usr/sbin/userdel -r %u

# delete user from group script = /usr/sbin/userdel “%u” “%g”

delete group script = /usr/sbin/groupdel %g

# Password Program

template shell = /bin/bash

passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u

passwd chat = *Enter\snew\sUNIX\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\sUNIX\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully*

passwd chat debug = yes

unix password sync = yes

log level = 3

# ———————– Browser Control Options —————————-

#

# set local master to no if you don’t want Samba to become a master

# browser on your network. Otherwise the normal election rules apply

#

# OS Level determines the precedence of this server in master browser

# elections. The default value should be reasonable

#

# Preferred Master causes Samba to force a local browser election on startup

# and gives it a slightly higher chance of winning the election

local master = yes

os level = 33

preferred master = yes

#—————————– Name Resolution ——————————-

# Windows Internet Name Serving Support Section:

# Note: Samba can be either a WINS Server, or a WINS Client, but NOT both

#

# – WINS Support: Tells the NMBD component of Samba to enable it’s WINS Server

#

# – WINS Server: Tells the NMBD components of Samba to be a WINS Client

#

# – WINS Proxy: Tells Samba to answer name resolution queries on

# behalf of a non WINS capable client, for this to work there must be

# at least one WINS Server on the network. The default is NO.

#

# DNS Proxy – tells Samba whether or not to try to resolve NetBIOS names

# via DNS nslookups.

wins support = yes

; wins server = w.x.y.z

wins proxy = yes

; dns proxy = yes

# ————————— Printing Options —————————–

#

# Load Printers let you load automatically the list of printers rather

# than setting them up individually

#

# Cups Options let you pass the cups libs custom options, setting it to raw

# for example will let you use drivers on your Windows clients

#

# Printcap Name let you specify an alternative printcap file

#

# You can choose a non default printing system using the Printing option

load printers = yes

cups options = raw

; printcap name = /etc/printcap

#obtain list of printers automatically on SystemV

; printcap name = lpstat

; printing = cups

# ————————— Filesystem Options —————————

#

# The following options can be uncommented if the filesystem supports

# Extended Attributes and they are enabled (usually by the mount option

# user_xattr). Thess options will let the admin store the DOS attributes

# in an EA and make samba not mess with the permission bits.

#

# Note: these options can also be set just per share, setting them in global

# makes them the default for all shares

; map archive = no

; map hidden = no

; map read only = no

; map system = no

; store dos attributes = yes

#============================ Share Definitions ==============================

[homes]

comment = Home Directories

browseable = yes

writable = yes

valid users = %S

valid users = yourgroupname\%S

[printers]

comment = All Printers

path = /var/spool/samba

browseable = no

guest ok = no

writable = no

printable = yes

# Un-comment the following and create the netlogon directory for Domain Logons

[netlogon]

comment = Network Logon Service

path = /home/samba/netlogon

admin users = administrator

valid users = %U

read only = yes

guest ok = yes

browseable = no

writable = no

share modes = no

# Un-comment the following to provide a specific roving profile share

# the default is to use the user’s home directory

[Profiles]

comment = User Profiles

path = /home/samba/profiles

valid users = %U

create mask = 0600

security mask = 0600

directory mask = 0770

directory security mask = 0770

read only = no

browseable = no

available = yes

# A publicly accessible directory, but read only, except for people in

# the “staff” group

[public]

comment = Public Stuff

path = /backups

public = yes

writable = yes

printable = no

; write list = +staff

What is Service?

“A service is a mean of delivering values to customers by facilitating outcomes that they want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks”

Now few things comes up in your mind by reading the above definition is that what does facilitating outcomes means and what are the effects and how does it relates to IT industry, what is meant by delivering values.

By facilitating outcomes I mean to say that it will enhance the performance and reduce the effect of constraints. It also increases the probability of desired outcomes. And it also affects the resources and their capabilities and also performance of the customer tasks. Now with the service there is service management comes up.

Service Management idea or rather we can say that the theme comes up with the idea of service providers. The origins of service management are in traditional forms with the businesses likes of airplanes, banks, telecommunications providers, hotels etc. so as the IT industry grows up the concept and adaption of service management grows as well and it now the most lethal part in any IT organization.  As IT organization has adapted the service- oriented approach for managing IT applications, infrastructure and processes. Business Problems and support for business models, strategies and operations are increasingly dependent upon the service management.

The service management according to me 

“A set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services”

Now with the service management the standards come up in our minds which are being followed all around the world. ITIL service management concept is one of them. In the next following parts and in this write up I will go into the detail of ITIL service management concepts

What is ITIL?

ITIL is the abbreviation of Information Technology Infrastructure Library which gives us the framework or rather we can say that standards sort of stuffs by following it we can implement the best practices being followed in the IT industry related to service management. ITIL is basically owned by UK Government and not by any commercial proprietary solution or practice.

ITIL is basically comprises of the following characteristics

Ø  Non- Proprietary — which tells us that ITIL Service Management Best Practices are being put on i.e. applicable in any  industry which have the concerns of IT Service Management because they are not based on any particular technology platform or industry type.

Ø  Non Perspective — ITIL offers robust, mature and time valued and times tested best practices that have applicability to all types of service organizations. Helps the organization determine where it is today, and where it wants to be. It continues to be helpful in public as well as private organization to its  internal and external customers whether they belong to SME’s or Large Organizations or within any technical environments

Ø  Best Practices — ITIL Service Management practices represent the learning experiences and thoughts leaderships of the world’s best in class of service providers. The approach to an  understanding that has already been proved to be the most effective by the leading organizations and it is derived  from the practices of the most  effective and successful people in the field

Ø  Good Practices — By good practices means that what everybody is doing as it’s seen as complete with no gaps, and often referred to as the most appropriate  and also the fact that there is always a continual search for improvement as well know nobody is perfect so we can imply this rule in here.

Ø  Systematic Usage — it is the systematic usage of the Service Management practices that are responsive, consistent and measurable and this also defines the quality of the service provider in the eyes of their customer.

Ø  Continuously Analization — it is the provider’s ability to continuously analyze and fine tune the service provision to maintain stable, reliable yet adaptive and responsive services that allows the customer to focus on their business without the concern of IT service availability.

The ITIL service management practices are comprised off three main sets of practices and services

Ø  ITIL Service management  practices — Core Guidance

Ø  ITIL Service management practices — complementary

Ø  ITIL Web support

Now In my next write up I will go into the details of ITIL Service management — Core Guidance

But on the other hand there are cases where we have been appreciated and being rewarded also by putting up some marvelous efforts as in the case of ERP implementation in my current working organization, at the time of implementation 9/11 thing happened and the Consultants went back to their homeland … the project seems to be at stake as all the efforts being put on by the team and trainings have been done because at that point we cannot revert to the old things, but let me clear one thing the implementation team have the support from higher management for the implementation which is really helpful for us, by having support from them we have implemented the ERP which is now being running ALHAMDULILLAH successfully from past 7 years and now we are in testing phase of its new version and business process re-engineering / business continuity/ IT Governance.

Being in the field of IT you have to be well aware of all the current market trends and happenings around you, I know that its really hard to keep yourself update with the market trends and happenings around you related to the field of IT but you have too because if you don’t then you will be outdated related to IT knowledge. At times too keep yourself updated you have to spend the money form your pockets because it’s a sort of risk always related to it that management might ask you “DO YOU HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE CURRENT IT TRENDS” and if you say “No” then be prepare for listening anything from them .. You need to re-train yourself as much as you can. As myself , I have to be updated all the time what is going on, which hardware is currently on the rising phase and which is out dated. What kind of software products we have in the market which can help us out and what not useful to us. As the things are so much rapidly changing in the field of IT that you will never knew what will come up next and by whom in this field.

Working long hours is usual in the field of IT as now become AN ENIGMA with it. So its not become un usual with most of IT professionals to work long hours but the thing is that working for long hours is not sort of routine jobs but yes it does at month ends or year ends when there will full load of work where you have to take the backups when all the work have been done or when there are least users connected with the application, make surety of the all the systems available. Most of my friends to whom I know are always on call basis including myself , if god forbidden something goes wrong we will be remain in touch. That’s why companies do realize our importance and they pay us too and give incentives as well, and also that some time we have to run the tasks that we have to really take care off like off server service packs or server up gradation or backup routines or system health checks for which we have to plan about the time days & strategy because these sort of tasks will be not be done in haphazard way.

People also assume that we all know about the IT stuff but that’s not the case because we all have some expertise related to the IT field. From system administration to Development to Networks to security to IT governance etc etc. all people working in those division have their working expertise related to it so its better to ask them those type of question on which they are working on . but not like that if you ask some software development person that what kind of router we are using in our organization or if you asked network person that how this software developed and what software technologies used in the development of it …… perhaps you get the reply “NO I DON’T KNOW ABOUT IT” . So it’s better to ask the person who worked on them by creating awareness about it amongst the people of your organization and around your peer network.

IT always be considered as the “Cost Centers” and hardly as the “Profit Generators”. IT department who are well mannered and established their benefits will remain unhidden which is not good so as being IT manger you need to point out what are you offering to the organization and how you are doing it . Add this with is that there is a lack of healthy respect for the technology that runs most businesses and what we get in return is not in the eyes of the management which being IT managers we have to point them out which is a constant uphill task for us thats where “Business Intelligence” comes up.

At times there were queries being generated by the HR departments that to list down the works being done by you being in IT and when you end up with it by listing down the whole work which is being done by you it gets into some lengthy work that those HR guys don’t feel bothered to read about them (that happen with me hehe). Also I observed that everybody’s job was urgent. If five people come to you in the morning each with a different problem, what can you do? Each one cannot continue their work until the “tiny” problem is solved. As they don’t know why the problem has occurred and what are the causes of it. I know it’s hard to say “No” to any one like that because all of them have priorities and workload so we have to tackle them with tips and tricks likes off on which position the user is and how much work load it have.etc etc. Some times its hard for the user to convey about his/her problems so being in IT my experience is that we have to listen them carefully what they are trying to say and then help them out being giving them some information about the problems and gathered the data about the problems and solved them as soon as possible in the prescribed manner.

In the end I can say that I may be missed out points that which I can not think of but do share with all of us and for new comers in the field of IT … all of you are always welcome so cheer up and wish all of new comers good luck and bright future. If you need any help of mine do contact me …..