In April 2020, some Office 365 Plans will be re-branded as Microsoft 365 Plans. The plan features are not changing (yet) but the plan names are. Here is a list of new plan names: Office 365 Pro Plus will be Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/name-change Office 365 Business will be Microsoft 365 Apps […]
Windows Server Virtual Servers VMs: Windows Dedicated Hardware Servers:
The November 12, 2019 Microsoft Office updates introduced a bug in MS Access where users are seeing errors like this “Query is corrupt”. Microsoft has acknowledged the bug and says a fix will be out with the updates on December 10. See link here from Microsoft for more information: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/access-error-query-is-corrupt-fad205a5-9fd4-49f1-be83-f21636caedec To fix the issues in […]
Starting October 1, 2019, Microsoft is modifying their licensing terms related to outsourcing rights and dedicated hosted cloud services. Beginning October 1, 2019, on-premises Microsoft licenses purchased without Software Assurance cannot be deployed on dedicated hosted cloud services offered by the following “Listed Providers”: Microsoft, Alibaba, Amazon and Google. Riptide Hosting is not one of […]
Power Failures – Our datacenters have redundant commercial power feeds, UPS systems and diesel generators. Compare this to a single power feed that is typical in an office building. Network / Internet / ISP Failures – Riptide Hosting uses premium bandwidth with multiple network providers blended together for maximum update. Compare this to a single […]
Windows Server 2008r2 and SQL Server 2008r2 will be END OF SUPPORT soon. This means no more security updates. SQL Server 2008/R2 supports ends July 2019 and Windows Server 2008R2 support ends January 2020. Contact us to migrate from Windows Server 2008r2 to 2016 at no charge!
How To Secure Windows Remote Desktop In September 2018 the FBI issued a public service announcement regarding risks and hacking attempts again the RDP protocol. See the announcement here which includes some suggestions (with additional considerations below) https://www.ic3.gov/media/2018/180927.aspx Considerations For Securing your Windows Server / RDP Terminal Server Here is a list of various actions to […]
RD Session Host Security settings in Windows Server 2016 (SSL, High encryption, etc.) Gpedit.msc, computer configuration, administrative templates, windows components, remote desktop services, remote desktop session host, security, see various options. “Require use of specific security layer for remote (RDP) connections” – Changing Security Layer to SSL is the recommendation listed in Windows 2016, “Client […]
Enable Group Policies to automatically logoff disconnected sessions or idle sessions after X minutes/hours Not only does this reduce server resources (ram/cpu) that are used up by disconnected sessions and affecting the overall performance of the remote desktop server, automatically logging off disconnected and idle sessions may help lessen risk if vulnerabilities in Windows are […]
Update: see more detailed post on how to install the RD Gateway Role on Windows Server 2019/2016 here: http://www.riptidehosting.com/blog/installing-the-remote-desktop-gateway-role-rdgw-on-windows-server-2019/ RD Gateway Role in RDS Using the Remote Desktop Gateway Role (RDGW) provides additional security by forcing RDP traffic over https/port 443 (requires SSL certificate) instead of port 3389. General steps to install the RDGW role on […]