For the first time, Google opened the doors to its data centers, sharing pictures and video of these massive operations. Wired’s Steven Levy was among those who got an exclusive first look at one of the data centers (a behemoth of a building in Lenoir, North Carolina), and his resulting story is a great read.

What makes these images so compelling? For the average person, it’s a chance to unravel some of the mystery behind one of the world’s most powerful companies, and a reminder that for all the talk about cloud this and cloud that, the Internet is a real, physical thing.  Most IT pros have long internalized that truth, but still relish the chance to gawk at a super-sized version of the technologies they oversee on a daily basis. These are the technologies that run much of our lives, and so we can never have too much exposure to them.

Google’s doing plenty of interesting things in its data centers, from custom-built servers to energy-saving innovations (take that, New York Times). But it’s not the only company with an intriguing server story to tell; in the new book, The Art of the Data Center, Douglas Alger showcases 18 other data centers that  demonstrate impressive processing power and creativity, interviewing the people behind these modern landmarks (there are a ton of pictures, too). In looking through the book, I was struck by the range of designs and approaches, which took into account things like geographic location (e.g., ACT’s tornado-resistant building in Iowa City) and history (the Lakeside Technology Center in a former Chicago printing plant).

The entrance to the Bahnhof data center in Stockholm. Courtesy of Bahnhof/InformIT.

All the data centers featured are beautiful in their own way, but for sheer uniqueness, I’d have to give the prize to Bahnhof’s 10,000 square-foot space in a former nuclear bunker in Stockholm, Sweden (which includes a 687-gallon saltwater fish tank and two Maybach diesel submarine engines) and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, built into a gorgeous 1920s chapel. Both are powerful reminders of how the world is constantly evolving, using old spaces to meet new demands. As for what the future looks like…that picture is still a little blurry.

Want to see these data centers for yourself? We’re giving away a copy of The Art of the Data Center in our Halloween costume photo contest.

IceCubbe recommends keeping up with the Loaded daily video to keep “up to date with all the latest happenings in the IT world.”

Whether you’re looking for a top of the line security podcast, job listings, or opinions of like-minded tech folks, ErroneousGiant recommends you pay a visit to Risky Biz. With over 170 podcasts published since February 2007, Risky Business has quite the archive, as well as forums and a second podcast, RB2. Looking for some reading material? ErroneousGiant also keeps up with Sophos’s Naked Security blog, where you can find updates on the latest Facebook phishing scam (probably updated hourly) and hacking or security issues from courtrooms all over the world.

Carlosdl suggested a couple Twitter accounts whose shortened URLs it’s probably safe to click: @helpnetsecurity and @FSecure. Help Net Security’s Twitter stream is managed by Mirko Zorz, editor in chief of Help Net Security and (IN)SECURE Magazine. F-Secure’s Twitter stream highlights the latest headlines in security.

There is an impressive array of Twitter accounts and blogs to follow, no matter what area of IT your focus is.

Networking: Twitter & Blogs

Storage Virtualization: Twitter & Books

Desktop Virtualization: Twitter & Blogs

Windows 7: Blogs

Security: Twitter & Blogs

Of course, checking out the Enterprise IT Watch blog and @ITKE on Twitter is always a good place to start.

Did we miss anyone? Let us know in the comments section or in the forums.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

If you’ve read one of the books on this list, or if you’d like to suggest another title, and you’d like to provide a review, please get in touch with me at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com! Check out last year’s networking professional reads list for more titles.

Cisco is one of the most trusted names in networking these days. It’s no wonder that the books they publish remain the highest among recommended resources for those new or seasoned in networking. Here are a couple of titles from the CCIE Professional Development books that might be of interest to networking professionals:

• Deploying and Troubleshooting Cisco Wireless LAN Controller – From the publisher: “This is the only complete, all-in-one guide to deploying, running, and troubleshooting wireless networks with Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers (WLCs) and Lightweight Access Point Protocol (LWAPP)/Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP).” The book includes “start-to-finish coverage of implementing WLCs in existing wired and wireless network environments.”
• Network Security Technologies and Solutions – What’s a network without top-notch security? As good as breached. From the publisher: “With an easy-to-follow approach, this book serves as a central repository of security knowledge to help you implement end-to-end security solutions and provides a single source of knowledge to covering the entire range of the Cisco network security portfolio.”

Check out some other titles that have been well reviewed in the networking community:

• Network Mergers and Migrations – From the publisher: “Network Mergers and Migrations provides readers with a comprehensive guide for network migration activities by detailing a variety of inter-networking case studies. Both enterprise and service provider scenarios are examined, from MPLS Layer 3 VPN migration approaches to comprehensive network protocol consolidation and integration. Case studies are provided with solid state-of-the-art protocol analysis and with practical application notes focused on specific functionalities. This is a book that truly describes the challenges that involve networks in modern environments, in both enterprise and service provider milieus.”
• The Illustrated Network – From the publisher: “This book takes the popular Stevens approach and modernizes it, employing 2008 equipment, operating systems, and router vendors. It presents an illustrated explanation of how TCP/IP works with consistent examples from a real, working network configuration that includes servers, routers, and workstations.”
• Network Access Control for Dummies – From the publisher: “If you’re interested in researching or implementing a Network Access Control (NAC) solution for your network, here’s the book for you. Authored by three Juniper Network’s managers, Network Access Control for Dummies provides an excellent overview of how a comprehensive, standards-based NAC solution works.”

Have a suggestion for another networking professional’s must-read? Let us know in the comments section or send me an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com and we’ll add it to the list!

Storage Virtualization Books

• Storage Virtualization: Technologies for Simplifying Data Storage and Management: Tom Clark offers a vendor agnostic view of storage virtualization and its many implementations. Available as an e-book, this title is a great way for professionals of all areas of IT to get familiar with the technology.

Member Gregs, or Greg Schulz of Storageio.com, has several books that include storage virtualization, including an upcoming summer release.

• Resilient Storage Networks: Designing Flexible, Scalable Data Infrastructures:  “This book explains the components, as well as how to design and implement a resilient storage network for SMB, workgroup, departmental, and enterprise environments.”
• The Green and Virtual Data Center: This book considers how to grow a business in an environmentally-friendly manner, and “looks at design and implementation tradeoffs using various best practices and technologies to sustain application and business growth while maximizing resources, such as power, cooling, floor space, storage, server performance, and network capacity.”
• Cloud and Virtual Data Center: To be released Summer 2011, Shulz most recent book “provides comprehensive coverage of IT data storage networking infrastructure, including public and private cloud, virtualization, and traditional IT environments.” For strategies on design, implementation, and management, check out this forthcoming title.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Storage Virtualization Blogs

From new products and companies to reviews and step-by-step guides on new storage virtualization products, sign up for these RSS feeds for the latest information on the technology.

• The Virtual Storage Guy: One of NetApp’s blogs, The Virtual Storage Guy offers blog posts on topics such as virtual storage tiering and desktop virtualization.
• VMware Virtualization Management Blog: If you’re using or considering using VMware products for your virtualization project, check out their virtualization management blog for updates or tips.
• Ruptured Monkey: Check out this solutions architect’s blog on “all things storage and virtualization in the data center.”
• Pack Rat: Stephen Foskett knows storage, and his blog covers general storage topics from storage products to common IT habits regarding data storage and management.
• Virtual Lifestyle: For more information from a certified VMware specialist on all things storage, check out Joep Piscaer’s blog.
• The Storage Architect: This blog has coverage and reviews of storage and virtualization products and techniques.
• Around the Storage Block: Calvin Zito of HP Storage blogs about all things storage, which he’s been working in for over 25 years.

Of course, IT Knowledge Exchange has a wealth of blogs on storage and virtualization as well:

• The Virtualization Room: From the editors at SearchServerVirtualization, this blog sometimes covers the storage side of your virtualization needs.
• Storage Soup: For general commentary on the storage industry, including storage virtualization techniques, check out this blog from SearchStorage.com.
• Enterprise IT Watch Blog: Check out the IT Watch Blog’s coverage of storage virtualization.

Storage Virtualization Videos, Guides, and More

Member Slack400 shared some links to his favorite storage virtualization guides and how-tos:

• Hyper-V installation demo
• Hyper-V Guide
• P2V Migration Tips
• VMware keyboard shortcuts

Check back next week for the Storage Virtualization Twitter professionals and books to watch out for! Share some of your favorite places to go for information on the subject, and we’ll share 50 knowledge points with you.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

“Many [IT professionals] got into it because of a knack for technology,” he said, explaining where the title for his book series originated. Many students in his training classes approached him to say that they had accidentally become administrators. Because of their affinity for technology, they had become the go-to person at their company and when their positions became official they were sent to him seeking certification and proper training.

What to Expect

Crawley wants to make this clear: The Accidental Administrator is not the place to go if you’re looking for theory or background. “It’s more of a cookbook, with recipes,” he said, “except they’re for working configurations.” The books in this series serve the IT personality-type very well, with plenty of opportunities to tinker with and customize.

Which Accidental Administrator is Next?

This week’s giveaway book, “The Accidental Administrator: Cisco ASA Security Appliance,” is actually the first in the series. Also offered is a book on Linux Servers. Coming up are books on Cisco routers, customer service for IT people, and Ubuntu Desktop Linux.

Right now his desk has a pile of routers with a firewall on top. To research his books, Crawley builds configurations and breaks them, tinkers with an experimental website, browses forums and checks out other bloggers. “Everything is available online,” he said. To Crawley, the value of the books is more a matter of organizing the overwhelming amount of information available with the added bonus of credibility and accountability.

Interested in winning this great resource for dealing with Cisco ASA Security Appliances? Enter here to win a free copy from IT Knowledge Exchange!

Feedback

Crawley is always looking for feedback on his texts, to improve his training business and future versions of The Accidental Administrator series. If you’ve read one of his books, or if you are one of the lucky winners, we’d appreciate your feedback on the book and what you were able to accomplish with it.

In addition, he has been considering releasing a Kindle or e-book version of the texts. Would you consider purchasing or receiving that format of book? Are IT professionals adopting e-book formats of essential texts?

Let us know in the comments section or email me directly at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Don Crawley is the President and Chief Technologist at soundtraining.net. Check him out at his blog.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

• Cloud Security and Privacy: An Enterprise Perspective on Risks and Compliance: For anyone who is considering deploying to the cloud – whether on the investor side or practitioner side – this book seeks to explain the risks of moving data to the cloud as well as the ways to secure against them. A collaborative project among Tim Mather, Subra Kumaraswamy, and Shahed Latif, Cloud Security & Privacy explores the security measures relevant to the cloud including security-as-a-service.
• Cloud Security: A Comprehensive Guide to Secure Cloud Computing: Written by senior information systems security consultant Ronald L. Krutz and Chief Security Advisor for Gotham Technology Group, LLC, Russell Dean Vines, this book is a breakdown of the most difficult areas of cloud security. Pick this up if you’re looking for a “guide to helping you find your way through a maze of security minefields.” These days, who isn’t?
• Cloud Computing: Implementation, Management, and Security: From a co-founder of Hypersecurity and and the Senior Director and Chief Security Officer at the Cisco Collaborative Software Group, Cloud Computing is a great overview of the technology, providing definitions, repercussions, as well as pros and cons. Get the history leading up to cloud computing and finish up with profiles of successful cloud computing vendors.
• Web Application Obfuscation: One of the misconceptions about deploying existing applications in the cloud is that security will increase upon deployment. The truth? A faulty application outside the cloud will be just as – if not more – faulty in the cloud. Web Application Obfuscation explores, from an attacker’s perspective, traditional infrastructures and security measures to illustrate common vulnerabilities inherent in many security systems.
• Hacking: The Next Generation: There are many new ways for hackers to reach into your networks, and Hacking seeks to inform users about new hacks as well as attacks aimed specifically at social networking sites, wireless networks and cloud infrastructures.

And one to look forward to…

• Securing the Cloud: Written by a senior associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, Securing the Cloud presents the cloud in the context of existing security frameworks. Whether it’s the roadblocks standing in front of your deployment in the cloud or the adjustments necessary before and after cloud adoption, your concerns and considerations are covered in J.R. Winkler’s forthcoming book from Syngress.

Is an essential security read missing from our list? Let me know in the comments section or send me an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com!

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Meant to inspire security and technology pros alike to wonder and muse on the what ifs of security vulnerabilities, Stealing the Network exercises the imagination in hopes of sparking real life solutions. With contributions from security consultants, technical directors, security engineers and specialists with impressive lists of accomplishments, Stealing the Network is a truly creative bunch of “stories that are fictional, with technology that is real.”

Whether you’re into ethical hacking or IT security, you’ll find the stories not only entertaining and thought-provoking, but also valuable in their recommendations and specificity regarding what programs and systems the fictional hackers are using. Though the stories are fictional, they are set in the real world and are described with great accuracy. Screenshots, graphs and titled sections make for easy reading and navigation. The authors of these ten stories come from the IT security world, and thus their characters and scenarios are familiar and relatable, like the narrator from Ryan Russell and Timothy Mullen’s “The Worm Turns”:

Rarely do people like me want to chitchat about what we do in general terms. We live in a world of minute detail, machine-language code, operating system calls, and compiler quirks. Most of the time, we would rather keep to ourselves and do independent study, unless we’re having trouble with something specific or want someone to double-check our work.

In his foreword to the book, Jeff Moss, founder of Black Hat and DEFCON, defends the purpose of the book: “You could argue it provides a roadmap for criminal hackers, but I say it does something else: It provides a glimpse into the creative minds of some of today’s best hackers, and even the best hackers will tell you that the game is a mental one.”

Want a chance to win this unique book? Share your own hacking scenario – fictional or otherwise – and what can be learned from it. Leave your story in the comments section or email me at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Check out our list of top network security books for more ideas on some great reading. Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

The Tao of Network Security Monitoring: Beyond Intrusion Detection by Richard Bejtlich was recommended by a member of the Information Security Community LinkedIn group. Recommended for those looking for the next step after TCP/IP protocols, fairly new to network security.

Carlosdl recommends Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets and Solutions by Stuart McClure, Joel Scambray, and George Kurtz. It’s in its sixth edition now, published in 2009, though Carlos still has the second edition (and still recommends it!). Rather than approaching security from the defensive, Hacking Exposed puts you in the offense.

Rechil recommends Linux Network Security by Peter G. Smith, which provides an extensive analysis of network and system security practices, procedures, technologies, design issues and architectures. Another pick of Rechil’s, Aggressive Network Self-Defense by Neil R. Wyler, Bruce Potter, and Chris Hurley, also takes an offensive position rather than defensive, encouraging “security professionals [to] reach into the dark side of their tool box to identify, target, and suppress their adversaries.” Rechil goes into detail why he recommends it:

This book provides intact details of network security with root causes. Most probably, this is the first book that written on ADAM methodology for administrator to defend networks against illegal hackers and unauthorized access.

Then there are the two books that Labnuke99 finds indispensible:

NMAP Network Scanning by Gordon “Fyodor” Lyon: nmap is a must-have tool in any network or security admin toolkit – the book is great to have when you don’t have access to online docs.

Wireshark Network Analysis by Laura Chappell: You have to know how to read packet captures to be an effective network/security analyst – this book is a great source to have by your side – be sure to checkout my case study included in the book.

Some other great network security books to consider from us and SearchSecurity

Security Engineering by Ross Anderson:Anderson emphasizes the importance of marrying technology and management when trying to keep information secure.

But don’t just take our word for it, check out some recommendations by the SearchSecurity Experts for those looking to get started with network security:

* If you’re just getting started, the all-time classic book on the topic is Practical Unix & Internet Security by Gene Spafford and Simson Garfinkel. It’s the first security book I ever read and one that I still recommend. The third edition was published in 2003 and is still available. Though it is getting a little gray around the ears, it’s still a great read. The book provides an excellent introduction to security and outlines the basic principles of our craft.
* Mastering Network Security, by SANS instructor Chris Brenton, covers a wide variety of technical topics in good detail. It includes chapters that provide general network security advice as well as specific details for Cisco Systems Inc. devices, Windows and Unix systems.
* Finally, the book Network Security Hacks by Andrew Lockhart offers a good, hands-on approach to securing your network. It offers concise, practical tips that you can implement immediately.

Those are three of my top picks, but there are tons of alternatives out there as well. If you’re interested in securing a particular network technology, go visit the shelves of your local bookstore, or SearchSecurity.com’s Information Security Bookshelf, and flip through a few!

Have your own favorite network security resources you’d like to recommend? Let us know in the comments section, in the forums or by email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Croslin points a finger at the odd man himself, the IT department. Insert another “but why?” here. Well, if IT considers itself an integral part of the product delivery chain, which Croslin says it is, it should be acting like it: “It is the supplier’s responsibility to make sure the consumer understands what they are paying for and that the consumer is happy with the purchase.” In other words: Speak up for yourself!

Though the general connotation associated with IT is that it’s isolated work, troubleshooting and creating solutions in a locked, dark data center, that image is changing as budget concerns cause a dwindling of the IT population. As far back as 2004, IT World’s Siobhan McBride said that “[t]o survive this transformation, IT executives will need to be able to manage business processes and relationships, rather than focus on technical expertise.” But is IT any closer or better at managing business in addition to technical aspects?

Some tips from Croslin

1. Don’t be afraid of a little PR: Be aware of how the enterprise perceives your IT department and position yourself as an innovator.

2. A little more PR: What’s at the heart of PR? Why, spinning negatives into positives, of course! If there are inefficiencies in IT, document and communicate why they exist and how they can be improved. Rather than simply being the wet blanket, provide solutions to move forward and proof that you have the company’s best interest as your own. Are budget cuts and layoffs hindering your ability to provide innovative solutions? Document staff changes along with changes in productivity.

3. Remain indispensable: Worried about your department or specialty being outsourced? Make it an impossibility not only by providing better solutions and products, but also by making your indispensability evident.

Want to go more in-depth with Croslin’s advice for staying on top of your game in IT? You’re in luck: Innovate the Future: A Radical New Approach to IT Innovation is this week’s free IT book giveaway!

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.