Working with LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory

Working with LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory: For most IT professionals, there has been some point in their career where they have connected a product or service to a Microsoft Active Directory with LDAP for authentication. This is really nothing new and has been done for years, but I discovered a different way to set up the connections years ago when I was working on a script that would connect to Active Directory with an LDAP call to get a list of members of a group. I really thought most people already knew this and it was pretty much common knowledge, but it seems lately that every time I work with someone new setting up the LDAP configuration they seem to be quite surprised at the way I do things and I thought this should be something that I share out.

Cisco Nexus 1000v: Free unless you want Security

While not particularly new news, the next version of the Cisco Nexus 1000v will be free, unless you want the security features. This is an interesting shift from Cisco with respect to VMware vCloud Director, the Nicira purchase, furthering UCS, and Cisco within non-UCS data centers. However, given other announcements, with respect to OpenStack, perhaps this is more a play to level the playing field between cloud architectures? But what I find most interesting, is that the changes to the Nexus 1000v also align with the changes we see in the vCloud Suites from VMware.