This one has been available for quite some time but only recently I started to use it. It allows you to change many networking settings depending on the profile you select.

The things you can do:

• set a proxy server
• connect to drives
• configure your IP addressing settings per network card (fixed, DHCP)
• set you browser start page
• use the ISA firewall client or not
• change desktop wallpaper, display resolution, volume
• set the default printer, MAPI profile, time zone, outgoing SMTP server
• add host names to the hosts file
• run custom scripts when you select any profile or a custom profile

Check it out at www.mobilenetswitch.com.

Yesterday, I wrote about building an MSCS cluster in VMWare 5 Workstation using iSCSI. On the cluster nodes, I used the StarPort iSCSI initiator software. Microsoft’s own iSCSI initiator software is a better way of connecting to the iSCSI target and is actually supported on a cluster.

So instead of using the StarPort software, use Microsoft’s initiator software. The installation is easy.

First define a target server:

Then set the targets:

By clicking the Log On button, you can set Automatically restore this connection when the system boots.

As you can see from the screenshots above, I still connect to the StarWind iSCSI target on my host pc (laptop) over the VMWare host-only network (in this case 192.168.116.x).

You should also set service dependencies as described in this article. This avoids the cluster service starting up before the iSCSI service has brought the disks online.

Have fun !