_stump · infrastructure engineer

Just some thoughts in general: the goal of this month's challenge is to learn about Virtualization Manager 6.0, right? And the prize is pretty sweet, considering the amount of time and effort on our part to earn a chance to win. If the answers aren't obvious, all it takes is a little research and reading through the…

Great points. I can't help but LOL when people say MS products are more secure because Secure Channel. What about the 100s, if not 1000s of OS-level security flaws that make web server security irrelevant?

Like any other documentation, the trick to making an effective network diagram is to remember your audience. Are you making a network diagram for your fellow engineers? Then make it accurate first, then worry about the aesthetics. Function over form. But if it's for your management to hang on a wall or refer to during…

The consolidation you mentioned is, in my opinion, what's driving the need for hybrid engineers. Otherwise, you still end up with finger pointing and people who refuse to accept responsibility for the solution. Have you looked at the CCIE Data Center cert? What do you think about that track?

Your coding skills are interesting. You're right that lots of us use various scripting languages to automate recurring tasks, but it's good to hear that you've benefitted from from traditional programming languages as well. I worked with a sysadmin years ago who was amazing with VB. And he always found a way to use it…

I think the issue you describe is the result of a flawed organization design. When you isolate and limit engineers to specific technology resources, you create a competitive environment in which the goal is not necessarily to resolve issues but to avoid blame. It's a human resources problem that sets up IT people for…

i nodded silently while i read your whole post. totally agree. assumptions that cloud is 1) a monolithic solution for all problems, and 2) easy are irresponsible. it's a technology. by now we should have learned that no single technology will correct organizational or executive dysfunction. re: silos, god help the office…

Good point. No one should want to contribute to growing sprawl. Sprawls of all sorts are accepted as things to be avoided. I'm happy when I can consolidate my investments in tools with a single suite, to be certain. It's just that the golden ideal of buying a single suite and expecting it to monitor / manage everything is…

#3 is a great point. No one likes to have processes or procedures forced upon them. If you make it clear that the adoption of a new system is going to be an evolution, not just a fire drill, you'll likely get more support for the change. We're slowly rolling out ServiceNow at my current workplace. S L O W L Y. Most…

"after that, therefore because of that." i'm agreeing that companies will likely blame heartbleed (or at least spew FUD along these lines) for recent breaches of security. Of course, companies with a good security program, and the audacity to tell the truth about their security incidents for the purposes of educating the…

I'd kinda like to listen in, if that's an option. I'll be at VMworld.

I like the focus lately on command line administration. tcpdump is a must-have and must-know for systems engineers who need a low-level view into networked communications. Also, +1 for arcane humor. Well played.

Until there’s a compelling reason for the staff to embrace automation, it’ll flounder. Management loves automation because they don’t like surprises. Staff hate automation because it’s usually dependent on a programming language or scripting language that’s not common to the server admin’s skill set. Look at PowerShell.…

Took a different approach to this contest. In the past, I've earned as many entries as possible. This time, I'm doing 50% and seeing what happens. Best of luck to everyone, thanks to the thwack team for putting this together, and enjoy the holidays!

I like that approach. Sounds like you've done this a few times.

I agree that there's risk in putting any data in the cloud, but let's not forget that there is risk in having that data in your internal network, too. Corporate networks are always targets for intrusions, because they have more than just log data. We'd be wise to question the security of data regardless where it lives. It…

I think it's helpful to remember that software is a solution. Before you can talk about solutions, you really should understand your problem. If the problem is that it's too expensive to have 100 tools, then by all means look at suites. But if the problem is that you don't have any good monitoring in place, then you need…

Did the Google+ thing too, because points.

Yup. Lately I've seen problems where engineers needed to go back to the logs, but by the time they needed to review the logs, the logs had been overwritten. Log monitoring is now being discussed with great passion at this particular shop.

Hey, thanks!

Wouldn't you want to change your passwords as the last step, after you've closed this vuln?

Crud, this one is tough! Remind me to not guess the answers next week.

WARNING: this is probably bad advice. I am not responsible for its use (or misuse). The best way to find time for this at work is to not tell anyone that you're spending time on innovation, creative thinking, and critical analysis. Really. Small-minded management types will see these endeavors as incredible wastes of time…

What are you, some kind of reasonable and experienced IT person?

...Once you find the root cause then the network can be eliminated... Not biased, are we?

this is the best comment of all time.

Hey, you're welcome!

They wrote a GUI interface in visual basic, to get the IP address.

Your closing paragraph really makes a great point. And while retaining certain data may be a liability, it's a greater risk to the business entity when you start deleting things. Because no one keeps track of what they've deleted. And you'll find yourself asking, "Did I lose that file, or did I delete that file?"

I've used WSUS for forever, and I've always been happy with that product. But I've not had to patch more than ~300 machines with it, and I hear that it doesn't scale too far beyond that. My current client uses SCCM for their Windows patching, and the only complaint I have about SCCM is that it doesn't synchronize with…