rschroeder · NAM SME · ✭✭✭✭✭

Studio McGee's trend certainly seems to focus on high ceilings, open spaces, and white!

Dedicated and isolated power is important for a network room. One day I was alerted by Orion that the network being down on a given floor in a specific building. I confirmed it and told the Help Desk to start expecting calls. I went to the network room responsible for that floor and found power had tripped at the breaker,…

I like your vax comments! Have you seen Kingsman Golden Circle? Totally on-topic and on-target!

I've pushed at our organization for years to understand that having the fewest variables results in the highest up time. Selecting a common router and switch, for example--or a minimum number of different router or switch hardware solutions. Ideally I'd put the same model router and switch at every site and be done with…

That's unfortunate, and possibly a sign of inexperience or insufficient training and testing. Array manufacturers should have had this problem and it automatic resolutions down pat long ago. A solution where drive position is irrelevant, where the drive has an internal ID that the array recognizes automatically and…

You're so right. I blame it on the complexity of the environment in which we work, and the lack of funding by administration for proper training. What does our staff look to for training and processes that puts them into a box? * When a medical procedure must follow a rigid process to achieve a positive outcome * When…

It only makes sense . . .

The earthquake advance warning story didn't initially float my boat. Getting a four-second or ten-second warning in advance of an earthquake didn't seem useful to me yet. Since this solution merely leverages reporting a quake's vibrations to customers via radio waves, I didn't see a great practical use with today's…

I, too, have moved to SourceFire on ASA's. The unfortunate things are: * FirePOWER and FireSIGHT cost extra * Aren't included with the original ASA's * Cisco still claims ASA's are the least expensive Next Gen firewalls on the market, but they can't perform Next-Gen functions without SourceFire add-ons * ASA's can't do…

Perhaps some rules to live by: 1. Keep NCM up to date 2. Learn the product, then learn how the product can accommodate more customers. One of the best things I've done is offer monitoring service to other departments. Especially non-IT staff. They'd no idea they could be notified automatically when systems they work with…

I'm looking forward to this.

All one needs do to determine if software security is worth the money and time spent on it is to review those who have not spent the time and money on it. Start with the City of Baltimore and their ransomware problem. Then expand to companies that don't follow best software security practices as required by PHI, SOX, PCI,…

IT Pro's know their gifts! 

Those four (five) questions are spot on. Anyone starting monitoring, or offering monitoring as a service, or managing NMS must be able to answer those questions correctly, at any time, to any customer. You make a great choir director, Leon. Keep preaching!

Larry will just have to tighten his belt, make a few sacrifices.

" . . . to have an organized library of security resources . . ."

No problem--I've got one for you:

Seriously? You have Haboobs and monsoons? Are you SURE you're in the United States? Like, maybe you're in Morocco?

Bump for a worthy idea.

I've seen "HIPAA" used to justify or deny things and practices and flows that are new, desired, wanted, etc. on the network, or in the data centers, or in the medical practitioners' and business environments. HIPAA, ITIL, etc., . . . Buzzwords and popular processes and fads and practices and compliance standards come and…

If we go straight to the title, as if it were a question: "How to Keep Control of the Expanding Government Network?" The immediate "simple" answers are: * Build standards and apply them universally, then review them for consistency, and apply enforcement to ensure they are consistent. * Require budget to be reviewed, by…

My regional peers in other organizations report they're either in the process of moving away from Solaris, or have already moved to other solutions. That's hard on Solaris' market share, making the future iffy. They need more buy-in, not buy-out, if they're going to remain viable.

These are certainly helpful tools for anyone. Securing the electronic info on a flash drive becomes a corporate concern. My organization locks down USB drives and forbids corporate data on private devices, no matter whether USB or smartphone or personal e-mail solutions. But that USB data could certainly be useful in the…

"If it keeps gettin' better and better, O Lord--I don't know what I'm gonna do!"

Back in Windows 95 days I worked for a K-12 with typically scant resources for staff & training. Of the 30+ sites I supported, one had more troubles than all others combined. I stopped out there and spoke with the local "techy" teacher (let's call him "Mr. Cloof"--not his real name) and went through all of the computers in…

Twenty-plus years ago I moved to a new city and found a job with a small company. I was impressed with the owner, the coworkers, the equipment. I thought they had a good product and a good plan and good customers. Then came the day that the delivery truck arrived to drop off our monthly supplies, required to make our…

I see what you're getting at.

So why do we have invisible fences surrounding our areas of expertise (a.k.a.: "silos")? I suppose if we leave and find a place without those fences we'll stay there instead of returning. adatole​:

So many possibilities! I know the contest is over, but I rely this on feature a lot. Three easy ones come to mind: * A contractor set up a lot of switches for us in a project; they also created their own local username with priv 15. NCM's compliance allows me to search & destroy those accounts--after first ensuring TACACS…

(SHHH! Your bosses may be reading these!)