tallyrich · Network Engineer Senior · ✭✭✭✭✭

I'm with you. I love SolarWinds products, I love Thwack and stay abreast of this for my own edification. Looking forward to things being back again.

When Chip cards became required I was called to the cafeteria to build out a PCI network for their new cash registers - 2 days before the new law was to take effect. I worked with another engineer to pull this off. The next day the vendor arrived with swipe readers in hand. Ofda? "Your bank doesn't support chip readers…

About 20 years ago I had a friend that had been with FEMA. He was responsible for destroying the hard drives in his group. The procedure was a DoD wipe of the drive with 3 passes. Then he had to physically drill holes in the drive. Then beat it repeatedly with a sledgehammer. And finally incinerate them. I'm thinking that…

I had a co-worker that was always mixing his metaphors. For that one, he Always said 6 of one a dozen of the other. He got a LOT of deer in the headlights looks - to use another metaphor.

What if we train our staff and they leave? vs. What if we don't train our staff and they stay?

As usual a nice article with interesting facts. It's fun to see the "side" businesses that companies get into. I'm a big Porsche fan and they seem to (via their Porsche Design arm) have their hands into just about everything. Pens, clothing, bicycles, etc. In the case of Porsche they are renown for their savvy in design…

A belated congrats to philtreid​ enjoy!

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

I would like to see something beyond report writer. I'm not a SQL guy and would like to be able to extract data in more comprehensive ways than just line reports. The primary thing that I need is to pull all of the hardware asset information. I love the way it is displayed on the screen, but would really appreciate being…

Too bad these Traxx cars aren't Porsches - I just sold my 1980 Weissach edition 911 over the weekend and I miss her already.

Good point. So often people build plans and "test" them when a disaster strikes. It's like any other form of documentation IT people tend to not like doing it and when we do we tend to just "get it done." I see all forms of documentation as a form of "insurance." You hope it's a waste of time and money, but if you need it…

I'm visual so the diagrams really add clarity for me.

I enjoy your perspective of these trips that I can't take myself.

Congrats! nhkelley​

I upgraded my production. I've been using Solarwinds for several years (at a couple of different places) and the upgrade procedure has always been very good. Most of the time if I run into any issues I just re-run the configuration tool and it fixes things right up. The only exceptions are testing a Beta or testing an app…

Interesting as usual. I'm curious where all of this will go with "fake." At what point is it fake vs. opinion or belief? Who determines? What are the penalties? Who determines? Who receives the recompense from those penalties? All of this can be very scary when you take it beyond the surface.

Shadow IT, that happened more times than I can count at my last gig. The problem being non-IT type people running out and purchasing things with no clue as to how it would work in the environment. While Shadow IT has some good (when the people really know what they are doing) in most situations it causes more problems than…

Just read an article this morning that said Alexa "hears" words spoken as much as 100 yards away. While the current use of this voice technology is generally designed to be assistants to the user there have already been cases of the data gathered is being used for "data mining." Supposedly anonymously, but in a business…

I seldom do well in these bracket battles, but I love the community and banter.

Most "splash screens" display a warning about their surfing being "monitored." In most cases, there may be logs, but not true tracking. But I've found just the possibility that someone might actually look at their browsing history or count the amount of time that they spent shopping or "other" viewing is enough to keep…

SolarWinds is making great progress in building a really competitive product. When it comes to network tools the best tool is the one that you actually use. That said finding a good SEIM that is actually usable has been a problem. Either they are difficult to use and manage (often requiring the hiring of a "propeller…

Every auditor that I've met has the mantra "if it's not documented you aren't doing it." Policy is really just putting down your expectations and culture on paper. I've known so many companies that do things a certain way because "it's policy" when in reality it's just the way they have done things because of culture, but…

Read the linked page carefully and you'll see your answer.

Yup, push the View Poll button and it takes you to the link you added. Eazy Pezy.

Nice article and many of the things that I deal with everytime I change jobs (ok, not that much, but it still happens every time) I've worked for places that had a small data center (in the beginning) so they named the servers something silliy, i.e. Disney or Peanuts characters. It was fun in the beginning, but really what…

Congrats: spikey_mikey737​ and jtogni​ - Enjoy the spoils of Thwacking!

Woo Hoo, first question right - Thanks for not making us wait between missions.

Agreed, in this day of apps for everything and technology for your toaster there is the idea that "if you had . . . you'd save so much time" Which is true if you know how to use it and have the time to build it properly in the first place (oh and maintenance) but if you don't know how to use it you could just cut off a…

To quote every auditor that I've ever met (and one of my previous positions had 2 audits a year and facilitated 1 or 2 a year of for the client). If it's not documented you are not doing it. Thus a fail. Every company needs to develop a specific policy for IoT even if the policy is No we don't! And no, my current location…

This makes sense. I can see that sometime the real estate is just too important and that's not information that you need to look at all that often.