tinmann0715 · Disaster Recovery Manager · ✭✭✭✭✭

So you have a network rack. In the rack are (at least) 2 intelligent APC PDU's. There is a Cisco network switch, two Dell servers, an EMC disk array, and a Brocade fiber switch. There is also an AVTECH environmental sensor. All of this equipment is configured to send their SNMP Traps to your SIEM. So! What do you do with…

March bump!

Don't forget the shout out to the THWACK MVP's who attended, in person, for THWACKcamp. We are already looking forward to next year's TC with even more MVP's in person, new and old. :-)

Understanding your dependencies, communicating with stakeholders, getting sign-off, preparing the resources that will, and may, be engaged, baselines, and testing are all very very important. Nothing makes a DBA madder then calling the On Call on a Saturday night asking for help with a database that's gone corrupt during a…

To me, Right-Sizing is all part and parcel of the VM lifecycle management. NPM Reporting has helped me analyze resource consumption of my VM's on a weekly basis. Periodically we'll go in and make adjustments. We do similar exercise with the VM's themselves to eliminate VM sprawl. We have a very tight VM landscape.

Agreed. "The Cloud" as an industry term is as nebulous as the "The Cloud" is as a computing platform. It has evolved to be so much more than that now and the services provided from it are much more specifically defined. The list you provided will continue to grow.

"Trust But Verify" the foundation of my role here at my company, and my motivation, nay inspiration!, to pull monitoring from the grips of the Infrastructure Group and the IT Service Owners. But I digress... VM "optimization" can be approached differently. Are you "optimizing" for performance? Are you "optimizing" for…

I'm just looking for as many Thwack points as humanly possible! <grub> <grub> <grub>

Some of the intangibles that come into play are: * Experience - this cannot be weighted heavily enough. "The phones are down!" An experiences phones admin knows where to look first during the troubleshooting process. * Head count - "The phones are down!" With head count one person can look at the switch(es), another at the…

This conversation came up once before. Personally, I am a process junkie. If a task is repeated then there should be a process and it should be measured. But the process is performed by either a person or technology. And if it is technology it is designed by a person. So there is no right answer.

Thursday bump!

"Military vehicles" aren't your usual automobile. They are very complex moving machines with thousands and thousands of moving parts. All of those sensors sending back data (think of the network charges!?!) and what is chewing on that data and where is that data being stored? It is mind-blowing the logistical mountains…

Hi guys! I answered the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday questions, correctly, about 30 minutes ago and I only received points for one of them. My grid says that I have answered all questions correctly. Help!?

Tricky mission this month. Huzzah!

It was an interesting evolution of expectations for Cloud providers to eliminate customer's infrastructure dependencies and to move into application administration. Granted, this can be done as more of a managed service model with SLA's, T's & C's, and what not... but a straight SaaS I am not so sure.

A million years ago when I worked for Digex, a managed web hosting provider, I participated in many contract discussions with clients regarding "access to their data". At the time our biggest competitor filed for bankruptcy and shutdown. Businesses that hosted with our competitor could not logically or physically access…

I want SW to have a booth at SAPPHIRE along with the likes Microsoft, Dell, CIsco, AWS, and many others. Read my blog about last year's Sapphire here

You are correct.See my above response as it applies. Another point to add is that you have to get everyone involved. When new technology is been added or existing tech is being modified the same question is repeatedly asked, "Will this work in DR?" This signifies adoption and ownership, which makes me eternally grateful.

Looking forward to this session. I am still chasing my tail in my company trying to lock down all the nodes so that I can catch when people do dumb things. I am still dealing with too much "unknown" and "don't worry about that" 's... ugh!

NO-BRAINER BUMP

This is an unanticipated service of Netflow. I was not aware that it could drill into application-level performance monitoring. Once we have it rolled out we will be drilling into these capabilities.

Good article and good series. Will certainly be referencing this again and again in 2019. Thanks!

I've done similar exercises for tying a shoe and boiling an egg. What these have in common is that these processes are hardened and tried & true. IT is the exact opposite. Technologies do not stand still. This requires SOP's to be constantly updated.

Umm.... okay! Yea.... I got nothing I can say to this. You got me. Not my finest hour...

BUMP!!!

Ever vigilant! The inherent powers that one adopts when he/she becomes an IT Systems or Data Administrator is quite powerful. A whooole lot of trust goes along with that. Very few places have the proper "Checks & Balances" in place to monitor and control this type of access. The only real deterrent in place is "your job",…

STUPID QUESTION: What essential service(s) should I be monitoring for this? Just the ones mentioned or are there any others? Asking for a friend... ;-)

arjantim you stated, "The Private cloud (or infrastructure) is a big asset for many of the companies we work for. But they pay a lot of money to just setup and maintain the environment..." Since we migrated to our Private Cloud the TCO for our server infrastructure has dropped considerably. Are others not seeing that? What…

Hi DanielleH​ and maria.bungau​. Was I too late to post for this badge?

What we have beginning to do at my company is collaborating the infrastructure team with the developers. I have been facilitating alot of those engagements. My role is to keep both groups honest and stay on task. Resources can't be wasted and expectations have to be met.