• A subnet is comprised of 4 octets of 8 bits each = 32 bits. 255.255.255.255 = 32 bits. Nothing more and nothing less.
• A network mask is going to be a relationship between the number of network bits and number of host bits they have to equal 32 bits.
• You have to be able to count in binary, or at least be able to do the math.
• Once you understand you won’t forget, it just takes some time to understand. Don’t worry if you don’t you eventually will, this is just to help you get there.
• saying 255.255.255.0 is the same as saying /24 (slash 24), saying 255.255.248.0 is the same as saying /21(slash 21) and so on. Router guys say /21 or whatever all the time - it is faster and easier. This is telling you the amount of network bits in use counting from left to right.

In the 2 examples above it goes like this:

• /24 = 8.8.8.0
• /21= 8.8.5.0

Because it has to equal 32 the remaining bits are host bits.

• /24 = 8 host bits
• /21 = 11 host bits.
• 24+8 = 32
• 21+11=32

So far so good?

So, onto the cheat sheet. There are only a handful of numbers you really need to know I will start with a class C address because this is the easiest to start with and once you understand this you can use this against Class A and B addresses as well as super-netting.

As I said before there is a relationship between the network and the hosts. You can’t have a /25 network for instance and have 256 hosts per network because the math won’t work. The most you could have would be 128 per network.

As well, you will note that there is an asterisk on the number of hosts. This number includes the network and broadcast addresses. (This is important to remember. I will explain this shortly)

Example time:

You need 5 class C networks what subnet do you use?

looking at the chart you see there is no 5, the closest number to 5 is 4 but you need 5 so you have to go to 8. You have 3 extra networks. The subnet would be /27 or 255.255.255.224

I need a network with 200 hosts, what subnet do i use?

looking at the chart you will see that you will need a network with a subnet of 0, meaning the subnet will be 255.255.255.0. You will have 256 hosts.

Pretty simple, but the examples are pretty simple.

You will note the host number has the network and broadcast addresses included. In order to compensate for those you need to reduce the number of hosts by 2. The network address is the beginning of the new network and the broadcast address is the last address in the network.

Example.

192.168.1.0 /25 = 192.168.1.0 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.128. On our cheat sheet we see that a mask of 128 is going to give us 2 networks with 128 hosts each. It breaks down like this:

Once you understand this, you can answer other questions quite easily, for example, what network is 192.168.25.46 on with a  subnet mask of 255.255.255.240?

Using the cheat sheet we know that we are looking at a /28. That means 16 networks and 16 hosts per network. We then know the demarkation between each network is going to be 16.

192.168.25.0

192.168.25.16

192.168.25.32

192.168.25.48

We know then that 192.168.25.46 is on the third network the hosts are 192.168.25.33 – 46 with a broadcast IP of 192.168.25.47.

That is about it. there really isn’t must else about this. Like I said, once you understand subnetting you will never forget all this cheat is doing is helping you understand. When you understand you will see that there is a lot that was glossed over and omitted. If you need/want an IP calculator because you feel you need one, I suggest http://www.subnetmask.info/ I find it works well and gives you an explanation if you require one, but before you use that crutch give subnetting a go, it really isn’t that difficult.

I have found that for the most part, elements of IT work in a vacuum. They test and develop to their hearts content yet never tell anyone outside of their group or department what they are doing. I guess people in the business are just supposed to know what is happening, right?

IT has transitioned a few times in its history but it appears that the transition that will have the biggest benefit for both IT and the business is a transition some people are not willing to embrace – a transition into the business.

It is time for the CIO’s and VP’s of IT to realize that IT is a department that has three very different mandates, even if they aren’t mentioned, and in order for IT to start working with the business, people so inclined need to be employed. As well, differentiations need to be recognized and organized so value can really start coming out of IT instead of reactive solutions and always playing catch up to the needs of the business.

To illustrate the point, do you take your car to the mechanic when you want a new interior or some customized fairing work? No, you take it to specialized people who know and understand how to do those sorts of things. We have to remember that IT as a department is completely different from any other department in any company, we have people who need to be specialists in a host of technologies, and at the same time create solutions that the business can use and generally be a jack-of-all-trades for everything that is plugged into a wall.

In finance for instance, you have people who are specialists in tax or investments, and it is unlikely someone is going to request tax advice/recommendations from the investment side. In IT, questions about not being able to save a file are potentially being asked of the same people who are designing systems or implementing new technologies, and these are the same people who are being asked to become more business like so they can support the business better. So, IT needs to understand the business, know technology, know how the business wants to use technology, research, implement and test new systems as well as fix operational issues, all while maintaining a production environment. This is the only department where these types of things exist all at the same time, and in some environments it is the same people doing all of those things. How can anyone expect great things to come out of IT when you have people pulled 10 different ways, putting out fires, and working in a vacuum and not having any real business focus except for the solution that they should have implemented yesterday but no one told them about until today?

IT as I see it has three major functions: Augment and maintain the production environment, “Research and Development”, and being a business liaison.

Operations include helpdesk, 2nd and 3rd level tech functions as well as all of the other things you expect would happen in an operational setting. These people should only be interested in keeping the “lights on” and their mandate should reflect that. Innovation should not be something that should be paramount on their to do list. They will support whatever is in the environment but they are not responsible for deciding what goes in the environment that is driven by business need. This can be seen as traditional IT roles and responsibilities.

“Research and development” is in quotes because it should not be thought of as R & D in the traditional sense but a test bed for new ideas and researching solutions be it technical or not. This should be a group of individuals who are highly innovative and understand various types of technology but are not responsible for support. This group’s purpose is to make the lives of everyone easier via technology or any other solutions they have found. They also will design the systems and work flows needed by the business. They are the creators of the solutions to fix business “problems”

The final group is business people. They are people who have the ability to understand the various business groups their business and the technology they use. These people are more business focused and don’t have the level of expertise of say the operational group but they understand technology. These people float between working with the business and working with the R&D folks. They are responsible for having technology meet the needs of the business.

Essentially, the operational group maintains the production environment, everyone else works to create and test whatever they want/need. The operational group is not responsible for anything not considered production – even traditional a development environment, so if something breaks and it isn’t in the production environment it isn’t their problem. When it comes time for something to be put in production, the operational group are provided all requirements, dependencies, and documentation. From here typical change management and production controls are followed. Once the system is implemented it is the responsibility of operations to maintain it in the production environment.

The business liaison, not a business analyst, is not an entirely new concept but it should be created as a job function within IT. This person will be able to understand technology in conceptual ways and have a firm understanding of how the business operates and uses technology; this person will essentially move information from the business to IT and vice verse. This is not a technical role and this is the difference, IT will have in its employ people who are not designed to be technical in some way as a mandate for their job their focus is business understanding.

Basically, different needs require different people, to suggest that one IT group fits all and can wear multiple hats to support the business has seen better days. Continuing along this train of thought feeds into the commoditization of IT that is pervading business thinking today and causing a lot of jobs to be outsourced. The business isn’t getting any value-add out of IT because they are asking the wrong people the wrong questions.

Changing the purpose of IT changes the expectation.

Moving to this type of model will at least give IT a chance to meet the expectations of the business instead of expecting a bunch of techies to put on a uncomfortable hat, wear it with confidence and authority when all some of them really only want to do is support systems, and play with technology. Lets face it, it takes a special kind of person to understand the business and translate that speak into language that makes sense to those who work with technology day in and day out.

It’s just business and maybe a bit about you.

From the business side its simple. Businesses run on people and no business is going to release an employee who is valuable to the operations of the business. Now I am not saying that you cant be replaced or that you should become that “silo guy” who doesn’t document anything and keeps everyone under him so that he is the most important person in IT. But it is easier for any business to keep the person they have if they are easy to work with and get things done.

Results are what matters in this business. Think about it, training, setting up a new employee with benefits, cancelling the benefits of previous employees, integrating the new person into the office society, time spent learning the systems, processes and the environment, disrupting production not to mention the time and costs for all the people involved and all the money spent on training for the previous employee. Its all a lot of business expense to fire or bring someone on board, just to have you leave, that’s something that all businesses want to avoid. It’s like throwing away money.

But there is another side…

If the business is not doing well and they need to cut costs, then you may be let go. Don’t take it personal, its simple business economics. Ask any construction worker who gets laid off every winter because there is no work. An operating business does not have a conscious, it works by numbers. If the business is doing bad it has the roll back expenses to keep things running.

The highest expense in any business is usually employees, and they go first (right after all the low hanging fruit like limos and executive meeting trips to cancun). Therefore you start with the employees that you may not really need first, increasing the workload on the others that have not been let go. Then if you have to, you move to the ones that you really don’t want to let go but the business needs to because they cost a lot of wages.

These are essential people that run the important stuff. This usually starts including IT people. Again they wont let go of people that they see as critical in daily operations of the company (unless they can outsource it for cheaper). I once worked at an office where the last three people let go were the IT people because they wanted to move all the data and equipment to the new company that purchased it.

Yup, thanks for all your great hard work, by the way your fired.

You should be able to see the signs

But all this is all just talk because as an IT person you will see the signs way before most of the others in the office with the exception of the higher ups in accounting they will see the lack of revenues, and if you see these rats leaving the ship you know its time to start looking. IT people will be disabling accounts and noticing less help desk support tickets being assigned because people will start to work harder and not fiddle with stuff that causes a lot of unnecessary tickets. IT is usually the hub of whats going on in the business. So knowing this, you can either start looking for another job or try to keep the one you got.

Sometimes though it may be about you

The “you” part is very simple. If the guys who make decisions don’t like you because you are difficult to work with then your most likely high on the list of potential people that will be let go in the first or second wave. If they do like you and your environment is run in tip top shape to the best of your ability and you have shown that your one of the guys who they can depend on to “go the extra mile” when needed, then they may consider you an important person worth keeping and you may be spared. The rule here is again simple, if your an idiot and you do things that tick people off, you will be let go. If you’re doing the best you can and the right people notice you may be spared the layoffs, kept on and possibly promoted.

The how to keep your job part

So if your crapping your pants because you think you might get let go, then you need to start doing stuff to make yourself a better more valuable employee. Or hurry up and get your resume in order. In fact you should probably do it anyway for yourself. I usually keep my resume up to date every few months. I add in any new training or experience on large projects I have acquired lately. I add these to the bottom of my resume word document to allow me to remember what I have done at this position when the time comes that I need to update my resume, I already have all the info in there ready to go.

Mostly it boils down to you being a better worker by being details oriented and making sure that you got the IT papers to show people you can do what you say you can do.

Certs are your foot in the door, and sometimes how to stay there

Certs are a great way to show HR people who know nothing about IT that you have the requirements to get an interview with the IT manager that has requested a new person for their team. Unfortunately in larger companies the process is as follows.

How the hiring process works and the best certs to have

a. IT manager needs a new person and writes up or uses an internal job description sheet that kind of describes the person that they need. They modify it to what they need it to include and send it off to HR to collect some resumes.

b. The HR department then searches workopolis and monster because they are the cheapest way to find people. If this search does not pan out then they need to go to recruitment agencies. These agencies charge a per hour fee or a one time fee for providing you a stack of resumes that may fit your needs.

c. The agency sends over a dozen resumes they think are the top choices you will want to see for the IT manager to review along with the online job search ones and the IT manager then reviews and makes a short list of the people that he wants to interview.

d. If the IT manager sees that you have the certs and relevant work experience they would then interview you. The interview process is usually like this. Did they come to the interview not looking like an idiot?, Is this person weirdo?, Can I work with this person? Can the team work with this person?, Can this person be trained to do what I want? Are they going to be a problem to manage? Does this person have the required skills for the job? (in that order).

An IT manager has too many other things to worry about, they don’t want to hire someone who is going to add to their issues. They want someone who can be put in charge of something and be left to do it. Low maintenance management. You may get a company where they have a few people you will have to interview with before you get the nod, if this is not an organized process then I would think about working for people who cant even get a simple interview organized. Also, having to see the boss and then the boss’s boss is a good sign of no trust from the top down, this screams micro-mangement get out before its too late.

The certifications you should have.

Unfortunately our business works on certs. You have to have them to work and the manufacturers have also gotten wise because to partner with the manufacturers your company needs to have a certain few employees certified in their products. The basic certs to have if you are serious about being in IT as a career are…

• Security+
• A+
• Network+
• Microsoft Server Administrator

Let us know of any other certifications that should be on this list and we will add them in. Also if you have any comments about this article please let us know and we will add in your ideas.

1. Adding Apple’s to Active Directory

The long and short of it is that you can just add the Apple Macintosh computers into Active Directory by using the built in plugin. This will allow the Apple users to authenticate into Active Directory and allow them to see and use security controlled network resources.

Although if you want (and you should) to implement things such as local security policies and remote supporting tools you should use an Apple OSX Server. The Apple OSX server will allow you to properly support the Apple Macintosh computers by allowing you to make sure that these systems are secure with your network security guidelines.

2. Best practices for management & support

The Apple’s in your environment can be secured in Active Directory with the software suggestions below. We would recommend that you get an Apple server to manage the Apple client systems as this provides the easiest way to make sure that you have full control over the Apple systems and their users. You will be able to lock down the users and computers, make sure that they all have the correct rights they need, you will have no issues with drive mappings and network resource access. The third party apps that integrate the Mac’s into Active Directory are also ok to use. I have not used them extensively so if anyone can provide some comments on them we will add them into this area.

3. Costs differences breakdown

The cost differences very greatly depending on the solution you need. If you want to go the best way. That will include purchasing an Apple server, starting at $3,000. The next best way would be to purchase one of the third party software selections that integrate with Active Directory. The prices for this software rages from around $1000 to a few thousand. But you have to watch as some of them have a per system CAL fee. (this is a fee per system that is under management). The cheapest way is the old do it yourself method. This involves editing the Active Directory Schema to add in the Mac’s settings to be allowed to manage within Active Directory. I don’t recommend this way as you may bugger up your Active Directory. But if you want to live dangerously here is a PDF from Apple with instructions on how to do it.

4. Things you still wont be able to do

So instead of searching the net and perusing over many documents to get the best information for you, I found a site that has already done this part for us. Here it is.

5. Integration check list

Here is a quick list of things that your going to want to make sure you can control when adding Apple’s into your environment. Please comment and add more to this list.

1. Make sure the systems are virus protected.
2. Make sure the users have only the required security access they need locally on the system and on the network.
3. Backup files on the local system and their home drive.
4. Be able to manage the user accounts and the securing the local systems.
5. Be able to manage wireless connections.
6. Help out by adding more in the comments…

6. Important software to get

We have compiled a list of some of the third party software that is suggested to integrate Apple’s into Active Directory and in a windoes based network. This is if you do not want or can get a Apple server.

This will be a maintained article. If you have anything to add to this please comment below and we will put your additions in the article to help others. Thanks in advance.

Firstly, outsourcing is not new, as a concept has been around forever and it will continue to be around long after all of us are dead. The problem with it today is that it some how belittles the people who’s jobs have be taken away. Back in the day it may not have been called outsourcing, it could have been commissioning, as in commissioning a piece of furniture for instance, the concept is still the same but it somehow had a different feeling way back when. Today, specifically dealing with IT, outsourcing is a very touchy subject with a lot of IT professionals especially in the U.S.. One of the reasons is quite simply some IT professionals refuse to believe that anyone can do the job better than themselves because on some level there is a professional arrogance for their position, their education, their abilities, and what they perceive IT giving to the business. Nobody other than us can give the business what it needs! Note that I didn’t say want because that is another issue entirely.

If ever there was proof that IT wasn’t significant to the business it is outsourcing. For all of the so-called value IT brings to the table the business has just slapped you and your department in the face by outsourcing. In a nutshell, the business has decided on outsourcing your department/job quite simply because they, the business, don’t see a purpose in paying a salary for someone who is not driving the business forward. That may not be the case in every instance, but it is the perception of the business in regards to IT, and as you all know, perception is reality. You as an IT professional need to understand what is happening around you, and hopefully navigate the waters so you continue to be employed somewhere and not stand in the unemployment line with your friends and colleagues, the statistics are a little depressing.

There are various reasons why companies outsource, take a look at this article in Wikipedia, on outsourcing it provides a good overview of the various reasons . Some of these reasons may or may not be legitimate but they are the reasons nonetheless. Outsourcing itself is not a reason unto itself however; it is a symptom of another concept that is pervading the minds of those who make decisions and that is the commoditization of IT.

There Is No Difference

In short, commoditization means looking at goods, and services in a different light where essentially everything is equal and the only difference is price. For instance, what real difference is there between HP, Dell, or Lenovo in the hardware they sell? The components that make up those pieces of hardware come from the same manufacturer more than likely, so in essence today it becomes a marketing decision, which company sold me the best vision of their product? There is no differentiating factor really between them, as well a NIC card is a NIC card is a NIC card right? RAM same thing, and hard drives, there are only a handful that have any real meaning like Seagate, IBM, Maxtor, and Western Digital, there are more but you get the point. All are essentially the same so in the end there is no real difference. Once that threshold of thinking is breached you have commoditization.

For the most part everyone on some level has determined that brand A is the same as Brand B so price is really the only factor in making purchases. How many actually care that their nail clippers are from Swiss Army for instance? I personally don’t nor do I care about laces, as long as they are the right length I am fine. I am sure many of you think the same way. There are other things like running shoes for instance that still have brand loyalty and are not commoditized to the same extent, once people start determining that products that do the same thing, are the same thing then price will become the only consideration and branding will mean very little because why would you pay more for the “same” product?

It’s All The Same

In regards to IT the same thinking would apply. IT is a service, and if an IT department uses the “same” equipment and has the “same” infrastructure as everyone else why couldn’t the IT department be outsourced to a company or people who do the “same” jobs because really the only difference is money. The business may be different but the components of IT are the same regardless of industry, the same common practices are in use, the same equipment is needed to connect everything together, the same applications are found over and over again. That being the case, why would “the business” hire specialized IT staffers to support systems and infrastructure when they could just hire a company that already “knows” everything and can be taught the business processes.

Do you see the logic here? IT went from unique to ubiquitous and over time period questions were asked by the business that are really quite valid for which IT didn’t have a really good answer, all relating to “what next?” What benefit do these systems and staff have in regards to the business if they are now something everyone has? Nicholas Carr wrote an article called IT Doesn’t Matter in 2003, in the Harvard Business Review and in it he made the observation that IT is no longer an advantage in an organization, it is a necessity. Once it becomes a necessity there is no advantage because everyone has IT infrastructure. Everyone (meaning your competitors) has connectivity to their suppliers, and third parties, servers, automated processes, email. All of it means nothing because your competition has the “same” setup.

It’s All Interchangeable

So, if every IT department uses standard equipment, software and setups, for the most part, everything is interchangeable. If that is the case what is so special about “standard” setups? The black hole isn’t so black now is it? And because anyone with the tools to do the job can understand what is needed this now drives the price of those skills down and companies can shop for the cheapest price and get the skill set they need. North American salaries are too high for businesses with regard to IT so there is the exodus of those types of jobs to places like India where highly skilled people are available for a fraction of the price. From the perspective of the business the skill set and the person are interchangeable because the highly technical jobs are not a value add for the business. Technical jobs are a necessity because of the infrastructure and aren’t responsible for creating a competitive advantage for the business anymore.

In other words, the people who maintain the infrastructure are doing just that maintaining. They are keeping the systems up and running keeping the patch levels current and all those other maintenance related tasks that IT is known for. Ask yourself, in any given day how much of your day is keeping things up and running as opposed to creating innovative solutions that will create a competitive advantage for the business? I am willing to bet it is something like 80/20 or 95/5. I highly doubt it is 50/50 right? That 20% or less is not enough to justify the resources spent on salaries, hardware and software when the return is so little and so far between. “The business” is looking at this and asking themselves, does this make sense? The business sees a department and its staff that just keep the infrastructure up and running, they don’t see any value add. If there is no value add there is no reason to keep things in house, hence outsourcing, which in reality is really driven by the commoditizing of IT. It makes all those IT jobs and services all about price.

Commoditization, It Is The Future

It ultimately is about money, sure but the thought process is a little more logical than anyone wants to admit. As the Carr article shows, once something becomes commonplace and becomes a necessity the advantage it once had becomes diminished to the point of insignificance. For IT I guess the ultimate question is how do we stop outsourcing? I am afraid unless commoditization of IT services can be stopped, outsourcing will continue until it reaches its natural equilibrium which I would think would be somewhere between 65% – 75% of all IT services. Once this equilibrium is reached at some point in time things will switch back to insourcing, but when that happens things will be vastly different. Things like self-aware networks will probably be common place and other changes that are so advanced we would not have thought of it, with technology it is hard to say.

What Does Machiavelli Say

One thing we can say today is that outsourcing is akin to buying mercenaries to manage your systems infrastructure. If you consider that businesses talk in terms of war and politics, with books like Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun or Management and Machiavelli andMachiavelli’s The Princeyou can see the concept of what a business is, it is essentially a castle with all of its resources behind its walls. The problem with this is that you are now allowing the mercenaries within the walls of the castle, and you will now be reliant on them. Outsourcing jobs is no different, it is essentially hiring mercenaries to maintain your infrastructure, and if you read “The Prince” he has a chapter just on that called, How Many Kinds of Soldiery There Are, And Concerning Mercenaries and another called Concerning Auxiliaries, Mixed Soldiery, And One’s Own.

In, chapter 12, How Many Kinds of Soldiery There Are, And Concerning Mercenaries Machiavelli says:

Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on those arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you.

Chapter 13 he states that auxiliaries are useless and:

these arms may be useful and good in themselves, but for him who calls them in they are always disadvantageous; for losing, one is undone, and winning, one is their captive.

Longterm: Is It Worth It To Outsource

How does this translate to outsourcing and such? Essentially what it comes down to is short-term gain. A business may see an opportunity to outsource, i.e. use mercenaries, but mercenaries have their own agenda which may not jive with what you as a business want or need and because with mercenaries it is all about money, be expected to pay a lot for the bare minimum of services. It may not happen yet, but at some point in time two or more companies are going to have issues where they need outsourced staff, if you as the outsourcer have finite resources who are you going to service fist? The one who has the bigger contract or is paying the most money? Some may say this is business, but in actuality it shows the vulnerability of your operations when things like that happen.

Auxiliaries, A.K.A contractors it essentially is the same. When they fail you fail, when they are successful, that knowledge stays with them and you are then compelled to keep them in some capacity because they have important information that they more than likely haven’t shared or completely disclosed. In the end the business is manipulated by entities, which it really has no real control over. Is this the way a business should run its operation?

IT Has To Bear Some Responsibility for Outsoucing

Evidently, the answer today is yes, and the reason it is yes is because they are looking at things from a cost perspective only. IT is a cost centre; all they do is keep things going. That may not be the case, but that is the perception and IT has no one to blame but themselves for that perception. Commoditization is happening because the people who make the decisions aren’t seeing anything coming out of IT that is essentially “bright, shinny making them go ahh” and telling them how it can be used to the benefit of the company without it costing an arm and a leg or wondering if it is going to fail. Essentially, IT failed in the PR campaign regarding its purpose, businesses changed but IT didn’t and because IT didn’t change that same business now looks very closely at what IT does or did and realizes on some level that they aren’t doing anything constructive to the bottom line, so why not outsource those functions and at least get some monetary benefit if nothing else.

So what does this mean for IT organizations/departments? From my perspective any role that involves doing something other than designing or thinking can and more than likely will be outsourced. Essentially everything and anything can be outsourced, here is a brief list of IT functions/services that can be outsourced if not already:

1. Helpdesk
2. 2nd Level Support
3. Server Administration
4. Network Monitoring
5. Network Security
6. Network Infrastructure
7. Telecom Services
8. Application Support
9. Data Mining/Data Analysis/Business Reporting
10. Coding/Programming/Testing
11. Web Infrastructure/Hosting Services
12. Data Capturing Services
13. Technical Writing
14. Data Recovery Services
15. Hardware/Software Maintenance
16. Database Services
17. Business Analyst Services

The only thing that will probably stay in the organization is proprietary systems support which will disappear at some point in time because that too will become standardized when the move to cloud computing is complete. When a company gets to this point, it really doesn’t matter what hardware or software is running to access those resources because all that matters at that point is the ability to access the resources and then how the staff use the applications, that is what will make a real difference. It won’t matter if it is a Windows based computer, a Mac, or a Linux variant, or Unix, or Cisco, Juniper, BigIron, or HP on the backend to the business these are technical issues which have no bearing on what they need to do as a business. Buying into a technology platform at this point will not even be something companies need to do because the outsourcer will probably have their own packaged solutions ready to implement if the need arose.

When Will It End

Understanding business process and strategy and tying that to a solution is where a majority of jobs are going to be if any jobs stay internal because effectively everything can be outsourced or contracted in some way shape or form. To its most extreme form a company would just be a name, and all departments would be outsourced such as finance, facilities, IT, customer service, marketing, etc. to various outsourcing companies contracted to do various tasks/jobs. Is it possible, sure it is possible but does it make sense? Only when those making the decisions to outsource are affected in a negative way from those very decisions will they eventually see the folly of their ways, until then anything and everything is fair game.

My only suggestion is keep your resume up to date and market yourself. You are your own brand and you need to sell yourself and your skills in an innovative way that will make companies want to hire you instead of sending your job either to another company or overseas. Good Luck!

Hello all, I have just run across this great video that all IT people should watch. Only an IT person will really appreciate this video on the birth of the internet. Its a great story about how they designed the current internet to address communication issues they had at the time and how they could not foresee how fast it would grow. Its a great watch. Its part of the open source movies project.

For those who don’t know. The Arpanet is where the internet really got moving and was being quickly developed for commercial and personal use and how we know it today.

Please forward links to us on any other great videos you know of, as we are trying to build a great video section on the site for IT people to review. More details on this soon.

The Heralds Of Resource Sharing (Arpanet, 1972)

Surfing the Internet today I was struck at all the sites dedicated to getting music off an iPod. Everyone I came across related to an application you would download and use. When I searched it in Google I came across 355,000 sites when I type in “get music off ipod” (that is with quotes) in Google.

Now I know software is usually easier but in this case I really didn’t see the point if you are using a Mac, using Mac OS X which is based on FreeBSD gives me everything I need to get my music off an iPod.

Yes, it is command line based but if you own a Mac you shouldn’t be scared of the command line, lots of neat things can happen here. So, plug in your iPod and lets get started. On your desktop make a new folder and call it something useful like “music”

Open Terminal. You are greeted with a beautiful looking screen which will look something like this. Type the commands below hiting enter after each line.

On the last line, if you hit enter your files will start copying.

Don’t worry, I will explain everything that is going on. If you typed everything properly, you should see files populating your music directory on your desktop. So what is this command actually doing? Lets start at the beginning.

1. You created a folder named music on your desktop (call the folder anything you want. This is for illustrative purposes). This is where the music files are going to reside once you get them off the iPod.
2. Open the Terminal application. It’s usually in Utilities folder in the Applications folder unless you moved it. This app allows you to “look under the hood” of OS X and see all the directories and files available to it.
3. cd = change directory. The command cd /Volumes/iPod/ says change the directory I am in to iPod in the Volumes directory. For those of you who know and understand Unix, I know this is not necessary but bare with me this is for those who don’t know. So you are now in the iPod ready to get your music off/out of it.

Type the text below and hit enter

find . -name “*.mp3″ -print0 | xargs -0 -J % cp % $1 /Users/xzinn/Desktop/music/

What is this command doing?

1. Find = find, as in find something. Find is recursive so it will search all directories and directories of directores in a directory you tell it. -name and print0 are variables related to find. If you do a man find you can read all about it.
2. . = current directory. Your current directory is your iPod so it will look for files it in.
3. -name = What is the name of the file(s). In our case we want to find all of the mp3′s on our iPod so we use -name “*.mp3″. The quotes mean find this, meaning whatever is in the quotes. The * means all, or everything, .mp3 is the extension that we are looking for. So what we are looking for is all the files in the current directory that are mp3′s.
4. print0 (that is a zero) = prints the files and their paths out in one big long line like this: /Volumes/iPod/Music//Aerosmith/The Rolling Stone Magazines 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time/4-336 Walk This Way.mp3/Volumes/iPod/Music//Aerosmith/The Rolling Stone Magazines 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time/5-408 Sweet Emotion.mp3/Volumes/iPod/Music//Affairs Of The Heart/Waterloo Sunset (Maxi)/01 Waterloo Sunset (Dance Mix).mp3/Volumes/iPod/Music//Africa Bambaataa/Unknown Album/Feel the vibe.mp3/
5. | = pipe. Pipe takes the information from one command and sends it to another. So in our example you are finding all of your mp3′s and sending that information to the command on the other side of |
6. xargs = takes a lot of arguements and makes it easily digestible for other commands. In our case, the argument is the path of every single mp3. The switches in xargs that we are using -0 (this is a zero) means that is takes the long list of info created by print0 and allows / to be used as a separator. You will hear people talk about a NULL character it is used to signify the end of a string, ie separator. The -J just means it it will create a new line if it comes across a space in the input, There is also a -I which doesn’t do a space, either -J or -I will work, but I find the -J is quicker for some reason. This is usful for screen output, it doesn’t make much of a difference for our purpose.
7. % = placeholder and nothing more, you can put @ symbols in its place and it will still work. I know I tried it.
8. cp = copy. That is what you are doing with your music files. The copy command’s syntax is cp source_file target_directory.
9. $1 = variable . The $1is the first argument. The argument is the directory of one of the music files that will be copied to /Users/xzinn/Desktop/music/. This directory is the target directory. In your case it would be /Users/yourloginID/Desktop/music/

If I were to type everything out instead of use $1 it would look like this cp /Volumes/iPod/Music//Aerosmith/The Rolling Stone Magazines 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time/4-336 Walk This Way.mp3 /Users/xzinn/Desktop/music/. This doesn’t help us since, the input is coming from the find command. The $1 variable just holds the information long enough to be processed, it is then discarded for new information until all of the files are processed.

So, this one line command finds all of your mp3′s in your iPod, then copies them into a directory of your choosing. See it isn’t so hard it is just a  little complicated to explain but easy to execute. The cool thing about this is you can substitute any file extension and it will work just the same. In fact we haven’t even scratched the surface using find and xargs. Together they are a powerful combination with a million and one uses.

So next time you have to do something on your Mac, see if you can do it on the command line chances are you can so you won’t have to worry about finding an app that will do what you need to do because you already have the tools available to you.

Why is it people are allowed to still be scared of computers in the workplace? Why is it still looked upon as acceptable when every aspect of someone’s job now entails using a computer and they still don’t know, or want to know how to use it properly? I for one fail to understand why software companies invest in a help function within their applications when no one who uses those applications actually know how to click on the help button and type in some keywords to actually find out how to do something. It boggles my mind.

Companies still find it completely acceptable for staff to sit idle while they call the help desk attempting to get their questions answered when they actually could have taken the 5 minutes it took to call the Help desk and actually figured it out them. It is much easier for staff to use the “I am waiting for IT” excuse than actually doing anything about their problem themselves. I am not suggesting they need to start troubleshooting network connectivity, but at least have a clue. It has been at least 20 years PC’s have been in the work place yet know one thinks it is necessary to understand that they need to be proficient in the use of the technology. Do they really think that the office is going to provide all the training necessary for them to be able to do their job? Don’t you think it is time the words ” must be proficient in the use of computers and the following applications” be on job descriptions and actually provide tests for these so the company will actually know if they can use the applications and make special emphasis on the help menu, no one seems to understand what its purpose is.

The Help Menu Is There……To Help You

How many times have you gone to a users desk only to ask the question “did you look in help?” Their response quite shockingly is “no, I just called the Help desk.” What is the point of having a help menu when users refuse to click it? Is it their job to fix computer problems? No, it isn’t but then again neither is fixing the coffee machine yet how many times has IT had to do that? Not to mention, how many times have you been asked to fix someone’s personal computer and they actually get upset when you say no. What is that all about? How about printers? How many times have you gone to a user and they tell you the printer is not working only to check and the light is flashing. It’s out of paper! I worked in one company where the customer service reps actually expected IT fill the printer with paper when it was empty can you believe that?

If users could use common sense it would be great yet as soon as they get in front of a computer they immediately become stunned by the LCD screen and proceed to only know how to do a handful of things, none of them related to their job. Some users should work as testers because how they fucked their machine up to the extent that it needs to be re-imaged is quite amazing. What can we do? Other than complain not much because as it looks, nobody seems to be too upset at the present and seemingly never ending user complaints that could be fixed by him or her if they actually took a few minutes and looked in the help menu.

Have you ever wondered why most companies have continued to standardize on Microsoft products when today, there is a variety of robust platforms that are cheaper, standards driven and available with most of the uses you need? I understand that there is an investment in a current technology but how much time, effort, and money is it going to cost to change?

Especially with the advent of web based applications, “cloud computing” and such. It seems to me that being platform agnostic is achievable and in most cases desirable.

Who Decides It’s Microsoft?

Is it the business that is making the decision to stay with Microsoft or is it IT? I would say it is IT, which is fine, but is that really in the best interest of the company or is it in the best interest of IT? Put another way what is it about Microsoft products that make people and companies believe that their products are the only ones necessary to enable the company to be successful? If computers and the software running on those computers are considered tools or enablers of the business – whatever euphemism you want to use isn’t it incumbent upon the people managing those tools to find the best tool for the best price?

IT departments flip flop between the value of HP, Dell and Lenovo but really they are the same thing aren’t they? It isn’t the hardware per se that is the value add it is the OS and the software since hardware can’t do anything without the software, and if it is really the software that allows people to do real work why should we care what the OS is?

Microsoft is a monopoly that is a fact, but it seems that they are the choice regardless of the question. True, they are everywhere but do you need them, or do you need applications to help you do your job? Microsoft products more than likely created a majority of the spreadsheet and word processor related documents, not to mention presentation files but Open Office, for instance, can read those and I am sure there are a host of other applications, GUI and non-GUI that can do it is as well. The point is Microsoft file formats are so ubiquitous many applications have no alternative but to support them because of the sheer abundance of those proprietary formats.

Can You Use Something Else?

So, if that is the case, is it necessary to use an expensive application to create those same files if you have applications available to you that both read and create those same types of files? If you think about it for a minute how complicated are those files going to be for a majority of the people who create them? There may be over hundred different functions in any given application but how many do you really use with any great frequency? The point being is that the need for a special format is really not necessary for a majority of the documents anyone is creating if that is the case, why not something other than Microsoft Office?

If you can make the case to get off of Microsoft Office for instance how much money is your organization going to save? How much of an impact is that really going to have on your organization? The applications are very similar in function and look although not exact. I don’t think the usability of Open Office is less than MS Office but it is different so, if the case can be made for something other than MS Office, why not try it?

Remember the business isn’t concerned about technical details on much of anything. All they care about is making sure the business is running, running well, and doing whatever it is supposed to do in the most efficient manner possible. Making the case for change with a financial reason is going to get noticed especially when the business finds out how much they really are spending on things like copies of MS Office.

Try It

In the end does it matter who makes the application as long as it works and does what you need it to do? Everyone talks about ROI but here is a perfect example of something that could make a significant difference in the operation and the bottom line of the business yet for the most part this isn’t even an option. I wonder why?

Do the math and do a pilot and see what the outcome is if the applications the business use everyday can be substituted for open source equivalents and provide the same or virtually the same functionality why not try it. What is the worst that could happen?

First, what really is Network Monitoring?

Network Monitoring is responsible for monitoring the network and its connected devices for alarms, issues or certain conditions that may require special attention to avoid any impact on the production environment. It involves monitoring your network and its devices 24/7 (or whatever you require).

Although Stanford has a huge list of network monitoring tools that you can look through to find exactly what you need. We have taken the time to introduce you to some other stuff to think about when looking to monitor your network.

Network monitoring can also help you manage and maintain your network. Optimizing data flow and data access. It can help you locate and resolve issues, sometimes before it escalates into major production problem.

Network Monitoring – The Employee That Never Sleeps

Network monitoring is one of the most over looked critical tools that a network manager could use to keep track of his environment. It is something that with a little effort could be a very helpful tool in making your life way easier and maybe even keeping your job. It is your very own personal eye of Sauron.

It allows you and your team to be more proactive instead of reactive. Unfortunately its usually setup half assed, or when asked, it is described as some small open source web based software running somewhere and is constantly probing your network generating a lot of unnecessary traffic for info to report to a dashboard page that you never look at unless someone complains about something not working.

Lets face it, we are all too busy with other more important projects to have a few of our guys staring at a set of screens all day waiting for something to turn red, but if you had a sophisticated technology solution that can make sure you know everything thats going on, you may just keep your job a little longer.

Note: Any network can be monitored, wired or wireless, small or large LAN or WAN’s. You can also monitor devices and services of any type providing the team with a way to track performance, resolve issues, meet some compliancy requirements, assist in resolving internal security issues and provide increased operational visibility.

Why do I need Network Monitoring?

If it ain’t broke dont fix it. Right? Wrong. IT professionals should always take time to review what they have worked on in the past and make it better. This goes for programmers as well, (refractor that code dammit). Your network may appear that its working just tickity boo, but it may have some serious traffic load or network chatter issues, its services may be just barely running and are about to start denying service altogether, your main web server could be at 98% CPU usage because some process has locked up, and all this is just about to make your life a living hell at (insert the worst time for your stuff to break).

So, How much will Network Monitoring cost?

Well, you need to decide on what to monitor. You could monitor everything or just the critical items that keep your network running. Business budget will ultimately dictate how much it will cost and how much monitoring you can do. But I will tell you right now, the more important business related items you can track 24/7 the less issues your network and its devices and services will have and the quicker you can resolve issues, saving your company money in network performance, productivity, infrastructure and support costs.

What do I need to get this done?

To be honest you will probably need a combination of tools to keep your monitoring up and useful. Sophisticated network monitoring software is still a fairly new industry, with newly developed software being released all the time. The basics are something that makes sense for your environment. If you are running websites, then your going to want to monitor if the sites are down or not. If you host these sites with your own servers then you will want tools that are more in depth to alert you when something important to you happens.

It really all depends on your network and business situation. If you need to monitor say databases, servers, applications, network connectivity or a VOIP system, each will require a unique setup based on what your business and your network team thinks is important. An example would be say if the business does not deem VOIP critical to keep operating because all of their orders come in from the internet, they would be more interested to know as soon as the internet connection goes down.

You would then put more emphasis on alerting the network admins as soon as the connection dropped or any packets got lost. This would allow you to not only know when the connection goes down right away, but it should tell you your connection is not good before it goes down, allowing you to act to fix issues before they cause an outage.

How do I set something like this up?

This is where the modern, educated and efficient network manager takes action. If you set it up right the first time you need not worry about anything going down and being notified by users that a device or service is down. How happy you would be if your services, servers and for that matter all your network connected devices (handhelds included) told you they were having some trouble or are about to be very sick before they affect user production. This would be very good for you indeed.

Setup is really based on the tools that your going to use and the stuff that you want to monitor. If you choose a web based monitoring system, these usually with little configuration will probe the servers you tell it to and just start monitoring the basic stuff a network admin might be interested in. Its once you dig deep into a monitoring application will you be able to make great use of it. These tools are still new and some are better then others at doing certain things so I assume you have many different things to monitor so will need a few different apps to complete your monitoring solution. We provide some good solutions below. But first…

You need a network monitoring plan Stan

Network identification and documentation. You need to know what you got and what needs to be monitored before you go and buy a solution. You should list these items by risk level and priority. This may dictate the type of solution that needs to be implemented. It may be that you need a combination of hardware and software solutions.

Without network documentation and maps its a complete waist of time to setup monitoring, because how are you going to know what to monitor if your just guessing and blindly putting monitoring in place at random spots and devices. Here is a good site for now to get you started.

Basically you need to these simple things in the list below to get started. You will want to think about a variable threshold for each thing you want to monitor. This will tell the alert systems when to let you know that you should be looking at something.

• Decide what you think is critical to the business and to network services. The stuff that needs to stay functional at all times.
• Decide what is most important to your customers. This includes anything that needs to be running in the back that keeps customer services on.
• Have a good reason for monitoring what you want to monitor. If you want to monitor everything, your server will be doing so much work monitoring that it wont be able to do what it was meant to. Keep it down to what you really need. The data will be easier to read as well.
• Its best to start with a little and move up from there. This way you get what you need and dont have to sort through so much unnecessary metrics.
• To organize yourself start with hardware then important services then your served applications.

The type of business that you are in will help to define what type of monitoring you will need. An example would be that if you are a hosting service you would want to make sure that you monitor your customers production servers, live internet trunk lines that your customers traffic flows in and out from, internal network traffic and possible bottle necks of speed, network security for detection and protection, external access, firewall health, traffic loads (on servers and on connections) ect…

Potential tools you can use…

This is just a quick list of some of the more popular tools you can use that are easy to install. There are so many customized applications out there that you can use for almost anything you want to monitor that I could not list them all here. So I am just going with a few popular examples that any office would benefit from.

Hardware Based Tools

Barracuda has some easy to use hardware that would be nice to have. They have a great user interface and are easy to setup and use right away. These solutions are not only serve the purpose they were designed for but also can be used for monitoring these activities should you be interested. I am only listing the ones that you can use from a monitoring perspective and why.

Barracuda Web Application Firewall – This will monitor any attempts to access your applications by hackers. By monitoring these activities you can see if you have an external security problem.

Barracuda Web Filter – This will help you monitor internal use of the internet. When those pesky users decide they want to spend all day surfing you tube you can provide reports to management so they know its not just them who surfs and takes up all the bandwidth.

Barracuda Load Balancer - This also includes service monitoring, an intrusion prevention system and load reports. Its a great product to use if you need to load balancing. I personally use these at many client sites.

Barracuda Link Balancer - Tracks bandwidth use, and network traffic running on your external connections over multiple links. You can set QoS for internet applications and monitor traffic to make sure that it tells you when you need to scale up the infrastructure.

Barracuda SSL VPN - This will track resource access b your VPN users. It has many reports that you can run and monitor to see who is connecting and what they are accessing.

Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall - It has many boxed reports to track email users, top spam recipients, top spam senders and a few other helpful reports.

Barracuda IM Firewall - Tracks IM identification, logging, access to IM services, scanning of incoming files all with logging.

Software Based Tools

ManageEngine has a lot of detailed monitoring software that can be used to almost monitor anything. Too many to list here. Take a look at the site products section to see all the apps. This companies applications are used in many small, medium and large enterprises. I would say that this is the number one web based monitoring solution out there now and its very easy to setup and configure with your nodes.

SolarWinds has a really cool interface and I would say they are the real close 2nd to ManageEngine. They have again the same great tools and I would say that the interface is much better. SolarWinds costs about 50% more then the ManageEngine solution but it is a platform developed by a large software company with multimillion dollar backing. I would say they are both excellent but for the price I would still stay with ManageEngine, they have a great support community and the people who run and develop the applications really want to grow their company and have the best solution. If anyone has any comments about this please let me know. I would like to find out a full details side by side comparison of each solution.

Microsoft System Center is a great mega network monitor. If you run a Microsoft environment then you are going to want to run System Center for sure. It’s still kind of new but it is great for troubleshooting and keeping up with all the issues on your servers and client machines. I can not tell you how many times it has saved my butt during a PCI compliance audit by letting me know if the server patches are up to date.

If you are running a Microsoft environment I would recommend having System Center and one of the web based systems running in your environment for a complete solution.

Notable Others

IPSwitch What’sUpGold this is another solution that is very good. It is way cheaper then the others but the interface is not the greatest. Its still very easy to use and works great once you learn how to operate it. I would defiantly recommend this as an option for any network.

I would like to point out that I am not putting down any of the options here. I actually only listed the ones that I wanted to recommend. They are all great options but you will need to evaluate each for yourself because it depends on how you work and how you want to monitor (and budget) that will help make your decision.

In Closing

Networks need to be monitored, you can’t just set it up and expect it to do all the work for you. Network Monitoring needs to be used as a tool, albeit a very powerful tool, but a tool nonetheless. It really depends on the network you are running. If its mission critical transaction based services with an SLA of zero downtime, then you are going to want to make sure someone is staring at the screens and others are available to take action if something goes a-rye.

Please feel free to comment below as I am interested to learn what others are doing to monitor their networks and what works best for them. The point of this site is to share this info so we all work better at it.