There’s a common misconception in the IT industry. This misconception stems from the premise that the premises of your infrastructure will either be more expensive or less expensive based on its location. Okay, that may sound like a lot of metaphorical jibber jabber and mixed-speak, …
So you’ve started planning your career using a VCDX skillset. Continuing on that same train of thought, I want to walk you through an additional concept that might help you decide what skills to develop next. In the last year, I’ve been preparing my …
The role of information technology inside of corporations is not new; it has existed for decades. With each passing year we see acceleration in the speed and complexity of changes to our roles as IT professionals. Industries as a whole tend to resist change. …
While network administrators are used to keeping the lights on, the time is approaching for a major change in the way networks look and run. While SDN is still in its infancy, the value is indisputable as are the initial attempts at implementation in …
Retracing an intractable alert hairball today, I’m reminded of how critical, and often critically broken, alerting actually is in many environments. You can be a department of one with only a handful of systems sending occasional advisory messages, or a large IT team with …
One of the aspects of monitoring that IT professionals (and monitoring software developers in particular) think about a lot is “throttling.” How do you control the flow of data entering the system? How do you manage that same data once it’s been processed and …
Is Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) really worth the effort? If you have been troubleshooting networks for any length of time it should be obvious that packet inspection is a technique well worth learning. The depth of insight that packet capture tools like WireShark provide …
“Monitoring” is a deceptively broad category, so it’s not surprising that IT professionals often have differing descriptions. Some believe monitoring is the thing that creates tickets in the helpdesk system. Others say it’s merely the archival data that can be used for forensics after …
IT pros have access to a range of tools in their monitoring toolbox. There are the humble but readily available command line options like ping, traceroute, and netstat; the versatile SNMP protocol that gives just-in-time messages via trap, or robust as-needed data via polling; all the way up …
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a popular technology that lets you monitor network devices such as switches, routers, servers, printers, and other IP-based devices. While most network and systems admins are familiar with using SNMP, fewer are clear on setting it up on …
