Switch Mishmash
Last week, I stumbled upon an interesting problem. One of the projects I'm working on as an astronomical sensor grid, putting out about 2.6Gb/s of data per sensor station, coupled to a central super computing infrastructure. This system is still in the buildup/tender phase, so the network consists of networking equipment of various brands, to test out what the differences are and how well they work together. There are only 5 sensor stations at the moment, so the total amount of data is manageable. In the future the total data stream will grow to about 1Tb/s, to be processed real time.
Using OpenDNS with your own DNS
Yesterday I read an article about OpenDNS http://www.opendns.com. OpenDNS adds the possibility of domain name based filtering. You can configure your own white and blacklist, but they also have a list of categories you can choose from. Most interesting category I found was phising, but I image that if you got small children at home you'd also want to block porn and such. Domain name spelling correction is an added bonus, plus they promise almost 100% service availability, superior performance, domain name spell checking and statistics gathering (can be turned off).
The Triangle of Amplification
SOA, SOX Compliance, Virtualisation, Security, Identity Management, Outsourcing; all trends of the current time. Organizations are struggling to adapt and incorporate. Consultancy bureaus thrive on this (I belong in this category). Now is the time to step back and look on how all of these trends interact and what the demands are on he organization from a holistic point of view.
End to all Desktop problems?
Some consultants would you believe that virtualisation technology will solve all your desktop problems.... Yeah, right!
Away with ITIL
ITIL has become the de facto standard for system management in most large organizations and many small ones. ITIL has revolutionized system management . One of the strongest points of ITIL is the dictionary that comes with it. Now we can all understand each-other when talking about system and service management.
Certification; killing innovation?
Many employees require their personnel to be certified in certain areas. This could be area specific certificates, like security, or vendor specific certificates, like MCE or CCNA. The reason behind it seems very obvious; the certificate is proof that one has mastered the necessary knowledge. It reduces the risk for the employer or customer of having an inadequate staff.
