Apple has been pointing out Microsoft's flaws for a while now, and I bet the no one from Microsoft points out that Apple dropped the ball on their big rollout of the new iPhone ......
Anyway, I am looking forward to my new iPhone this week, and I am glad that I waited a couple of days, before going to the Apple Store.
I have responsibility for both the Unix Operations and the Windows Operation within our company, and I struggle to find tools that work well in both environments. Both groups work autonomously and do a great job of supporting their respective environments, however as our responsibilities grow, I would like to find consistent tools for maintaining, monitoring and supporting our environments.
Two tools that do work in both environments are BMC Patrol for performance gathering and HP Openview for event notification and monitoring. We are not using Openview to monitor our network, instead we use it for system and event monitoring. We have a decent baseline of monitored events, however we struggle with event escalation especially when new errors or a new event occurs. We have installed IBM Director on the IBM nodes and it passes Hardware events to Openview, and we have scripted certain events which also hand off to Openview. There still is a lot of refinement needed in our process as many events enter Openview and are not reacted to because the criticality level is identified incorrectly or the followup and escalation are not defined in Openview. We are looking to reduce the number of system outages that impact our user community by improving our event escalation and notification.
Another tool that is in use in on our Unix platform is Tripwire.Tripwire is an auditing tool that will identify changes in files and will enable you to better track changes in your environment. We have started looking the Tripwire on the Wintel side and hope to have it deployed within a month.
I am open to others thoughts and experiences surrounding event monitoring and event notification in a multi-OS environment and would be glad to discuss this in detail.
Most IT managers are aware of the change in Daylight Savings Time and the impact this will have on our environments. I think we can all agree that it is not going to crash our systems or impact us in a manner similar to that predicted for Y2K, however our challenge as Technical Managers is to ensure that our computer systems remain up, available and in sync from a time perspective.
These days with enterprise wide domain controllers, email, calendaring, blackberries, and multiple gadgets you do not want to have a problem with time synchronization.
Here is a list of some of the critical patches you may need for your environment:
Good Luck .....
Wikipedia describes a prediction as a forecast that is a statement or claim that a particular event will occur in the future . My predictions are closer to my opinions than statements of fact. My opinions are formed from reading and listening to many technical and managerial blogs and podcasts.
Here are my predictions - opinions for 2007:
1) Web 2.0 adoption will continue to grow especially on customer facing sites. Established companies will start to incorporate functionality for feedback and community support around their products.
2) Web 2.0 companies are creating opportunities and not a Dot-Com bubble.
The Wall Street Journal Online invited two technology venture capitalists, who were active in the dot-com days and have invested in the current crop of startups, to debate the topic. Todd Dagres spent nearly a decade at Battery Ventures before starting Spark Capital last year. David Hornik, a partner at August Capital and a former Silicon Valley attorney, writes the popular VentureBlog. Todd Dagres supports that theory that the current Web 2.0 activity is another dot-com bubble and David Hornik opposes Todd stating that this new Internet Web 2.0 activity is an opportunity for progress.
Some Web 2.0 companies may not make it in 2007 however this surge in Technology and surge in spending is good of the economy and good for the Technology Industry.
3) Industry adoption of Web 3.0 functionality or whatever it will be called will not happen until sometime after 2007.
Ken Rutkowski from Ken Radio calls Second Life a Web 3.0 application, however given the complexity defining Web 2.0 and the debate surrounding adoption, I think it's too early to define a company or an application as Web 3.0. My guess is that there will be a lot of discussion surrounding this topic in 2007.
4) Virtualization will continue to grow in 2007
In my opinion, server Virtualization is already mainstream. We will see continued growth in the software applications space, the software testing space and in the storage space. I also think that competition between Vmware and Microsoft will heat up in this space.
5) Continued growth in Voice Over IP (VOIP)
VOIP works great in a nice controlled environment where folks can monitor usage and network performance, however I am still skeptical about Global-Enterprise level VOIP over the INTERNET. Sure Skye works and is very useful on a Business trip, however I would be very skeptical delivering Skye to the CEO of a large global company. I see more development in this space before VOIP is ready for the global enterprise.
6) Email is not dead.
Email may change, however I see it growing in 2007 before plateauing in 2008. Web 2.0 adoption and the Internet usage is still growing, which drives email requests and requirements. In the coming years we may move to more of a voice, video, IM or SMS means of communication, however that is far in the future.
Also, email is embedded in the fabric of all support organizations. We receive hundreds of alerts and events every day. The consumer experience may change, but email will remain at the heart of all support organizations.
7) The convergence of Video, Movies, TV Shows, and Podcasts onto the Internet will continue. The Internet is another delivery mechanism for Content suppliers and they have finally realized that fact.
8) Adoption of Web Based OS's and applications will grow. Products like goowy, youOS, and eyeOS offer community based services that can be useful to many SBM's.
Your comments are welcome .....
Happy New Year
I came across a great free resource that could really benefit folks supporting a Microsoft based infrastructure. Microsoft's Virtual Lab Express is an easy way to try out Microsoft products in a Virtual Lab environment, which provides an environment that allows folks gain experience or a better understanding of Microsoft products and tools.
You need to register and install the Virtual Machine Remote Control ActiveX Client, however it installs in about a minute without the need for a reboot. The module I downloaded took about 3 minutes to download, however once the download completed I was connected to a Virtual Server Session via my browser. There is no need to login as I was connected to a Virtual Desktop, which was great as all of the software components for the Lab are already installed.
I connected to the "Introduction to Windows Server 2003 Management" lab and quickly realized that there was a virtual domain controller, virtual MS SQL server and other devices connected to this Virtual Lab. I was able to step thru making a Global Policy change in this Virtual environment, and although it was an isolated environment, you can see the benefit that an environment like this could be for large organizations.
There were many other Virtual Labs offered at the Technet Site including the following:
Windows PowerShell Virtual Lab , Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 ,
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Virtual Labs , Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005
I heard about the Labs this past week while listening to the "In the Trenches" podcast. I found these labs interesting and a good value to those folks supporting Microsoft environments. I would recommend checking out both the Microsoft's Virtual Lab Express site and the "In the Trenches" site and podcast.
