Hi folks...
After a couple of months of attempting to move from "simplex" to at least "half duplex" communications on various topics, I'm starting to wonder whether blogs are the answer. The bottom line is that, imVho, blogs are not overly interactive, and we really need to build more community. (Also, in some research that we've just finished collecting data for, it seems that most people prefer to be notified of updates via email rather than RSS feeds.)
So I'm spending time looking for a more interactive format.
More coming soon...
Ideas/comments welcome - if anybody happens to read this. :-)
Cheers!
steve
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Business Continuity Plans Critical For Today’s Enterprise
(Click on the title above to access the paper.)
2009 Business Continuity State-of-the-Market Report
Webtorials Editorial/Analyst Division
Abstract:
In May of 2009, Webtorials invited members of its community to participate in a survey about their business continuity plans and practices. In difficult times, stability and reliability become more important than ever, and so businesses must attempt to plan for the unexpected and unlikely or risk handing their competitors a marketing point. Our data suggest that many businesses know very well the importance of business continuity and have made strides to ensure that they can survive the unforeseen, but may lack important capabilities or be underprepared.
The key findings of this analysis are as follows:
2009 Business Continuity State-of-the-Market Report
Webtorials Editorial/Analyst Division
Abstract:
In May of 2009, Webtorials invited members of its community to participate in a survey about their business continuity plans and practices. In difficult times, stability and reliability become more important than ever, and so businesses must attempt to plan for the unexpected and unlikely or risk handing their competitors a marketing point. Our data suggest that many businesses know very well the importance of business continuity and have made strides to ensure that they can survive the unforeseen, but may lack important capabilities or be underprepared.
The key findings of this analysis are as follows:
- Business continuity is important and will get only more important.
- Some of the leading causes of outages are unaccounted for by current business continuity plans, and current plans in general better account for hardware failures than other kinds of failures.
- Business continuity plans are planned or tested less often than initially intended.
- Generally, respondents report that the importance of business continuity planning is high for all network assets, and their satisfaction is moderate with their current continuity capabilities.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The Switching Kitchen
(Click on the title above to access the materials.)
Abstract: The Switching Kitchen
By Cisco
Quickly learn to activate and use the basic features of Cisco switches in our Switching Kitchen, a series of short, technically-focused videos.
- Cisco Catalyst NSF/SSO Features: Learn how to enable nonstop forwarding with stateful switchover (NSF/SSO). Approximately 7 minutes.
- Queuing with Cisco Catalyst 4500: Configuring varying sizes port-level queues on the Catalyst 4500. Learn how to configure port level queuing (8 queues on the 4000). Approximately 7 minutes.
- Catalyst Smart Call Home Feature: Proactively alert Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) of issues by enabling Smart Call Home on a switch. Approximately 9 minutes.
Abstract: The Switching Kitchen
By Cisco
Quickly learn to activate and use the basic features of Cisco switches in our Switching Kitchen, a series of short, technically-focused videos.
- Cisco Catalyst NSF/SSO Features: Learn how to enable nonstop forwarding with stateful switchover (NSF/SSO). Approximately 7 minutes.
- Queuing with Cisco Catalyst 4500: Configuring varying sizes port-level queues on the Catalyst 4500. Learn how to configure port level queuing (8 queues on the 4000). Approximately 7 minutes.
- Catalyst Smart Call Home Feature: Proactively alert Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) of issues by enabling Smart Call Home on a switch. Approximately 9 minutes.
Monday, July 13, 2009
How to Virtualize
(Click on the title above to access the paper.)
By AT&T
Abstract:
Virtualization projects are under consideration or already in progress at many organizations looking to decrease their capital and real estate expenses and to launch energy-conservation initiatives. Through the use of special virtualization products and services, data center managers can apportion computing hardware resources to operating systems and applications on a time-sharing basis. In doing so, they can significantly boost the utilization and efficiency of servers, network equipment and storage devices. Such projects reduce the overall number of physical devices needed, the floor and rack space needed to house them and physical equipment management requirements.
Virtualization, then, holds a number of potential capital and operational cost-saving benefits. But it raises a few questions, too. For example, a mature virtual infrastructure will cross many traditionally separate internal groups of employees, such as those responsible for servers, networks, storage and security. So a virtualization project is likely to have an impact on organizational structure and responsibilities. Therefore, getting executive commitment and support, particularly from chief financial executives able to see the big-picture savings potential of going virtual, is critical to organization-wide buy-in and cooperation.
There are basic technical and logistical questions to consider when considering a virtualization plan:
Preparing a well-documented business case based on an assessment of the current environment will help answer some of these questions. In your assessment and business case, you’ll need to calculate the physical host metrics needed – such as processor type and speed; RAM amount and utilization; network interface speeds and quantities; disk resources and other metrics.
The business case should also delineate the problems you expect virtualization to solve. For example, are you currently experiencing low utilization rates on servers while growing numbers of servers are becoming unwieldy to house and manage? Going through the exercise of calculating the hard benefits will help you answer some of these questions and drive acceptance and adoption of the virtualization project throughout the organization.
By AT&T
Abstract:
Virtualization projects are under consideration or already in progress at many organizations looking to decrease their capital and real estate expenses and to launch energy-conservation initiatives. Through the use of special virtualization products and services, data center managers can apportion computing hardware resources to operating systems and applications on a time-sharing basis. In doing so, they can significantly boost the utilization and efficiency of servers, network equipment and storage devices. Such projects reduce the overall number of physical devices needed, the floor and rack space needed to house them and physical equipment management requirements.
Virtualization, then, holds a number of potential capital and operational cost-saving benefits. But it raises a few questions, too. For example, a mature virtual infrastructure will cross many traditionally separate internal groups of employees, such as those responsible for servers, networks, storage and security. So a virtualization project is likely to have an impact on organizational structure and responsibilities. Therefore, getting executive commitment and support, particularly from chief financial executives able to see the big-picture savings potential of going virtual, is critical to organization-wide buy-in and cooperation.
There are basic technical and logistical questions to consider when considering a virtualization plan:
- How do you calculate the appropriate ratio to use when consolidating physical servers and other devices into software-based virtual machines (VMs)?
- What is the impact of VMs on current disaster recovery and high-availability plans?
- Do security requirements shift in a virtual environment?
- How might software licensing/pricing models, power requirements and patch management processes need to change?
Preparing a well-documented business case based on an assessment of the current environment will help answer some of these questions. In your assessment and business case, you’ll need to calculate the physical host metrics needed – such as processor type and speed; RAM amount and utilization; network interface speeds and quantities; disk resources and other metrics.
The business case should also delineate the problems you expect virtualization to solve. For example, are you currently experiencing low utilization rates on servers while growing numbers of servers are becoming unwieldy to house and manage? Going through the exercise of calculating the hard benefits will help you answer some of these questions and drive acceptance and adoption of the virtualization project throughout the organization.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Use of Social Media in the Workplace
We are in the midst of an extensive study of the use of social media in the workplace.
If you were directed here because you just finished the survey, let me offer my sincere thanks and invite you to provide further comments below.
If you have not yet participated in the survey, please click here to access the survey.
Thanks for being a part of this discussion! And please consider subscribing to the feed for continued updates.
Cheers!
steve
If you were directed here because you just finished the survey, let me offer my sincere thanks and invite you to provide further comments below.
If you have not yet participated in the survey, please click here to access the survey.
Thanks for being a part of this discussion! And please consider subscribing to the feed for continued updates.
Cheers!
steve
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
How to Effectively Transition to VoIP and IMS
(Click on the title above to access the paper.)
Big Bang or Phased Approach?
By Alcatel-Lucent
Abstract:
The IMS architecture provides a framework for developing large, converged service provider networks offering support of legacy fixed line and wireless access along with newer IP-based, 3G capabilities and blended services that span the different access devices. While not all service providers will benefit from the complex services portfolio IMS offers, many larger service providers are interested in evolving their networks to a full IMS architecture.
There are several approaches to moving a legacy network to full IMS architecture. A complete transition from a legacy TDM architecture is one option, which some service providers are selecting. For others, who have already implemented pre-IMS partial VoIP networks there may be the possibility of re-using the existing infrastructure to evolve to a full IMS network. Even for operators who have not yet ventured into IP voice networks it may be more effective to initially deploy a partial VoIP solution with a plan to evolve over time to full IMS.
For either of the partial VoIP paths there are several issues which most be addressed before proceeding. When starting with a earlier implementation of a partial VoIP network it is most important to evaluate the IMS readiness of equipment, infrastructure and operations processes. If planning a new partial VoIP network as a preliminary step to a full IMS transformation, it is important to work first through the details of the final IMS design so that the partial VoIP design can incorporate IMS network ready components and IT infrastructure that will facility re-use and ease of expansion during the transition to the final IMS network.
Big Bang or Phased Approach?
By Alcatel-Lucent
Abstract:
The IMS architecture provides a framework for developing large, converged service provider networks offering support of legacy fixed line and wireless access along with newer IP-based, 3G capabilities and blended services that span the different access devices. While not all service providers will benefit from the complex services portfolio IMS offers, many larger service providers are interested in evolving their networks to a full IMS architecture.
There are several approaches to moving a legacy network to full IMS architecture. A complete transition from a legacy TDM architecture is one option, which some service providers are selecting. For others, who have already implemented pre-IMS partial VoIP networks there may be the possibility of re-using the existing infrastructure to evolve to a full IMS network. Even for operators who have not yet ventured into IP voice networks it may be more effective to initially deploy a partial VoIP solution with a plan to evolve over time to full IMS.
For either of the partial VoIP paths there are several issues which most be addressed before proceeding. When starting with a earlier implementation of a partial VoIP network it is most important to evaluate the IMS readiness of equipment, infrastructure and operations processes. If planning a new partial VoIP network as a preliminary step to a full IMS transformation, it is important to work first through the details of the final IMS design so that the partial VoIP design can incorporate IMS network ready components and IT infrastructure that will facility re-use and ease of expansion during the transition to the final IMS network.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Cisco Catalyst 6500 High Availability: Deploying Redundant Supervisors for Maximum Uptime
(Click on the title above to access the paper.)
By Cisco Systems
Abstract:
The Cisco® Catalyst® 6500 is deployed in the most critical parts of enterprise and service provider networks. Having such a vital position in the network, the Cisco Catalyst 6500 must provide the highest levels of availability. To achieve these levels of availability network engineers employ both network wide technologies as well as device level redundancy. This includes network designs with redundant switches, redundant paths using Cisco EtherChannel® technology, First Hop Redundancy Protocols, the Cisco Virtual Switching System (VSS) and of course redundant system components including power supplies, fans and Supervisor modules.
This paper discusses the Redundant Supervisor technologies for the Cisco Catalyst 6500. These technologies have evolved over time from nonstateful, Route Processor Redundancy mode (RPR) to the current Stateful Switchover (SSO) mode with Nonstop Forwarding (NSF).
The newest addition to the suite of Redundant Supervisor technologies is the In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) technology which enables redundant Supervisors to use the SSO redundancy mode even when running different versions of Cisco IOS® Software. The new ISSU versioning infrastructure allows for a streamlined software upgrade process with minimal downtime when performing full image software upgrades. The ISSU process can also be used to activate Maintenance Packs within Cisco IOS Software Modularity. The new ISSU infrastructure provides a significant improvement for full image software upgrades when performed with the Cisco Virtual Switching System (VSS).
This paper describes the NSF and SSO platform-specific details. Although it is not the primary goal of this paper, it is very important for readers to understand how to design a highly available network with NSF and SSO. For high-availability campus network design information, in-depth information about generic NSF with SSO operations and Multicast Multilayer Switching (MMLS) NSF with SSO is included.
By Cisco Systems
Abstract:
The Cisco® Catalyst® 6500 is deployed in the most critical parts of enterprise and service provider networks. Having such a vital position in the network, the Cisco Catalyst 6500 must provide the highest levels of availability. To achieve these levels of availability network engineers employ both network wide technologies as well as device level redundancy. This includes network designs with redundant switches, redundant paths using Cisco EtherChannel® technology, First Hop Redundancy Protocols, the Cisco Virtual Switching System (VSS) and of course redundant system components including power supplies, fans and Supervisor modules.
This paper discusses the Redundant Supervisor technologies for the Cisco Catalyst 6500. These technologies have evolved over time from nonstateful, Route Processor Redundancy mode (RPR) to the current Stateful Switchover (SSO) mode with Nonstop Forwarding (NSF).
The newest addition to the suite of Redundant Supervisor technologies is the In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) technology which enables redundant Supervisors to use the SSO redundancy mode even when running different versions of Cisco IOS® Software. The new ISSU versioning infrastructure allows for a streamlined software upgrade process with minimal downtime when performing full image software upgrades. The ISSU process can also be used to activate Maintenance Packs within Cisco IOS Software Modularity. The new ISSU infrastructure provides a significant improvement for full image software upgrades when performed with the Cisco Virtual Switching System (VSS).
This paper describes the NSF and SSO platform-specific details. Although it is not the primary goal of this paper, it is very important for readers to understand how to design a highly available network with NSF and SSO. For high-availability campus network design information, in-depth information about generic NSF with SSO operations and Multicast Multilayer Switching (MMLS) NSF with SSO is included.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Facebook Security Issues
For what it's worth, I've documented what see as some of the not-so-obvious privacy issues in Facebook.
It's a great service, so long as you know what you are and what you are not sharing...
You may access the information by clicking here, or on the title above.
Please comment, correct, and augment.
It's a great service, so long as you know what you are and what you are not sharing...
You may access the information by clicking here, or on the title above.
Please comment, correct, and augment.
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