Yama's Blog

Top Dumbest Mistakes Network Managers Make

yhabibzai — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:21:00 GMT

A recent article on Network World talks about the top 10 dumbest mistakes network managers make. It's interesting that at least 5 of the top 10 mistakes documented by Network World are solved and purely automated with NetMRI. They also forgot to add the #1 cause of network problems - people making changes and not realizing their mistakes - which is also automatically picked up by NetMRI, showing who made the change, where, when, what the change was, and what the impact of that change was on the overall health of the network.

So, what are some of the results of these mistakes? I recently talked to some of our system engineers and gathered some interesting stories about organizations that decided to purchase NetMRI because of a blunder. Here are some of the interesting blunders we've seen in the past (names not shared to protect the innocent):

Large chocolate manufacturer: They had to call the plumbers once because the guy that took out the network also took out the applications that controlled the factory machines. The applications were down long enough that the chocolate had hardened inside the pipes...hence the plumber needed to be called.

Large Investment Bank: A network admin made a minor change that took out their stock trading floor for hours. Ouch! Since then, no one is allowed to touch any part of the network during business hours.

One of the top biggest banks in the US failed to process the minimum required number of checks during a given 24 hours because someone had made a network change and took out the check processing applications. They faced hefty fines from the US government. The poor guy who made the change is no longer there.

African Telecom company: In an African country the network went out for hours because they didn't bother to secure the generator that powered the datacenter from thieves who stole the gasoline from the generator. Doh!

And another company noticed that a particular router would reboot at about the same time every night. No one could figure out why it would do that, until one of the network guys decided to stay late and see what happens to it physically. That's when he noticed that the cleaning people would come in late at night, unplug the router and plug in their vacuum cleaner. And then plug it back in when done. :)

What are some of the interesting networking blunders you've seen in your career? Please share!

- yh

NetMRI 3.0 has left the building!

yhabibzai — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 04:02:00 GMT

I am extremely excited to tell you that our NetMRI 3.0 product has been released. The announcement was made last week, and already we have received more positive news coverage and feedback from our customers and the analyst community than any other previous release. And there is more buzz coming as I write this.

What excites me personally about this release is that the product looks so cool, yet makes problem avoidance and corrections so much easier to deal with. We spent this past year extensively usability testing the product, talking to analysts and to customers to identify what issues we should focus on. The results are truly amazing. We took nothing out of the product, added a whole bunch of new stuff, and then made it look very web 2.0-ish, very cool and very usable.

A sample of the new capabilities that I personally love include:

- Ability to see in a single web page the changes that are going on in the network, how the changes are impacting the network performance, and how they are impacting compliance/policies - all on the same page over time! You can also tell who is making what changes, when and where.

- Visual maps showing the network topology, but also a number of different pieces of information on the same page, with the ability to add/remove information. Now you don't have to sift through rows and columns of data. You can simply see the information visually.

- Wizard that guides you in creating policies. Using logical if/else/then type guide allows users to pick and choose from a library of rules to create their own policies.

... and there are lots more.

Best way to learn more is to take a look at the NetMRI 3.0 self-guided presentation.

Another reason for this post: I'd like to publicly thank our development team for an awesome job. You are the most creative and hardworking team I know. Thank you for making NetMRI truly great!

- yh

Would An Employee Sabotage Your Network?

yhabibzai — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:42:00 GMT

There are plenty of stories in the news on how employees or ex-employees have sabotaged the network or the IT. What's even more interesting is that based on a recent Netcordia survey, many organizations are worried about this issue. So, would an employee purposely sabotage your network? Well, we know that if they don't do it maliciously, they can certainly do it inadvertently. As a matter of fact, based on research from most analyst firms and customer interviews, the #1 cause of network problems is people inadvertently breaking things.

5 Ways Employees Can Sabotage Your Network:

Recently, our Director of System Engineering Tim Connelly was interviewed by Network World on the top 5 ways employees could sabotage your network. Take a listen to the podcast here.

- yh

Calculating network risk

yhabibzai — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:40:00 GMT

Today we posted a risk calculator on the Netcordia web site to help calculate the level of risk for network managers. The calculator determines roughly how much an organization may be at risk of operational and economic losses, without proper understanding of network changes and how those changes are impacting the performance of the network. The calculations are explained in the calculator and are based on market research data.

Check it out. Calculate your risk by plugging in the numbers and seeing the results:

> Risk Calculator <

- yh

Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 lets you save big!

yhabibzai — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 02:04:00 GMT

This week I learned that the Economic Stimulus Package of 2008 that President Bush signed back on February 13, 2008 allows organizations to write off 60-100% of their purchases before 12/31/08. The tax savings from this accelerated write-off will reduce your “after-tax” cash outlay by approximately one-third.

Here is how it works

Small Businesses can write off their entire purchase up to $250k. This is called a Sec 179 deduction. Small businesses are defined as those that make $800k or less in capital expenditures for the year.

All other businesses, whether small or large, get 2008 bonus depreciation of 50% if they make their purchase by 12/31/08. Here is how that works. Let’s say you buy $500k of Netcordia products - you get to write off 50% or $250k as bonus depreciation. Then the remaining $250k, you depreciate over 5 years, so you take another 20% depreciation on the $250k. Therefore, when you spend $500k, you get to write off a total of $300k, saving substantial income taxes.

Here are more details about the Stimulus Act:

There are two provisions under the Economic Stimulus Act that provide tax benefits for businesses:

1) Bonus Depreciation: You may qualify to take an additional one time 50% bonus depreciation allowance (in addition to standard depreciation) for purchases made during the 2008 calendar year.

2) Section 179 Bonus: You may qualify to depreciate up to 100% of your software cost in one year. Section 179 was designed to dramatically increase the expense limits for the tax year of 2008.

Bonus Depreciation

The Stimulus Act allows certain buyers to take a one-time 50% Bonus Depreciation for their 2008 taxes on new software purchased or financed after December 31, 2007 and before January 1, 2009. All companies, regardless of the size of their investment are eligible for the bonus depreciation.

Section 179 Bonus

Under Internal Revenue Code 179, new equipment and software can either be depreciated over its useful life, or expensed immediately. The new Section 179 Deduction limits will have a considerably large impact on your software purchases. Now you can write off 100% of your purchase up to $250,000, as long as your total capital expenditures for the year are less than $800,000. The overall limit is up from $125,000 in 2007.

Section 179 Bonus Quick Facts:

To be eligible, software purchased must be placed in service in 2008.
Note that every dollar spent over $800,000 is subtracted from the total deduction amount.
Not applicable if a binding purchase contract existed prior to 1/1/08.
Save even more, as the Section 179 Bonus can be combined with the Bonus Depreciation!
The bonus expires December 31, 2008.

The Economic Stimulus Act doesn’t last long, so if you have purchases to make, you’ll need to act fast!

NOTE: This information is provided as a courtesy and should not be construed as tax advice or as a promise of potential tax savings or reduced tax liability. Please contact your own CPA or tax attorney to see how this may apply to your situation.

Netcordia has a new home page!

yhabibzai — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:21:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce that we have a new web site, which of course includes a new home page.

The goal of this new web site was to simplify the navigation and content, integrate it with our community site, and share some of the testimonials we hear from our customers about our products.

In this new web site you will find:

Extensive use of Flash technology for ease of use and communication
Flash based product demo and product presentation
Decreased amount of overall content for simplicity
Integration with our community site
Plus various other usability enhancements

Please check the new web site out at www.netcordia.com and we’d love to get your feedback. You can either provide your comments in this blog entry, or email us: marketingteam at netcordia dot com.

- yh

Join our PCI Discussion & Webinar

yhabibzai — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:18:00 GMT

We are fortunate enough to have one of our customers, Charles Chambers from University of Houston and Matt Shell from our partner company Coleman Technologies join us in a PCI webinar coming up next Wednesday on 8/27/08 at 2:00 PM ET.

The webinar will cover some of the bases of PCI plus share some of the best ways to pass a PCI audit. Charles will tell us how he is dealing with PCI requirements having been one of the first universities to be audited for PCI compliance.

If your company accepts credit cards or debit cards, and you’re responsible for some part of the IT, this is a must attend webinar.

Please join us, and we hope that you walk away with some additional knowledge about tackling the PCI challenge.

If you can't attend, please register anyways and we'll send you a recording of the webinar afterwards. But we hope you can be there, as it will give you an opportunity to also ask questions.

Thanks.

- yh

Is the price of gasoline impacting IT?

yhabibzai — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 03:53:00 GMT

I was recently visiting the city of Chicago and I noticed that the motor boats in the water, full of party people, weren't going anywhere. One of the locals was telling me that a few years back you would see boats flying around the lake, but because of the price of gas, they just sit there and people party on their boats without moving much. I'm sure this is the same for many of our waterfront cities.

So, I started thinking how and if the price of gas is impacting IT. For example, if fewer business people are traveling and conducting their meetings via the web, would that cause more stress on the network? And is it possible that one industry's IT, such as public transportation, is being impacted more than others, because that industry is in more demand, or less demand?

Unfortunately, I have more questions than answer. I'm curious to know. Is the price of gas impacting your IT? If so how?

Gartner ITOM Summit Notes

yhabibzai — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:11:00 GMT

Last week I attended the Gartner IT Operations (ITOM) Summit in sunny Orlando, FL. One of the best things I took away from the event was their live polling results during each of the sessions. Each person had a device on their chair that was used to answer the questions that came up on the screen during each presentation. And since in each of the sessions there were a couple of hundred people, I thought the results had enough of a statistical sample to represent reality. Here are some of the nuggets of interesting information I took away, based on these live polls.

What are your top 3 IT Challenges?

1) Aligning Activities with the business (24%)

2) Budget (17%)

3) Managing Rate of Change (16%)

Is the discipline of IT strategy planning well respected in your organization?

50% disagreed and only small percentage of people totally agreed.

What are the top 3 pressures on IT operations?

1) 24x7 availability. 2) Business continuity. 3) Cost reduction/budget

Which of the big 4 IT management vendors do you have the most confidence in:

None of the above: 25%

One vendor got a 4% confidence vote, while others all got less than 20%.

How would you grade your ITOM vendor?

A: 1%, B: 14%, C: 49%, D:17%, F: 4%

Do you have virtualization in production?

Yes: 78%

Do you agree with some of these answers?

- yh

IT Roadmap - Boston Event

yhabibzai — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:04:00 GMT

On Wednesday this week we'll be at Network World's IT Roadmap - Boston event. I will be speaking and we'll have other Netcordia staff there to showcase our solutions. If you're going to be there, make sure you stop by and say hello. We look forward to seeing you!