IT professionals are in the business of solving problems. If a network is too slow we make it faster. If an application is unreliable we increase its stability. These are the types of technical challenges that our industry has become very proficient at dealing with.
Problems are not merely technical in nature though. If everyone agrees that the network is fine as it is then everyone will see no reason to make the n
Imagine that you are a farmer in the 1800s and that you have a horse. You need your horse to plow fields so that you can plant seeds.
One day your horse falls ill and cannot pull your plow. You cannot plant seeds, and therefore will have no crops to harvest for the season. You have access to a local veterinarian who can examine your horse and treat the horse’s illness.
Would you instead move the horse to a differ
Users and customers that are not familiar with IT practices might mistake the speed with which an IT professional completes a task as evidence for the task being easy and simple. This is similar to the tips of icebergs in that the visible IT work is merely a small part of the project. Just as you do not see the massive bulk of an iceberg beneath the water’s surface users and customers do not see the planning, pre
I recently had a great meeting with a client to discuss their potential upgrade paths to migrate from their current solution to the next generation of a product. The client planned to then deploy the old solution into their disaster recovery site. While discussing the benefits of upgrading the solution I explained to the customer that one of the primary benefits would be a fresh start on the support lifecycle.
The
By now the announcement by Microsoft that the TechNet software subscription service is being retired is hardly news. Supposedly Microsoft is doing this because IT professionals would rather use limited 90 day trial versions of software and operating systems, or that IT professionals will benefit more from online training. Microsoft has a lot of resources with which to conduct the polling and surveying of customers,
Following a successful conclusion to an important project at work I decided to treat myself and my family to a new home entertainment system. I purchased a new 3D television with Google TV, a new home theater surround sound system with an integrated 3D Blu-ray player, a new home theater PC, and a new stand with which to store all of these gizmos and to mount the television onto. On top of all of that I added two ne
Warning: Today’s article lives mainly in the realm of the hypothetical, and is based upon my personal observations.
Technology changes at such a fast rate that IT professionals often find it difficult to keep their skills up-to-date. When a manufacturer releases a new generation of technology they often try to keep the older methods of interfacing with the previous generation of technology in place. Commands, GUI
There are plenty of design tools available that will ensure that your configuration of components is possible. Such tools can only ensure that the components will fit together. The tool probably has limited capabilities to ensure that you have all of the components that you need (such as cabling), nor can the tool verify that the configuration that you are putting together is an appropriate design for the pro
This is the conclusion to my series of articles where I share my interpretation of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s special publication 800-145. This week I share my thoughts on how cloud computing will change the roles of IT professionals.
The biggest shift that this new era of cloud computing brings to the world of IT is that IT professionals will now transition from analyzing systems to ana
I am continuing my series of articles where I share my interpretation of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s special publication 800-145. This week the focus is on the four different deployment models of cloud computing according to the NIST’s definition:
Private cloud. The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers (e.g., busin
