Forget Price When Designing Solutions

Imagine that the top executive of your organization came to you with a top priority project and a small budget. Okay, some of you do not have to imagine that… You are given an objective. There is a measurable and defined result that must be achieved. You know what the goal is and now you must solve the problem. At this point you can take one of two paths. The first path is to look at the budget and to start shopp

Learn Office Politics, Because Office Politicians Will Not Learn IT

Today is St. Valentine’s Day, and as a happily married man with a lovely wife I am all for a holiday dedicated to romance and relationships. My wife and I just choose to ignore all of the ridiculous hype that accompanies today, and focus on each other instead. Our relationship is without a doubt the most important aspect of my life. Unfortunately not all relationships are the romantic kind. Some are purely politi

You Can’t Stop the Future

Theoretical physicists refer to the “Arrow of Time” to describe the phenomenon of how moments seemingly always move towards the future and never back into the past. While this might seem obvious it is a bit of a conundrum, because there is no law of physics that says things cannot move backwards in time. According to physicist Brian Greene during the Nova episode The Fabric of the Cosmos: The Illusion o

Being Prepared For The Unpredictable

Thursday I missed my deadline. I hate missing a deadline, but I missed this week’s deadline all the same. There are no excuses for missing a deadline. When you miss a deadline it is all on you. My apologies if you were looking forward to an article from me on Thursday. I’ll do better in the future. So what happened Thursday and how does it relate to IT? First I will explain the situation, and then I will transl

Yes, IT Is Expensive… Or Is It?

“Is it expensive?” This is often the second question that clients ask me. The first question is “How would you solve my IT problem?” This question is a trick question. Not for me, but for the client. Many IT solutions can easily be classified as “expensive”. If you need a complete solution of compute, network, storage, and software components it will be expensive in terms of the dollar amount in compari

RFPs–Are You Requesting A Proposal Or A Price?

My role requires that I respond to RFPs (“Request for Proposal” for those who are not familiar with the acronym) and I would be lying if I said that I enjoy doing so. I do enjoy working with the people who create these RFPs, and I even enjoy the investigative and design work that follows the reading of an RFP. The RFPs themselves though are horrible to read through. It is not because of the many pages of legal

Good Technology Is One Thing, Adopted Technology Is Another Thing Altogether

This Christmas my wife gave me a gift that was surprising: a BlackBerry Playbook. I was caught off-guard by this, because my wife does not follow technology at all. The Playbook was a risky gift for her to get me. She is completely out of her element with technology while I thrive in that particular space. I probably would never have bought myself a Blackberry Playbook. RIM is a company that several analysts and te

(Not So) Interesting Times

Today’s article is just a quick observation about the consumer market for IT products and personal computing devices. Windows 8 sales are flat, given how MetroUI is a pathetic GUI for a desktop (and just so-so for a tablet). Speaking of Microsoft and tablets, the Surface is a day late and a dollar short. Apple’s products are not too exciting this year either. A smaller tablet? Um, that does not scream “innova

Nothing is Perfect

I have seen the following scenario far too many times in the world of IT: Technology A is purchased and deployed, and it does about 90% of what the business needs. Getting the remaining 10% of the business’ needs met will require training, planning, and effort. The person who bought technology A complains about how it does not work. Same person starts preparing to buy technology B. Technology B is purchased beca

NetApp’s Clustered Data ONTAP: New Technology for an Old Business Problem

Having recently acquired a NetApp certification plus having attended NetApp’s Insight conference in Las Vegas last week I happen to have a ton of ideas floating around in my head regarding (wait for it…) NetApp! I have been a huge fan of NetApp for many years now, so I am happy to have this “problem”. I believe that NetApp is one of the most innovative technology companies in existence today. Even better th