TekTribune.com

Software Complexity

Bryan — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:38:57 +0000

Seems to me the more complex the software the higher the premium cost. When I say cost I am not just speaking about expensive licenses, long installation and configuration projects, or even maintenance. I am also speaking in terms of operational management. The need for specialized IT staff, specific backup and recover needs, even custom hardware may be seeing the end of the technology cycle of the medium to large business. The era of SaaS, PaaS, or dare I say “the cloud” is slowly, but surely, moving complexity out of the the private data center into a services based solution. I think this is a positive for most companies. Being in IT with a specialized career, it is hard for me to say. However, companies have been spending more time on their IT operational systems then on the actual business they are promoting. Should a company give up a salary position in their own product department to support a need in IT to have a MS Exchange administrator on site. This will no doubt stunt the growth of IT salaries as more and more organization only need the IT generalist, but that may help issue in a new generation of IT specializations surrounding cloud based services. I don’t know what I am saying here. I guess I am just frustrated with costly applications that weight down the SMB market and am looking forward to a higher level of maturity in cloud services. Managed serves make sense when competitively priced. Given that managed services has finally gotten a good marketing engine as “the cloud” breeding competition and subsequent consumer benefits. I am glad to seem companies like Microsoft embrace of cannibalization of their core boxed software like Exchange with offerings like Office360. Slightly bigger smile to see Google docs move into a MS Office owned business or government office. (Not a Google fanboy, just nice to see Microsoft have some office applications competition.)

What do you think?

Cheers!

Reinventing the network.

Bryan — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 19:17:54 +0000

It seems the idea of virtualization is going to broaden its reach a bit further in the near future. Over the last 5(ish) years, the server industry has been turn on its head by the likes of VMware and its brethren. Server consolidation projects, nimble server resource allocation, and advance disaster recovery have changed the shape of the data center and forced server OEMs to play a completely different game. Server virtualization is just a start. (A completely obvious statement!) After reading news and technical articles concerning Open Stack and SDN it is very possible we will see a similar evolution on the network. Companies like Cisco and Juniper have become massive introducing specialized hardware with singular purposes. The idea of having a generalized hardware platform that has functionality dependent on the software installed or enabled is very interesting. Can you imagine rearranging equipment in your data center racks simply by making changes at the console layer rather than physically unracking and reracking? If this was only available 10 years ago before I mangled my spine moving firewalls and switches. What will be interesting to watch is the reaction of folks like Cisco. Will they fight the movement or join the wave as a leader. Knowing them, they will wait for someone to emerge on the forefront and then go into acquisition mode. Hopefully not making a mess of what potentially could revolutionize the networking hardware industry with some serious positive benefits. Additionally we will have to watch the impact on IT careers. The days of the specialized network engineer may be numbered favoring a new tier of virtualization specialist. You have to love the IT industry. Never dull, always evolving, always keeping us learning!

Here is the article that spawned my rant…. http://tinyurl.com/7365ulu

Cheers!

Tablets vs. Notebooks

Bryan — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 19:03:17 +0000

Here is a technology battle I am already sick of hearing about. Will the table ultimately replace the notebook? Answer: No. First, the computer industry trend is already showing this is not the case. Tablets have their place, but emphasis is being placed on the ultra-slim notebook as the next true fad. Intel is betting huge that the ultra-slim notebook will come into popularity with an introduction around the $700 price mark. This undercuts the already popular MacBook Air to give the Wintel industry a fighting chance. Tablets will not phase out, they will simply be complementary devices. I think Android will be hurting in the tablet market once Windows 8 releases as it is a platform that does not have a computer OS counterpart. Both Windows 8 and Apple answer will both a computer and tablet offering making their ecosystem much more appealing that the one trick Android pony. Secondly, comparing tablets to notebooks is like comparing a hammer to a screwdriver. Tablets serve their purpose and notebooks theirs. Sure I can drive a screw into a board with a hammer and some brute force, but a screwdriver is still the right tool for the job!

Cheers!

Microsoft Paying Developers to Port Apps!

Bryan — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:18:08 +0000

Just read an article that spoke about Microsoft actually paying mobile app developers to port their successful iOS and Android apps over to the Windows Mobile Phone platform. That is the most pathetic thing I have heard of in quite sometime. Windows Mobile in my opinion is not a bad platform, it was simply to late to the market and made by a company everyone loves to hate. It is the OS2 of the mobile space. Loved OS2 for what it was. It simply lagged in the application arena and was made by IBM. Another company everyone loved to hate back in the early 90s. This program that Microsoft has engaged in to pay developers to port to Windows Mobile kind of feels like they are paying people to be their friends. The apps in question were written for iOS and Android because they own the mobile space now and for the foreseeable future. The money and customer base is not in Microsoft’s favor in this market. What is interesting is if this is a view into the future for Microsoft. MetroUI was built to give a similar experience from mobile to tablet, to PC. The interface is average at best and in my opinion missed the mark in many areas. (Something for a different blog post.) By all accounts Apple has done a great job of linking their desktop OS to the mobile OS in areas that make sense. You can see the iOS influence in OSX, but not to the point where it overpowers usability. A point Microsoft failed to understand and could prove costly with consumers upon release of Windows 8.

Enough said. When it comes down to it paying for friends (or apps) is simply pathetic. May be time to figure out a better way to play on the playground and get others to share their toys because they actually like you. Just a thought!

Cheers.

Backup Recovery or Disaster Recovery

Bryan — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:57:35 +0000

Went out this week to a few customer locations to discuss data protection strategies. It was interesting to hear the same misconception between backup and recovery concepts and that of disaster recovery. At the foundational level, they both support data and business continuity protection. However, they are independent concepts used to mitigate risk in different scenarios.

Backup and recovery by definition is used to protect against data loss due to the following (but not limited to)

Specific single instance hardware failures
User errors (Accidental deletion of a file)
Point in time data snapshot recovery needs
Long term data archival needs (Compliance Issues)

Disaster recovery is both a process and technical response to the loss of a primary data center completely or critical systems in the communication path. Disaster recovery is a means to recover for a catastrophic infrastructure hardware loss or a long term loss of communication providers into the facility. Examples where disaster recovery procedures would be executed would be:

Long term loss of communications
Long term loss of power or cooling
Data center physical damage or destruction

Backup and recovery systems can work in conjunction with disaster recovery systems, however conceptually they need to be treated independently to drive out the proper business requirements, develop policy and process, and ultimately choose the correct systems to support ongoing data protection. In coming posts I will begin to outline some of the products and associated concepts in design of such systems.

DELL ACQUIRES SONICWALL

Bryan — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:32:39 +0000

So Dell has acquired Sonicwall. Not really sure what to make of this. On one hand it fills in a gap in the Dell overall solution portfolio, on the other hand it is a far dry from the core business. Dell has consistently loss ground in their core consumer business due to shrinking margins and the onslaught of the ever growing Apple Computer ecosystem. One could even debate that they have not taken full advantage of the chaos over in the HP camp over they last 12 – 18 months while they are trying to restructure under new leadership. In my opinion, Dell needs to come right out and define themselves as either a hardware OEM or a full services company. The purchase of Sonicwall only seems to muddy the waters and will ultimately cause confusion for consumers and VARs alike. If the idea is to move toward as full services company, then purchases like Sonicwall will do well to build a full story of services. If this is true, it begs the next question as to what market are they looking to serve. When I think enterprise, I certainly don’t think Sonicwall. If the goal is to attack the mid tier SMB market, then Sonicwall is an excellent play. If the thought is at all in servicing the enterprise, I would think that another security vendor purchase will be required and I would think long and hard in my next set of acquisitions to address other service gaps. Hey Dell! What do you think about Palo Alto? Cheers!

Open Source Alternatives to Commercial SMB Software Packages

Bryan — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:59:15 +0000

Below is a quick list of Open Source projects / products that are in the TekTribune queue for testing and future posts. Over the next few weeks we will be completing write ups that outline pros and cons of moving key commercial business systems to the Open Source world.

Areas reviewed:

Capital , operation, and labor costs
Setup / maintenance ease
IT skill set needed
Support Availability
Features
Overall impressions

Below is our target list on the docket thus far. If there are specific product or project you would like to suggest we review, please drop us a comment.

Software Name	Category	Website	Description
ClearOS	Small Business Server	http://tinyurl.com/ykmh3y2	Alternative to Microsoft Small Business Server & then some….
Icinga	Network Monitoring	http://tinyurl.com/qgls7m	Enterprise class network monitoring & alarm management
Request Tracker	Workflow Management	http://tinyurl.com/2uo8n	Business issue tracking & reporting system
Big Blue Button	Collaboration	http://tinyurl.com/yb2ekjz	Alternative to Meeting Place or WebEx
Joomla	Content Management	http://tinyurl.com/bglrf	CMS; Intranet & corporate website framework
Tracks	Task Management	http://tinyurl.com/a2dt99	Advanced to-do list and time scheduler