Daily Network Monitor

One of the big players in the Enterprise-class (meaning the software is so bloated you need a spaceship to hold the CDs?) is Computer Associates (CA) and the Unicenter product family. The product portfolio at CA, by the way, is so big they have to start coining new acronyms to describe it: they came up with Enterprise IT Management (EITM). At what point does a product portfolio large enough to cover everything become so large, overlapping and confusing as to become nothing?

CA recently announced they have appointed Ajei Gopal, Symantec Corp.’s former chief technology officer, to lead its enterprise systems management business unit.

We wish him well!

I have made the point in my Technology Seminars in USA and Canada that VoIP imposes additional network requirements. This story in IT Business Canada illustrates the point nicely.

“When voice over IP first began appearing on business networks, many people expected to simply fire it up and start talking. But when they tried it, a lot of what they had to say never made it to the other end of the line - which was probably a good thing, because when they discovered how well VoIP worked on their existing networks, some of their language wasn’t very polite.

Because many early VoIP adopters expected it to be plug and play, networks often got no pre-implementation testing to see if they were ready to handle voice, recalls Brad Masterson, product manager at Mississauga, Ont.-based Fluke Electronics Canada LP, a maker of network testing tools. That frequently led to problems when the IP telephony application was turned on.

In 2003 Jeremy Urwin, a technical sales support director at Telus Corp., told the story of LAN administrator who refused to have Telus check his network for VOIP readiness before going live, even when offered a discount on the work. “The first two calls went through flawlessly, “ Urwin reported. “The third call dropped, and guess who that was? That was the CIO.” Telus belatedly did the readiness report, the network was adjusted - and the customer got a new LAN administrator.

Such hubris on the part of network managers not only cost a few unfortunates their jobs, but battered the reputation of voice over IP technology and some of the vendors who sell it. As a result, some major VOIP vendors now insist on testing every network on which they install their wares to make sure beforehand that it’s ready for voice.”

Read the complete story here.

The U.S. Geological Survey has outlined an ambitious - though unfunded and unapproved - road map for wiring Yellowstone over the next decade to keep better tabs on its geologic life.

Jake Lowenstern, a USGS geologist and head of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, said the plan is meant as a starting point for launching discussions about how best to monitor the park. It’s our way of thinking through what sort of techniques would be useful … what we do and why and then where do we fall short and how we might improve,” Lowenstern said.

The proposal suggests upgrades in Yellowstone’s seismic network, more gauges to monitor streams and potentially dangerous gases, Global Positioning System stations that help predict ground-splitting explosions, and even instruments hundreds of feet below the ground to monitor groundwater, magma and shifting rocks.

In the past 2 million years, Yellowstone has launched three of the largest volcanic eruptions on the planet. Another major eruption of what some have called a “supervolcano” has been the topic of much speculation in recent years.

“In terms of knowing whether an eruption is going to happen, we already have a pretty good system,” Lowenstern said.

(more…)