The Daily Network Monitor

I spent some time in flow state yesterday at work.  That’s rare for me, unfortunately.  The life of a middle manager can be full of interruptions and meetings and crises, with precious few opportunities to buckle down and get some honest work done.  I’m sure you can relate, whatever your job might be.

For those who don’t know, flow state is “…the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.” [wikipedia]  It’s hard to explain, but when you’re in it, you don’t really feel the passage of time, you don’t get tired or bored, and you crank out lots of work, usually very good work.  Being able to get into flow at will is something to aspire to, something great artists and athletes can do.

What’s interesting about this - at least it’s interesting to me - is that I got into flow doing something that’s not usually part of my job.  I was setting up the next incarnation of The Daily Network Monitor Blog in WordPress.  I am by no means a codemonkey, but I was up to my elbows in PHP and CSS and RSS, and I was seriously into it and suddenly it was dark when I looked up from my computer.  I’m not going to pretend to have a hidden talent for programming, but I think I did pretty well.  You can judge for yourself when the new site goes live.

Until then, I hope you all step away from the reader and find a project that needs doing that you can dive into and achieve some flow.  Happy new year.

I was wandering around various job sites just to see what kinds of network management career opportunities are available. I was looking for job requirements where SLAs are defined as well as what level of experience was required. And while I did find a lot of opportunities where SLAs were defined, another interesting aspect became apparent, which I discuss below.

While the normal requirements for Cisco certifications, VoIP, QoS and routing, server monitoring experience were required, one thing that stood out was the need for experience with network monitoring tools. Of course the big-boys, HP, IBM and CA were mentioned but even more surprising to me was how many positions defined a requirement for experience with WhatsUp Gold.

While I am an Ipswitch employee, it was very interesting to see the number of positions that required WhatsUp experience as a requirement. Below is one job description that was particularly interesting (names have been deleted to protect the innocent):

Dynamic company is currently seeking Telecom VOIP Administrator. Candidate will assist in managing WAN connectivity to 50+ remote sites; participate in 24×7 on-call rotation; manage vendor relations; provide 2nd tier support to helpdesk staff; assist in managing existing Cisco IP Telephony solution and installing solution at new sites; document WAN and LAN, keeping documentation up-to-date.

Technical Experience:
Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Visio, Active Directory, Cisco Networking, EIGRP, BGP, Frame-relay, MPLS, Network Monitoring, WhatsUp Gold, SonicWALL Firewalls, Catalyst 45xx, Cisco IP Telephony, Cisco Call Manager 4.0, Cisco Unity voicemail

Requirements:
CCNA, College Degree (B.S. or B.A.), 3+ years Telecom experience, Cisco VoIP experience

This leads me to ask a question of network administrators/managers out there. Would a certification on WhatsUp Gold be relevant to building your career credentials?

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. It’s also the last Friday before Christmas and New Years, the last pay period of the year, and for me, the pivot point between budgeting and planning ahead for 2008, and starting the performance review process looking back on 2007.

In January we’re going to kick off a marketing campaign with our new white paper about the skills and methods of the most effective network administrators and tying it in to the idea of new years resolutions. I wonder though, if the average network tech or admin could take a minute to reflect on the highs and lows of the year, what would really be the networking new years resolutions for 2008?

I suppose the usual stuff would be there - lose weight, quit smoking, save more money for retirement, volunteer more, work out more, write the great American novel - after all network admins are people too, but what kind of things do techies resolve to do next year? Perhaps some of these:

* Get Cisco certified
* Spend less time in World of Warcraft
* Finally replace that [fill in the flaky old piece of hardware of your choice]
* Write that blog you’ve always wanted to write, an expose of the life of a corporate IT professional
* Pay for those shareware utilities you depend on every day
* Drink less Mountain Dew
* Reduce the portion of your cubicle devoted to action figures to no more than 50%
* Demand the budget to upgrade your network management tools to the latest versions

OK, I guess that might be a little self-serving, but I’ll leave it to you to chime in with your own in the comments. What are your top networking resolutions for 2008?