In The IT World, How Old Is "Too Old"?

Sunday 24th January 2010

As usual, "It all depends....."!

The IT world has a well-known reputation for its ageist approach to recruitment.  Candidates over 40 years old are said to be regarded as being "Over the top".  Meanwhile, even those in their early 30's feel that the attitude of some HR interviewers is "Well, you might not be over the top, but you certainly have a jolly good view of the other side!"

Equipment, on the other hand, is often expected to remain in useful service indefinitely, or at least until it is entirely beyond repair.  This "Run it until it drops" approach is fine for items where reliability is not essential.  The problems arise when it is extended to mission-critical servers and the like. 

The hallowed "five nines" (i.e. 99.999%) level of availability sounds fairly innocuous, until a quick calculation reveals that this is actually equivalent to only 32 seconds downtime a year!  As equipment ages, the risk of failure due to wear-and-tear begins to rise.  In addition, their heatsinks gradually become thickly coated with heat-retaining dust and fluff, thus losing efficiency.  The end result will be a failure, probably at the most inconvenient time possible.

It is far wiser to regard IT equipment as having a working life of no more than about three years, with anything above this being regarded as a bonus.  In any case, developments in hardware and, to an even greater extent, software, render equipment obsolete in a very short time.  Windows XP was released in May 2001, only to be superseded by the much-derided Windows Vista in January 2007.  Barely three years later, we now have Windows 7.

Unlike humans, who usually benefit from increasing levels of experience and maturity as time passes, increasing age has the opposite effect on IT equipment.  Ultimately, there is a balancing act to be performed.  On the one hand, replacing equipment on a regular basis is not cheap.  However, these costs must be weighed up and carefully balanced against the potential loss to the business, in terms of prestige as well as monetary loss.          

Eight Tips For Speeding Up Your Network

Sunday 17th January 2010

Unfortunately, only two of them are entirely free....

1) Start at the Layer 1 of the OSI 7-Layer Stack, the Physical Layer.  This layer is concerned with non-intelligent hardware as cables, network interface cards and hubs.  If you are still using coaxial or any other type of cable below CAT5 standard, replace it with 4-pair CAT5 UTP cable.  This will allow up to 1GB transmission rates over a maximum distance of 100 metres.

2) Are you still using hubs?  Then replace them with inexpensive, unmanaged, Layer 2 switches.  These are about as plug-and-play as it can be.  Disconnect a 10MB hub, connect a 100MB switch in its place and the improvement has to be seen to be believed.

3) Next, check the speed and duplex settings on the devices attached to the network.  The "Auto" setting is deservedly popular, but be aware that if the device at one end of the cable is set to "Auto", so must the device at the other end.  This is because a device set to "Auto" can negotiate properly only with another device which is also set to "Auto".

4) Has your network been extended by connecting switches in a "daisy-chain" fashion?  If possible, replace them with a single, larger switch with longer cables, provided of course that the maximum CAT5 cable length of 100M is not exceeded.

5) It is now time to "Meet the users" and find out exactly what they are experiencing - is congestion occurring only at certain times or in certain locations, etc.?  This will help determine whether further expenditure is justified, or whether activities unrelated to work should be curtailed and, if so, to what extent.

6) Depending on the size of the network, it may be appropriate to redesign it completely with a hierarchical structure.  Such an operation is non-trivial and should not be undertaken without expert assistance.

7) Segment the network by breaking up broadcast domains and thus reducing unnecessary traffic.  Note that this operation normally requires expert assistance and the purchase of a router or equivalent device.  Not for the faint-hearted!

8) If the level of network responsiveness is still unacceptably low, use Layer 3 (or higher) intelligent switches.  These are somewhat expensive and can take some effort to configure properly, but they do enable traffic to be filtered and prioritised as may be required.  This way, delay-sensitive traffic such as voice and video conferencing can be given priority over ordinary data, while potentially undesirable activities such as file sharing and internet browsing can be restricted or even prevented altogether.  They can also perform many of the functions of a router, but at greater speed and lower cost.

Warning - Java Updates Can Ruin Your Hairstyle!

Sunday 10th January 2010

How about tearing your hair out (or perhaps banging your head against that nearby brick wall?) in sheer frustration?

Most modern applications and operating systems offer regular incremental updates.  Typically, these may include bug fixes and limited additional functionality, as well as addressing security loopholes.  In most cases, these updates are beneficial, while in the case of Windows they are absolutely vital.  Very occasinoally, updates can have undesirable side-effects which may even cause loss of functionality in other applications.

Java is deservedly popular, particularly with browser-based applications.  Although such applications are often web-based, this is not necessarily the case.  One example is SDM, Cisco System's Security Device Manager. 

Cisco equipment has a well-deserved reputation for its high quality and long service life.  Except for the ultra low-end offerings, Cisco routers run a proprietary operating system, which also has a well-deserved reputation - for having an arcane command-line interface.  Fortunately, SDM provides a graphical, browser-based alternative which can be used to set up all but the most advanced of configurations.

SDM is browser-based and requires Java.  Although it works perfectly with the Java Runtime Environment Version 5, it will not run at all with the early
releases of JRE Version 6.  However, JRE Version 6 Update 17 is a worse problem - only some of the many invaluable functions which SDM normally offers are activated!  It can take many frustrating hours before an unwary user realises that the recent update which Java so thoughtfully offered to install is to blame.  Fortunately, the Java website provides an extensive archive of older versions, including documentation and uninstallers, so the damage can be undone without too much effort.

New Year - New Operating System?

Sunday 3rd January 2010

Nowadays, there really are plenty of rather good alternatives to Microsoft Windows, even Windows 7

After the debacle which was Vista, Windows 7 does seem to be gaining in popularity at a rapid rate. In fairness, it is actually rather good, which is probably just as well!  However, it is by no means "the only pebble on the beach".

In the open-source world, Mandriva 2010 is now available and Novell has released openSUSE V11.2.  Meanwhile Canonical's latest Ubuntu offering is the quaintly-named "Karmic Koala".  For those who prefer a Mac, Apple has recently released Snow Leopard, the latest version of OSX.  All of these have been well-received by their respective aficionados.

As always, every coin has two sides.  In the case of Windows 7, the product is certainly polished and popular.  In addition, it supports a vast range of applications, all the way from the common to the obscure.  The other side?  It is certainly not free, neither are most of the applications which run on it.

The new Linux distributions are, perhaps, not quite as polished as the Microsoft offering and do not boast such a wide range of applications.  However, there are open-source replacements for all the popular Windows applications and even some for which there is no Windows equivalent.  The other side?  They are free, as are most of the applications which run on them.

The major Linux distributions all have one clever feature which even the mighty Windows 7 cannot offer - the "Live CD".  This is truly a "No obligation trial", requiring only a small amount of trust (and even less commonsense) on the part of the user.  The "Live CD" is a downloadable ISO image which is then burned to CD and used to boot a PC, running entirely in RAM.  This provides a great way to try Linux.  Afterwards, merely remove the Live CD, reboot and your PC is immediately back to its usual self.  Since it is able to access Windows' NTFS file system, it can be used for disaster recovery, even if Windows will not boot or the Administrator password has been lost.

The Mandriva 2010 Live CD is available as a free download from http://www2.mandriva.com/linux/overview/

Although Mandriva's  boasts on the image below may seem to be rather less than modest, in fairness they are not too far wide of the mark.