Department
Best Practices
19 articles filed under Best Practices.
When to Consider High Availability?
“High Availability isn’t something you buy, it’s something that you do.” – John Nicholson Few things are more universally desired in IT than High Availability (HA) solutions. I mean really, say those…
Rethinking Long Term Support Releases
Traditionally Long Term Support operating system releases have been the bulwark of enterprise deployments. This is the model used by IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Suse and Red Hat and has been the…
You Can’t Virtualize That!
We get this all of the time in IT, a vendor tells us that a system cannot be virtualized. The reasons are numerous. On the IT side, we are always shocked that a vendor would make such an outrageous…
The End of the GUI Era
We should set the stage by looking at some historical context around GUIs and their role within the world of systems administration. In the “olden days” we did not have graphical user interfaces on…
Avoiding Local Service Providers
Inflammatory article titles aside, the idea of choosing a technology service provider based on the fact or partially based on the fact that they are in some way located geographically near to where…
The Jurassic Park Effect
“If I may… Um, I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here, it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You…
Virtualizing Even a Single Server
I find it very common in conversations involving virtualization to have the concept of consolidation, which in the context of server virtualization refers to putting multiple formerly physical…
On DevOps and Snowflakes
One can hardly swing a proverbial cat in IT these days without hearing people talking about DevOps. DevOps is the hot new topic in the industry picking up from where the talk of cloud left off and to…
The Weakest Link: How Chained Dependencies Impact System Risk
When assessing system risk scenarios it is very easy to overlook “chained” dependencies. We are trained to look at risk at a “node” level asking “how likely is this one thing to fail.” But system…
Choosing Software Versions for Deployment
Something that I see discussed very often in IT circles is “which version of software should I install.” This could apply to a database, an application, firmware or, probably most often, operating…
Hello, 1998 Calling….
Something magic seems to have happened in the Information Technology profession somewhere around 1998. I know, from my own memory, that the late 90s were a special time to be working in IT. Much of…
The Smallest IT Department
Working with small businesses means working with small IT shops. It is very common to find the “one man” shows and I am often in discussions about how to handle environments so small. There is no…
Solution Elegance
It is very easy, when working in IT, to become focused on big, complex solutions. It seems that this is where the good solutions must lie – big solutions, lots of software, all the latest gadgets…
Virtualization as a Standard Pattern
Virtualization as an enterprise concept is almost as old as business computing is itself. The value of abstracting computing from the bare hardware was recognized very early on and almost as soon as…
Nearly As Good Is Not Better
As IT professionals we often have to evaluate several different approaches, products or techniques. The IT field is vast and we are faced with so many options that it can become difficult to filter…
Patching in a Small Environment
In enterprise IT shops, system patching is a complicated process involving large numbers of test systems which mirror production systems so that each new patch arriving from operating system and…
Never Get Advice from a Reseller (or Vendor)
This is general business advice that often applies to IT but is certainly not limited to that realm alone. Outside support in IT comes from two main sources: firms who are paid (by you) to advise you…
Why IT Pros’ Home Computers Are Different
My sister in law once asked me why they have so many computer problems and we do not. My wife and I are both technology consultants and our home network probably seems incredibly stable to the casual…
Why We Reboot Servers
A question that comes up on a pretty regular basis is whether or not servers should be routinely rebooted, such as once per week, or if they should be allowed to run for as long as possible to…