Monster Noodle

WARNING!!! Jargonistic Technobable Ahead…

If you have been in or around the Information Technology industry for more than a few years you are certainly aware of how the industry has changed. In essence, the IT community has gone from being the answer to the problem to the problem without a good answer. It’s really amazing to me how closely the development of IT from one generation to the next has matched the different generations of Star Trek.

V1.0: The first generation of IT folks were a little scary. This was a generation of wildly talented free spirits that truly did go “where no man has gone before. Ok, so they were generally a little socially backward for their day. Now everyone’s a geek. It’s hard to miss the parallels between the first gen. IT group and initial Star Trek seasons. Lots of genius level non-conformists doing things that had never been done. Kirk was running around challenging the gods much in the same way that this generation challenged the suits. Kirk always won, and so did they. Ahhh…the glory days.

V2.0: The second generation of IT folks were a little more mainstream. Hey, isn’t that a lot like the Second Generation of Star Trek? During this time, IT began to be taken seriously by the suits and applied to business functions. Even though the suits were still afraid of the crew, they began to realize that they could wow their bosses with new shiny toys. Everyone was happy.

V3.0: Anyone home? Hello?!?!. Now you’re in syndication. After years of Jr. suits selling impossible projects to their big suit bosses, the great big suits now believe that IT is a cost that must be managed. After the second generation of IT flourished, so many “would be” techies rushed to get into this field that this generation has become a commodity. Oh sure, you have a few tricks up your sleeve and a lot of content to pull from but you’re stuck on Deep Sleep Nine. There are a million other shows just like you so you’re pretty much nothing special. Sorry you missed the bus.

Does this mean that the great voyage “to boldly go where no man has gone before” is over? Hardly. There will always be dreamers that are pushing the envelope. What it does mean is that the IT profession as a whole has become domesticated. It’s tame, safe and about as exciting as a priceline.com commercial.  

So, what’s next for IT? I found an extremely good article about the nature of the changing IT scene. It’s not brand new and it will require you to control your ADD for a few minutes but this is great reading material if you find yourself in the minefield of modern IT. 

Until next time, happy blogging.

Megadisclaimer: Take nothing at face value. Everything on this blog is for entertainment purposes. It won’t change the world, or even your opinion in most cases. If you believe everything that you read stop reading now!

Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise are all registered trademarks of CBS Paramount Television. No copyright infringement is intended through the display of content on this site. All copyrighted material is included under “fair use” principles. This site is also in no way affiliated with or endorsed by CBS Paramount Television.

written by Lochshen \\ tags: Information, it, Star Trek

WARNING!!! Jargonistic Technobable ahead…

Recently the Gartner group presented their views on the state of the future of Windows as well as a their assesment of the problems with the current MS operating system, Windows Vista. Leave it to the boys at Gartner to take a relatively simple issue and make it complex. Vista’s failure is about hardware requirements and performance. It’s that simple.

The gaming industry was slow to adopt Vista because quite simply, XP is faster. When it’s about speed, why pay more for less.

Corporate environments could have made very good use out of the inherent security features that were central to Vista but the required hardware to effectively run the software was cost prohibitive. Having managed a fairly sizable client base, I can tell you that IT has become a cost to be managed instead of the first line provider of business solutions. When you operate under that model, budgets don’t lend themselves to a $1500 PC to run standard office software and a mail client.

Vista has been adopted fairly widely by the standard home user. It has been a stable platform to operate on and that is what most average users care about, well that and the eye candy.

According to Gartner’s annoucement, the future is hypervisor and virtualized machines. Didn’t I hear the same thing about Java years ago? Wasn’t java supposed to make us OS independant and replace old warhorses like RPG and C++?

If you haven’t read Gartner’s last announcement regarding the future of Windows, you should give it a few minutes to at least get a chuckle. At least they were spot on with licensing. MS licensing has become more convoluted than the tax code.

Until next time, happy blogging.

Megadisclaimer: Take nothing at face value. Everything on this blog is for entertainment purposes. It won’t change the world, or even your opinion in most cases. If you believe everything that you read stop reading now!

written by Lochshen \\ tags: it, java, tech, windows

I can’t tell you how glad I was to read the recent Forbes article on server Virtualization dangers. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, virtualization in a nutshell is the process of putting multiple discreet OS installs on a single server via virtualization hardware or software.

First off, let me say that virtualization is a great tool under the right circumstances. It allows the distinct advantages of leveraging a single machine with excess hardware capabilities to gain the greatest return on investment for your hardware. It is a technology that has been around for many years and it’s use is wide spread. Couple the technology with a beefy SAN and voila you have a server farm in a single rack.

All of that is great but there are a lot, and I mean a LOT, of disadvantages for choosing this infrastructure model as the sole model for your enterprise.

1. Virtualization puts all of your eggs in one basket. Sure, there are plenty of ways to mitigate this risk with clustering technology but the reality is that several virtual servers on a single machine is simply more risky than having dedicated equipment for each application. Having managed a reasonably sized data center (>100 real servers and several virtual), I can tell you from personal experience that compartmentalization and redundancy cannot be overstated as a method to mitigate risk.
2. Virtualization has a longterm cost. The major selling point for virtualization is cost reduction. However, many of the long-term costs associated with virtualization are ignored in order to realize the short-term gain. Heat, power consumption, complexity, and performance all become issues when moving to a virtual environment. These costs may seem small but a deeper understanding reveals that these costs become fixed costs now associated with running your business.
3. Virtualization is a hacker dream. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s easier to take over one machine than to many. With a single attack on a virtual server’s hypervisor your whole security system can be overcome. With the ever increasing need to keep data secure, this is a risk that must be considered when considering to virtualize.

Virtualization has been well marketed. Much in the same way that the Microsoft server was well marketed back when a small company called Novell owned the IT infrastructure market(remember when it just worked?). In much the same way, the trend is toward a solution with lower initial costs that requires more in the long-run to manage.

The prudent IT professional would do well to consider when to use and when not to use virtualization. As for replacing your entire infrastructure with virtual servers, I have two words: Caveat Emptor… 

Until next time, happy blogging.

Megadisclaimer: Take nothing at face value. Everything on this blog is for entertainment purposes. It won’t change the world, or even your opinion in most cases. If you believe everything that you read stop reading now!

written by Lochshen \\ tags: it, security, technology, virtualization

Ever need to sync two very large directories or make comparisons of two data locations? Chances are if you move large amounts of data on a frequent basis, at some point in time the process will fail. If you’re data is important or time sensitive, weeding through the mess to find what hasn’t been copied can be a very time consuming and at times a harrowing affair.

If you ever find yourself in this position and xcopy or explorer has let you down, try a product called Vice-Versa Pro. This little application has literally saved me hours worth of work. It’s simple to use and light on the wallet (hint: you can even find a nerfed free version if you look hard enough).

So, the next time you find yourself in a jam with your data move or you’re not sure which files are missing from a directory, give this app a shot. It will be well worth your time and money.

Until next time, happy blogging.

Megadisclaimer: Take nothing at face value. Everything on this blog is for entertainment purposes. It won’t change the world, or even your opinion in most cases. If you believe everything that you read stop reading now! 

written by Lochshen \\ tags: it, tgrmn, tgrmn.com, utility, viceversa