Pickaxe Causes Data Center Outage (Yes, a Pickaxe)
By Jason Sherman - December 22, 2017‘Tis the season…for generosity, cheer, and…apparently…massive data center outages (ok, ok: it’s always the season for massive data center outages). Are you prepared for the worst? Your outside plant cabling is, well, outside…as a result, it’s vulnerable. Let’s face it: stuff happens. Take a British cloud hosting company’s recent perils on December 13th: they suffered…
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The 12 Days of DCIM
By Jason Sherman - December 20, 2017‘Tis the season….in the spirit of the holidays, we’re bringing you the “12 Days of DCIM”: a look at 12 days in the life of an engineer who goes from zero documentation to using DCIM software. Day 1: ♫ On the 1st day, my boss gave to me: a network without documentation and a whole…
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How to Start Documenting the Network
By Jason Sherman - December 19, 2017Considering some network documentation to make managing the network less of a headache? Whether you’re troubleshooting or planning, it’s nice to quickly get answers to your questions. If you are considering implementing documentation, one of the first questions you may have is: “do I need to start from scratch?” The short answer is: no. Chances…
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DCIM Hierarchies & Layers: Just Double-Click & Drag-and-Drop
By Jan Durnhofer - December 18, 2017In this blog (and video), we’ll explore how you can easily create hierarchies and navigate in and out of them using netTerrain (our network documentation network mapping tool and data center infrastructure management tool). Many DCIM solutions offer users just two or three predefined layers; with netTerrain, you can create an unlimited number of your…
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3D Views in DCIM – Still Just Pretty Pictures
By Jan Durnhofer - December 5, 2017DCIM: hype or substance? There’s been a healthy amount of debate in recent years about whether DCIM is more hype than substance and reports of failed DCIM installations have only sparked the debate further. The resounding consensus on the question of hype — from both analysts and the users themselves — is that DCIM can…
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Wiki for Network Documentation?
By Jason Sherman -Fed up with not having the network properly documented? Are you considering using Wiki to document everything? Organizations come to us for an automated network documentation solution — and some have used a wiki for their documentation needs. Nothing wrong with that…up to a point. I get it. At first glance, maybe Wiki for documenting…
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Does Data Center Automation Pay Off? Federal Agencies Release ROI Reports
By Jason Sherman - December 3, 2017Recently, I stumbled upon the current DCOI optimization dashboard — which is an overall look at how data centers in federal agencies are performing across different categories. If you’re not familiar with the DCOI yet, here’s some background: DCOI is short for the Data Center Optimization Initiative. It’s a federal initiative that falls under the…
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Best Practices for Network Documentation (They’re Not What You Think)
By Jason Sherman - November 29, 2017I’ve been reading up on what the Internet says about ‘best practices for network documentation’. There’s a decent of material out there and, honestly, many of the articles I’ve read raise good points. That being said, I bring a slightly different perspective to what I consider ‘best practices’ for good network documentation. There are hundreds…
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Self-Help for Network Engineers Stuck in ‘Groundhog Day’ Mode
By Jason Sherman - November 21, 2017Ever seen the movie Groundhog Day? It stars Bill Murray as a journalist trapped having to repeat the same boring day of his life — Groundhog Day, to be exact — every single day indefinitely. If you manage a network, maybe you can relate. Maybe you deal with your fair share of unnecessary tasks and…
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The #1 Thing You Really Need for Network Documentation
By Jason Sherman - November 18, 2017Top ten things you need to do in order to get your networks documented….I’ve seen the lists around the web. They cover the must-do’s and the nice-to-have’s: where do you start documenting. what data do you need to collect, which tools do you need? There’s one thing, however, that all of these lists are missing…and…
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Stop Wasting Money on Data Center Power
By Jason Sherman - November 8, 2017Federal government data centers are now required to install DCIM and achieve a power usage effectiveness rate (PUE) of 1.5 or lower thanks to the Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI). Why? What’s the push behind this? Data centers use a whole bunch of power (we know, we know: this isn’t a news flash to you)….
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How to Trace an IT Outage (Even When Your Cabling is Spaghetti)
By Jason Sherman - October 30, 2017Knowing what’s connected to what: it’s one of the primary reasons we document the network. But this knowledge can’t just exist in a vacuum…so what’s the point of knowing what and where your connections are? Let’s not beat around the bush: cabling has a tendency to become ‘spaghetti’ fast, especially as your infrastructure grows. Even…
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