Documenting with Visio or Excel Driving You Crazy?
By Jason Sherman - October 24, 2017Do you use Visio or Excel to document the network? If you do, you’re not alone: they are the number one and number two top tools for network documentation. If You’re Documenting with Visio… Truth be told, Visio isn’t meant for network documentation. Visio network diagrams cause three major headaches: no easy way to keep…
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DCIM Vendor Taking Too Long to Model a Device? Read This.
By Jan Durnhofer - October 12, 2017Rod Stewart once famously penned, “time is a thief”; Tom Petty (RIP) proclaimed, “the waiting is the hardest part.” If you’re a DCIM user who’s been kept on hold by your DCIM vendor when you just need a new device type modeled (a new make/model that isn’t already in your catalog), you can probably relate…
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If You Can’t Answer These Questions, Your Network Isn’t Secure
By Jason Sherman - October 6, 2017Coming soon to a movie theatre near you: NETWORK SECURITY….THE MOVIE. It’s going to be a real blockbuster: full of action, thrills, daredevil maneuvers by network engineers who try to save everything at the last minute, and, of course, hackers. Ok. Maybe we’ll have to wait a bit on the movie, but who needs the…
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Lifehack: Get Your Network Reporting Done (Like a Boss)
By Jason Sherman - October 3, 2017“Ummm…yeah….if you could go ahead and give me this information in that format…that’d be great.” So, about those TPS reports. You know the drill: you’re in your CRM, or network documentation system, or and you need to see certain information in a certain format, “I need to see how many widgets we have to pull…
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SaaS or On-Premise? How to Choose the Right License
By Hannah Ash - September 26, 2017Considering a DCIM, network documentation or OSP (gis-enabled outside plant management software) solution? In addition to understanding the features and functions you need, you may also need to discern which deployment will work best for your organization: SaaS or on-premise? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer: what you choose should depend solely upon what your organization specifically…
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Reducing IT Costs….Made Easy (with the Most Interesting Man in the World)
By Jason Sherman - September 13, 2017As a manager, you are under pressure not to overextend your IT resources — but how can you do that when you don’t know what you have (and what you’re going to need)? The Most Interesting Man in the World is a minimalist: he likes one kind of beer, one outfit and one phrase. He…
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Rack & Power Management Made Easy (with the Most Interesting Man in the World)
By Jason Sherman - September 4, 2017How much space do you have in a rack? Can you power another device without overloading a circuit? Whenever you have a question you can’t fully answer, you need to ask yourself this: how would the most interesting man in the world handle this one? He’d need a way to handle it without breaking a…
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Network Incidents Made Easy (with the Most Interesting Man in the World)
By Jason Sherman - August 8, 2017>When a device goes down on your network, and you’ve got a network monitoring solution in place, you probably get one of those (incredibly useful) emails that informs you a device is down. Great….which device? Where? While you’re figuring all that out, you’re wasting valuable time (and yeah, you know this: time is money). In…
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If Your Cabling is a Hot Mess, You Need to Read This
By Jason Sherman - July 26, 2017Is your cabling a hot mess? Or maybe, your cabling is in better shape…as in, it’s barely passable? Is your cabling creating unnecessary work for you and your team? We get it: managing your connections without DCIM is like Mario trying to fight Bowser without any power-ups. When you don’t have the tools you need,…
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Automation for Data Center Managers
By Fred Koh - July 1, 2017The myriad promises of automation loom large over today’s technological landscape. Whether the discussion is around reducing costs or upping efficiency, one thing is crystal clear: automation is here to stay. For data center managers and network engineers, automation is far more than hype: when done right, it delivers on its promises of big ROI….
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Get Application Insights with Network Documentation
By Jason Sherman - June 1, 2017Network documentation is a great thing. With it, you can gain a great deal of insight about your network. Network documentation gives you crucial insight into your network; Physical and logical diagrams help you answer key network questions, such as: ‘What’s the end point connection for this device?’ ‘How much space do I have left…
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Security & DCIM: Your Questions Answered by DCIM Experts
By Jan Durnhofer - May 23, 2017Reports of cyber attacks are widespread today: data shows that both the size and frequency of these attacks are on the rise. For those who use or are considering using DCIM software, these attacks beg the question, “Is DCIM susceptible? What kind of attacks can be waged against a DCIM solution?” All software, online or…
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