DCIM: Hype vs. Truth
By Hannah Ash - August 16, 2018As Frank Sinatra might have sung, ‘2007 was a very good year’. Apple introduced iPhone, the final Harry Potter book was published, and the Departed won an Oscar (hey, I’m from Boston). It’s also the year that DCIM software really made a splash on the tech market and major software vendors took notice and followed…
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View Your Entire Cloud & Network Infrastructure
By Fred Koh -The digital transformation movement is leaving no prisoners behind in its wake: infrastructure-as-a-service (the Cloud) — for example — has become immensely popular as it frees up IT and development time and the costs to maintain a data center. A 2016 IDG survey returned staggering results: 47% of companies have transitioned their messages to the…
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How Network Diagrams Help You with Compliance & Regulations
By Fred Koh - August 15, 2018Recently, I wrote a blog entitled ‘Network Documentation: Is It Really a Priority?’: in this blog, I discussed the importance of network diagrams and documentation in capacity planning, reducing mean-time-to-repair, lowering expenditures, cutting down on IT clutter, and more. One significant issue I didn’t discuss in that blog is this: regulatory compliance. Graphical Networks, my…
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Why You May Not Need DCIM
By Jason Sherman - August 14, 2018So, you think maybe it’s time for DCIM. Costs are getting out of control, troubleshooting problems abound, capacity planning is not going well, and you have zombie servers attacking your data center. DCIM can be a sizeable investment — and before you sign on the dotted line, it’s crucial to ensure that 1. you find…
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Where Has All The Good Data Gone?
By Jason Sherman - August 13, 2018So…you’re sick of troubleshooting that takes forever, fed up with buying IT stuff just to realize 6 months later you didn’t really need it or already had it, and you’re completely exasperated by those expenditures that keep going up, up, and away? You’ve finally decided that you want – no, scratch that – need to…
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Network Documentation: Is It Really a Priority?
By Fred Koh - August 10, 2018Let’s face it: we all say “network documentation is important”… but for some reason it is never truly considered urgent or a higher priority. I hear it all the time. Yet, when the ‘you know what’ hits the fan, we all go desperately scrambling for those uninspired network documents…only to find them outdated and basically…
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Untangle Your Cable Management Mess
By Fred Koh -Hey, I know what would be really fun to try at work today: let’s all spend hours trying to find a needle in a haystack! When you can’t see where your cabling is, and what exactly you have, you end up wasting countless hours trying to find cables you didn’t even know you have (or…
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Lower Data Center Power Costs & Control Unnecessary Spending
By Fred Koh - August 9, 2018The issue of zombie servers remains a major hurdle for data centers today. According to a Stanford University study, a staggering 1 in 3 servers is – for all intents and purposes – a zombie: it’s drawing power but not performing any meaningful functions. Why do I care about this costs problem haunting modern data…
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How to Centralize Your IT Infrastructure Views
By Fred Koh - August 8, 2018Here’s a common scenario you may find yourself in or are currently in: you’ve just started working for a company with a sizeable network….and the main person (who has all the knowledge) just left the company for good. The big ticket questions are: “What do we have on our network? Are there routers that are…
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Cloud vs. On-Premise Software for Managing the Network
By Fred Koh -2018 is the year of the Cloud (okay, maybe someone said that about 2017, and maybe they’ll say that about 2019, too). Right now, there is a lot of discussion around what’s better in software today: a Cloud or on-premise solution? There’s no doubt that the Cloud is trending upward. A 2017 tech forecast survey…
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APIs for Network Mapping: Get More Accomplished
By Jason Sherman - August 7, 2018On Fridays, I kick back for a few, take a break from the daily grind of network mapping and diagrams… and hit up Blogpost Friday over on Reddit. After enough wasted time – I mean ‘invested’ time – I found a great article on automation and APIs. This blog takes a hard look at the…
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Movies that Desperately Needed Network Diagrams
By Jason Sherman - August 6, 2018Sometimes, we all want to see the kind of work we do up on the big silver screen. Although the life of a network engineer isn’t as glamorous as say, the life of an international spy….we still have those dramatic moments at work from time to time (hey: I’m sure there were some Hollywood-worthy lines…
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