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• Five things network and system administrators can learn from Agile

  15Jan
  Author: ned Categories: IT Management, Infrastructure Comments: 1

  IT infrastructure work is certainly not the same as software development, but the Agile methodologies offer some good advice to us system and network administrators. In general, Agile has grown from a Manifesto about software development to a full-blown project management methodology. Powerful tools are available to help manage projects according to its tenants. Although Agile is based on lessons learned implementing complex software projects, its principles apply equally well to IT infrastructure projects and operations. Agile’s concept of “self-organizing teams” is particularly appealing to me, since Applied Trust is managed as a “company of peers”.

  I’ve picked five of the Principles behind the Agile Manifesto that are particularly applicable to our field – read on to see how they look from an IT infrastructure perspective:

  1) Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable infrastructure.
  2) Welcome changing requirements, even late in deployment. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
  3) Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
  4) Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.
  5) Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

  Read more »

  Tags: agile, Infrastructure, ITIL

• New Year’s Resolutions for IT (and free T-Shirt offer!)

  01Jan
  Author: trent Categories: IT Management, Ramblings Comments: 0

  Ok, I admit it – I’m generally not a fan of New Year’s Resolutions.  I believe that folks should always be looking for ways to make positive changes, and shouldn’t need a specific day/event as a trigger.  That said, it does make a nice marker date for an annual evaluation of the state of things.

  Last year, I posted an end-of-year IT checklist, which I again encourage all IT folks to take a quick look at — this is a great time to evaluate and update a number of key IT areas.  At the very least, don’t forget to update your copyright dates!

  I’m hoping 2010 can be a year of positive change for IT.  In that light, as a community let’s make a few resolutions:

  Read more »

  Tags: preventative maintenance

• So begins the farewell to Windows 2003

  16Oct
  Author: paul Categories: IT Management Comments: 2

  2010 will be here in no time, and with it will come some changes to support for Windows Server. In July 2010, public support for Windows 2000 will cease. At the same time, Server 2003 moves from mainstream support into the “Extended Support” phase. While security patches will still be released, all non-security hotfixes developed during this period will be restricted to customers enrolled in the extended hotfix support (EHS) program.
  Read more »

  Tags: patching, windows

• Tickets: The IT Department’s Keys to Success

  14Oct
  Author: terry Categories: IT Management Comments: 0

  

  Tickets are sometimes associated more with the help desk than with the operations group of an internal IT department.  Unfortunately, when this is the case, system administrators are missing out on an opportunity to use tickets for their own purposes.  Sometimes, administrators can see tickets as a barrier to efficiency and agility.  But this is not the case.  Tickets are a communication and change control tool.  All work done by the IT staff should be tracked in a ticket.  This is important for several reasons:

  1. Other administrators can understand what is happening with a particular effort.
  2. End users can be kept in the loop on the status of issues affecting them.
  3. The administrator doing the work has a log of all the steps they have taken which can be useful if they ever need to perform the same task again, or if they need to go in and back out some portion of the change.
  4. The manager can quickly and easily understand the workload of the staff.

  Organizations that do not use tickets throughout the IT department tend to fall into one or more of three common IT traps:  Read more »

  Tags: Ticketing, Work-flow

• The Barking Seal Blog celebrates a birthday!

  05Oct
  Author: ned Categories: Green IT, IT Management, Infrastructure, Ramblings, Security Comments: 0

  I’m excited to say that The Barking Seal Blog has been around for a year now! We’ve had a great time blogging, ranting, and pontificating on the future of IT infrastructure, and have especially enjoyed the reader comments and emails.
  Below are ten of our favorite posts from our first year – if you missed one, check it out now…

  • IPv6 in 2009? Are you kidding me?: It sure looks like Trent’s prediction will be correct (for 2010, too!)
  • Save Green – Turn Up That Data Center Thermostat!: Green IT meets real cost savings.
  • New HIPAA modifications under the ARRA: Stimulus package implications for anyone who handles health info.
  • Black Thursday’s 20 year anniversary: A flashback to the beginnings of network security, from someone who was there.
  • Keystroke dynamics: A practical web implementation: Practical?  Maybe not, but certainly interesting!
  • Ten IT Infrastructure New Year Resolutions for 2009: Best practices that IT shops of all sizes should follow.
  • Debugging Nagios performance problems: Performance tuning advice and insight.
  • End-of-year IT checklist: Essential IT housecleaning tasks that you can do any time of the year!
  • Poker at the Work Place? Deep insight into computer science/engineer personalities.
  • Fend off disaster with preventative maintenance: A stitch in time…

  Here’s to lots more entertaining (and hopefully insightful!) posts in the year to come!  Thanks for your comments, feedback, and continued support!

  – The Seals at Applied Trust

  (photo courtesy hfb under the CC)

  
  Tags: applied trust, popular

• Essential WordPress Plugins

  23Sep
  Author: ned Categories: IT Management, Infrastructure Comments: 0

  I like WordPress a lot – it’s my #1 tool for simple web sites.  We use it for The Barking Seal Blog (this site!), but I also use it for a variety of more traditional sites, including the TechFest website, and even my personal wedding web site!

  WordPress isn’t everything, and if you’re looking for a CMS with the longest feature list, don’t bother trying it.  But if you want a reasonably-customizable web site that almost any end-user can update, I endorse it.  Try WordPress.com if you’re not comfortable managing your own web server.

  For the technical folks in the audience, it’s easy to install the free WordPress.org version on any server that supports the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).  It is infinitely customizable (if you know PHP, HTML, and CSS), but will probably meet most your needs “out of the box”.

  If you do use WordPress.org, there are a few plugins that are worth installing… here are the ones that I think every WordPress.org administrator should consider:

  Read more »

  Tags: platform security, web, wordpress

• Firefox and Thunderbird plugins for IT productivity

  10Aug
  Author: ben Categories: IT Management Comments: 0

  I know, there’s dozens and dozens of lists of Firefox plugins out there, but I just have to add my own. I really like Chrome a lot, but I just can’t switch due to my heavy reliance on add ons. Here’s a list of a few of my favorites, some IT-focused, some not. Read on for a list of useful addons.

  

  Read more »

  Tags: Browsers, Firefox

• Fend off disaster with preventative maintenance

  20Jul
  Author: paul Categories: IT Management, Infrastructure Comments: 1

  
  Last week at Applied Trust we held our first annual “Preventative Maintenance Day” (PMD), aimed at preempting software and hardware failures and performing those little tasks that are important, but that are often placed on the back burner in favor of more pressing issues.

  To minimize operational impact, the business day was bordered by two planned downtime periods in which the tasks requiring that systems be offline would occur, in addition to several other maintenance periods that didn’t require infrastructure outages during business hours. Each maintenance period had at least one small team consisting of several people assigned to perform -planned tasks.

  Read more »

  Tags: Availability, Maintenance

• Modern Day Social Engineering

  19Jul
  Author: admin Categories: IT Management, Ramblings, Security Comments: 0

  I’ve always been interested in social engineering.  Well, I guess to be fair, I should cite Kevin Mitnick’s book, “The Art Of Deception” as the official catalyst to my intrigue, but the examples outlined in that book don’t do  modern day social engineering justice.  The art of social engineering has greatly evolved.  The days of cold calling have greatly diminished with the wide spread availability of information on search engines like the Google.  It is now possible to achieve a much higher success rate by scavenging publically available information off of these search engines, which in turn allows an attacker to narrow his search and target a specific individual or department.

  The following scenario outlines a modern day social engineering attempt.

  Social Engineering Exercise 1.

  The social engineer (“SE”) begins by visiting ACME company’s website with the intent of gathering information to aid him in his social engineering attempt.   SE visits the Contact Us page which only provides a general support contact number.  This information by itself is not very useful by itself, but SE records it anyways.  Not to be discouraged, SE browses through the News Releases section of the site, and finds a quote about security from the head of the IT department “Marshall Jones.”  Using various combinations of “Marshall,” “Jones,” and “ACME,” in a search engine, SE uncovers an internal personnel directory that contains contact information for ACME staff.

  Read more »

  Tags: kevin mitnick, modern day social engineering, social engineering, the art of deception

• Dear Ned

  19Jun
  Author: ned Categories: IT Management, Infrastructure, Ramblings Comments: 0

  Here at Applied Trust, we’re often asked tricky IT questions – sometimes, we have answers that might be interesting to a larger audience.  The “Dear Ned” podcast is our chance to share these IT infrastructure questions and answers.  Larry Nelson from w3w3.com will be interviewing us for regular episodes throughout 2009.

  Our first two “Dear Ned” episodes are already on-line and accessible over at w3w3.com!  The first gives an introduction to the series and a discussion of the Conficker worm.  The second is a followup to an earlier blog post, and addresses the question “I saw your blog recommending setting data center thermostats to 75°. Do you really do that? And if so, how’s that working out?”.

  Do you have a tricky IT question?  Submit it here and it may be the next Dear Ned topic!

  A special thanks to our friend Don Wrege for writing and recording our truly wonderful Dear Ned jingle!

  
  Tags: "Dear Ned", popular, rants