Hand-Held Systems Management

Not the management of hand-held systems, although that sounds like a good topic too (future post!), but more so management of your systems from hand-held computing devices.

Being the iPad advocate that I am, I'm going to focus this posting on the iOS platform.

Have I mentioned how much it annoys me (network engineer by trade) that Apple used iOS? Sigh.

So you're a network admin, you have an iOS device, and an IP network of servers, network gear, printers, and other appliances to manage. "Easy, pretty much everything has a web interface, I'll just browse to it, create a shortcut on my iPad, and BAM, I'm done."
I won't argue that is one way to do it, but I won't agree it's the best.

To start with, what is your management platform? Are you a shop running HP SiteScope management software? You're in luck - download the free SiteScope app for your iPad or iPhone. It's an iPhone app, so it'll work on the iPad, but doesn't take advantage of the bigger real estate afforded by the iPad (yet?). So there's your portable network/sys admin view into the current status of your systems.

Not a SiteScope user? Hmm, well there's other options...

Most ESMs (Enterprise Service Management Applications) have a web interface, you can shortcut that to the tablet; but likely the scale/layout will be designed for a PC screen, not a tablet so you will have to (if allowed that flexibility) create a custom dashboard for tablets.

So there's your high-level view into things, but when you really want to roll up your sleeves, here's some iPad apps I use and find practical:

IP Calculator - simple intuitive interface. Not for IPv6, but that's not a big problem for me (yet...)

VTrace - handy for troubleshooting routing situations in wide-area networks.

WinAdmin - RDP client to access those pesky Windows servers. Solid and reliable, easy to use. Even easier if you get a Bluetooth keyboard for your iPad.

MyRouters Pro - console management of multiple Cisco devices (you know, the real IOS?).

gUnit - being Canadian, I frequently have to make metric/imperial conversions; this tool is excellent at that.

Dropbox - my number one way to move files between my laptop & iPad.

Note Taker HD - have to take quick hand-written notes in a technical meeting, or sketch up network diagrams on the fly? This tool works fantastically for me (best with a stylus though).

I'm using all these apps on iOS 4.2.1 using the original iPad hardware.

HPSWU EMEA Update #1

Last night in Barcelona at the Vivit Worldwide chapter leaders dinner, Dr. Andreas Birk accepted the volunteer of the year award for his work in establishing and growing the TQA Special Interest Group.

Karen Semonsen, President of Vivit Worlwide, presented Dr. Birk with the award to a round of applause from his peers.



It was a fantastic evening of dining and fellowship at the 7 Portes restaurant. The Vivit Board of Directors hosted notable Vivit chapter and SIG leaders from across the EMEA region who braved the near whiteout conditions across North & West Europe to travel to the dinner the night prior to the EMEA HP Software Universe event, here in Barcelona.

Also honoured by special mention was Olli Laiho from Finland for his work on the TQA SIG. All the Vivit volunteers in EMEA and around the world are sincerely appreciated for their tireless efforts and personal sacrifices to share knowledge, build community, and promote advocacy in application and operations management software and best practices. If you are interested in connecting with HP Software users in your region/country/city, stop by the Vivit booth (B06) on the HPSWU Barcelona show floor (right beside the Demo Theatre) and ask one of our great team members for more information.

Prior to last nights festivities, the Vivit Board of Directors had spent two long work days sequestered in a board room to prioritise and assign the tactical workload that will make the Vivit strategic vision into reality. Future updates on the Vivit site will announce some of the results of this work, but it was the most productive board meeting I've personally attended, and the directors seemed to all leave surprisingly energised for a group suffering from jet lag.

If you're in Barcelona, and want to get an idea of some of the exciting things Vivit is planning for 2011, please make sure you stop by the booth, or look for any of the board members or chapter leaders wearing FC Barcelona jerseys under their suit jackets - and stop by the booth for you chance to win your own authentic FC Barcelona jersey. Boy, are we glad they won last night!

Building a Career in IT

I've been asked a few times "how do I get a job like yours?" which reminds me how fortunate I am to have had the professional experiences I've had which have gotten me to where I am today; but is also a reminder that there's lots more to do yet.

Build a Plan
The number one way I've gotten to where I have so far; and intend to continue on further, is by building a plan. I've always had 5 year strategic personal & professional plans, and 1 & 3 year tactical plans that roll over and are built on the over-all goal. Basically, I sit down and say to myself, "what do I want to have achieved in 5 years?" Something realistic, achievable, and measurable. The big goal for the next 5 years. Or goals, of course - why limit yourself to one? :-)
The big strategic goals can be as varied (professionally speaking) from starting your own business, to achieving a certain level of leadership, to becoming internationally renown in your field.

Make the Plan Do-Able
Next up, take that (those) goal(s) and break them down into smaller, achievable tactical pieces. Any major goal you set for your five year plan should be able to be broken into smaller pieces that build upon each other to get you to that goal. Undoubtedly, this will take some time, and take some thought. A key way I've been able to determine these achievable short-term goals is by finding a mentor who has achieved either that 5 year goal I've set for myself, or something similar. Build a relationship with that person, and allow them to coach you on what key pieces must be in place for over-all success.

Measure & Manage
So your five-year goal is set; you've also broken it into key milestones that must be successfully completed in order to reach that goal. Now you need to set yourself metrics so that you know if you're on track. Metrics such as: "I must have passed this specific certification exam by this specific date." While this is simply an example of a technical milestone, it shows that you have broken your goal into achievable peices, you've set a date for when you must have achieved that milestone, and helps keep you focused on a tangible reality, instead of a fluffy, feel-good goal with no substance. And hey, when you DO pass the exam, it's a reason to celebrate you being that much closer to your over-all goal. Equally important you need to have a management methodology for actions to take if you are veering off-course of those milestones. If you miss a date, what will you do? If you fail the exam, then what? Think this through, talk it over with your mentor, and make sure you know how to set yourself up for success.

Any of this is achievable, you just need to allow a reasonable amount of time, break it into do-able steps, set metrics to measure your progress (and determine how to correct if you're veering off-course), and keep focused. The timelines I've given are simply the ones I like to use; they don't have to be yours. But whatever you do keep the steps achievable, and seek out mentorship. That's a recipe for success.

Day in the Life - July 29, 2010

Normal start for a Thursday; drive 30 minutes from my house to the Skytrain, ride the Skytrain for 30 minutes to Science World station, and then walk along the False Creek seawall (behind the Athlete's Village, under the Cambie St bridge, to Leg-in-Boot & the marina) and up the hill to my office at VGH to start the day.

During my walk I check my Blackberry for any urgent e-mails and notice I've continued to get messages once an hour from our pilot remote temperature sensor project indicating that a data closet has been at 34-35 C all night. Certainly not ideal, but shows that the pilot project is working excellently and that we have the objective information we need to bring to the facilities team to find a solution.

On the plus side, that's really the only email of significance so far today; that'll change but at least there's no emergencies this morning.

A review of my calendar and to-do list has me getting focused for the day ahead, and it's only just after 07:30.

Next thing to be working on is the Incident Management Working Group documentation; I need to review this in advance of the meeting I'll be attending with that working group on UBC campus later this morning. That also means I'll need to plan my time so I have the 30 minutes in advance to catch the shuttle from VGH to UBC. But for now, heads-down in to the documentation to make sure I'm ready. Although undoubtedly there'll be some other distractions before I walk to the shuttle...

Got to campus, attending the meeting, came out with progress and results; feeling good about that one. Shuttled back to my office and got heads-down into some paper-work that needed my attention. Got through that, and moved on to catching up with some of my team working nearby to find out what they are up-to today.

Back to the office, fielded some vendor phone calls, and got back to work reviewing documentation prepared by the team, provided feedback to senior management on other initiatives, and getting my team's incident & project management stats up-to-date.

Wrapped the day with a meeting with the Health Authorities to discuss some network gear status and developed a short action plan to deal with that, and then headed back to the skytrain for the trek home. Along the way home picked up more email on the blackberry and reviewed more network & process documentation.

And that's an average day - well, a little lighter on meetings than a truly average day, but pretty close!

In retrospect on the day, it's good to look at how I used my time, and determine how/where I can use it more wisely moving forward. I also have been reviewing my communications and trying to see where I can improve those. Always room for improvement, always lots to learn.

HPSWU 2010 Part 1 - Behind the Scenes with Vivit

Thursday morning, my last day at the HP Software Universe, and after a quick breakfast with Jim Murphy from Pepperweed Consulting I'm covering the Vivit showcase floor booth until my team-mates finish their breakfast and start their shifts.

So I feel like I've been in D.C. forever at this point, as I flew in last Friday and have now been here almost a full week. While the conference only started in earnest on Tuesday, my arrival so much in advance was to attend the Vivit Board of Directors meetings all-day Saturday & Sunday.

What happens at these mysterious meetings is mostly a lot of getting organised for the year ahead, and making sure that the most important operational issues of managing an international users group are identified, prioritised, and assigned; and when we can, get action items with due dates!

One of the other big benefits is getting time with the HP executives and making progress on our relationship between the user community and the software giant.

To iPad or Not To iPad?

While technically the iPad isn't even available in my neck of the woods yet, that hasn't stopped enterprising Canucks who live near the border from ducking down across the line and bringing one home. Yesterday I got my first in-person glance at one during a meeting downtown, and was suitably impressed at the usability and form. But with the product soon to be more widely available, I have to consider whether I'll indulge in this product and give it the itManageCast "Seal of Approval" or pass it off as another techno-fad?

For the past while I've been coming closer and closer to jumping in and buying myself an e-book reader, but the problem I've had with the products breaks into one of two chief complaints:
a) too small
b) too limited in function

To me, the purpose of getting such a device is to lighten my briefcase, and have some side benefits of an administrative/remote access tool and ideally also include recreation/leisure capabilities.

Screen Size
Maybe it's just the age I'm getting to, but if I'm going to be spending any serious amount of time reading off an electronic platform, it needs to be bigger than a paperback. Especially since a lot of the material I plan to read is technical in nature, and will include diagrams, images, and colour. I want the ability to upload any PDF file or other document format I happen to get technical docs and white papers in, plus various e-book formats. This starts to really limit the field of currently available products. The 5-6" Sony readers are just too small for my uses. The format size on the Kindle DX would work (9.7" reading surface) and the current version supports PDFs natively.

The e-ink technology is amazing in various light conditions; I tried one of these last year at a trade show and was impressed by the ambient direct-light readability of the screen. But it's still only grey-scale, no colour.

Form Versus Function
Tablet PCs can do all of this, but they are WAY heavy; that footprint takes us out of the zone I'm comfortable holding & reading. What they do offer is the multiplicity of functions that I'm after.

So what am I looking for? I need a device that can be my reader and my notebook. If I'm going to move away from carrying paper I want to truly do that. I want a device that will replace my journal/notes and accommodate the copious notes I take in day, random and frequent updates to my calendar, various tech docs I want in my "hip pocket," Internet access, e-mail access, and the ability to create/read/edit simple documents on the go.

I don't think I'm alone in this, am I?

Additionally, if this same device can be used on occasion as a network console connection, all the better.

What's Left to Consider?

So I figure I'm looking at the iPad, but its got me a little jittery - it seems that it does nearly everything I want in the form-factor I want, but it's that "Apple lock-down" I'm not too certain about. Can I connect it to an external USB drive or an external monitor? How reliable and functional is the 802.11b/g/n connection? I've read reports that have noted issues. Not only that, but now the stories break that the 3G signal strength exceeds national standards in Israel. And how many other countries I wonder?

So what are the alternatives?
I recently came across a product about to be released by German manufacturers using a combo of Linux & Andriod for an O/S, and an Intel Atom processor. The product is dubbed the WePad, and it boasts a larger multi-touch display, although shorter battery life (6 hrs vs. the touted 10 of the iPad). WePad is worth looking at in my view, being a bit of an OpenSource bigot... WePad is due out in the market August 2010 in Europe, so I'll tell you what folks at Neophonie; send me a unit to work with for a week or so and I'll get my review out on what I think sounds like a viable alternative to the iPad.

Now I will commence holding my breath.

Security Perspective on Social Networking

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn... all words that can make the IT manager's skin crawl. The simple solution is to block the URLs at the firewall; once people are plugged in at the office, too bad, no social networking on work time. I think that's the way most IT manager's would prefer it. We're a bit of a draconian bunch, largely because this is the kind of stuff that just ends up making problems for us.

But is this the best approach? Other managers in the organisation may be concerned about morale, and want these sites available to their staff - well we certainly don't want to start creating exception rules in the firewalls or network compliance tools to manage which users get access and which don't. More business centric reasons exist as well; some business units may want to use these sites for market research, sales/marketing, recruiting, and other functions.

I've recently seen some interesting and creative use of combining the three main social media sites for marketing and recruitment processes. An organisation I was meeting with last week was telling me about how they use Facebook & Twitter accounts to monitor customer satisfaction with their products and services, and respond quickly to concerns from their customers or deal with urban myths about them that get propagated through these media. From a business perspective, that approach makes a lot of sense. This same organisation also uses individual LinkedIn accounts from their recruitment professionals as a mechanism to reach out to prospective new employees and contractors, and ties it all together with Facebook & Twitter promotion of new positions and recruitment drives.

So in this scenario, the IT team has to work with the other business units (sales, marketing, and HR) to make sure they can get timely access to the tools, ensure that they maintain corporate image and privacy, and verify the content of those sites - both what is "going out" and what is "coming in."

Where do you start?
Ensure first that the leaders of the organisation understand the challenges for the IT team, possible budget implications, and risks.

For certain, a review of existing organisational IT usuage policies. First off, so you have them in place? Secondly, have they been distributed (recently) and signed off? And lastly, does the language (hopefully not too "lawyered up" so that people understand what they are committing to) apply to this kind of scenario?

What questions should you ask?
Once you've established who's allowed to do what, it becomes a question next of enforcing the rules while allowing the business functionality that's been agreed to. Now we get into the business analysis side of the equation. Understand clearly what the business needs are so that your team can work with the rest of the business to deliver the solution that makes the most sense.

You'll need to look at technical considerations, some of which might be:
Will Twitter use be via the web interface, or 3rd party apps like TweetDeck?
Will you allow all Facebook apps, or try and block some (like games, etc.)?
Will this be allowed corporate wide, or group by group?


Who's already looking down this path?
There are developers such as Teneros and SocialWare who are developing middleware-like apps that monitor content for these sites, to ensure that the organisation knows what is going out or coming in. These tools have some limitations, so it's best to research the options closely, but it's good to know you HAVE options! SocialWare is particularly interesting to me and likely may be the subject of a future blog posting.

Check through your personal network (errr, via LinkedIn?) to see who else is in your shoes and dealing with this kind of challenge today. I was surprised to learn recently how many organisations haven't even started to deal with this from an IT perspective yet. I know we're busy, but...

As always, your feedback and input on this article is greatly appreciated; reply with your thoughts and I'll post them for continued conversation.