Network Dictionary — Freelance

This Post is Part of a Series  —  click for list on Network Dictionary» Freelance  —  the term for a Knight of hon­our that is not pledged to a Lord. Modern Use: per­son who pur­sues a pro­fes­sion without a long-​​​​term com­mit­ment to an employer
On the con­test field, each Knight would pledge his lance to the Lord who owns his fealty. A Knight with no such […]

Network Dictionary — Velvet Rut

“vel­vet rut” describes oper­a­tional prac­tice in a net­work that hasn’t changed in along time. Typically, some action that is done that way “because it’s always done that way”. Because it works and the world is a happy place there­fore the prac­tice must be a good one.
Being stuck in a rut is no excuse for not chan­ging, but good practices […]

Network Dictionary — Tuple

define tuple

Secure Computing Sold to McAfee — What a Waste of Human Life

Press release at Secure Computing web­site con­firm­ing that they have been sold to McAfee  —  its a sad day when one of the best secur­ity tech­no­logy com­pan­ies gets the kiss of death.

FCoE Might Improve Storage but Will Complicate IT and Cause Team Disruption

I was think­ing over the integ­ra­tion of an IT Engineering team to provide a cloud com­put­ing ser­vices. While dis­cuss­ing team respons­ib­il­it­ies and oper­a­tional “edges” I real­ised how divis­ive and dys­func­tional FCoE will be to a team.

The Difference Between Network and Server Engineers — Pictorial

I have been plan­ning cloud com­put­ing sys­tems recently, and had many long dis­cus­sions with dif­fer­ent teams. I have pre­pared the fol­low­ing dia­gram to show the per­cep­tual dif­fer­ence between how each team per­ceives the data centre.

Blog:Considering CCIE Security Training Material

I am ser­i­ously con­sid­er­ing whether to under­take my second CCIE exam by doing the CCIE Security. Since the credit crunch has cre­ated a down­turn in the mar­ket it is the best time to study. I am review­ing the train­ing resources avail­able and decid­ing which products might be worth purchasing.

OS X:Tools — Mental Case — Flash Cards — With iPhone Support

I have a con­stant struggle to mem­or­ise new con­tent and review mater­ial. After some research I decided to try using flash cards as a new tech­nique. Now I have some soft­ware to do this and its one of my favourite tools.

Network Dictionary — Orgy of Failure

“orgy of fail­ure” is the party thrown at the end of large pro­ject to cel­eb­rate it’s “com­ple­tion”.
This is not neces­sar­ily a neg­at­ive term, but usu­ally, it is.
At some point in your career you will be involved in a pro­ject that doesn’t achieve the ori­ginal goals, but will be declared a suc­cess by ‘adapt­ing the goals’ or ‘realign­ing to business […]

TCP SYN Cookies — DDoS Defence

A TCP SYN Cookie is typ­ic­ally used in DDoS engines and load bal­an­cers to cre­ate another level of pro­tocol secur­ity for Denial of Service attacks. Lets take a quick dive through the technology.

Design: Lack of Choice Improves Client Outcomes

One of the prime cri­teria for a design pro­cess is to search for and eval­u­ate design choices. But research sug­gest that excess­ive choice actu­ally pro­duces neg­at­ive out­comes, its hard­wired into the human brain. Therefore a Network Designer needs to ensure that they are over­rid­ing their nat­ural instinct.

Rant: Certguard in Computerworld — Go and Register Your Disgust

Certguard have been men­tioned in a Computerworld art­icle about exam cheats. Please go and leave a com­ment to show how dis­gust­ing that Certguard, who falsely accuse people of cheat­ing, have been used for comment.

Managing and Technical Life — Reprise

Give the amount of mis­in­ter­pret­a­tion from my pre­vi­ous post, let me expand my hypo­thesis a little further.

Network Dictionary — Insufflate

Define Insufflate

Rant:Managing Is Easy Compared to Technical Life

Not every­one will be a good man­ager, but very few people will ever be a good, I mean _​really_​ good, tech­ni­cian or engin­eer. You should be will­ing to pay for that.