The Hub and Spoke!

Mistakes do not need to be failures. Great inventions have started out as mistakes and have become winners. Here are a few examples.

Polaroid, which is associated with the first form of instant photography and innovations in eyewear, was founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land, to exploit the use of polarizing polymer. Land ran the company which was the Apple of its time. He was a Steve Jobs type leader, a scientist who guided the company for four decades until 1981. Its peak employment was 21,000 in 1978, and its peak revenue was $3 billion in 1991. Polaroid went titsup in the 2000s. Read more about Polaroid over at LinkedIn here .

SDN has become increasingly popular, but what does it actually do? The truth is, it means different things to different people. Although it's a bit of an umbrella term, it essentially comes down to programmers configuring networks to send data down specific paths, rather than leaving it up to network protocols to show the way. This means, instead of data following the sets of protocols inside the network switches - the switches are basically running independently from each other - to get to their destinations, data is directed by an application called a 'controller', which tells the switches how to route the data. The networks can be fine-tuned to deal with specific services or issues. Take, for example, the deluge of data coming from Internet of things (IoT) devices or video on demand. Instead of having the switches protocols direct what to do with the data, the controller's instructions directs where the data from these devices should go. Networks

The following is what information you need to collect when initiating an Information Technology (IT) project.

A suitable set of metrics needs to be selected that can be used to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of Information Technology (IT).  To assist in this selection the following important IT metrics to dashboard is provided here .

The race to the cloud continues as South Africa is slowly transforming into a digital economy. Andrew Cruise, CEO, Routed, a cloud infrastructure provider, says that South Africa’s cloud maturity levels are still lower than other countries, but the market looks promising: “From a data centre perspective, we have seen the market double in the past five years and it is still growing more than 10% annually. This is a strong indication of the overall growth of the cloud market.” Read the article over at Digital Street here .

"One day the company decided on a turn around strategy which was to increase sales and cut costs. The strategy did not work. All that happened is that support staff were laid off and more sales people hired instead. The customers, however, became disillusioned because the service deteriorated. Then there was the infamous cost saving stunt of no more water coolers or Ricoffy. (Ricoffy is the low cost instant brand for Nescafe Coffee)." Read the full article on LinkedIn by Ronald Bartels.

The roads in the 1920's in the Natal Midlands were dark and dusty at night. There were very few tarred roads and not many cars. My grandmother and her aunt's family were in a car which on one dark night collided with a train. The result was the death of her aunt's husband and her three children. My grandmother and her aunt survived although they each had numerous broken bones. Read the full story over at LinkedIn here .

Not everyone responds to coffee in the same way.  Depending on your genetic make-up, you might be able to drink coffee right before bed or feel wired after just one cup, ongoing research shows. Read the full article over at Knowridge here .

Connor Krukosky is an 18-year-old college student with a hobby of collecting vintage computers. One day, he decided to buy his own mainframe...an IBM z890. This is his story.

MyBroadband readers know Jannie van Zyl as one of the pioneers behind Vodacom’s 3G launch in 2005, the former iBurst CEO, and the current head of innovation at Vodacom. Read the full article over at MyBroadband here .

When people refer to greater leaders of World War II, they refer to Churchill or Patton. When people refer to greater leaders in technology it is Jobs, Gates or Cerf. But there are greater leaders of World War II and technology than Churchill, Patton, Jobs, Gates or Cerf. They are Turing and Flowers but history would not acknowledge them as such. Their work was the foundation of the allied victory in World War II, and forms the basis of computer technology which underlies our modern society. Read more about Turing and Flowers over at LinkedIn here .

Dear Nigella, Thank you for the Kerfees koek recipe. I especially like the delicious white powdery icing sugar you recommended.  Read the rest of the letter over at LinkedIn here .

In the major incident process, timelines are the most important aspect of the process to do right. The reason is that it is the best source of data for problem management, which oversees the process from a quality viewpoint. Deviations from the norm are clear indicators of underlying issues. The timelines in the major incident process are aligned with the ITIL process as these timelines in ITIL are referred to as the Expanded Incident Lifecycle. Read the article over at LinkedIn here .

Introducing the new Moogsoft AIOps, includes Real-Time Service Dashboard, Collaborative Team-Based Workflow, Algorithmic Clustering Engine (ACE) & Mobile Version. The new Moogsoft AIOps is a realization of thousands of hours of development, and we know that these innovations will help ITOps and DevOps teams in the world’s leading companies focus their resources intelligently, and ensure a higher quality customer experience than ever before possible.

Sens’it Discovery is an IoT end-to-end solution provided by Sigfox. It combines the Sens’it device connected to Sigfox network with an application. Sens’it Discovery has 5 different modes:  1. Temperature and humidity monitoring  2. Light monitoring  3. Door opening detection  4. Vibration detection  5. Magnet detection  The Sens’it is a multi-sensor Sigfox Ready certified device. It can suit many IoT applications, it is up to your imagination! Sens’it Discovery includes: 1 Sens’it device and accessories 1 year application access & Sigfox connectivity 50 SMS Learn more at: https://www.sensit.io/

This checklist is based on those published by the SABS . Review the full checklist over at LinkedIn here .

An old ad but still one of the best!  The Vodacom Meerkat appears as a stripper.... PS:  I remember this was the song when I met my future wife.

The power grid isn’t what it used to be. Grid operators need to address the growing challenges of a new “active grid,” which requires integrating microgrids, renewables, demand response, and customers that not only consume energy but produce it, too . In this new reality, customers have generation and energy management capabilities all the way down to the low-voltage distribution network . Read the full article over at tech.insights here .

Energy is the largest operating expense in commercial buildings, requiring approximately one-third of operating budgets. To reduce costs, property owners and managers are turning to the Internet of Things (IoT), with systems deployed in facilities ranging from office buildings to industrial campuses to schools and universities. Read the full article over at insight.tech here .

I recently attended a presentation where the outcome was a lost audience. If only the presenter used this checklist which is constructed from a post about Sir Ken Robinson, on Presentation Zen . Checkout the checklist over at LinkedIn here .

Companies have turned to video conferencing to strategize, sell, recruit, and react. Unlike other collaborative tools, video conferencing will expose you, if you are a dog. Read the full article over at LinkedIn here .

View the presentation over at Moogsoft here .

Zen and the Art of motorcycle maintenance is one of my favourite books. What motorcycles are to Pirsig, computers are to me. He spent hours tinkering on the motorcycle and I spent hours tinkering on the computer (as can be verified when I'm trying to work out why something on the network is slow). Pirsig demonstrates that motorcycle maintenance may be dull and tedious drudgery or an exciting and pleasurable pastime. It all depends on the inner attitude and peace of mind (or the lack of it). Read the article over at LinkedIn here .

Leaders should have honour. I am reminded of the movie "A few good men" in which the marines on trial are found not guilty but are still discharged from the corp. The reason as one of them states is that they did not protect their weaker colleagues, which goes to the root of honour. Read the article over at LinkedIn here .

Right now there is almost certainly an enterprise exec in a boardroom somewhere saying, “We need it to go viral.” Kittens and memes and babies kissing puppies… viral. When most people think about going viral, they think about raising a lot of awareness for their product or company. But what about money in the bank, what does going viral mean for your bottom line? Read the full article over at cxl here .

It was a shared "wow!" for millions across the globe: a video showing kids in a gym watching as a whale appeared to breach the floor, leap high in the air and come crashing down with water flying everywhere. Read the article over at the Register here .

The FBI has reminded the world it wants us to reboot our routers to try and help it identify VPNFilter-affected routers.  It first asked for reboots last Wednesday, May 23, in the Department of Justice VPNFilter media release , but on Friday added a stand-alone public service announcement emphasising its "IT Crowd" strategy. Read the full article over at the Register here .

The Winchester House should have been the culmination of home design around the turn of the 20th century. It was built by a very wealthy individual, Sarah Winchester, widow of the rifle magnate. It's an impressive house until you look closely: Find out more about the Winchester house and the correlation to IT architecture here .

Of all the shovel playing dudes out there, this is my favourite!

'Jamming' is all about having fun with many instruments. Thanks to my filming friend Elijah Cavanagh we captured what it is like to have six Juzzies jamming together. Very groovy and even some smooth dance moves. I hope this clip puts a smile on your face that lasts a long time. If you would like to buy the song or check out more please visit http://juzziesmith.com

Analogies are overused and abused. I once heard that an analogy is like a leaking bucket, you can only carry it so far before it is empty. Here is my list of favourite leaking buckets. 

Many moons ago I wrote about the demise of MPLS and in the intervening years SDWAN has matured. The future enterprise connectivity is now dramatically changing as the norm will eventually becomes SDWAN. MPLS will be relegated to memory in much the same as what happened to ISDN in telephony. Read the full article over at LinkedIn here .

Often I see technicians dealing with issues and problems while sitting firmly on the seat of their pants at their desks. Call me old school, but I do not think this works! There is no substitute for the eyeball. Read the full article over at LinkedIn here .

“Malcolm is a technical visionary with the ablity to approach solutions in a methodological manner. He has developed frameworks and delivered applications of substantial quality. He is one of the most approachable and rewarding individual’s to work with on a project.”  — Ronald Bartels , Infrastructure Manager, Investec, worked with Malcolm at Investec Securities Find out more about Malcolm here .

This is a Japanese phrase meaning “go and see for yourself”, which is a central pillar of the Toyota Way, the famous management system adopted by the Japanese car company. Genchi genbutsu is sometimes referred to as “get your boots on”, which has a similar cadence and meaning. It is not dissimilar to the idea behind management by walking about (MBWA), an all-too-briefly popular American version of the same principle. Read the full article over at the Economist here .

I nfracom 2018: South Africa's must-visit data centre networking event of the year will take place on Thursday 14 June 2018 at Kyalami's "Theatre on the Track". Infracom is a niche one-day exhibition and conference focusing on delivering real South African content for technology leaders in search for solid cost-effective solutions in the data centre space. Read the article over at ITWeb here .

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That's three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened—the bastards went to four blades. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five blades.  Read the article over at the Onion here .  This article is referenced in this presentation which you can view here .

At least they created #shitpaper!  A very interesting presentation.

We have discussed high latency a bit in my previous HakTip, but I wanted to go into it with some more detail. As you look at packets in a Wireshark capture, you'll notice that with a normal connection, your transmission happens in under a second. Now if you look at a few packets with slow communication, they show up to be almost a second each. This would be called wire latency because of the slowness happening on the wire, not the source or destination. Find out more about Wireshark here or checkout this more comprehensive list of monitoring tools here .

Let us look at the distances between major cities in the world (images from timeanddate.com ) and see how far Johannesburg really is from all of them. Read the article which is my first on LinkedIn over here .

Grafana allows you to query, visualize, alert on and understand your metrics no matter where they are stored. Create, explore, and share dashboards with your team and foster a data driven culture . Find out more here or for a more comprehensive list look here .

Noction IRP is a complete BGP automation platform for hosts, telcos and MSPs designed to dramatically improve network performance. Find out more here or checkout a more comprehensive list of tools here .

This is a list of over 500 tools used for Network (both LAN and WAN) Monitoring tools and where to find out more about them. The audience is mainly network administrators. Find out more here or look at my list over here .

The Free Edition of the LoriotPro software gives you access to a powerful graphical snmp manager . This free Windows based software helps you to access snmp devices, to create IP network maps and directory maps, manage IP routers,to analyze snmp requests,to perform snmp get and set requests, to compile mib files, to browse mib tree, to receive events and snmp trap , to discover networks and hosts. Download the software here or checkout a more comprehensive list of tools here .

Pandora FMS is an enterprise-ready monitoring solution that provides unparalleled flexibility for IT to address both immediate and unforeseen operational issues, including infrastructure and IT processes. It uniquely enables business and IT to adapt to changing needs through a flexible and rapid approach to IT and business deployment. Pandora FMS consolidates all the needs of modern monitoring (ITOM, APM, BAM) and provides status and performance metrics from different operating systems, virtual infrastructure (VMware, Hyper-V, XEN), Docker containers, applications, storage and hardware devices such as firewalls, proxies, databases, web servers or routers. It's highly scalable (up to 2000 nodes with one single server), 100% web and with multi-tenant capabilities. It has a very flexible ACL system and several different graphical reports and user-defined control screens. Download the software here or for a more comprehensive list look here .

As an enterprise, the cloud holds great potential, but the cloud does not solve your problems – if you have an operational problem now, you'll have it in the cloud as well. If anything, the cloud makes operations remote and you'd need to up your game to be able to leverage it effectively. Read the article over at LinkedIn here .

This article here details on how an enterprise can move to the cloud using a basic assessment. This assessment is outlined and can be used for determining the viability and selection of suitable cloud providers. Although not detailed the provided outline should serve well as a starting point and guideline.

Features Automatic discovery Automatically discover your entire network using CDP, FDP, LLDP, OSPF, BGP, SNMP and ARP. Customisable alerting Highly flexible alerting system, notify via email, irc, slack and more. API Access A full API to manage, graph and retrieve data from your install. Billing system Generate bandwidth bills for ports on your network based on usage or transfer.

SNMP stands for simple network management protocol. It is a way that servers can share information about their current state, and also a channel through which an administer can modify pre-defined values. While the protocol itself is very simple, the structure of programs that implement SNMP can be very complex. Find out more over at Digital Ocean here .

All 42 farm portions required for Phase 1 of the global SKA radio astronomy project have been secured. An amount of R709-million has been set aside for the SKA this year, and R2.2-billion over the next three years. So far R4.4-billion has been spent on the SKA project . This includes the R3.2-billion for the MeerKAT, as well as land acquisition, the resurfacing of 80 km of road to the site, the construction of 110 km of powerlines and the MeerKAT data centre. It also includes the precursor Karoo Array Telescope and human capital development for the wider SKA project . Read the article on Creamer Media here .

Black-owned cybersecurity experts Magix Africa and Dataproof, together with local biometric authentication specialists Fides Cloud Technologies , are now verifying and managing social grant recipients’ identification data for the South African Post Office (SAPO). Read the media release over at Creamer media here .

A hydrogen explosion occurred in an Uninterruptible Power Source (UPS) battery room. The explosion blew a 400 ft2 hole in the roof, collapsed numerous walls and ceilings throughout the building, and significantly damaged a large portion of the 50,000 ft2 building. Fortunately, the computer/data center was vacant at the time and there were no injuries. Read more about the explosion over at hydrogen tools here .