Rob's Thoughts

Manhattan

2012-01-21T10:32:00.002-06:00

I've recently made two trips to New York City as the company I work for opened a new office in Manhattan. Being in Manhattan reminded me of my time in Tokyo - lots of activity and lots of concrete, people & pavement.

One of the first things you notice is the frenzied activity - lots of honking horns and people talking. Something else you notice occurs while waiting to cross the street. The native New Yorkers know exactly when to start walking (meaning before the light turns) while visitors like me wait until the sign says walk. This is a way to tell who is a local and who is from out-of-town.

Everything is narrow, restaurants, shops, even the hotel rooms. But since Manhattan is an island and one of the most expensive places on Earth, it makes sense. I was able to find a nice little deli type shop to get an inexpensive lunch ($10) named Le Mirage Cafe (on W. 43rd Street). No such luck when it came to dinner - everywhere was expensive.

Something else that I noticed about Manhattan is how bad AT&T's cellular service is. Verizon & Spring worked well, but I came across several people who simply could not make a call using their AT&T phones.

Rob

Cold Hard Facts for People Seeking A Job...

2011-10-24T14:14:00.001-05:00

Separate your work from your company

Your company does not care about your work as long as it is contributing to its business goals. Only your family and some friends care about your work and they don’t pay the bills. You need to look at your work as a set of skills you can sell to employers, not the fact that you work for a company.

http://bit.ly/n0x6Nc

IT Operations and keeping the lights on.....

2011-10-14T15:50:00.001-05:00

As the IT Manager for a geographically dispersed organization, I spend much of my time “keeping the lights on” - meaning making sure that the voice & data networks are up & running. A better way to refer to this is IT Operations and that is what I spend the majority of my time on.

Now the cloud computing proponents out there would tell you, “Hey, with the Cloud you have nothing to worry about” but that is not actually the case. All the Cloud does is make computing resource available over the Internet (via web services). End users must still get to the Cloud and most folks still work in an office building which means a Local Area Network (LAN) so people can share local computing resources. And Local Area Networks, just like Wide Area Networks (WAN), mean Identification & Authentication (IdA) plus don’t forget Authorization. Because I manage a geographically dispersed network, I deal with LAN and WAN networking as well as Cloud issues – has anyone heard of DNS (aka Domain Name Services)? If you have, good and if you haven’t, do a bit of homework because it’s important. Both internal & external DNS must be managed so whether the SoA (Start of Authority) for your organization is your ISP or a third party vendor, someone within your organization still must be in charge. There is always a person responsible for the important things.

How about Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Cloud-based applications? Your company is still responsible for the customer & client data in the databases that are the backend systems of all SaaS solutions. It is immaterial whether the server housing your confidential customer data resides locally (meaning “on premises”) or in the Cloud – you are still responsible for protecting it. Who administers the user accounts of SaaS applications? The Cloud vendor’s responsibility is to make sure “the lights are on” – meaning the application is up & running and nothing more. Your firm must still decide which employees get access to what data and that is an organizational decision. What doesn’t have to be done is the maintenance work on the individual servers that would house the application software if they were on premises. That is one advantage of the Cloud that is undeniable and a reduction in the amount of work the internal IT staff has to do by about 10%.

So your organization has moved its critical systems into the Cloud (public, private, or hybrid it doesn’t matter – all that matters is that the systems are not on premises). Ensuring that the end users have access to these systems is IT Operations and still the responsibility of the internal IT staff. Teleworkers working remotely from their homes, sales people on the road, and employees spread out among branch offices all represent the different kinds of access required for an organization to function. Oh, did I forget to mention phone service? Well, these days with simple VoIP solutions such as Skype or more complex telephony solutions, phone service is just another form of data – getting access to your phone is the same as getting access to your applications.

A good principle to remember is C-I-A which means Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. Integrate these principles into your IT Operations so that regardless of where you compute from (locally or in the Cloud), you can feel confident in your systems.

Rob

May the wings of Liberty never lose a feather......

2011-10-10T15:57:00.001-05:00

Here's to the Army and Navy and the battles they have won; here's to America's colors, the colors that never run. May the wings of Liberty never lose a feather.

Again with the Google Apps vs. Microsoft Exchange!

2011-08-15T10:46:00.002-05:00

Again with the Google Apps vs. Microsoft Exchange!

Google put out another one of their "Google Apps vs. Microsoft Exchange" webinars. The quote from Google is, "Many companies are faced with a choice: upgrade to a more costly enterprise license for Microsoft Exchange or find a business grade alternative at a better price."

If you want to do an apples-to-apples comparison, then you must compare Google Apps for Business with the hosted version of Microsoft Exchange from a vendor such as Rackspace. Comparing Google Apps to an on premises installation of Exchange is disengenuous because it is not an apt comparison. Comparing Google Apps to hosted Exchange means that you are looking at cloud-based email services from different vendors.

For businesses & workers who utilize Microsoft Outlook, hosted Exchange services works well. I know that Google Apps supports Outlook, but it is just not the same. Or if you prefer to just use a web browser, Exchange's Outlook Web Application (OWA) + Internet Explorer offers a feature rich web-based email experience. Google Apps + Chrome looks the same as does Google Apps + Firefox or Google Apps + Internet Explorer. Plus let's not forget the integration advantages offered by Exchange if you run Windows Active Directory for identification & authentication.

As for mobile support, with the advent of Exchange Active Sync (EAS), practically any modern smartphone can hook directly into an Exchange environment. I myself use an Android-based smartphone with both Gmail & Exchange Active Sync running on it and there isn't much difference between the two clients.

Google touts the fact that they use Postini Services for effective spam filtering. If you go with hosted Exchange services, the vendor will also do spam filtering. Most anti-spam technologies these days are very good and rely upon the same black lists so I'm not sure if Postini Services is leaps & bounds ahead of what others can offer in terms of blocking junk emails.

I'm speaking about all of this from first hand experience. I have two entities that I'm responsible for. The first is an organization with 50 employees spread across four locations plus teleworkers. I run my own internal anti-spam & email servers. By doing so I'm able to access any & all message traffic to & from the three email domains that I operate. For the smaller of the two entities that I'm responsible for, because I started them out from scratch, I went with hosted Exchange services. Initial setup & configuration were straight-forward and so was the setup for each individual mailbox. Configuring Outlook to use hosted Exchange was also a simple process. But I get this feeling of dread every month when I get billed. I feel like I'm being nickle & dimed as I'm charged for each & every mailbox. You want a mailbox to use for public postings, that will cost you. You want a mailbox for a logical group of users, that will cost you too. With my on premises Exchange server, I can create, modify, and and disable mailboxes as needed. Google charges $50 per year per mailbox while Rackspace charges $156 per year per mailbox. Pricing should be a primary consideration when weighing your options. Remember that with both vendors, as you add mailboxes, you add costs so your OpEx goes up. Do you own calculation for my setup - more than 100 mailboxes spread across three (3) email domains. Whether it's Google or Rackspace, they'd charge me for each mailbox in each email domain so in fact I'd be looking at triple the cost. From Google I'm looking at $150 per mailbox each year and from Rackspace I'm looking at $468 per mailbox each year. Wow, that is a lot of money.

As I'd mentioned earlier, I run my own anti-spam & Exchange servers on premises but not inhouse. I've put these system into a collocation facility. One of the benefits of a collocation facility is that along with the messaging system, I've re-located other internal infrastructure critical systems into the facility. Some might call this setup a "Private Cloud." I refer to is as Business Continuity. I pay the same amount each month no matter how many mailboxes I create plus I have protection for my internal infrastructure and that is something that Google can't do.

My goal as the Technology Manager for a small organization is to offer cost effective messaging, identification, and authentication services to the business. Management must be able to control who has access to what and when they have access. Running Exchange internally allows me to do this.

Rob

'Cloud Computing' and how it has affected my job as the IT Manager for a small business

2011-07-16T21:51:00.003-05:00

I’ll keep my example focused on a single piece of software, CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

When I joined my current firm, they used an on-premises CRM that required a fat client to be installed plus a network drive mapping in order to work. I was responsible for the server hardware (including warranty coverage), the application itself (purchase of the initial product + ongoing support), backing up data on the server, backing up the server itself (which is different), and keeping the server powered up and cooled down.

The positive was that we weren’t being nickel & dimed for every user account. A negative was that the old CRM didn’t work well across a wide area network (WAN) because it was never designed to be used in such a way.

Because the server that housed the CRM sat in a room in an office building, it was vulnerable to any ‘event’ that might affect Houston. A prime example is 2008’s Hurricane Ike.

The new CRM is software-as-a-service (known as SaaS) and thus has business continuity built into it. A SaaS CRM works well across a wide area network because it was designed from the ground up to work in a distributed environment (i.e., the Internet).

A negative aspect of a SaaS CRM is that we are getting nickel & dimed by the vendor when it comes to per-user licensing.

Running reports from the SaaS CRM is painfully slow and as the vendor adds more customers to their shared environment, things get even slower. SaaS vendors only make money by adding more & more customers while not adding additional resources to support their growing environment. It’s the old adage of, “Let’s see how many people we can fit in a telephone booth.”

I still must take backups of my firm’s data from the SaaS CRM (via FTP) just in case something happens to the vendor. Always have a backup plan, whether it’s a cloud based application or on-premises software. That will never change.

I still have to create new user accounts, disable old user accounts, and set access rights to the SaaS CRM just like I did with the old on-premises CRM. That aspect of my job has not changed. What the SaaS vendor provides is the environment and it’s up to the customer to determine who gets access to what.

Overall, I still must administer the CRM, it has built in business continuity features, it works well for all of my office locations, but the SaaS CRM can be slow and is affected by not only your connection to the Internet, but the traffic patterns of the Internet itself.

Something to think about are the “peering agreements” between the major Internet Service Providers. My firm experienced a “peering” issue. What happened? My firm was caught in the middle of a dispute between ISPs. I’ve had real experience with this problem and the most frustrating part was that all the vendors pointed their fingers at the other vendors and said it was their fault – it was like a Three Stooges routine but with terrible consequences. I remember telling the ISP that provided access for my office that when I used my wireless broadband card, I could access the CRM just fine. This stunned the technical support folks and made them realize the problem was larger than they’d first thought (that plus they had dozens & dozens of complaints from other customers of our specific SaaS CRM who experienced the same issue).

So what is the take away from all of this? A SaaS CRM is a mixed bag just as the old on-premises CRM was a mixed bag. I still spend as much time administering the new SaaS CRM as I ever did on the old CRM.

Rob

Losing weight....

2011-05-17T17:03:00.002-05:00

I've had a lot of folks ask me how I've lost so much weight. The answer is simple - lots of cardio exercise coupled with the complete surrender of my taste buds!

Oatmeal, grilled chicken, zero sweets, and a lack of fried items have slowly killed my taste buds. They waved the white flag of surrender long ago. Now all they have are the memories of chocolate chip cookies, cheeseburgers, and those sweet morsels from heaven, DONUTS! I now know how Homer Simpson feels when driving by Dunkin' Donuts.

Rob

Interop Las Vegas 2011 - Day One

2011-05-10T19:48:00.003-05:00

I make it a habit to take lots of notes during my time at any conference. And with a conference such as Interop, there is plenty to write about. These are my thoughts from the first day (May 10th).

I enjoyed the opening morning keynote session. Out of all the speakers, I found what Mark Templeton (CEO of Citrix) had to say to be the most compelling. I think he summed it up when he said that in the era of 'cloud computing' the role of IT will be to aggregate & orchestrate. I've had similar thoughts but he put it most elegantly. There is also the notion that IT will manufacture & distribute apps (like a factory building cars and selling them). The speaker I least liked was Rebecca Jacoby, CIO of Cisco. I don't think it was necessarily her, but the material that wasn't very compelling. Cisco is facing lots of competition and at a show like Interop, all the competitors are out for blood. Vint Cerf & Dan Lynch were very entertaining. And I very much liked Vint's comment that he's had a good day when he's worn out two 26-year-old engineers.

Alistair Croll's 10:15 AM session "How to think like a Cloud" was very good. It contained the kind of information that IT professional need to hear because of the changing nature of what we do. I really liked the point he made that IT Pros must think of cloud computing through the lens of "supply chain management" because the cloud represents Just-In-Time computing.

Jim Metzler's 11:30 AM session "What is the Impact of Cloud Computing on the Network?" was more of a higher level view of how an organization's internal network (LAN / WAS) is affected by the cloud. Cloud computing is provisioning of IT services which are good enough.

The 1:00 PM afternoon keynote was less dynamic that the morning one. But I did like what Zane Adam of Microsoft had to say. One thing that IT professional often lose sight of is the cost of IT. He reminded the audience that we must drive down costs and cloud computing helps you accomplish that. Scott Hopkins from IBM just regurgitated what they show in their TV commercials so nothing interesting.

The 2:15 PM session "The Great Debate: Are Clouds More Secure?" with Alistair Croll as the moderator and Ravi Rajagopal & John Pironti on the "no, they aren't secure" side of the debate while Allen Allison & Frank Kenney were on the yes side. Both Ravi Rajagopal and Frank Kenney made the session. The best quote from the session was that the "Haters have to hate the cloud!" Frank said it best when he said, "Classify data and assign risk to it."

I had a good first day at Interop. Now its time for a steak!

Control your DNS!

2011-05-03T14:42:00.005-05:00

Every IT Manager should have control of their organization's Domain Name System (DNS), both internal and external. If the organization doesn't controls its own DNS, then you're getting the short end of the stick!

Every enterprise (both small & large) runs its own internal DNS because that allows it to manage the network. The same can be said about external DNS - it allows for the management of resources on the Internet (meaning external to the organization). Email, inbound & outbound traffic management, failover, business continuity & disaster recovery, security, web filtering, content filtering, everything. The Domain Name System is the bedrock upon which the network is built. I can tell you from experience that you don't want your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to have control of your organization's DNS.

Especially for small organizations, managed DNS services can pay for themselves. Start of authority (SoA) and email delivery services are all part of managed DNS services. As I've learned from my experiences as an IT Manager who's gone thru multiple hurricanes, one of the most important aspects of business continuity & disaster recovery is backup MX services. This means the organization doesn't lose messages because of email server, network, or even building downtime (as in the entire building is offline). Make sure that any backup MX service includes messages spooling (queuing of inbound messages until the mail server comes back online). And if you can afford it, consider store & forward of email.

An example of a provider of managed DNS services is Dyn. The managed DNS services that a vendor must provide should include DNS & domain services, email services, and performance & security services. As with all vendors, there are costs associated with using their services. But these costs pay for themselves when the time comes - instead of waiting for 3 days for the support folks at your ISP to make a simple change to your DNS records, it can happen within minutes if you choose the right managed DNS vendor. Control your DNS!

Rob Hiltbrand, MS, CISSP

Migrating from a PIX device to an ASA device

2011-04-12T21:53:00.003-05:00

I recently retired a Cisco PIX device and replaced it with an ASA device. I’m no CCIE but I’ve worked with Cisco gear enough over the last few years and have come to depend upon it. When given a choice, I always buy Cisco (at least, when I can afford it). Here are my thoughts on the migration process.

First things first, always purchase the Cisco SmartNet coverage. Not only does it include hardware replacement in case the device crashes, but more importantly SmartNet gives you access to Cisco technicians who specialize in areas such as device configuration and VPNs. In this case, I was able to get several of my questions answered, I received guidance when it came to the initial configuration of the ASA device plus building the VPN tunnel. Always, always, always purchase the SmartNet coverage and keep purchasing it for the life of the device.

Pull a text copy of the running configuration file off of the PIX device and make note about the private IP addresses and public IP addresses. This is information that every network administration should already know about and it’s a good way to refresh your knowledge. This is the starting point for your configuration of the new ASA device.

I’d found documentation on Cisco’s technical assistance website regarding migrating the settings of a PIX device over to a new ASA device. This documentation was good and included a link to a utility that I downloaded and used to do an initial conversion of the configuration file of the PIX device for use on the ASA. But it was only the beginning (very important - remember this if it is the only item you remember from this post). A PIX only has two (2) interfaces (Ethernet ports where you plug in the network cable) – an inside interface (assigned an internal IP address and accessible from the LAN) and an outside interface (assigned a public, routable IP address). The ASA device typically has eight (8) interfaces. So right off the bat, even if you use the PIX to ASA conversion tool from Cisco, you need to think about how you’ll map the interfaces. This all goes into the VLAN configuration of the ASA device also. Create a VLAN (VLAN1) that encompasses Ethernet port 0/0 and assign it as outside (as in the outside interface). Next, create another VLAN (VLAN2) that encompasses Ethernet ports 0/1 thru 0/7 and assign it as inside interface (as in the inside interface).

I won't spend too much time on this because what you do here depends upon what you'll use the device for. Configure the VLANs so that they accept/reject access to the device based upon things like the IP address of the host that wants to access the device thru services such as the ASDM, telnet, and SSH. This is also where you’ll configure internal / external traffic routes.

Test, test, and test again. Test traffic flow, test access to the inside and outside interfaces, and test the VPN tunnels. As Ronald Regan once said, “trust but verify.” This saying should be a first thought for any network administrator or anyone involved in IT.

Once everything has been tested and judged to be working as it should, back it up! Back up the device’s configuration file. Back up everything and make sure that if needed, the backup file is available on the LAN where the device is so that you can upload it. Besides the backup file that you can pull from an ASA device using the ASDM console, make a text copy of the running configuration file. During this whole process, examining the text copy of the running configuration file proved invaluable in troubleshooting and eventually solving issues.

Rob

Progress, part 3..........

2011-03-31T09:02:00.002-05:00

214.6 Lbs. Wow, that is a number I didn't expect to see. When I looked down at the scale this morning, I thought to myself, "holy sh*t!" For some reason, I had the number 218 in my mind but I'll take 214.6.

As my wife pointed out this morning, there is more & more laundry to do now that we go to the health club (or otherwise exercise) every day. April 20th will be 90 days on my current program - we'll see where I'm at then.

Rob

Progress part 2........

2011-03-24T11:25:00.001-05:00

Legacy infrastructure and the Cloud

2011-03-11T12:08:00.002-06:00

In the March 7, 2011, edition of Network World magazine, John Dix (editor) has a foreword titled “The new cloud tool kit.” I’m always interested in anything having to do with “the cloud” because I see it as the future of computing. One thing that bugged me was his reference to “legacy infrastructure.” Legacy (in IT terms) implies something that is not used much anymore but must be kept around.

Even the smallest organizations have a local area network – a collection of computers (laptops, desktops, servers or any combination of them) along with networking gear (switches, wireless access points, firewalls, routers or any combination of them) that enables users to connect to resources locally and on the Internet. This will never go away as long as employees go to a central location (aka, the office) to work. Remember that proximity helps people work faster. The firm I work for falls into this category – actually, we have four locations, each with a LAN. I've weaved these four (4) location together into a WAN (wide area network). My focus, as a Technology Manager, has been to build out a network architecture that is both stable and flexible. The single point of failure in most organizations (whether they are doing everything in “the cloud,” using on premise servers, or a hybrid of both) is connectivity to the Internet. Most firms have but a single connection to the Internet. What happens when that connection goes down? Sure, you have an SLA with the ISP, but what happens during the time they figure out what is wrong? Buying connectivity from two different ISP is possible, but that can get expensive and add tremendous complexity to your network as you try and “bond” the two Internet connections to your routing gear – trust me, it isn’t easy and doesn’t always work as advertised. Ever heard of Voice-over-IP? That runs on the Internet too. And guess what happens if your VoIP solution is hosted? No Internet access means no calls.

Let’s not forget about Identification, Authentication, and Authorization. A good principle to follow (whether we are talking about IT or anything else) is “trust but verify.” How do you identify who is trying to access important systems & data? How do you extend your current Identification infrastructure to “the cloud?” What happens when you have five (5) different SaaS solutions but none of them talk to each other or share customer data? What happens when a cloud vendor goes bye-bye (just like any other vendor, IT related or not)?

There is still a compelling need to control your computing resources. IT is part of the core competency of every organization these days because no one can do business without IT. Try telling a potential customer you don’t have a website, email address, or phone number and see how long they stay your customer.

It is my belief that there will always be some kind of centralized control around user Identification & Access to important systems & data. Maybe it’s Role Based Access Controls (RBAC) or at the very least it must be Mandatory Access Controls (MAC).

Rob Hiltbrand, MS, CISSP

My LinkedIn Profile

Progress...........

2011-03-07T11:53:00.002-06:00

So what kind of progress have I made during my journey to lose weight? I've made some but there is still much work to do.

What have I done right? Week days my wife and I tend to eat dinner close to 5 PM and then we go to the health club to work out. During the weekend this isn't the case but hey, it's the weekend. Doing 45 minutes to an hour of intense cardio does seem to help with digestion. Plus I'm doing cardio every day now. Also, I'm eating a bit better, plus the lightest meal of my day is usually dinner.

So what am I doing wrong? I need to control my Sweet Tooth. I don't know what it is, but my Sweet Tooth (2nd cousin to the Tooth Fairy) keeps telling me to eat donuts! Damn that Sweet Tooth! If I could just control my cravings for everything sugary, I think I'd be on the right track.

Rob

2011-02-07T10:47:00.003-06:00

Windows IT Pro has a new columm by Sean Deuby named "Enterprise Identity" that is quite useful. His column, "Federation Paves the Way Toward True Enterprise Cloud Identity" in the February 2011 issue is full of information relevant to those of use making decision when it comes to what goes up in the cloud. Below is a primer when it comes to Identity -

Identification - who are you?

Authentication - I need to verify that you are who you say you are.

Authorization - these are the things you can do because of who you are.

Auditing - we are watching what you are doing.

I found Sean's column full of great information. Here are some of the best tid-bits (some direct quotes, some I've put my own spin on) -

Cloud computing complicates the traditional, password-based model because cloud services aren't on your protected corporate network. This is a good piece of information to keep in mind, even for technical folks.
Enterprise cloud identity (which might seem like an oxymoron but makes sense more & more every day) is the practice of securely extending the core corporate identity infrastructure outside an organization's perimeter to manage access to distributed services, applications, and infrastructure.
Trying to push passwords into the cloud is like putting the bank vault door on the outside of the bank. Even using something like the Google connector for Active Directory pushes your AD password out to Google - not a good idea even if their motto is, "Don't be evil."
Securely extending your existing corporate identity infrastructure outside your organization's perimeter, without entering another password once you've logged on to your corporate network (aka Internet single sign-on or SSO) requires another method - federation.
Federation (federated identity) - is a collection of standards and technologies that enables authentication & authorization data to securely pass between an identity provider (Active Directory on your local domain) and a service provider (such as a cloud-based CRM) without exposing password data.
Federation uses security tokens in much the same way that Kerberos uses tickets. Kerberos tickets and federated security tokens are tightly restricted on when they're valid - they are not usable out of the context they were generated for. The best part is that these tickets & tokens contain no password data.

Microsoft's Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) looks interesting for those of use running Windows networks. But what is most interesting is Google and how they handle Identity across their various platforms. I can sign into Gmail then bring up another tab and be signed into Blogger, have another tab with my Google Docs, and the last tab will have Android Marketplace. Google might be a good initial model when thinking about Federated Identity. Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong (thank you Dennis Miller).

Rob

Cloud ready........

2011-02-06T11:54:00.002-06:00

My professional thoughts on being ready for "the cloud,"

Pay attention to licensing when it comes to cloud vendors.
Have a strong Service Level Agreement (SLA) with some teeth in it when dealing with a cloud vendor.
Have a strategy for divorcing your cloud vendor just like you had a plan to move to the cloud.
Trust but verify.

These are the same kinds of principles that organization & IT professionals have followed for decades when dealing with traditional technology vendors. But with all the hype surrounding cloud computing, people lose perspective. Treat cloud vendors the same way you would every other vendor (technology related or non-technical) and in the end you'll be on solid ground.

Rob

Work, mobile computing, and control........

2011-02-04T11:05:00.003-06:00

I recently received a marketing email from a well known technology vendor titled, "Keep things moving with mobility solutions." When I examined the contents of the email, it was all about laptop computers. My first reaction was to think to myself how much broader my own definition of mobile computing is. I'd like to think that we are at a tipping point where applications and the ability to get work done can be "device agnostic." This means a desktop PC, laptop computer, netbook, smartphone, tablet, or future device will offer anytime, anywhere Internet with the ability to access both business (think client information) & personal data (think banking records) along with productivity tools. And it will all be done wirelessly (even the desktop PC will be on a LAN that connects to the broader Internet via a wireless connection).

Another reason I've been thinking about mobile computing is that it goes hand-in-hand with remote access. And with the weather being what it has been this week in Texas (rolling blackouts because of snow, ice and extremely cold weather), remote access and the ability to work from any device (no matter what operating system the device runs) are front & center in my professional life. Don't forget about the people using the remote access (they are the most important part of any solution).

Something related to remote access is control - not just of data and who accesses it, but also control over employees. One of the main principles of mobile computing & remote access is a decentralized workforce. No longer does a person have to sit at a desk in an office building to get the job done. But there are still management types who want to be able to see that an employee is at his or her desk working. So, how does management "see" if an employee is working in a decentralized environment? Is there even a way to effectively monitor a remote employee? What is work and how much of "effort" can be measured? If the organization is results-based, then monitoring the employees work is straight-forward; did you meet your stated goal of X dollars by Y date? How many service tickets did you close out today, this week, this month?

But control is a fleeting thing. One of my favorite quotes about control is from the original Star Wars movie. Princess Leia says, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin (Imperial bad guy), the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

During my time in the Navy as a Work Center Supervisor, I was goal oriented. I'd tell my people, "Here is where we need to be and when we need to be there." I also put together the teams that did the analysis plus I trained every new analyst, but in the end you must trust your people & processes in order to reach your organizational goals.

Rob

P.S. - I believe Princess Leia won in the end and Governor Tarkin was blown up with the original Death Star so score one for her.

Remote Access Freak Out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-02-03T16:10:00.003-06:00

Oh how bad weather seems to bring out the worst in people. The words out of every employee's mouth are, "Remote access, I need remote access!" My response is generally, "You already have it" or "Haven't you read the 15 previous emails I sent you about remote access?" Typically my response is met with silence or the ubiquitous question of, "What is my login name?"

Exchange Active Sync, Outlook Web Access (OWA for the geeky types out there), GoToMyPc, LogMeIn, and web-based applications all make anywhere, anytime remote access possible. When OWA and a SaaS solution are combines, you don't even need technology like GoToMyPc or LogMeIn. The only hitch is when you add an Apple Mac to the equation and have to sort through the various problems with Safari web browser compatibility issues.

My philosophy on remote access is that it's supposed to support on a limited basis an employee working from outside the office. By it's very nature you don't get the same experience working from home as you do sitting at your desk in the office. When the remote worker calls me up and says, "Hey, my email looks different," I generally take a minute to compose myself then tell them that they are using a light-weight version of Outlook designed especially for the web and thus, it will be different. As for the SaaS solution, generally the only different between how it functions at the office and at home is the speed of the person's connection to the Internet (unless someone has FiOS at home, the office is faster). Plus let's not forget about employees sending & receiving emails on their iPhone, Blackberry, and Android smartphones - thank you Microsoft Exchange Active Sync!

I hope the weather gets better (i.e, warmer) soon. Then again, hurricane season is right around the corner so maybe the cold weather isn't so bad. Ask me about Hurricane Ike sometime.

Rob

Dropping the pounds!

2011-01-27T09:05:00.003-06:00

Last week I put myself on a weight-loss program because I had the misfortune of stepping on a scale - big mistake! But there is something motivating about seeing a number (such a high one at that) that you don't like. So I put together a plan and will following it for 16 weeks until my trip to Las Vegas in May.

The first part of my plan involved re-vamping my exercise schedule and what I do. My wife and I recently joined the Trotter Family YMCA and it is a clean facility with a wide variety of equipment. Going to a new health club (I still have my membership to Bally Total Fitness) has jarred my workouts and that has proven to be helpful. I've cut the amount of weight I lift, but upped the number of sets and the number of reps in each set. My goals are to tone & shape (I'm way too bulky). I've also radically increased the amount of cardio exercise that I do. I religiously do between 40 and 75 minutes of cardio at a target heart rate of 65-80% of my maximum heart rate (this according to the America Heart Association). I do interval training that not only keeps the intensity high, but the after-burn effect (meaning I'm still burning calories even after I've stopped exercising) is greater. Sometimes after a long cardio session I'll just sit there and think how tired I am (and that's a good feeling).

I've also adjusted my eating habits. I've actually been good about eating breakfast every day (even on weekends). During the work week, I'm taking in two eggs or oatmeal plus a glass of water with vitamin C powder in it. The biggest adjustment for me has been with coffee. Instead of the mammoth cup I used to have, I've replaced it with a small cup no bigger than what espresso is served in. This has cut down dramatically on the amount of sugar I take in every day (I will never use artificial sweetener in my coffee!). I still eat donuts, but I've cut the number in half (if I feel like four, I order two; if I want two, I order only one). Something else I've done is stopped eating out so much (my wife's suggestion). As soon as I come home from work, I generally eat something then & there (which I didn't do before - we'd drive to the Bally Total Fitness, then eat after exercising). Weekends are a bit tougher on this, but if five nights out of seven I eat at home around 5:00 PM, the number of calories I take in late at night has been dramatically cut.

So what is next for me? The YMCA has a pool so I'm planning on swimming. I'm also going to cut the amount of sweets that I eat (everyone says this). I'm good about eating fruits, but not vegetables so I can increase that. I can always increase the time I spend doing cardio exercises. I need to find the right mix of weight lifting exercises. As with everything else in life, this is a process. There will be setbacks. My goal is 40 lbs. in 16 weeks.

Rob

...ask what you can do for your country

2011-01-20T14:24:00.003-06:00

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

John F. Kennedy

35th President of the United States

Inaugural Address on Friday, January 20, 1961

Kennedy was a Democrat and yet he was asking people not to take, but to give - that is a radical idea for today's Democrats. All I hear from Democratic politicians these days is what they want to give (to voters). Our country is best when we embrace our independent spirit & give and not just sit around & take. Let's be clear, I'm no fan of the Republicans either.

Rob

Architecture & Design.......

2011-01-11T13:04:00.003-06:00

Architecture and design are important parts of what I do as a Technologist. I find that as I advance in my career, I do more architecture & design than actual hands on implementation. I believe this is true in most fields - the head chef at a restaurant spends more time deciding what's on the menu, who to buy from, and who'll work what shift. The line cooks are the ones cooking your steak and making the sides dishes.

I spend lots of time researching different solutions, writing up the proposal (with different aspects such as the initial cost, product features, total cost of ownership over a five year period, things like that), making my pitch, and finally doing the prep work. The actual execution of the project takes the least amount of time but proves to be the most fun - I get to see the fruits of my labor. That is one aspect of Project Management that I find most satisfying - reaching the project's goals. There is a start, the middle parts, and then you reach your goal (project completion).

Rob

What I do at my job.........

2011-01-10T11:59:00.003-06:00

I've been thinking lately about what I do (it being a New Year and all). To boil it down, I'm a Windows System Administrator with Network Engineering, PBX/phone technician, and IT Management responsibilities (due to the fact that I manage the data & voice systems of four offices spread across a wide area network). And layered on top of that is Project Management - Budgeting, Proposal Writing, Planning, Management and Execution. That's it, that is what I do.

Rob

Windows 2008 Active Directory Upgrade.........

2010-12-27T10:31:00.004-06:00

I recently completed a project at work involving adding a Windows 2008 Server to my Microsoft Windows Active Directory as a Domain Controller. I tend to over prepare for these things and I can report that the project went as expected.

The most frustrating part of the experience is the lack of "usable" technical documentation from Microsoft. Notice that I emphasize the word "usable" - this is important because Microsoft talks allot (metaphorically speaking) but doesn't say much.

First things first, as always searching Microsoft's Knowledge-base (including TechNet) proved futile. I got better results using Google to search Microsoft's documentation than I did by going directly to the TechNet website and searching it. Why can't Microsoft get that right?

When I found pertinent documentation within the TechNet site, it was vague and lacked the kind of details a Technologist such as myself needs to successfully complete a project. I believe in Microsoft products, especially Windows and Active Directory, so why do they make it so hard to love them? I digress, sorry.

Google yielded some great search results including one for the IT Core Blog - I don't know who runs this blog, but it was most helpful and provided the kinds of technical details that I expected out of TechNet. The URL is http://srvcore.wordpress.com/ and I recommend it to anyone working with Microsoft products. What Microsoft lacks, the community that supports Microsoft products will always fill in the blanks.

You must prepare both the forest schema and the domain for a Windows 2008 Domain Controller. The process proved straight-forward for me. I backed up AD then ran the Active Directory prep tools from the 32-bit edition of the Windows 2008 Server installation disc (this was important because you can't run the 64-bit edition of the adprep tool on a 32-bit system - common sense) and it took no more than 15 minutes to finish. Once the forest & domain were ready, I added the AD DS role to the Windows 2008 server and the rest, as they say, is history. During the process, you'll be asked if you want to make the new DC a Global Catalog and also a DNS Server. Microsoft recommends that once the Windows 2008 DC has been added, you transfer all the Operations Master (FSMO) roles from the old domain controllers to the new Windows 2008 DC. As always with Microsoft products, trust but verify (which I did - replication and the other functions associated with Active Directory were working normally).

Raising the forest functional level and the domain functional level were straight-forward. To boil it down, the forest & domain functional levels are the ways that domain controllers "talk" to each other. The higher the forest & domain functional levels, the more features in the new Windows 2008 operating system that you can take advantage of (think features such as password functions, group policy settings, things like that). If you have a Windows 2008 DC, I recommend you raise the forest functional level to at least Windows 2003 - keeping it at the default Windows 2000 kind of defeats the purpose of having a newer Network Operating System. Running Active Directory in mixed mode means that the network has Windows 2008 and Windows 2003 domain controllers. If you run Active Directory in native mode, then all your domain controllers must have the same operating system (example: Windows 2008). I have a feeling many enterprises will operate AD in mixed mode until the Windows 2003 DCs are retired and replaced with Windows 2008 servers.

The research I've done to prepare for this Windows 2008 upgrade proved very informative and should help me in my preparation to take Exam 70-646: PRO: Windows Server 2008, Server Administrator from Microsoft. I should have at least one certification from Microsoft since I use their products so much.

A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Here is to hoping that 2011 is a much better year than 2010.

Rob

Indonesia Rising.....

2010-11-09T10:50:00.002-06:00

Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world and has a rapidly expanding economy. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (known as SBY) went to Army jump school in the US and earned a graduate degree while he was here. He's even called the US his second home. Think about the importance of those facts.

Rob

The Cloud and moving everything to it......

2010-11-04T10:35:00.004-05:00

I found an article regarding the top security concerns for software-as-a-service and it was spot on. The concerns are as follows -

Identity management - This is one of my pet-peeves as an administrator. You need to be able to control access to the applications and its data and Identity Management is the way to do that.
Cloud standards - An organization needs to be able to move its apps & data from one provider to another, this is just common sense.
Secrecy - What is the vendor doing? Security through obscurity doesn't work.
Anywhere access - I'm a big believer in this concept, but you still need Identity Management to make this viable and to mitigate risk.
Where is your data - this is the double-edged sword of the Internet, DNS servers outside of the US point users towards alternate URLs and your data physically sits on a server in Romania. Welcome to the World Wide Web version 2010.

Interesting stuff. "The Cloud" is the future of computing for all but the largest of corporations and eventually everyone will be there.

Rob

Most Outstanding Burger in Houston!

2010-09-29T13:02:00.002-05:00

Last evening, my wife and I ate the most wonderful burgers in the Houston area - say hello to Burger Guys! The burgers were juice but not greasy. The fries were tasty and not greasy. The fountain drinks were made with real cane sugar! And the shakes were excellent.

As one gets older, food becomes more important!

Rob

The Employee is Always Right!

2010-09-15T11:09:00.003-05:00

The crux of a recent article by Michael Healey in Information Week is that employees have never been more demanding about technology. The consumerization of technology (hello iPhone!), tech-savvy employees (they probably have a better computer at home than in the office), and cloud computing (I should be able to put data anywhere I want to).

As the resident IT curmudgeon, I must rebut the above misconceptions! I will go point-by-point.

The consumerization of technology - Thank you Steve Jobs! Actually, I like Apple products (my wife does all her computing on Macs) but the mindset cannot be, "I bought it, why don't you support it?" I compare the consumerization of technology to impuse buying - I want it and I want it now! Take a step back, ask yourself why you want it, and IT can take care of the rest. Don't be impulsive!
Tech-savvy employees - This is a very good thing. It means you can roll out more complex computing environments without overwhelming the end users. Terminal services, thin clients, software-as-a-service, application virtualization - all these technologies challenge tradition and that is a good thing. You want end users that can keep up. I like to think of the concept of "core computing" - this means that as long as the core systems are configured properly, new technology won't present any fundamental changes to how employees access critical data.
Cloud computing - As mentioned in the article, regulatory compliance is a priority with IT departments these days - we are a litigious society. Protect important data by maintaining its confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Cloud computing immediately increases availability, but decreases integrity & confidentiality because you no longer control the system on which the data resides ("data at rest") or gets processed. If there was a way to keep the cloud computing vendors from accessing YOUR data on THEIR systems, it would be a no-brainer, but when they have access to the system, they have access to your data. IT is responsible for all corporate data. Where is that star employee when the lawsuit pops up because he/she put the entire customer database up on the web but didn't ensure its confidentiality? That employee will immediately point to IT and say, "it's their responsibility." If you want to be the boss, you have to pay the costs.

Of course this is just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Rob

My take on the "Cloverfield" movie…

2010-09-08T09:02:00.003-05:00

I made the mistake of watching “Cloverfield” on FX last night. My wife was on the couch doing other things but from time to time would look up to see what was going on in the movie. I kept waiting for something, anything to happen but nothing ever did. To sum it all up: there was a big bat-like creature in Manhattan (big surprise) and it had crab-like parasites on it that fell to the ground and attacked people while the monster destroys everything in sight – the end.

Now while I might have been disappointed in the movie, I’ve already come up with a sequel, “Cloverfield 2: Deep in the Heart of Texas.”

Here is how the movie opens – it’s a Thursday morning in downtown Houston when all the sudden comes a roar from near the Toyota Center; the urban types who populate downtown panic and flee in all directions as the monster shows itself. News choppers fly overhead televising live images of the beast as it knocks down building after building. The police are there but are powerless to stop the creature. Slowly the crackle of small arms fire builds over the screams of the city dwellers as more and more hunters join the fight! They were watching the news and listening to the radio when the story broke. There are traffic jams on the Katy freeway, 59 coming in from the North is practically a parking lot, even 45 South is packed with trucks and SUVs filled with hunters and their dogs itching to get a piece of the monster – “Hurry up y’all or we’re gonna miss all the fun.” Weaponry once banned by International treaty is brought to bear on the beast. And those little crab things that attacked the New Yorkers like muggers on holiday? They'll be taken care of by the packs of hunting dogs that came in with their owners looking for a fight.

Before the US Army and Air Force can queue up their forces, the Texas hunters have already killed the monster (plus all the crabs) and arguments have begun about who gets to mount the monster’s head and how the meat will be divided up. Ah, it is a good day to be a Texan!

I need to copyright this idea before it gets stolen!

Rob

I'm disappointed with George Soros.....

2010-09-07T12:14:00.006-05:00

George Soros is still mad at the American people for electing George W. Bush President. So what does he do as his latest gesture? He makes a grand donation to Human Rights Watch (an organization founded by Americans in America) but with the caveat that it must not be an American-based organization anymore. He gets to make a big splash but also stick it to the US because they elected George W. Bush as President. As a naturalized American citizen, he must respect the electoral process but I think he forgets because he's used to always getting his way.

The United States of America supports Democracy and Human Rights around the World - always has and always will. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; these are the ideals that draw people to America. George Soros is a smart man, but he is not smarter than the American people (even thought he likes to tell them what to think).

I admire Mr. Soros but increasingly he is sounding more and more anti-American. I was very disappointed after listening to his recent interview with NPR about the donation to Human Rights Watch.

Connectivity.........

2010-08-30T10:11:00.010-05:00

In a recent article in Network World, the CEO of Riverbed said that, "...Cisco can have Layer 2-3." I know the implication of this because I'm an IT Professional and have a background in networking. As I'm reading the article, I'm thinking to myself, "How do you sell something like this (a reference to any layer of the OSI model) to management?"

The OSI model gives us a way to explain the various parts of networking, also referred to as the network stack -

Layer 7 - Application

Layer 6 - Presentation

Layer 5 - Session

Layer 4 - Transport

Layer 3 - Network

Layer 2 - Data link

Layer 1 - Physical

So when Riverbed says that Cisco can have layers 2-3, they mean they dominate the data link (layer 2) and network (layer 3) layers of the networking stack. Riverbed's contention is that layers 4-7 are WHERE the future of connectivity will reside.

All of this rolls into the larger discussion about "Cloud Computing" that is going on in the business world. Where do your apps reside? Where do your servers reside? Where does your infrastructure reside? Cloud computing is a shift away from on premise (a server sitting on your local area network) to Anything-as-a-Service (apps, servers, and even infrastructure sitting on the Internet and a wide area network).

I like the quote, "...importance of having knowledge workers connect to their applications effectively, cheaply, globally, seamlessly, 24-7..." because this is the ideal of what connectivity should be. Is this type of connectivity possible in the realm of net neutrality? What happens if a network carrier downgrades traffic from a Riverbed device because that same carrier has an agreement with Cisco to prioritize traffic from Cisco devices (such as an ASA 5505) above all else? Something to think about because it is not out of the realm of possibility (see recent 'agreement' between Google and Verizon regarding net neutrality).

If you run a business and have an office, then you'll still need a local area network and that means a gateway device (router and/or firewall), network switching gear (LAN switches), and wireless connectivity (wireless access point). I'm not a big fan of the all-in-one devices sold to consumers for their home network setup with the wireless access point built into the router - I like to keep those two functions separate. In the office, a user must be required to identify themselves & authenticate locally before logging onto your network - "trust but verify" (an excellent cyber security principle). So even if all of your apps and file servers are "in the cloud" the business will still need local resources for things like printing and authentication to the local network.

Something else to think about is integration - how do you get two software-as-a-service offerings to integrate if they are from different vendors? How do you integrate your Internet-based CRM with the online version of your Accounting software? I have personal knowledge of this issue and will tell you that it is a major hurdle. Vendors end up pointing fingers at each other and tell you to get rid of the other guy and go with their all-in-one offering even though it doesn't have nearly the features of the other product. How do you integrate email, CRM, and accounting software when all of them are software-as-a-service?

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Rob

ESXi vs Hyper-V

2010-08-25T14:55:00.005-05:00

"IT is being served by a combination of vendors, some of whom are working to provide a clear path forward, and others that are struggling to hold on to the past." Now this was a shot across the bow (figuratively speaking) at Microsoft by Bogomil Balkansky, a VP with VMware. It's very funny to picture Steve Balmer (CEO of Microsoft) holding onto the leg of a customer begging that person to stay with Microsoft. "Please, please stay, Hyper-V is getting better every day. Really, I promise it is." Very funny.

In putting together a pilot program, I started out with Microsoft's Hyper-V technology but in the end changed over to VMware's ESXi bare metal hypervisor and the vSphere client for administration. It annoyed me that Microsoft required either Vista or Windows 7 in order to install the client software required to administer Hyper-V virtual machines. There are lots of folks out there still on XP at work (I'm one of them) so the fact that VMware's vSphere client works well on Windows XP is just another nail in the coffin of Microsoft.

Of course this is just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Rob

African National Congress (ANC) media tribunal

2010-08-19T10:58:00.003-05:00

Those clowns in the ANC are at it again. Now they want to restrict the free press by way of a government run media tribunal. South African President Jacob Zuma and the ANC are clowns and this is just another example of their clownish behavior.

With so many corruption charges being filed (and even more alleged) against Zuma and other ANC officials, of course he's looking for a way to silence the Press and his critics. Zuma is acting more like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and less like Nelson Mandela whose goals of a free and open nation as slipping away. If Zuma's media tribunal becomes a reality, I fear South Africa will be just another corrupt African nation instead of the beacon of hope & democracy that Mandela envisioned for his country as well as the rest of the continent.

Rob

American Exceptionalism...

2010-08-18T21:11:00.002-05:00

"Let every nation know... we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty" - President John F. Kennedy

This quote comes from President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat and more importantly an Officer in the United States Navy. This is why I believe in American exceptionalism.

American exceptionalism is the worldview that the United States occupies a special niche among the nations of the world in terms of its national credo, political and religious institutions, and its being built by immigrants (thank you Wikipedia).

Back in the 90's the Europeans were either too weak or just plain scared to do anything about the crisis in Kosovo. So another Democratic, President Bill Clinton, decided to show leadership on the matter and used the US Military to stop the ethnic cleansing.

I believe that President Obama's greatest disappointment is that he does not believe in American exceptionalism. Knowing the President's personal story, how can he not believe in American exceptionalism? He is a self-made man from humble beginnings who because of his exceptional abilities is the leader of his country. Being exceptional is good. I hope the President remembers that. The United States of America is a Leader, not a follower.

Rob

The Art of War

2010-07-20T14:24:00.002-05:00

In difficult ground, press on;

In encircled ground, devise stratagem;

In death ground, fight!

Sun Tzu

DNS Root Servers should be dispersed geographically!

2010-07-09T16:59:00.004-05:00

Physical location of Domain Naming Services (DNS) root servers within the continental United State.

I believe the DNS root servers should be physically located in each of the four (4) times zones within the continental United States - Pacific Time Zone, Mountain Time Zone, Central Time Zone, and Eastern Time Zone.

Obviously these DNS root servers are the ones controlled by the United States. If you look at a map of the DNS root servers in the US now, they are grouped on the East and West coasts with few in the middle of the country.

There are four (4) DNS root servers located in Los Angeles and 12 DNS root servers located in Silicon Valley. That means if an earthquake hits the state of California (when would that ever happen?), we could potentially lose 16 DNS root servers in one stroke of bad luck. I see this as a problem that can easily be fixed by moving at least six (6) of the servers out of California. Alternative locations could include Oregon, Washington (besides the one that is already there), Phoenix (Arizona), Santa Fe (New Mexico), Salt Lake City (Utah), Denver (Colorado), Boise (Idaho), or Billings (Montana). There are no DNS root servers located in the Mountain Time Zone - that is ridiculous.

There are four (4) DNS root servers in Chicago, one in Dallas, and one in San Antonio. Move three (3) of the DNS root servers out of Chicago and one of the DNS root servers out of Texas into alternative locations such as Madison (Wisconsin), Minneapolis (Minnesota), Lincoln (Nebraska), Oklahoma City (Oklahoma), St. Louis (Missouri), or Little Rock (Arkansas).

In regards to the Eastern Time Zone, Atlanta having two (2) DNS root servers is OK, but Miami having four (4), hello hurricane! One DNS root server in Columbus, Ohio, is good but five (5) in the New York City metropolitan area is negligence - move those servers somewhere else.

Don't get me started on the nine (9) DNS root servers located in the greater Washington DC / Balitmore area. In my opinion, there should be no DNS root servers near Washington just like there should be no DNS root servers near New York City. Move those servers to places like Columbia (South Carolina), Asheville (North Carolina), Lexington (Kentucky), Indianapolis (Indiana), Detroit (Michigan), and Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania).

The goal of this is to geographically disperse America's DNS root servers so they aren't vulnerable to natural disasters (such as earthquakes in California or hurricanes in Miami) or physical attack (such as someone popping a nuke in the DC area). One of the original goals of the Internet (as a mode of communication) was its dispersed nature and ability to survive an attack. The DNS root servers are critical parts of the national infrastructure and must be protected. This is important stuff.

Rob Hiltbrand, MS, CISSP

Cyber Security: Back to Basics

2010-07-02T09:28:00.003-05:00

Ask yourself one simple question, "What am I protecting?" Some basic axioms to live our information security lives by -

Trust no network
Trust no device
Find your data and defend it to the Death
Look over your shoulder

Simple but powerful advice and a way to re-focus your cyber security efforts. This is all courtesy of Branden R. Williams via an article in the July 2010 issue of the ISSA Journal.

Rob Hiltbrand, CISSP

Cloud Security

2010-06-25T15:12:00.002-05:00

Five Tips for Effective Cloud Security

1. Find out as much as you can about a software-as-a-service provider's security measures and infrastructure. MY COMMENT - I could not agree more; know who you are working with. I tell you this based on my own, real world experience.

2. Encrypt data at rest and in transit. MY COMMENT - Amen, brother! Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt! That is what I believe and that is what every security presenter at Microsoft's TechEd 2010 event told their audiences.

3. Divvy up responsibilities between your administrators and the service provider's administrators. MY COMMENT - This might not always be possible, especially if your firm is a small company.

4. Check whether a vendor has been accredited as meeting SAS 70 Type 2 and ISO 27001 security standards. MY COMMENT - These accreditation can be expensive to acquire, so smaller SaaS vendors might not be able to afford such a luxury. SAS and ISO are what you call "check box" security.

5. Go with a high-end service provider with an established security record. MY COMMENT - If you can afford a Mercedez, you'll buy the Mercedez every time. If you can only buy a Honda, buy the Honda because you need that car to drive to work.

Courtesy of Computer World.

My impressions of Microsoft Tech Ed 2010

2010-06-12T13:39:00.002-05:00

My take aways from Microsoft Tech Ed 2010, held June 7 - 10 in New Orleans.

I enjoyed the conference and look forward to going back. I have some pictures that I'll post soon. The following are a few of the take aways from the conference -

Microsoft is all about the cloud.
Next generation VDI will feature RemoteFX.
Remote Desktop Session Host is the new Terminal Services
Have a reboot strategy as part of your patch management plan.
Defense in depth for best security.
2014 is when DNSSec will be fully implemented by all major ISPs - be prepared for it.
Sign your DNS Zones with digital signatures.
Change your default DNS port from 53 to whatever.
Your goal as an IT professional is seemless access across boundaries.
If you have IPv4 addresses, then you have IPv6 addresses.
Invest in user education when it comes to IT Security.
Integrated security is the least expensive over time.
Citrix's XenApp technology allows for local file association.
Link local is the private IPv6 address and allows an administrator to do something similar to NAT for IPv6.
IPv4 and IPv6 wukk yse encaptulation technology so the two can work together.
Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE) can be configured to filter all inbound & outbound email traffic. FOPE supports SPF records and has a rule for blocking NDR backscatter.
Virtual desktops are useful for all enterprises, but not all users.
Enabling Windows Scaling will increase the performance of your network. The drawback is that most routing gear out today doesn't support it.
Selective Acknowledgement should be used in every implementation of TCP/IP. Enabling it on my networking gear will cut down on latency.
Firewalls should never speak, they should always silently discard (known as selective acknowledgement).
Use a full duplex tap to listen to network traffic with a program such as Wireshark.

Rob

Analytics

2010-05-28T12:12:00.002-05:00

Whether you call the tools Business Intelligence or simply Analytics, they all do the same thing. The basics of Analytics (courtesy of IBM) are –

The ability to gather and use information from inside and outside the company.
The ability to extract the most relevant information.
The ability to align information with business objectives across functions.

I've become acutely aware of, and to my dismay, deeply involved with, analytics. My firm recently rolled out a new CRM, one that is web-based. One of the advantages of this new software is the built-in analytics. The concept of extracting relevant information out of whatever software we’ve used in the past is nothing new, but it was so damn hard to do anything using the old on-premise system (last updated in 1998). So our struggles come from learning what we can do with the new CRM while simultaneously trying to apply old processes to the new software. And it doesn’t help that we must go to the vendor for every little change (at least that’s my opinion).

So we, as an organization, are struggling just to get what we want (and in the format that we want to see it in) out of the new CRM. I think the format that the data comes out in is just as important as the data itself. It must be readable to a human in a way that makes sense to the human brain. It is a battle I’m fighting every day.

Rob

What did California think would happen?

2010-05-19T16:43:00.003-05:00

Power Play Over Immigration Law - Arizona might cut power to LA.

What did California think would happen when some of their cities passed resolutions boycotting Arizona and any contracts with Arizona based companies? Those activist local politicians in Cali need to get a grip! As I'd stated in an earlier post, America is a nation of immigrants and I want people to feel welcome. But California needs to stop trying to hurt (economically) Arizona and stay out of its state business.

I think the Federal government will make progress on national immigration law reforms but it's not up to California to act like a bully. I think the local politicians in places like Berkeley and LA need to spend less time worrying about what is going on in Arizona and more time conducting the business of their communities. Did they think they could threaten the state of Arizona and nothing would happen in return? Those local California politicians are both STUPID and NAIVE.

Rob

Fry - Aaargh!

2010-05-11T16:20:00.002-05:00

Advice for the unemployed

2010-05-01T10:46:00.003-05:00

This information was taken from a LinkedIn group that I belong to - Technology Leaders Association. The following information is from George Moraetes -

These are the 4 pieces of advise I provide to those unemployed and welcoming others to add their motivational wisdom:

1.) Have a very short grieving period no longer than 24 hours. Your former job is dead bury it and get to work on your future. Let go of the past or be dragged!

2.) Don't throw yourself or anybody else who would listen a "pity party." Forget about "what could have been" and concentrate on "what can be" going forward.

3.) Don't waste precious time and energy blaming, being angry or hating. Robert Ingersoll once said, "Anger is the wind that blows out the lamp of the mind." Now is the time to utilize all of your available resources, and focus on your next productive move, toward your better future.

4.) I CANNOT emphasize this one more: "Put your ego & pride aside" and ask for help! Not because your weak, embarrassed and afraid but because you want to remain strong! Ask for help and don't stop until you get it! From the Bible, Mathew 7:7 the Lord said: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

Finally, I wish Mark Cummuta all the best in his new role in the Washington, DC area and we will miss you in Chicago! You are and continually be an enormous asset in anybody's organization!

George
Posted By George Moraetes, CISM, CGEIT

What is up with California?

2010-04-29T10:05:00.003-05:00

I don't know what is up with California these days - they want to ban toys that come with happy meals but legalize pot because they need the tax revenue. Why not just over tax all happy meals with toys?

And why does California think that it can tell Arizona how to run its state? California has plenty of its own problems and needs to get its house in order before they can tell other states what to do. Cali is firing school teachers and cutting public services because they don't have enough money to run the state. They have mud slides, forest fires, and a border policy that is so open even France thinks it's too liberal.

Regardless of my feelings about the new immigration law in Arizona (I'll give you a hint of where I stand - America is a nation made up of immigrants and I want them to feel welcome), I have a sour reaction to the folks in California because they have no right to tell anyone how to conduct the business of state because their state is bankrupt.

Rob

AT&T blames it all on the iPhone

2010-04-27T12:02:00.002-05:00

AT&T blames complaints about its data services on the iPhone and argues that data use by subscribers is unprecedented. Really? AT&T has to contend with a large concentration of subscribers consuming very large quantities of data in a relatively small area (examples would be San Francisco or New York), degrading the overall experience. Again, really?

The above information was taken from an article in Network World (a great magazine and website I might add) and ABI Research and I could not agree more. AT&T actually has to spend money building out more of its infrastructure. They actually have to do what they said they'd do when they asked Congress for deregulation of the telecom industry in the 90's. They promised that deregulation would free the telecom industry from governmental constraints and allow them to expand (as the market place dictates). But it never happened because all they really wanted from deregulation was an end to rules that prohibited the big boys from locking out the smaller players who had started to emerge with the rest of the Internet economy.

Rob

P.S. - now I have to worry about AT&T cutting off my phone service for making these comments!

Zilch!

2010-03-31T09:37:00.002-05:00

I read Information Week and their annual U.S. IT salary survey came out recently and was titled, Zilch. This refers to the 0% pay raise for U.S. IT workers. But as it states in the survey, "pay attention to the consequences." The consequences are -

Employees are worried about their jobs
Employees crave recognition
Employees are prepared to leave if opportunity knocks

IT is the modern organization's Operations - you simply can't have operations without computers, networks, and the Internet. As a side note, I've always believed that if IT doesn't report to its own executive (ie, a CIO), then it should report to the Chief Operations Office (COO) and not the CFO. Anyways, here is a link to the Information Week story.

Rob

The sleeper must awaken....

2010-03-04T09:10:00.004-06:00

"The sleeper must awaken" is a line I've always remembered from the movie Dune. Unless we have new experiences, something inside of us just sits there. In life it is easy to get comfortable - comfortable at work, comfortable on the couch watching TV on the weekends, just sitting around.

Self-motivation is something that comes from deep down and is either there or it isn't. There is no teaching how to pick yourself up off the mat when you've been knocked down and common sense tells you just to stay down. But you find yourself getting up off the mat because that is what you do - you go one more round. You find a way to push yourself to learn something new, acquire a new skill, or discover something you didn't know.

So, are you going to stay down or pick yourself up off the mat?

Rob

Hawaii 2003

2010-02-10T18:57:00.013-06:00

Some old pictures of a trip I took in August 2003 to Hawaii as part of my service in the Naval Reserves. I love Hawaii.

Virtual Switches

2010-01-19T13:23:00.002-06:00

From the 18Jan2010 article "Emerging Ethernet standards could reduce complexity in data centers" from Network World -

"The emerging standards would offload significant amounts of policy, security, and management processing from virtual switches on network interfaces cards (NIC) and blade servers and put it back into physical Ethernet switches connecting storage and compute resources."

One of my first questions when working with virtualization software had to do with the above. If you are running 10 virtual machines off of one physical server, then the NIC (or multiple NICs) on that server is also working as a virtual switch - this means lots of extra work. The emerging IEEE 802.1Wbg and 802.1Qbh standards will help. Interesting stuff if you are an uber geek.

Rob

The Civil War (Oregon vs. Oregon State)

2009-12-07T13:36:00.005-06:00

I enjoyed this year's Civil War, especially since the mighty Ducks won!

There were some Beaver fans onsite -

There were lots of Duck fan braving the cold -

Why re-invent the wheel?

2009-11-19T10:41:00.002-06:00

I don’t know what all the fuss is over a “new” national health care bill. Why create a “new” national health care system when two systems already exist? Let me explain.

My first suggestion is to open up to the general public the generous benefits enjoyed by members of Congress. It is a federal program that’s been in place for decades. Have an open enrollment period to allow public access to the same doctors and medical facilities that Senators have enjoyed for years. Sure, Senator what’s-his-name might have to wait while the doctor treats a flu victim, but that is a sacrifice I’m willing to have members of Congress make. Imagine the great PR shots of members of Congress mingling with constituents (other than at an election event) while everyone waits for the doctor to see them. I have a feeling that Nancy Pelosi will be the first one in line.

If Congress says no to my first proposal (I can’t imagine why), then my second suggestion is open enrollment in Medicaid & Medicare. These two programs have been around for decades. Sure, patients complain about the lack of services and slow treatment programs. But hey, at least everyone is covered by medical insurance. Now Doc, how long must I wait for that darn paperwork to get processed?

Both of these suggestions fall into the “Public Option” so popular these days with folks on the Left. While folks on the Right can’t really complain because there won’t be any “new” government programs created (technically, existing programs will be expanded, but let’s not ruin the mood).

My Naval Service Ribbons

2009-11-11T09:14:00.001-06:00

My Naval Service Ribbons -

Global War on Terror - Service
Joint Meritorious Unit Award
Meritorious Unit Commendation
Naval Reserve Meritorious Service
National Defense Service
Rifleman with Expert
Pistol Shot with Expert

Windows 7

2009-10-22T09:37:00.002-05:00

I've been running the 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate for some time now and it works well. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. I have a beast of a desktop computer at home (AMD dual core that supports virtualization), 8 GB of physical memory, and 750 GB of disk space among other features. I ran the 64-bit version of Vista Ultimate on this same computer and it sucked the life out of it. I don't know what Microsoft was thinking with Vista but they've fixed the problem now with Windows 7. Props to Microsoft for getting it right.

AD GPOs and Becks.....

2009-10-16T13:28:00.004-05:00

I'm am getting absolutely clobbered by active directory and the GPO I've configured - I never wanted to delve this deeply into Windows but we do what we must to fix the problem. Friggin' sysvol replication is killing me!

I look forward to the Houston Dynamo beating the LA Galaxy this Sunday. Forever Orange!

Rob

Olympic snub for Chicago.....

2009-10-02T16:26:00.005-05:00

IOC President Jacques Rogge and the rest of the Olympic Committee sought to punish the United States for Iraq and Afghanistan. Plus, they wanted to establish their place in history by awarding the Summer Games to a country in the southern hemisphere (that wasn't Australia). I love everything about Brasil - the country, the people, and most importantly the beautiful game of futbol ("soccer" to us Americans). I am glad that Rio will host the 2016 Summer Games because it is a great city in a great country. I also think that Rogge wants to be remembered for giving the games to Brasil AND punishing the Americans.

Rob

LinkedIn.....

2009-09-30T19:50:00.002-05:00

Today I decided to update my Linked In profile - no particular reason, just felt like doing it. I found an "invite" from the CIA. About a decade ago I had a phone interview with them and it creeped me out. That is why I joined Naval Intelligence, because it appealled more to me than the National Clandestine Service. During the interview, I was asked how good of a liar I was. That kind of soured me on the idea.

Japan

2009-09-25T11:10:00.000-05:00

I recently watched a re-run of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations show about Tokyo. Viewing it reminded me of the reverence I have for Japan and its people. I spent the last two years of high school in Japan and unlike some of the American that were there at the time, I took every opportunity to do things “off-base.” Roppongi, Sagamihara, Yamato, and Atsugi are names & places that will stay with me for the rest of my life - domo arigato.

What I liked best about Japan was that instead of talking smack, the Japanese let their actions speak for them (I guess you have to say it’s the exact opposite of Terrell Owens and his non-stop yammering). A quite calm and a fierce determination – never let your adversary known what you are thinking. Win or lose, give your adversary nothing.

Rob

The future of computing……..

2009-09-24T10:41:00.002-05:00

The future of computing, at least the way that I see things going over the next few years, is mobility, anywhere access, and virtual technology.

Mobility
It doesn’t matter if we are talking about a laptop computer, a netbook, or a smartphone with Internet access – they all are mobile computing platforms. During a recent trip to Las Vegas, my wife and I both used our Android-powered G1 phones for numerous online chores. Mobility means freedom.

Anywhere Access
Anywhere access goes hand-in-hand with mobility; but from another angle. A mobile computing platform means little if the user can’t access the resources that she or he needs online. That means Internet access practically anywhere (and most importantly secure access). To give you an example, during my time at an Oil & Gas services company, I received a call from an employee traveling in Mongolia (near the Gobi desert) who’d called to complain that the Internet service at the hotel was slow. Now that's anywhere access!

Virtual Technology
The catalyst that has given mobility & anywhere access “legs” is virtual technology. Server virtualization, desktop virtualization, application virtualization, data center virtualization, virtualization - whatever. They have all pushed enterprises (both large and small) into offering computing resources to anyone anywhere. I know that “cloud computing” is all the buzz these days so I’ll include a few words about it – its here.

A person will use a mobile computing platform with anywhere access to the Internet to access online resources being provided utilizing virtual technology.

Rob Hiltbrand, MS, CISSP

Vegas, it's all about the steak!

2009-09-02T11:06:00.007-05:00

In Las Vegas, it's all about the steak. My wife and I went to Las Vegas to celebrate her birthday (23rd but don't tell anyone). To my surprise, my mother, father, brother (and his wife), and two cousins (and their two husbands) showed up. We have a good time, but only m cousin Courtney won a significant amount of money. Dinner at Delmonico's (in the Venitian) was great (as it has been when we've eaten there before). My wife took some good pictures.

Different stuff.....

2009-08-11T12:42:00.003-05:00

Lots going on these days. But first I must comment on last Sunday's Dynamo game - I haven't seen scoring like that since Prom Night! Geez, the Houston defense had more holes in it than OJ Simpson's alibi. But they won and that is what counts.

I'm working on a collocation project for my current employer. I'm big on planning and prep work - that is the only way I see things getting done in a reasonable amount of time. I also favor an incremental approach - don't do everything at once, instead take several smaller steps and build toward milestones and the main goal. That way you can back track in case mistakes were made or you need to come up with a different approach (because management has changed its mind). I've got the servers built out, I've got the software in place for replication across the WAN, and I still must configure the firewall for the new data center. But I'm having to wait on the co-lo vendor. Always with the waiting!

I thought that after I earned the CISSP certification, folks would be pounding down my door begging to offer me IT Security related jobs - fat chance of that in this economy. I felt the same way back in 2006 when I earned the Master's degree but still had trouble finding a job. What is it going to take for someone to offer me a high paying, IT Security related job?

Rob Hiltbrand, MS, CISSP

Blog, blog, blog........

2009-08-05T16:26:00.002-05:00

I finally got the friggin' blog up at work - not because I didn't know how, but I had to make the time (don't we all face this issue). I used WordPress as part of the setup from cPanel.

Rob

I passed the CISSP exam!

2009-07-23T14:30:00.003-05:00

I received notice today that I passed the CISSP exam - I'm so friggin' happy I could puke! I will now insist that my brother-in-law Chris Harris (who fancies himself an IT security guru) address me as "Mr. CISSP" during all future conversations.

David Beckham's "committment" to MLS

2009-07-20T21:11:00.002-05:00

I called into the Dynamo All-Access radio show with Glenn Davis this evening and put in my two cents regarding David Beckham – he’s not going to be there at the end of the season for the Galaxy. He will head for Europe as soon as he can. Why? Because around October/November is when Fabio Capella, the coach of the English national team, starts to finalize his roster for World Cup 2010 in South Africa. It was Capella who told Beckham that if he wanted to make the English World Cup team, he had to be playing in Europe. Beckham’s only professional goal now is to make the 2010 World Cup roster for England. So while Beckham is saying that he is committed to MLS and the Galaxy, he’ll simply tell them he’s leaving and then leave. MLS and the Galaxy will tell the US Press that it was a mutual agreement because they want Beckham to have his opportunity to make the English World Cup roster, but in private, the MLS brain trust will be furious that once again, “Becks” has gotten the best of them. In the Fall of 2010, after the World Cup, David Beckham will come back to America and tell everyone that will listen that he is committed to MLS. Then he’ll retire.

Rob

Cyber attacks!!!

2009-07-08T23:14:00.002-05:00

Regarding the stories on the news about possible North Korean involvement in attacks against US Government websites, my philosophy is to backtrack where the attacks are coming from, proactively cut off those making the attacks, and then launch offensive attacks against the parties responsible. But I fear the current administration lacks the will to conduct this type of "offensive" cyber warfare (the last administration also lacked the will power). If North Korean shot down one of our planes, we'd take action. The response should be no different in cyberspace.

Thoughts from the CISSP exam....

2009-06-29T20:45:00.002-05:00

I took the CISSP exam last Saturday but don't know if I passed. Now I can say that there was only one out of the total of 250 questions that I didn't have a clue as to what the answer was. Typically I could identify what the possible right answer was and then reason it out. The key was to answer the questions the way that the ISC2 folks would want them answered.

The one thing that really stood out for me was that this was not a technical exam - it was a managerial exam. At least, that is my perspective. Instead of being down in the trenches, the questions come at you from a higher perspective - you must be able to see the forrest for the trees. A person must think in terms of how to implement & manage an asymmetric cryptography infrastructure within an organization, not just what algorithm does symmetric cryptography use. Think in terms of what would the most effective Access Control system be for an organization - do you want something that is role based or discrectionary? And whatever solution is picked, it must be cost effective.

After taking the test, I have a new appreciation for those folks in the IT Security / Information Assurance management ranks that have to make hard decisions every day.

CISSP Exam....

2009-06-19T16:42:00.002-05:00

I'm tired of studying for the CISSP exam! I don't want to look at the material anymore. But I'm scheduled to take the exam next week so I'll just have to put up with it. I can't afford to flunk the CISSP exam!

I'm so friggin' happy that the Houston Dynamo and City of Houston municipal government are making progress on the new soccer stadium - it is about friggin' time!

Chris Hiltbrand

2009-06-07T12:44:00.001-05:00

My brother Chris turned 35 years old yesterday - good for him. He's hopping around these days on only one good leg because of an injury but he should be back to form in 8 to 12 months.

Rob

My thoughts on Interop 2009 Las Vegas....

2009-05-23T17:45:00.002-05:00

So what did I learn at Interop 2009 Las Vegas? Well, I learned that there are many, many exciting technologies out there right now! The both good and bad of going to this type of event is that you learn something new. Whether its application virtualization, the mobile Internet, web application security, or any other of the dozen of topics covered at Interop, something new is happening and I need to be apart of it. The trick is, how does one find those organizations that are doing exciting work with new technologies?

One of the presenters at the Conference asked the simple question, “What problem are you trying to solve?” Maybe it isn’t about finding which organizations are doing what with new technology. Maybe it’s about find an organization that is willing to utilize new technology to answer the question, “What problem are we trying to solve?” and then applying new ideas (i.e., technologies) as the solution.

So what are my thoughts after leaving the Conference? I’m convinced that application virtualization, the mobile Internet, and remote access are the keys to technology within the next few years. Oh, and let’s not forget about moving the protection schemes to focus on Data and not on the perimeter of the network. I believe that organizations will give their employees, customers, and business partners anytime, anywhere access to information, but only on a need-to-know basis. If you give someone just enough access to do their job, you can protect what is most important – the Data.

Las Vegas.....

2009-05-17T22:45:00.002-05:00

What is there to do in Las Vegas? I'm sure I'll find something to do during the breaks in the sessions at Interop 2009. I wonder if there is anywhere to eat on the Strip? Will there be a place for me to get an adult beverage or two? I actually had my mother-in-law convinced that I was going to Vegas for a poker tournament. That would have been great but my wife told her that I was going to a convention and that kind of ruined it.

The quite before the storm........

2009-05-10T18:06:00.002-05:00

I decided to take this weekend off - off from studying for the CISSP, off from lifting weights, and off from work. As Houston's own Geto Boys rapped in 1991, my "Mind Playing Tricks on Me." I'd been looking at the CISSP study material so much that I was seeing it in my sleep (not good - the test isn't until late June). I was so sore from lifting heavy weights that I couldn't bend down to pick up the dog bowl. And I was not going into work now that I have the new AC unit in the server room. What is ironic is that next week (May 18th), I'll be in Las Vegas for Interop and I'll get a break then. But I was just too tired and needed a break now.

G1

2009-04-28T15:01:00.002-05:00

My wife and I both switched from AT&T over to T-Mobile and the G1 this weekend. Why? Because AT&T's customer service is piss-poor. Because AT&T's network sucked and was practically unusable after Hurricane Ike hit Houston in September 2008. Because AT&T was harassing my wife about non-payment but it turned out that AT&T had received payment, they just didn't know where it was. AT&T is getting too big for itself - maybe they need to break up again.

The G1 is an interesting device but I haven't really had a chance to play with it yet.

Front 242

2009-03-25T09:30:00.002-05:00

I was looking around online for information about Nine Inch Nails (I'm looking for a ticket to the May 18th show in Las Vegas) and decided to see what NIN music I had in my collection. I use iTunes to manage my music and that damn Genius feature came up with suggestions. One of the suggestions was Front 242 - I'd forgotten about them. I remember the song "Headhunter" from my freshman year in college. I remember going to Sixth Street in Austin and every club there playing that song. Industrial music was interesting back in the late 80s and early 90s.

Taste of Texas

2009-03-14T14:55:00.004-05:00

One of my favorite restaurants in Houston is named Taste of Texas. It is a steakhouse with great steaks and a casual atmosphere. I can't remember the first time I visited the restaurant and that is a shame. But I eat there at least once a month - my way of keeping the economy afloat. The image is of my brother-in-law Chris and myself with the cowboy statue out in front.

Talledega Nights - Very Funny Caricature

2009-03-02T10:05:00.005-06:00

I had never seen the Will Ferrell movie Talledega Nights until the other day. I came in on the part where Jean Girard (played brilliantly by Sacha Baron Cohen) interrupts Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) at his favorite bar and calls him out. Very funny caricature of both NASCAR and French culture. The two best parts are the pimp-slapping and when Jean Girard is explaining to Ricky Bobby and Cal (John C. Reilly) what the French have contributed to World culture. Enjoy!

YouTube Clip

Diffie and the Cloud

2009-02-12T09:00:00.002-06:00

I attended a small regional security conference yesterday - the Houston SecureWorld expo. The opening keynote speaker was Dr. Whitfield Diffie, chief security officer of Sun Microsystems and co-creator of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange (think cryptography).

He is a very smart man and that's the reason my brother-in-law Chris and I attended what was otherwise a lackluster conference. The take away from this keynote is that cloud computing is fundamentally changing IT. It has to do with a sea change from the physical location of the systems to those same systems being virtual and located off premise (in the cloud).

Rob

When the fire starts to fade.........

2009-02-11T20:33:00.003-06:00

When the fire starts to fade - what does that mean? Well, it means that when it comes to emerging technologies, it ain't happening at work! I'd say we are two generations behind. Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Exchange 2007, virtualization (applications & servers), 64-bit computing, thin clients, and cloud computing - these are all technologies that I desperately want to work with. But the economy is going to get worse before it gets better and there are no jobs. So how does one find a way to work with technologies that seem out of reach?

Rob

Necessary Work.......

2009-01-21T12:05:00.001-06:00

I found a wonderful quote online from Jason Whitlock, a sports journalist. To para-phrase what he said -

Things can change rapidly when we do the necessary work

Rob

Change..........

2009-01-20T21:26:00.002-06:00

I just posted to www.IthankW.com and gave my thanks for George W. Bush being Commander-In-Chief during my time in the US Navy. I think that time & history will be much kinder to him that what most of us have done during his time in office.

As for the new President, Barack Obama, I believe he has a tough road ahead. As smart & driven as he is, I don't know that even he can solve all the problems that face us. Instead, I think it will take the efforts of ordinary people to get this country back on track. I think that there are policy decisions that President Obama can make - fiscal policy, military decisions, foreign policy, and a domestic agenda. But in the end it will be about what we, as Americans, do for ourselves.

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Rob

Watching an old movie.....

2009-01-14T21:22:00.003-06:00

I found myself watching an old movie earlier this evening. The movie was "Hiding Out" and stared Jon Cryer and Annabeth Gish (I had such a crush on her back then). The film was released in 1987 and I just can't believe it is about high school back in the 80's. I finished high school in 1988 so the film depicted what things were like for me. I watch the film now and think to myself, "Did I really look and act like that?" I don't feel like I've been out of high school for 20 years - I feel, think, and sometimes act like I'm still 18. I suppose everyone gets introspective as they grow older. But what does it mean to be old? I don't feel one day older than when I finished high school.

Rob

Happy New Year and all that crap..........

2009-01-04T22:05:00.003-06:00

Happy New Year and all that crap - what makes 2009 any different than 2008? Well, soon the White House will have a new occupant and I hope that means better times for the US. I'd like to think that where perhaps 2008 was a low point for American, 2009 will be the beginning of something better - better relations with our allies, better management of our economy, and most importantly better treatment of the United States Military. I'd like to see our troops in Iraq brought back home and given all the needed medical & financial support to live normal lives - no more PTSD. I fear the extended stay in Iraq has cause considerable damage to the Army & Marines while the Air Force and Navy have faired a little better.

Rob

Tailgating with old friends...........

2008-12-02T14:58:00.001-06:00

It is always good to see old friends, especially as you get older. The icing on the cake is when you see they've gained weight when you are loosing weight - what can I say, I'm a petty man!

I went to the Houston Texans vs. Jacksonville Jaguars Monday night football game with my friends Mark Valls and Bill Hunter (old college buddies). Here are the pictures that I took with my mobile phone. There will be more to follow.

Rob

Victory

2008-11-11T10:26:00.000-06:00

Once the hoop-la of President-Elect Obama passes, the important work begins. It is one thing to run a successful campaign but I'm afraid it is quite another to run a country. I have confidence that President-Elect Obama will give every bit of himself during his term in office. But he is only a single figure in what is a complex web of government, business, and public interests. I have faith that he will surround himself with highly skilled individuals from every section of the population. Let us hope that the Judicial and Legislative branches of the federal government follow the lead of the Executive branch and become as transparent as possible.

Rob

Meet the Press 10/19/08 - General Colin Powell endorses Obama

2008-10-20T11:38:00.000-05:00

Meet the Press for Sunday, October 19, 2008

Former Secretary of State General Colin Powell endorses Sen. Obama -

"Now, I understand what politics is all about. I know how you can go after one another, and that's good. But I think this goes too far. And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for. And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me. And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift. I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration. I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America."

"I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards--Purple Heart, Bronze Star--showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions."

General Powell was able to put into words how I feel about the matter. I've been associated with the United States Navy for virtually my whole life - first as the son of a career Naval Officer and then in the Reserves as an Intelligence Specialist. The one absolute truth that I found during that time is that all kinds of people love this country and want to protect it. I had the honor of serving with people of every color, gender, and religion. As General Powell so eloquently put it, there are Muslim Americans who are fighting and dying on battlefields far away from the U.S. because they love this country as much as I do.

My parents told me a story about JFK and his campaign in the early 60's. There was a fear among some that because JFK was Catholic, if he was elected President, then the Pope would rule the United State from the Vatican. Well, JFK was elected and things worked out pretty well. Fear is something that American can do without these days. The phrase, "United we stand, divided we fall" means all of America, not just the White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestants that the modern republican party seems to focus on. To me, the republicans only issue is fear and how they can use it to get elected. They'll tell you who to fear (Muslims & immigrants) and what to fear but offer no solutions other than spending more money on the U.S. military, bombing foreign countries where the people don't look like republicans, and sealing up our southern border (they want to wall it up because those folks don't look like republicans but they don't want to wall up the northern border because the folks up there do look like republicans).

Rob

RELEASING THE DRAGON

2008-10-16T14:03:00.000-05:00

My boss today paid me a compliment, even if he didn't mean to. He said, "PUTTING YOU IN CHARGE OF IT IS LIKE RELEASING THE DRAGON.” I like that idea - I just can't decide whether I'm a Black Dragon or a Red Dragon.

The Uncertainty Principle

2008-10-14T11:24:00.000-05:00

I’m old enough now to worry about supporting my family in down economic times but not too worried about my 401(k) which is tied directly to the NYSE - unless you are about to retire tomorrow, keep plugging away and pay into your account. Everyone is sitting around saying, “When will things slow down?” or “When will I loose my job?” Actually, I have a friend who lost his job as a Controller for a small firm that manufactures LEDs so I know there is a slow down. I work for an executive staffing firm and especially for the Banking industry, things are tough. In good times, companies will pay fees for the right candidates to fill open jobs. But in bad times, most firms will find their own candidates to fill those few job openings that exist. I’m not sure what this means for my immediate future – I am a Department of One but the network at working is functioning as it should so I worry that management will say to themselves, “Why do we need an IT guy, things are working great!” While my job on a daily basis isn’t as challenging as I’d like it to be (I’m with a small firm with little room for bleeding-edge technology), I enjoy the people at my work plus I have my own office and ride my bike each day. So what does it all mean? I don’t know - hence the word uncertainty.

Rob

Recovery

2008-09-02T14:43:00.000-05:00

I was both elated and sad this past Friday, and not for the reasons you'd expect. As part of my job, I'm called on from time-to-time to find items after an employee is let go. Well, thanks to Microsoft Outlook's built-in recovery utility, I was able to recover an entire mailbox. I was elated because of the ease-of-use of the tool, but sad because I had to recover the deleted items in the first place. As everyone should know, anything done on a computer and/or network can be recovered. We leave electronic footprints everywhere!

Rob

Colonel Thompson

2008-08-25T12:02:00.000-05:00

Col. Roger Thompson, United States Army Reserve, passed away on August 17th – he was a great officer. He was my commanding officer when I served at NAS Fort Worth. He treated the enlisted personnel well and had a very dry sense of humor. I remember a few times after I’d given a briefing where he’d comment about how could the Navy possibly know what a tank looked like or something similar and that would always get a good laugh. I remember near the end of my time at NAS Fort Worth, we’d see Col. Thompson less and less because he was sick. It was my honor to server with Colonel Roger M.W. Thompson.

IS2 Robert K. Hiltbrand

The unappreciated

2008-08-15T15:22:00.000-05:00

I'm both hyped and exhausted today. I spent last night bringing online a new email server and the way I did it was slick. I had a six year old Compaq ProLiant ML350 G2 that HP would no longer extend the warranty for so I had to replace the server hardware. And since this is the one & only email server, it had to be done in a way as to not lose messages. So I used snapshot technology from UltraBac to "move" the OS, apps, configuration, and data off of the old Compaq hardware onto a new Dell PowerEdge 1950 III. And damn if it didn't work as advertised! While the email server was down, my anti-spam server was "spooling" messages and waiting for the email server to come back online (so we didn't miss a single incoming email). Now I tend to over-prepare and plan to the Nth degree so perhaps that is why things worked out. The whole process took me about 3 hours (I started a little before midnight on Thursday evening).

Now what I did was hard because even though the UltrBac software worked as advertised, there were still configurations that I had to make. So when I came into work today, I was hyped but all I got from management was a blank stare when I reminded them of what I'd accomplished.

Being in Tech means that you will always be unappreciated - management types see technology spending as an expense ("as if we're reaching into their pockets and stealing money from their wallets") when it should be seen as an investment. Let's seen any modern business run without computers, a network, and access to the Internet! My philosophy is incremental steps as a means of steadily improving the infrastructure & tools used by employees and those improvements need to be thought of as investments, plain and simple. But to the un-enlightened management types, they only spend money on technology when an emergency happens because the issue is right there in their face - the best example is when a hurricane or other natural disaster hits. Disaster avoidance is my goal.

So I'm left feeling proud of what I accomplished yet unappreciated by management. I'm sure there are plenty of folks out there that can appreciate being unappreciated.

Rob

The State of America......

2008-08-06T22:17:00.000-05:00

So where is America today? I don't know, but it doesn't look good. Our currency is down 40% since 2002 against the Euro, yet Europeans have as much as six (6) weeks of vacation a year with solid economic growth. The next US President faces a huge budgetary deficit and it doesn't include military spending for both Iraq & Afghanistan. Our transportation infrastructure is crumbling. The education system is average at best, with significant problems for certain segments of the population. And America’s financial system appears on the brink. The middle class is being squeezed out of existence.

American companies used to rule the World, but are being cut down to size by firms that are better equipped for the global economy. GM was the largest car company in the World, but now is posting billion dollar losses every quarter. They make cars that no one wants. Microsoft ruled the computer World but now they are just another US firm trying to keep itself relevant in a digital economy where desktop operating systems and fat client software like Office prove irrelevant. And McDonalds', that quintessential American fast food restaurant, is battling an image problem and health advocates because its food is fatty, ordinary tasting, and unhealthy. Speaking of health, America is still the only industrialized nation in the World without Universal Health Care. We have immigration problems, energy problems, and environmental problems. California has problems with its budget and wild fires. The Southeastern US has suffered thru a severe drought for several years now. School must have bake sales to help pay for operating expenses while art & music programs are cut because there is no money. People are genuinely worried about how they will make it to retirement age and live a decent life. Will Social Security even exist within the next 15 to 20 years? And Washington is gridlocked with Democrats vs. Republicans, Liberals vs. Conservatives, Blue vs. Red. Our elected officials are more interested in protecting their jobs and trashing the other side than finding solutions or even attempting to work together. And in the most ironic of twists, the politicians have their own private medical and retirement plans separate from what the common folks in America get access to. Politicians don't care if Social Security is around in 20 years because they have a retirement system that is completely separate. That is like a chef not eating the food at his or her restaurant - its do as I say, not as I do.
On all fronts, it appears that America is on the ropes. Why? I believe it has to do with timing. Maybe our time has come? What makes a person, or nation, successful can also be part of its downfall. Instead of changing with the times, America has become an island until itself. President Bush's attitude of, "You are either with us or against us" isn't a sound foreign policy platform. We are entrenched in conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan that have cost billions of dollars, killed thousands of our military men & women, and cost us credibility with the rest of the World. We are still in the mindset of telling every other country on the planet what to do. What happens when the rest of the World stops listening to what we have to say? America will be that cranky old man, sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of our old, dilapidated house telling everyone that walks by about how great we used to be.

So is there a solution? I don't know. During America's expansion into the Western part of the continent, the politicians called it Manifest Destiny and used that to justify what happened to the Native Americans. I think it ironic that Manifest Destiny is what might push

America

to the sidelines on the World stage. There is nothing sadder than a once powerful nation that can't admit that its importance has diminished. Maybe we must accept the fact that our currency, our education system, even our standard of living, are all on the decline.

And I don't want to hear from any arch-conservative neo-fascists that say I'm un-American and un-patriotic. You can't sugar coat what is going on in this country, not any more.

Sampson has lost his hair........

2008-07-18T13:15:00.000-05:00

Sampson has lost his hair........

I cut my hair the other day - I had to do it, too much work in the morning. And with riding my bike to work, I ended up looking like Albert Einstein after a vigorous ride to the office.

GM 25 Live

2008-07-15T09:01:00.000-05:00

I attended George Michael's 25 Live concert last evening (here in Houston). Simply put, it was the best live event that I've ever experienced. The stage show was great, the sound was great, and my wife and I had a, dare I say it, great time! I've been a George Michael fan all the way back to his days in Wham! I now regret not seeing him in concert sooner.

Family Guy Puke-A-Thon - Great Stuff!

2008-06-03T14:17:00.000-05:00

I love the animated TV show "Family Guy" - lots of obnoxious, sophomoric humor, exactly the kind of stuff that makes me laugh.

I found a great clip of what is titled, "Puke-A-Thon" - great stuff!

Post Interop 2008 Las Vegas

2008-05-04T12:31:00.000-05:00

I had lots of fun at Interop 2008 Las Vegas - who wouldn't have fun in Vegas for a week? These pictures I took using the camera on my mobile phone. I should have more pictures soon.

Chris Farley and Interop 2008 Las Vegas

2008-04-18T15:08:00.000-05:00

What do Chris Farley and Interop 2008 Las Vegas have in common?

To cast or not to cast, that is the question.

2008-04-14T16:36:00.001-05:00

Well, well, well, look who has a cast. Well, my soccer playing finally got the best of me. I injured my right hand while playing a few weeks ago and the injury was bad enough that I needed to put my hand in a cast. This is the first cast of my life. Especially since most of my day is spent typing, I'm not a happy camper right now. But the good news is that I get the cast removed the day that I leave for Interop 2008 in Las Vegas and that is a good thing.

More pictures from the Civil War

2008-03-27T21:16:00.000-05:00

Good stuff. I found these pictures, taken after the University of Oregon had just lost to Oregon State University. A battle known as "The Civil War" in the great Northwest. Well, at least my hair was long.

What a week for technology........

2008-03-24T11:24:00.001-05:00

Last Thursday and Friday were interesting days for me. On Thursday, I attended Microsoft's launch event for Server 2008, SQL 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. I was especially interested in Server 2008 and what it can do in regards to virtualization. If Microsoft can get their Hyper-V product to work as advertised, it should be interesting to see what VMware does to counter it. Initially, I was leaning towards VMware, but if Hyper-V works, then I just might make the switch. I see virtualization as a key component as I work to upgrade the infrastructure at my firm. And since I make the decisions, I get to choose which vendor to use for virtual software. It's good to be the king!

On Friday, I drove up to Austin to visit Core NAP, a tier 4 collocation facility in north Austin. From the start I was impressed with the people and what they had to offer. The place looked impressive, has plenty of redundancy, and a top shelf technical staff. Plus quite of few of the dudes there had long hair so to me that is a sign of greatness!

Disappointment

2008-03-05T08:24:00.000-06:00

Disappointment is what I felt this morning when I heard the news that Barack Obama had not won the State of Texas. I am a registered Independent but for the first time ever voted in the Democratic Primary because I believe that Barack is the best candidate. I am deeply disappointed that Hillary Clinton is still in the race. She is such a polarizing figure that I don't see a way for her to unify the country - she can't even unify the Democratic Party and she has Bill Clinton as her Number One backer.

If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination for President, I will not vote for her. My first choice is Barack Obama. If Barack isn't the Democratic nominee, I'll vote for former Naval Officer John McCain.

My favorite episodes of Miami Vice

2008-01-12T14:47:00.000-06:00

I am a child of the 80's - I have all five seasons of Miami Vice on DVD. I had a Saturday afternoon and wasn't doing much so why not put together this list. My top 10 episodes of Miami Vice are:

Miami Vice pilot
Episode #001 - Season 1
Alternate title: Brother's Keeper
Air Date: 16 Sep 1984 (NBC)
Director: Thomas Carter
Writer: Anthony Yerkovich

Episode Summary
Miami police detective James "Sonny" Crockett reluctantly teams with New York bred newcomer Ricardo Tubbs to solve several murders connected to a mysterious Colombian drug lord.

Why I like this episode: This is the pilot episode and started it all off. It also started the feud between Crockett, Tubbs, and Calderon.

========================

Hit List
Episode #004 - Season 1
Alternate Title: Return of Calderon
Air Date: 19 Oct 1984 (NBC)
Director: Richard Colla
Writer: Joel Surnow

Episode Summary
Tubbs fights to save Crockett and his family from becoming the next victims of an Argentinian assassin hired by Calderon.

Why I like this episode: This episode continues the feud between Crockett and Calderon.

=========================

Calderon's Demise
Episode #005 - Season 1
Alternate Title: Calderon's Return pt 2*
Air Date: 26 Oct 1984 (NBC)
Director: Paul Michael Glaser (the dark haired guy from "Starky & Hutch"
Writers: Joel Surnow & Alfonse Ruggiero, Jr.

Episode Summary
While on the trail of Calderon in Bimini, Tubbs falls in love with a woman, and is forced to consider his loyalties.

Why I like this episode: Tubbs travels to Bimini and falls in love with Calderon's daughter. But in the end Crockett kills Calderon.

==========================

Sons and Lovers
Episode #044 - Season 2
Air Date: 9 May 1986 (NBC)
Director: John Nicolella
Writer: Dennis Cooper

Episode Summary
Angelina Calderon returns to warn Tubbs that a price has been put on his head by her vengeful brother.

Why I like this episode: John Leguizamo is Orlando Calderon, Angelina's half brother. He ends the episode by blowing up Angelina & stealing Tubbs' son.

==========================

The Afternoon Plane
Episode #061 - Season 3
Air Date: 20 Feb 1987 (NBC)
Director: David Jackson
Writer: David Jackson

Episode Summary
After winning a dream vacation to a remote Caribbean island, Tubbs discovers it's an elaborate trap designed by vengeful drug king Orlando Calderon.

Why I like this episode: John Leguizamo returns as Orlando Calderon to seek revenge upon Ricardo Tubbs. But Tubbs kills him and finally closes the book on his feud with the Calderon family (because he and Crockett have killed them all).

===========================

Definitely Miami
Episode #034 - Season 2
Air Date: 10 Jan 1986 (NBC)
Director: Rob Cohen
Writers: Michael Ahnemann & Daniel Pyne

Episode Summary
Castillo attempts to organize the surrender of a crime boss; a mysterious woman with a dangerous boyfriend leads Crockett on.

Why I like this episode: This episode was more style over substance, but it had Ted Nugent as the bad guy - angry young man!

===========================

Evan
Episode #021 - Season 1
Air Date: 3 May 1985 (NBC)
Director: Rob Cohen
Writer: Paul Diamond

Episode Summary
Crockett asks to be taken off a case after he learns the identity of the undercover agent trying to nab an arms supplier.

Why I like this episode: Good episode where something from Crockett's past comes back to haunt him.

============================

Score
Episode #013 - Season 1
Alternate Title: Golden Triangle, part 1
Air Date: 11 Jan 1985 (NBC)
Director: Georg Stanford Brown
Teleplay: Joseph Gunn & Maurice Hurley
Story: Maurice Hurley

Episode Summary
Posing as hotel security, Crockett & Tubbs enlist a prostitute to help them capture a pair of safecrackers.

Why I like this episode: This is a good episode because it gives viewers the back story of Lt. Martin Castillo, played by Edward James Olmos.

============================

Golden Triangle
Episode #014 - Season 1
Alternate Title: Golden Triangle part 2
Air Date: 18 Jan 1985 (NBC)
Director: David Anspaugh
Writers: Maurice Hurley & Michael Mann

Episode Summary
Castillo asks Crockett & Tubbs to help him find an old adversary, a drug smuggler who has kidnapped his former wife.

Why I like this episode: Lt. Castillo gets to bust the man who ordered his death when he was with the DEA.

============================

Theresa
Episode #060 - Season 3
Air Date: 13 Feb 1987 (NBC)
Director: Virgil W. Vogel
Writer: Pamela Norris

Episode Summary
Crockett is investigated after authorities discover a link between his physician girlfriend to a drug kingpin.

Why I like this episode: Helena Bonham Carter, Crockett's girlfriend, betrays him and almost costs him his badge - good stuff!

New Year's Eve 2007

2007-12-31T22:49:00.000-06:00

My wife and I don't get out like we used to. And I'm not sure that its because we are getting older. We went out and had a nice meal at the Capital Grille but after that, we just didn't feel like fighting the crowds to go somewhere. We took these pictures with Shari's new Motorola Razr but I don't think they look as good as images shot using my old Razr. For anyone looking for a good meal, the Capital Grille in Houston is a wonderful place. Happy New Year.

2007-12-17T13:33:00.000-06:00

This is the picture that my wife used for our family Christmas card. As you'll notice, neither Shari or I are pictured because in our house, the pets rule!