* Posts by jpwarren

12 publicly visible posts • joined 6 May 2014

Logging and monitoring can be a form of bullying, and make for lousy infosec

jpwarren

Re: Insider threat is more nuanced than yes/no to monitoring

Thanks for reading it!

Dr Michalak says, near the end of the article in the "do this instead" section: "Have you been transparent with people about what is being done and why it's required, and do the people you want to monitor consider it to be reasonable, or excessive?"

That's all I'm arguing for. Talk to people about what your plans are and explain it so they're part of the solution. Don't just sit in an ivory tower and impose your will on people. I don't say "never monitor anything". I say with great power comes great responsibility.

VCs: Can't see an IPO or acquisition for your startup? Don't throw in the towel

jpwarren

Acquired when they're cheap enough

The companies, or the technology at least, will get acquire when they get cheap enough.

If the startup's valuation is based on dreams of billion dollar revenues in a few year's time, then a harsh re-evaluation of the likelihood of that happening will be required. If there's something worth buying, someone will pick it up once the price gets low enough.

But if the startup is still stuck in "Go big or go home" mode until the cash runs out... well.

D&D geeks were right – their old rule books ARE worth something now

jpwarren

I tried to Save Vs Churlishness and rolled a 1.

The amount of effort required to put together a high-quality scan to their specifications is not small, and having to destroy the physical object as well?

And for $50, when they're selling digital copies of some titles for $5 and up? My labour is worth more than that, so no thanks.

If this was for a library, maybe, but for now I'll keep mine on my Shelf of Preserving so I can play them with my son one day.

Don’t get in a cluster fluster, Wikibon tells NetApp users

jpwarren

Late to the party, but one big thing stood out to me: 17% IRR is 'anemic'?

Let's use the current US Treasury 5 year bond yield of 1.44% as the risk free rate of return, which is a pretty standard thing to do. The 10 year bond is 2.01%, but 5 years is roughly the same investment horizon as the 50 months quoted. 17% IRR is nearly 12 *times* 1.44%, which is hardly anemic.

Hurdle rates are arbitrary, and if they haven't been reduced since interest rates plummeted in the Time of Shedding and Cold Rocks, then whoever is setting them isn't doing their job properly.

Rockport’s Torus prises open hyperscale network lockjaw costs

jpwarren

Is this FDDI rings all over again?

jpwarren

Re: Has this article missed microservices networking ?

The article is specifically talking about interconnection of Ethernet capable kinetic drives, which are physical devices, not VMs.

Also microservices != network function virtualisation.

Why NetApp shouldn’t buy Solidfire

jpwarren

This is a poor piece by the usually excellent Chris Mellor.

What evidence is there that this unnamed analyst knows what they're talking about? Usually anonymity is for insiders who need to be protected from reprisals, but who have insider knowledge that provides a useful perspective.

This is just gossip unless it's been corroborated by at least one other source, and we need to have some information about why we should believe anything they say. What is their agenda? What biases might they have that the reader should be aware of?

Chris, I am disappoint. :(

IETF's older white men urged to tone it down

jpwarren

Re: Important RFCs by women ?

What meritocracy?

What is the metric used to measure merit here?

Do you even statistics, bro?

I cannae dae it, cap'n! Why I had to quit the madness of frontline IT

jpwarren

Re: IT Sales Problem

Ah, no. It doesn't have to be you personally. That's why we work in teams/groups/autonomous collectives.

This is all a succession of managers' fault for not supporting their staff with the resources they require. An IT department with internal customers has a bunch of functions not purely technical: HR and finance, for example. Either their own, dedicated people, or they use some shared service. It's not the DBA or sysadmin doing HR, right?

But how many IT departments have you seen doing any marketing or sales? Why not?

jpwarren

IT Sales Problem

A couple of things here.

Firstly, getting the budget and support you need is a sales problem. IT is very bad at sales. This means that IT gets dictated to, instead of being able to find out what people actually need (per the article) and deliver on that after getting the appropriate level of funding.

Secondly, the business knows IT pads their budgets. IT have trained lines of business to cut their funding because for the last n budgets, IT asked for $Xm and only got 70% of $Xm. Instead of saying "Ok, choose which projects you don't want" IT says they'll do their best and makes do. LOB figure they get what they want when they argue the budget down, (and are rewarded for it), so guess what happens? The consequences are far removed from the action, so look who gets left holding the bag.

Get out there and sell IT as something worth paying for. Doing things the current way isn't working, so maybe instead of insisting everyone else change, perhaps IT could try changing things under their own control?

Go make friends with the head of Sales and get them to teach you how to sell yourself.

Pleased to meet you. I'm Joe Bloggs, MVP, vExpert, Cisco Champ

jpwarren

It only means something to some people

Any of this recognition is just that: something people can recognise you for. It only matters as much as the people doing the recognising. Lots of people don't care, and if you want those people to notice you, getting MVP or vExpert won't help you. Think of it like winning the local darts comp.

I've done plenty of certifications over the years, in different technologies, and vExpert feels different in that it's about what you contribute to the wider tech community, outside of even VMware. People are incredibly positive and supportive of each other! Being dubbed vExpert gives perks, yes, but it also comes with expectations and obligations to give back. The most lauded people are those who do the most for others, not for themselves.

I like that the vExpert program has established a set of community norms so that even if people are inspired to chase after the vExpert label just for the label, to earn it means doing a bunch of stuff that benefits the tech community at large. So, regardless of your motivations, we all win, which makes for a nice change.

It's also totally voluntary, so if it's not your cup of tea, don't join in.

CeBIT 'Straya 2014

jpwarren

Re: CeBIT 'Straya 2014

I went last year because I got a free ticket. It was pretty meh.

I didn't go this year, and wouldn't have noticed the event apart from:

a) the increasingly imploring emails from CeBIT asking me if I wouldn't please, pretty please, please come this year. Please?

b) journos I follow on Twitter snarking about the event.

Looks like I made the right choice.