Since wrapping up my contract with IHOP in early October, have been unexpectedly busy with everything from studying, marketing my consulting biz, and getting back into shape. As for studying, right now bearing down on completing preparations for Cisco CCNA, long overdue, and finally have the components for a home lab consisting of (1) Cisco 2514 router, (1) 2501 router, and a 1720 router. This is close to the recommended minimum hardware setup for learning OSPF and EIGRP at the CCNA level.

In other news, getting prepared to take the VMware VI3 course in January, so that I will be qualified to take the VCP (VMware Certified Professional) test. More importantly, need to finish with these technical certifications because I am planning to return to school next fall to pursue an MBA, and thus will need to take the delightful GMAT.

Finally, am visiting South Korea at the end of this month with my wife, it’s been over 15 years since my last trip to my country of origin. Should be fun but cold!

Well seeing the incredible Bob Mould perform live at Troubadour is certainly reason enough for a new posting. After all, his 80’s band Hüsker Dü performed the Byrds cover inspiring the title of this blog, and is widely considered as a major progenitor of indie rock, influencing the likes of Green Day, Foo Fighters and the Pixies.

His band didn’t play “8 Miles High” but surprisingly performed several old Hüskers favorites including “New Day Rising”, “I Apologize”, “Makes No Sense At All” and of course “Hardly Getting Over It.”

Really looking forward to the release of his memoirs in 2010 “Life and Times”, with support from Michael Azerrad whose “This Band Could Be Your Life” stands as one of the definitive chronicles of the American hardcore/post-punk era.

Here’s a shot from the gig, sorry for the image quality but I was too busy dancing and wigging out-

I’ve been heavily focused with getting Nagios implemented in my new environment at IHOP. It was surprising to learn that an overall monitoring and alerting system was not in place yet, given the complexity and maturity of the infrastructure. I had some prior exposure to Nagios through testing a VMA, but this was my first full installation.

One of the best aspects of Nagios compared to proprietary platforms is that there is a very active open-source community, and often plugins have already been developed for your particular need. For instance, I deployed one of these SNMP plugins (check_snmp_env) to monitor our Cisco switches and devices, so now we receive alert notifications in the event of any Cisco hardware failure.

There is an issue I discovered with installing the otherwise excellent NSClient++ on Windows hosts. Be careful with installing on SQL Server 2005 servers, sometimes the client install causes MS DTC Service and then SQL Server to shut down. Other than that, the NSClient++ has been stable on our Windows 2003 and 2008 servers, both 32 bit and 64 bit machines, and VMware VM’s as well as physical servers.

One more thing, if you haven’t yet implemented SNMP in your network, you’ll probably want to plan on getting at least SNMPv2 set up on the Nagios server(s), network devices and, ideally, Windows and Linux hosts.

I should mention there is an extremely useful book titled “Nagios, 2nd Edition” which will help provide additional documentation and get you up and running quickly.

I am getting a better picture of the overall environment at my new contract, and realizing there is a dearth of documentation. What does exist is a smattering of Word docs and Excel spreadsheets, only some of which are reasonably up-to-date. It’s a common situation I’ve seen in many companies, where the network/IT personnel are over-worked or not motivated to maintain updated documentation.

So one of my first mini-projects is improving the network documentation. I’m using a variation of this Infrastructure-focused taxonomy, originally designed for my personal knowledge base Wiki-

The first section titled “Tech Info” is key, and reflects my break-down of critical Infrastructure into -

• Networking
• Operating Systems
• Infrastructure (now renamed to Utility)
• Security
• Applications
• Data Center

With this information design in place, it’s relatively simple to create matching section pages in your favorite wiki or knowledge base tool, and add links or embedded documents at the bottom level in the hierarchy.

Your mileage may vary depending on your environment.  But I have found that conceptualizing a documentation system in advance, allowing flexibility for added categories and sub-categories later, is incredibly helpful.

Finally, I’m a big fan of the Socialtext wiki system, which hosts my personal wiki. I’ve found Socialtext to be easy to learn, feature-rich and stable.

I am readjusting to a much busier schedule recently, with the start this week of a new full-time contract as Network Architect for IHOP. It’s primarily a hands-on, non-management infrastructure role with many familiar technologies like Cisco networking, VMware ESX, Active Directory and so on. Not sure yet how Freedom Systems consulting will fare but would like to leverage our recent Cisco Select Partner certification.

Am still keeping an eye on the Cloud, but by necessity my focus has returned to nuts and bolts infrastructure for the time being.

This is a press release from my company Freedom Systems -

{Los Angeles, CA – June 25, 2009} – Freedom Systems announced today it has achieved Select Certification from Cisco®. The Select Certification recognizes Cisco resale channel partners whose primary focus is on the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market with fewer than 250 employees.

“We are excited about partnering with Cisco to offer best-in-class solutions to our clients,” said Darow Han, Managing Partner for Freedom Systems. “Our clients will benefit from the broad range of SMB-focused products available including networking, wireless, security and Unified Communications. Freedom Systems’ customer-centric expertise combined with Cisco solutions is a winning combination.”

“The Cisco Select Certification was created in response to customer demand for channel partners to be capable of designing and implementing SMB-specific Cisco solutions,” said Surinder Brar, senior director of worldwide channels at Cisco. “With the Select Certification, Freedom Systems has made an investment in obtaining the training, skills and knowledge necessary to play a pivotal role in meeting this increasing demand.”

To earn Select Certification, Freedom Systems fulfilled the training and exam requirements for the SMB Specialization. Freedom Systems also met the personnel, training, and post-sales support requirements set forth by Cisco.

The Cisco Resale Channel Program provides partners with the training required to build sales, technical and Cisco Lifecycle Services skills. Cisco resale partner certifications represent a breadth of skills across key technologies and a partner’s ability to deliver integrated networking solutions.

About Freedom Systems
Freedom Systems specializes in supporting small businesses and nonprofits with our expertise in networks and IT infrastructure. Our mission is to provide the highest quality of IT solutions to support rapid-growth organizations. We build highly robust, stable, secure, and scalable systems to serve our clients’ evolving needs. Freedom Systems is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

Our areas of expertise include:
* Networks – Design, implementation and support
* Infrastructure – Servers, storage, PC’s
* Mission-Critical Applications – Database, CRM, web, email
* Network Security – Risk assessment, response, and management

For more information visit http://www.freedomsystemsusa.com.

Though I’m not sure if netbooks are indeed one of the three horsemen of the “Coming Networking Revolution,” I still think they’re pretty cool, useful and am planning to get one any day now.

In early 2008 I bought and tested a Fujitsu U810, a mini PC which arguably helped pave the way for the current wave of netbooks. I was quite satisfied with the usability and features which included a webcam and fingerprint-based biometrics, though annoyed that I was stuck with the Windows Vista version. However, the combination of Vista Home version which limited its utility in the corporate office (no Active Directory authentication), limited free WiFi where I was residing (Tysons Corner, Northern Virginia), and absence of mobile broadband definitely reduced the usefulness of this handy little machine. In the end I reverted to a standard light Dell laptop which I’ve used more as a desktop replacement with occasional mobile use.

In terms of technical requirements, having Ubuntu as the OS is an absolute must since it’s become my primary client OS. I’m satisfied with the standard netbook specs including Atom N270 CPU and 1 GB RAM. The main usage will be, not surprisingly, casual web browsing and email, though I also have needs relating to remote sys admin, assuming I set up a mobile broadband plan. Must-have apps include PuTTy, Terminal Server client, terminal, Firefox, and a PDF viewer.

So far I’m leaning heavily to the Dell Mini 10v, which fits the bill and has a comfortable keyboard. I also looked at the new Dell 2100-N but it’s a little too heavy in mind for a netbook and is designed primarily for the student market.

The HP Mini has a good sized keyboard too, though its a $100 premium over the Dell Mini. On the other hand, the keys on the Acer Aspire, which is being marketed through Verizon/Radio Shack for $49 lately, were just not usable based on my testing.

Now I need to finish research on the Mobile Broadband plans available, leaning towards Verizon but also want to check out AT&T and Sprint.

I have just been too swamped lately to find the time for updating this blog. Between new consulting clients, travel, and – truthfully – NBA playoffs season, I haven’t been able to keep pace with research and an increasing flood of tweets. Part of it is a fairly clearcut choice between billable hours and unpaid research and writing. But I think there’s another dynamic, which continues to be neglected in the rush to cloud computing…There is clearly a minimum level of infrastructure development required for businesses, specifically small businesses, to adequately utilize cloud computing. Examples of inadequate infrastructure include low Internet bandwidth, under-sized or aging firewalls and edge devices, and mis-configuration of standard network services such as DNS and DHCP. I’ve seen all of the above, in environments ranging from low to high levels of IT knowledge. This is why I’ve chosen to focus on building up my consulting business to address these needs primarily among SMB’s in the Los Angeles area, and have established partner relationships with core vendors like Cisco and VMware.

At some point I need to catch up with the latest developments in the cloud world, preferably with hands-on exposure. I was just asked about Hadoop, a Java based framework for distributed computing which looks very exciting, but had to admit that I had little knowledge on the subject. There’s only so much any one of us can do…

Here’s some additional coverage and blogs about the VMware VSphere launch for more perspectives -

vSphere Linkage – lots of links
Virtual Geek- One man’s take on the vSphere launch
vSphere 4 – The Next Great Thing

I was impressed with the VMware simulcast this morning announcing VSphere, the next iteration of their enterprise virtualization platform, dubbed the first “Cloud OS.” Having deployed and administered VMware products for several years, it’s exciting to see them continue to push the evolution of virtualization, which has now expanded from a single server up to multiple data centers.

It’s also becoming quite apparent that a loose alliance is coalescing between several of the established leaders in the infrastructure space. In particular, VMware continues to align with Cisco, whose recent unveiling of a “Unified Computing System” combined with VSphere offers the promise of a private “cloud in a box.” Other members of this confederation are Intel, whose recent Xeon 5500 Nehalem chip is tailored for VM loads, in addition to EMC, whose updated Symmetrix SAN is optimized for VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V support. Dell appears to be more closely aligned than HP, and has a better position in the SMB market.

And don’t count out Oracle / Sun, one of today’s VSphere demo’s featured Sunfire servers, and when Cisco CEO John Chambers left the stage to congratulate VMware’s lead engineering team, Sun racks were featured quite prominently.

So who’s not joining the party, yet?

Here’s my list -

HP – not seeing innovation, very quiet these days

IBM – passed on Sun, noticeably low-key at today’s VSphere event

Google – how long before they offer a full-blown Cloud service

Microsoft - no support for Hyper-V in VMware VSphere

Citrix – falling further behind, no support from EMC Symmetrix, or VSphere

The continued limited inter-operability between major virtualization vendors – VMware, Microsoft, Citrix – and subsequent “vendor lock-in” really makes me wonder about the feasibility and likelihood of a truly Open Cloud platform, given the symbiotic relationship between Virtualization and Cloud computing.

P.S. I still think Cisco should have picked up Sun…