Apr 15 2008 1:00PM GMT
Posted by: Troy Tate
Virtualization,
Linux,
Security,
Performance,
tools,
troubleshooting,
vmware
Wow! I didn’t know my laptop could have such loud alerts. Yesterday, I shutdown a virtual machine in VMWare’s VMPlayer application. As soon as I clicked the shutdown button in the guest OS, my laptop let out with the most amazing shriek that seems to still be ringing in my ears several hours later.
I had to actually remove power and the battery from the laptop to get the awful racket to stop. Fortunately, the machine restarted without a glitch.
I was running the Protech ONE security ISO image (this is a nice tool for security testing and education). The VMWare Player is a great tool for running an ISO image if you want to take one for a test drive. I had tried running this same ISO image in Microsoft’s VirtualPC environment but there are issues with this particular ISO and how it handles key mapping so it was just easier to change to VMWare’s Player.
However, now my ears are ringing because of the incredibly loud beeping that my machine let loose when shutting down the guest OS. My laptop speakers are always turned to the lowest level possible so I really have no clue why shutting Protech ONE down would have created such a loud event. I guess I need to see if there is a way I can shutdown this environment without waking up my nearby neighbors in the company Tax department.
Have you ever used any application that performed odd startup or shutdown activities? What did you do to overcome those issues?
Thanks for your time. Let’s be good network citizens together & practice safe networking!
Apr 8 2008 2:21PM GMT
Posted by: Troy Tate
howto,
DataCenter,
LAN,
Monitoring,
VoIP,
Performance
Well, well, well, so you want to implement voice over IP or IP telephony. You have heard it is going to give you some great cost savings and make your life easier. Hmmmm… upon further thought, the idea of implementing this technology frightens you and I totally understand why.
I have implemented VOIP at four of my sites now. One in Europe that is a small office serviced by a Cisco CallManager Express implementation. My Asian site is a full CallManager cluster solution. My two sites in North America are implemented in a different configuration yet. One of the North American sites has the CallManager cluster like Asia and the second North American site is a SRST (Survivable Remote System Telephony) managed by the other North American site.
So, as you can see, my organization has a good amount of experience in this area and I hope to share some of that with you and help you through this process if you should require this technology in your environment.
Let’s start with some of the reasons some folks say IPT should be implemented.
- Capital investment costs: This really depends on the solution that you choose. Remember all of the necessary infrastructure elements that are required to support IPT. IPT implementations may add 30% or more in infrastructure equipment replacement or additions.
- Voice service costs savings: The home consumer may see some cost savings (think Vonage), but the enterprise may already be receiving long distance rates in the two cents per minute or less range. However, other operational costs may offset the savings that IPT appears to offer. More to follow on other costs/issues in a future blog entry.
- Operational savings: This may be the “real deal” when it comes to cost savings to an organization. IT becomes the owner/operator of the system as it shares the data network infrastructure and operational management.
Some future elements to follow in our discussion will include capacity planning, troubleshooting, partner selection. The volume of information to share is almost endless.
Your continued interest is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time. Let’s be good network citizens together & practice safe networking!
Apr 2 2008 6:22PM GMT
Posted by: Troy Tate
LAN,
Performance,
Networking,
WAN,
Monitoring,
Network TAPs
As expected there are several different manufacturers and models that can handle this task. The reseller I spoke with suggested three different devices from two different manufacturers.
Network Instruments nTAP - This is the particular device that initially captured my interest in this type of solution. More information can be found here
Datacom Systems Singlestream aggregation tap - More information on the 10/100 aggregation tap can be found here. Details on a gigabit tap can be found here.
The prices I received on these devices went from around $1000 to $1500 to $2000. As you can see, there are lots of choices. I have requested a demo model of the $1000 device and will see if it will meet my needs. More to come!
Thanks for your time. Let’s be good network citizens together & practice safe networking!
