Archive for the ‘IT Theory’ Category

SQL Server Training

IT Theory | Posted by Tom Carpenter
Feb 01 2010

Well, the first SQL Server training class with ASPE is going to happen in Phoenix, AZ on February 17-18, 2010. I am very excited about this class as well will be covering SQL Server 2005 and 2008 primarily. The old SQL Server 200 topics can slowly begin to fall by the way. Of course, we'll have to deal with a few upgrade discussions, but that topic aside, we can really take the time to dive deep into the newer SQL Server features.

In the course, we'll be covering SQL Server installation, administration, security, optimization and troubleshooting. Each student will have a computer to work on and about half of the activities will be hands-on labs. We cram a lot of information into the two days so many of the activities are demo only so that I can show you as much as possible in our time together. For more information on this SQL Server training class and to see when and if it's coming to your area, ceck out the ASPE page here: http://www.aspe-it.com/courses/9580/.

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RF Wavelength Calculations for Wireless Networks

IT Theory | Posted by Tom Carpenter
Nov 21 2009

The wavelength of a RF wave is calculated as the distance between two adjacent identical points on the wave. The wavelength is frequently measured as the distance from one crest of the wave to the next.

The wavelength is an important factor in wireless networking. The wavelength dictates the optimum size of the receiving antenna and it determines how the RF wave will interact with its environment. For example, an RF wave will react differently when it strikes an object that is large in comparison to the wavelength than when it strikes an object that is small in comparison to the wavelength.

The wavelength and the frequency are interrelated. For a given medium, if you know the wavelength, you can calculate the frequency and if you know the frequency, you can calculate the wavelength. The wavelength is directly related to the frequency and the speed of light. If you know the frequency, you can calculate the wavelength. If you know the wavelength, you can calculate the frequency.

One of the great discoveries in the history of electromagnetism is that electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light. Since we know the speed of light to be 299,792,458 meters per second (or the simple 300,000,00 meters per second, if you prefer), we also know that this is the speed at which electromagnetic waves travel in a vacuum. This was theorized by James Clerk Maxwell and proved through experimentation by Heinrich Hertz.

You are probably familiar with measurements like 100 megahertz and 3.6 gigahertz. These measurements refer to the number of cycles per second. When we say that the access point is using the 2.45 GHz (gigahertz) spectrum, we say it is using the spectrum that uses a wave cycle rate of 2,450,000,000 times per second. This measurement is named for Heinrich Hertz and his research in electricity and magnetism. A kilohertz is 1,000 hertz or cycles per second. A megahertz is 1,000,000 hertz and a gigahertz is 1,000,000,000 hertz. A terahertz is one trillion hertz, but these frequencies are not commonly found in today’s wireless communications.

Since we know that RF waves travel at the speed of light we can calculate the frequency when we know the wavelength or the wavelength when we know the frequency. The following formula can be used to calculate the wavelength in meters when the frequency is known:

w = 299,792,458 / f

Where w is the wavelength in meters and f is the frequency in hertz and the medium is a vacuum. Therefore, the 2.45 GHz spectrum would have a wavelength that is calculated with the following formula:

w = 299,792,458 / 2,450,000,000

The result is .123 meters or approximately 12.3 centimeters in length. This translates to about 4.8 inches. To calculate inches from centimeters, just multiple the number of centimeters times 0.3937. The formal character used to represent a wavelength is the Greek lambda (λ), and the symbol for the speed of light is c. Therefore, the formal representation of the previous formula would be:

λ = c / f

The calculation for frequency is just the opposite. You will divide the speed of light by the wavelength in meters to discover the frequency. Keep in mind that the numbers we’ve been using have been rounded and that impacts the results of the following formula; however, the results are close enough to recognize that a wavelength of .123 meters would indicate a RF wave in the 2.45 GHz spectrum:

f = 299,792,458 / .123
f = 2437337056.91

Due to the complex measurement number that is the speed of light, this number is often rounded to 300 billion meters per second. While this will change formula results, the findings are close enough for understanding the behavior of RF waves; however, engineers developing RF systems must use more precise measurements. Additionally, formulas like the following simplify matters:

wavelength in inches (λ) = 11.811 / f (in GHz)
wavelength in centimeters (λ) = 20 / f (in GHz)

Because wireless networks use such high frequency ranges, formulas like this make the calculations easier.
 

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Information > Business > Technology – Tom Carpenter’s IT Philosophy

IT Theory | Posted by Tom Carpenter
Jul 27 2009

 

I want to answer a question I receive a lot in this post. The question is this: Why do you write about so many different technologies? The easy answer is that I love technology. However, the deeper answer comes from my philosophy of technology utilization in organizations. This philosophy can be summed up as Information Business Technology. We don’t want to store, transfer, manage and destroy information just for the sake of information. We don’t want to implement, manage and upgrade technology just for the sake of technology. The pivot point that brings these two factors together is the business (or organization if you’re in a non-profit or government institution). The point is simple we manage information and technology for the benefit of the business.

Since I am an Information Business Technology professional, I make sure I know about technologies impacting the three key areas of information utilization: information storage (databases), information transfer (networks) and information processing (clients and applications). I am an expert in Microsoft’s SQL Server storage technology and in wireless networking transfer technologies. I am also an expert in Windows desktop technologies and applications. These are the primary technologies on which I’ve chosen to focus. For this reason, I write about SQL Server, wireless networking and other related networking technologies, and Microsoft desktop and server operating systems; however, I never lose sight of my purpose Information > Business > Technology.

With the upcoming release of Windows 7, I’ve been thinking a lot about this question: How does Windows 7 improve on information processing within my philosophy of Information Business Technology? My intent is not to fully answer this question here, but to point out how my philosophy impacts my thinking and decisions related to technology investments. First, we can all agree that – on the same hardware – Windows 7 is faster than Vista. This is a big improvement for users of Vista, but it does nothing for users of Windows XP. If my users are on Windows XP with no driving business need to move to Vista (losing support, incompatible applications – the rare app that works with Vista but not XP, etc.), the fact that Windows 7 performs better than Vista is of no real value to them.

Without burdening you with the complete discussion of Windows 7 (which I do believe has a number of excellent business-value benefits over XP), suffice it to say that we must ensure business value comes from our technology investments. Thanks for the questions. It’s always a good reminder for me too.

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Fun Poll at Learnkey

IT Theory | Posted by Tom Carpenter
Jun 11 2009

Those of you who know me well know that I love my relationship with Learnkey – a phenomenal elearning company. Well, they are having a fun poll to see who is the favorite author among their customers. If you’ve viewed Learnkey training, you might want to participate. I’m not asking for any favors, just vote and have fun watching the reults! http://www.learnkey.com/poll

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Is Windows 7 Better than Windows Vista?

IT Theory | Posted by Tom Carpenter
Jun 01 2009

This question must be asked and answered by IT Directors that have been delaying the upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista. Is Windows 7 better than Windows Vista for current XP users? I would suggest that the answer is yes – assuming the final product is as good as the current candidates suggest it will be.

The one feature that I feel is most appealing is XP mode. The press is covering XP mode as if it is a band-aid and something that is less than beneficial in the long run (see NetworkWorld, June 1, 2009); however, I see it as an essential component of the new operating system. The biggest complaints about Vista have been in two categories: performance and compatibility. Windows 7 seems to be performing better than Vista on like hardware, but I’m not going into that in this post. In my opinion, Windows 7 is better than Windows Vista even if it performs the same. The XP mode makes it worth it.

I know that some will say you could use either Terminal Services on Windows 2003 servers or Virtual PC on Vista to run XP apps that are not otherwise compatible; however, those solutions are much more costly (Terminal Services) or confusing to the users (Virtual PC). With XP mode the applications run as apparent local applications but are indeed running in an instance of Windows XP. Yes, there will be more work for the IT group, but the goal is seamless operations for the user. (The "more work" for IT would be in updating and maintaining the "XP instance" as well as the Windows 7 installation.)

I think it’s worth it. For me, yes I’d rather use Virtual PC or VMware Workstation, but for my users I’d much rather them have the simpler tool that XP mode will provide. Time will tell, but I am one techie who likes the looks of Windows 7 so far.

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System Center Online Desktop Manager and Your Security

IT Theory, Technical | Posted by Tom Carpenter
May 03 2009

Microsoft, this last Wednesday, revealed a new service called System Center Online Desktop Manager (SCODM). In case you don’t know, they have provided a product for years that provides the same functionality, but must be installed within a company’s network. SCODM is provided as an online service and it allows companies to centrally manage the configuration set of their desktops. Organizations can control what software may be installed on the machines and how the web browser must be configured – as just a couple of examples.

Here’s the problem: How do we deal with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act), which places the responsibility on the organization to ensure they are in compliance? And HIPAA is just one concern; we must additionally be concerned about PCI-DSS (a payment card processing guideline) compliance and other more niche regulations as well. Will Microsoft reveal how they are communicating with the machine and the machine with SCODM so that we can be sure we are in compliance? I’m not sure, but these things must be considered.

The service may be beneficial to small and medium-sized businesses, but large organizations will likely choke on the thought of losing control. I think it was stated well by Jake Muszynski, an analyst at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, when he said, “I don’t know that I want to store data about my machines and their vulnerabilities in the cloud.”

Is this just an issue for techies? Well, sort of. It also acts as a reminder for any business owner. Is your data secured? Have you thought about it lately? And this brings me to an important tip: watch what you blog and tweet about. You can reveal sensitive information that will make it easier to penetrate your network. This is the very issue of concern to Mr. Muszynski; he did not want information about his system configurations floating around in the cloud.

I teach computer security classes and one course I teach is on the topic of ethical hacking. Now, for those uninitiated, ethical hacking is the process of discovering vulnerabilities in networks and systems with permission. Of course, unethical hacking is doing the same without the permission. In these courses, one of the methods that students learn about is information gathering. One of the primary tools we use for information gathering is blogs and tweets by company employees. For example, imagine a company employee has the following set of tweets:

  • Upgrading my computer to Windows Vista
  • Planned to install service pack 1, but ran out of time… will finish tomorrow

Now, this is a very simple example, but I now know that a Vista machine without the most recent updates may be on the network. I’ve seen far worse blogs and tweets, but I won’t post them here because you can still search and find them through Google and other engines. The point is simple; Microsoft has reminded us about the dangers of online content by announcing a new online service. The service may be valuable to many small and medium-sized businesses, but – regardless of size – we must be very careful about the content we place online through managed services and even social networks. I love social networking, but we must use caution when creating content.

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What is ITIL?

IT Theory | Posted by Tom Carpenter
Mar 21 2009

When I teach project management and operations classes, I am frequently asked this question: What is ITIL? There seems to be a lot of buzz around this methodology and this buzz exists for good reason. ITIL is like Open Source for technology management.

ITIL stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The ITIL is technically a documented set of best practices, but the term is often used to reference the certifications based on the ITIL. When I say that ITIL is like Open Source for technology management, I do not mean that the ITIL books are free. They are, of course, floating around on the Internet in pirated form, but the books are copyrighted and ITIL is a trademark.

My statement about Open Source, simply refers to the fact that ITIL is based in universal best practices. These best practices may not be "best" for every organization, but they are generally accepted in the industry. When the library is updated, many people through the IT and business sectors are involved in order to provide a true set of best practices as opposed to the recommendations of just a few IT managers or CIOs.

The best way to think of ITIL is as a foundation on which you can build the actual service management environment that you need for your organization. The LEAN IT operations model that we developed at The Systems Education Company certainly includes many recommendations that are also included in ITIL; however, because we are more focused on implementing technology as efficiently and effectively as possible, we do not encourage blind exhaustive implementation of ITIL best practices. You will want to ensure that the practices you implement do not cost more than they gain.

This thinking is not unique to ITIL. For example, the Project Management Institute’s project management body of knowledge (PMBOK) should also not be blindly implemented as a strict methodology in and of itself. Instead, we can use it as a foundation on which we build solid project management systems.

So, what is ITIL? It is a fabulous place to start as you build a lean and mean IT operation.

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The Smell of Smoke

IT Theory | Posted by Tom Carpenter
Mar 13 2009

This past Tuesday morning at about 1:15 AM I rose out of bed to the smell of smoke. As I walked down the stairs, the smell grew stronger and as soon as I turned on the lights I noticed the source. Seeping out around the location where the stove pipe enters the chimney was a continuous flow of smoke. A raging chimney fire was under way.

The following picture shows the damage from the inside (the outside view is a bit more discouraging so I don’t want to post it here where I may see it from time to time). As you can see, the major damage area was confined to the wall behind the stove; but why? If you know me, you know that I’m always trying to learn lessons out of life. In this post, I want to share three lessons of which this fire reminded me.

Chimney Fire

  1. Install smoke detectors. We have smoke detectors in our house. They didn’t help in this situation because my built-in detector (my nose) worked faster than they did and we were able to call the fire department before the fire set them off; however, this does not diminish their value as I cannot always rely on my senses alone. The smoke detectors are analogous to the key performance indicators (KPIs) that we watch in our IT projects. A good project management system should allow you to configure thresholds for the KPIs associated with your projects. This way you won’t have to watch (or smell?) your project every minute of the day.
     
  2. Listen to your nose. My nose sensed something out of the ordinary. Because I listened to it, the worst of the fire damage was contained to one room in the house. Had I ignored it, things would have been much worse. Your physical senses are analogous to the instinct or intuition that you build over time. This is a key difference between experts and professionals. The expert has developed her instincts with more than 10,000 hours of practice. Listen to your instinct before your project gets out of control.
     
  3. Get out of the house. The first thing we (my beautiful wife and I) did was get the kids out of the house. Sometimes as a project manager, you need to know when to bail. It’s part of effective project management. Some argue that successful project planning will prevent project cancellation. I suggest that project cancellation is part of effective project management in a real and dynamic environment. Certainly, we want more successes than failures; but without failures, one has to ask if enough risks are taken.

 

Maybe these lessons will help you on your next project. I know they are fresh in my mind. Now that the dust has settled (literally, all over my house) I can evaluate the damage and make reparations; however, I know the damage is less than it could have been because we installed smoke detectors, listened to our noses and got out of the house.

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Project Management Methodology: Do you have one?

IT Theory | Posted by Tom Carpenter
Mar 10 2009

A methodology of project management or a project management methodology can simply be defined as the method by which you manage a project. Everyone uses a project management methodology, it’s just that many project managers change their methodology on each project. Here’s the question I’d like to answer: What’s the benefit of a standardized project management methodology in the first place?

I would suggest that a standardized methodology provides the following four primary benefits:

  • Collective knowledge
  • Greater predictability
  • Capability maturity
  • Reduced stress

 

Now, I know that last one is hard to swallow since many people think of a project management methodology as a source of added stress via the requirement of added documentation; however, I would suggest that a well-documented methodology reduces stress because you never have to ask, "What do I do next?" You have inputs, processes and outputs. The methodology of project management should indicate the source of the inputs. Next, it should state what you will do with those inputs (the processes). Finally, it will provide you with forms or templates that you fill out as a result of the processes (outputs).

With the last benefit covered first, let’s go back to the first listed benefit: collective knowledge. There are many things in life that we trust. For example, we trust that it really is safer to wear our seatbelts than to drive without them (at least I haven’t done actual research myself). This is collective knowledge. A documented project management methodology provides the same benefits. If you use a template that was created out of experience and education, you will reap the benefits of using that template whether you know it or not. This, in a nutshell, is the benefit of collective knowledge.

The second stated benefit was greater predictability. Since you are using established inputs, processes and outputs, you can predict with greater certainty how your project will go based on how it starts. Additionally, you can look at the project at any point in the lifecycle and make estimates as to the outcome using established and mature processes.

That last statement leads me to the third and final benefit (since I covered stress reduction first): capability maturity. A solid methodology of project management will be maturable. It will include a lessons learned process at the end of the project that may be used to mature or improve the methodology. This increases the "capability" of the project management methodology to meet the needs of your organization.

My suggestion is that you do not start from scratch. You can use PMI best practices as a starting point or another model like The Systems Education Company’s Method 4D methodology. However, no matter the starting point, you will reap these benefits and more if you begin to use a methodology and then mature that methodology over time.

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Waste in Information Technology

IT Theory | Posted by Tom Carpenter
Mar 09 2009

I was reading a post at Curious Cat that discusses IT waste today and it started the gears turning down an old familiar path. I remember, in the last recession, how people were talking about the need to cut costs in IT investments. I also remember that many bad decisions were made because the complex interdependencies among IT systems and processes were not considered. How do you detect waste while avoiding the gap problem?

The gap problem is my way of concisely saying that many apparent wastes are actually needed bridges between systems or processes. For example, you may notice that a database is being maintained and that no users ever access that database. Furthermore, you notice that the database has not been accessed in the past three months at all. Your logs do not go back any farther. The database is part of a system that was developed three years ago and no remaining employees were involved in its creation. This seems like the perfect candidate for waste reduction.

Since the database seems to be an unused maintenance waste, you decide to delete the database and all associated logs. Three months later, you receive a phone call from someone in Engineering complaining that their data archival procedure is erroring out. The error message says something about a missing database. Get the picture?

This is a very simple example of what I call the gap problem. Many of our systems and processes bridge the gap between other systems and processes. These gap solutions may appear to be waste when they are actually necessities. So, how do you deal with the gap problem? I would suggest the following steps:

  1. Perform detailed process mapping for all Information Systems.
  2. Look from the top down instead of simply from start to finish.
  3. Cut waste only when the entire complex of interdependencies is understood.

 

Of course, a small blog post like this cannot go into all the details, but you can begin to see important realities. I am a big believer in process mapping (when it is done right) and I believe it can help eliminate true waste while preventing the gap problem. When I say that we should look from the top down instead of from start to finish, I mean that we should consider not only the path of a single process but the intersections that a process has with other processes and systems.

This is a starting point and, as I said in a recent post, we need to answer the question: Other than human capital, what can you cut while maintaining current service levels? Yes, it is time once again to trim the fat.

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