ZDNet Australia: 10 tips to being a better IT manager
This article contains, to the complete lack of everyone’s surprise, ten tips for managing IT departments better. (I mean, it kinda gives it away in the title, now, doesn’t it?)
It’s easy for IT managers to get bogged down in day-to-day activities and lose sight of the bigger picture of leading their staff. Whether you’re a seasoned pro, or new to the game, the following tips will help you effectively manage your team.
Notably lacking from the list: “Chaining employees to workstations presents a fire hazard,” “Randomly killing one of the IT staff will not make the rest of them work harder,” and “Waterboarding is an unreliable way to get forgetful sysadmins to remember the root password of the Web server.”
Network World: Network and Application Performance News Roundup
Man, Network World is on a roll today with performance-related news.
Network World: Cisco’s WAN optimization milestone
In the 10 months since Cisco launched its Wide Area Applications Services (WAAS) suite, 1,000 customers have deployed the products…. One thing Cisco has going for it is its bundled approach. Enterprises that are assessing the WAN optimization and application acceleration market are looking to procure multiple capabilities in an integrated solution, according to Robin Gareiss, executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research.
Network World: Senior Management: Don’t manage each IT component in isolation
“This article really hit a nerve with me, too. Our network team often experiences this exact situation.” He went on to say: “We have NetQoS’s SuperAgent and Reporter-Analyzer, as well as various other tools such as Solar Winds Orion and a number of Network General Sniffers. On complex problems we are expected to prove the network is not the problem as well as point out to the appropriate group(s) that the problem seems to be in their area of responsibility (in a tactful, politically-appropriate manner) and, yet, we are still held accountable.”
The reader detailed the expectations that management has for his group: “We are expected to coordinate testing between application developers, vendors, server administration groups, users, etc., etc., and then keep management and the business updated on the current status of a ticket. And then, once the problem is resolved, we often get comments to the effect of ‘Why didn’t you do (fill-in-the-blank) first?’.”
Network World: How to fix application performance issues: Organize an IT pow-wow
One reader wrote to us commenting on the lack of a coordinated approach to troubleshooting application performance issues. He stated that the process used to troubleshoot such issues ends up being a game of “pass the ticket,” where a trouble ticket bounces from group to group with everyone adding in “my area looks ok.” He says getting everyone in a room together for an hour produces great results. Often a server guy will mention something that causes the database guy to wonder about something else, which leads the application guy to get an idea that solves the problem.
NetQoS offers an alternative solution for eliminating finger-pointing and buck passing when it comes to fixing network and application performance problems. And if that doesn’t work, we hear that dueling with Klingon Bat’leth is an acceptable alternative.
(“The high latency on the T1 line to Singapore dishonors our glorious ancestors. Let us engage it in ritual battle until we can get our response times to comply with our Service-Level-Blood-Oath-Agreement.”)
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