According to a DailyKos/Research 2000 poll, 51% of Texas Republicans approve of Texas Governor Rick Perry’s suggestion that Texas may need to leave the United States, and 48% of Texas Republicans believe Texas would be better off as an independent nation, with 4% not sure.
Overall, only 58% of all Texan respondents disapproved of leaving the U.S. And remember, because of the mechanics of the Winner-Take-All/First-Past-The-Post political system, only the opinions of the majority of the party that wins actually gets taken into consideration. In Texas, that means the Republicans.
What this means is that the possibility of Texas secession is, technically, “plausible,” assuming that the U.S. will just let Texas up-and-walk-away. I mean, I’m using the term “plausible” in the same way that the Mythbusters use “plausible” to describe scenarios such as “two civil war bullets fusing when they hit each other in mid-air.”
On the other hand, Texas isn’t that popular with the rest of the Union, for various reasons. Texans annoy non-Texans because they think that we think they’re better than them, and non-Texans annoy Texans because we’re better than them. So they could just let us go with a simple, “Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.”
So, as an IT professional, what do you have to do in order to prepare for the scenario where all of a sudden, you have to pass customs to get from Texarkana’s Waffle House to Texarkana’s IHOP?
First of all, if your company does any sort of business with the federal government (of the U.S.), you will likely have to relocate your company headquarters to another state. (You have 49 to choose from, but I prefer Iowa. Iowa doesn’t get enough love.)
But it’s not likely that all of your employees, nor all of your equipment, can move immediately; bringing the importance of WAN Optimization to the fore. It’s really no different from server consolidation; in both cases, the people who need to use the resources are physically further away from the resources they need to use. In order to do that, you need a highly functioning WAN; and you need to monitor the WAN performance to make sure you’re getting the most from optimization solutions.
Additionally, in addition to the employees that can’t immediately move out of the Chucktatorship, there will be employees that immediately do move. They will probably need VPN access through the Internet to telecommute – either that, or virtualized remote desktops. Again – you need to be able to adjust quickly to the new network performance needs.
As for NetQoS, we’re probably going to end up staying in Texas, though I’m probably going to be telecommuting, personally. Have no fear, even if the country devolves into a second Civil War, I’ll be here with you, providing the vital services of an infotainment vendor blogger during the nation’s darkest hour.
From Scandinavia, most likely…
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