Advanced Load Balancing For Developers. The Network Dev Tool

It has been a while since I wrote an installment of Load Balancing for Developers, and now I think it has been too long, but never fear, this is the grad-daddy of Load Balancing for Developers blogs, covering a useful bit of information about Application Delivery Controllers that you might want to take advantage of. For those who have joined us since my last installment, feel free to check out the entire list of blog entries (along with related blog entries) here, though I assure you that this installment, like most of the others, does not require you to have...

What’s In Your Datacenter

    There is a series of advertisements for Capital One aired in the US featuring Vikings talking about “more points” from their credit cards that asks “What’s in your wallet?” While they’re entertaining, I never understood what Vikings had to do with a credit card, other than perhaps both like to plunder unsuspecting innocents. Though in fairness, credit card issuers tend to just increase rates, while the Vikings enjoyed wholesale slaughter when they plundered, and took literally everything not nailed down. But the question is valid in the modern day. Most people have enough credit cards, and...

From a Network Perspective, What Is VDI, Really?

We at F5 – like most collectives of geeks - are constantly discussing the wide array of IT boondoggles that are out there, looking at which ones hold water and which are just passing fads. Often we’re debating which are passing fads. Today I received an email to a small group asking if any of us had tried out the augmented reality stuff out there. I haven’t, but that gives you an idea of the edge that is sometimes taken. And it is that time of year where every pundit and their uncle is making predictions about...

Is It Time For IT Role Reorgs?

When I was hired in to a utility to head an Automated Meter Reading project that was just getting organized – R&D was largely done, but implementation was not started – the team was set up in a rather odd manner. We had our own datacenter, we had our own networking, we had our own well, everything. And that was a conscious choice on the part of management. As it was presented to me, they didn’t want the early phases of the project mired in “we can’t set up load balancing for our app, you have to go talk...

DevOps. It’s in the Culture, Not Tech.

#F5 DevOps – Managers need to make use of existing technology and adopt culture change. It is entertaining to read all that is currently being written about DevOps. Having been a developer, a development manager, an operations manager, and even a CTO, I can attest to the fact that the “throw it over the wall” syndrome is real, and causes real problems for everyone involved. That is about where my agreement with the current round of pundits ends. The thing is that they talk like there is some fundamental technological reason why DevOps isn’t happening. That’s...

He Who Defends Everything Defends nothing… Right?

There has been much  made in Information Technology about the military quote: “He Who Defends Everything Defends Nothing” – Originally uttered by Frederick The Great of Prussia. He has some other great quotes, check them out when you have a moment. The thing is that he was absolutely correct in a military or political context. You cannot defend every inch of ground or even the extent of a very long front with a limited supply of troops. You also cannot refuse to negotiate on all points in the political arena. The nature of modern representative government is such that the...

Making Chili and Managing Network Resources.

#f5 There’s a new brand of Chili in town. I don’t usually talk a lot about F5 specific solutions, but since we’re the only ones doing this (so far), the contents of this blog are F5 specific. Though this needs to be industry standard. So, you’re yearning for some chili. That’s understandable, this time of year is when those of us from the US midwest think of chili, because it’s good hunting season food, and it both fills you and warms you up. So grab a handful of hamburger and stuff it in your mouth, then grab...

Remember When Hand Carts Were State Of The Art? Me either.

Funny thing about the advancement of technology, in most of the modern world we enshrine it, spend massive amounts of money to find “the next big thing”, and act as if change is not only inevitable, but rapid. The truth is that change is inevitable, but not necessarily rapid, and sometimes, it’s about necessity. Sometimes it is about productivity. Sometimes, it just plain isn’t about either. Handcarts are still used for serious purposes in parts of the world, by people who are happy to have them, and think a motorized vehicle would be a waste of resources. Think...

RIP WinXP. Now, To The Future!

Last week, InformationWeek quoted a Microsoft manager as saying there was “No chance” Windows XP would get another stay of execution. This really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, it was only the backlash from enterprises that kept Microsoft from ending support for XP over the last several years. So now that Windows XP support will no longer be available, it is time for even the most recalcitrant enterprises to consider their options. All of their options. The world is changing on us yet again, and the needs of tomorrow might not be the needs of the future....

The Past Is History, The Future A Chance To Do It Right.

There are many things in the history of high technology that are downright conundrums. One of the obvious ones is: given the formats and media currently used to distribute text, music, and video, for example, how do we protect the rights of both legal users and the creators of content? Of course we want people to be able to make a living of creating content, which does imply it is not given away at the whim of anyone with a copy, but we also (at least in most modern countries) want to protect the rights of people who have...