NPC Sites and Groups 3 of 7: Building the Groups

Part of a series of posts.  To see all posts, click here.

Back when NPC underwent a dramatic set of upgrades, one of the new features was the group tree. Administrators could now create groups of monitored objects that could be applied to pages as filters. Recently, the NPC developers added a context page so that users could actually drill into a site. Instead of applying a filter, NPC would take the user to a set of pages specifically designed to show a set of site overview reports for the objects in the group. These site groups are crucial to implementing the best group structure.

Calling back to a Best Practice document written by NetQoS several years ago, NPC administrators should create five groups under the root, /All Groups: All Sites, Regional, Line of Business, Reporting Groups, and zExcluded Items. Optionally, a sixth group could be added, zRetired Groups, where groups that should no longer be used can be retired without actually deleting them.

NPC Sites and Groups 2 of 7: Building the Sites/Networks List

Part of a series of posts.  To see all posts, click here.

Before any thought can be dedicated to configuring the products, a good Sites/Networks list should be compiled. The Sites/Networks list should represent the smallest building blocks for reporting groups. Ideally, if you wanted to report on anything smaller than one of these sites, you’d report on an individual device or poll instance.

This list may already exist in some form or another. You’ll probably need to clean it up a bit. Whether you start over fresh or take an existing list and clean it up, you should have a list similar to the one shown below. Columns could be added to the right to include metadata about the site like Line of Business or Regional membership. This information is not required to implement this best practice, but can help when filling out other groups. The information I’ve provided below will be used as an example throughout this document and should hopefully exemplify most of the complex situations possible in corporate networks.

Site Name	Network	Line of Business	Region
New York	10.1.0.0/16	Sales Office	NA
Los Angeles (Bldg 1)	10.2.0.0/16, 10.3.0.0/16	Corporate	NA
Los Angeles (Bldg 2)	10.4.0.0/16, 10.5.0.0/16, 172.16.1.0/24	Corporate, Sales Office, Data Center	NA
London	10.100.0.0/16	Sales Office	EMEA
Singapore	10.150.0.0/16, 192.168.150.0/24	Sales Office	APAC

Table 1: Raw Sites List

Now that the sites list is compiled, it needs to be cleaned up a bit. The Los Angeles site is actually two sites. Also, Bldg 2 of the Los Angeles site is comprised of three different network segments, each serving a different line of business (LOB). I recommend treating each of these network segments as separate locations. Most reporting will want to segregate data center operations from the corporate network infrastructure monitoring. Also, since Corporate and Sales are two different LOB’s, splitting them into different sites will allow easier reporting by LOB later on. After cleaning up the raw Sites/Networks list, we end up with the list shown below:

Site Name	Network	Line of Business	Region
New York	10.1.0.0/16	Sales Office	NA
Los Angeles (Bldg 1)	10.2.0.0/15	Corporate	NA
Los Angeles (Bldg 2 - Corp)	10.4.0.0/16	Corporate	NA
Los Angeles (Bldg 2 - Sales)	10.5.0.0/16	Sales Office	NA
Los Angeles (Bldg 2 - DC)	172.16.1.0/24	Data Center	NA
London	10.100.0.0/16	Sales Office	EMEA
Singapore	10.150.0.0/16, 192.168.150.0/24	Sales Office	APAC

Table 2: Final Sites/Networks List

You’ll notice that I’ve added to the names of Bldg 2 to make them unique. Also notice that I’ve simplified the network definition for Bldg 1 since the two subnets were consecutive and could be summarized using a smaller subnet mask.

To be continued...

NPC Sites and Groups 1 of 7: The Philosophy

Part of a series of posts.  To see all posts, click here.

A while ago, I started building a document that detailed the best practices I had developed around groups and sites in NPC.  I applied to present this at CA World this November, but the new direction of CA World wasn't compatible with this type of presentation.  As a result, I'm going to post my findings here.  I'll post the sections individually then maybe post the whole thing later as a single document.  I've also built a little applet (using my limited programming skills, so be nice) that takes a majority of the manual work out of following these best practices.


The Philosophy

After having setup countless instances of the NetQoS suite of products and after the most recent release of SuperAgent, I’ve stumbled upon a discovery that I think is significant.  Frankly, I’m surprised no one at NetQoS has realized or built on this relationship.  Perhaps they have, but due to the recent evacuation of NetQoS talent from CA, no one has stepped in to fill the gap.  This is why I’m writing these posts.

This discovery came after being tasked to revamp the group structure in a NetQoS Performance Center (NPC) installation.  At the same time, a request came in to clean up the locations in Unified Communications Monitor (UCM).  It was then, that I noticed that the information required for both was essentially the same.  I needed to know what locations we had and what subnets were in use at those locations.  Not long after that, I realized that the same information is needed, although in a slightly different form, for SuperAgent and NetVoyant configurations.

Therefore, in order to configure four of the NetQoS products, one set of core data is required.  There are obviously other pieces of the configuration that are required to get the best monitoring.  In these posts, I’ll detail how the Sites/Networks list can be used to best configure the core NetQoS products.

To be continued...

iPhone5 Release Date Heavily Hinted

Apple has issued invitations to a press conference that can only mean the release of iPhone5.  The only real question I have is whether or not iOS 5 will come out at the same time.  Nobody outside of Apple really knows and those inside Apple aren't talking.  However, since I already have 2 iPhones and an iPad, I won't be running out to get another device to replace the perfectly good one I already have.  It looks like I've entered the friend zone with Apple.  The friend zone is the place where you aren't really affected by the huge, amazing, wonderful, new stuff coming from a provider and instead have to deal with being a second rate citizen to whom the provider isn't really interested in since you've already spent your money with them.

Too many companies ignore the customers in the friend zone.  How many times have you seen your internet provider offer a deal for home internet that's at least half of what you're paying now for internet, but you don't qualify because you're an existing customer?  Or a mobile phone provider/carrier?

Look people, you wouldn't have to spend so much money attracting new customers (who, face it, were probably at one point in the past one of your loyal customers) if you extended the new offers to your existing customers as well.  I wouldn't even consider leaving my current internet provider if I got the same deals that new customers get.  I'm not saying they have to automatically give me the deals new customers get, but at least don't disqualify me.  If I'm willing to sit on the phone for 2 hours just so I can get a better price on my internet and continue to remain a loyal customer, give me the deal!

I am such a geek

As if you didn't know, I am a geek.  A nerd.  I like Star Wars and I can tell you most of the back stories of all the X-men.  However, tonight I have outdone myself.

Tonight, will go down in history as one of those I-told-you-so moments for Mrs. Moore, my 7th and 8th grade math teacher.  I remember well the day we were given the assignment to produce detailed drawings of our implementations of "constructions".  Constructions were the epitome of geometry.  Constructions consist of using a rule and a compass (remember: that sharp thing with a pencil on the other end that no one knew what exactly it was used for) to make various geometric calculations, like finding the half way point on a line or drawing a line that is perpendicular to another line or finding the center of a circle.  I struggled through them for what seemed like weeks.  It was a 3 day assignment, but I was smaller then so everything else was bigger, right?  I remember at least ten times a day someone asking Mrs. Moore why we would ever need to know how to do constructions.  Well, little did I know...

One of the constructions we had to learn was how to bisect an angle.  It's actually pretty easy once you understand a little about what a compass can do.  Anyway, when hanging crown moulding in a room, when two pieces of crown moulding meet, you have to miter them.  Mitering a piece of moulding basically means cutting it at an angle so that the two pieces that touch actually touch.

Well, when mitering two pieces of moulding, you have to cut the edge of the moulding at an angle that bisects the angle where the two pieces meet.  In other words, if two pieces meet at a 90° angle, each piece has to be mitered at 45°.  If they meet at 135°, each piece is cut at 67.5°.  Well, tonight, I found myself trying to hang moulding with my buddy, Dusty.  He brought his electric miter saw and we thought we would fly through it.  Little did we know.

So, we made some cuts, then had to fix them, then had to make some more cuts.  Eventually we got to a corner where we couldn't get the cuts to match up.  The angle was wierd and we kept going back to the saw to try to even it up.  Then I heard the voice of my 8th grade math teacher when Dusty said, "We need to split that angle in half, whatever it is."

At the beginning of my engineering schooling, I bought a very nice compass set thinking I would finally learn how to use the enigmatic compass.  Eight years later, I blew the dust off it and used it for the first time.  I used the construction I learned in 8th grade and finally proved Mrs. Moore right.  The cut was perfect, the two pieces fit together like the blocks on an Egyptian pyramid.  Well, what do you know: I do need to know how to do constructions for real life!

And Google+ Takes an Astounding Hit!

Well, the battle between G+ and Facebook is heating up.  Google+ exploded onto the scene with some wonderful new features that instantly propelled it into the ring with heavyweight social networking champion Facebook.  Circles and meetup were desperately needed in a social world where people were limiting what they did on other social networks because of our own dual sided nature.  I only had social friends on Facebook and all my professional connections were on LinkedIn.  I only recently added twitter where I've been mostly posting from my professional life.  Everyone had this problem, so Google stepped up and presented an elegant solution: circles.
Now with G+ you could post something and choose which circle of friends would see that post.  You could put all your professional friends in one circle, your social friends in another, and even make a closer circle just consisting of family and close friends.  It was a stroke of genius on Google's part.  Facebook took a huge uppercut to the jaw right after the round started.
Facebook floundered, modified the chat interface, promised an HTML5 based iOS app, and make a couple other small changes.  But Facebook wasn't out of the game yet.

More BlackBerry woes

In case you hadn't noticed, BlackBerry isn't doing so hot.  According to a comScore report, RIM has lost another 3.7% of the mobile market, giving it up mainly to Google and Apple (See the chart below).

Source: comScore - http://bit.ly/qixHpB

This leads everyone in the mobile industry wondering what will happen to BlackBerry.  Some people have said that BlackBerry still has strengths.  Oddly enough, those strengths are the same ones they have had since before Google even came to market: great keyboard and easy to understand navigation (BlackBerry's the only phone with a right click intuitively similar to Windows' right click).

So what is a washed up mobile phone maker to do when facing obviously superior competition?  Well, they can do what most technology companies do: steal.  What will it take to get Google's Android on BlackBerry hardware?  In that case, it wouldn't even be stealing.  Some people are even talking about this as an alternative for BlackBerry (BlackBerry's Support Forums) and I wouldn't be surprised to see some hacker out there loading Android on a BlackBerry (if they can jailbreak it).  

Another option is for RIM to start manufacturing a bolt on keyboard for iPhone and Droid.  Could you imagine what would happen if Otterbox or Boxwave were to partner with RIM to make a case with a flip out BB style keyboard?  It would be a killer for RIM since they would lose the entire BB-has-the-best-keyboard market.  But really, what else can RIM do?

Honestly, I see BlackBerries running Android within a few years.  It's their only viable option.  

RIM's last chance

Well, in case you didn't hear, Google bought Motorola Mobility (a split off company from Motorola that built their phones).  This is Google's second attempt at manufacturing hardware for mobile phones (the first being the very underwhelming Nexus).  This will make Google much more like Apple and RIM when it comes to mobile phones: they will now make the hardware as well as the software for their mobile phones.  While Google claims the acquisition is in response to the MSFT/APPL led coalition which won the battle over the defunct Nortel's immensely valuable set of patents, it coincidentally lines up Google to directly compete with Apple in the mobile world.

Now that Apple has proven that, given the right spark of ingenuity, it's best to produce the phone and the operating system together, it only makes sense that the largest smart phone operating system builder would follow suit.  They'd be dooming themselves to failure if they didn't.  Microsoft made a similar gamble making a huge deal with Nokia (not an acquisition but more of an agreement) to have them produce the hardware that Microsoft hopes will rocket their mobile operating system (or their unified operating system, does anyone think that will really happen?) into a level of decent competition with their old rival Apple.

All of this begs the question: what about everybody else?  What other players are out there, and will the addition of another 800 lb. gorilla into the market allow anyone else to survive without putting on the gorilla suit?  What will happen to Microsoft (who is pretty much the only other smart phone operating system maker)?  What will happen to RIM (who has had the most dismal of quarters followed by "streamlining" [read layoffs])?

Here's what i see: RIM is betting everything on their QNX operating system.  With good reason, it's supposedly revolutionary (I am not an operating system developer so i couldn't tell you whether it is or not, but the experts have said that it is).  However, RIM is dead set on releasing the next version of their BlackBerry OS for their entire line of phones before dumping that as soon as possible for QNX.

If RIM survives that self induced roller coaster, it could emerge as the next gorilla to enter the playing field.  If not, RIM will not have much choice but to show up in Redmond wearing a short skirt and high heals promising incredible experiences for not much money.  At that point Microsoft (who has never really had any success building hardware for their own operating systems, at least not compared to the success that Apple has had) will have the opportunity to gobble up a hardware maker that is already established in the enterprise market. If Microsoft doesn't screw it up (like Cisco did with the Flip), they may emerge as the next suited gorilla in the market, finally able to compete with Apple and Google.

The other players in the smart phone market don't stand much of a chance at this point.  Who in their right mind would try to build a phone and put Google's operating system on it?  Who could really compete with a Google OS/Google hardware phone using a Google OS/[Any] hardware phone?  Is Samsung up to the challenge?  Who knows.

Creating detour loops in powerpoint

Often when giving a presentation i use visual aids.  Since there's nothing like powerpoint out there, i've tried to learn as much as i can about it.  One tip i can give is how to create what i call detour loops.  Detour loops allow the presenter to detour onto another topic temporarily then return to the main topic without losing the flow of the presentation.
This technique essentially uses links that the presenter can use to jump to another position within the presentation and jump back.  So, let's say i'm describing the functionality of a certain piece of software.  I'll give an overview with a slide that has some explanatory text on it.  Normally, when i'm done with this slide, i'll switch over to the software itself and show the student how to do what i'm doing by using the actual software (no powerpoint slides needed for that part).  However, sometimes it can be useful to not show the software itself but rather a screenshot of the software (think large groups or buggy software).  In that case, i want to show some powerpoint slides then resume the show.
Well, on the preceding slide that has the explanatory text, i'll put a link to the slide containing the screenshot.  This slide is actually the next slide in sequential order, but i've hidden it so it normally doesn't show up.  That's the first slide of my detour.  All of the slides in the detour are hidden.  That way they don't show up unless i click the link.  The nice thing is that once you navigate to a slide that's hidden, all the slides after that will show up even if they were hidden.

Google+ and how it will change the world (or not)

This post is not much more than a place holder.  I got my G+ account already (gplus.to/sweenig), but i haven't spent enough time to figure out how or if it will change the world.  I promise it will come.

New Job

Sadly, I'm leaving RIM after 9 months to pursue a consulting job mainly serving CA customers through installation/configuration services, training/knowledge transfer, and advanced consulting related to the CA|NetQoS suite of products.  I'm sad to leave RIM, especially when things are getting really exciting, but I'm also optimistic about my new position at Enterprise Iron.

Using auto refresh in Chrome

I belong to an online community hosted by CA.  They recently overhauled the website and added a chat feature so you can chat with other community members.  While this is great and functions much like the facebook instant message feature, the page is set to timeout (i.e. log out the user) after 15 minutes.  The timer resets whenever i navigate to another page in the community.  However, if i just open the community page and leave for 15 minutes, i'll end up getting logged off and showing offline to the other community members.  When i was at RIM, i built a simple html based page using an inline frame and some javascript to auto refresh the iframe.  This basically refreshed the page every 5 minutes.  This worked and had to be done this way since i could only use IE.

Now that i principally access the community on my own computer, i use chrome and have found this wonderful little add in that will refresh any page for you.  It's called Auto Refresh Plus. I now have a little button i can press to display a simple clean menu.  The menu has various time options; i pick 5:00 and click start.  Now the page automatically refreshes every 5 minutes.  Woohoo!

How to create a ring tone in iTunes

Turns out this feature used to be built into iTunes, but Apple got greedy so they took it out so most people would just buy ring tones.  While this is dumb, it's perfectly legal to create a ring tone for your iPhone using a song you've already purchased or an mp3 you already have in your library.  It uses the 'fair use' clause of copyright law.  Fair use is the same clause that allows you to use your DVR or make a mix tape all while 'copying' copyrighted content.  It's totally legal.

Efficient use of wireless bandwidth

Michael Mace recently posted his second article about the impending doom of mobile executives.  The article (and it's sequel) are very good summaries of the dire straights in which mobile execs find themselves.  They are between the signature rock and a hard place, with either decision they make resulting in the probable loss of their career. 

Best Hurricane Tracking Information

Living in the south and being involved in several hurricane clean up projects, i've acquired several useful links that i monitor during hurricane season to make sure i'm up to date on the current status of anything that may be headed our way.  I figured i'd share this information with the world.

• Enhanced Infrared Satellite imagery: This is the best place to go to see what the current weather looks like.  The link will loop through the last 12 hours of images.
• Atlantic and Gulf: http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_ir_enh_east_loop-12.gif
• South East US: http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_ir_enh_se_loop-12.gif
• RSS Feeds: NOAA provides RSS feeds on the current storms.
• Atlantic (no graphics): http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index-at.xml
• Atlantic & Pacific (with graphics): http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo.xml
• Websites:
• National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

There are usually a couple others that i use, i'm still looking for them.

SNMP Polling vs. Traps

SNMP has been around for decades.  Many manufacturers build SNMP agents into their products so NMS nodes can monitor their status.  There are two ways SNMP can be used to monitor a device: 1) active regular polling by the NMS to the device and 2) traps sent by the device to the NMS.  Unfortunately, many people seem to only know about one or the other method.  I'm approached regularly with requests to monitor a particular set of devices via SNMP.  I ask what metrics they'd like to monitor (approaching from method #1) and they usually respond with the MIB and say, "We want to monitor everything."  After a simple discussion about what they expect should happen, their requests usually come down to wanting NV to be able to receive any and all traps defined in the MIB.  Oh the humanity.

NetQoS: the Next Pure Digital?

After hearing about the announcement by Cisco to officially drop the Flip camera, I have started to wonder about the similarities between Cisco and CA and Pure Digital and NetQoS.  Read this article and then see if i've gotten anything wrong:
Cisco is a big company that has gobbled up competitors instead of beating them at a fair fight.  Just like CA.
Cisco bought a company that could have gone stratospheric but has failed to manage it well.  Just like CA.
Pure Digital customers "[felt] like [they had their] heart ripped out and replaced with a brick.  Just like CA customers.
Cisco didn't apply the right resources to their new golden egg acquisition.  Just like CA.
Pure Digital employees that came over to Cisco will soon be getting layoff notices on their desks.  Every other week, another NetQoS employee leaves CA (John Mao, David Oliver, Lindi Horton, John Catalano (et al), Joe Burbano, Steve Harriman (et al), Greg Hutton, Mark Wheat, etc. etc. etc.).  At least NetQoS guys know to jump ship before it drowns.
So, does this spell eventual doom for the NetQoS products?   I don't think so.  But nothing has come out of this acquisition unscathed, especially the relationship between the vendor and the customer.

Apple being a little underhanded?

I should disclose, i work for RIM.  Still, even if i didn't work for them, i'm a little shocked that Apple would sink this low.  Is it true?  Perhaps.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/04/07/apple_reportedly_caused_display_shortage_that_delayed_rim_playbook_1_month.html
Still, this is the tactic i take when fighting against aliens or killer robots.  Cut off their supply.  Even if it means you'll only delay them.  In the technology race, release dates are significant down to the day.

Stitching PDF documents

Every once in a while, i have to submit expense reports.  Like some other new expense report systems, when submitting receipts, you have to print off a cover sheet containing a bar code.  When you send in your receipts via fax (what is this, 1987?) you have to use that barcode sheet as a cover sheet.  Luckily, you can also email it in.  However, your scanned receipts and the barcode cover sheet have to be part of the same file with the barcode file coming first.
The problem i have with this is that essentially, i have to print out the barcode sheet and scan it in with all my receipts.  Seems a waste to print something out so i can scan it back in.  When i talked to one of the guys in the expense department, he said he'd put in a request for me to get a full copy of adobe acrobat pro so i could merge them together.
So, i did a little search and found pdfsam (PDF Split and Merge).  This little utility is free and lets you split pdfs into multiple documents and reassemble them any way you want.  Pretty cool stuff. Definitely cheaper than acrobat pro!

Finally, something that doesn't work in iOS, wait nevermind.

I got an iPad back in October.  I've been really pleased with it.  It's constantly exceeded my expectations.  With the release of iPad 2 yesterday, Apple calling 2011 'the year of the iPad 2', and RIM's own tablet coming out soon, i'm excited to see how quickly we can get to a point where we don't need desktop systems in our homes. 
Anyway, about the thing that doesn't work.  I use the remote app to remote control my iTunes on my personal computer.  That way every time i want to change songs, i don't have to switch my kvm over to my home computer.  I can just reach over and click next on my ipad.  I've had problems with this before though.  My wifi at home is A/B/G/N.  The iPad supports B/G.  Sometimes when my iPad would time out and switch itself off and i'd manually turn it back on, it would report that the wifi was connected, when really it wasn't.  This was annoyingly obvious when trying to use the remote app (since the remote app requires ethernet connectivity).  I finally figured out that i could go and disable the wifi then reenable it and everything would work fine.  Then, this afternoon, my wife sat down to watch a netflix movie on her iPhone.  We got a startling email from AT&T stating that we'd gone over our 200MB limit for the month.  Turns out this problem applies to all iOS controlled wifi devices.  I disabled her wifi and reenabled it and lo and behold, web pages started to load much faster.
So, i had to conclude that the problem is not actually with iOS but with my router.  After a little research on the internet, i found that 802.11n is the culprit.  I went onto my router and disabled A/N wifi and without doing anything to either device, they both started functioning.  My wife got a bunch of emails that had been delayed since there was no connectivity.  And a youtube video i had paused on my ipad suddenly started working.
Go figure.  I guess you could technically call this a bug with the iOS and the corresponding hardware since the presence of an N network shouldn't hose up a G network.