When is it time to Scale?

When to Scale, is something most companies never think about in my experience, even though they are dreaming of massive sales and hits.  Scaling can be hard, if is not thought about from the beginning. Both vertical (most of time splitting the the app server from the db server and horizontal scaling (mostly preparing for load balancing) needs to be addressed from stage 1 of development. With proper virtual server setup from the beginning this can be done with low cost.

Open Source vs. Microsoft and a couple of Macs

I have been in IT for 15 years and this debate has always been on my mind. My current philosophy is LAMP are the backbone of the internet as well as the web developers platform of choice. They are stable and with good admin, hardening and securing, just let them go. But I have to say Microsoft server 2003/2008 Exchange 2003/2007 and Sharepoint 2003/2007 are great stable products, keeping them the backbone of the business network loaded with productivity features. Macs have found their way in as well and are my workstations of choice after years of going back and forth. There was a time in my youth where I could have been considered a Mac evangelist that I was willing to fight anyone on the point of why would you use windows. For this old IT guy I finally enjoy the debate as each has found a place in my working technical life. Now when will someone put out a great international multilingual server based accounting software and once that is solved lets move on to pay roll.

The state of the general office network

A general windows based network should work like the PBX system. With windows networks properly secured and setup at the server level (good Admin) , there should be minimum need for desktop support. Other then setup of new users and workstations IT help desk costs should costs should be minimum and mostly at the server level. 

no laptop needed?

The more I use my iPhone the less I need my laptop and it is weird as I have carried a laptop everywhere for over the last 10-15  years. I know this is not news but with Exchange and Sharepoint as the office back-end I can pretty much do everything via the phone, and it will only get worse once the iPhone as horizontal typing ability for every app.

Using the data-center as your machine room

Over the last few years we kept all our servers in-house, but now that Dell has D-Rack, great remote access tools, fast bandwidth and our data-center is now thinking green, Virtual Server now evolved, blade technology proving itself saving space. I have trouble thinking of a reason to keeping them in-house?

Working from Home via VPN

As a business manager I always wonder if productivity would be higher if I forced my people to come in everyday. When we do get together, I think it turns into a never ending meeting of brain storming always putting us 2 projects ahead in focus. Mostly that maybe a  leadership and focus issue?  It is true allowing working from home keeps office space costs low and gives talented people the ability to work in their ideal space, but this all is easy to judge if you have a productivity scale.

Security - Now more then even Internal as well as external

The most interesting part of doing security consulting in my experience is business owners worrying if the firewall is strong enough and of coarse industry standard still have flaws and exploits. I believe most are trying to lock the front door but leave the backdoor wide open, not to many thieves I have heard of use the front door if they want the DB?

The State of Office Technology

Macs in the Work Place - It is great Apple is finally taking steps to get Macs into the Windows domain space as well as soon Native Exchange Support. I am using my mac more and more, but still sadly missing the tablet features. This maybe at last close to the best of both worlds for me. Lets hope Microsoft doesn't get up to old tricks and Apple doesn't postpone Snow Leopard.