12. Relying on a single network performance
When it comes to network performance, there’s no single metric by which to judge network health. Douglas Smith, president
of network analysis vendor Network Instruments, points out that it’s a mistake to think that network utilization can be quantified
in a single way. When management asks for a single network utilization report, IT is typically sent scurrying for a single
metric for network health that is ultimately impossible to define.
That said, certain aspects of a network, such as port utilization, link utilization, and client utilization, can and should
be measured. In any scenario, successful network analysis means taking a step back and looking at the data in the context
of your enterprise.
Network utilization requires judgment calls. If two ports on a switch are 90 percent utilized and the others are not utilized,
do you consider your switch utilization to be 90 percent? It might be more appropriate to ask which application is causing
those particular ports to reach 90 percent utilization. Understanding the big picture and analyzing utilization levels in
context are the keys to getting a sense of your network’s health.
13. Throwing bandwidth at a network problem
One of the most common complaints addressed by IT is simple: The network is running slower than normal. The knee-jerk reaction
is to add more capacity. This is the right solution in some cases but dead wrong in others. Without the proper analysis, upgrading
capacity can be a costly, unwise decision. Network Instruments’ Smith likens this approach to saying, “I’m running low on
closet space, and therefore I need a new house.”
Capacity aside, common root causes of slowdowns include unwanted traffic broadcasting over the network from old systems or
apps, such as IPX traffic, or misconfigured or inefficient applications that spew streams of packets onto the network at inconvenient
times.
According to Smith, one of Network Instruments’ banking customers was considering upgrading its WAN links due to complaints
from tellers that systems were running slow. The IT team used a network analyzer to determine that increased traffic levels
were being caused by a security app that ran a daily update at 3 p.m. When the IT team reconfigured this application to make
updates at 3 a.m. instead, they were able to quickly improve traffic levels without making the costly WAN upgrade.
14. Permitting weak passwords
In the Internet age, new threats such as worms and phishing tend to garner all the security attention, but the SANS Institute’s
Top 20 Vulnerabilities list released in October points to a basic IT mistake: weak authentication or bad passwords (infoworld.com/2193). The most
common password vulnerabilities include weak or nonexistent passwords; user accounts with widely known or physically displayed
passwords (think Post-it Notes); administrative accounts with weak or widely known passwords; and weak or well-known password-hashing
algorithms that are not well secured or are visible to anyone. Avoiding the weak authentication mistake boils down to simple
IT blocking and tackling -- a clear, detailed, and consistently enforced password policy that proactively deals with the most
exploited authentication weaknesses detailed in the SANS report.
15. Never sweating the small stuff
CTOs and CIOs like to talk about the strategic application of technology, but ignoring basic tactical issues can lead to simple
but extremely costly mistakes. Missing a $30 domain name registration payment can be enough to grind your business to a halt.
In one notorious example, last February a missed payment by The Washington Post knocked out employee e-mail for hours until the renewal was paid.
As datacenter environments become denser, even low-level facilities issues may demand scrutiny. On his Weblog, Sun Microsystems
President Jonathan Schwartz quoted a CIO who responded to a “what keeps you up at night” question with, “I can no longer supply
enough power to, or exhaust heat from [our datacenter]. I feel like I’m running hot plates, not computers.” A CIO who overlooks
burning -- but not necessarily obvious -- issues such as these may soon be in search of another job.
16. Clinging to prior solutions
A common mistake for IT managers moving into a new position at a new company is to try to force solutions and approaches that
worked at a prior job into a new environment with different business and technology considerations.
One current vice president of operations describes a new, low-cost open source environment he had to manage after working
in a more traditional shop that relied on high-end Sun hardware and Oracle and Veritas software. The new startup company couldn’t
afford the up-front cash required to set up a rock-solid environment based on commercial software, so they ran a LAMP (Linux,
Apache, MySQL, PHP) architecture with an especially aggressive Linux implementation on 64-bit AMD Opteron machines. Gradually,
the vice president realized that his old solutions wouldn’t work in the new environment from a technology or cost angle, so
he changed his approach to fit the new reality, using none of the technologies from his prior job.
E-mail
Printer Friendly
Reprints
(InfoWorld) - In the litigious world we live in, deploying a unified communications platform in your enterprise could...
