Have you tried rebooting?

SAS vs FC Disks

// November 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Technical Know-It-All

In recent times, there has been much said about the future of SAS (serial attached scsi) vs FC (fiber channel). Don’t get me, I’m not saying that FC is dropping dead tomorrow. It is probably still relevant for another 3-5 years, but I for see the future in SAS disks.

Here’s my quick lowdown on it. In no way conclusive, but its something to ponder about.

1. Why SAS?

Why the crap not? SAS is a fraction of the price cheaper, has a strong roadmap moving forward with 6Gbps today, and moving ahead in the future to faster backends. FC has been at 4Gbps for the longest time and have not moved an inch since. It also doesn’t have a roadmap to go any further beyond 4Gbps.

SAS also comes in 2.5″ variants. Have a real estate or green issue? Here’s to a smaller, lighter and greener media.

2. But SAS is Tier 2 disks

How do we define Tier 1 from Tier 2 disks today? Reliability and performance.

In terms of reliability, SAS disks are manufactured and developed to the same specifications of a FC Disk. The only difference is the connector / interfaces at the backend. The likelyhood of a SAS drive failing is the same as a FC drive failing.

Performance, used to be a big discussion point because SAS ran at 3Gbps, but now with 6Gbps and a non-arbitrated loop architecture, it is blowing FC off it’s socks. No discussion there.

3. SAS is SATA’s expensive cousin

Very good observations there. True! The commonality here is “Serial”, and because of that, you can now intermix SAS and SATA disks in the same enclosures. No need for different enclosures for different disk types and no more for funky FATA disks. Go forth and intermix. Beyond that there is nothing similar with regards to the built of the drives.

4. Not convinced still?

Surely vendors like Hitachi Data System’s (HDS) or even IBM can’t be so far off their socks. Hitachi for example have a Hard Disk’s Division that only builds drives. Their business is far far larger than their HDS counterparts. So do you think they will just drop their FC product roadmap just to help out a smaller subsidiary of theirs? Or do you think they are considering the shifting market trend?

Ultimately, there is always the opinionated Google that speaks for itself.

Expensive Printer Ink

// May 25th, 2010 // No Comments » // Technical Know-It-All

Have you ever fallen into the trap where the printer that you bought was such a steal, only to find that when buying replacement cartridges that the cost of the replacements would potentially have bought you a new printer?

Today I came across this article explaining why HP printer inks are expensive and it is a very interesting justification from HP about how ink is expensive to develop and etc.

But seriously, like everything else, technology improves! And as it usually is, you get more for less. You don’t see mobile phones getting bigger with lesser features? You don’t see laptops getting smaller with lesser processing power. And you don’t see hard disks sizes larger and prices increasing exponentially? It is just the way it is with technology. And while I don’t know the exact numbers/dollars involved in developing new laptop, mobile phone or hard disks technology, I’m sure it is not cheap.

So how is that printer ink is still so expensive? I’m sure they sell buckets load of ink every year, so volume is not a good enough excuse either.

So for now, I suppose we shall all stick to writing on paper. Oh wait, do we still use lead pencils? 

Does staff loyalty still exist?

// April 22nd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Technical Know-It-All

Before I joined the work force many years ago, I never quite understood why employees these days rarely stay beyond 3-4 years in an organisation. Are those days where employees work for 10 years or so in a company gone, or is there something that either the employers/employees aren’t doing right?

Now, after being in the industry for a while and experiencing it first hand, I think I’m beginning to understand more. Here are my views from a techies standpoint.

1. Technically sound professionals are usually very loyal to an organisation if treated right. For techies, 2 key factors play a part in this. The opportunity to learn or upgrade their skills and their relationship with their reporting managers. While monetary returns are usually important, it is probably not the most important element when it comes to techies. Techies like to be challenged and need to stay sharp, that is why training is essential. Being stingy on training because of cost (economic conditions) is not exactly the best of excuses because cost is usually easily allocated to other departments that are perceived to be more important than the IT teams.

2. Relationship with the manager is probably the key factor behind staff loyalty that applies to all fields. If you can’t get along with your managers, no matter how much you like your job, it is always gonna be a challenge. Truthfully, there are only 2 ways around it. Live with it or just leave. Many experienced techies usually leave an organisation for greener pastures but lesser experienced techies will just live by it. I used to be in the “live by it” class, but I have come to realised that change might not be such a bad thing. I guess if its already bad, it can only get better right?

3. Company loyalty = Staff loyalty. Organisations these days are so much about dollars and cents that they forget that it is the people within it that drives the business. A happy staff equals a profitable company. Why don’t organisations realise this? Google isn’t up there because they slave drive their staff. Imagine programmers dragging their feet to meet a dateline, and marketing staff slacking off. How is that gonna help Google? Many companies are getting rid of the junior staff in favor of senior staff with the reason being, “bad economic conditions”. How many junior staff does it take to equal the salary of a senior director (that has potentially led the organisation into this mess)? Staff loyalty only exist if company loyalty exists. Period.

4. Cronyism is another big factor that deters many from staying in an organisation. While it is more discreet in Western work force, it is exceptionally prevalent in Asian organisations. Everyone likes to be boot-licked. Yes, I do agree. But we must be wary that it does not become a dominant culture. I’m not saying that all brown-nosers are incompetent, but the majority of them are. This will severely impact the organisations performance, not to mention that you will potentially lose valuable staff because of this. Techies like myself, just despise cronyism. Why? I suppose we are just geeky and we like to stand for whats right I suppose. .

Re-Training Technical Staff

// April 22nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Technical Know-It-All

“We have a new product and you need to get up to speed with it. Please make sure you learn it up”

Sound familiar? I suppose it is something that we get all the time as techies. I do understand that, we are paid to be techies because of our ability to grasp technical concepts and understand them easily. But sometimes, I feel managers should understand that technology is not generic. There is a significant difference between the skillsets of an IT Engineer and a NASA Engineer. Agreed?

While it may be possible for an application engineer to be a database engineer overnight, it is usually very very difficult. Even if they were to achieve it, they are usually not going to be as good as someone who has been working with databases all their lives.  It is becoming so common these days with the various mergers and acquisitions in the industry, that tech staff have been asked to learn various contrasting disciplines and given little time to get up to speed on it.

I always believe that in order to convince a customer to purchase your product, you will have to first know and believe in your product. Obviously, that is not the case. Tech staff are constantly blamed for not knowing the product well enough and not enabling the sales team to perform better.

Bottom line is this. Give your techies time to get there, and provide significant investments to get there. Do not expect to have your techies learn a new skill without providing training and equipment. You don’t get good at riding a bicycle without a bicycle now, do you? If speed is of essence, invest in a new headcount. Contrasting disciplines are not easily attainable overnight. For example, don’t expect a Storage Area Network (SAN) expert to be a Wide Area Network (WAN) in 1 week. The only thing common between them is the word “network”.

Horses for courses!

Free Professional Services in the IT Industry

// March 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // Blogroll, Technical Know-It-All

For those who are unfamiliar with the term professional services in IT, in layman terms, it is services that vendors provide to help you install or implement upon product purchase. It could also be services that you pay to get a systems integrator or OEM vendor to come fix or perform. (Eg; performance tuning, data migration and etc.)

I have had the privilege to work in various countries in the APAC region and it is very interesting to experience how Professional Services or PS is perceived in different countries.

Let start with a little background. In order for a consultant / engineer to be truly skilled to perform an implementation or consultation, he or she needs to be trained and have achieved a certain level of experience. So how does he/she get there? They get sent to courses, thrown in the field with more experienced colleagues and learn. After which, it doesn’t end there. They will then keep refreshing themselves with new updates, which simply means on-going net new trainings. So what I am really trying to get at is this, PS consultants are highly trained technical staff and it “COSTS” a lot to get them to where they are.

So, on to my next point. It is interesting that some countries in Asia never appreciates this and almost always take PS as a given right to them. Some of the more frequent comments are …

I bought a TV that costs $2000 and I got free installation service from the vendor. Why can’t I get some free service when I buy $200,000 worth of enterprise equipment from you?

I am a big customer, if you don’t provide me free service, I can always take my business to another vendor.

In my honest opinion, it is unfair to compare a guy who installs your TV to a consultant that deals with your Enterprise IT Systems. Agreed? What is interesting though is that countries like Australia and Japan are usually more open to the discussion of Paid Professional Services. I have had the opportunity to work in Australia for a few years, so I can rightfully say this. The customers that usually pay for services in Australia are usually not those that do not have highly skilled staff at their disposal (infact, most of them have more skilled staff than most customers in Asia that requests services for free).

Some customers feel that the vendors should perform free service because of the high margins that have slapped onto the products that they sell. I am not going to deny it, but it is the same everywhere else. Take for example, when you buy a car. The cost you paid for the car is highly inflated anyway and when you try to get it fixed (aside from cases where it breaks during the warranty period), you still pay the mechanics to get it fixed right?

Some may complain that the cost of PS is not justifiable, which I sometimes do agree. So let me give you a hint. The prices are always set high because it is always a given that the customer will come back to negotiate this. “Yes, this is a given right as the customer”. So please negotiate. You can squeeze in a couple of freebies here and there, but remember, nothing is free.