By Brian Boyko

When your job can be quantifiably measured in the terms of ROI, many companies are finding that the ROI workers bring to the table just isn't enough. We often hear about massive layoffs in the news; we rarely hear about massive hirings, which suggests to me that there typically aren't many.

Add to that the increased job competition from globalization, and the typical IT environment is filled with two types of people: Those with skills so unique that no one can replace them, and those who fear for their jobs.

One of the reasons we were able to open a development center in Raleigh was because of a significant layoff by another technology vendor which gave us the ability to select some world-class talent.

Or, take Microsoft. Bill Gates personally testified before the Senate on the issue of immigration, arguing for more H-1B visas. David Broder at the Washington Post says that Gates claimed that "salaries for these jobs at Microsoft start at about $100,000 a year."

This would be great, except Microsoft's actual filings show that these jobs start at $46,267 a year. In fact, less than 15% of Microsoft's H-1B workers - for 2005 - had salaries equal to or over $100,000.

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Continue reading "A lack of job security leads to a lack of innovation" »

Just a quick note - this blog relies on Google Analytics. Our article on Slashdot got over 30,000 page views according to our internal metrics, but Google Analytics hasn't registered one visitor or one page view in about 24 hours now - and we're not the only ones having this problem. Is Google Analytics kaput?

See below for some threads where the problem is discussed.

http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help-tracking/browse_thread/thread/c2bc3cd809188c49
http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help-troubleshoot/browse_thread/thread/f733f19e15a9c611
http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help-troubleshoot/browse_thread/thread/86070d603f583314

By Brian Boyko

Every year, I watched the Super Bowl and talked over the game, paying rapt attention to the commercials.

This year, there's YouTube, and the good commercials will likely be online far before the halftime show ends. And if advertising agencies are savvy, they'll be uploading them minutes - before - the Super Bowl commercial airs on TV. (What? You think a company's going to send a C&D to get people to stop watching their advertisements? No company is that stupid.)

YouTube itself has a page specifically dedicated to Super Bowl commercials. And that doesn't include the highlights or the possibility of a "wardrobe malfunction."

So since I don't have much interest in the actual game, I, like many other geeks, have other plans this Sunday.

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Continue reading "Friday Editorial: The Super Bowl Shuffle" »

By Brian Boyko

If you're working in IT, I'd like to ask you:

With the increase in demands being placed on those responsible for enterprise networks, how will the Amero case open up threats to IT professionals - network engineers and IT managers? Will they now be held responsible for the "experience" of users?

There's tons of commentary on the web railing about the outcome of the Julie Amero case itself, but what I think we need to talk about is, what does it mean for IT?

This case hints at a possible "worst case scenario" for IT departments and network managers in particular: will IT ultimately be held responsible, just as Julie Amero was, for the material that gets distributed over their network?

Today, IT isn't just responsible for uptime - they're also, in many ways, responsible for the experience of end-users of the network. In the Amero case, this appears to have been taken a bit too far. In this case, there was no record of network activity during and before the event. If the computer could have been shown to access some of the offending Web sites before Ms. Amero entered the classroom that morning, for example, it would have been powerful evidence for the defense.If the pornography sites were only being loaded after Ms. Amero walked in, it would seem powerful evidence for the prosecution. Either way, this case would have been better served if there was an existing record of what packets were downloaded when.

There are products on the market, like those from NetQoS, designed specifically to create detailed records of what goes on with the network - what happens when. Having a detailed record of network activity might have been able to provide some useful and powerful incriminating or exculpatory evidence in this case. Does your organization have such detailed insight into the activity on your network – recreational or otherwise? Something to consider?

The world of IT is becoming infinitely more complex. We are all part of the network, you and me, a network vastly more powerful than any that can be counted. How will this case and others like it impact your role in managing the network and the experience of users?

Chime in with your thoughts.

Brian Boyko is the editor of Network Performance Daily.

By Brian Boyko

There is a great controversy on the Web right now over the fate of Connecticut schoolteacher Julie Amero.

Ms. Amero has been convicted of “four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or imparing the morals of a child” and faces up to 40 years in prison in the state of Connecticut.

During a French class that Ms. Amero was substitute teaching, the computer in the classroom showed pornographic images. The prosecution argued that this was a willful act – or at least one that Ms. Amero should be held criminally liable for. Ms. Amero’s defense argued that it was because of spyware, and that Ms. Amero had no say in the matter.

Although the primary purpose of this blog is to discuss enterprise networking and performance, we felt compelled to post this comment and open a dialog about this case. As we all know, networking isn’t just about enterprise networking anymore. Schools – public and private – are increasingly becoming networked as well. Furthermore, we can look forward to (present?) future home networks in which AppleTVs, Xbox360 media centers, and Windows Home Servers are all connected. Before the future arrives, perhaps we should examine some of the issues – to foster network literacy the same way that over the past 10 years our society has needed to foster computer literacy. It is time to take a serious look not only on the network’s effect on the enterprise but on networking’s effect on society as a whole.

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Continue reading "The Strange Case of Ms. Julie Amero: An Introduction" »

By Brian Boyko

Certainly, we did not expect our examination of Network Neutrality to get quite the attention that it did, nor did we expect the complications that arose around it.

We want to thank everyone who participated in commenting and writing to Network Performance Daily and on Slashdot.org.

As stated in our first article on the subject, Network Performance Daily does not have an official stance on the subject of Network Neutrality – save two.

The first is that Network Neutrality is an issue – that it is not something to be ignored and should be debated and considered from multiple angles. Internet policy is perhaps one of the most important policy decisions lawmakers can make today, because the laws we make today will affect technologies in the future.

The second is that we believe that, whatever views of the debate that you hold, and whatever your opinion, the experiences that you learn the most from are not the experiences that conform to your expectations. That’s a piece of wisdom I learned from Eric S. Raymond, when he spoke at Rutgers University and NJIT in 2002 – it was the first story I ever covered.

We hope that whatever your positions, you’ve taken away something unexpected from our coverage.

-- Brian Boyko
-- Editor, Network Performance Daily

On Friday, January 5, 2007, this blog published an article from an interview with Professor Christopher Yoo.

We have some important information regarding that article.

We originally conducted the interview with Professor Yoo on Wednesday, January 3, 2007, quickly edited a first-draft for a transcript, and sent it to him for his review - to make sure that his words were accurately transcribed, and that we were not doing damage to the substance or spirit of his words.

On January 4, 2007, Prof. Yoo sent us two e-mail messages pointing out flaws in the article, and making corrections - e-mail messages that we did not receive. We do not know what happened to those e-mail messages. We have looked in our e-mail archives, in our spam filters, even checked to see if the e-mails were somehow misrouted through one of our mailing list filters. The e-mail messages did not get to our network.

On our end, we heard complete silence by the time we had our press deadline on Friday. On Friday afternoon, January 5, 2007, we published the article as it stood. It was quickly picked up by Slashdot.org.

On Saturday, January 6, 2007, Prof. Yoo wrote back, telling us that he was very upset about the article's publication, and wondered why we had not made the corrections that he requested. On Sunday, January 7, 2007, I checked my e-mail remotely and found Prof. Yoo's January 6 e-mail.

After an e-mail exchange and a phone conversation, I agreed that though it was through no direct fault of our own, the article had done him a disservice and resolved to repair any inaccuracy or anything that would be unfair to his words or image.

Because the article was linked to on Slashdot, it is very unlikely that this correction will receive the same notoriety that the original one did. We are trying to correct this and have written to Rob Malda, editor of Slashdot, hoping that they can help correct the error by placing this correction notice in a "Slashback" post.

The corrected article appears below. We have also promised Prof. Yoo a right of reply to the blog - if he wishes to make a post explaining the situation in his own words, he needs only to send an e-mail to either of the e-mail addresses we have provided him, and we will post his words as they came to us.

-- Brian Boyko
-- Editor, Network Performance Daily.

(Corrected article appears below)

Continue reading "Clarification: A Case for Non-Neutrality" »