E-Oasis Alerts » Technology

Extraordinary Effort for Ordinary Gain

admin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:35:52 +0000

It’s easy to be cynical if you are an end user who relies on an IT (Information Technology) support organization. How many unplanned outage notices have you wondering if anything is going to be working today?

Frustrated, you send that e-mail to the CEO to get some attention on something that should have been fixed a decade ago. Interestingly, this touches off a pattern of waste that is repeated daily in organizations everywhere. Allowing pedestrian problems to ignite into full-blown all-hands-on-deck emergencies is completely avoidable. Sadly, it’s more the norm than the exception.

Even worse, real emergencies often go unrecognized while extraordinary effort is expended for ordinary gain.

If this happens frequently in your organization, isn’t it time to look beyond the fire fighting?

Do you have chronic issues that are never completely resolved?
Do the same people make the same mistakes unable to turn a lesson learned into a lesson remembered?
Are resources stretched so thin that a satisfactory root cause analysis is omitted in order to fight the next fire?
Is Executive Management seemingly oblivious to the perils since they often benefit from extraordinary effort exercises?

Breaking your organization’s dependency on fire-fighting as a normal reaction is not a quick-fix proposition. Finding a way to measure and report the cost of extraordinary efforts and contrasting them against the underwhelming, ordinary results they produce is a good first step.

Getting someone to act on that data is the real trick.

Nothing Concentrates the Mind Like a Hanging (at Dawn)

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:56:34 +0000

IT (Information Technology) projects stall for lots of reasons. They also fail spectacularly. Worse, they don’t fail soon enough and organizations bloat staffing in pursuit of a project that should be killed. It’s also common to see unqualified resources stumbling through what an expert can finish with little effort.

Nothing Concentrates the Mind Like a Hanging

A sense of urgency is often missing in IT projects. Milestones are missed with regularity and it’s often unclear who is responsible for deliverables. The expectation that a Google search will yield the technical recipe often substitutes for seeking out experienced help.

It’s not uncommon to hear some imaginative reasoning for why a project missed a deadline or failed to accomplish the objective. Most of these reasons are just fabrications. Sometimes the simple steps such as having clear consequences (the hanging) and an immovable deadline (at dawn) are not sufficient to provoke any meaningful results.

Now what?

It’s no secret that most people inherently avoid conflicts. They know what they should do, but inexplicably can not confront the situation before them. It’s no different with a technology project but there is a twist. You may not be able to overcome the imaginative technical fabrications in addition to confronting the individuals involved.

It’s time to seek out a peer review of the project and place a technical expert in direct conflict with your in-house resources.

What happens next will be the real test of your own leadership.

SendItem: Accessing Exchange 2007 with PHP-Soap

admin — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:06:35 +0000

This is going to be one of those mostly technical posts to help others who are struggling with using PHP-Soap to access Exchange 2007 web services. Apologies to regular readers who are not familiar with PHP and Exchange 2007. If you find this helpful, please leave a comment below.

Start at the Beginning

To get started, you’ll need to read Erik Cederstand’s HOWTO talk SOAP with Exchange and get the fundamental stuff working. For some common problems, also check out the ongoing thread http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?p=171001 . Additionally, the MSDN reference at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx is where you need to educate yourself on Exchange Web Services, XML, and error messages.

Know what XML you are forming

The Microsoft Developer’s Network is the place to start for XML examples. Here’s the XML we’ll form for our CreateItem example:

IPM.Note

YOUR SUBJECT

BodyType=”Text”>YOUR BODY TEXT

SOMEONE@e-oasis.com

Use PHP-Soap to form the XML request

Debugging Soap errors can be frustrating, but if you “stare and compare” against your XML you can typically find the problem. Here’s the PHP code to form the XML request. Note how the attribute of BodyType is passed within the Body tag using Body['BodyType'] and the content of the Body tag is passed with Body[_] = “YOUR BODY TEXT”; .

//CreateItem Sends e-mail through Exchange 2007 $CreateItem->MessageDisposition=”SendAndSaveCopy”; $CreateItem->SavedItemFolderId->DistinguishedFolderId->Id = “inbox”; $CreateItem->Items->Message = array();

for($i = 0; $i < 1; $i++) {

$CreateItem->Items->Message[$i]->ItemClass = “IPM.Note”; $CreateItem->Items->Message[$i]->Subject = “YOUR SUBJECT“; $CreateItem->Items->Message[$i]->Body[_] = “YOUR BODY TEXT“; $CreateItem->Items->Message[$i]->Body['BodyType'] = “Text“; $CreateItem->Items->Message[$i]->ToRecipients->Mailbox->EmailAddress = “SOMEONE@e-oasis.com“;

$CreateItem->Items->Message[$i]->IsRead = “false”;

}

$result = $client->CreateItem($CreateItem);

Was this helpful?

If you found this helpful, we’d appreciate a comment or other PHP-Soap examples that can help others. Until PHP-Soap access to Exchange 2007 becomes more common-place, these examples will be huge time-savers for everyone.

E-Mail blaine@e-oasis.com or twitter @e0asis

Diagnosis Twitter – Listening at the Flash-Point of Need

admin — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:18:37 +0000

It’s difficult to write a post about Twitter without defining it. The problem is that Twitter is a work in progress. None of these elements will be explored in this post:

Will Twitter find a way to make money? (Apologies to Fred Wilson)
Is Twitter useful for ?
How does Twitter me ?
What the heck is Twitter anyway?
I Twitter.
You should not use Twitter for .

Ignore the fail whale, the fanboys/girls, and the crowd-based do’s and don’ts. Even Captain Obvious can see that Twitter is a work in progress as evidenced by the good folks at Twitter explaining they will scale first and seek revenue second.

Suppose instead you conduct this thought experiment:

Every Person on the planet with a wireless phone or computer is a Twitter user.

And these millions of Twitter users are all talking at once all in the same room. Some in small groups and some in large. Some organized and most ad-hoc. Some talk is polite, some is rude, and most is seemingly without context.

What then becomes important when you realize these conversations, occurring in real time and possessing the possibility of crowd consensus, are about your brand?

About your industry? About something you care about? Maybe even about you personally?

What becomes important once Twitter scales?

What will matter when the discordant din from Twitterville is loud, overwhelming, and impossible to manage with the current tools?

Listening.

Not eavesdropping, but really Listening.

Listening at the flash-point of need.

Responding is an entirely different post.

But Listening is something you can start right now. This reason alone may not be compelling enough to compete for your time at this point in Twitter’s development.

Maybe there’s plenty of time and you can relax while Twitter is the rock your competitors break themselves against.

Or maybe others have the Listening part down and they’ve moved on to Responding?

Diagnosis Twitter: Relevant, not yet at scale, and ignored at the expense of your brand.

What’s your story about listening at the flash-point of need?

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Does Cloud Computing Make You Hyperventilate?

admin — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:05:09 +0000

It’s no wonder. With so much hype at the intersection of the economy and all manner of magic that is supposed to save you money, it’s easy to simply dismiss the cloud as all hat and no cattle. The Cloud is Loud and Proud and not going to diminish for some time.

After reading Randy Bias’s post on Cloudcenters from GoGrid, I have to admit I’m rooting for the cloud. What stands out in the GoGrid description is the understanding of the Enterprise IT zeitgeist and the real-life concerns that must be overcome to use a cloudcenter.

I still believe there are two major impediments that bar the Cloud from any widespread adoption by the Enterprise:

Performance – Users want good response time. Most Enterprises can’t afford the bandwidth required to locate their computing off-premise (i.e. “In The Cloud”) and still deliver a satisfactory user experience. Something has to change (cheaper bandwidth or different approach for desktop to application computing).
Security – Corporations can’t even keep their own on-premise data properly classified or secured. “Encryption at Rest” is the natural minimum requirement. Which leads you back to Performance.

Keep your eyes on GoGrid and read the Cloudcenters post right now to understand how a Cloudcenter looks remarkably similar to your existing data center.

Source: GoGrid’s Cloudcenter

The Loud and Proud Cloud

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:41:47 +0000

Cloud computing enjoys the current marketing hyperbole cycle and vendor marketing departments know that. Everyone wants to be the leader in the cloud.

However, like “Web 2.0″ before it, it’s questionable if the term “Cloud Computing” can be used in any meaningful way. There are efforts to create a taxonomy of meaning to keep track of all the objects living in the cloud.

Cloud Computing = Off-Premise Computing

The only delineation seems to be if the computing takes place on-premise or off-premise. If it’s off-premise, then marketing will brand it Cloud Computing. You’re reading this blog in the Cloud which makes E-Oasis and you a Cloud user.

Practically, Enterprise businesses will continue to rely on their on-premise computing. The reasons are easy to understand. Let’s look at just two:

Performance – Users want good response time. Most Enterprises can’t afford the bandwidth required to locate their computing off-premise (i.e. “In The Cloud”) and still deliver a satisfactory user experience. The math is simple. A typical user desktop has a dedicated 10/100/1000 mbit/sec connection to their servers versus a shared Internet connection that is typically less than 45 mbit/sec and more often around 5 mbit/sec. Common tasks like file sharing in an Enterprise would be glacially slow. We won’t even discuss redundancy (i.e. multiple Internet connections to the cloud).
Security – Corporations can’t even keep their own on-premise data properly classified or secured. Do you believe they will allow third parties to manage this important function? They’re not and they won’t.

If you use off-premise computing, it’s just a matter of time before your marketing department highlights that fact in a Proud Cloud Press Release. Take some comfort that this term will fall back to earth as soon as another one can take it’s place at the hyperbole feeding frenzy.

A $100 Billion Dollar Market?

Don’t forget that the First International Cloud Computing Expo is happening on the 19th of November if you just can’t get enough Cloud. After all, we have experts predicting that this is a $100 Billion dollar market. Did that get your attention?

That should be an easy number to achieve and may even be low. After all, Cloud Computing is just the sum of all off-premise computing. To achieve any meaningful adoption rates for the Enterprise, the pipes connecting the Enterprise to off-premise computing must both get fatter (more bandwidth) and cheaper. Way cheaper.

Thin Clients Still Not Thin Enough On Your Wallet

admin — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 17:50:01 +0000

With the advent of virtualization, particularly VMware’s VDI (Virtual Desktop Interface), much has been written about pairing a thin hardware client with VDI to ease administration and control costs. This hardware, however, still costs in the range of $300 to $800 per unit. Contrasted to a desktop PC, sometimes there is no savings on the hardware giving little incentive to roll out a thin client plus VDI environment.

Arguments such as “management nightmare”, “simplified support model”, and “less moving parts” don’t measure up to the economic realities that thin clients don’t bring a significant cost savings over a desktop deployment strategy.

Thin isn’t in because it’s not cheap enough to motivate an economic decision.

What are your domain registrar choices?

admin — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:03:23 +0000

GoDaddy’s 52 second action has many saying they will switch their domain registrar away from GoDaddy. One site where you can research your choices is RegistrarSTATS.com . Here’s a recent graphic from them that illustrates the dominance of GoDaddy.

All you can eat

admin — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:24:15 +0000

Actually, all you can meet is the claim by the Citrix GoToMeeting service. If you’re looking to an alternative to the pricing structure of WebEx, this online meeting alternative may be the ticket.