What Do YOU Want To Talk About?

I write quite a bit about the things on my mind and those topics brought to me by listeners of "The ROOT Cause" Podcast as well as via email. Yet, this Blog seems like the quickest and easiest way for you to post questions or suggest topics. So--What Do YOU Want To Talk About?

• IT Management
• Hands-On Technical Issues
• WireShark
• Sniffer
• Infrastructure Issues and Devices ~ Load Balancers, Reverse Proxies, Multi-Tier Architecture (Web--App--DB), etc.
• Performance Analysis & Testing
• Troubleshooting Methodologies
• Other

Let me know what you need to know or--what you have to teach! I am also looking for guest Authors for the main Interpathtech.com website.

The Network and Application Performance Analysis Team (NAPA)™

INTRODUCTION:

Network & Application  Performance Analysis is a team sport.  Rarely are all the required skills in one skull.  Perhaps it is best understood once you think in terms of functions and skill-sets within a Troubleshooting process.  In order to be able to handle ANYTHING that comes along, you will need team members with high level skills in Enterprise Applications--Operating Systems--Databases--Server Issues and a detailed understanding of Protocols and Packet-Level transactions.   But, to expect one or two people to have detailed knowledge of all these areas is unrealistic.

The Senior Network and Application Performance Analyst (NAPA)™ will need to be able to communicate with all these individuals, teams and managers.  Communication & interviewing abilities are mandatory.   

THE 7 PRIMARY TEAM ROLES:

1) Network & Application Performance Analyst (NAPA)™:  Team Manager & Technical Team Lead.  The NAPA must learn all the Client’s goals - Technical - Political - Management - Budgetary -scales the team accordingly. They are the hub of the team's wheel.

2) Enterprise Application Specialist (EAS):  Able to map Application flow from a functional & transactional basis. Understands Database interactions - Multi-Tiered Architecture - Web Servers 

3) Protocol Analyst - Packet-Sniffer Guru:  Understands Network Protocols - Topology Framing - Troubleshooting from the Packet Level.  

4) Network Engineer:  Familiar with wide variety of vendors i.e. Cisco--Foundry-- Nortel--Troubleshooting Layers 1-3.  

 5) Operating Systems Specialist:  UNIX & Windows, Other... 

 6) Project Manager:  Maintains Task List - Gant Chart - Reports to Client's Management  

 7) Technical Writer:  Creates deliverable documentation showing work & resolutions provided by Network Application Performance Analysis Team.  This person does not need to have a solid technical understanding but must be able to follow the gist of it when interviewing the technical team in order to "translate" the information into a document that is understandable to both a technical and NON-technical reader.

Network & Application performance Analysis troubleshooting doesn't require separate people in each role - single individuals can perform multiple roles.   The Senior NAPA may be able to perform all roles--at a high level.  However, the Client’s Subject Matter Experts (SME) will still be required.  Consider them a guest member of the team.

Having a Champion within the Client's organization is critical.  The Organization's staff is not accountable to The NAPA Team - does not have to provide information or perform tasks. Will not do so when busy - but always busy!  Clear path of internal escalation & champion provides authority. After all, every team needs a Captain.

Mentoring in the IT Industry

Attention American IT Managers:  Within the next decade most of your best people will retire or die. Your senior staffers are baby boomers with twenty years or more of experience in their field. They built the systems: they learned the operating systems as they were created: they know what they know from real life experience that cannot be learned in school. They are also somewhere between their late forties and early sixties. They rose to the top while competing within the largest workforce America has ever seen. When they leave they will take a level of efficiency and expertise with them that will take twenty years to replace. 

To make matters worse, the population of appropriately educated Americans coming up behind them is far smaller than the population getting ready to move out. Do the math.  Start now. To try to buy that talent later will not only cost you a fortune but you will be competing for a very small population of such individuals, with the entire world.  

There is also an emotional and psychological component to this problem. After the Dot-Bomb debacle, many people with decades of smarts were kicked out due to layoffs, or companies failing, or being eaten by a bigger company that had its own staff. Why do we eat our seed corn?   

Do you have a mentoring plan in place? I don't mean the typical, "oh, we believe in mentoring around here" kind of plan. A thought out purposeful plan whereby you determine which journeyman IT personnel have the potential to grow into those senior roles and have your baby boomer senior staffers truly mentor them to bring them along.  

Too many companies (meaning senior managers and stock holders) are focused on the very short term. Soon to retire (or sell), they care about the value of their stock and parachutes--their personal future.  As for the overall future of their companies--well--not as much. To such as these I would like to say that I know many people at Lucent Technologies that thought similarly. But, when they went to retire--well--you know the rest of the story.

The Role of The Technical Enterprise Practitioner (TEP)™

by Barry Koplowitz

As IT environments become more complex, technologists and their managers have stepped farther away from trying to understand the “What” or “How” of their technology. Now, the critical skill is to know “Who,” specifically, who are the specialists required for the particular issue of the moment. Even the hands-on IT worker is quickly becoming a contact manager.  I can’t help wonder--does anyone have the big picture?

For a solution, we can look to other industries that have faced this challenge and developed ways of resolving the problem. One particular industry jumps immediately to mind. Oddly, this other industry is itself highly criticized--but for other problems. The Health Care Industry. Surely I am not saying that the Health Care Industry works better than our IT Industry. Yup--that is exactly what I am saying. Not their insurance processes; that is a mess! I am referring to their REAL business, the management of your health.

Long ago medicine advanced to a point where no one can know it all. There are specialists of every kind. If you have a problem, you may see many such specialists. But--there is one kind of Doctor that is tasked with keeping the big picture in mind. That Doctor is your Family Practitioner.  

This leads us back to Information Technology. What role in the IT organization equates to the Family Practitioner? We need Technical Enterprise Practitioners (TEP)™. This individual (and their team) will be well versed in all aspects of technology, including hardware, software, development, networks, protocols and what is hot (and not) in the world of vendor offerings. They need to be current.

Some companies have explored the role of the Chief Technologist or Chief Scientist. Nevertheless, that is not the position I am describing here. Please don't confuse them. The Technical Enterprise Practitioner (TEP)™ is a very technical General Practitioner and they stay in the technical space. They have the skills to understand any details that are presented to them--plus how those details interact with the rest of the Enterprise. They are also mature people and project managers. They can utilize the big picture to prevent problems, contain costs, improve customer satisfaction, guide hiring and training practices and much more. 

Do you know the cost of those problems, or do you only focus on the price of addressing them?