We at CBR are getting excited for Halloween, and we hope you are too. But while ghouls are moaning softly in the curling mist of a grimy graveyard and witches cast their silhouettes across a sickly, pale moon, the last thing you want to be doing tonight is staying late at work grappling with IT issues.
Ipswitch’s network management division president, Ennio Carboni, points out the 13 (of course) network nightmares to watch out for, lest you come a cropper before you’ve even gone trick or treating.
He says: "We see clear lines between the fictitious monsters of Halloween and the reality of network nightmares experienced by every day by sysadmins and network administrators.
"Their jobs don’t have to be this hard -they should be able to quickly sort out the source of any problem on their network to help them become more proactive to help move their businesses forward."
Here’s his take on the Halloween horrors to take an axe to in the office:
1. The Zombies: Only zombies should be slow, not your network. Slowdowns can make it nearly impossible to keep systems and applications up and running at peak levels. With better insight, you can move fast to solve problems before they start to negatively impact business operations and users.
2. The Vampires: Don’t let network vampires suck the life out of your wireless network. These creatures can take a bite out of network performance with the use of satellite radio and streaming video. Once you track them down, put your stake in the ground and kindly share IT policy so they can listen to Pandora back at the crypt, and not in the office.
3. The Skeletons: Dealing with bare bones budgets is a constant problem for IT professionals, who are expected to provide higher levels of service to users, with fewer dollars. IT folks should be able to face the skeletons in their closets and monitor their networks, applications and systems affordably.
4. The Frankensteins: A whole bunch of disjointed pieces and parts can yield monster network monitoring problems. Network administrators should not have to play the mad scientist. Trying to make the nuts and bolts and random wires of their network play nice together shouldn’t look like a scientific experiment gone wrong.
5. The Spiked Maces: Spikes in network performance can make anyone nervous. Be prepared for high levels of traffic on days when Apple offers a download your users cannot resist. When you can be proactive, the spikes on the network won’t come swinging at you like a medieval mace.
6. The Ghosts: What problems are haunting your network? Network administrators can be effective ghost hunters and find the spectres, including slowdowns and frightening downtime.
7. The Chucky (knife-wielding dolls): What may seem like a small threat can actually instigate big problems. What little monster is wiggling their way down into deep layers of the network to compromise security? Unchecked small problems can quickly turn into a network breach if it takes weeks before you find the culprit, especially if the problem is intermittent. Small problems are not ‘child’s play’
8. The Jasons (scary intruders): Don’t let software and applications lurk in the shadows. Network administrators need to know which users have downloaded unauthorized applications onto their networked laptops. Turn on the light so you don’t get lost in shadow IT.
9. The Mummies: Are you continuously wrapped up in the same problems that keep returning? Finding the source of an issue shouldn’t be as hard as digging into an ancient Egyptian crypt.
10. The Devils: No cost shortcuts like free open source products can tempt you with big promises, but they can steal your soul if you depend on them to monitor your network. Listen to the haloed, winged creature on your other shoulder and invest in an affordable solution that gets the little devils out of the network.
11. The Gravestones: Downtime? More like Rest in Panic. Finding the source of a problem on the network shouldn’t bury you six feet deep.
12. The Fog: When the fog sets in and bats come out to play, viewing the network can become eerie and impeded. If network administrators can’t get a complete view of their network, they won’t be able to clearly see through the fog and find the source of a slowdown or stoppage.
13. The Werewolves: Don’t get bitten by the unexpected. Having the proper policies in place can be the silver bullet for dealing with bandwidth-hungry users.
