Mike’s House

A while back I wrote about using Nagios as a monitoring system.

Since then, I’ve had need to have it deployed via a packaging system called RPM, and since no “stable” community editions are out there, I have the need to “roll my own” for distribution on our platforms.

I’ve never used RPM from the “packager” side before - and it’s both very cool and infuriating. It has all sort of features and powerful macros, but debugging it isn’t a piece of cake at all.

If anyone has a great RPM tool out there that they want to recommend, let me know.

A while back, we began investigating centralized monitoring tools for multiple systems, cross-platform, alerting, etc.

One contender was a package from MS, and a few others were tossed in the ring.

We did a proper match-up (or shootout, as I prefer) and tested a couple of candidates. While the all-inclusive MS offering is probably the best-functioning one, the cost is too prohibitive for a monitoring tool - about $1500/host monitored.

The extensivity and ease of use is uncomparable, but cost being a factor, we looked at another popular solution - Nagios.

Open source, modifiable - or should I say - Build Your Own - as it comes wth some basic egine concepts,a nd then you pretty much have to build every single monitor you want to look at.

The result is a more targeted monitoring solution, inasmuch it does exactly what you set it out to do - but absolutely no more.

The comparison showed this past week when I got an alert from my test MS instance about a SQL job running too long, something that I would have had to create some code, adapt it to monitor that specific job, and hope it could deal with exceptions I hadn’t thought of.

That’s a difference between a specialist in a particular field (i.e. DBA, mail admin, etc) and the overall concept of a systems administrator - sometimes a jack-of-all trades.

The MS offering is combined of “Management Packs” that are written by the developers of the systems that are being monitored - i.e. Exchange developers write the monitors for exchange and so on, whereas in Nagios monitoring world, you are expected to be able to figure out all of your own monitors/thresholds, etc.

I guess it makes it a little more interesting in the long run, as building something from scratch allows you the familiarity of knowing the ins-and-outs of the systems, but it’s time consuming and the returns are not as immediately apparent.

But it’s affordable. And we’ve got the techie know how to do it. So we do it.

If any readers have used Nagios, are interested in it, have advice, want advice, want to see what the color blue tastes like, let me know.

So last night was the company’s annual Holiday Party. Call me crazy, but I like my company - they’ve held a few celebrations since I’ve been here, and all of them rocked my socks.

It was held at Pressure, which has this great top floor bar/pool hall/dance floor combo space, and we shared it with a party from NBC - but they were on the other side of the bar and didn’t really concern us at all.

Started off by grabbing a drink at the bar and moseying around, played a few games of pool, I even rocked a game of Guitar Hero! I didn’t do the whole buffet thing, I just wasn’t hungry I guess.

I think where I really had the best time was on the dance floor, where I’ve always tried to have a great time. It’s so awesome to see a bunch of crazy people, people I work with, break out their moves. Some of them more interesting than others, but all awesome. I guess it takes a certain type of personality to decide: “I can’t dance in the more conventional sense of the word - but I don’t care, I’m dancing anyways!” So watch out for that good old funky white boy dance - it can spring up at you at a moment’s notice

I had some nice salsa steps and merengue to base on, and then there was some group interpretive modern dance, that got some amazing response, and one more memorable one was Sir Mix-a-Lot’s memorable song, to which another dude and I totally rocked and cracked everyone up. I showed a bit of my groove to “Billy Jean”, a good song for footwork, and wished there was a little more step-worthy music, or at least clog-able, like “The Devil Went Down..” but hey, it was still awesome.

I got to meet a whole lot of people that I work with - some whom I’ve never met before - and some of their friends, spouses, SI’s etc. in a non-work environment. It was fun to see everyone relax and have a good time.

On the whole, it was one hell of a party, and I can’t wait for the next one. Big thanks to M, for making it happen!

Those that people always bitch about and those nobody uses.

Having said that, I think that it is clear to most, if not to all, my feelings on programming.

In case it isn’t, let me clarify.

It’s all well and good for anyone who likes to stare at tons of lines of code for hours, reading it all into their heads and then visualizing what the code is supposed to do, and then add one little semicolon, then spending hours figuring out what went wrong, and then ultimately hunting down some darned semicolon and blaming it.

So early on, when my father, a software engineer, attempted to get me interested in programming, I got the basics and then moved on to another field (more…)

Ever have a train of thought that started somewhere, then progressed a bit, then spawned two or three other thoughts, which took on a life of their own, and all of them important, all of them relevant, and each and every one really important? Now what happens when that happens recursively and begins to stack up?

Think fractals.

Then make whatever you picture that to look like much bigger.

Cram it all into my head.

Add water. Bake at 350°.

So it all started when at about 11:300 on Friday, our team at work gets word that at 9pm the power to both of our (more…)

Hi y’all.

I know I was going to complete the history lesson, but things have been a little delayed, and events have begun to unfold.

Here’s the low-down:

1. I have a new job in New York City - in the DUMBO neighborhood to be a little more precise.
2. I will be moving to Manhattan in about two weeks - June 2nd or so.
3. Most of my computer-related items are being claimed by Yehuda, but if you know of something specific that you want, let me know.
4. I am planning a going-away party on Thursday, May 31st, in the evening, and an eVite will be sent out at some point. If you don’t get the eVite by may 27th, drop me an email/comment and I’ll send it to you.
5. I am selling off my closed alcohol bottles - another post will detail what is up for grabs. The open bottles will hopefully be consumed during the party.

So there’s oodles and oodles more to go on about, but I don’t have the time right now.

Suffice it to say - go see “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” if you can. It came highly recommended, and was worth it.

… it has been over a month since my last post.

It’s been a busy time period, lots of things have been happening, and I’m still catching my breath. So now I’m finally writing this post to put it all out there.

So some of you may know, and others may not, that I am looking for a new job.

This is mainly due to the fact that the company I work for has brought in someone to replace me, an “IT Manager”, someone is supposedly to have a much wider range of experience than myself, in order to take the reins.

Personally, I’m not impressed by the choice.

Anyways, I’ve broadened my search parameters to pretty much anywhere in the world, specifically Manhattan or elsewhere in new York City (where this post is being written right now).
Unfortunately, the job market in and around Jerusalem is pretty weak, so any decent job would be in the Gush Dan area, and require a massive commute and/or moving closer to Gush Dan. I’m not happy about moving to another city that is not Jerusalem, as I’ve loved and lived this city for quite a long time now, and am VERY reluctant to leave.

Rationale: If I have to get up and move, I might as well make it a big move that improves some other aspects - better financial situation, better work environment, and less day-to-day crap that is the people in the public eye in this country.

Some history:
I came to Israel in 1988, in the middle of the First Intifada. Not the best environs for raising kids, but my parents believed then (and probably still do) that Israel is the place for Jews on Earth, as handed down by the Lord to Abraham, etc etc.
We lived in an Absorption Center close to Jerusalem for seven months, and I commuted to school in Jerusalem, and then back to after-school tutoring, and finally made it home “under the cover of darkness”.
We then moved to Har Nof, an ultra-orthodox neighborhood with the “suburbs” of Jerusalem, and along came the Gulf War. Just a personal timeline - my Bar Mitzva was a few days before the start of the war, my eldest sister’s wedding was pretty much the day after it ended. Thanks, George Bush, Sr. I will forever associate two important dates in my life with a war.

(more…)

So at work, a couple of months ago, our webmistress left for maternity leave a little prematurely, and two months later (!), we need some updates and whatnot to our website.

They company has a lot of people that can deal with: HTML, source control, and reading English instructions and following them.

But somehow, it becomes my job, “at least until we find a webmaster”.

They have yet to interview one webmaster, and from past experience, it’ll take forever before they actualy know what they want, then another lifetime until the interview a lot of people, and then, after an ice-age long wait, they’ll hire someone.

If I wanted to be a web developer, I wouldn’t have gotten so attached to hardware, software and networks. Ugh.

So this weekend I hosted Dan for dinner, simple pasta, as Tha Siz was away, studying for some major exams.

Then this morning, I left on a wild Harley rider chase, that didn’t end with any results. On the up side, I ended up going to places I didn’t think I’d see anytime soon, and I also tried to barrel my way into kmelion & zachkessin’s yishuv, but it was locked up tighter than I felt like breaching.

So I made it home, and found out that the Internet Service Provider (henceforth: ISP-from-Hell) has once again failed to provide full-time service, and my office is effectively off the grid as of about 3pm today. No email, no VPN, nada, nothing, zilch. You get the idea.
So the CEO catches me on chat on a different issue (which I resolved) and I inform him,
and I give my boss a ring and let him know as well.

See, the way it works is like this:

A service provider (let’s call them “GC“) that already has a stake (and equipment) in our building, leases service from a much larger (and VERY reliable) service provider (purely for clarity’s sake, let’s call them “NV“).

So GC leases a line with a specific capacity - let’s say 3MB (the actual capcities and rates are less relevant, you’ll soon see why). GC then sells line capacity to Customer A, Customer B and Customer C.

The only problem is - Customer C (me) has a contract for a 2MB line, while A & B have a 1MB line each. Now, it doesn’t take a math genius to calculate that something is wrong with this - but in comes trotting the concept of “line sharing”. Effectively, I get prioritized traffic for my 2MB of data, quashing the others on the same line.

But that’s not the main problem today - it seems that a main router is no longer capable of routing, and the specifics are a little blurry as of yet. The line has been down for over five hours now, and answers are still not forthcoming.

It turns out that NV has actually purchased GC, and that moving from one to the other might be feasible and even a good idea to replace GC with NV.

This open up an entire new array of options, including adding a router and using something called BGP to allow for fail-over communication line capabilities.

I foresee a change in our ISP future. Let’s hope it’s for the better.

Anyone out there who has a somewhat-literate position:

Is the term “alternate flights” or “alternative flights“?

Question came up at work, and I’m interested in everyone’s input.

Thanks!