The Thanks in Thanksgiving

This is kind of similar to my "Check Up From The Neck Up. I sent this out to the Hardy email list and I wanted to share it here. This may sound trite and hokey but I truly believe this:

We would like to take this opportunity to express our thanks to a group for whom we are TRULY thankful....our customers, partners and friends. Without you , none of what we do here would be possible.

As we begin another holiday season, here's hoping that we all take the time to count our blessings and think about what is truly important in our lives. Let's give thanks for family , friends , good health and our faith in God.

It seems like things are not going well in our country right now but just remember that we live in the greatest nation on earth. Reflect on all the opportunities that living in this country affords us and how much better off we are than most of the world.

Pray for our soldiers here and abroad and also for our leaders. Mat they be given the wisdom and foresight to lead us out of these troubled times and do the best for our nation.

The Difference Between Remote Access , Alert Notification and Monitoring.

I am couching this discussion in terms of Mission-Critical Infrastructure but this really applies to several different disciplines especially IT.

First let's define and qualify each of these items.

Remote Access is the ability to access a piece of equipment from a remote location. A remote location can be another part of the building on the same LAN or another part of the world across the internet. The basic premise here is that you can access the device interface without having to connect directly (plug in to) that device.

Alert notification is the ability to set parameters like "if the the temperature is above 80 degrees" send a message.The message can be an email , a text message , a blinking light or a phone call.

Monitoring is when someone is constantly watching a displayed set of parameters from a device.

About now , some of you are saying "why the Ned's First Reader definition ?" You may not be confused about which one is which but trust me there is some confusion out there. There seems to be special confusion regarding Alert Notification and monitoring.

The best analogy is to the way voice mail works. If you just have a very simple voice mail on your phone, then while you are out of the office , you need to periodically call in and access the voice mail to see if you have a message.

If you have outcalling or voice mail to email , then you get a notification pushed out to you that you have a message. This is how alert notifications work.

If you are sitting at your desk and the phone rings , you answer it.....this is monitoring.

Lets say you have a problem with your cable tv , would you rather leave a message in the voice mail that that person will get the next time they check it or one where that person will be notified of the message? Obviously notification is better but what is that person turns off their cell or doesn't check their email? What you really want is to call and have a person answer and take care of your problem. Monitoring provides the fastest response to problems and unlike the other two , monitoring can be PRO-active instead of RE-active. With monitoring , problems can be detected and dealt with BEFORE they cause a failure.

Monitoring offers a PRO-active approach which will head many issues off at the pass. In the event that an emergency response is needed, monitoring gives the fastest reponse to critical issues.

Hardy offers all three of these options to our mission-critical clients depending on their equipment and needs. Our Premium Care Plan includes monitoring as a standard part of the package.

Social Media and Me

Being a technology guy, all this blogging and tweeting and facebooking just kind of comes naturally to me. Occasionally I wonder about it though. Is this what we do instead of having real human interactions? Those people who like to pore poop on everything ( we all know some ) say this is what has taken the place of having a real life and real interactions with people. For some this may be true. I have worked with those poor souls who spend their lives in a dark room by the glow of the CRT(Cathode Ray Tube) maybe now by the light of the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) Hold on , I gotta turn on the light so I can see to type .Those poor wretches who spend their days and nights pounding away at the keyboard. However a lot of us who do this stuff DO have lives and careers and families. What's the value to us? For me , I get to share some of my thoughts and experiences with my lifelong friends who BECAUSE they have lives and families and jobs wouldn't get to talk to me very often under normal circumstances. I get to know who is not feeling well and needs some cheering up. Sometimes I am the one who needs cheering.We get to remember those special moments and times that bond us forever and that only we can really inderstand.

So to the poop pore-ers.......when the people you have known all your life are scattered to the four corners of the earth...its nice to remember those times that you shared back in the day . Its really special to be able to share a little piece of your life now with those friends and loved ones because those are the people who really get you when no one else does.

Life Love and the Pursuit of Happiness

Every so often I have to "check-up from the neck up". The other day I was complaining to my wife about being at a football game to watch my daughter cheer. It was cold , I was missing something on TV and the bleachers were hard on my behind. I was thinking to myself how lucky my daughter was to have parents that supported her..........just like my parents did.......uhoh.....memories of my Mom and Dad sitting in the stands watching me play football flashed through my head. Were those bleachers any softer, was TV any less engaging? My Dad was a busy guy too.

I just heard that a friend of mine lost his brother and I realized that its been a while since I talked to mine. And there is that unanswered email in my inbox from my sister.

I grumble about my stomach issues sometimes. Then I realize I have a friend from high school who has one of those recurring conditions (I am not good with medical names and things) that gives her constant pain. I need to just watch what I eat and I'll be fine.

I listen to my friend who is still at the company I used to work at talking about all the crazy things going on there. ( I actually have more than one of these) and it dawns on me what a great place I work at now.

Yes my daughter is very fortunate in lots of ways.......but so am I.

Take stock occassionally people......it's good for your soul!

Bearing Problems Negatively Impact Emergency-Power Systems

Here is a good article from facilitiesnet on a much ignored problem with emergency power systems. Always remember , it's the small simple things that get you every time.


Bearing Problems Negatively Impact Emergency-Power Systems

Here We Go Again!

Well football fans , just like Michael Vick and Brett Farve , I have joined a new team, again!

As of July , I am the Director of Site Support Services at Hardy Services a division of The Hardy Corporation.

Cool title huh! But what the heck do I do?

Hardy has been in the mechanical contracting business since 1943. OK that's air conditioning and plumbing stuff right? Hang on it gets better! In the 80s Hardy started up Hardy Services to do service work on the mechanical systems they sold. Still AC and flush toilets right? Now that you are thoroughly confused , let me wrap it all up for you. About 10 years ago , Hardy Services began to work with Liebert , a manufacturer of computer room air conditioning and uninterpretable power systems. Hardy Services is the factory authorized service center for Liebert cooling in Central Alabama. Liebert and other similar manufacturers like APC play in both power and cooling not to mention racks and power distribution. Hardy began to see more opportunity in some of the other things that support information technology like power systems , raised flooring and even fire suppression systems. Now this all begins to make sense! Since mechanical service companies play all day long with piping and wiring how much of a stretch would a UPS be , or an FM fire system , or even a card reader for access control?

So who goes out into the marketplace and spreads the gospel about all this great stuff that Hardy Services is doing? This person needs to understand the IT business and be knowledgeable about how data centers operate and be able to interface with IT Managers , CIOs as well as facilities management people.Enter yours truly!

Now you may ask, why has it taken me since July to post? I have been and still am , really busy getting our presentations and processes put together but everything is just about to come together and ready to make its debut.

Here's the other great thing, I LOVE MY JOB! Frankly, its been a while since I could say that and I am really enjoying the challenge.

Stay tuned.....I am about to be in full promotional mode so expect lots of stuff on the blog in the coming months.

The Questions You Need To Have The Answers To...

I was visiting with a friend of mine at his office the other day and the discussion naturally turned to telecommunications (imagine that!).

I asked him how many phone lines he had......he began to count the buttons on his phone.."Four?".

I asked about internet, what kind of service he had...he replied "pretty good!"

You can imagine what kind of answer I got when I asked , "Do you have PRI?"

I was recently working with a company that still had Centrex (ESSX) service. The lines where going into their twenty plus year old Nortel 824 phone system.......?? Upon examining their phone bill I was astounded by the cost. They were using tens of thousands of LD minutes and their rate was 20 cents per minute! The billing increment was in 1 minute intervals! They were averaging $12,000.00 a month!!!!

The morale of the story is.......you need , no you MUST know how you connect to your customers and the rest of the world not just from a cost perspective (my example of the Centrex customer) but just because YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS STUFF! Imagine that you asked someone , "How much is your house payment?" and they didn't know......????? You really must know some basic stuff about the most important communications tool that you have.

Here are the things you must know:

1. Who is our voice provider?

2. Who do we get internet from?

3. Where does our website live?

4. Is our email handled internally or is it hosted outside? If outside of our organization, where does it live?

5. What is the length of any contractual commitments we have to the above?

6. What kind of phone system do we have (if any) and how old is it?

7. What are we paying for these services? (remember to include everything in this list, not just the phone bill)

8. When is the last time we reviewed all of the above with someone who really knows how all this works?

If you don't know the answers to 1 through 7, you need to get them. Then you need to act on item 8.

CCCCChanges!

I have been going through some changes lately. I went from working for a cable MSO to a small business partnership now to a CLEC. Why you ask? I guess I am trying to be all I can be. I felt limited at the cable company. I wanted to be more involved in other aspects of helping people use technology to broaden their horizons and better their lives, especially when it came to business. I undertook a bold step and went out semi-on my own only to discover that you can be unlimited in your thinking but limited by things like money and other peoples thinking. Now I am starting a new path at a very forward thinking Competitive Local Exchange Carrier(CLEC). I think the things they are doing and the directions they are going will be a good fit for me. Wish me luck!