Jason Abrahamson

So last week Liz and I were having dinner with our friends Eric & Elissa. We started to discuss Social Networking and the “social networking phenomena” that has been created on the internet. It’s amusing, you can follow somebody on Twitter, read their blog on Facebook, Myspace, and if they’re a subject based blog like mine probably on Digg. You can track them around the planet through GeoCaching, and catch up with them through instant messaging. The substance of our conversation though is this a “good” thing? Sure social networking can open tons of doors for you. You can make friends you would not have otherwise made, find jobs you would not have otherwise found, and maybe even find the love of your life. Liz and I indirectly met on the internet, and the internet allowed Elissa and Liz to expand their friendship and become the best of friends.

SO now that we know the pro’s to social networking, what are the cons? Well as younger generations are becoming more technologically advanced than previous generations ever were it stands to reason that the school yard bullying will continue on the internet. People seem to be more fearless on the internet. Those who have no confidence in public are quick to find confidence on the internet when attacking somebody 2,500 miles away from them. What is the harm right?

Social networking and what has become of social networking reminds me of the movie “He’s just not that into you” — “I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies.” The sad part is it’s absolutely true. Today we have created a world on the internet that has lowered the level of debate in the country and created just more drama and hostility. High school girls gossip to each other on mypsace and facebook, rumors spread like wildfires, there is no security, no privacy no trust. You message your friend on Facebook, Twitter about it, his girlfriend reads your twitter, logins into his facebook, reads what you wrote, and WHAM drama insues.

The social networking bubble is nothing more than a gigantic pot that can literally explode at any minute and completely destroy your entire social life — and for what? Two sentences on the wrong person’s profile? You post something, perhaps a blog, a statement, people make comments you don’t like — you delete them — what is that? You can speak your mind, but can’t accept the criticism? You are a fan of somebody or a politician, chef, restaurant, whatever, you talk about it, somebody else doesn’t agree and suddenly you’re waged in this cyber war posting hatred things on each others profiles. It ends with you deleting them, them deleting you, and exchanging text messages that make Ari Gold look like an angel.

Our society thrives on this, embraces it, news outlets use it to connect, heck, even the President of the United States used Twitter. What have we become? Is this a society of staying completely connected, or a society that thrives on drama. Our response now is like “Oh I’ll show them, I’ll unfriend them from myspace” or “HAH! I blocked you on facebook.” It’s as if these social networking technologies, and how much you use them have become a status symbol. You’re either in or you’re out but you can’t be both. You can’t even raise the level of debate in the country because people share opinions and either delete you, or have 500 other people make comments to bury yours.

The irony of course is this blog is RSS feed to linkedin, facebook, and will likely be dugg — but that’s ok. I have no problem with the technology, in fact, I think Social Networking is great, but I think we as a society need to really re-evaluate our obsession with it. It is sad, but I’m probably a minority in the sense that every “friend” on facebook I actually know. Yes, its good to stay connected, and things like twitter have allowed people who would not have otherwise communicated with common folk (i.e.: Ashton Kutcher) to reach an audience — but what really has this whole thing turned into? It seems like more of a circus than anything else

Keeping with more of the irony, I’ll even tag Eric & Elissa in this blog since I mentioned them.

Today is System Admin day! Show your admin love and give them a hug, let them leave early, buy them food and/or booze. Just show them appreciation you would not otherwise show them, like saying “Hello” in the hallway.

My bread has been buttered and career has been built on the back of Cisco. Since the early age of 16 when I was working on the Cisco 1600 series routers, Cisco 3000 series 48 port stack-able switches I have identified myself with Cisco and Microsoft. Recently I was faced with having to completely re-architect the network for a medium company that is rapidly becoming a large company.

I’ve done similar things before so designing it was not a challenge…keeping it within their budget needs on the other hand…

The configuration was pretty straight forward. Total of about 1000 nodes spanned across two facilities. We were building the one facility as a DR site so we had already drafted that design and the needs to meet that design. At the corporate office we were upgrading bandwidth and in doing so required equipment upgrades (as it so commonly does). My proposal called for the elimination of aging stack able switches to a more modern chassis. We were going to segment the departments in different VLANs, implement 802.1q in conjunction with VOIP phones and POE. My immediate thought of course is the tested, tried, and true Cisco 6500 chassis. To be unbiased though I looked at the Foundry, er, Brocade FastIron SuperX.

Both had one slight problem. The hardware to meet the requirements of my design cost over 100,000 dollars. If that wasn’t bad enough you have to pay yearly support contracts that will cost you another 10k. A chassis is not something somebody replaces every 5 years. Most people treat networking equipment like the Ronco Rotisserie, you’ve seen the infomercial “Set it and forget it.” That’s OK though, because networking equipment doesn’t typically break. When it does break its probably pretty significant and you will be more focused on getting it up RIGHT NOW rather than waiting for tech support to dispatch somebody.

So a colleague suggested we look at Procurve. He had experience with the Procurve line so I figured I would give it a try. I pulled a Procurve 2900 he had in storage out just to play with the CLI. Aside from a few different commands, it felt just like a Cisco. I had never programmed a Procurve and working with just my knowledge of IOS I setup the switch in a mere twenty minutes. I was impressed with the performance of the switch as well, it showed no signs of hurting when I gave it a torture test. What made it even better was the price! Mind you I needed a little more than the 2900, but the price for just this switch was about $2,500.00. Not bad for a completely manageable 48 port, 10/1000 switch, with 4 Gbic ports and LIFETIME WARRANTY. Yes you did hear my right, lifetime warranty. As long as you own the product, HP will provide next business day replacement. Knowing this I started to look at the 3500 series L3 switches, and the 5400 series chassis. I put everything through my torture test and tried to plan for every possible scenario. The Cisco does have some more features available to it, like how it handles port trunking, but all-in-all those features don’t out weigh your ROI on warranty when performance is about just as good.

All in list price for my design with Procurve was in the $45k range…that’s a far cry from 150k+ support contract from Cisco.

In conclusion: If you are looking for a much more cost effective alternative to Cisco, I would suggest you look at Procurve. You really can’t beat it for the price and warranty…its just too good to pass up. If you want 4hr response time you can pay an additional fee to have that option, but if you’re lost most IT departments you have spare parts on hand or a crash kit so you don’t need 4hr response time…unless of course its like your SAN or something…