Where are the best jobs in IT going to be in 2010?

Are network related jobs going to be hot in 2010? Looking for an answer to the question, I turned to Network World’s article on the 10 best IT jobs right now. With all the talk of security and virtualization, I was wondering if network related work would make the top 10.


The job of network engineer came in at number four on the list. According to Gartner, interest in networking, voice and data communications technologies increased for 2010, meaning skills in that high-tech area will also be in demand. With the need for social interactions and collaboration, network skills still remain hot.


I’m sure one of the reasons being a network engineer is one of the best jobs is because of all the great network management solutions that make life easier (I’m of course biased). Take for example, the solution I use – dopplerVUE. The software is installed and up and running in less than 30 minutes. It’s great - I get to start working on what I do best as soon as possible. Once installed, the package offers integrated fault, performance and auto-updating discovery across devices, apps, servers and services. Take a free test drive if you want to make your life a little easier.

Some other jobs that made the top 10 included security specialist, virtual systems manager, capacity manager, open source specialist, service assurance manager, electronic health records systems manager, sourcing specialist, service catalog manager and business process manager. Some of these jobs make sense considering the new technology trends, but I’ll admit some took me by surprise. What do you think of some of these jobs? Do you have any nominations for the best IT jobs?

Battling Blizzards

Back in the fall I posted about prepping your network for winter weather disasters, and it looks like those tips really came in handy for many this season. Today, the majority of the East Coast is battling a severe blizzard complete with 1-2ft of snow (4-8ft drifts!), 60mph winds with whiteout conditions, power outages and fallen trees. Each one of these factors pose a challenge to your business and your network. For my co-workers in our Washington DC offices, this is the third blizzard this winter, but they have managed to avoid communication and network failures. For those that may not have been hit with a weather disaster yet, you may want to take some time to review these tips to get a head start on future storms: 

Questions you should be able to answer:

1. Are you aware of your power situation?
a. What happens when a power outage occurs?
b. What is the operational status of the UPS system?
c. How long will the UPS backup systems sustain key functions?
d. What do we do if the outage is longer?

2. What if the building becomes unavailable? (fire or water damage)
a. Are the offsite backups current?
b. If a network device or server is ruined, what is the procedure to replace it?
c. Does everyone know the primary and secondary facility contacts to use should an after-hours emergency occur?

3. What if access to the building is limited? (snow, tornado warnings, etc)
a. Is VPN access updated for all employees that may need to work from home?
b. Can all of the required maintenance procedures be done remotely or skipped for several days? 

4. What if the phone and/or Internet connection is lost?

5. What is the customer impact when any of these conditions occur?

A few tips:

Advance planning is the best approach. A good network design can minimize the impact of storm and disaster related problems. Having redundant phone and data lines from different carriers minimizes the inbound/outbound traffic risk. Using an adequate number of UPS devices mitigates all but very lengthy power outages and network routing protocols like HSRP reduce the risk of single device point of failures.

Even monitoring your network with disaster prevention in mind can be helpful in avoiding unnecessary failures. These tips are a great starting point: 

1. Enable redundant polling of critical devices  

2. Map out HSRP primary and secondary links  

3. Know the status of the UPS systems  

4. Make sure you have 24x7 access to your management system client

And for fun (and to get the sympathy of those without 3 feet of snow on the ground), here’s what three blizzards in a row will do to you (and your network!):

Prepare for the New CCNP Tests with FREE Training Books, Videos and Cert Kits

Cisco Press will be giving away 50 copies of its new CCNP Cert Kits and other study guides to help you prepare for the revised CCNP certifications. The mega giveaway is being sponsored by Cisco Press on Network World’s Cisco Subnet – a community website.


The chances are really high that if you enter, you will win something. All you need to do is find some words that form a specific sentence in various chapters that are provided and enter the response. Not too much work for some free study materials. The contest ends March 31. Register to win one of 10 copies of the following titles:

CCNP Route Cert Kit (Read excerpt.)

CCNP Switch Cert Kit (Read excerpt.)

CCNP Tshoot Cert Kit (Read excerpt.)

CCNP Routing and Switching Official Certification Libraries

CCNP routing and Switching Quick Reference printed bundle


Good luck and hope you win!

Improving Network Discovery by using SNMP OID Include/Excludes

An issue that frequently comes up for IT managers is the need to find only certain types of devices within a heterogeneous network that contains many types and manufacturers of networked devices. I recently worked with a customer that wanted to locate about a hundred Windows Servers from a network that contained several thousand devices.

One way to approach this task is to discover all the devices, then pick out the ones you are looking for, the old needle in the haystack routine. This approach is time consuming and error prone. A better method is to leverage the information available from devices that support the SNMP protocol, which includes most operating systems. SNMP includes an object library of OIDs (Object Identifiers) that are set up by each manufacturer. A Google search for “Windows OIDs” found this site which listed the OIDs to identify Microsoft Server Operating Systems.

As you can see (table below), the OIDs are built in a hierarchy so, if I could search my network for servers which contain the OIDs below for workstations, servers and domain controllers, I should find all my Windows Server boxes.

You can make the difficult task of finding and sorting networked devices much more manageable. I use dopplerVUE, a network management tool that simplifies the whole process and helps find the needle in the haystack faster and without issues.

dopplerVUE provides an OID include/exclude discovery feature that makes it easy to accomplish this task.

Here are some steps for using dopplerVUE to improve the network discovery process. To get started the server must have the SNMP agent service running and you need the credentials (called a community string) to enter in the SNMP service “security” tab. Most servers use “public” as a default and are case sensitive. SNMP service is usually turned off by default, so you’ll need to restart the service when you are done making changes.


Once you have the servers set up, you should create a discovery job within dopplerVUE to find the Windows Servers. dopplerVUE provides a discovery wizard that guides you through the step by step process as follows:


Step 1: Select a discovery method appropriate to the task. Use an IP address range that provides the most control over your discovery results.


Step 2: Set an IP range that includes the Windows Servers you are looking for in your search. Be careful, the larger the range you select, the longer it will take to complete the discovery.


Step 3: Select SNMP protocol.


Step 4: Enter the community strings for the servers. Your admin can provide these and you can always use public which is set as default on most servers.


Pictured below is a tab marked “Show sysObjectID include/exclude options”. You can click on the tab, expand the Window and then select “include”. You can then enter the OIDs we found earlier.

Step 5: In the workstation column you’ll want to select SNMP poller and then Host MIB if you want to collect information about processor utilization, memory usage and disk space.



Step 6: Optional: Enter a name and description for this discovery job.


Now you can click finish and go to the Inventory>Discovery Jobs tab to watch the progress of the task. The job will start automatically assuming your dopplerVUE discovery service is running and you had the “run now” checkbox selected in step 6. If not, click on the job and start it.


You can watch the progress in the job details section and keep an eye on your inventory tab to see if new devices are being found. When new devices are found, they should appear in the workstation classification. You can change classifications or create new ones easily by right clicking on the objects in the workstation classification list.


This technique works for any search where you can separate the devices by manufacturer. Since each manufacturer determines how they want to build their SNMP library, you’ll need to understand how they created their hierarchy. Fortunately there is a lot of good information available on manufacturer websites to help you. Here is more information about SNMP support within Windows.


If you’re looking to improve network discovery and automate IT tasks to save time, try dopplerVUE for free for 30 days.