Physical layer problems and solutions

It turned out the electrical problems were caused by a loose wire on the main bus bar. I think that is layer 1 in the OSI model. But I got the plane fixed and by about 12:30 I took off ADS for my leg to Phoenix. My friend Ken in Dallas told me that Western Texas was rather flat. It certainly is- and there are a lot of oil wells out around Midland. From Midland to Phoenix the ground starts to go up a bit and there are some very interesting mountains to see. Crossing El Paso at 8000 feet I followed the border for quite a while and then in New Mexico I approached even larger mountains which required me to climb to 11000 feet and then I had to start flying around big thunderstorms. The folks at ALB Center were great and directed me perfectly. I came into the Phoenix valley at about 9000 feet and had to descend rapidly to land at Chandler where my friend Warren picked me up . We had dinner and talked about flying, business and everything else. Today I fly to CA to visit with some more customers for the next few days.

Problem solving

On Friday I started my cross country trip from Delaware to California and then Reno for the Air races. On Friday night I flew IFR to NC21 and stayed with some old friends of mine. A perfectly delightful flight with no problems. On Saturday morning, I left for the second leg from the Charlotte area to Dallas where I was going to have dinner with some friends. About 20 miles east of Texarkana I started to have some electrical problems with my radios. I called Memphis Center and told them of my problems and they gave me a vector to Texarkana – Memphis Center was great while I worked through my problems and figured out that my alternator had given up. I turned off all non vital instruments and told Memphis center that I did not need to declare an emergency and could continue on to ADS ( Addison TX) but I had to continue as a VFR flight.

I landed in Dallas and one of my friends picked me up and took me to my hotel to clean up and get ready for dinner. At dinner last night I went through the procedure I went through as I worked through my problems. It did not seem unusual to me. Del Frisco’s was great again!

This morning at breakfast with my buddies they wanted me to go over again the procedures I went through while flying my plane with the electrical problems. To the non pilots it was very surprising the way I followed procedures and worked with Memphis approach to solve my problem while flying. But that is the reason for training and procedures, perhaps 20 years ago before I had my pilot’s license it would have surprised me too.

Procedure and training can’t cover every eventuality, but it helped me a lot in my little adventure last night, and it is why we have so many written operational procedures at Zerowait.

This morning I called the mechanics back in Delaware and we did some more trouble shooting and I am going to have to repair my alternator. Oh well . Its always something. But Dallas is a great place to be stranded for an extra day!

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone – Bill Cosby

The same could be said for storage and bloat ware software, the more you try to do, the more spaghetti code you pack into your once small secure kernel creating more places your secure kernel can be breached or just be broken. With Enterprise storage you just can’t keep it simple and please everyone.

But at least one NetApp engineer at a German show thinks customer education is the key to security and will help them avoid ripping out infrastructure. As most veteran NetApp customers know there are some issues, especially with the CIFS code.
“In addition to building security into all areas of its product portfolio, NetApp has rolled out a variety of educational tools to help customers better understand their data security risks and the ways they can tune their IT infrastructure to mitigate those risks without having to rip and replace or make unrealistic investments,” said Mike Walters, consultant systems engineer at NetApp.”

How much education is required on your storage subsytems for your data to be secure? Is your storage vendor’s software secure? How can you tell?

Oops!

WILMINGTON, Del. — Chase Card Services today announced that it is notifying 2.6 million current and former Circuit City credit card account holders that computer tapes containing their personal information were mistakenly identified as trash and thrown out. Working closely with federal and local law enforcement, Chase conducted a thorough investigation and believes that the tapes, contained within a locked box, were compacted, destroyed and are buried in a landfill where the trash was taken.

Chase has been monitoring all of the affected accounts and has not identified any misuse of personal information connected to this occurrence. No other Chase accounts are involved in this incident.

“We deeply regret that this has occurred and apologize to those impacted,” said Rich Srednicki, chief executive officer of Chase Card Services, which issues co-branded and private-label credit cards for Circuit City. “We have found no evidence that the tapes or their contents have been accessed or misused. The privacy of our customers’ personal information is of utmost importance to us, and we take the responsibility to safeguard this information very seriously.”

Verizon – Thank you judge Green

I called Verizon today, because my phones at our house have been not working for a few days. I figured that they would come fix the phone line in a day or so. But they can’t fix the phones for at least a week I was told. I inquired as to why does it take so long for a phone repairman to show up. I was told there are lots of problems because it has been raining. I told the young lady on the phone at Verizon’s repair center that yesterday was sunny and mild and my phones did not work.

She asked if I had checked the lines at the box, I assured her that I had and the problems are on their side not ours.

I can’t imagine how Verizon would compete in a truly competitive marketplace. ATT before Judge Green broke it up was responsive and expensive. Now we have companies that are unreliable and cheaper. Unlike the old days of ATT the phone company is not a natural monoploy because of the change in technology. However, technology has not changed the customer’s expectation of service. I still expect ATT service, but unfortunately we are left with a much lower level of service.

Jon Toigo pointed me to an interesting article today in the San Jose Paper. You can read his previous blog here on the subject or go to the Newspaper article.

Jon has long thought that the Computer storage business is not quite ethical, but is the software business any more ethical? They all sell vaporware and use sales puffery.

As usual Jon was way ahead of the Main Stream Computer press, consumers are lucky to have him on their side!

Delaware in in position to attract Data Centers

By TED GRIFFITH, The News Journal

Delaware is well positioned to capitalize on banks’ demand for data security and data storage technology workers, according to a new study.

If major banks decide to locate their data security/storage centers in Delaware, it could ultimately mean the addition of several hundred jobs here, Boyd estimated.

See complete coverage in Friday’s News Journal and online at www.delawareonline.com. Contact Ted Griffith at 324-2880 or tgriffith@delawareonline.com.

Zerowait Opens EMEA Office to Provide Affordable Service, Support & Upgrades to NetApp® Customers in the UK and Europe.

Newark, DE, USA / Manchester, UK—August 29, 2006 –Zerowait Corporation, the recognized leader for independent support of Network Appliance (NetApp) equipment, announces the opening of their European Headquarters. Offering comprehensive hardware support for enterprises and e-commerce companies who need to manage their critical data at a reasonable cost, Zerowait is now positioned to provide enhanced engineering and technical support for NetApp infrastructures throughout EMEA with its expanded sales presence and forward distribution depot.

A Partner You Can Trust

Steve Fishwick, General Manager of Zerowait EMEA comments, “Zerowait has been earning the trust of their customers for over 15 years. Selected by Network Appliance as one of their first Registered Service Providers (RSP), Zerowait’s extensive experience in load balancing, caching and network attached storage provides the foundation for outstanding third party support programmes. Zerowait helps customers maximize their return on investment (ROI) for their Network Appliance storage equipment, by providing affordable high availability support solutions, parts and engineering support.

“Our new European office provides European clients a simple way to reduce the skyrocketing costs that Network Appliance charges for upgrades and hardware support,” concludes Fishwick.

“Zerowait was established in 1989, in Newark, Delaware USA. Zerowait is clearly the largest independent service and support organization focusing on Network Appliance Corporation’s equipment. Several hundred NetApp customers around the world depend on Zerowait to provide them with an affordable alternative for NetApp service, support and upgrades. Opening our European office and parts depot permits us to provide our EMEA customers the same high availability service levels that our customers in North America receive,” said the President of Zerowait, Mike Linett.

If you are looking for a responsive company that will put your requirements first, contact Zerowait by calling 08000 121 801 in Europe or 302 266 9408 in North America. Email us at info@zerowait.com for a competitive quote today!

Zerowait is a third party provider of parts, services, and support for Network Appliance equipment. Zerowait is not a partner of, nor affiliated with, Network Appliance Corporation.

Zerowait USA – 18 Haines Street, Newark, DE 19711. Ph 302.266.9408 http://www.zerowait.com/

Zerowait UK 14-16 Agecroft Rd. Manchester, M27 8UW Ph 08000.121.801 http://www.zerowait.co.uk/

If you are curious about our reputation, check out our satisfied customer list !

A few times a week we get asked by prospective customers for references on our service and support. We gladly send references to people who request them, because we are confident that our customers are extremely satisfied with our independent NetApp service and support. Now that we are opening in Europe we are getting questions about our service & support from many new customers. Zerowait provides service and support to some of NetApp biggest international customers, so providing international references is not a problem either. Sometimes prospective customers ask us for geographic references and sometimes they ask for industry specific references. Either way prospective customers quickly turn into customers after talking with our satisfied customers.

A few months ago we had a get together with a bunch of customers in Texas, Our customers talked candidly about their problems and how Zerowait has solved them. They discussed how Zerowait solved their technical problems and their budgetary problems caused by NetApp’s overly priced support solutions. Next month we are planning a get together with some of our customers in Nevada. Communicating candidly with our customers is the most important thing we do. And the most important component of communication has been to carefully listen to our customers and provide them the solutions they are looking for at a price they can afford.

“Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.” Edward R. Murrow

Regular readers of this blog will know that for about a year we have been working on setting up our
office and service depot in Europe. After many months of effort the office will open next week. Some of our European customers have already been speaking to our staff there, and many more of them will soon be speaking to them in the next few months.

Starting in September we will be visiting Europe more often to introduce the local staff to our customers there. After many months of training, programming and organizing we are ready, and I am certain that our European customers will receive the same service levels that our North American customers receive.