The give-and-take of tech advice

There's a reason birds-of-a-feather gatherings draw such interest at industry conferences and case studies are popular stories among Network World readers: People like to learn from their peers.

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There's a reason birds-of-a-feather gatherings draw such interest at industry conferences and case studies are popular stories among Network World readers: People like to learn from their peers.

In that spirit, we've interviewed many of your counterparts over the past two months and assembled a package of stories for this issue to share the wisdom.

For example, Mark Bruhn, Indiana University's acting associate vice president for telecommunications in Indianapolis, found the best way to secure his wireless network , which supports thousands of student devices, was to set aside Wired Equivalent Privacy technology in favor of a set of VPN servers that require end users to input a network ID and password to authenticate themselves.

David Giambruno, director of strategic infrastructure and security for Pitney Bowes in Stamford, Conn.,shares advice on how to approach patch management . Instead of trying to tackle everything in one fell swoop, take an inventory of what you have, determine what can and cannot be patched, and be sure to document all this for upper management. If you don't have documentation, "You are the sacrificial lamb," he says.

When considering network overhauls, Richard Glasberg, director of enterprise communications for the commonwealth of Massachusetts, says the life expectancy of network gear is typically three to five years, and the trick is to time upgrades so you maximize ROI while still acting in a timely enough fashion to reap vendor upgrade credits.

Some network managers are big on the many freeware and open source options available . Rick Beebe, manager of system and network engineering for ITS-Med at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., says, "I have the budget to invest in tools I need, but if I find it in freeware, why spend the money?"

As for me, the best advice I ever got followed a particularly grueling edit of a story I wrote for Network World. "Understand the connections," I was instructed. Since then, I have made it my primary mission to know front to back the links between routers and switches, servers and clients, IT shops and their users, IT buyers and their vendors - and perhaps most important, the connection between Network World and you, the reader.

Read more about infrastructure management in Network World's Infrastructure Management section.