Also: LAN switches: What Dell did right; Compromising VoIP; Internet access via fiber at 15Mbps
Shortage? Or short-changed?
Regarding Linda Musthaler’s column, “Skilled-worker shortage: fact or fiction?”: After more than 35 years in business, I really hate the word “overqualified.” Personally I don’t know any “overqualified” people, but I’m very happy to work with very qualified people. The sad thing is that corporations don’t understand what they miss. The fortunate thing is that after the “qualified” persons have done their job, I have to “fix ” the system — painful, costly, slow, but creates a lot of work for me.
Tuomo Stauffer
Itasca, Ill.
Excellent column. My department always interviews job candidates with a few primary objectives in mind: 1) will the individual’s personality mesh with the team? 2) are they willing/able to learn? 3) how frequently have they switched employers? Why? and 4) do they have a grasp of problem-solving methodology? These criteria have served us extremely well.
Dennis Byford
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I agree with Linda Musthaler’s points. I think we should ask subscribers, programmers and IT staff to develop and publish a universal management decision-making program with the following attributes:
1) Decision purpose — cost savings, problem solving, streamline business process, reduce staff, best value choice, best-qualified vendor or employee. 2) Provide metrics — ROI, CBA, TCO, cost reduction.
3) Total management compensation analysis — including salary, per-diem, bonuses, 401k, stock options, car allowance, etc.
4) Decision timeframe analysis — how quick and effective are decision made using this system (no vacations, meetings, sick days, etc.).
The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate to management how easy it is to replace some decision makers with business-rules driven programs. I can easily see the IT industry in India doing this (maybe doing it already) in the near future, saving non-Indian business huge sums of money.
This could be a bit of fun and let senior management know they are as vulnerable to outsourcing or replacement as everyone else is.
James Grundman
IS manager
City of Rohnert Park
Rohnert Park, Calif.
I read Linda Musthaler’s column on the “skilled-worker shortage” with interest. From the get-go I saw the pretext concerning H1B visas (skilled worker shortage) as a cynical hoax. If I may offer a personal anecdote:
After 10+ years in hands-on IT, mostly in sys admin work, I got the sense that a change was in order for several reasons. In 2002 it occurred to me just how servile and dependant the IT industry was to the economy. Yes, in a rough economy all industries can suffer and even established corporate lawyers and accountants might get shown the door. However, it appeared that no other industry, on such a macro level, was caught up in the ebb and tide, and bump and grind of the marketplace.
Thankfully I survived the job cuts, but it also meant a stagnant career. Add in the new realities of increased offshoring and higher proportions of age discrimination (I’m closing in on 40) the future at best looked hazy so it was time to set the scope on other horizons. The question was where? With a young family to support, how could one start over?
In the wake of Worldcom, Enron and other morale killers, the increased presence of compliance sounded appealing. As Musthaler mentions, this included the seemingly superfluous prerequisite of passing the CISA exam. While it may seem ludicrous that someone with Musthaler’s husband’s experience should be turned away because he’s missing this little detail, perhaps in theory it is. But it’s also reality, and in my case the investment in time and registration costs was more than compensated in the returns of a new job and career.
Unlike other certifications such as Microsoft’s MCSE, the CISA will not expire. Yes, it requires yearly hours of continuing education credits, but that’s effortless compared to constantly updated seven-test certifications every five years. I also found the test preparation book educational.
This is not a plug or a shill for CISA or its sponsor organization ISACA. Just a note of input from an experienced individual on how the time and effort in preparing to pass CISA is a lot more constructive and value-added than bemoaning over the unfair nature of the marketplace.
David Levitt
New Platform Integration
Citigroup
Weehawken, N.J.
What makes American computer companies so sure that the companies they outsource to won’t be their future competitors? We’ve seen the results of outsourcing in manufacturing, steel, automotive, electronics, etc.
We built the industrial powerhouses in Japan, the Far East and now China. You think India’s computer companies aren’t going to go after your business? Oh, I forgot, you’ve already cashed out your stock. So it’s not just an outsourcing jobs issue. It’s about the future of the IT industry itself.
Mark Frascinella
Department chair of information technology
Briarcliffe College
Patchogue, N.Y.
Not going to Dell
Regarding Kevin Tolly’s column, “LAN switches: What Dell did right”: Consultants, computer stores, or what is usually called the “channel” avoided Dell. Why? Customer service. Tech support was geared for home users and didn’t adjust for technicians. Resellers were not treated well overall — warranty turnaround could take days to weeks. -How was a business to work without a file server for days or weeks? Small businesses would buy home products, then “channel” people would have to provide cleanup, such as upgrade Windows Home edition to Windows Professional edition. Equipment was even more difficult to upgrade. Larger businesses had people to figure out what to buy and got around the warranty problems by stocking their own replacement parts. A company needs to be fairly large to stock its own replacement parts and have a purchasing department to hound Dell for warranty claims.
Compaq, HP and IBM always did much better. Compaq/HP often got me parts by 10 a.m. the next day, even though it was after 5 p.m. when I called. That is real service that small businesses really need.
Brandon Fouts
Senior systems engineer
Puget Sound Regional Council
Seattle
Compromising situations
Regarding Kevin Tolly’s column, “Compromising VoIP”: I found Tolly’s assessment of the security risk of VoIP on an internal network to be overstated. He contends “on-campus voice isn’t secure and can be compromised relatively easily by anyone with access to your switching infrastructure.” VoIP is as secure as data over the network. It is true that someone could insert a hub between your VoIP phone and the switch, and spoof your media access control (MAC) address and the MAC of the computer at the other end of the call and listen in. But someone with access to a traditional voice infrastructure only needs a $1.49 splitter and a phone to listen in.
If your network is so insecure that VoIP can be easily compromised, then it is easy for those same people to read all your e-mail and save copies of any files saved on the server. Those e-mails and files can be quickly searched for whatever information the malefactor is after; voice calls have to be listened to. VoIP is the least of your worries in such a network.
Dan Riordan
President
On-Tech Consulting
Red Bank, N.J.
Out of tune
Regarding your editorial, “Internet access via fiber at 15Mbps”, in which you recounted poor throughput to remote destinations over a newly upgraded link. I believe you may be running into bandwidth/delay problems associated with an untuned TCP/IP stack optimized for lower-bandwidth, lower-latency connections. This is enough of a general problem that Internet2 (the higher-education research and education network) has a special End-to-End Performance Initiative (E2EPi) designed to help users cope with this issue. As a test, you may want to try visiting the Argonne National Laboratory Network Diagnostic Tool site. I suspect you’ll find that you need to expand your buffers and possibly make some other adjustments along the lines of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center tuning guide.
Joe St. Sauver
Eugene, Ore.
