Bringing Order to an Existing Chaos

Team,

Let's systematize the installation of Karspersky. We are talking about hundreds of computers here, and so it is easy to get confused and miss.

Installation will be "one Engineer per branch" to avoid confusion as to which computer of which branch is already done by who. If you decide to take one branch, all computers in that branch are yours. On RT, you are to create "one RT ticket per branch", and the subject shall be "Karspersky AV Installation - ". All tickets shall be created under the Network::Projects queue. To know which branch is already taken, please ask Tina who will keep the master list (to be submitted to Martin). As to how you compute the Time Worked, just simply be honest. And don't dilly-dally, there is a way to be sure!

Thanks.

Sanny

Note: With the help of the software's own automated installation, the project progressed fairly fast. And the tracking of completed branches, were smooth and swift. The department was commended for being systematic.

Commending a Good Friend

Renz,

Brother, I'd like to greet you as an associate and fellow for bravely and firmly standing by the principles of honesty and for protecting the good of our department in the D-Link router issue, which caused broadcast of invalid IP Addresses at the Tower. It's a highly confidential issue therefore it is a high profile courage on your part.

The procedures and tools you conducted, as primitive as what's available to us, were used very diligently that the dreaded further outbreak was prevented, saving IT and the Bank.

The same commendations also to all the people who helped you in this problem especially our Heads.

Magaling! Masipag! Indispensable! Inspiring!


Comrade,

Sanny

An Appointment

Sir,

Thanks. It was like a training session with you.

About the kind of leadership that you want all your people to learn, I commit to honesty, sincerity, and quality. I also commit, as well as pray to God, that I will neither be like a fly standing boastfully and comfortably on top of a cow nor seek to ride the back of a tiger and crazily end up inside.

My actions will remain objective rather than or rarely be subjective.

God bless our company.

Sanny


Note: The appointment as Department Head-in charge did not push through because the incumbent revoked his resignation.

Partners,

Below are the details of the result of the commissioning of new wireless antenna radios and the testing of Bellevue’s backup Internet connection via Plaza B, Northgate Cyberzone by the FITI Group.

The new wireless antennae, Ovislink AirLive, were successfully commissioned on the afternoon of January 17, 2008. The wireless link that connects Bellevue to Plaza B was restored at around 2pm by replacing the old radio antennae that were reported having intermittent wireless link a few months back.  The new Ovislink Airlive antenna registered a stable RSSI of –50dbm and the result of PING across the wireless link indicated a steady radio-to-radio link.

>From the 3Com hub at the Roof Deck, the testing of Internet was successful with our laptop connected to one if its ports. All PING to (1 & 2)Airlive radios, (3) Northgate router, (4) a test PC, and the Internet were all successful. Iperf were also conducted and registered a throughput of up to 10mbps. The testing was conducted twice (January 17 & 18) which lasted for almost 3 hours on each occasion and the link was observed to be stable based on the aforementioned diagnostics conducted. Attached herewith are all the snapshots taken during the testing for your reference.

The connection, however, encountered problem when we transferred the connection from our laptop to the BelleVue network via the 3Com hub and your LAN extender. While the link remained connected and stable at the RF level, our PING to each hop points timed out. During this time, we observed that all the IP addresses that we are PING-ing would register a MAC address in the ARP table of our router and our laptop that is not their own. All four IP addresses appeared on the ARP table with a single "unidentified MAC address". The PING would restore only when we remove it from the 3Com hub, at which time our devices will restore its original and correct respective MAC addresses.

To try to resolve this, we changed the IP address settings of our router and radios but resulted to the same problem. We suspect that the switch that your LAN extender is connected to a router  do not have proper VLAN configuration or there is a device or a PC that is causing this kind of malicious network activity.

This report is being provided to you to both inform you that the wireless link problem had been resolved, and to seek your attention about the problem above-mentioned.


Thank you very much.

Sanny Sison

Note:

The Bellevue link problem was finally resolved after months of speculations. The internal LAN problem at Bellevue, however, persisted, and shall be handled by their own IT people.

Date: November 16, 2006

To: Management

Cc: Officers

From: Sanny R. Sison

Subject: WIFI Services at F-Mall and W-Gate

______________________________________________________________________________________

Last week, we conducted an RF survey at F-Mall and W-Gate. The result of which provided us with a proof that numerous uncontrolled WIFI signals, identified to be from a variety of established Access Points (APs) and different WIFI devices (PC/laptop, phones, and PDAs), do exist. The reports generated by our instrument are attached herewith for your reference.

All these Access Points (APs) are individually administered by their owners and may not be centrally managed for our control. Most of them are privately protected by passwords intended to authenticate their expected customers, while some others are not secured and may be accessed by anyone inside or near the mall. It is estimated that those wireless services have been around for more than a year when WIFI devices became commercially available in many computer stores. With the fast proliferation of new and more sophisticated WIFI-certified products everywhere, the numbers are estimated to grow as more people are also learning to use it for both business and leisure.

The situation, in reality, indicates that a new medium to do business has arrived and benefiting those already using or serving it. However, without a qualified system to police this unauthorized WIFI services, we freely allow the public to do business in the two key areas inside the City and also lose the potential to generate income from regulating them. Technically, this could also cause various network and security problems such as frequency interference and unauthorized access to private networks.

Whereas, the existing cables inside the mall had also been reported to be in an unsound physical condition (the average lifespan of a network cable is only up to 10 years), we recommend to position the company in a ready stance to support all current and future network-based services by establishing a backup to the deteriorating structured cabling. And whereas, WIFI is an easy and proven alternative to wired networks and a very suitable marketing and income-generating tool, we urge the implementation of a secured, centrally-managed, and billable WIFI system for both F-Mall and W-Gate as soon as possible.

In line with this recommendation, we would like to inform you that NSA, the company that is implementing WIFI at various local malls and food chain outlets, had earlier been requested to present products and means to counter rogue signals and explore the income-generating potential of WIFI services.

With your permission, I can arrange a presentation of their proposal to you, and to allow us to carry out this project.

Thank you very much.

Yours truly,

Sanny Sison
Senior Network Engineer

Note: Excited about the project, the testing of Trapeze WiFi in both F-Mall and W-Gate was approved. But due to other ongoing projects, the "WiFi Project" will be an undertaking in 2008.

Sir,

It has been observed that when there are outages, escalation and reporting have been inconsistent and oftentimes erroneous. For example, an outage was escalated to Telco without calling first the branch, or an advisory was sent without initiating a first-hand troubleshooting or with insufficient information. This causes delays and miscommunication.

To address this, I attached herewith a proposal for standardized, positive approach to outage escalation and restoration to be observed & followed in all outages monitored on our WhatsUp monitoring tool.

For your approval, please.

Sanny Sison

Note: The Outage Escalation Procedure I drafted was adopted for official use company-wide.

FIRST BLOG

Forget about the Ice Age and the Information Age. I think we are now in the BLOG AGE.

Funny, nice, and interesting that everyone seems to feel better sharing the "stories and sorties" of their lives in a form of a blog than writing on a diary. In a blog, you can freely tell the world about anything you'd love to share and have the choice to hide your real identity. Good thing in our circle, we don't have to. And if diaries are now extinct, then the only thing we do alone is Praying. Wow, that's a very, very good benefit of the Blog Age. People know better how to express themselves yet will find more time to talk to God because he or she will likely to ask or thank God about what he or she had written. Purely hypothetical but very good to imagine people are making good use of technology in that sense.

Anyway, at the onset I've wanted to be able to write something that will make sense to everyone or just allow my fingers to type whatever comes out of my head like a Jazz music. But there is this just one thing that has been echoing in my head and is indeed manifested in the things that had happened in my life in recent years. It is what I consider the greatest and most important lesson I learned in years. Here it goes:

It started probably when I worked at a call center - one that I am not proud of. It was a great deal and serious job that I had to do even I was not proud of. But you know, doing something you don't like to but you just had to could teach you some thing - SACRIFICE. That's not it yet.

Sacrifice, as I have found out, is but the first step to truly understanding the mysteries of God's plans. So, since I was not proud of what I was doing at the call center, I gave it up. It was a job that gave me financial edge but it was there that the difference of material success and spiritual success became more obvious and distinct to me. It was what many called a mistake, but one I never had regrets.

Financial crisis, begun. Often, I would run out of money even to buy lunch. Then came the sparky realization of what I truly exchanged the good salary with -- It was then that I felt truly being in the "Refiner's Fire".

It was already the toughest time of my life but then it was with that emptiness that I learned more to "cling" on God rather than just to trust Him. I clung to God like a pest and believe that tomorrow would be a better one. Little by little I got used to skipping meals and walking long distances to get home from work. I appeared like a real loser to many people, but they did not see what I called "Only God and Christ-like humans will see" even if I don't tell them -- IT WAS APPRECIATING THE BEAUTY OF POVERTY.

Well, of course, poverty isn't literally beautiful. But there is something beautiful about it. That "something" is what I learned from this Saint by the name of Therese (of Lisieux). She said, "If God is to fill our emptiness, then poverty becomes a source of delight". First, I began to understand those words by simply knowing that I had no choice but to "swallow" that life. But then, slowly I noticed that the more humiliation, hunger, emptiness, and exhaustion I felt, the more I would feel "assured". I loved it. And so I embraced it "like a brave warrior would" and hoped that my life would stay that way. It was still confusing sometimes if I try to think of how I came to that conclusion but I just said - It really felt good being in the Refiner's Fire - who is none other than God Himself. It really feels good to know or find out that God is shaping you.

And "to be shaped", I later realized, has a requirement - one who wants to be shaped had to submit itself to the "Shaper". Well, complete submission beforehand was something I only knew as the act of "giving up". So, in other words, if GOD wants to shape you then He has to make you "STILL". That means to "give up" is the same as to "be still". Right?

So, what does God have to do to make you give up (or to be still)?? ---> TRIALS (could this be the best explanation why God allows sufferings sometimes)

And trials, which are what we normally see as "hindrance", is indeed the "advance ingredient" for the Shaping that we want. But yes, of course, one has to give up on Christ and understand that a poor faith says "I believe in God because life is beautiful" and the rich faith is "Life is beautiful because I believe in God".

I give up.


Sun / May 30, 2007 / 8:52pm