Management on Aaron's Worthless Words

Out-of-band Management - Useful Beyond Catastrophe

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I was lucky enough to participate in Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live a couple weeks months ago. This event brings independent thought leaders together with a number of IT product vendors that were at Cisco Live to share information and opinions. I was not paid to attend, but the organizers did provide some meals while I was there. There is no expectation of providing any content, so the fact that I’m mentioning it says something. It was a great event and worth a few hours to check out the videos. Thanks to Gestalt IT for getting me involved. OpenGear was there, and it was good to see some new faces and hear some new ideas.

Overlay Management

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I was lucky enough to participate in Tech Field Day 27 a couple weeks months ago. This event brings independent thought leaders together with a number of IT product vendors to share information and opinions. I was not paid to attend, but the organizers did provide travel, room, and meals while I was there. There is no expectation of providing any content, so the fact that I’m mentioning it says something. It was a great event and worth a few hours to check out the videos. Thanks to Gestalt IT for getting me involved.

Cisco Live 2013 Insights - Cisco Active Advisor

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, I went to Cisco Live and survived. It was the social event of the year, but the main focus is learning about the cool, new stuff. One of the booths I visited was a demonstration of Cisco Active Advisor.

This is a cloud-based (BINGO!) application that keeps an eye on the lifecycles of your IOS devices. Using the web interface, you can scan a range of IP addresses from your machine and have your gear automatically added to the service. Once in there, you can see, among other things, the warranty and support contract information for your device. If your contracts is about to expire, it’ll let you know via email. It also tracks any vulnerabilities that may apply and emails you if any are detected. This beats trusting your reseller to send you renewals or watching an RSS feed for PSIRTs and field notices.