Blog Posts
Some thoughts, instructions and general IT knowlegde in one easy to find place….
Perfectly Sized Windows Disks
One thing that has always bugged me, is that a Windows VM with a 50Gb disk actually appears as 49.9GB. While it’s entirely cosmetic, wouldn’t it be nice to have pefectly sized disks. Disks the actual size we specify, not that slightly smaller size you actually get.
Creating the world's most capable DevOps Pipeline Agent
Lately, I’ve been working on supporting an awesome microservices project. For various reasons, we have code in Azure DevOps, an on-premise Kubernetes cluster and the project is written in Java utilising Apache Camel.
Why Tigers Need Cages
Imagine you work as a security specialist at a zoo. The zoo has a tiger. As part of your training to be a security specialist, you learn that tigers while popular with visitors are strong, cranky and have lots of teeth and claws. Because of that the zoo security industry has a raft of best practices around making sure that tiger enclosures are safe.
FortiMail Policies and Profiles
Take a deep dive into FortiMail and configuring Policies and Profiles. This is the heart of any good FortiMail config. https://youtu.be/kEPTTPznJRA?si=dpZKeqfSkNBDfgze There is a wealth of flexibility which can lead to complexity and frustration, but it’s all about enabling you to have a setup that fits your use case.
Service Catalogues - Why you need one
Most organisations that implement ITIL in any way are always quick to get a ticketing system in place. Incidents and Service Requests and even some form of Change Management. A good ticketing system is indeed a foundational tool for an IT department.
Like all great IT people, we all have a sense of how ITIL works, some better than others. However, the absolute bedrock of a ticketing system and the entire IT department is a working Service Catalogue.
Do you have one? Have you read it? Has anyone else read it?
If you answered 3 from 3 then good for you! But I’m guessing that could be less than one percent of you can say that.
The IT Department's Core Problem
I’m going to propose a fundamental problem that all IT people will relate to, but most won’t comprehend the implication of it.
People don’t understand what “IT” does
There’s a second follow on fundamental problem:
Most people don’t care what “IT” does as long as it just “works”
Those two concepts are the core of every challenge in IT today.