The WhatsUp Gold team is happy to announce that Caitlin Buxton, Director of North American Channel Sales at Ipswitch Network Management Division, has been named one of CRN’s 2012 Channel Chiefs.  This prestigious list of the most influential and powerful leaders in the IT channel recognizes those executives directly responsible for driving channel sales and growth within their organization, while evangelizing and defending the importance of the channel throughout the entire IT Industry.

Caitlin Buxton recently returned to Ipswitch, Inc.’s Network Management Division after six years and is responsible for setting WhatsUp Gold’s North American Channel strategy and managing the channel organization to successfully execute on it. Caitlin joined the division from AVG Technologies where she served as Director of Channel Sales. In 2010, Caitlin was recognized by CRN as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women of the Channel. Since her return to Ipswitch, Buxton has restructured the direct sales team for full alignment with the channel account managers, including incentives for working with channel partners on finding and closing business. She has also led major recruitment efforts in the VAR and Solution Provider market. As part of this strategy, Ipswitch, Inc. will be launching a new partner program in 2012 with a more lucrative margin structure for Gold and Silver Partners based on performance, a new partner portal which will provide enhanced deal registration and lead referral programs, in addition to in-depth sales and technical certification programs.

Selected by CRN’s editorial staff, the 2012 Channel Chiefs list is featured in the February issue of CRN Magazine and will be featured online at www.crn.com.

WhatsUp IP Address Manager allows you to plan, document, and understand your entire IP space with an easy to use, cost effective, enterprise-ready IP address management solution. To learn more, visit: http://www.whatsupgold.com/ip-address-management/

As a product manager of an integrated solution suite, it’s interesting to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between traditional systems management (OS deployment, inventory, software delivery, patching, monitoring) and its major trends (security, virtualization, cloud, efficient data centers) with network management (deployment and configuration, backup/restore, monitoring, traffic analysis, Quality of Service) and networking trends (mobile devices, cloud, virtualization, larger networking demands). There are many similarities between these two IT focus areas and I will “blog” about several aspects as I tie-in and compare systems management with network management over the next year. One similarity that is particularly easy to spot and “leaps off the page” for me relates to discovery. In fact, it ALL starts with discovery.

By obtaining a complete and accurate discovery of your networking “stuff,” you will gain immediate benefits. The first premise here is that, until you know what you have (i.e. your stuff), where it is, and how it is connected, you cannot determine the best course of action to improve services, plan for new capacity, uptime, planned outages, or anything for that matter. Performing a regularly scheduled discovery of your devices will provide benefits that trickle into every other aspect of network management, and IT services in general.

The second premise is that the discovery process should be automated. Let’s face it, we live in a day and age where automation can and should be your best friend. Automation allows an IT administrator to remove the mundane and really boring daily tasks from his/her “to-do” list and to focus on things that add value. Back in the late 90’s, while working in IT at a local private liberal arts college, we performed what I call a “clipboard” inventory 2 times a year. The fact was that our manual inventory was inaccurate the moment we left the professor’s office. Add to that the notion that we could only gather some of the most basic inventory details: CPU, RAM, Network card, Add/Remove Programs. The level of detail that can be obtained today in an automated fashion is very complete and can be adapted to gather almost any piece of electronically stored information on a device. Don’t waste any more time doing manual discovery/inventories!

The third premise is that you need a management system that provides “out-of-the-box” reporting and mapping capabilities that easily and intuitively show discovered devices, their attributes, and their connectivity.  The system should allow the flexibility to generate your own custom reports as needed. As a really cool bonus feature, the reports and maps should also dynamically update as new discoveries are performed so that you not only know how your network looks like right now but also easily visualize to how it is performing.

Imagine going from a world of clipboard inventory, 2 times a year, to a fully automated discovery complete with a dynamically updated map of your network. Does it get any better than that? Possibly not, but then again the only constant with technology is change.

As we begin our discussion on how to provide great IT services, I hope you will start to think about, and hopefully act upon, the premise that “it ALL starts with discovery”.

P.S. As a public service announcement, I am providing you with a product link that can dramatically assist with the process of discovery/mapping and meets every requirement I describe above.  Visit WhatsUpGold Network Discovery for more details.

LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER & WIN!

IT Management Best Practices in Europe – Live Webinar

• Tuesday, February 21^st
• 1pm GMT
• REGISTER

Join us for some best practices on making the most of your infrastructure, and learn how IT management is a holistic approach involving not just deep network visibility, but many other areas including log data retention and configuration management. We’ll cover:

• Data retention best practices to address Data Protection legislation
• Network security best practices
• Layer 2 discovery and mapping
• Network/traffic monitoring
• And more!

One lucky recipient of a $100 Amazon gift card will be announced at the end of the webinar!

REGISTER NOW!

IT Management Best Practices in Europe – Live Webinar

• Tuesday, February 21^st
• 1pm GMT
• REGISTER

The economic crisis has taken a harsh toll on Europe, and the IT department is no different. As an IT manager, you are forced to do more with less, bringing agile solutions into the mix that emphasize automation while cutting down on the bottom line.

Join us for some best practices on making the most of your infrastructure, and learn how IT management is a holistic approach involving not just deep network visibility, but many other areas including log data retention and configuration management. We’ll cover:

• Data retention best practices to address Data Protection legislation
• Network security best practices
• Layer 2 discovery and mapping
• Network/traffic monitoring
• And more!

One lucky recipient of a $100 Amazon gift card will be announced at the end of the webinar!

REGISTER NOW!

Education IT systems seem to have a large target on their back these days.  According to an October, 2010 McAfee study, universities and colleges rank number 1 in the ‘Top 10 Riskiest Places to Give Your Social Security Number’.  Cyber crooks are attracted to the vast pools of personal data available on university and educational IT systems.  And unlike typical commercial organizations, universities and schools can’t simply lock the doors in the evening and feel assured that their network is somewhat secure.  Open buildings and computer lab environments complicate the physical security policies for these institutions.  As a result, “State schools and universities are among the most likely government agencies to suffer data breaches.”

Breaches seem to be a continuous part of the news headlines these days, but one article in particular caught my eye in the last few weeks.  In mid-January, a California city college notified more than 13,000 students and employees about a specific breach that was discovered in late November.  The breach was identified when the IT department found gaps in the data logs of a server that was located in a campus computer lab.  After investigating these gaps, they found a virus that had existed on the college’s system since 1999…more than a decade.  And during the investigation, they found transmissions that had been sent to Russia, China and several other countries; however the college hasn’t confirmed what type of data was sent in these transmissions.

As our schools add new devices to the network, making it more complex, it is harder to manage and control.  How can education institutions that are struggling to control costs mitigate these risks within their expanding networks while protecting their student and employee’s data?  Abnormal behavior often provides the best insight to network administrators needing prevent breaches and system failures. Cost-effective solutions exist that can help institutions watch their network for unusual behavior that may include:

• Unconventional network traffic patterns
• Unauthorized access attempts
• Resource utilization spikes
• Unauthorized configuration changes

To learn more about these IT Management best practices for Education, please listen to our latest webcast that provides insight into mitigating data breach risks or download our best-practice white paper.

I’m sure that you’ve seen the “What I Think I Do” images floating around Facebook and other social sites lately.  We thought that we’d have a little fun (it is Friday, after all) and create one of our own.

Let us know what you think!

Looking for a last minute Valentine’s Day gift? Network World has made it easy to find cool tech gifts, suiting a range of personalities. We’ve highlighted some of our favorite finds!

If you’re searching for something more practical this faux leather iPad case may be the perfect choice (bottom left picture).  Handcrafted from faux leather and gray wool felt, this fitted sleeve even has two exterior pockets for accessories and is eco-friendly.  You may want to check out Cartergray’s Etsy shop for more affordable sleeves and cases. 

On the hunt for something with a little bit more of a tech vibe? Check out this handbag (bottom right corner) – made with 400 ABS plastic keyboard keys.  Lined with nylon, this modern handbag features a comfortable clutch handle and can be purchased at MoMA Store.

Need more ideas? Visit Network World to discover more quirky gift ideas! 25 Techie Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas

Start your spring cleaning early this year by tackling the mass amounts of clutter on your computer! On February 13^th, celebrate Clean Out Your Computer Day by taking steps to remove some of the clutter clogging your hard drive and to make an effort to better organize your computer files.  Many individuals are unaware of the buildup on their drives.  When is the last time you took a moment to order your files and clean out some of the unnecessary documents buried somewhere on your hard drive?

According to the Consumer Electronics Association, the average American adult has 1,800 digital files, and on the whole Americans waste nine million hours per day searching for misplaced items. The tradition of National Clean Out Your Computer Day has been in existence since at least 2000, originally sponsored by The Institute of Business Technology.  It has been assigned to the second Monday in February, which this year falls on Feb.13^th.  Take a moment out of your day on February 13^th to clean out your computer, which will save you time in the long run and speed up your processes! Click here to learn valuable tips on how to better organize and clean out your computer: Online Organizing

Being proactive is critical – If a problem occurs, WhatsUp Gold quickly informs you if network resources are being taxed beyond their intended use, enabling you to proactively respond and correct the situation before any service is being disrupted.  To learn more visit: www.whatsupgold.com