On the CD-ROM accompanying the book we included a tool called Passgen. In the book, we recommended that you maintain separate passwords on every local administrator and service account in your enterprise. This is, of course, almost impossible to manage without something to automate it for you. That’s what Passgen does. The tool generates unique passwords based on known input (an identifier and passphrase you define), sets those passwords remotely, and allows you to retrieve them later.

For a while Jesper maintained a web site for the book, running on a server in his house. His ISP changed policies and made it impractical to continue running the site. But because the tool is still so useful, I’ve put a copy in my SkyDrive—look in the “Passgen” folder.

Also, note that I’ve put a new section in the right-side column, “Resources for you.” Here’s where I’ll keep links to bits and pieces that many of you will find relevant and interesting.

Now I’ve been “accused” of being a quant in the past (hi rybolov!) but in reality the only dogs I have in this fight are the model and the application of scientific method - and really, ethically speaking, I have to be tied to the latter while applying the former.

And I see a false dichotomy in this whole Quant vs. Qual thing.  We, as a profession, tend to create a political divide between the two which, if it even exists, I’d say is based more on our ignorance rather than our expertise.  After all, we are the profession that regularly multiplies across ordinal scales and uses wonderful models like R=VxTxI.   As someone  learning to deal in probabilities and rationalism, I have to recognize that this discussion is really just about the act of observation using different metrics of measurement.

But how we’re going about observing does not change the fact that there is measurement based on observation.  So if I’m working with you I can easily turn your qualitative scale into a quantitative one, and vice-versa.  Yes, Shrdlu, if we had the time, even your most seemingly Qual things could be Quant! (This flexible world view, btw, is an outcome of that new-fangled Bayesian thing).

COGNITIVE BIAS A-PLENTY

But back to what Rich is saying there about information security and risk - and he isn’t/won’t be the only one saying these sorts of things - we should try to understand what’s really going on rather than get caught up in the emotional hurricane.  Our profession suffers several forms of cognitive bias.  The nature of our jobs and what we do can cause us to be focused on the outcome and not the quality of the decision at the time it was made.  We want to bring in things from other professions that are useful, but at times we do view things outside our profession with false correlation to our own (unfortunately for those who write these sorts of articles, financial risk is completely different than operational risk).  We also have the tendency to focus on negative outcomes without acknowledging the positive outcomes (For example, I hear that Alan Greenspan’s new firm is up a couple of $billion in all this mess since he joined them, short sellers are doing quite well - must be because they have qualitative models or something -grin-).  The effect of these biases are compounded by the facts that proper correlation takes more work than we usually give it, and rational thought is not that easy when there’s a witch-hunt mentality.

What also floats in water? (link to Youtube)

WHAT SHOULD WE BE THINKING ABOUT?

So as you and I read opinions that seem to be the polar opposite of irrational exuberance (and there will be plenty between now and the election) we’ll have to ask ourselves, “what really failed here?”  At the risk (pun) of over-simplification:

• Was There an Error on the part of Probability Theory?

After all, Probability Science like all other fields of knowledge is always “advancing” as they say.  So perhaps probability theory is wrong somehow?

I’m personally disinclined to put the blame here, primarily because I would think that there would be evidence from other fields (like Quantum Mechanics) that something is amiss waaaaay before it hit a field like economics.

• Was There Error In The Model Used to Determine Risk?

Some people who understand real estate valuation and complex derivatives and financial risk want to put the blame here.  It’s a little too early to tell, but one thing is for sure - Financial risk is so different from operational risk I couldn’t begin to hazard an opinion on the subject.   But it would seem that this is really somewhere we might look.

• Was There Error In The  Scale Used (Quantitative vs. Qualitative)?

Honestly?  I find it extremely difficult to understand how this could be the source of financial ruin.

• Was There Error on the part of the Decision Maker?

What if all of the above were just fine, and the decision maker chose short term gain over long term stability?  What if this was (to simplify the matter greatly) a choice of “heads” over “tails” and the coin landed on tails?  What if the model represented the right risk (probability of negative outcome vs. positive outcome), but the complex derivative was sold to someone else who had poor “risk management” (ability to make a good decisions)?

Now I have no clue about complex derivatives, and I’m oversimplifying to be sure - chances are like most things, there are several problems that helped create the primary cause. But it seems to me that as we go into incident response mode for the economy, it’s more helpful to do so in a rational, logical manner.

OTHER THINGS WE MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER

Consider the Source
Some authors (who I think tend to exploit outcome and hindsight bias,and then combine those with indirect ad hominem attacks in order to sell their books), are actually putting forth arguments against the use of analytics.  The source of this is a current epistemic debate between those who believe that only falsification is certain, and those who maintain that neither proof nor falsification are certain, there are only probabilities.    So before you go believing any “quadrants” of usefulness on faith - I encourage you to understand what is at the heart of the discussion.

We All Have to Live In The Real World
The sun will rise tomorrow, and someone will try to find the source of the problem and do a better job.  Now chances are, they’ll be doing it in a quantitative manner.  Chances are also that at some point their models will fail and we’ll need to build new ones.  And this will happen whether the field is cosmology, economics, meteorology, information security, or professional baseball.

WHAT ABOUT YOU, ALEX?

I’m far from certain and subject to change, but these days I lean towards Robin Hanson & MIchael Lewis w/regards to placing blame.

First of all, as background information, I learned the Thai alphabet (script with 44 consonants and 32 vowels) nearly 20 years ago, so I have have a pretty decent foundation for the Thai language compared to most foreigners visting or working in Thailand.   I can read (slowly) and speak better than 99.99+ percent of all foreigners in Thailand.  For this reason, I thought it was ”the right thing to do” to redirect my career to a “new challenge” in the business climate of Thailand as I continue to improve my foreign language skills.   I wanted to help Thailand progress in IT and IT security, so where else would I go but where I have second language skills?

This was no small decision as you can imagine.  Your career and life changes quite dramatically when you give up a long established consulting practice in the US and dive into business in a foreign land, seeking a new challenge.  I can frankly tell you thatit is more difficult to do business in Thailand (as a foreigner) than I expected, for a number of reasons.  Here is my first off-topic post on this topic.

First of all, it is not legal for foreigners to directly own land in Thailand.  Foreigners can ”own” land using a variety of legal loopholes, proxy owners and shell companies; but all of this is risky and not advised.  Many foreigners lose a lot of money coming to Thailand and attempting to buy land via various “structures”.  Some get lucky, but the entire process of foreigners buying and selling land is quite risky and not recommended.

Foreigners can legally own condominiums, under certain conditions, but this “foreign market” results in inflated prices for condos in Thailand that are traded in an “artificial market place” designed for foreigners.   Condos in Bangkok and major resort areas that are up-to-par with condos in the US can easily cost more than condos in major cities in the US.  Hence, the cost of living in Thailand is not as economical as some might believe when you visit Thailand as a tourist.

Second, business in Thailand can best be described as protectionism with discrimination where the government has placed many barriers to entry to foreigners working and competing in Thailand.     Every foreigner must have a work permit and these work permits are expensive and time consuming to maintain.   If you own a business you must pay high professional service fees for “auditors” to perform annual and semiannual audits regardless of how much income you have (including zero).   Firms in Thailand charge thousands of dollars for these ”audits”.      

Third, if you operate a business in Thailand, you must have a place of business (you cannot legally work from your condo you bought at high prices!), so you are forced, by law, to lease office space.   Foreigners from the US, for example, must be paid a minimum of 50,000 Thai Baht per month, so the government will take 10 percent of that each month as their share of tax withholdings.  Startups with no income simply pay income taxes against their personal savings to comply with the law.  Therefore, to start a company and maintain the business in Thailand, you are required to pay significant startup, monthly, semi-annual and annual fees, permits, tax, leases, visas, etc. 

Forth, generating incoming revenue in Thailand can be quite difficult in a climate of both protectionism and discrimination.   In Thailand, it is easy when you are spending money.  This is the ”Land of Smiles” that tourists see and experience.   However, when you are legally permitted to work in Thailand and trying to generate in-country income, you cannot help but notice the protectionism and discrimination against foreigners working and living here.  Many foreigners working in Thailand just “give up” because the barriers to business success are quite high.

Fifth, on top of the challenges of protectionism/discrimination regarding foreigners and foreign investments, which I have only just scratched the surface here, is the overall global business slowdown combined with a climate of political instability which I am sure you have seen in the news.  Thailand has seen 18 coups since 1932.   Currently, Thailand is under a State-of-Emergency  which negatively impacts business even more.  Sound challenging? 

Most people who live and work in Thailand have the opinion that it is far better to enjoy being a tourist here. Working in Thailand is very difficult for many reasons.   Being a tourist in Thailand is completely different than working here.  When you are a tourist, foreign currently flows from you into Thailand, so life in Thailand as a tourist is fun and friendly, hence the “Land of Smiles” you have heard about or experienced.     However, when you are working in Thailand and trying to generate income from Thailand versus bringing in foreign currency, you don’t see the “Land of Smiles” quite the same anymore.

Without getting into too many details in this post, I can simply say that a foreigner doing business in Thailand experiences both protectionism and discrimination.  I came to Thailand hoping to contribute my experience to help the Kingdom.  However, sometimes it feels like foreigners are only welcome if you are working for free, giving seminars for free, and bringing in lots of foreign currency here.

In a future post on business in Thailand I will dive into some details on a number of topics that might be of interest to readers who will never have a chance to come and work here.   

First of all, I learned the Thai alphabet nearly 20 years ago, so I have have a pretty good foundation for the Thai language.   I can read (slowly) and speak better than 99.99+ percent of all foreigners in Thailand; so, I thought it was time to redirect my career to a “new challenge” in the business climate of Thailand.   

This was no small decision.  Your career changes dramatically when you give up a successful consulting practice in the US and dive into business in a foreign land for a new challenge.  I can frankly tell you that often the challenge is sometimes overwhelming.    It is quite difficult as a foreigner to do business in Thailand.

First of all, it is not legal for foreigners to own land in Thailand.  Foreigners can ”own” land using a variety of legal loopholes, proxy owners and shell companies; but all of this is risky and not advised.  Foreigners lose a lot of money coming to Thailand and attempting to buy land.  Some get lucky, but the entire process of foreigners buying and selling land is quite risky.

Foreigners can own condos, under certain conditions, but this results in  inflated prices for condos in Thailand that are traded in an artificial market place.   Condos that are up-to-par with condos in the US can easily cost more than condos in major cities in the US.  Hence, the cost of living is not as cheap as some might believe.

Business can best be described as “protectism” where the government has placed many barriers to entry to foreigners working in Thailand.     Every foreigner must have a work permit and these work permits are expensive and time consuming to maintain.   If you own a business you must pay high professional service fees for auditors to perform annual and semiannual audits even if your business has no income yet.   Firms in Thailand charge thousands of dollars for these ”audits”.      

In addition, if you operate a business, you must have a place of business, so you are forced to lease office space.   Foreigners from the US must be paid a minimum of 50,000 Thai Baht per month, so the government will take 10 percent of that each month as their share of tax withholdings.   Therefore, to start a company, you will pay a lot of money in startup fees, permits, tax, leases, visas, etc.  The entire system is designed to secure money from you, even if you do not have a penny of incoming revenue.

Of course, generating incoming revenue can be quite difficult in a climate of protectionism.   In Thailand, it is easy when you are spending money.  When you are trying to generate income from Thailand, as a foreigner the challenge can seem overwhelming at times.   Many foreigners here give up because the barriers to business here are very high.

On top of all these challenges, which I have not described in detail, is the overall global business slowdown combined with a climate of political instability, which I am sure you have seen in the news.  

Most people I know say it is better to be a tourist here.   Being a tourist is completely different.  Money flows from you, so life in Thailand is fun and friendly, complimentary to the “Land of Smiles” you have heard about.     However, when you are working to have money flow the other direction, flow to you versus away from you, you don’t see the “Land of Smiles” as tourists experience.

Without getting into too many details, I can simply say that a foreigner doing business in Thailand experiences protectionism and, to a certain degree, discrimination, and sometimes I wonder if coming here for a “business challenge” was a good idea.    I was seeking a “new challenge” and I got more than I bargained for!

In a future post on business in Thailand I will discuss issues regarding how little value is placed in intellectual property in Thailand and how this adversely impacts professional services.    I will also touch on how this lack of regard for intellectual property impacts a consulting practice.   Also, I will touch on some cultural differences in how Thais appear to view teamwork, which is very different than in the US.

Fourth US airline to go Wi-Fi: Aircell says they have a fourth airline--after American, Delta, and Virgin America--on board for its in-flight Wi-Fi service. The aerial broadband provider's latest partner will be announced soon. Aircell's service went live in 15 American Airlines planes two weeks ago, and there's been a surprising lack of reporting from regular travelers or journalists since the big splash at the launch.

Microsoft, two universities research methods for better Wi-Fi handoff for vehicles: The researchers developed a method they call Vi-Fi, writes the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Todd Bishop, which allows a system to maintain connections with several base stations at once, using a primary access point for traffic until a discontinuity is predicted or encountered. This allows seamless handoffs and continuous voice conversations.

Speaking of autos and Wi-Fi, concerns raised about Chrysler's in-car Wi-Fi option: Randall Stross wrote nearly two weeks ago in The New York Times about the problem of distraction. With the Internet at your fingertips, can you restrain yourself? The only problem with the humorous and accurate analysis is that millions of business travelers have 3G access via laptop cards already, so you'd think we'd already be seeing the bad effects of automotive area networks.

A Wi-Fi booster can't post availability signs on highway: The Nebraska town of Louisville has free Wi-Fi downtown, and wanted to post "Visitor Wi-Fi" on a highway sign as another amenity. The state highway department has a policy that doesn't allow the promotion of Wi-Fi, because they believe they'd be inundated. A resident who runs a local Internet firm installed his own signs on the highway; the roads department removed them; he remounted them; they were removed again. The idea of zoning and mounting a billboard apparently hasn't come to the city officials' minds (or perhaps they're prohibited).

The folks spreading misinformation about Wi-Fi health effects cause Ulster school to disable network: I can understand why non-technical folks might think that Wi-Fi has been proven to be unsafe, given the kind of information that's available on the Internet about wireless safety. While there are ongoing studies about the safety of cellular signals--and I'm convinced at this point there's no increased risk to an adult's health by using a cell phone--there is no specific and credible research linked to Wi-Fi, which broadcasts signals at a far lower level than a cell phone, most of the time in most uses.

Washington state shuts down rest-area Wi-Fi: The $3 for 15 minutes, $7 per day, or $30 per month Wi-Fi service at 28 of Washington's 42 rest areas has been turned off after a year for lack of use. Figures. The fees charged by Parsons and Road Connect aren't unreasonable for a nationally scoped plan, but are ridiculous for limited use. States should either bite the bullet and offer these service for free, partner with national roaming operators who can resell service into large networks of business travelers, or use ads to support the service. Highways in remote areas can typically pick up cell data networks, and ongoing costs should be minimal to operate such networks.

IEEE approves fast-roaming standard, 802.11r: This new standard is designed to improve the handoff of devices between base stations. This is accomplished in part by allowing base stations to communicate security and quality of service information so that a VoIP over WLAN phone can immediately reassociate without the delay of authentication and other handshaking.

Denver airport sees 7,000 connections on a single day last week due to Democratic National Convention: FreeFi released the usage figures recently to show how their service is operating. The network started with about 600 daily users when the switchover from fee to free happened 10 months ago, and now carries about 3,500 daily connections.

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf goes free: The chain of about 700 cafes will have free Wi-Fi installed by now in all its company-owned stores (about 300).

Learn how file integrity monitoring solutions work and the capabilities you should expect your solution to have. Then review a detailed checklist you should complete before purchasing your solution. Finally, discover how Tripwire Enterprise effectively combines file integrity monitoring with configuration assessment-a single configuration control solution that proactively assesses and monitors the IT infrastructure and enables organizations to achieve and maintain compliance with standards and regulations.

To kick off our celebration of our first five years, we asked ScienceLogic founders Dave Link, Richard Chart and Chris Cordray for their thoughts and memories on events leading to today’s milestone. How and why did they set out on this venture? What happened along the way – expected and unexpected? Why were they successful in times when other new (and established) businesses have come and gone?

How did you three put together this team?

We all worked together at a large Managed Service Provider for a couple of years before leaving to start ScienceLogic, so we all knew each other and knew our collective strengths. More importantly, each of us had worked with network management tools on some level (sales and marketing, engineering and product development), and knew first-hand all of the customer pain points, from every perspective. So we left and began rapidly figuring out how to build a better network management solution based upon our real world operational experience..

Dave: One interesting aspect is that our areas of expertise don’t overlap, which has contributed to our success. Chris is excellent with developing the product front-end and interface, Richard handled the backend architecture and engineering and I focused on the technical business side of sales and marketing. Our roles have been to build a product that works well and that provides real value to operations teams that experience the same day to day frustrations that we felt.

Whose idea was it to start the company?

Dave: It was really a collective effort. We were all passionate about “getting it right” and not just starting a company. We knew the industry need and between us, we had the knowledge and skill sets to address all of the right aspects of developing a product and a building a business around it.

What process did you go through to get started?

Richard: From the beginning we knew the type of solution the market needed and we knew that we wanted to build it as an appliance. From different vantage points, we had each experienced the effects of long, difficult and expensive installations that still exist with traditional network tools. Every install has unique variations: there are always different server types, varying hardware and software versions, different patches installed, and on and on. Every installation was time consuming and unpredictable. We knew that an appliance model would address all of these variables and save a lot of time on how quickly customers could achieve immediate value.

The harder decisions were around actually starting the business, assessing the market and of course determining the product pricing.

EM7 completely flips the traditional model of complex, lengthy and expensive deployments. How did you convince others that the EM7 Meta-Appliance product was valid?

Dave: Yes, EM7 totally disrupts the traditional model for network management. While others take a narrow approach, we intentionally designed EM7 to focus on the broad problem – managing the data center. How do you cover a variety of technologies and make sure they work seamlessly together? The vision was to make it easier, not harder, for customers.

Chris: I have to give it to Dave – very early on, he realized the power of a demo. If Dave could get in front of someone, he’d make them a believer. He’d use the Peter Falk/Columbo technique of “let me show you one more thing.” It was very effective. It’s getting easier, but even today people sometimes have to see EM7 in action before they become believers.

Can you describe the early days of running a new business?

Dave: ScienceLogic is a classic case of entrepreneurship. For the first year we worked out of our basements. We kept the costs low in every conceivable way and spent the first year developing the product before we even made a sale.

Chris: We stayed at lots of odd places when we were on the road, took cheap flights with multiple layovers and purchased lots of our first test equipment on eBay. This was during the dot-com bust so there was lots of equipment for sale on eBay, really cheap!

Richard: The amount of equipment I had in my house was absolutely crazy. Back then, servers were huge – I had a Cisco 6509 Catalyst, a Compaq Proliant DL380, Brocade switch, IBM Netfinity 4500R, and tons of other machines.

Chris: I had to install a new circuit box at home because I was blowing breakers. I remember when that 6509 crashed, we revived it and it died again. The second death was final.

So you started in your houses – what was your first office space?

Dave: My friend, the CEO at Ernst & Young Technology had a few extra cubes and a data center in their office that they graciously allowed us to use. Their help was an important step in helping us really formalize the business. We started doing well and adding people, but ironically, their company was downsizing. Before long, many of their original YET people were gone and the ScienceLogic team kept growing in to the open cubes.

Our first leased space was converted warehouse space in Chantilly, VA that once housed an internet radio station. It was cool – it had a large salt water fish tank, a loft, a spiral staircase and a Star Trek door that retracted into the walls with the customary lights and “whooshing” sound.

We outgrew the Chantilly space, leading to our current office in Reston, VA.

Who was the first ScienceLogic customer?

Our first paying customer was Martins Point Health Care. We deployed there in July 2004 and are pleased to say they continue to be a ScienceLogic customer. Other early (and still) EM7 customers include Navy Knowledge Online and the Department of Transportation. Nearly all of our customers are still actively using EM7 and renewing their maintenance.

Where do you see the company in the next 5, 10 or 15 years?

Well, our revenue has doubled year-over-year in each of the last three years, so of course we’d like to continue to grow like that or even faster. In five years we’ve gone from three founders to the point where Dave does not know everyone’s fondest childhood memory. We’ll continue to scale our growth to cover the demands of our growing customer base.

Where do you see the industry going over the coming years?

Chris: IT is always moving and gaining in complexity, so network management is also becoming more complicated. There’s increasing diversity, new standards, virtualization and cloud computing. All of these are today’s technologies. Customers have a mix of the old and the new, so EM7 has to accommodate and support both.

Richard: Each generation of products has a new set of ways to monitor, but the “old” doesn’t go away. Even when a new, hot technology comes along, the old technologies still need to be supported. We work to ensure EM7 keeps up with both.

Dave: After five years we’re just hitting our stride and we’re just now reaching the tipping point in awareness of ScienceLogic and EM7. We’re all still passionate about the product and as Chris and Rich said, there’s still a lot do. We’ll continue disrupting the market with EM7. Our vision hasn’t changed, and with the increasing levels of automation that customers demand, the market needs are greater than ever. Our future is as bright, or brighter, than ever and we’ll continue to be looking for smart ways to automate traditionally manual IT Operations processes.

What’s your advice for someone interested in starting their own business?

Chris: Be passionate. That’s what has gotten me through the tough times. I didn’t really appreciate this thought when I heard others say it before. But it’s very true.

Richard: I agree. We met and talked with lots of people who told us, “That’s been done before.” But we kept going because we truly believed in what we were doing and we knew that while our approach was different, that it would be successful.

Richard: Be fearless. You can’t be too nervous and you need to be able to expect and handle the stress because it will be there. You have to learn to accept the stressful times as a necessary part of the process of starting out on your own.

Dave: Know your niche from the beginning and give potential customers a compelling reason to trust you and really benefit from your solution. You have to know the problem, see the gap and have a clear and consistent vision of how to solve the problem. Then you have to execute. If you don’t build your team with “doers” you won’t make it.

Chris: It helps to have friends. ScienceLogic was built on friendships and relationships, starting with the three of us. If you look at our team, most of our hires are referrals – people who developed and maintained great connections with other great people throughout their careers. Maintain your connections and keep in touch with your network of friends.