Data center crash call at 11:45 pm,New Year's eve

Data center crash on New Year's eve

There was a time in the bad old days, when I used to be an on-call data center support consultant. That essentially meant that as an on-call support person,I was like a criminal on parole,who had to report back to the cops whenever they felt bored and wanted even more boring company.

Call from Burlington data center at 11:45 pm

I once got a call from the Burlington data center at 11:45 pm, on New Year's eve. I usually think better when ethlyl is under my belly- and I asked the data center operations guy what the problem was.

He said that he just wanted to make sure I was around (in case) the scripts I was responsible for failed. After all, it was New Year's eve,and it was difficult for the data center guys to find anyone and our over-zealous pal at the data center desk wanted to make sure he was covered.

The moral of the above data center story is that you find idiots everywhere, even on New Year's eve! Happy New Year to you!

A funny tech support video I recently came across- Well, Its Christmas time and lets be nice to everyone, even tech support people :-)

Data storage virtualization requires a mindset change

Data storage virtualization requires a mindset change.

Before data storage virtualization come into the picture, programmers across the world have been used to abusing the hardware with direct calls to the operating system. In fact, before data storage virtualization was introduced in data centers,Unix programmers have taken the operating system abuses to a different level

To be honest, I was one of those Unix programmers :-) The proudest day of my life was when I extended the kernel for the first time and later downed five beers alone in celebration.

Data storage virtualization,of course, cuts short such cowboy behavior. Different applications in the organization can adopt a different operating system,running on the same hardware- a different slot on the blade servers is all thats needed

Kaspersky's antivirus software has rootkits-Highly disappointed!

We recently reviewed Kaspersky's antivirus software engine for a potential client and were highly impressed. Kaspersky antivirus has a technologically superior antivirus engine compared to competitors such as Symantec

But even before we had stopped applauding Kaspersky for their superior antivirus software, we realized that Kaspersky antivirus had a rootkit that monitored the antivirus software user's activity and reported back to home base.

How utterly disappointing! How can an antivirus software major such as Kaspersky antivirus stoop to such ridiculous depths..

Post note:-Not surprisingly,Symantec antivirus has also been caught including a rootkit in their antivirus software - when caught , the Symantec spokesman call the rootkit a bug in the Symantec antivirus software- Wonder which is worse, having a rootkit in your antivirus software or having buggy antivirus? :-)

Do antivirus software companies create viruses?

Are antivirus software companies responsible for creating and spreading computer viruses?
I know this is a loaded controversial subject but I am sure this is perfectly true.

It is common knowledge in tech circles that some antivirus software companies hire ex-hackers ostensibly for ethical hacking- to check out the potential vulnerabilities of any system in advance.

But is that the only work the antivirus software companies use these hackers for? I strongly believe in the conspiracy theory that antivirus software companies are responsible for creating viruses in the first place.

These antivirus software companies use a simple marketing technique - create a fear psychosis and then make people pay for it! Anyone who has read Philip K Dick's 'Foster You are Dead' can definitely understand what game the antivirus software companies are playing!