Zit Seng’s Superwall

The 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) standard was ratified in 2002, but we finally only got around to installing our first 10GE interface last year. This year, we have another big bunch of 10GE links interconnecting a big bunch of our switches. 10GE still costs a bomb. The Cisco 16-port 10GE line card lists for something like S$80K. Yes, that’s a big sum of money, particularly since the line card on its own is not very useful: You still need a chassis, power supply, fan tray, and supervisor module at the very least.

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Last weekend, a Linksys WRT610N became the latest addition to the networking gear I have at home. It replaces my trusty old WRT54G which was starting to go bonkus after serving for many years.

I have been thinking about upgrading my wireless broadband router for some time. In fact, I was considering StarHub’s free Apple Time Capsule promotion last year. It does 802.11N wireless, Gigabit Ethernet wired ports, includes 500GB or 1TB of storage and printer connection sharing.

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We’re starting to recruit student helpers again. They will help us run our network and data centre operations. This is like an internship, a program that we’ve run for one semester already. It is a really exciting opportunity for students as they will get hands-on learning experience working with production enterprise networks and data centres.

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Software upgrades are usually not terribly complicated things. Of course, the newly upgraded software many introduce new problems, such as incompatibilities or interoperability issues with other software or systems. The same is not too different for firmware upgrades of network switches. They are not trivial (that’s why you need network engineers…), but they are documented procedures that can be and are routinely carried out by network operators and providers.

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We’re still looking to hire more staff to support our Network, Data Centre and IT Security operations. It is the same super engineers kind of work I blogged previously, but this a technologist position targeted at polytechnic graduates. Our priority for this position is in Network, Data Centre and IT Security operations, in decreasing order. Let me know if you’re interested.

Yes, the Internet celebrates its 25th birthday today! TCP/IP had a difficult start. It was first demonstrated between Stanford and UCL in 1975. It took quite a bit of persuasion before it was finally adopted and the ARPANET switched over to it on 1 Jan 1983. If you didn’t yet know… TCP/IP is the basic network protocol that drives the modern Internet as we know it today.

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Are you looking around for a new job? Or perhaps your first job? Well, we’re hiring! We’re recruiting to fill the vacancy of Systems Engineer (Network). You will work with our Network Team which manages overall Network operations, Data Centre operations and IT Security operations. (Yes, if it sounds like three jobs rolled into one, it is.)

What are the perks of this job? Well, you’ll get lots and lots of learning opportunities in a relaxed and friendly working environment. We do run state-of-the-art network infrastructure and data centre facilities, so it is not like you’re stuck with some yester-year’s technologies.

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Sometimes I just can’t help but think that some Americans don’t realize that the world is much larger than their country. The latest episode comes from a DNS report generated by DNSStuff.com which gave a score of “F” for my domain (at work). Why “F”? The scoring methodology and conclusions it tries to draw from the test results are simply and totally illogical. It seems to underscore their presumption that the US is the whole world. If you’re not in the US, then you’re an alien. (I know, I know, as far as their immigration rules are concerned… we are indeed aliens.)

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