Welcome to AdatoSystems, the “me, myself, and I” company for, well, me. Leon Adato. Head Geek at SolarWinds, 30+ year I.T. veteran, and all-around opinionated person. If you want to know more about what I can do for you or how to get in touch with me, check out the “About” page. Otherwise, enjoy the…
ICYMI: Automation the Way Automation is Meant to Be
(This originally appeared on Datacenterournal.com) In my last post, I highlighted the need to expand the way we who work in data centers think—from effectively managing the data we’re responsible for maintaining (beyond turning it into information) to transforming that information into action (in the form of automation). That made me realize that even in 2016,…
Fat Tuesday: Ignoring the Treadmill You Are On.
When you work out, are you completely focused? Mentally present for every repetition, every compression, every mile? Or do you keep some kind of secondary input going – music or the news or your favorite show? Does the beat or the images on the screen somehow make the sets and the miles fly by? Not…
Early Morning Writing
When the morning is dark and quiet and the coffee hot and sweet The words flow like mercury on glass. Ideas shower down, not like rain, but as a fine mist gentle, persistent, pervasive. Washing over me, covering completely, without drowning out all other thought. Permitting me to breath with them. Absorbing gently, naturally, into…
ICYMI: Data, Information, and Action
(This originally appeared on DataCenterJournal.com) One of the benefits of being a 30-year veteran of IT is that I’m able to appreciate certain consistencies within the industry. And sometimes, that enjoyment comes with a generous helping of cynicism. For example, the term “big data” is about as buzzword-worthy as it gets right now, listing up…
ICYMI: IT Monitoring Clickbait
(This originally appeared on SysCon.com) It is a sad but very real truth that many, dare I say most, IT professionals consider alerts to be the bane of their existence. After all, they’re annoying, noisy, mostly useless and frequently false. Thus, we IT professionals who specialize in IT monitoring are likely well acquainted with that…
Fat Tuesday: Eating Like a Hobbit to Lose Weight
I was watching my grandchildren eat their 4th breakfast of the morning when it dawned on me that they might actually be Hobbits. If you aren’t familiar with these friendly, heroic, diminutive folks, you’re out of luck because this is a geek blog and I expect certain standards from my readers. Anyway, as I thought…
ICYMI: Worth the Risk Now
(This originally appeared on THWACK.com) I was a sucker for Windows CE (or WinCE, as we mobile enthusiasts called it). I spent hours with my WinCE devices. I owned 3 of them (1 purchased on ebay long after the sun had set on that tragically short-lived OS). I sang their praises. I showed them off…
ICYMI: Knowing vs Understanding
(This originally appeared on THWACK.com) In IT, we search the Web constantly. Everything we need is literally at our fingertips, just an Internet query away. This is interesting because IT professionals tend to make a big deal of knowing things by heart. Can you calculate subnets off the top of your head? Do you know…
Fat Tuesday: The Bermuda Triangle of Eating
For the last decade, I have had jobs which took me out of town at least once a month, and sometimes as often as 3 trips before I flipped to a new page on my calendar. For just about the same length of time, I’ve kept kosher. It’s something I’ve written about on EdibleTorah.com, among…
ICYMI: Un-Acceptable
(This originally appeared on TechTarget.com) Larry Wall (creator of the Perl programming language) famously said, “Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.” In one brilliantly succinct phrase, Mr. Wall took three traits commonly understood to be character flaws and re-framed them as…