How much don’t we know? …

I’m not having a dig at any particular person, customer or group of people (all-round exclaimer), but … how much don’t we know about the day to day things we do?

I’m not talking about the one-offs such as me pulling the microwave oven apart last night because the wife thought the lcd screen was dirty … then spending the rest of the night working out how people with very small fingers put the thing together in the first place … no, I’m talking about the day to day tasks we do in our small world as computer administrators etc.

RAID seems to scare the pants off a lot of poeple. It doesn’t phase those of us who work in the field on a day to day basis, but it certainly seems to make a lot of peole I talk to very nervous indeed.

So why are they nervous? Basically (imho) it’s because the don’t know a great deal about the products they are using. Now that doesn’t mean I think everyone should be a rocket scientist or expert in the field of RAID cards, but it worries me that so many people are selling, installing, configuring and specifying RAID as a technology to their customers without having much knowledge at all about what it is they are doing.

Now that I’ve alienated half my audience (who in fact “think” they know what they are doing) … to those of you who are still reading …

Wait … a change halfway:

It’s all well and good for me to be sprouting the fact that people need to know more about the products and technologies they specify and sell, but how do they learn?

Obviously the web is number one. When I want to work out how to disassemble the desmodromic valve gear in my Duck I go to the web and read, read, read. When I want to find out which is the correct ADSL modem/router/firewall/VPN I go to the web … then I send an email to various vendors asking which of their products they recommend to fulfil my specific requirements.

By reading and asking I learn. Along the way I find out new little snippets of information that help me (a) sound like I know what I’m talking about and (b) advance the configuration, installation and utilisation of the product/technology/service I’m trying to implement.

So … (and yes, there’s always a “So …” at the end) …

Where do you go for information?
What websites do you use to learn about RAID?
Which organisation do you call or email to ask questions?
Who do you ask?

I’m asking this because I’d like to look at that information and not criticise it, but in fact promote those sources, be they blogs, reference sites or just whitepaper type articles. We have a bunch of links down the right hand side of our blog that are somewhat irrelevant, out of date and just plain broken … something I want to fix. So instead of deleting them, why not replace them with sources you find relevant and useful?

Send me your sources … I’m sure I can learn something along the way.

Ciao
Neil