This is a guest post by Diane Noe.

Every request is identified by a particular IP address. In simple terms every computer connected to the Internet has a unique IP address. Without this address it would be impossible to process the request. With the ever growing world of Internet, the need for more addresses will become inevitable. IPv4 will soon exhaust its quota of IP allocation. IPv6 will be the new Internet protocol address environment.

So what is IPv6?

IPv6 is the successor to IPv4; which has been revised many times before. This new series works in the same way as its predecessor. The main function of Internet protocol is to provide unique and numeric based key which identifies every computer on a network; which includes Internet, Intranet etc.

While the earlier version used 32 bit system, the current version will utilize 128-bit addresses. It is an important improvement over the earlier one.

But why shift towards the newer version?

Very soon the 4 billion (2^32) plus IPv4 addressees will get exhausted. A newer series is therefore imminent and inevitable. A 32-bit system can create limited unique addresses. Although Internet is still capable of providing newer addresses in the current series, but soon it will reach its saturation point. The 128 bit system will translate into 2^128 addresses, which will provide mind boggling numbers of IP addresses.

But there is a problem. The IPv6 transition will not be easy. This will take time and funds. Technicians and network administrators will have to undergo training and imbibe required skills. Interfaces, appliances, software and routers will have to be changed to support newer network.

However, in today’s world, both Internet protocols run together; which require special gateways to communicate with each other. The new Internet protocol is in its early stages; and it still has issues, which need to be sorted out before it can become a standard network protocol.

Delve Deeper: What is IPv6, what are its Conventions, Features & Advantages?

Author: This is a guest post and the author of this article is Diane Noe of -  http://btdiamondip.com

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It is the spirit of open source projects to involve everyone to contribute on their projects. Since the next major update – Libre Office 3.5 is around the corner, Libre Office is welcoming volunteers to test their new beta version (which comes with a lot of feature improvements) for any potential bugs and report the same, on December 28, 29 – 2011.

Anyone with a Computer and Internet connection can participate by downloading the beta version to their desktop and testing out the application (for your favorite features/ new features). Other users and experienced people would be available at certain timings to help new volunteers over IRC chat and mailing lists.

Enthusiastic volunteers are requested to join the QA testing session and the volunteer who identifies and reports the most number of bugs will even be awarded the title, ‘Bug hunting hero’ by the Libre Office team. Read this, if you are new to discovering and reporting bugs.

For many people, identifying bugs might be the first step to getting involved in an Open Source project. The spirit of Open Source project is in contributing something back to the application/ project that one utilizes frequently. Open Source projects thrive on the contributions made by their users. Users also get to interact with senior contributors and learn a lot while testing/ extending the project. Who knows, you might get a chance to develop the next most-wanted feature of Libre Office!

One rarely gets the exposure to the whole project in a corporate setting. Open Source projects offer that global view/ big-picture exposure, once you get involved in them. Don’t you want to be a part of the global team of volunteers who want to create something useful? Go ahead and take the first step during this holidays.

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Tell me one thing: How many of your network equipments actually fail?

Let us take network switches – A company may have many network switches distributed all over their network. Often they are bought from multiple vendors but a few companies may have bought all the switches from a single vendor as well.

Generally, these network switches have high MTBF – Mean Time Between Failures and they are quite reliable. Companies also invest in a few additional switches (at least one) for stand-by purpose, to replace defective switches immediately till a new equipment is provided by the vendor. The probability of failure of a whole network switch is lesser when compared to failure of individual ports or individual components like power supply modules, etc.

Even if a switch fails after three / four years, do you think its worth repairing it by replacing the failed parts? Or is it better to buy a new switch which supports much higher speeds/ bandwidth for a much reduced price? New Network switches have this knack of supporting more speeds at lower price with every passing year!

So, if one pays a huge AMC (Annual Maintenance Contract) price for all the network switches together, don’t you think its going to be an overkill as at most only a few network switches may fail totally (processing unit or other such major failures)?

Even if they fail, can the parts/ whole switches not be replaced individually at a much lower cost than the AMC cost incurred every year for all the switches collectively? Even if one needs an immediate replacement, is it difficult to maintain one or two standby switches in the network?

One might argue that this strategy might work for Layer 2/ Edge Switches. How about Layer-3 Switches and Specialized Network devices for which buying and maintaining hot-standby units becomes economically infeasible as there are only a few of them on the network and each one is pretty expensive?

This argument holds good merit because its difficult to even obtain spare parts at a fair price for these expensive specialized network devices as they can only be purchased from a single vendor.

Don’t you think it might still be possible to replace failed parts/ replace the L3 Switch with the latest technology when it eventually fails? I mean, L3 Switches are pretty reliable and many of them come with redundant power-supply modules and even redundant processor modules. Its definitely a risk – but isn’t it worth taking for the cost savings involved? And also for the fact that these equipments become obsolete fairly soon?

Let us consider even more specialized equipment like a Wireless Controller. One knows that all the access points and wireless controller can be purchased only from a single vendor. There may not be issues with access point failure as spares can be maintained for them or additional access points can even be purchased at a lower cost.

But what if the Wireless Controller fails and does not have a support contract? The entire wireless network may come down with it!

Before we come to conclusions, let me reiterate the fact that devices like wireless controller do not fail for many years at a stretch. They need to be manufactured reliably because they are supporting a whole network! Wireless Controllers do come with dual power supplies / dual processor boards for hot-standby, etc.

So, again we come to the same question – Don’t you think its worth taking a risk by not getting in to an Annual Maintenance Service Contract for Network devices?

Let me know your opinions in the comments section.

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What is GPS – Global Positioning System?

A GPS is a satellite enabled navigation system that is used to determine the location, elevation and speed of the object on which it is placed.

A GPS receiver on the earth uses the signals sent from multiple satellites to determine the above parameters. A network of satellites operated by some countries keep transmitting signals along with time-stamps.

GPS receivers on earth receive signals transmitted by multiple such satellites and calculate the time taken for each signal to reach it (Using the time-stamp difference). With this information, the GPS receiver can calculate the distances between the satellites and itself and then use mathematical formulas like Triangulation to determine its location on a map.

A minimum of 3/4 satellites need to be in the range of a GPS receiver to obtain the 2D/3D location information respectively. GPS requires Line of Sight between receivers/ antennas and Satellites to function.

A GPS receiver can be a stand alone unit or it can be integrated into certain things like cell phones, vehicle intelligence systems, etc.

Applications of GPS – Global Positioning System:

• Determine the location of Vehicles (in a map) and aid in its navigation by suggesting shortest routes, directions, etc.
• Locate a vehicle if it gets stolen.
• Track and aid the navigation of fisherboats, vessels, ships.
• Track millitary vehicles, unit movement, missile guidance and other such millitary applications.
• Track people, kids and pets using GPS bands, etc.
• Help bikers/ trekkers to track their location, speed, elevation and routes.
• Surveying (Determining property boundaries, etc).
• As a reliable Timer source (by synchronizing the atomic clocks of satellites with the receiver).
• Submarine navigation/ tracking.
• Tracking of wild animals.
• Geographic information systems (eg. road/ rail construction and maintenance).
• To determine the latency between two networks (connected by a WAN).
• Marking and relocating a fishing spot/ trekking spot during subsequent visits.
• Railway/ Air control systems.
• Identify major landmarks like airports, gas stations, etc.

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The bigger the company the more fronts at which the customer gets exposed to the company. Your staff at the customer care center may be great at their jobs but how does the rest of your employee body come across to the customer? Are they efficient and timely in their responses or do they make the customer wish they did not have to deal with such incompetent staff? The larger the organization the more difficult it gets to handle the CRM process in the company. However a web based contact management software can make it easier for large companies to put an efficient CRM process in place. It will also give managers a good way to monitor what interaction with each customer of the company can generate.

The heart of Customer Relationship Management is good customer service. If your company can make the customer feel that they care about his interests the customer will never leave you. With this purpose in mind many companies organize CRM workshops, invest in CRM software, and try to boost the experience of the customer. Do you know why this often fails in a large organization? It fails because customer care is not just an automated process, it involves real human beings, and I am not talking about just your external customers, but also the people who are employed by your company. The internal employees are the ones who need to be involved in the customer care with the right attitude. This attitude towards the customer can make a world of a difference.

No matter what CRM solution the business uses the heart of the customer care is delivered by an individual who is not afraid to take an active interest in the customer he is dealing with. In a large organization the employee is not that concerned about making a personal connection with the customer. He is more interested in handling the query and getting back to the paper work at hand. Naturally the disinterest he feels is conveyed through body language to the potential customer and may result in lost sales or repeat business. However it is not just the employee’s fault that he is not interested in the details of the formal customer relationship management process. Why does he think of the CRM process as added tedium to his daily life?

The company may take the pains to acquaint the employee with the concepts of CRM and the benefits that may result from this, but do they also take pains to see how it can be implemented without making the employee’s life more harried? If you want the employees of your company to treat the customer as the most important person in the universe, you need to also treat your employees as the most important thing that happened to your business. Think of your employees as your internal customers. If you can keep them happy and satisfied, there is a good chance that they will automatically begin to reflect this satisfaction to the customers. The happy employee will then naturally generate happy and satisfied customers.

Author Biography:

Sarika Periwal suggests using KarmaCRM, a web based CRM application with options for free accounts. Training and education in CRM concepts are good, but attitude is what will eventually make the difference to the bottom line. Use this online CRM software to help your employees help your customers.

Factors/ Parameters to consider before deciding on Hosting Email Server In-House vs Hosting Email Server with an external Service Provider:

1. Capital Expenditure – Cost of Hardware, Software, Back-up, Installation, etc. Usually, this is higher for hosting email server In-house.

2. Recurring Expenditure – Yearly subscription cost, Annual Maintenance cost, Cost of email administrator(s), etc. Recurring expenditure is higher for hosting email server with an external service provider.

3. Maintenance & Support – Email services are critical and often needs to be available round the clock. So, availability of 24×7 support personnel either in-house or with a service provider becomes crucial.

4. Network Security – In-house email hosting would also require the company to have their own Anti-spam/ Anti-virus/ content filtering gateways. With a service provider, these facilities are shared with multiple users.

5. Privacy – The possibility of confidential email messages being exposed to outsiders is higher with service provider hosted email server.

6. Scalability – New users can be added / removed easily and quickly with service provider hosted email server and most of them provide a GUI interface.

7. Migration – The feasibility & ease of moving existing email messages over to a different platform/ service provider and migrating between one service provider to another service provider needs to be examined.

8. Mobile devices – It is important to consider if a service provider / in-house email server software supports mobile email notification and syncing.

9. Storage space – The hardware required to store a huge volume of messages needs to be purchased (in-house) or rented (service-provider). The cost (in either case) needs to be considered.

10. Analysis/ Forensics - The availability of tools to archive and search for required information from a large number of messages is an important factor for both the cases.

11. Desktop/ Directories - It is important to check if the service provider based email service is able to integrate with the user’s preferred desktop client and corporate directories like LDAP/ AD, etc.

12. Reliability - Can the internal email be made 100% available (or close to it)? What are the costs involved to achieve the same? Does the service provider offer an SLA – Service Level Agreement guarantee?

13. Bandwidth - With a service provider hosted email server, even internal mails need to go through the WAN network. This additional bandwidth requirement should be budgeted.

14. Size of the Company - Based on the size of the company, it can be decided whether to go for dedicated email infrastructure or shared email infrastructure. Large companies might prefer the former and small / medium businesses might prefer the latter.

15. Mergers & Acquisitions - Many companies struggle with this. When they acquire other companies/ or get acquired by other companies, all the email messages & domains needs to be shifted from one place to another. Can either of the solutions handle this?

Apart from hosting email servers internally (or) hosting them with a shared email service provider, companies could also consider co-locating their email servers in a data-center, having their main email server with themselves but hosting the back-up server with a service provider, outsourcing in-house email management to external contractors (or) hosting email servers for few employees in-house and outsourcing it for everyone else, on the same domain.

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There are numerous blogs on various topics out there, but very few of them focus on the Computer Networking domain. excITingIP.com is not only a Computer Networking Blog but we also discuss about related enterprise IT technologies, here.

Computer Networking, as such is a very wide domain. Many people (outside this industry) think that Computer Networks are about Switches, Routers. and Cables. Well, that maybe partially true but any IT professional knows that Computer Networking is a very broad subject.

To get a nice overview about the Computer Networking concepts, you ought to read my introductory post on Converged Networks. If you are very new, click on the links below each image to get a basic introductory level explanation on the various components that make a computer network.

Yes people, Computer Networks are no longer about connecting Computers with Servers and Internet alone! A lot of exciting services like IP Telephony, Video Conferencing, Video Surveillance, Control systems, etc are converging to Ethernet/IP & hence are carried over Computer Networks these days!

It is something to connect a wireless router to your modem at home and call it a computer network and something else to understand the basics, concepts & standards that are employed to create an enterprise IT network. The difference between the two is like the difference between a toy plane and a Space shuttle!

More over, there are a lot of sub-categories associated with an enterprise network (just have a look at the category bars just below the logo on the top) and any IT professional these days needs to understand/ become familiar with all of them.

I mean, they are all interconnected to each other. They are like the various parts of a big puzzle, and the puzzle does not get completed unless all those individual parts fit to their place.

Consider this – You can create a computer network using Active Network Components & connect them all using Passive Network Components. But, you also need to give Wireless Network access to the mobile workforce and perhaps guests. If you have a computer network, you need to implement a solid Network Security strategy as well.

As I told you earlier, enterprise IT networks are beyond just data. Most of the Telephones run on the IP Networks & hence one needs to get familiar with Voice Over IP (VOIP) technologies. If voice is on the network, can video be far behind? Both Video Conferencing systems and Video Surveillance systems run Video Over an IP Network.

If there are so many services running over the Computer Network, there sure has to be a Storage Network to store all the data. The objective of all the systems connected to a Computer Network is either to connect to the Servers, or to connect to the Internet. So, we need to be familiar with Server Technologies & Bandwidth choices available to connect to the Internet.

Virtualization is an important technology that is getting increasing prominence in the Data Center & it goes much beyond Server Virtualization.

Wide Area Networks help connect multiple branches of a company. So, one needs to get familiar with the Network Optimization technologies to communicate with the dispersed global workforce or to effectively utilize cloud computing infrastructure.

What are the servers for, without the Applications they run? Most of the applications today are network based.

Since no single vendor can provide all the above services by themselves (even if they do, customers wouldn’t want them to!), the wonderful folks at IEEE, IETF & others have created Protocols – Network Standards, so that equipments from different vendors can easily inter operate with each other.

Well, that’s some long list ain’t it?

This Computer Networking blog – excITingIP.com gives an introduction/ overview of the various technologies that make up a computer network. No topic is covered in depth, but they are covered comprehensively enough so that IT professionals can gain a good understanding about Computer Networks and their applications.

Don’t try to read many articles in one go – you’d get tired! These articles were written over the last two years and hence would involve some efforts on your part to gather all the knowledge contained in them. I suggest that you select a category of your interest and go through a few posts at a time.

The best thing would be to subscribe to this blog with your email address in the sidebar box that says, ‘Get email updates when new articles are published’. If you submit your email address, you’ll be notified when ever a new topic is published here (along with a short summary) so that you can visit the site if you want to learn more about that topic. You can expect to get a maximum of four mails per week.

But a blog, by its nature is interactive. That’s why there is a comments section after every post. Please use it to extend the post/ give your feedback. If you think you want to write an article in this site, you can request to write a guest post here and I will publish it if its good.

Rajesh K , Administrator & Author – excITingIP.com

In order to facilitate an interaction between members of The Document Foundation, Free Software advocates, Contributors, Users and well wishers of the Libre Office Suite and also to celebrate the first year anniversary of The Libre Office project, the First Libre Office Conference is being organized in Paris, France from October 13 to October 15, 2011.

Conference attendees will have an opportunity to meet and mingle with The Document Foundation members and Libre Office International Community, among others. They can also attend the various talk sessions concerning the development and usage of Libre Office on various topics, including:

‘One year of Enterprise Deployment, The way Ahead’, ‘Complaint to Feature: A Guide to Contribution’, ‘The Usability of Open Source Office Suites’, ‘Good API’s and Libre Office’, ‘Towards a better Libre Office for Windows’, ‘Successful migration in the Local gov. of the second biggest city in Hungary’, etc. You can have a look at the compete program from here.

So, if you are a contributor/ well wisher of Libre Office and if you are in France or can be in France during this October, why not drop in? There is no entry fee to attend this conference, but you need to register in advance.

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