To T.O.E. or Tie, that is the question!

T.O.E. also known as TCP Offload Engine. TIE (no, not Tie fighter), to bind.

What is a TOE card? Well, it is more often than not found in iSCSI SANs, but it's function is simple. A TOE card is a network interface card with a ASIC that handles the network overhead in place of the CPU. That is to say, it handles the processing of getting data on and off the computer rather then relying on the main CPU to. The advantage is that network speeds increase while overall CPU utilization drops (slightly) because it no longer has to handle the I/O needs of the NIC (Network Interface Card). So what does all this mean? Well, spend a few hundred bucks on a 10/100/1000 TOE card and see at least a 15% in network speeds. And that's without any other network or server upgrades. Now, it doesn't seem like it would make a whole hill of beans worth of difference, but it does. As CPU speeds increase, servers are better able to handle the network I/O without affecting overall server and network performance. Ever notice how the server bogs down with high utilization? A TOE card can help with this.

So what about "tie". Well, that's kind of a misnomer. What I should have said was "bind", or "link aggregation", or maybe even "concactenating NICs". What's it all mean? What I mean is to link multiple NICs into one virtual NIC to increase throughput.

What's the difference? A lot.

Altruism

al·tru·ism (ltr-zm)
n.

1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
2. Zoology. Instinctive cooperative behavior that is detrimental to the individual but contributes to the survival of the species.

I received a very unexpected email from what I consider to be a rather unique individual. I had to read the email twice to be sure of what I read. Even then I was taken aback. So, what do I do when I want to think? I sleep... So here I am, rested and dumbfounded. Now, I'm not so young, or not so old, I'm 32 (just recently). I have some rather conservative and liberal views on people. And one of those views is that foster parents are special, very special. All children are inherently good and should be loved. The person I ran across is a foster parent. A single foster parent of a 13 month old baby, and they are 27 no less! Does that fit the model of a foster parent? What would possibly posses such a young person to show so much altruism? Usually altruism such as this manifests itself in older generations. This is quite unique, infact, singularly unique in my life. And it still blows me away after spending so much time thinking, ney, contemplating the message.

I just had to write about it and I hope that the sender reads this entry. People such as the sender are precisely the kind of person that I want to surround myself with.

I am a very binary personality when it comes to friends and associates. I either like you because you bring something "meaningful" to my life. Something positive. It doesn't have to be big, grand, expensive, anything like that. Just a person who adds quality to my life. Or, I don't really have anything to do with you. If you do not bring anything positive, rather you bring negativity to my life then I have no use for you. I would rather focus that energy on someone who does bring something to my life.

And this 27 year old is precisely the model of character and integrity that I seek to be in my life, no matter how small or large. This is someone who I can learn from.

SNAFU, TARFU, FUBAR

Boy, don't those sound familiar? Ever wonder where SNAFU came from? Read about it here. My situation is somewhere between SNAFU and TARFU, I hope things never make it to FUBAR.

SNAFU

Work has kept me amply busy. Almost to the point of excessively busy. Life as essentially a single father isn't exactly "easy". And that's where SNAFU comes in.

TARFU

Work wise, TARFU may be a very apt description. I'm not really in a position to elaborate on that.

FUBAR

Well, many things are FUBAR. And fortunately, none of them are in my life.

Success and failure

suc·cess (sk-ss)
n.

1. The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted: attributed their success in business to hard work.
2. 1. The gaining of fame or prosperity: an artist spoiled by success.
   2. The extent of such gain.
3. One that is successful: The plan was a success.
4. Obsolete. A result or an outcome.

fail·ure (flyr)
n.

1. The condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends: the failure of an experiment.
2. One that fails: a failure at one's career.
3. The condition or fact of being insufficient or falling short: a crop failure.
4. A cessation of proper functioning or performance: a power failure.
5. Nonperformance of what is requested or expected; omission: failure to report a change of address.
6. The act or fact of failing to pass a course, test, or assignment.
7. A decline in strength or effectiveness.
8. The act or fact of becoming bankrupt or insolvent.

Success. Failure. How does one measure success or failure? Is success or failure quantifiable or are they nebulous? Are such concepts binary in their nature?

If a project is deamed a success, can it be that there is no part that is a failure? Conversely, can a failure contain a segment that is a success? I don't think that because something is either a failure or a success that they are mutually exclusive. I don't believe that they are. Just because something "fails" doesn't mean that something has not been learned. I also believe the converse, that just becuase something has succeeded doesn't mean that there has not been a failure. I think that true "failure" is when a lesson is just not learned, but more significantly, not recognized. You have to recognize failure to be able to begin to learn something from it.

If you can recongnize where a "failure" has occurred I think that you have in effect "succeeded". In all things failed, there is a lesson to be gleaned. In all things successful, there too is a lesson to be gleaned. Finding the point of failure or success may be a laborious task. But it is necessary in the evolutionary process. As is the case in all things human.

No plan, regardless of how well conceived, survives reality. Planning is a crucial step, it is in fact the crucial step. Any success or failure is predicated on the amount of planning involved. For those who may know me, they know my two favorite adages: "Proper Previous Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance", and "I can do it right, or I can do it twice". Both involve planning to mitigate the chance of failure. But as I said before, no plan, regardless of how well conceived, survives reality.

Having stated the above, I do not believe that success or failure are binary or mutually exclusive. They are nebulous and intertwined with each other. In some things, in many things, success and failure can be quantified depending on ones perspective. Some things may be classified in a binary manner depending on your perspective.

As in one of my projects. Some would say that the project has NOT succeeded as well as we had envisioned. I think it has in a certain respect. True, things have not gone smoothly. True, things could and should have been planned better. True, we have not always seen things the same way. But here is where my perspective says that success has been achieved. In examining where things have failed, I think we have in fact succeeded. My plan, our plan, has not survived reality. And I think that this is a good thing! Our inherent success has come from recognizing our points of failure. And in that process, we have and will identify the points of failure. From that examination a lesson, or lessons, will be learned and applied and we will therefore "succeed". "Failure" to learn and apply those lessons will in fact be the real "failure".