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Biography
Don MacVittie is a Technical Marketing Manager at F5 Networks. In this role, he supports outbound marketing, education, and evangelism efforts around development, storage, and IT management topics related to F5 solutions. His role includes authoring technical materials, participating in social and community-based forums, and providing guidance for the development of marketing resources. As an industry veteran, MacVittie has extensive programming experience along with project management, IT management, and systems/network administration expertise. Prior to joining F5, MacVittie was a Senior Technology Editor at Network Computing, where he conducted product research and evaluated storage and server systems, as well as development and outsourcing solutions. He has authored numerous articles on a variety of topics aimed at IT professionals. MacVittie holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Northern Michigan University, and an M.S. in Computer Science from Nova Southeastern University.
Interests of Don MacVittie
Areas of interest include Storage, Networking, Embedded, IT Management, and Compilers. Also gaming (Tabletop RPGs and Miniatures) in my free time. |
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Top Stories
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Throughout history there has been a cycle that ebbs and flows where new technology makes production more efficient and reduces the need for manpower in a particular space, thus forcing those in charge into the difficult position of deciding who stays and who goes. This is normally re...
Back when SaaS was making its debut in the enterprise, I was a mid-level IT manager with a boss that was smart. It was a great experience working for him overall, and if not for external pressures, I might still be working on his team.
One of the SaaS conversations we had was pretty r...
There are quite a few pundits out there that would like to convince you that a purely virtual infrastructure is the wave of the future. Most of them have a bias to drive them to this conclusion, and they’re hoping you’ll overlook it. Others just want to see everything virtualized becau...
It has been a while since I wrote an installment of Load Balancing for Developers, and now I think it has been too long, but never fear, this is the grad-daddy of Load Balancing for Developers blogs, covering a useful bit of information about Application Delivery Controllers that you m...
Every once in a while, as the number of people following me grows (thank you, each and every one), I like to revisit something that is fundamental to the high-tech industry but is often overlooked or not given the attention it deserves. This is one of those times, and the many-faceted ...
By now, everyone even vaguely familiar with information security knows the military maxim of blitzkrieg – burst through the hardened defense at a single point and then rush pell-mell to the rear where the soft underbelly of any static army lies. It is a good military strategy, provided...
There was an interesting discussion on one of the table-top wargame lists I belong to (Two Hour Wargames if you follow the hobby) about the “production value” of a given set of printed products. While it devolved (as web conversations often seem to) to a comparison with Hollywood, th...
There is a series of advertisements for Capital One aired in the US featuring Vikings talking about “more points” from their credit cards that asks “What’s in your wallet?” While they’re entertaining, I never understood what Vikings had to do with a credit card, other than perhaps both...
After a couple of weeks of vacation, some minor oral surgery, a birthday, and my five year anniversary at F5 Networks (has it really been that long?), I’m back to annoy or please you some more. Our holidays were acceptable, and here’s hoping all of you had an enjoyable time also.
One ...
The complexities of life often escape a young child. The Little Man asked me the other day why I had to go work, which was both a compliment to wanting to spend time with me and an unintended backhand slap at Lori, who was going to hang out with him while I took care of business. The a...
Ever try to explain something to a three year old that they don’t want to hear? It’s a chore. They change the subject, try to ignore you, turn away, and as a last defense, start asking “why?” a lot.
It is amusing that IT often suffers the same issues. Really. We’re adults, but at the ...
We at F5 – like most collectives of geeks - are constantly discussing the wide array of IT boondoggles that are out there, looking at which ones hold water and which are just passing fads. Often we’re debating which are passing fads. Today I received an email to a small group asking if...
It is entertaining to read all that is currently being written about DevOps. Having been a developer, a development manager, an operations manager, and even a CTO, I can attest to the fact that the “throw it over the wall” syndrome is real, and causes real problems for everyone involve...
There has been much made in Information Technology about the military quote: “He Who Defends Everything Defends Nothing” – Originally uttered by Frederick The Great of Prussia. He has some other great quotes, check them out when you have a moment. The thing is that he was absolutely c...
At our annual sales conference, Lori and I sat in on a great presentation by coworker Dawn Parzych that talked about the Internet, usage, and patterns. There are two interesting statistics that she presented, and I’ve munged them to generate a combined statistic. Dawn is our Product Ma...
I don’t usually talk a lot about F5 specific solutions, but since we’re the only ones doing this (so far), the contents of this blog are F5 specific. Though this needs to be industry standard.
So, you’re yearning for some chili. That’s understandable, this time of year is when those o...
Funny thing about the advancement of technology, in most of the modern world we enshrine it, spend massive amounts of money to find “the next big thing”, and act as if change is not only inevitable, but rapid. The truth is that change is inevitable, but not necessarily rapid, and somet...
Last week, InformationWeek quoted a Microsoft manager as saying there was “No chance” Windows XP would get another stay of execution. This really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, it was only the backlash from enterprises that kept Microsoft from ending support for XP over the last se...
The rate of change in a mathematical equation can vary immensely based upon the equation and the inputs to the equation. Certainly the rate of change for f(x) = x^2 is a far different picture than the rate of change for f(x)=2x, for example. The old adage “the only constant is change” ...
Developers are a great lot of folks, people who spend their day trying to do the impossible with bits for a customer base that is, by and large, impossible to satisfy. When the bits all line up correctly, the last line of code has been checked in, and the nightly compile accepted for d...
In many industries, it is all about word of mouth. I’m not talking about tech-savvy industries that have just rediscovered this truth since Social Media made it impossible for them to ignore, I’m talking about industries for whom it has always been about word of mouth… Take lawn care, ...
