Inbox Zero – How I (still) do it after about 10 years…

Introduction

A bit less than 10 years ago I posted about “Inbox Zero“. Though for as long as I’ve known the concept, I’ve been an avid fan/believer of it. Over the course of the years, I’ve evangelized about the concept to many, where a lot of people typically asked me : “Isn’t that really time-consuming?!?”. My answer has always been ; “It is a habit… And indeed, you invest a bit of time into it, though the gains of not having to pick up the same email(s) over and over again is where you easily win!”.

 

Theory

The basic premise of Inbox Zero is that your inbox is at all times.. EMPTY!

For a lot of people this seems impossible to achieve, though you realize this by going though the following flow for each mails that comes in… at the time it comes in. So yes, you “immediately” (as in the moment you open your mailbox) process all new mails. How do you do that, by the following rule set…

1. Do I/we need to care?
   1. No, Delete.
   2. Yes. Great! Is the mail something I should do?
      1. No, Delegate (forward).
      2. Yes. Interesting! Can I reply in less than 2-3 minutes?
         1. Yes, Respond (reply).
         2. No, Defer (flag for follow-up). => And schedule times to where you’ll focus on burning through your “backlog” (read: deferred mails), so Do.

 

Practical Guidance

That sounds quite simple to do? So why don’t we all do it?!? From what I’ve seen, it starts with not knowing / being taught the system. And on the other had, it also requires a given level of discipline / organization to achieve it. Though in my mind, it can be accomplished by all if you are just given a bit of practical guidance. That’s what we’ll be talking about today!

Azure ExpressRoute : Exchange or Network Service Provider, which is better for me?

Azure ExpressRoute : Exchange Provider or Network Service Provider, which is better for me?

Looking for more detailled information? Check out the following pages…

• ExpressRoute technical overview
• Configure an ExpressRoute Connection through a Network Service Provider
• Configure an ExpressRoute Connection through an Exchange Provider

Microsoft Azure : How to connect my Enterprise? Expressroute or VPN?

Microsoft has been going at warp speed last year (and it looks this pace will be kept) with the features they have been adding to Azure. In the beginning when I came into contact with Azure, one of my first questions was ; “How can I hook up Azure in my Wide-Area-Network (WAN)?” The answer at that point was a kinda flaky VPN connection. About a half-year ago, Microsoft released “ExpressRoute”. This was the answer Enterprise customers were looking for in terms of hooking up Azure to their WAN. So let’s take a look at your options…

Basically, you have five options to connect to Azure ;

Internet (public)

• Medium : Public
• Network : Public
• Capacity: No explicit cap
• Connection Resilience : Active / Active
• High Level Solution : Your “typical” enterprise internet
• Typical Usage : Almost everything in Azure that isn’t linked by the underneath mentioned services.

Virtual Network – Point-to-site

• Medium : Public
• Network : Private
• Capacity: Typically 100 Mbit Aggregates
• Connection Resilience : Active / Pasive
• High Level Solution : A point-to-site VPN also allows you to create a secure connection to your virtual network. In a point-to-site configuration, the connection is configured individually on each client computer that you want to connect to the virtual network. Point-to-site connections do not require a VPN device. They work by using a VPN client that you install on each client computer. The VPN is established by manually starting the connection from the on-premises client computer. You can also configure the VPN client to automatically restart.
• Typical Usage : Proof-of-Concept, Prototyping, Evaluation, …

Virtual Network – Site-to-site

• Medium : Public
• Network : Private
• Capacity: Typically 100 Mbit Aggregates
• Connection Resilience : Active / Pasive
• High Level Solution : A site-to-site VPN allows you to create a secure connection between your on-premises site and your virtual network. To create a site-to-site connection, a VPN device that is located on your on-premises network is configured to create a secure connection with the Azure Virtual Network Gateway. Once the connection is created, resources on your local network and resources located in your virtual network can communicate directly and securely. Site-to-site connections do not require you to establish a separate connection for each client computer on your local network to access resources in the virtual network.
• Typical Usage : Small scale production workloads, development/test environments, …

ExpressRoute – Exchange Provider

• Medium : Private
• Network : Public
• Capacity: up to 1Gbps
• Connection Resilience : Active / Active (customer managed)
• High Level Solution : Azure ExpressRoute lets you create private connections between Azure datacenters and infrastructure that’s on your premises or in a co-location environment. ExpressRoute connections do not go over the public Internet, and offer more reliability, faster speeds, lower latencies and higher security than typical connections over the Internet. In some cases, using ExpressRoute connections to transfer data between on-premises and Azure can also yield significant cost benefits. With ExpressRoute Exchange Provider, you can establish connections to Azure at an ExpressRoute location (Exchange Provider facility)
• Typical Usage : Mission Critical Workloads

ExpressRoute – Network Service Provider

• Medium : Public
• Network : Public
• Capacity : up to 10Gbps
• Connection Resilience : Active / Active (telecom provider managed)
• High Level Solution : Azure ExpressRoute lets you create private connections between Azure datacenters and infrastructure that’s on your premises or in a co-location environment. ExpressRoute connections do not go over the public Internet, and offer more reliability, faster speeds, lower latencies and higher security than typical connections over the Internet. In some cases, using ExpressRoute connections to transfer data between on-premises and Azure can also yield significant cost benefits. With ExpressRoute Service Provider, you can directly connect to Azure from your existing WAN network (such as a MPLS VPN) provided by a network service provider.
• Typical Usage : Mission Critical Workloads

Network Seggregation

So if I get ExpressRoute, how will my network flows go?

Basically, the private solutions will ensure that your company communication will not traverse over the public internet. You can configure your service to either use the internet connect of Azure, or your own hop, to breakout towards public services. Let’s say for instance, if you want to download updates, you could set it up that those are done via Azure, instead of going back over your ExpressRoute link in order to break out from within your own premises.

Decision Chart

So what does this mean for a typical Enterprise?

It depends on your scenario…

• Looking to get do some raw testing?
  Isolated Test : Internet only
  Integrated : Point/site-to-site vpn
• Hook up your development/test environment in a lean manner? Site-to-site vpn
• Azure as a Disaster Recovery location? Dependent on your size …
  Small IT Landscape : Site-to-site
From a few TB : ExpressRoute
• Azure as a Primary Datacenter : ExpressRoute Service Provider

References

Where can I find additional information?

• Virtual Network Overview
• ExpressRoute
• ExpressRoute: An overview
• ExpressRoute or Virtual Network VPN – What’s right for me?
• Hybrid Cloud – take the ExpressRoute to extending your VPN into the Microsoft Azure Cloud

The IT Crowd stance on writing Advice Documents

After writing the a post about writing an advice document a while back. Now I’ve created a storyline presentation themed by “the IT Crowd” ;

How to write an advice document?

Too often… I notice that people stumble with writing advice. With some basic guidance, this shouldn’t be that hard!

So what should an advice document look like? Let’s start with the high level skeleton of this document ;

Management Summary
Most (upper) management does not have the time / interested to go into details. Do not get annoyed by this, it’s just how it is… Therefor start off your document with a “management summary”! This in fact an Elevator Pitch or the details of the document below. In regards to timing, this is the last chapter you write. Yet do NOT put it at the end as a “Conclusion”, but in front as a “Management Summary”.

Context
Context matters! Really… CONTEXT MATTERS! 😉 Describe the specifics of the environment you are working in. Describe the culture, the principles at hand, the history of things, … anything that matters into shaping your advice.

Current Situation
Do not jump to conclusions! First describe the starting point… Why do you want to advice things? There is nothing wrong with the way we are working now, or is there? Give an indication towards the circumstances and the effect of those aspects.

Ideal Situation
Now describe your “ideal” (given the context!) situation. Provide a thorough insight into the aspects the ideal situation solves and the motivation why you want to change things.

Path to…
Now we know the starting & the targeted goal, so it is time to set the path. In most cases, an immediate jump towards the end goal is not feasible. In that case, describe the intermediate steps that need to be accomplished to reach the goal.

I hope this was helpful and improves the advice documents you write. Anyhow, here is a quick cheat sheet to in case of emergency… 😉