Uri Unplugged

I don’t know about you, but it feels like spam in my inbox is slowly creeping up, even though RADirect implemented an anti spam appliance on our network last year. It used to block over 98% of our spam, but now it feels like spammers are finding ways around it.

Just as I’m about to go to our engineers and ask them to try and tweak our appliance settings to improve its performance, I get an email from our anti spam appliance vendor, PineApp:

Subject: Unprecedented high levels of spam and image spam

Spam Doubles during the course of an hour
Spam reached unprecedented heights during the weekend of Nov. 18-19, more than doubling its usual intensity in a matter of hours. To give you an idea of how big the increase was, the graph below shows baseline traffic in one of the Commtouch Global Detection routers where you can see that in the morning it was at a fairly typical level, and then at 9:00 am, the required bandwidth jumped significantly, doubling within a single hour, and reaching peaks in a multi-wave pattern.

Image spam attacks intensify, grow more sophisticated
Spammers have unveiled new, sophisticated behavior for image spam, making use of text written in wavy lines (to fool OCR mechanisms) with patchwork-colored backgrounds (to fool other types of solutions). We have also identified “ASCII art” spam, with stock ticker symbols written out in numbers arranged as letters. These new techniques are almost impossible for traditional anti-spam technologies to catch. The attacks were unleashed on the Internet during the weekend in massive quantities, raising the spam and bandwidth count significantly. Commtouch anti-spam blocked some of these attacks, and missed some; however, due to the vast number of incidents, an above-average number of false negatives were reported.
The email goes on, but the gist of it is, there is a lot more spam, so even if detection rates are in the high 90s, you’re still going to see more spam in your inbox. On top of that, spammers are getting more sophisticated and anti spam solutions are constantly playing catch-up.

I did a quick search to try and verify this info with one of PineApp’s competitors and found this article in USA Today, citing stats from a variety of sources, including IronPort Systems. They agree that spam is increasing dramatically, and that it’s getting more and more sophisticated.

So the battle between spammers and anti spam solutions is intensifying. I just hope the latter will prevail (imagine what will happen to our world if not!). In parallel, I would like to see more legislation and real retributions against spammers, since it’s clear that we have to solve this problem at its roots.

Have you noticed any recent changes in the amount or type of spam reaching your inbox? What have you been doing to battle it? Post a comment and share your experiences.

Posted by Uri Zilberman at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the biggest challenges RADirect faces on the path to success is earning our customers’ trust enough to take on the role of their trusted advisor. Proving to them that we are on their side. Making them believe that we are different. Believe that we care about their well-being as much as we care about our own financial strength. Believe that the long term relationship is more important to us than the short term sale. Believe that we have the know-how, skill sets and desire to make every project we’re involved with a success.

One example of how we successfully built this type of relationship with a customer is illustrated in a recently published CRN Magazine article.

My experience has shown that once we manage to cross this road of trust, and have the opportunity to work with the customer on any given project, life becomes easier for all involved.

When we are granted the role of trusted advisor, or are consulted with as experts in a particular field of interest, this facilitates open communications and allows us to have more meaningful conversations relating to technology, opportunities, alternatives, budgets and so forth. We can better address the challenges faced by our customers, and design a solution best suited to help them overcome their hurdles.

If we could all only…
Speak our beliefs,
Believe what we’re saying,
And act upon the two,
Wouldn’t life be a little easier?

Posted by Uri Zilberman at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just returned from RAD Data Communications’ annual partner meeting in Eilat, Israel and came across an interesting article while I was there. Zohar Zisapel, (founder of RAD and 26 other networking companies in the RAD Group with aggregated 2005 revenue of $640 million) shared his thoughts on the most important upcoming telecom trends. I usually pay attention to what Zohar has to say because:
a) he’s my boss ;-)
b) with as many successful start-ups as he’s founded and his exposure to a wide array of technologies he generally has his finger on the pulse

Here are the biggest take-aways from Zohar’s article:

1. Wireless devices are getting smarter and more flexible, and are getting better at preventing transmission interference. These improvements can effectively increase capacities tenfold in the very near future.
With WiFi advances, for example: “…who of us wouldn’t want to get rid of the telephone and television cables in our homes? Why do we have to renovate our house every time we want to move the plasma screen? Why does every office need its own Internet and telephone infrastructure?”

2. Zohar sees particularly interesting developments in those areas that combine technologies; for instance video and communications as in the case of video conferencing and IPTV. Video and mobility is another interesting proposition, as in the case of video in cell phones and cars (both for communication and entertainment).

3. Yes, it’s the era of the social Internet, web 2.0, whatever you want to call it. But as to starting a web 2.0 company? You should act quickly, very soon it will be too late to catch this boat…

4. The world is not flat; it slopes towards Asia. There are more cell phones in Asia, more Internet users, higher growth of Skype users and even more blogs! The growth rate of all of these is faster in Asia than anywhere else in the world.

5. Higher bandwidth applications lead to demand for well, more bandwidth. This in turn creates demand for more security for that bandwidth, and more storage for all that content.
I think so myself, which is why I am expanding RADirect’s load-balancing, security and storage practices to accommodate this trend.

6. We’re entering an era of major technological battles; WIMAX vs. 4G, cable vs. ‘traditional’ service providers, Skype and VoIP vs. classic telephony, wire vs wireless. This is a tremendous opportunity for all of us, providing that we manage to identify the right trends and choose the winning technologies…

Posted by Uri Zilberman at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So what is the most important factor you should consider when planning storage networks? Is it IOPS as Robin Harris claims in his computerworld blog? Or is it capacity?

How fast is fast?

Ask yourself this: “If I can pay for a Lamborghini that goes 0 to 60 in under 3.0 seconds, should I buy one?” Most of us see this amazing $150k car and realize that it does nothing for our real world application (e.g. driving to work and back), except for stimulating our senses and heightening our egos. Then we ask ourselves:
1. What am I going to use this car for?
2. How much can I afford to pay upfront (CAPEX)?
3. What are the expected recurring costs (OPEX) to keep this baby running?

Finally, we come to the conclusion that the average $30k-$40k cars are really a much better fit for us. For that price, we can get a nice SUV with a built-in DVD player, a navigation system, a great sound system and reasonable MPG efficiency. You could probably even add some additional features that you think are important like ABS, 4x4, sunroof, leather seating, etc.

The best part, if you follow this line of thought, is that you’ve just saved some serious change (over $100k, or 75% of your CAPEX, in this example) to use on your other, more critical applications (perhaps the dream vacation you always wanted to take? a new deck? your daughter’s college tuition? all of the above?), They can be more important and productive expenditures according to your OWN set of priorities. That’s why the majority of us are still driving the more sensible cars. Unless, of course, we have unlimited funds and absolutely no concern about budgets and other usages for it.

The same planning process should apply in the storage arena. One should determine the best solution for a particular storage networking application by considering all the factors together; IOPS, capacity, features, cost, etc. This approach ensures higher efficiencies and better utilization of resources WITHOUT jeopardizing application requirements.

On our website, we try to highlight the most common and important planning factors for our customers, and include datasheets and whitepapers wherever possible. But the real work is best done in consultation with an experienced systems engineer who specializes in storage applications, has planned, implemented and operated dozens of installations, and can help you define your own critical parameters while maintaining reasonable associated TCOs.

Posted by Uri Zilberman at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Since 2000, I have been the president of RADirect, the North American online sales branch and systems integration house of RAD Data Communications, a worldwide leader in network access solutions. Since RADirect’s inception, we've evolved, building upon our success with RAD products and expanding into storage and security, allowing us to provide a full spectrum of solutions to our customers.

My team and I work with dozens of customers each week on all kinds of data storage and networking challenges, which gives us a front row seat to the “highs and lows of storage and networking” as well as a unique perspective on the industry: trends, bumps, new technologies, etc.

I’m using this blog to share my insights with you, in hopes that they will help smooth the process of identifying and deploying new data storage and networking solutions.

My entries will cover topics like pitfalls to avoid, smart strategies to employ, new technologies to watch, and sometimes more thoughtful opinions on topics I think are interesting and intriguing.

In short, if you’re facing a particular networking challenge for the first time, chances are, we’ve already tackled it (and probably more than once). So why not learn from our knowledge and experience and let us be your trusted advisor!

On a personal note, I live in Fair Lawn, New Jersey with my wife and two sons (ages 4 and 9). My background includes more than fifteen years of product development and management, business development, marketing and sales. Originally from Israel, I’m fluent in both English and Hebrew, and enjoy international travel with my family whenever possible.

Your comments, stories and insights are always welcomed! Please comment on postings or email me.

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Posted by Uri Zilberman at 06:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)