My Legacy to the DOST-ASTI

When I was still studying, I always say "It's just a matter of
technique...". It's one of the reasons why I achieved high in my
college years. To be able to get high grades and do everything even
the difficult ones, we should learn the technique. Today, I was able
to get to see my web calendar and I realized, time is running fast! My
27th birthday is on February 22. Im getting old but my worth is
getting less. It's time to concentrate on what I really want to do
with my life even if I have few people who supports me, even if my
team mates leaves me, I will still continue to work coz I know God
would teach me how to do things right!
ASTI is implementing a re-org this year and PREGINET project is ending
by May 2005! If PREGINET is ending on May 2005, i only have 4 months
in PREGINET. If ASTI is re-organizing, where do I place myself?
Eventhough, I prefer continuing in R&D, the problem is the project
availability not unless I propose a new project which I can't still do
right now. If PREGINET is ending by May 2005, did I finish my purpose
as one of the team members of the PREGINET team? When I entered
PREGINET, I have been focused on network management/monitoring where I
get to do R&D and software development on network monitoring tools.
The implementation of simple MRTGViewer/Weathermaps in the network is
good as it is really being used by the Network Operations team in
network monitoring. My release of MRTGViewer has given me some
ppularity in the open source community. Also, because of some
researches, it has given me many opportunities to travel or attend
local/international conferences. But, the implementation of
weathermaps which is not originally developed by myself is not that
outstanding. It would be better if I could leave a legacy on network
management/monitoring not only for PREGINET but also for the open
source community.
From the point of view above, I would say that my real purpose in
PREGINET is to be able to deploy a scalable and locally developed
network management system. If only I can develop a setup which
PREGINET can show to th visitors that this system was developed here
in ASTI and it features many nice things which are better than the
commercially available software. My travel to Ireland is just a
sub-opportunity and the real job is in PREGINET or ASTI. What Im
saying is that I should finish what I started and leave a legacy on
the field of network management to PREGINET and to the international
opensource community. I know its difficult but I have to take the risk
and its also for my own benefit. I should be able to plan it well coz
the time remaining is very short. In three or four months, I should be
able to finish everything and show my execellence in this network
management area.
With the very short time left to accomplish all things, what do I want
to leave as a legacy? When I leave PREGINET, what would they say about
me? In terms of my career development, what do I gain from PREGINET?
Will I be that competitive in terms of network
management/monitoring/software development if I will work in other
companies or in other country? Am I person that is worth knowing? Will
I be able to overcome my weaknesses after the project? Will I be able
to travel abroad because of this project? Will PREGINET be satisfied
of my output and be able to use it? I guess there are still many big
opportunities. I just have to work hard inorder to do this. Im now
ready to sacrifice everything for this project and for my career
development.
Ok, now I need to lay out my workplan for the first quarter of this year 2005!
Steps in developing a workplan?
- What is the real purpose of PREGINET/NetMon? Assess the situation.
- What are the problems that needs to be addressed?
- What are the strategies, goals and objectives?

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As I work today on Saturday at ASTI, Im quite excited in going to work
even if I have an abscess. I realized while browing noc.pregi.net and
pawikan.pregi.net that I have done so many things in network
management especially in the development of tools that can be used for
PREGINET. Im also sad to realize that this simple projects could have
been impoved and implemented if the project and company are supportive
of what I am doing. I felt a little lonely coz this has been the case
in ASTI. Maybe, this is really the case in this government company. No
wonder that there have been a lot of projects conducted by institute
but only few becomes usable. This might be because of the lack of
support of the company in its employees... the lack of belief to the
capabilities of the researchers and the lack of respect to some of the
employees... Due to this realizations, Im really pushed to end of the
line where I now have to find a better company who will support me in
achieving and making the most of my potentials. There is no point in
developing a great product if there is no market for it. The
development of Pawikan which I can say as a hard-to-reach dream is
somethinga three-team development team is doing in substitute to what
should be a big development team inorder to achieve a better product.
The lack of marketers for new products is also one of the major causes
of unsuccessful development of Pawikan. Pawikan is a big software
development project that needs to have the complete compositsions of a
softwre development team. I suddenly realize while Im testing Pawikan
yesterday that what Im doing is really difficult. Imagine being a
developer and a tester at the same time. If this is the case, I
believe that the development of big software by a small development
team is really bound to failure. But I dont want to mark Pawikan as a
failure. Why dont I shift my focus from development to solutions
integration. Im sure its going to be too late to shift focus. What Im
saying is to make use of the nice features of Pawikan and integrate it
with the current network monitoring tools such Network Weathermaps,
MRTG/MRTGiewer. MRTG presents an easy way of monitoring the network
especially its current up/down status using the MRTGViewer tool.
Pawikan's network discovery is a nice tool for discovering the network
inorder to see which targets can be monitored. Using the Cricket's
complete collector system coupled with the rrd2sql tool which allows
long-term storage of the network statistics makes it ideal for network
analysis and billing analysis. Using Pawikan's Java GUI's,
visualization of complex nodes and links can be made easy.
NetCartographer can be used for overall network visualization
including the traffic. errors, discards, cpu status etc which are not
available in the MRTG/Weathermaps. With this available tools which
really addresses the requirements of the users, I think I dont have to
punish myself from doing the impossible. Besides, I really want to
transfer to other company. If Im going to continue planning for the
Pawikan development with only myself left which is serious, its is
very difficult. Can't I leave a simple legacy to the PREGINET network
using this available tools?
This is my legacy as I can see it in my vision....
The Network Operations Center of PREGINET uses in-house developed
network monitoring tools and other integrated network management tools
which has functionalities for performing network discovery, Java-based
network topology visualization, network traffic mapping, network links
downtimes monitoring, customer/partners billing, and other simple
tools that makes network management of the nationwide R&E network a
little bit easy and costs almots zero on software used. The network
management system of PREGINET consists of these components:
- Data Polling/Storage System (pawikan core, netdisco, cricket, snmp database)
- Data Visualization System (mrtg/network weathermap, netcarto, netbrow)
- Customer Usage/Billing System (downtimes, link usage/performance reporting)
- Troubles Management System (otrs, sms gateway, audi/visual alarms)
- Network Analysis & Security System (netflow, snort)
I think this little plan is easier for me... I'm a person who wants to
work with simplicity. KISS -- "Keep it simple stupid!" as they say.
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