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Dan Snyder

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Director of Technical Operations

910 points

I have worked in 24x7 technical operations for 15+ years and have seen a wide variety of technologies and approaches in my time. I enjoy learning how specific technologies can have a measurable efficiency or cost impact.

Dan Snyder and 1 other person answered this question at this roundtable

Sept. 27, 2011

The Biggest Sin in Selling: Discounting! [9/22 @ 1 pm]

Which IT vendors have a no discount policy?

None of them.
Tell a "no discount" vendor that you have a $10 million spend coming up, but you're going to need a discount, and watch the discount appear.
Vendors who claim "no discounts" have one of two things going for them:
1.) A well thought out plan ... more

Customer Service

Information Technology

Dan Snyder and 4 other people answered this question

Sept. 14, 2011

Do SLAs have more/less importance depending on if you're running a private, public or hybrid cloud?

SLAs don't matter too much without severe consequences / remedies. When there are severe consequences / remedies, then they matter more in the context of a public or hybrid cloud.
If I guarantee 105% uptime to you in an SLA (which you'll note is impossible), but ... more

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

Dan Snyder and 5 other people answered this question

Sept. 1, 2011

How does consideration of disaster recovery impact data center planning?

The key to this is application design.
If your application is nicely distributed, i.e. knows how to use multiple databases fairly seamlessly, then it makes all the sense in the world to design multiple data centers out of the gate for redundancy purposes.
However, most applications are ... more

Information Technology

Disaster Recovery

Dan Snyder and 5 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Sept. 1, 2011

#TChat Radio: The Realities of Business Heresy [8/31 @ 4 pm]

If you really want the best talent, do you have to always pay for it? What else is there?

Of course you have to pay for it. Top talent is rarely stupid.
However, "pay for it" can take many forms, as John notes.
It can mean "equity instead of cash". It can mean "I'll deliver this product or service, and you publicize it or serve as ... more

Customer Service

General Management

Human Resources

Dan Snyder and 2 other people answered this question

Sept. 1, 2011

Maybe our debt isn't that big of an issue?....What are your thoughts?

This is an interesting stat, but fundamentally US debt is a big issue.
Just because other countries owe the US money, doesn't necessarily mean the US can actually collect any of that money if the US calls in the debt. Many countries who have taken US ... more

Dan Snyder and 1 other person answered this question

Sept. 1, 2011

What are the implications of Netflix losing Starz?

Content is on its way back to being king.
When there is a period of intense technological change, "middlemen" who embrace the new technologies quickly have a period where they control distribution and can make a lot of money in charging for access. But in the ... more

General Management

Business Development

Dan Snyder and 2 other people answered this question

Aug. 23, 2011

What should the United States do specifically to close the skills gap?

I don't understand why there aren't more government programs to support vocational training.
I think that college is not for everyone, but having deep expertise in a single area is never a bad idea. If there were more government programs supporting 1-2 year vocational training in ... more

Human Resources

Dan Snyder and 5 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Aug. 10, 2011

Security in the Cloud: Data Sovereignty, Open Source and Multi-Tenancy [8/9 @ 11 am]

Do you agree that the auditor is more feared than an attacker/hacker? Is this reasonable?

I would sign up in a heartbeat for the auditing firm that guarantees no successful attacks ever. Anyone know the name of that firm ? more

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

Dan Snyder and 5 other people answered this question

Aug. 9, 2011

Lightning strikes Amazon's data center in Dublin, Ireland. Could this incident have been avoided?

Yes, it is certainly possible to design data centers to survive lightning strikes or many other natural disasters.
The real question is if it is cost effective to do so ?
Outside of a certain PR hit, how many customers will Amazon lose as a result of ... more

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

Dan Snyder and 2 other people answered this question

Aug. 9, 2011

How will high-profile Amazon customers react to the recent outage?

Good luck ever hitting 99.9% uptime in an EC2-only setup.
Smart companies who have serious uptime requirements will continue to pull back from EC2. Amazon is currently averaging one serious and high profile outage every 6 months.
If you don't have serious uptime requirements, then EC2 continues ... more

Information Technology

Business Continuity

Cloud Computing

Dan Snyder and 3 other people answered this question

Aug. 3, 2011

What do you think of the new Debt Compromise? Is it a fix or just a band-aid?

I don't think the public was inattentive or badly informed on this one. I guess we'll see at the next election cycle. more

Congressional Budget Office

Dan Snyder recommends this answer by Roger Tung

Aug. 2, 2011

POLL: What is the one piece of info you think more startups should emphasize on their websites?

(E) Other: Put more real positive stories, use-case scenarios and results.
I feel that this department can always be increased. I don't think of it as 'tooting your own horn' but more in the sense of seeing how other's have experienced using your product/service, how ... more

Dan Snyder recommends this answer by Tibor Shanto

July 25, 2011

Are we owning the technology we're creating or is the technology owning us?

Good question, and Dude you know the answer, or you would not be asking!
Not only does it own us, it sells us, over and over and over, and we don't even get royalties. more

Information Technology

Quality of Life

Dan Snyder recommends this answer by Gail Tverberg

July 25, 2011

How will moving away from coal affect manufacturing and consumers?

I expect that if the US uses cuts back in using coal, the result will be to help countries which do continue using coal for manufacturing, because more coal will be available for export, and because these countries will become more competitive relative to the ... more

Dan Snyder and 2 other people answered this question

July 19, 2011

How should Netflix have positioned their price hike and why did they do it the way they did?

Netflix is in trouble. Their Starz deal, which I believe provides most of their DVD catalog, costs them $30 million per year. I believe that deal expires next year, and Hollywood is looking for Netflix to renew at $200 million per year, for what will ... more

Pricing Strategy

Public Relations

Dan Snyder and 2 other people answered this question

July 6, 2011

POLL: Do you think the US should have continued funding the space shuttle program?

No.
The shuttle program was a good program, but the shuttles are old, expensive, and more risky now. It seems to cost more to use and maintain them than the returns we were getting from them. And with the US being more or less broke, cutting ... more

Deficit Reduction

Dan Snyder and 2 other people answered this question at this roundtable

July 6, 2011

The Viability of Coal and Natural Gas as Alternative Energy Sources [6/27 @ 11 am]

What are the causes of the looming shortfall in coal production: inattention or peak coal?

Wikipedia's not the best source, but 2 Wikipedia articles confirm David's statements. Worldwide coal reserves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_by_country
Compared to yearly production / consumption:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coal_production
There is no shortage of coal anywhere in the world. And in a nice nod to world stability, the countries that use the most of it ... more

Alternative Energy

Dan Snyder and 2 other people answered this question

July 6, 2011

Why is Microsoft in the smartphone OS business?

The revenues in smartphones are quite high - the top 3 smartphone manufacturers in 2010 brought in $99 billion:
http://mobile-device.biz/content/item.php?item=29596
How much of that $99 billion is in device sales, and how much is in OS sales to device manufacturers ? I don't know. But if I ... more

Information Technology

Dan Snyder and 4 other people answered this question

June 29, 2011

Why would any company want to acquire Myspace?

I have to agree with Jeff. 20-30 million unique monthly visitors is a lot of traffic. A relatively cheap price to buy all of that traffic today.
Whether or not the new owners can do anything with that traffic, or keep it from declining even further ... more

Financial Markets

Dan Snyder and 5 other people answered this question

June 23, 2011

Facebook activity is now fair game for employment background checks. Any changes for you?

No, I can't find an example of that code release. I may be thinking of this:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_day_facebook_changed_messages_to_bec...
which happened 2 years ago, was a conscious design decision rather than a bad release, and probably wouldn't be repeated in today's climate.
Still, I can demonstrate my point about organizations ... more

Human Resources

Information Technology

Dan Snyder and 8 other people answered this question

June 21, 2011

What are some tips for creating a secure password? Should you never use the same password twice?

I'm primarily referring to Website login passwords, which typically would map back to an Oracle, MySQL, or SQL Server database. If a hacker is able to capture login info over a network, or steal one of the backend databases, it is easy enough to write ... more

Information Technology

Dan Snyder and 2 other people answered this question

June 21, 2011

How should businesses decide what to encrypt? Where should you start?

The first question should be "If this data were released on the Internet tomorrow, would my business be in trouble ?"
If that answer is yes, then the second question should be "Will it cost me more to get out of trouble, or cost more to ... more

Information Technology

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