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Grant Sewell is a frequent contributor to Thwack and the Orion forum, where he adds valuable feedback and provokes thoughtful discussions that all Orion users can benefit from. Grant first discovered SolarWinds through our popular free tools, like TFTP Server and Advanced Subnet Calculator, but quickly moved on to implementing Orion after a 3-day trial of the product. Today, Grant uses Orion and its modules to manage a multi-site nationwide mesh network that supports thousands of users. We appreciate Grant’s contributions to Thwack and his commitment to the SolarWinds community!
Q. How long have you been in the networking industry and why did you get involved in it?
A. I'm still a young guy - I think my first introduction to real networking was helping support the token ring network at my high school. A district of 8000 people on a Novell network relying on a single T1 pipe for Internet was full of challenges.
I started out nearly setting fire to the house (who hasn't?) fiddling around with my first $50 garage sale computer. I started with dial-up 14.4K, and became addicated to local BBSs. Eventually moved to AOL and 56K, and finally 768K high-speed DSL in 2002.
My first "real job" out of college was supporting a growing 75+ person office, mostly help desk. I have a lot of formal Cisco training, and put it to use as the office network grew to a nationwide partial-mesh network.
Q. How did you hear about SolarWinds?
A. Can't you find everything with Google? I had experience using HP OpenView, and looked at some Open Source alternatives. I had used a lot of the Solarwinds Free Tools (TFTP Server, Advanced Subnet Calculator) but had never looked at Orion. After running the trial for 3 days, I was sold.
Q. What were the specific business problems and challenges facing your work that influenced you to use SolarWinds?
A. As is common in most networks, we began to grow beyond our original imaginations. From a single-site 75 person office to a multi-site nationwide mesh network supporting thousands of users, we needed management and awareness. I think what finally did it for me was the day I tried to access a web application, and received no response. After 15-minutes of troubleshooting, I found the SQL server was unplugged. No notifications, no alerts, nothing. Solarwinds Orion now gives me alerts on server failures, disk space, environmental conditions, and response times - now I know when something goes down. Solarwinds' products were the easiest to setup, the most intuitive to use, and certainly the best bang for my buck.
Q. Are you a member of other networking communities?
A. I float around the Cisco Networking Professionals Connection, but most of my research and contributions go to Thwack.
To see Grant's latest postings and user information, visit Grant's forum profile.