IT Life: Looking For Answers

Security analyst Jonathan French has been working with AppRiver for six years – and is expert at DNS, scripting and networking. His hero is Nikoa Tesla.

What has been your favourite project so far?
There’s not one single large project as I enjoy solving a variety of problems and issues. My favourite things to work on are the ones where I end up finding a solution after thinking something couldn’t be done.

What tech were you involved with ten years ago?
Not too much really. Ten years ago, I was an average end user. I could get on the internet but that was about it.

What tech do you expect to be using in ten years’ time?
Ten years is quite a long time to be guessing about technology due to how quickly everything advances. I’m hoping for more secure systems, faster networks, better virtualisation, and more energy efficient technology.

Who’s your tech hero?
Nikola Tesla (pictured),

Who’s your tech villain?
I don’t think I have any one person I would consider a “tech villain”. I guess it would be anyone opposing new and promising technological developments for immoral reasons.

What’s your favourite technology ever made? Which do you use most?
I’d have to say the computer. The advancements caused by the creation of the computer have been mind boggling. The internet of course goes hand in hand with that.

What is your budget outlook going forward? Flat? Growing?
Growing hopefully. Luckily I started young with making good financial decisions so I hope to keep up that track record.

Apart from your own, which company do you admire most and why?
Amazon. They have managed to keep up a good reputation for customer service and offer a wide variety of services (including hosting services, video streaming, and of course shopping).

What’s the greatest challenge for an IT company/department today?
Customer service. As more and more people switch to hosted solutions, the need to support end users grows. A company needs to be able to grow along with their customers and be able to provide the support they need. If someone has a good hosting provider with terrible customer service, it makes them dread having to deal with the provider. Your customers shouldn’t dread speaking with you. That won’t help a business grow.

To Cloud or not to Cloud?
This is a tough question many companies face. Referring to “the cloud” is a very broad and debatable term. For many companies and businesses, moving their services to a hosting provider can be one of the best moves for their business. For others, it just may not be a good solution for them or the provider may not be able to accommodate certain needs. I think one of the main trends for people moving to hosted services is that they are able to offload maintenance, uptime, facilities, etc to the provider and leave their data in capable hands. Me personally, if I had to run a business critical server, I would have it hosted for the reasons I listed.

What did you want to be when you were a child?
An electrician. I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands and designing electrical layouts.

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