The dev guys here have been working hard (as usual) and I'm pleased to announce that we now have new versions of Orion NPM (Network Performance Monitor) and NCM (Network Configuration Manager) available for download. For existing customers with active software maintenance these are free upgrades. For folks that haven't bought Orion yet, you can download an evaluation version from SolarWinds.Com to try out for 30 days. Orion NPM version 9.5 offers several cool enhancements. My Top 3 would include wireless (it's built in now so that you can manage wired and wireless networks...

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This Thursday we're hosting a new webcast on some of hidden secrets of Cisco IOS. Specfiically, we're going to dive into Cisco IP SLA, NetFlow, and EnergyWise. I'm pretty excited as my buddy Jimmy Ray Purser (co-host of Cisco TechWise TV , Network World Blogger , and Security Expert/hacker extraordinaire) is going to be co-hosting and when you get two redneck supergeeks like us together it's bound to be interesting... You can sign-up and read the full description of the webcast here . Flame on... Josh Follow me on Twitter

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One of the things that I tend to talk alot about is how to raise the visibility of the IT and network engineering groups within your organization. If you get this right, not only will your job get easier but you'll find that getting budget approved for projects, staffing, and even pay raises takes a lot less effort. Calvin Sun over at Tech Republic makes some great points in his recent blog post on this same subject and with the financial crisis that is occurring right now there couldn't be a better time to start thinking about how to raise your visibility within your organization...

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