Over the years, I’ve witnessed some very strange network operations. Maybe it just comes with the territory, or maybe it’s just knowing so many hard-working IT managers who have some great stories to tell.

One of the early tales was of a Novell file server that went offline frequently in Norfolk, Va. I flew there with a couple of experts from Network General, back when they owned the Sniffer. We instrumented all sorts of things and captured traces galore. To find out what happened, you’ll have to read the column I wrote for Baseline Magazine here.