The Network Rockstar Challenge

By Brian Boyko
Contributor, [GAS]

For too long, network administrators, engineers, and architects have longed for a way to determine dominance within the IT pack. Unfortunately, those efforts have been stymied without a quick and convenient way to determine IT knowledge on a quantitative scale, leading to unsatisfying substitutes like Guitar Hero or Halo tournaments.

Finally, we have solved this problem. The Network Rockstar Challenge is a way for enterprise IT geeks to determine who’s got the biggest IT chops. Much like the old “You Don’t Know Jack” games, the Challenge asks you ten network related questions with a ten second time limit. Get 7 or more, you’re a rockstar. Six or less, and you’re tossed out into the alley. The faster you get the questions right, the more points you score.

I do have to warn you – the questions are HARD – even for people in networking, and the time limit makes it even tougher.

Full Disclosure: The game is being produced by NetQoS – the network monitoring solutions company which signs my paychecks at my day-job. We even created a video to promote the game – showing off some of our (ill-fated) beta testers trashing a conference room. Conflict of interest be-damned, though, it’s still a sweet game. (In my opinion, it’s best played with friends shouting answers over your shoulder.)

If you’re taking a long time to load up the game, some users have been able to speed it up by dumping their browser cache and reloading.