On Mar 4, 2009, at 1:50 PM, Richard Chycoski wrote: > Your management may have similar (not-disclosed-to-you) reasons that > Exchange is 'the' solution for your environment. If you do your due > diligence, and give them technical and cost analysis data that show > the > financial impact to your organisation, and management still doesn't go > for it - it may not be because they are clueless, it may be because > *you* don't have the full picture. You might not like the full > picture. > It may include politics, partnerships, associations, donations, > financial incentives, and other 'soft' issues that go completely > against > the technical strain of your blood. They may even be covered up by > specious 'technical' arguments that have nothing to do with the real > reasons - and it is extremely frustrating to hear such arguments > paraded > out when you know that these are just cover ups for the real > underlying > issues - or worse, when you *don't* know.
It is foolhardy to make a decision by having the "technical" input and then the "non-technical" input. The "specious technical arguments" you mention highlights the danger in attempts to separate "technical" from "non-technical" debate. Proper System Design, and decision-making, does involve identifying pro's and con's, costs, features, advantages, and benefits, upsides, and downsides. Then we weigh those pro's and con's to arrive at a final decision. And, yes, it involves squishy things like previous agreements, pricing, and personal preferences, which cannot be weighed numerically but can be considered in the open. Squishy, non-technical issues will have direct effects on the technical issues. We technicians must not run from these debates. Remember that we bring our own squishy arguments, including preferences for tools we already know (like operating systems, or programming languages). But those serve as advantages/pros/upsides for the systems we already operate: e.g., I already have expertise running Unix-like platforms. Because each day of my salary is not free, supporting non-Unix platforms will therefore cost more. Cost is the most frequent "non-technical" element. Technical arguments, devoid of realities of cost, are worse than meaningless. A Cisco GSR could solve nearly every router selection question, but is a poor choice in many cases because of cost. The recommender will be ignored and discredited as irrelevant. We technicians can illuminate the true cost. "If you, Dr. Professor, insist on migrating to Microsoft Exchange, I will give you the true cost of the specific hardware, software, and support necessary to run it." mrl _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
