+1 It's a staffing resource issue, not necessarily just an MS issue. If you staff for "just enough to run the org", the spikes in work become unmanageable. IT resource time is like having a given amount of money...just because they *want* everything doesn't meant they have the necessary resources to get it. <avoiding taking a tangent here....>
Or put into a car analogy, if you're already at full speed and then need to go faster.....you're screwed until you get more horsepower. "Look, you want me to fix the phone issue OR do you want me to protect 3000 systems from possible compromise?" It's management's choice when you're in a rock and a hard place. For most of us our job is to give guidance and make recommendations, but resource allocation is a management call. David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION (Desk) 971.222.1025 // (Cell) 503.267.9764 From: Kennedy, Jim [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 9:17 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Out of Cycle Critical Windows Patch to be released today, stay tuned I think Lifespan needs more people. Not giving you a hard time man, but it seems most of the pain you are having is because Lifespan doesn't have the staff to support the way things are, and the way they should be. MS would have released the patch last week if it was ready, or if it was done. They don't hate us, I honestly believe they understand our pain.... I am in much the same boat. Myself and 2 desktop techs for 3000 workstations, 16 buildings and 7000 users. And we get the phones, audio visual, our own cable channel and all of that along with it. Which for a school system is pretty big. When stuff like this happens to us I blame our staffing levels. From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 12:00 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Out of Cycle Critical Windows Patch to be released today, stay tuned Ok not so much of a trend, problem is they probably knew of the issue before this months patch cycle, and didn't release it with Critical rating on patch Tuesday but a week afterwards, during everyone(s) patching cycle for there information systems. Now we have to validate yet another patch and ask yet again for more downtime from the business on servers and workstations etc etc to get required patches on the machines to protect against the latest threat. What compounds it this month that there is already 11 patches to be tested, validated and deployed and vetted for issues afterwards, one of these patches is exploitable and could definitely lead to a worm (SMB flaw) now you add this remote exploitable, wormable patch, quiet possibly with public exploit code in the wild and active exploits, the risk factor goes up through the dam roof. Now imagine if you was the only person responsible for accomplishing all (4) tasks above, and this new exploit on top. That doesn't make for a happy camper in anyones reguards. Then factor the number of assets to protect by about 10,000. I think you start to get the idea, its pretty crystal clear in my mind. Z Edward E. Ziots Network Engineer Lifespan Organization MCSE,MCSA,MCP,Security+,Network+,CCA Phone: 401-639-3505 ________________________________ From: Michael B. Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 11:48 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Out of Cycle Critical Windows Patch to be released today, stay tuned Trend? This is the first out-of-cycle patch from MSFT since April 2007. Regards, Michael B. Smith, MCITP:SA,EMA/MCSE/Exchange MVP My blog: http://TheEssentialExchange.com/blogs/michael Link with me at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/theessentialexchange From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 11:39 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Out of Cycle Critical Windows Patch to be released today, stay tuned I am just pissed that they couldn't get this one out last week> Don't be surprised if you see a column in a leading magazine from me about this trend with M$ and other vendors. Z Edward E. Ziots Network Engineer Lifespan Organization MCSE,MCSA,MCP,Security+,Network+,CCA Phone: 401-639-3505 ________________________________ From: Tim Vander Kooi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 11:25 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Out of Cycle Critical Windows Patch to be released today, stay tuned The report on line shows Reboot Required if you open all the drop downs. It is for Remote Code Execution. It is Critical for Server 2003 all SPs and XP all SPs, Important for Vista/SP1 and Server 2008. TVK From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 10:19 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Out of Cycle Critical Windows Patch to be released today, stay tuned We wont know until 2:00est, I am assuming it is, and it's a bad one so there is probably exploit code for it roaming the internet and its probably wormable on top of it. Z Edward E. Ziots Network Engineer Lifespan Organization MCSE,MCSA,MCP,Security+,Network+,CCA Phone: 401-639-3505 ________________________________ From: Tim Vander Kooi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 11:16 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Out of Cycle Critical Windows Patch to be released today, stay tuned And it does require a reboot after install. I hate when out of cycle patches require reboots. I prefer when my users don't know. From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 6:28 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Out of Cycle Critical Windows Patch to be released today, stay tuned Importance: High Heads up gang, more patching for this month, this one out of cycle and critical no additional information yet. Z Edward E. Ziots Network Engineer Lifespan Organization MCSE,MCSA,MCP,Security+,Network+,CCA Phone: 401-639-3505 _____________________________________________ http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9117878&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1 As if the 11 patches this month wasn't enough, now they releasing an out-of-cycle critical patch, Gotta love patchin, Z Edward E. Ziots Network Engineer Lifespan Organization MCSE,MCSA,MCP,Security+,Network+,CCA Phone: 401-639-3505 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
