Good, good... we agree that some things are indeed 'wrong" from a corporate perspective.
Apology accepted. -sc From: Jonathan Link [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2009 9:47 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Amusing As IT professionals, we are resposible for all facets of technology in the enterprise. User interaction with technoogy is but one part of the equation. For example you mentioned USB keys and the VPN. USB based memory could be a security issue in many organizations, and it would be IT's responsibility to implement solutions to deny their use. With a VPN selected users could be chose to have or not have access depedning upon the organization's needs, and it can even be more selectively enforced so only certain equipment is able to connect. Taking the aforementioned steps could hamper a user's ability to work, but is a necessary side-effect to meet an organizational goal. The example is simplistic and neglects other methods for distributing data outside of the enterprise. On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 8:55 AM, Steven M. Caesare <[email protected]> wrote: The statement was: "Who says what's "right," though? That brings us back to trying to force humans to adapt to technology rather than designing technology for the way users work." That was stated a general ideology. So you may say that in this context there was no reason to categorize the behavior as "wrong" (although you seemed to leave out the third leg of my concern, recoverability, which in Harris' example to which you responded would be a significant issues if users were allowed to store "everything" in their mailboxes.) I gave you a quick example of why we are in a position to say what is "wrong" to do. And I could easily come up with dozens of others. You'll notice I never said we shouldn't provide effective alternatives. But your response demonstrates that we often do have to call something "wrong" for very valid reasons. -sc From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2009 7:22 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Amusing I agree-but in this context, we weren't talking about behavior that was compromising network stability or organizational security. In the case you give, we as IT pros need to look at why users would prefer USB storage to VPN-ing. Is it because VPN is to slow? Too complicated? Too unreliable? Let's understand the underlying behavioral issues, and develop an answer that meets the user's needs. It may involve changing encrypting the data on the USB key. If encryption on the key isn't possible or is viewed as less safe than the VPN connection, then we've got to make the VPN connection as fast, easy, and reliable as the USB key is for them. John From: Steven M. Caesare [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 7:26 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Amusing I think when employee behavior compromises the ability to maintain a stable network and/or effectively store/manage/recover stat within the constraints (financial or otherwise) that the company imposes, it's "wrong" for that organization. Would you say storing critical data on USB keys instead of the redundant and backed up file server is "wrong" even if employees find it convenient to not have to VPN in? I would. -sc From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 10:05 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Amusing Who says what's "right," though? That brings us back to trying to force humans to adapt to technology rather than designing technology for the way users work. I used to fall more into the camp of believing that users needed to adjust their ways to fit the technology. But as I've worked on my Master's in MIS over the past year, I've done a lot of reading about human-computer interaction, human behavior, employee motivation, and related fields. My views have really shifted quite a bit. John From: Jon Harris [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 9:58 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Amusing I agree with several others that said just because you can don't make it right. I have one user whinning that wants to store EVERYTHING in his Exchange mailbox. His box is 1 GB at the moment and he has been hinting that he might like to have more. I only get lucky in that we don't control our email service some one else does and they have a hard and fast rule that 1 GB is the max and most will only get 50 MB total. Our users for the most part are use to using PST's to store their stuff and understand the (old) rule of 4 GB max in the PST. They know that when they blow the limit I don't fix the PST I delete it. (I actually just remove the file from the system and store it unless it is urgent.) One blown PST per year reminds them use the server for exchanging files not email. In some ways us being behind for so long is a blessing. They use to have open shares on every desktop and laptop until they lost several weeks worth of work when the user "owning" the file turned off the machine with other users using files on the machine. That got us our first real server. Now they would not even think to ask for open shares on their machines. My being an a$$ helps a lot as well. I love to say "I told you so" with a big smile on my face. Jon On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:44 AM, Carl Houseman <[email protected]> wrote: 9GB SCSI disks? I hope they're still stuck on Exchange 2000 as well... Swapping out 73GB or 150GB SCSI disks hopefully! As for memory/CPU, does eliminating SIS mean lower RAM or slower CPU requirements for the product? Doubtful. The thing they're eliminating is a bunch of tricky code the programmers don't like and which needs a lot of regression testing with each new release. You won't find anyone to admit that, but it's more than likely a major factor in the decision, with a nod from the bean counters who are already projecting savings from reduced staffing. Carl -----Original Message----- From: Ken Schaefer [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 9:28 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Amusing The harm might be increased CPU or memory usage, reduced scalability etc. Whilst you can quantify some direct benefits (more disks), I assume that most people will be swapping 9GB SCSI disks for new 1TB SATA2 disks that probably consume a bunch less power. Additionally the increased productivity if features are deployed correctly will, IMHO, save a bunch of energy. People are point the finger at data center power and cooling requirements, but look at how IT has transformed business - everything from online banking to systems that more effeciently route FedEd/DHL drivers to save time and energy. We really don't have enough information. I suspect that this is based on analysis of what's cost effective given real world data and complaints about the limitations of Exchange. We've had the same complaints about UAC or Office 2007 ribbon UI, 16->32->64bit computing. But with a bit of subsequent tweaking, I'm sure we'll not want to go back to what we had before. Cheers Ken ________________________________________ From: Carl Houseman [[email protected]] Sent: Friday, 29 May 2009 11:16 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Amusing I have to agree. What's the harm in leaving in a feature that is working perfectly well? We see this all the time, working features removed from upgraded products. They tried to do the same with PF's and we pushed back, and hopefully PF's will continue for the forseeable future. I guess it's too late to reverse the decision on SIS, but MS needs to understand that pulling features has consequences. Not to mention, just because running more cheap SATA drives is an alternative to SIS, doesn't make it a good idea. Running more drives means higher power consumption, more rack/floor space. Did MS miss the "green" bus here? There's public relations gold in being able to advertise green. Carl -----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 9:03 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Amusing On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Brian Desmond <[email protected]> wrote: > OK so before we go down the Exchange 2010 sucks because I think I > need single instance [attachment] storage route, let's look at some > other new stuff: I'm not saying Exchange 2010 doesn't bring anything to the table. It has a lot of really interesting features. For us, I know, the archiving capabilities are *really* interesting. But here's the thing: If someone has a product that has features that one uses today, and the next release of the product takes away those features, that's a step backwards. It doesn't matter that the new release is faster/lower/longer/wider, if it doesn't deliver what we're depending on today. Since we're using bad analogies: Look at your car. Say next year's model has a better radio, GPS navigation, power seats, and a built-in hibachi grill. But it gets 1/2 as many miles to the gallon. What do you care more about? (Again, scalability upward doesn't matter to us small shops. We don't care if you can run 3000 users per server where you could only run 1000 before. We only have 70 users; other small shops will have fewer, or a few hundred, tops.) /> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
