Hear hear. And now that this Microsoft-centric mentality has spread to
management, I am concerned that there will be serious consequences down
the road. I just heard that the US power grid control systems have been
hacked. Imagine if the US were invaded and the power grid was taken down
at the same time. I am only guessing but the fact that the system was
compromised makes me think two things.
1. It is physically contected to the Internet. (Bad idea #1).
2. It was Windows-based. (Bad idea #2) Can an easy to access system be
secure? Isn't that an oxymoron?
Charles Shaffer
Senior Analyst
NTN-Bower Corporation
"JPB-U2UG" <jpb-u...@hotmail.com>
Sent by: owner-u2-us...@listserver.u2ug.org
04/18/2009 05:53 PM
Please respond to u2-users
To: <u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org>
cc:
Subject: Re: [U2] UV to SAP migration disaster
I can't speak for everyone but if it's anything like at our place, it's
due
to lack of education. UniVerse is contains all of our business logic and
Microsoft is used for our presentation layer, desktop and web. We have 3
programmers working on UniVerse with an average age of 55. In our windows
area we have 10 programmers with an average age of 25. Most of the people
coming out of the colleges and universities only know one platform
Microsoft. They are taught nothing about processing data, database
structure, proper logic, or problem solving. They are not even being
taught
Unix anymore. I think the colleges are doing their students a disservice
because most businesses are still running other platforms for their
business
logic and only have windows as the presentation layer. This causes a
problem
because when the business wants to hire someone they don't have anything
except these 90 day wonders to choose from. The candidate has problems
because they have never been taught how to use anything other than the
windows tools. This isn't exclusive to U2, it's a problem with any of the
proprietary operating systems/products and anything on Unix/Linux. This
gives the PHB's the mistaken impression that anything not windows is
obsolete and they should scrap what they have and go towards all MS or
anything else that looks pretty. The new programmers are more than happy
to
get on board with the idea because most of them want to be working in what
they are taught. They don't know what business logic is and they think it
would be a walk in the park to switch. After all they were able to build
that web page, right? They, of course, forget that the data had to be
there
before they could present it. The PHB's find that there is a bigger pool
of
willing low cost employees to choose from and force all of their people
that
actually know the business logic off the payroll. Then the nail is in the
coffin. The new programmers all of a sudden discover that there is
something
happening in the background that they were not aware of, they try to
reproduce it but nothing seems to work the same as it use to. Pride takes
over and nobody wants to admit that they may have made a mistake. They
don't
notify the PHB's that there is a problem, they start panicking, they don't
want to rehire the employees they got rid of, so they hire some
consultants
that don't know the business logic any more than the people that are
there.
It's not the consultants fault they were expecting that someone at the
company knew something about how the company operates. By the time all of
the problems come to light the company is on the brink of bankruptcy.
Where
does the blame go, the people that left were at fault for not giving the
youngsters all of the information they needed.
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Rex Gozar" <rgo...@autopower.com>
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 4:38 PM
To: <u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org>
Subject: Re: [U2] UV to SAP migration disaster
> I've been wondering why the Shane Co. felt the need to migrate away from
> UV.
>
> * Was their IT staff unable to meet business requirements due to the
> limitations of UV?
>
> * Was their IT staff to blame, rather than the UV database environment?
> (i.e. understaffed, lack of skills, etc.)
>
> At any rate, it appears that either (or both) caused Shane Co.
management
> to look for a different solution. Under the assumption "if it ain't
> broke, don't fix it" I would think that management thought something was
> broken, and they needed to spend money to fix it.
>
> Does anyone have any first-hand knowledge of the specifics? Anyone care
> to share their insights?
>
> rex
>
> John Hester wrote:
>> There were a few posts back in January about Denver jewelry retailer
>> Shane Co. and their disastrous migration from UV to SAP. Today they're
>> starring in an eWeek slideshow about I.T. disasters:
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