On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 3:59 PM, Wintermute, Sharon
<Sharon.Wintermute@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Unsupported software? That's my responsibility. In the last 5 years I
have had to make a total of 3 changes to support his business. If he
I doubt you can support V3Rx, mostly because you don't have access to
it's source code ;)
doesn't want to upgrade that's his call.
Yes. I can still think it's a bad call, no matter who made it.
You can get replacement parts,
he just didn't have them on-hand. Now he keeps drives on site instead
of waiting.
What if the planar fails? Or something else? How long is the recovery
window in those cases?
I disagree with the idea that you have to be on the latest and greatest
to be competitive.
Yep. The Power5 systems (in all it's iterations, they can be called
one, two or three generations of hardware, depending on how you count
a "generation") are not "the latest and greatest". They are still
fully supported, can run current versions of i OS and HWMA for them
doesn't cost all that much. IBM still actively releases new firmware,
and they're even supported for the V6R1 successor.
Power5 systems are fine if you need that, for his
needs the 150 is perfect. Not running on a power5 is not WRONG.
If he can live for a week or two without IT, still running a 150 isn't
"wrong". But most companies i know can do that. And by most i mean
"not one".
The definition of a good product is not necessarily that it is "current
and supported" by the manufacturer. As long as it provides a benefit to
the business then it is filling its need.
Yes, but business planning needs to take into account others factors,
which may or may not occur. The 150 may fail. It may it. Maybe it
works for another 20 years without a hitch. Maybe the PSU will short
and it will burn his entire house to the ground in the next 5 minutes.
Neither of those two cases are likely to happen, so you'll to plan for
a way to remediate failure of his machine - which will happen, sooner
or later.
Don't you realize how many products are "not supported" yet still being
used?
A lot. Still doesn't make it a good idea :)
Why should I buy that 2009 truck when the 1986 version still
works and can be "supported"?
It's roughly the same as with IT. A 1986 truck may work without
anything but routine maintenance, but that doesn't mean that it'll
always stay like this.
Look, i've spent countless hours on my job to fix mistakes made by
people who thought that it's a good idea to run 10 y/o systems without
any maintenance in a business-critical function - this is just wrong
on any level, no matter how reliable something has been in the past.
It is absolutely vital that a customer keeps his hardware, his
maintenance contracts, and all his software current and supported. Not
doing so WILL bite him in the ass, sooner or later. And someone will
need to be there to clean up that mess.
Of course, arguing here is pointless - you've made up your opinion,
and i've made up mine. I've seen companies going down the drain
because their IT crashed, and their disaster recovery strategy was
nonexistent. All these problems are not related to the platform the
customer is using - they're related to whoever manages their IT, and
whether they do a proper job at it.
midrange.com
