I was at a customer recently, who'd not long been live on their brand-new hardware with their homegrown applications and some COTS stuff. Their expectations were high, they'd done a Proof of Concept that had indicated some significant performance improvements might be possible, but they weren't getting what they expected. So I'd gone out to help...
Firstly, it transpired that they hadn't tested the system at all before going live. They'd already been live on the previous hardware, which was similar but les powerful, so why bother?? I asked why they'd removed the bulk of the testing from their "project plan" (a collection of notional activities and optimistic dates) - apparently management demanded that they go live on the declared date, even though the hardware had arrived much later than expected. I related this later to a colleague, and his response was "What would the management have done if the hardware had arrived after the demanded live date? Would they still have gone live?!". A good question, and one I will remember for later use.
Not only had they not tested the production hardware and software, they had gone live with no means of backup in place! Astounding. This was allegedly a critical system, making money for them every minute of the day processing customer sales and service. It had taken them quite a long time to cut-over the data in the first place - how long would it take to recover if anything went wrong? And it could...
Of course, if you're running a new live system, it would be good to have some quality monitoring and management in place, particularly given the complex nature of the system, and their declared emphasis on performance and user response time. They had no proper means of monitoring the system, other than a couple of hand-cranked scripts which reported on just one aspect of the system. Of course, when i pointed this out, they immediately installed the standard management and monitoring software - why not before they went live? Well, we know don't we...
Finally, they expected me to test and make changes on the production system. Now, the kind of processing involved used massively parallel processing, which was designed to use all the available resources in the service of an individual query - great on a system with a few, well-managed users, but on a system which was basically online for a couple of thousand users, with ad hoc query submission and user-created SQL... I don't think so. Too easy to make a minor modification, and have it bring everything to a virtual stop! Of course, they had a test system... which they hadn't set up yet, and certainly hadn't calibrated against their production system, in order to understand the performance relationship between the full-size production and the smaller test systems. Bah!! Madness!!
Is this client typical? I hope not. But increasingly, the approach of IT management seems to be "I don't care about your problems, my problem is we said it would go live, so it will...". Grim. Mad. And infinitely dense!
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Why this blog?
Because I wanted to capture more of the things that happen before I forget them.
Because I fancy being a critic of things.
Because I like the idea of exposing my fundamental humanity to myself.
Because exposing my fundament appeals.
Because the man at the bar is large and wearing a very dodgy large-flowered shirt-English of a colonial sort spoken here.
Because it's a waste to miss ideas that flit past otherwise forgotten.
No doubt I'll think of more reasons shortly.
Ok, the name? A Scottish colleague once talked such hillocks to a customer that they asked if that was the jingle of spurs they could hear...
Because I fancy being a critic of things.
Because I like the idea of exposing my fundamental humanity to myself.
Because exposing my fundament appeals.
Because the man at the bar is large and wearing a very dodgy large-flowered shirt-English of a colonial sort spoken here.
Because it's a waste to miss ideas that flit past otherwise forgotten.
No doubt I'll think of more reasons shortly.
Ok, the name? A Scottish colleague once talked such hillocks to a customer that they asked if that was the jingle of spurs they could hear...
Cairo Capers
Sitting in the hotel foyer, minding my own business, casually browsing interweb crap on my phone, and suddenly I'm being crowded by guys in white trousers and red waistcoats, armed with superannuated bongoes and variations on crumhorns, which are being exercised in the usual dull musos-warming-up fashion. Turns out there's a wedding in town!
The bride and groom make their entrance down the ostentatiously triumphal staircase, preceded by the Video Man, marked out by the blinding light that renders every shot flat and lifeless, probably because its glare sucks your life force and has you frantically shading your eyes. Now the music starts in earnest - that ump-diddy-umpbah rhythm that characterises all that ME stuff, and makes one realise that Jews and Arabs have more in common than they'd admit! Lots of kneebending handholding dancing, surrounded by the grateful guests, struggling to capture the moment forever on their phones, and the ambushed hotel guests, Italians, Americans, Brits, likewise marvel at the local colour to be caught on their poxy camera-ettes. Only one couple, Italian from their reading material, disdain to be drawn in. They have supercilious mouths. They could be brother and sister, or did they just grow similar, drawing features from their shared emotional landscape?
What am I doing here? Flew in yesterday to assist a customer to improve their new system's performance, on a couple of days' notice as the last man standing in the office. The work is a bit scarey, on the basis that I have no idea what I'm talking about until I've read the manual, but the travelling is interesting. Here's some stuff I jotted down yesterday coming in from the airport, about an hour by Toyota Avensis "limousine" (turns out the 150EGP fee was a good deal - how lucky was that!):
"Sitting in an air conditioned taxi, it's easy to make lyrical nooses about Egypt. All human life is here or at least that part of which has access to a motor vehicle. This is a multi-lane road, but people seem to be able to cross it with impunity. A pickup full of crates of tiny chicks is pursued by am ambulance with a weird wobbly siren. No idea how the cars part for it pass but they do. Crossing the Nile now, previously lots of very poor semi rise housing with garish clothes drying in the fumes, and a tea seller with a marvellous collection of chrome urns. This part doesn't look any different, huge variation in individual flats. , judging by the windows!
Pyramids - I can see them between the buildings and swoop of the road ramps, it's opening out here a bit, some grass and horticulture, sheep, same shit buildings..."
The bride and groom make their entrance down the ostentatiously triumphal staircase, preceded by the Video Man, marked out by the blinding light that renders every shot flat and lifeless, probably because its glare sucks your life force and has you frantically shading your eyes. Now the music starts in earnest - that ump-diddy-umpbah rhythm that characterises all that ME stuff, and makes one realise that Jews and Arabs have more in common than they'd admit! Lots of kneebending handholding dancing, surrounded by the grateful guests, struggling to capture the moment forever on their phones, and the ambushed hotel guests, Italians, Americans, Brits, likewise marvel at the local colour to be caught on their poxy camera-ettes. Only one couple, Italian from their reading material, disdain to be drawn in. They have supercilious mouths. They could be brother and sister, or did they just grow similar, drawing features from their shared emotional landscape?
What am I doing here? Flew in yesterday to assist a customer to improve their new system's performance, on a couple of days' notice as the last man standing in the office. The work is a bit scarey, on the basis that I have no idea what I'm talking about until I've read the manual, but the travelling is interesting. Here's some stuff I jotted down yesterday coming in from the airport, about an hour by Toyota Avensis "limousine" (turns out the 150EGP fee was a good deal - how lucky was that!):
"Sitting in an air conditioned taxi, it's easy to make lyrical nooses about Egypt. All human life is here or at least that part of which has access to a motor vehicle. This is a multi-lane road, but people seem to be able to cross it with impunity. A pickup full of crates of tiny chicks is pursued by am ambulance with a weird wobbly siren. No idea how the cars part for it pass but they do. Crossing the Nile now, previously lots of very poor semi rise housing with garish clothes drying in the fumes, and a tea seller with a marvellous collection of chrome urns. This part doesn't look any different, huge variation in individual flats. , judging by the windows!
Pyramids - I can see them between the buildings and swoop of the road ramps, it's opening out here a bit, some grass and horticulture, sheep, same shit buildings..."
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