Mailbag

Hello everyone, hard to believe we are in September already, 2010 has gone by fast. What an interesting year. 

I have gotten a great deal of mail this month, so let's get started in answering some questions. 

Q.  Windows 7 really better than Windows XP or Vista?
A.  I can tell you from my experience, I have been very pleased with Windows 7.  It is newer technology than that of Windows XP so not a fair compare, and it appears more stable and better performance than that of Vista.  I would recommend an upgrade and move to Windows 7.  The downside is the hard drive wipe and rebuild to get to it.  Make sure you have solid backups and tested backups!

Q. What is your opinion on Dell - still a good buy?
A.  I have been a Dell customer for many years, but the products have changed as much as the company.  I have concerns over product reliability, technology and customer service.  In addition, I don't have the sense the company has a leading drive anymore, they are distracted with many internal challenges and reorganizations.  I have to say I have quickly become a HP customer, both desktop and server.  I am impressed with the new desktop lineups, and server technology.  HP is truly a leader right now. 

Q. If you are asked to outsource part of your IT Group, what areas would you focus on?
A. This is a tough question, without all the background details.  I not a front runner on outsource IT options, though it can make sense in some cases.  You have to look at the drivers to this initiative, strictly a cost reduction, cost avoidance, or a performance issue.  That will help you determine some course of action.
I would take a good look at your day to day operations and see if you can gain anything in this space, and maintain your engineering, architecture, and application specialists.  But if you are looking to fill a gap, and don't have existing resources in that space, perhaps that is an option.  Be very careful looking to outsource as a cost saver, I have yet to find a successful case.  Most organizations go back to in house staff after a trial period for many reasons, but wasted a great deal of money.

Q. Why can't I get my management team to take backups and recovery serious?  It is always cut from the budget, I never get funding for it, and I know as soon as something goes wrong, they will blame me.  Do you have any suggestions?
A.  You are not alone, there are many organizations running on borrowed time when it comes to data protection - that is what we are really talking about.  If the management team does not take data protection serious, this should be an audit finding.  Data protection - backups, security, leakage and so on, is the responsibility of the senior management team.  You document the fact you put this in the budget every year, and you document the fact it is cut, then I would do one last effort and put together a memo to the team on the issue.  Clearly state the current state of affairs, the risk of what is in place today, the risk of not doing anything about it, and provide a couple solutions to the problem.  After you have done all of this, and they still do nothing, it is out of your hands.  When disaster strikes, and the data is gone, and the company is out of business, you have all the documentation you need to protect yourself.   I would recommend you also discuss recovery - how will you effectively recover from a disaster or hardware failure.  Important to backup all your data, important to be able to recover.

Q. What do you recommend for a new incident management toolset?  Should we consider a Software-as-a-Service solution?  Should IT keep their own tools and application in house?
A.  There are some good tools out there for incident management, some with a great price tag, and many features.  You need to find something that will foster ITIL methodology, you also need to be able to grow with it.  There is nothing wrong with saying we will look at a SaaS tool, that is not a poor reflection on the IT shop.  Do you want to spend your staff resources and cycles on supporting your own tools?  I think you have better things to work on - right?  You asked for a recommendation, which is hard to do not knowing all your environment, challenges and objectives.  I personally like the Service Now SaaS solution myself.  I think they offer a great product, it aligns with ITIL and seems to have some great features.  Check them out, you will be pleased.

That is all the time I have today.  Keep the emails and questions coming in, has been a few busy weeks, so I apologize for the lack of daily entries. 

Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net