TGIF

[bjarvis]

My day started with an investor conference call in which my Dear Employer's senior management gave verbal reports on our dismal financials of the past quarter and took questions from large investors. I got to listen via an internal webcast. While it was interesting in its format, there was little which we didn't already know. In fact, the only thing which I found mildly interesting was now polite and civil our major shareholders were, especially considering how many mega-millions they must have lost holding our shares in the past year.

My only other big event of the day was deploying Solaris 10 on a Sun Fire V480 server. My group hasn't had the chance to do many of these deployments: my own business apps folks are much too conservative to consider something as "new" and "untested" as Solaris 10, so my opportunity came only when I was lent to another group briefly to help with their workload.

The installation itself went smoothly once I figured out that the CDs I was using were the source of my initial problems. After some minor gymnastics to upgrade the PROM, I was able to do a net-based installation in no time. I like leaving the office on a successful note.

Tom and Steve from Boston are at a family wedding tonight so we're on our own. We'll be touristy tomorrow during the day --as best as we can, depending on their other family commitments-- then plan on dinner in DC Saturday evening. Our plans for Sunday are still in flux.

Comments

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

I'm with the WSJ on this -- previous management should have been prosecuted for fraud. Current management then took on even more risk, which their bought-and-paid-for friends in Congress allowed them to do to expand their business. Congress just turned down a law to prevent them from donating to Congress! The corruption is clear. Most economists and observers want F&F broken up and sold, and the backing of the government removed. Management needs to go.

[urbear]

That would be the "new" and "untested" Solaris 10 that's been shipping since January 2005, right?

I still see customers complaining that we no longer have products that support Solaris 6, which first shipped 11 years ago. Hell, I see people complaining about our lack of support for NetWare 3.2, which dates back to 1989 and isn't even Y2K compliant.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

That would be the "new" and "untested" Solaris 10 that's been shipping since January 2005, right?

Yes. The product is only three years old which marks it to my overly-conservative apps people as an immature product not to be touched. 95% of our systems are Solaris 8 and will likely remain so for a few more years.

I can (kinda) understand their hesitation: the systems they have work well as is and heads would roll for any introduction of risk, no matter how trivial. Still, my professional skills are dwindling since I'm not allowed to touch anything not already a generation out of date.

[urbear]

The problem with that thinking is that eventually the vendor will discontinue support for the old product... and even if it continues to work, there will be no updates, in particular no security updates. I can't believe that would be acceptable to your Dear Employer.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

In the long run, it does hurt. The practice has been --as long as I've been around here anyway-- to wait until the last minute before a product goes end-of-service-life, then move up two steps to something which is 3-4 years old but still 2-3 years from end-of-service. Those proposing anything newer than 2 years are gently humoured then forcibly medicated.

The problem is largely the split in accountability: those in the front-line of apps operation are entirely separated from the realities of system support. So long as they have 100% uptime, they don't care how ancient or rickety the equipment is underneath. And when something breaks, it's not their fault 'cause after all they only run the apps not maintain the infrastructure. Our internal accounting procedures require the front-line folks to purchase the equipment so their numbers look great when upgrades are pushed off 1-2 years.

It's quite dysfunctional, hence my job search.