Damned Outsourcers
Plumed L. Basilisk
Well designed, well built *NIX systems are way too stable.
Yesterday, I walked in to a huge voicemail company to "add some
scalability to their network" and in the process, segmented their *NIX
production machines from their dorkstations.
Since the dorkstations all access the 'net through a gateway, no changes
were needed except in DNS, but the *NIX machines didn't have any routes
other than to their own subnet.
So I went to the guy that hired us, and I told him that their *NIX admin
would have to add a route to the *NIX machines that needed access back to
the dorkstations.
"I am the *NIX admin."
"Can you add the route, then?"
"What's a route?"
"It's just a single command to tell them that the dorkstations have moved."
"Will it require a reboot?"
"No, just a single command. Are you familiar with the route command?"
"No, I've never needed to know that stuff, the machines just work."
"Who set them up for you?"
"Oh, we had this guy that was obviously too specialized to be useful -
after he set up the machines, he would just sit in his cubicle all day and
not producing anything recognizeable, so we had to let him go."
"Who fixes them?"
"I've been here 4 years, and they've never had trouble. I bought a UNIX
book to give our Exchange admin in case of emergency, he's pretty
technical."
"Who would you call if he couldn't fix it within the one-hour response you
guarantee your customers?"
"You, I guess."
Great. "Do you have the root passwords?"
"You mean these weird sticky notes in the server room?"
"Okay, I should be able to take care of all this for you, then."
"Make sure you let me sign off on any UNIX commands before you press
enter, and write them on stickers on the monitors."
How the FUCK do you have fifty million dollars worth of HPUX, SUN and SCO
machines and not keep someone on staff that knows their head from their
ass? Is this supposed to make sense to companies somehow?
--
Rob.R...@Canada.Com, Unicorn of Usenet & Bastard of Bandwidth
"If my son wants to be a pimp when he grows up, that's fine with me. I
hope he's a good one and enjoys it and doesn't get caught. I'll support
him in this. But if he wants to be a network administrator, he's out of
the house and not part of my family." Steve Wozniak, http://www.woz.org
Mark W. Schumann
Plumed L. Basilisk <Rob.Russell@-www.cauce.org-Canada.Com> wrote:
>How the FUCK do you have fifty million dollars worth of HPUX, SUN and SCO
>machines and not keep someone on staff that knows their head from their
>ass? Is this supposed to make sense to companies somehow?
The amazing thing is, most of the time you can get away with that.
True, all hardware sucks. True, all software sucks. But in the
right environment you can get away with very little tweaking once
your Unices are properly configured.
"Total cost of ownership," y'know.
Why yes, the Unix admin costs 20% more than the NT admin per hour. But
you need him for half an hour every couple of months, not constantly.
As your story demonstrates.
Suresh Ramasubramanian
> True, all hardware sucks. True, all software sucks. But in the
> right environment you can get away with very little tweaking once
> your Unices are properly configured.
Heh. I don't think NT admins get all that spare time to read a coupla dozen
(newsfroups|lists|/.) things at a time. That's _yet_ another reason to ditch
NT and switch to *nix ;)
Of course, $PHB (and especially, $HR_DROID doing peformance assessments) gets a
totally wrong impression ...
-suresh
Ralph Wade Phillips
"Suresh Ramasubramanian" <dev...@hserus.net> wrote in message
news:slrn9pkvnt....@blackehlo.cluestick.org...
> Mark W. Schumann [alt.sysadmin.recovery] <8 Sep 2001 20:21:34 GMT>:
> > True, all hardware sucks. True, all software sucks. But in the
> > right environment you can get away with very little tweaking once
> > your Unices are properly configured.
>
> Heh. I don't think NT admins get all that spare time to read a coupla
dozen
> (newsfroups|lists|/.) things at a time. That's _yet_ another reason to
ditch
> NT and switch to *nix ;)
And everyone{1} seems to wonder why I consider learning PH-UX
recovery?
RwP
{1} For values of everyone that equals 1.
c...@nospam.netunix.com
BTDTGTTS - this seems to be a regular occurrance nowadays.
Modern unices are so damn reliable that you can get away with it
for quite a while so long as you dont forget rule 1.
I have developed a special set of rules for these victi^Wcustomers.
1) If it aint broke dont fix it.
2) I am at least 100 miles away.
3) If you cant take the downtime you should have paid a full time monk.
4) My rates are proportional to your pain.
5) You are in no position to argue about rule 4.
6) I'll be there as soon as I get a round tuit.
7) See rule 3.
8) Dont forget rule 1 [STR]
Fscking skinflint luser PHBs - Pahh Humbug.
Make them pay.
--
From the quill of Chris Newport G4JCI, RCC, ex ZS6N.
If you want my real address go figure it out from the headers or
bugger off, keep your shit to yourself, and boil your head.
Spammers will be educated with a chainsaw.
Earl Grey
> Fscking skinflint luser PHBs - Pahh Humbug.
> Make them pay.
In advance?
--
They tell me that you're going to try posting to Alt.Sysadmin.Recovery.
It's a Magnificent Idea; A Daring and Splendid Idea! It will be FUN!
Assuming you're not vaporized, dissected, or otherwise killed in an
assortment of supremely horrible and painful ways! Exciting, Isn't It?!
Joe Zeff
>8) Dont forget rule 1 [STR]
You are Lu-Tze, and I claim my bonsai mountain.
--
Joe Zeff
The Guy With the Sideburns
Complaining about the wait times doesn't make them shorter.
http://www.lasfs.org http://home.earthlink.net/~sidebrnz
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
In <9ndg4m$lfo$3...@bertrand.ccs.carleton.ca>, on 09/08/2001
at 04:14 PM, "Plumed L. Basilisk"
<Rob.Russell@-www.cauce.org-Canada.Com> said:
>How the FUCK do you have fifty million dollars worth of HPUX, SUN and
>SCO machines and not keep someone on staff that knows their head from
>their ass? Is this supposed to make sense to companies someh
Sure. It won't be his fault when the balloon goes up. It never is.
Cynical? Why do you ask?
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
Reply to domain acm dot org user shmuel to contact me.
"He was born with a gift of laughter,
and a sense that the world was mad."
Matthew Garrett
West wrote:
> (Of course, there are a lot more crap Linux admins than there are crap
> Solaris admins... at least IME.)
There are probably a lot more Linux admins than there are Solaris
admins, these days, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Or did
you mean proportionally? (Assuming also that by admins you mean people
who actually spend some degree of time and effort on it, as opposed to
anyone who plays any part in keeping a Red Hat box roughly perpindicular
to the ground. Things are probably worse otherwise.)
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-alt.sys...@srcf.ucam.org
Mark W. Schumann
Roger Burton West <ro...@nospam.firedrake.org> wrote:
>In article <9nduke$4fe$2...@plonk.apk.net>,
>
>*BSD boxes that make up a lot of farms these days...
Hypothetically. It seems to be a common whinge among PHBs that Unix
variants are too expensive because of high admin costs. They don't
realize how _little_ adminning you have to do in a stable Unix
environment. (For certain values of "stable.")
>(Of course, there are a lot more crap Linux admins than there are crap
>Solaris admins... at least IME.)
There are certainly more wannabees there.
Paul Tomko
>you need him for half an hour every couple of months, not constantly.
>As your story demonstrates.
Good thing the airlines haven't implementd a similar policy. "Gee, these
things practically fly themselves. We'll just have a pilot program the
destination, then fire his butt."
Just like pilots, we try to do everything by routine, and when something goes
really wrong, that is when we shine. If something doesn't go wrong, that
says that we've done an excellent job of automating things.
Paul
--
Paul Tomko pa...@tomkoinc.com http://www.tomkoinc.com
10000+ Humorous Quotes http://www.tomkoinc.com/quotes.html
"Even if you can deceive people about a product through misleading statements,
sooner or later the product will speak for itself." - Hajime Karatsu
c...@nospam.netunix.com
>
> *BSD boxes that make up a lot of farms these days...
>
> Solaris admins... at least IME.)
>
I suppose there are regional variations. 20% more than a solitaire
expert would not motivate me to get out of bed.
OTOH, MCSEs are a shilling a dozen in .uk but Solaris/E10k/Cluster
monks are a very rare and expensive breed. The demand is currently
dead, but it will pick up again.
Many of the MCSEs are playing with Linux and getting DeadRat
certified to try to escape, but the rates there are only a bit better.
A good first step on the ladder though.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
Ralph Wade Phillips <ral...@consultant.com> spake:
> "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <dev...@hserus.net> wrote in message
> news:slrn9pkvnt....@blackehlo.cluestick.org...
>> dozen >> (newsfroups|lists|/.) things at a time. That's _yet_
>> another reason to
>> ditch >> NT and switch to *nix ;)
> And everyone{1} seems to wonder why I consider learning PH-UX
> recovery?
Well, I'm about as much of a fan of it as anyone can be said to be,
which isn't to say I love it, but it's okay... I'm used to it, and I've
never had any really bad experiences with it, so I'm still wearing
rose-colored glasses. But even I wouldn't call it *recovery*; certainly
not administration of it. It's just less awful than some things you
might be doing, just as you might prefer a root canal to letting a bad
tooth drive you insane with pain.
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"You have grown old in the fine art of bastardy. My compliments."
-Suresh Ramasubramanian
Matthew Malthouse
}
} How the FUCK do you have fifty million dollars worth of HPUX, SUN and SCO
} machines and not keep someone on staff that knows their head from their
} ass?
are the bits that are stuck up their arses. Ergo their arses must be
the bits that have heads stuck up them.
Matthew
--
Il est important d'être un homme ou une femme en colère; le jour où nous
quitte la colère, ou le desire, c'est cuit. - Barbera
Somewhat new, vaguely improved, now with added 2001:
http://www.calmeilles.co.uk/
Matthew Malthouse
}
} Heh. I don't think NT admins get all that spare time to read a coupla dozen
} (newsfroups|lists|/.) things at a time. That's _yet_ another reason to ditch
} NT and switch to *nix ;)
}
} Of course, $PHB (and especially, $HR_DROID doing peformance assessments) gets a
} totally wrong impression ...
Which is why one instance of slrn has dozens of tech groups subscribed
with asr loitering inconspicuously about 1/3 the way down the list.