Operations and sysadmin groups (whatever your business calls them) tend to be where unrecognized business value ( / useful service and contextual knowledge) accumulates.
Also, where orphaned-but-vital projects go for life support. ;) I've seen several 'orphans' do nothing for years but generate large wads of revenue or goodwill... how many do these execs have within earshot? Re the mentioned examples of email @ university settings - surely the per seat cost is pretty minimal compared to overall revenue from each student? --elijah On Dec 18, 2011 12:50 PM, "Joseph Kern" <[email protected]> wrote: > There are two sides to this discussion, the Corporate Sysadmin and the > Production Sysadmin. The generic CFO probably does not care about the > services you offer. They only care how your services impact the > organization. From a business perspective all departments offer services, > even HR. Our services just happen to run exclusively on electricity. Here > are a few examples, one is soft and savory the other crispy and spicy. > > Corporate Sysadmin (you run services that assist in revenue generation); > > CFO: "What do you do around here?" > SYS: "I run the services that neutralize the advantage of our > competition." > Example: The wiki for sales training documentation, allows new sales > associates to quickly be brought up to speed on internal procedures. And > creates the opportunity for senior sales associates to share their > expertise in a informal (yet peer reviewed) environment. > > > Production Sysadmin (you run services that directly generate revenue): > > CFO: "What do you do around here?" > SYS: "I run the services that differentiates us from our competition." > Example: The backend for Amazon 1-click, since the launch of this service > we have seen a X% increase in sales while maintaining our 5-9's of uptime. > I have been assisting the development team in elminating bottle-necks and > have allowed X% more requests on the same level of hardware. > > > > I am not usually one to toot my own horn ... but this seems apropos ... > > I wrote an article that was just posted to sysadvent talking about > competitive advantage and the use of differentiation and neutralization of > IT services from a business perspective. > > http://sysadvent.blogspot.com/2011/12/day-18-why-businesses-do-things.html > > Pay especially attention to the further reading materials videos (yes I > know). It will give you excellent insight into how businesses view > software, innovation, and IT services (by extension). The concept of > neutralization and differentiation is extremely powerful in the context of > project work. > > The issue with engineers (myself included) is that we often loose sight of > what is "core" to the business, and what is "context". In our line of work > this can be an arbitrary and difficult distinction as so many services are > built upon the interdependence of other services. It all seems like "core", > but from a business point of view the reality is a bit different. > > On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 11:42 AM, Kenneth Voort <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Wow... >> >> This is a long way from a "moment's thought and a few words"... >> >> On 11-12-17 1:22 AM, Paul Graydon wrote: >> > We run our mail services in house. At the moment I'm kinda stuck >> > between a rock and a hard place, on one side the majority of our e-mail >> > and mailing lists operate on some bastardised qmail/ezmlm set-up (it's >> > running with patches I've not found anywhere else, and I'm fairly >> > familiar with the usual setup), and on the other hand we've got a Zimbra >> > server that provides some groupware stuff for staff, but was primarily >> > set up to allow us to host e-mail for a customer as a sweetener after >> > their previous vendor seriously messed them up. >> > The qmail just works, except when it doesn't and then its an arse to >> > troubleshoot and fix. Zimbra just works, but annoyingly frequently it >> > randomly breaks. Earlier this week it decided it didn't trust itself as >> > an MTA about half the time people tried to send e-mail through it. >> > The fundamentally broken upgrade procedures that I went through a couple >> > of weekends ago (likewise 6->7) I swear have added a few grey hairs to >> > my head. What should have been a simple upgrade resulted in 10 hours >> > straight work (aborted and reverted at 3am), 3 days the next week trying >> > to figure out what went wrong using a VM, and then a further day at the >> > weekend to actually get the upgrade done. The bugs I hit up against >> > were nothing new either, there are threads on their forums that Zimbra >> > technical folk appear on that are about the same problems I hit. The >> > bugs we hit post 7 drive me slowly crazy, though it's slowly getting >> > better and there are a bunch of improvements that are really quite >> > significant (filtering is hugely improved, for example) >> > >> > Next year it's on my schedule to migrate all of our mail over to >> > Zimbra.. you can guess how much I'm looking forward to that prospect! >> > >> > Paul >> > >> > On 12/16/2011 10:28 AM, Lawrence K. Chen, P.Eng. wrote: >> >> I spend most of my time dealing with e-mail issues. >> >> >> >> But, we outsourced our e-mail system about 3 years ago. >> >> >> >> Yes, I spend more time doing e-mail system stuff than I did before we >> >> outsourced it. >> >> >> >> We've also spent millions of dollars on the outsourcing of e-mail. >> >> The year before the decision to outsource it, the director level types >> >> were bragging that they only put $30,000 into e-mail. Don't know how >> >> much we had asked to upgrade e-mail a couple years earlier, but pretty >> >> sure we didn't know millions could be asked for. I think we did pry a >> >> little more than $30,000 out of them while we were keeping it running >> >> to the migration. Though we weren't supposed to make any significant >> >> changes or improvements to it (though at one point, they wanted us to >> >> take functionality out of it....because the provider wasn't intending >> >> to provide those features.) >> >> >> >> Meanwhile, one of the leaders of the campus system administrator group >> >> took a poke at central IT last week....about whether they're just >> >> paying us central sysadmins to keep the lights on, because the IT >> >> leadership keeps outsourcing everything. The CIO is on a mission to >> >> consolidate IT (there's talk at the state level that all the >> >> universities should consolidate their IT, not just within a >> >> university.) Though my manager has said repeatedly that you can't >> >> just take a department sysadmin and drop them into our group and make >> >> them central. After all, some of them used to work for central IT >> >> before they had to go into positions elsewhere on campus. >> >> >> >> On the upside....because we've outsourced e-mail. When it goes down, >> >> we can still do things like eat lunch. And, I don't have to deal with >> >> compromised accounts from hotel wifi when I'm at a conference, in >> >> training or on vacation. >> >> >> >> Our contract for outsourcing comes up for renewal in about 9 months. >> >> And, the CIO is talking about moving our mail somewhere else...except >> >> that estimates are that it'll take a year to make that kind of >> >> decision. The former associate VPIT used to say the threat of moving >> >> mail elsewhere was an attempt to get the provider to come down on >> >> price (and not just continue to not pay for other features we've been >> >> using, etc.) Except that now word is out, and people want us to >> >> switch now....though they don't really know what they want.... Just >> >> that it has to be faster, better, more features and be just like it >> >> was before we outsourced. (they want everything and nothing?) >> >> >> >> I think I used to do other stuff too.... and maybe I'll get to do some >> >> of that again before the end of the year. But, our service provider >> >> upgraded from Zimbra 6.0.10 to Zimbra 7.1.3 during Thanksgiving....and >> >> all sorts of new and old issues have come piling in. >> >> >> >> Meanwhile..there are some people that have come out and said that >> >> e-mail should've been considered part of our core business. Though I >> >> don't know if I'd want to have e-mail come back to us. Though >> >> officially, our e-mail administrator position has been vacant before I >> >> started here...since Google lured him away. Wonder if we would get >> >> real people to take care of e-mail if it did come back. Though not >> >> sure how much different we'd go... we'd probably run parts of Zimbra >> >> if we had to take it back.... The mailstore/web/client access could >> >> stay zimbra like. Its like how we wanted to redo e-mail if given the >> >> chance. Though we'd keep our separate MX, MTA, AV, SPAM layers. >> >> >> >> Though we first went with current provider, they had like 2 ldap >> >> servers, 2 proxy servers, 4 MTAs and 4 mailstores.....but somewhere >> >> the the 4 MTAs and 4 mailstores, became 7 mailstores/MTAs. Think >> >> there are 3 ldap servers now (one dedicated for the ironport that's in >> >> front of things now.) Nothing like answering, why was webmail not >> >> available during the test of the RAVE system? (and why wasn't it a >> >> problem before?) >> >> >> >> Though there's that strange feeling when the service provider is >> >> explaining that part of the performance problems we've been having is >> >> because of hacks we had done in the old system to make it work the way >> >> we wanted and that they had upgraded that system to the new version, >> >> rather than doing a clean install. And, the CIO wanting to know why >> >> we didn't do a clean install. Umm, it would wipe out all the existing >> >> data? >> >> >> >> Personally, I'd be fine...if I had to move all my mail out and then >> >> back after an upgrade. But, I'm not going to do it for anybody else >> >> (or worry about the share, invitee, etc. relationship stuff.) I'd >> >> like to reorganize how some of my e-mail is organized, and I haven't >> >> had time to clean up my inbox in a while. >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Who: Lawrence K. Chen, P.Eng. - W0LKC - Senior Unix Systems >> Administrator >> >> For: Enterprise Server Technologies (EST) -- & SafeZone Ally >> >> Snail: Computing and Telecommunications Services (CTS) >> >> Kansas State University, 109 East Stadium, Manhattan, KS 66506-3102 >> >> Phone: (785) 532-4916 - Fax: (785) 532-3515 - Email: [email protected] >> >> Web: http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~lkchen - Where: 11 Hale Library >> >> >> >> -- >> Kenneth Voort >> Packet Fiend Extrodianaire >> kenneth (at) voort <killspam> ca >> FDF1 6265 EBAB C05C FD06 1AED 158E 14D6 37CD E87F | pgp encrypted email >> preferred >> >> Help! Help! I'm being repressed! >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators >> http://lopsa.org/ >> > > > > -- > Joseph A Kern > [email protected] > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > >
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