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We know we are in for a battle of epic proportions as he tells us for the gazillionth time "Leicester has set it up, they use it, it works, it's wonderful. It is the greatest thing since Bill Gates sat down in his garage, and put white text on a black screen and called it DOS!"
Yes, it's that time again. The new users have got to be created, and the management have come up with yet another fantastical, hair-raising idea to completely screw it up, make our lives uncomfortable, and confuse the users even more.
They have heard of this amazing new invention called 'the cloud'. A 'simple' solution to all of our problems. Actually it's a very complicated way to cause us yet more problems on top of the ones we already have. But there is no telling the upper classes of the bean counters; it's the latest thing. SO, WE MUST HAVE IT!
Going 'to the cloud' means that all users will be given an email address and storage area that becomes their own; for life (or so we have been led to believe). Even after they leave the company, it's theirs and everything it contains (although it has been decide they will be deleted when they leave).
It is hosted by an external company on their servers: Raided over and over again, and backed up in ways we can only dribble over. This means that we no longer have to store their files (you know the usual, important stuff: Their iTunes collection, wedding photos, holiday snaps, even the occasional porn video. Oh and their work.) on our servers, thus saving us precious disk space and money.
Great!?! Or NOT! With such luxuries there is always a price.
First of all, the people in charge have not taken into consideration the security issues involved in such a project. The main being that if we do not host the file servers any more, then we no longer have control over the contents. Yes, we got the occasional nasty file slip past our filters, but storing in the cloud will have little or no filters at all that we will have control over. Sensitive data would have the potential to be stored on servers outside of our control, and what about copy right restrictions? Yes it is down to the host, but in reality, how can they control the billions and billions of files that they are storing? In addition, where are these servers? Which country? Because each country had different copy right and data security laws. Can we be sure that all of our data will stay in the UK?
For some reason these questions fall upon deaf ears. The magic word has been said and the spell must be cast at all costs.
For some reason these questions fall upon deaf ears. The magic word has been said and the spell must be cast at all costs.
Then there is the problem of syncing the files to the users computers. Every time a user logs into a PC, ALL of their data will download to it, but ONLY if the software is installed to accept it. Worse still, if we get 10 plus people logging on to the same computer in a day, by the end of the week we are going to need a SAN for every desktop in the company, just to cope with the required storage space. And that's not to mention the bandwidth required to carry this out, our 100 Mbps fibre connection will crawl slower than old fashioned dial up.
The powers that be are finally convinced it's all a very bad idea, and not just because we have less than a month to start and complete the year long project. They see that it's going to be unproductive, expensive and very, very restrictive.
The project is laid to rest.
One Week Later...
"We need to have a meeting about setting up the cloud" the Boss says one morning. We all shudder and point out that the project was cancelled.
"Oh no" the Boss says. "We have to do it. We have the funding."
We scratch our heads, the project was cancelled by the very people who were going to use it, they all sat in the same meeting and agreed not to go forward. Our arguments (that include how pointless the entire operation will be) falls on deaf ears once again. Every sentence is countered in one of two ways.
"Leicester has set it up..."
or
"We have the funding..."
Leicester may have set it up, but they run an entirely different, not to mention smaller operation to us. For them is may be feasible, even advantageous. For us it is a complete waste of time, money and resources. We have since learnt that they only ran it for a few months before scrapping then entire system.
Our protests are ignored and we march blindly into the breach. I should note here that the people who said no in the first place, are still shaking their heads, not wishing for us to proceed further. We get visions of completing the project and the users completely ignoring it.
So it begins: Servers are built, curses are shouted, and we register with the cloud company. The preliminary set up goes well, but as we have come to expect in the world of IT, it was all down hill from there.
Turns out the that once the we have it set up, the cloud company decides to change tactics. They release an entirely different version of their system, with new features. All these work in an entirely different way.
To make matters worse they have completely changed the storage capacity for each user and the way in which it is distributed. They are now charging per person for something that a user can sign up to outside of our company and get for free (with more storage space).
Without a doubt, we have to have the latest version. I must point out that that NONE of the features are beneficial to us, any more than the original set up was. But it's OK. It's easy to migrate over as long we bring some specialists in.
A meeting is set up. Strategically booked when our senior guy is on holiday, and us mere mortals have to attend instead. Isn't organisation a wonderful thing? We understand about a quarter of the sales jargon from the two visitors that the company sends. Only they are NOT from the the cloud company, they are from a third party source.
We have a marketing guy there whose sole purpose in the meeting is to sell us as many days support as he can for a ludicrous price. The other is a technical guy. He is well suited and booted, and armed with a PowerPoint presentation that is about as clear as Dutch Haynes manual and nowhere near as useful. It impresses the Boss though, and because it's animated and has lots of fancy arrows pointing to lots of things we don't care about he laps it up.
We ask questions, pointing out our reservations that the project is not suitable for the company. Surprisingly enough, the technical guy agrees with every single one of our statements, but this does nothing to divert the cart from the mud track. The Bean Counters are oblivious to these shortfalls, and are just dreaming of how at the next regional meet will go when they proudly tell their competitors that our company is now in the cloud.
Apparently these guys can get us up and running preliminarily within 3 days of registering the upgrade with the cloud company and the rest within a fortnight because it is a lot more complicated.
The powers that be are finally convinced it's all a very bad idea, and not just because we have less than a month to start and complete the year long project. They see that it's going to be unproductive, expensive and very, very restrictive.
The project is laid to rest.
One Week Later...
"We need to have a meeting about setting up the cloud" the Boss says one morning. We all shudder and point out that the project was cancelled.
"Oh no" the Boss says. "We have to do it. We have the funding."
We scratch our heads, the project was cancelled by the very people who were going to use it, they all sat in the same meeting and agreed not to go forward. Our arguments (that include how pointless the entire operation will be) falls on deaf ears once again. Every sentence is countered in one of two ways.
"Leicester has set it up..."
or
"We have the funding..."
Leicester may have set it up, but they run an entirely different, not to mention smaller operation to us. For them is may be feasible, even advantageous. For us it is a complete waste of time, money and resources. We have since learnt that they only ran it for a few months before scrapping then entire system.
Our protests are ignored and we march blindly into the breach. I should note here that the people who said no in the first place, are still shaking their heads, not wishing for us to proceed further. We get visions of completing the project and the users completely ignoring it.
So it begins: Servers are built, curses are shouted, and we register with the cloud company. The preliminary set up goes well, but as we have come to expect in the world of IT, it was all down hill from there.
Turns out the that once the we have it set up, the cloud company decides to change tactics. They release an entirely different version of their system, with new features. All these work in an entirely different way.
To make matters worse they have completely changed the storage capacity for each user and the way in which it is distributed. They are now charging per person for something that a user can sign up to outside of our company and get for free (with more storage space).
Without a doubt, we have to have the latest version. I must point out that that NONE of the features are beneficial to us, any more than the original set up was. But it's OK. It's easy to migrate over as long we bring some specialists in.
A meeting is set up. Strategically booked when our senior guy is on holiday, and us mere mortals have to attend instead. Isn't organisation a wonderful thing? We understand about a quarter of the sales jargon from the two visitors that the company sends. Only they are NOT from the the cloud company, they are from a third party source.
We have a marketing guy there whose sole purpose in the meeting is to sell us as many days support as he can for a ludicrous price. The other is a technical guy. He is well suited and booted, and armed with a PowerPoint presentation that is about as clear as Dutch Haynes manual and nowhere near as useful. It impresses the Boss though, and because it's animated and has lots of fancy arrows pointing to lots of things we don't care about he laps it up.
We ask questions, pointing out our reservations that the project is not suitable for the company. Surprisingly enough, the technical guy agrees with every single one of our statements, but this does nothing to divert the cart from the mud track. The Bean Counters are oblivious to these shortfalls, and are just dreaming of how at the next regional meet will go when they proudly tell their competitors that our company is now in the cloud.
Apparently these guys can get us up and running preliminarily within 3 days of registering the upgrade with the cloud company and the rest within a fortnight because it is a lot more complicated.
With our senior guy back in command in HQ, and the upgrade registered we get it working within a couple of days. WITHOUT the external company. The Boss is somewhat disappointed that the specialists were not required after all (we think he was looking forward to another meeting). With their rates, I am betting they were disappointed too.
It's very anticlimactic. And expensive. It looks like the funding will not be enough. What we find once set up, only confirms what we have been saying all along: It's a waste of time and server space. Any features that we would benefit from have to be purchased separately, on a per user basis. They don't need funding so much as a second mortgage.
What we have set up works and works well. We just have no use for it without spending more money than they were trying to save in the first place. It's the same old story: Someone high up gets an idea from someone else high up in another company. This person from the other company has no clue how the idea works, but brags about it anyway. Our bean counters then decides we have to have something to brag about too. This is usually a person who knows as much about IT as they do about astrophysics. They are then blind and deaf to anything that the poor sods (us) who have to implement the idea have to say.
To make things worse, that same person has already started bragging before we are even informed about the project. To the company staff, to its customers and of course, other companies. When what we have been trying to say for last month finally sinks in, they look like complete and total twonks! Very professional!
All of this embarrassment could easily have been avoided in one simple step. TALK TO US AND LISTEN TO WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY! But who are we to have an opinion? We only do this for a living.
To make things worse, that same person has already started bragging before we are even informed about the project. To the company staff, to its customers and of course, other companies. When what we have been trying to say for last month finally sinks in, they look like complete and total twonks! Very professional!
All of this embarrassment could easily have been avoided in one simple step. TALK TO US AND LISTEN TO WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY! But who are we to have an opinion? We only do this for a living.
The project is once again on hold. It may have to be completed eventually, after-all, we do have the funding!
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