What Are You Doing Right Now
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@coliver said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
I hate making errors. Brought our website down for 4 minutes due to a misidentified power cable. >(Why is your website locally hosted? Seems like that would be an easy fix.
Old application that apparently requires the environment it's in. I'm not a dev for it, so I cannot give a "why"
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@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@coliver said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
I hate making errors. Brought our website down for 4 minutes due to a misidentified power cable. >(Why is your website locally hosted? Seems like that would be an easy fix.
Old application that apparently requires the environment it's in. I'm not a dev for it, so I cannot give a "why"
Logically a dev couldn't tell you "why" either as nothing on the dev side would influence hosted or not hosted. That's purely on the infrastructure side.
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I'm about to head back to the convention. It's dinner time.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@coliver said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
I hate making errors. Brought our website down for 4 minutes due to a misidentified power cable. >(Why is your website locally hosted? Seems like that would be an easy fix.
Old application that apparently requires the environment it's in. I'm not a dev for it, so I cannot give a "why"
Logically a dev couldn't tell you "why" either as nothing on the dev side would influence hosted or not hosted. That's purely on the infrastructure side.
You're probably right. I don't touch our web application; thus, I know not its requirements. I'll take a look at the build script it uses sometime and see if I can glean some information as to why it requires (if it requires) our environment.
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@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@coliver said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
I hate making errors. Brought our website down for 4 minutes due to a misidentified power cable. >(Why is your website locally hosted? Seems like that would be an easy fix.
Old application that apparently requires the environment it's in. I'm not a dev for it, so I cannot give a "why"
Logically a dev couldn't tell you "why" either as nothing on the dev side would influence hosted or not hosted. That's purely on the infrastructure side.
You're probably right. I don't touch our web application; thus, I know not its requirements. I'll take a look at the build script it uses sometime and see if I can glean some information as to why it requires (if it requires) our environment.
By "your environment" are you referring to your LAN or are you referring to the system build that it is running on?
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@scottalanmiller Both. The system it runs on. The system that hosts the database it uses, and the LAN that connects them.
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@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller Both. The system it runs on. The system that hosts the database it uses, and the LAN that connects them.
It's a general purpose database that does other things AND the website?
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OMG, this person wants to newly deploy a Pentium IV "server" that wasn't even a real server when it was new like 17 years ago!! And they want to run 2008 R2 in a new deployment as well.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller Both. The system it runs on. The system that hosts the database it uses, and the LAN that connects them.
It's a general purpose database that does other things AND the website?
No. Database is just for the website. Box 1 is IIS that runs a .net application (that's basically the business) which talks to a SQL server database (Box 2) as well as a SMTP server (Box 3, which also runs REDIS and our backup software).
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@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller Both. The system it runs on. The system that hosts the database it uses, and the LAN that connects them.
It's a general purpose database that does other things AND the website?
No. Database is just for the website. Box 1 is IIS that runs a .net application (that's basically the business) which talks to a SQL server database (Box 2) as well as a SMTP server (Box 3, which also runs REDIS and our backup software).
If that statement is true, then you need no further information and there is no reason that the website runs locally - it was just a mistake or oversight. No one to check with, no need to follow up. You know from that statement, assuming that it is correct, that you can just package up the databases and the web server and host them externally. There is no environmental dependency, it's fully contained as its own thing.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller Both. The system it runs on. The system that hosts the database it uses, and the LAN that connects them.
It's a general purpose database that does other things AND the website?
No. Database is just for the website. Box 1 is IIS that runs a .net application (that's basically the business) which talks to a SQL server database (Box 2) as well as a SMTP server (Box 3, which also runs REDIS and our backup software).
If that statement is true, then you need no further information and there is no reason that the website runs locally - it was just a mistake or oversight. No one to check with, no need to follow up. You know from that statement, assuming that it is correct, that you can just package up the databases and the web server and host them externally. There is no environmental dependency, it's fully contained as its own thing.
That's what I figured, which is why when I've inquired a few time about "why aren't we hosting this on X" the answer basically boils down to this is how it's been for a decade or two. Goal of the person in charge is to get to where all of this runs in something like Azure rather than running on our servers at a data center.
Problem = I'm not in a position to decree it to be done and start the process.
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Heading to rehearsal.
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@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller Both. The system it runs on. The system that hosts the database it uses, and the LAN that connects them.
It's a general purpose database that does other things AND the website?
No. Database is just for the website. Box 1 is IIS that runs a .net application (that's basically the business) which talks to a SQL server database (Box 2) as well as a SMTP server (Box 3, which also runs REDIS and our backup software).
If that statement is true, then you need no further information and there is no reason that the website runs locally - it was just a mistake or oversight. No one to check with, no need to follow up. You know from that statement, assuming that it is correct, that you can just package up the databases and the web server and host them externally. There is no environmental dependency, it's fully contained as its own thing.
That's what I figured, which is why when I've inquired a few time about "why aren't we hosting this on X" the answer basically boils down to this is how it's been for a decade or two. Goal of the person in charge is to get to where all of this runs in something like Azure rather than running on our servers at a data center.
Problem = I'm not in a position to decree it to be done and start the process.
I'm starting to sense a pattern in other companies as I see in mine. The true IT pros are the ones pushing buttons and pulling levers, but are not the ones that can often make choices like this.
Therefore, how do we talk to management in a way as to persuade them to make a decision? Go back to business talk? For so long as we're running on local hardware it costs us so much per month with these pros and cons versus hosting it somewhere else with these pros and cons?
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@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller Both. The system it runs on. The system that hosts the database it uses, and the LAN that connects them.
It's a general purpose database that does other things AND the website?
No. Database is just for the website. Box 1 is IIS that runs a .net application (that's basically the business) which talks to a SQL server database (Box 2) as well as a SMTP server (Box 3, which also runs REDIS and our backup software).
If that statement is true, then you need no further information and there is no reason that the website runs locally - it was just a mistake or oversight. No one to check with, no need to follow up. You know from that statement, assuming that it is correct, that you can just package up the databases and the web server and host them externally. There is no environmental dependency, it's fully contained as its own thing.
That's what I figured, which is why when I've inquired a few time about "why aren't we hosting this on X" the answer basically boils down to this is how it's been for a decade or two. Goal of the person in charge is to get to where all of this runs in something like Azure rather than running on our servers at a data center.
Problem = I'm not in a position to decree it to be done and start the process.
Likely it's nothing more than an afternoon project.
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@NerdyDad said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller Both. The system it runs on. The system that hosts the database it uses, and the LAN that connects them.
It's a general purpose database that does other things AND the website?
No. Database is just for the website. Box 1 is IIS that runs a .net application (that's basically the business) which talks to a SQL server database (Box 2) as well as a SMTP server (Box 3, which also runs REDIS and our backup software).
If that statement is true, then you need no further information and there is no reason that the website runs locally - it was just a mistake or oversight. No one to check with, no need to follow up. You know from that statement, assuming that it is correct, that you can just package up the databases and the web server and host them externally. There is no environmental dependency, it's fully contained as its own thing.
That's what I figured, which is why when I've inquired a few time about "why aren't we hosting this on X" the answer basically boils down to this is how it's been for a decade or two. Goal of the person in charge is to get to where all of this runs in something like Azure rather than running on our servers at a data center.
Problem = I'm not in a position to decree it to be done and start the process.
I'm starting to sense a pattern in other companies as I see in mine. The true IT pros are the ones pushing buttons and pulling levers, but are not the ones that can often make choices like this.
Therefore, how do we talk to management in a way as to persuade them to make a decision? Go back to business talk? For so long as we're running on local hardware it costs us so much per month with these pros and cons versus hosting it somewhere else with these pros and cons?
Back to business talk? That's all we should ever do unless talking to other IT folk and even then most of the time.
Not only should you talk that way. You need to think that way.
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@NerdyDad said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
I'm starting to sense a pattern in other companies as I see in mine. The true IT pros are the ones pushing buttons and pulling levers, but are not the ones that can often make choices like this.
This can be a mistake of management letting the wrong people be in charge. But often it is a mistake of IT not doing their role in being part of the business.
The demarcation point between IT and business has to happen somewhere. If IT people talk in tech terms, they cannot be the demarcation point and someone else has to be. If that person doesn't understand the tech and/or doesn't understand the business, bad information gets passed on.
That's why I push IT so hard about how to think about things, why we think in risk terms and financials all of the time. That's our bread and butter. The button pushing isn't what makes us valuable, that's icing, not the cake.
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Changing how we think, though, is a good first step. Make ROI and TCO things that are in your head all of the time, not just things that you go to when you need to convince management of something. Also, you shouldn't need to think about how to convince management because, in theory, whatever convinced you should be the same thing that convinces them.
Example: You want to update to Windows 2016 from 2012 R2. That's great, but why do you want to upgrade? Is there a new feature that will save you money? How much money? Does it provide better protection, better performance or less management time?
If you can't convince management of doing something, there are three significant possibilities:
- You work for morons.
- You want to do something you shouldn't want to do.
- You didn't communicate properly.
Chances are, morons didn't end up owning a business (but they do decently often, it's far from a zero change.) So more likely it's either a communications thing or you want to do something for a non-business reason. And in business, non-business reasons are wrong.
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When you think in business terms, you'll talk in business terms. When you have a drink with the owner after work instead of raving about the latest cool feature in the filesystem that means nothing to him, you might chat about product lifecycles and lower cost of implementation with greater predicability to increase planning potential.
Understanding things like Capex, Opex, Sunk Cost, Time Value of Money, TCO, ROI and such and putting everything that IT does into those terms changes how departments interact with IT.
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Grilling out
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At rehearsal now. I'll catch up with the thread when I get home. This conversation (tone and usefulness ) is the exact reason why I came and have stayed with this community.
