Sun's CIO Talks Internal Experiences

daria42 writes "This is an interesting interview with Sun's chief information officer Bill Vass, about his experiences as the CIO of one of the world's best-known high-tech company. In particular, Vass talks about corporate blogging (and frustrated lawyers), problems providing IT support to finicky Sun engineers (who sometimes demand Indian help desk support knows kernel details), Sun's programs testing its software internally on employees before it goes out, and how ultimately, his job is like any other CIO's...just with some cool toys."

Comments

Herding Cats

[DanielMarkham]

While the CIO is more businesman than technical guy, his job has to be like herding cats. FTA

In another example, Vass received a mysterious note that a major system had been disabled and had stopped production on a hardware chip. Although Vass had no knowledge of this, he soon discovered the system in question was in fact the desktop machine of an engineer who had recently left the company. The desktop had been reformatted following his departure, cutting off 600 users who had over the last three years depended on it for network services.

I knew a major financial company, which will remain nameless, that rolled out a new customer product a couple years ago. When I was talking to the architect, it turns out the whole thing was running off a computer under his desk! He said that one day he accidentally kicked the power switch, and the whole place went beserk. I "encouraged" him to perhaps move it to the server farm, where it would be a little safer. He declined, saying he "wanted more control" over the application until it was stable enough. And this was on a production product.
I do NOT envy the job of CIO. Those guys have a tough row to hoe. BTW, if you ever want to know how the industry is being perceived by business, CIO magazine is a great read.(but expensive) It's real eye-opener to hear things from the other side of the tracks.

Moore's Law: Not the Only Game in Town

Re:The dark side is tempting.

[po_boy]

Stinginess with privileges is kindness in disguise.
-- Guide to VAX/VMS Security, 1984