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The Perils of Ramming Products Down IT's Throat
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Paul Venezia takes issue with the all-too-familiar practice of management dictating IT solutions to admins savvy enough to know the fiat revolves around far inferior products, in this case Nissan North America's embracing of Microsoft's Hyper-V. 'Very rarely do unilateral decisions by CIOs make for solid IT infrastructures, and they are generally at odds with what the admins on the ground are communicating,' Venezia writes, noting that upper managers who succumb to vendor tricks face a far worse fate than an infrastructure based on inferior technology — one devoid of the kind of expertise necessary to make the best of their flawed purchasing decisions. 'If continuously faced with the specter of having to implement and support clearly inferior products due to baffling, uneducated management decisions, top-flight admins will simply head elsewhere.'"
These links are all just speculation and fluff. There's no news in any of the articles. Don't waste your time RTFA.
FYI
At my work the sysadmin refuses to upgrade from SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition (which had its support discontinued several years ago
Not true. You can still get tech support for SQL Server 2000:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2008/02/15/end-of-mainstream-support-for-sql-server-2005-sp1-and-sql-server-2000-sp4.aspx
In fact, extended support for the previous version, SQL Server 7, ends 2010-12-31.
(some businesses really, really, really don't want to change SQL server versions)
though he still hasn't installed the latest service pack from 2004 or so),
Ok, that is pretty dumb.
despite the fact that we have a budget (and need) for a high end clustered system with a nice pretty SAN.
You can cluster with SQL 2000. And even without a cluster, it will run nicely on a SAN.
The execs are now pushing it because we're getting deadlocks constantly, but the admin insists that if everyone would stop using the database to do anything, we'd be fine, and refuses to upgrade.
Deadlocks can sometimes be avoided by adjusting your SQL code.
Frankly, the best reason to upgrade from SQL 2000 is native 64-bit versions, which lets you use LARGE amounts of memory for your DB. Not to mention DB mirroring.
'If continuously faced with the specter of having to implement and support clearly inferior products due to baffling, uneducated management decisions, top-flight admins will simply head elsewhere.'
Yeah, because the job market is just that good right now.
If you are "top-flight" the market has no control over you. Your job security is your knowledge and skills, not the salary you get every month.
Your knowledge and skills don't magically create food or pay your bills. If you choose to walk out on your current job (due to their utter stupidity or any other reason), you don't need job security, you need to get hired elsewhere. Your top-flight knowledge and skills may let you find a new job sooner than a fresh grad would, but I highly doubt there are many admins out there who can simply walk out of their current job and immediately into another one of their choosing in today's economy.
This sounds like a valuable lesson. Next time this happens, simply don't do the job at all, because it's a no-win scenario. Instead, immediately start looking for a new job.
Also, if you're a contractor, why would you work 100+ hours/week? Part of being a contractor is that they can't do that to you; they have to pay you for all overtime. If they don't, you get to sue, and since you have a signed contract in-hand, it's pretty hard for them to contest it.