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White House CIO Describes His 'Worst Day' Ever

Posted by Soulskill on from the need-a-bipartisan-effort-to-swap-out-a-machine dept.

dcblogs writes "In the first 40 days of President Barack Obama's administration, the White House email system was down 23% of time, according to White House CIO Brook Colangelo, the person who also delivered the 'first presidential Blackberry.' The White House IT systems inherited by the new administration were in bad shape. Over 82% of the White House's technology had reached its end of life. Desktops, for instance, still had floppy disk drives, including the one Colangelo delivered to Rahm Emanuel, Obama's then chief of staff and now Mayor of Chicago. There were no redundant email servers."

12 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. Not a bad number by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    23% down sounds about average for MSExchange servers.

    I'm sure they just wasted money buying more of the same crap.

    1. Re:Not a bad number by davester666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is completely out of the question. Unless the email server also includes file sharing, calendaring, a contact database, all supporting multiple group and individual access rights, it simply can't be used for email.

      And the product name must include "Windows" or "Live" in the title, preferably both. And if it can be configured to only support Windows machines, we'll pay double.

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    2. Re:Not a bad number by X0563511 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Microsoft: where "five nines" means 9.9999%.

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    3. Re:Not a bad number by Enter+the+Shoggoth · · Score: 4, Funny

      Microsoft: where "five nines" means 9.9999%.

      Nah, I think it was more like this:

      Gates to Balmer: our Enterprise products need to have 5x9 uptime.
      Balmer: ok Boss.

      Balmer to VP of Engineering: Bill wants all our products to only work between 5pm and 9am. ...

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    4. Re:Not a bad number by Myopic · · Score: 4, Funny

      I would like to say that I am absolutely shocked that George W. Bush didn't have a team of IT professionals able to expertly administer the White House technology infrastructure. Given his record of surrounding himself with the best of the best, it's almost impossible to believe.

  2. Appropriate by sixtyeight · · Score: 3, Funny

    Over 82% of the White House's technology had reached its end of life. Desktops, for instance, still had floppy disk drives ...

    Considering the sort of people who are using these machines, it seems almost appropriate somehow.

    Maybe keeping them technologically underpowered is actually a good thing. Those crafty, crafty White House IT gurus.

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  3. Floppy Drives! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's madness! Everyone knows that the floppy drive dictates the speed, quality, and age of the computer!

  4. Re:Floppy... by Fluffeh · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't understand how adding a peripheral can make the machine "worse"?

    The same way that a Mercedes with an attachment on the front to allow it to be pulled by horses isn't as good as one with a normal bumper bar.

    Car Analogy, Check. Snideness, Check. Condescension, Check. Now time to get that coffee I deserve...

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  5. As a former employee, I can only confirm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The equipment of some government agencies I have worked for is kind of prehistoric. I you are using Windows 95 as a file server, you are in serious trouble.

  6. Re:Indication of Government Ability? by sco08y · · Score: 4, Funny

    The DOD still standardizes on IE 6 from what I am told.

    The different services have their own IT departments; they even have their own networks, NIPR and SIPR are just two of many. Not sure about the DOD proper, but even the Army is phasing out IE 6 and XP. I'm pretty sure the Air Force and Navy are mostly on Win 7, and the Marines got some new brightly colored rocks with sparkly beads.

  7. Re:No surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    You tell him Lord Lamecat.

  8. Re:Floppy... by c0mpliant · · Score: 2, Funny

    AMD based PC built in the last two years? Why?

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