Modern Middle Manager
Primarily my musings on the practical application of technology and management principles at a financial services company.
Merger, Phase II

Tuesday, February 03, 2004  

After some discussion with my staff, it looks like we're going to try implementing a parallel set of systems as a testbed for Investments before we actually migrate their production systems over to our network. We chose this path because they have a really complex set of systems with several ancillary programs they developed inhouse. Some of those inhouse programs have hardcoded paths as well. Nasty, nasty stuff and I don't have time to have all of them rewritten.

One of the advantages to using virtual servers is that we can deploy 3-4 quickly without waiting for physical servers to arrive. And if we screw it up, we can scrub it and start again with very little time lost. Good stuff, that.

On a complete tangent, I just got some new power strips from APC in for our data center. One type, the AP7900, measures the aggregate amperage plugged into it and allows me to control the power to individual outlets via the network. Another one, the AP7750, provides redundant power to equipment with a single power supply. With the weirdness our data center has experienced lately, these are a godsend. Anyway, back to the merger.

The outstanding characteristics of the merger right now are 1) how much people are putting up with the inconvenience of the data integration steps and 2) that management is refusing to define what the investment department's goals are now. That leaves certainly people (ahem) without any means to prioritize what to do. It's damned frustrating.

Which leaves me cranky. Which is bad when I'm trying to articulate why I need certain things done in a certain new data center slated to be built in late 2004 for our move in (along with several other divisions) in 2005. So that meeting didn't go as well as I had planned. Sigh.

Well, we will refocus and get back on track with the merger. One part of this phase is the creation of a new Citrix server farm by our desktop support guy (who's also turning into the Citrix guru). Like me, nothing he does can come easy so he's struggled through the day to bring up the server. I think he finally got it working and he'll probably remember everything he went through to get it to work. I hope the rest of his tasks go easier, for his sake.

posted by Henry Jenkins | 2/03/2004 09:54:00 PM

Comments: Post a Comment
search
the author
archives
links
open source
vendors
stats
reading