Configuration and Total Cost of Ownership
- From: shawnk <shawnk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 08:17:02 -0700
Beware : Yet another flaming post from a 'new' BizTalk user.
I just spent 3 weeks on installation and configuration of Biztalk 2004 :o)
1 week prep including programming, user and IT object models with
internal/external taxonomies. Downloaded every installation/configuration
article I could find.
After one week, all ready to go, I installed, tried to config and had it fail.
No problem. I saved my config in the XML file so I could 'reuse it'.
(How could I have been so naive?).
Two weeks and 12 config cycles later I am able to recall every detail in the
configuration wizard from memory. Unfortunately, however, it wasn't from
memory .... the image of the dialogs had somehow burned into my retinas
from using the same screens too many times.
Flashback...
.....Not so long ago, in a land called Boulder, Colorado a company called
Microsoft
pitched a sales campaign around the phrase 'Total Cost of Ownership' (TCO).
I recall my curiosity as the Unix IT Pro guys seemed to get excited and
left the presentation.
A little after that I went outside for a moment to see these Unix guys rolling
on the floor and laughing. Some of them were giving each other 'high fives'.
I even saw a 300 pound programmer jump up in the air and click his heels.
.... He was still smiling on the way to the hospital for a broken ankle.
But it wasn't until I saw a group of these guys in the lavatory around
a picture/cartoon of a Microsoft guy in front of a TCO presentation
that I began to understand the 'TRUE' extent of the 'fear and loathing' of
Microsoft enterprise products (Microsoft people - remain calm - do not take
this personally!).
Since I was a developer and not an IT Pro I thought 'What is your problem'?
How innocent I was ....
Not long after that, I tried to set up multiple Microsoft products on one
server
(silly me). I finally understood why even the MICROSOFT IT pro guys were
laughing
at me so hard (Let alone the UNIX IT Pros). What you pay for in software
could really be, for
some product lines, one tenth the cost. Thus the 'TCO' concern.
Flash forward.... today
Little did I know (back then) that soon I would understand why Microsoft was
called the
'Blue Screen Company' by the predominantly Unix oriented high tech culture
in Colorado.
Even I would understand the heartbreak and bitter irony of 'TCO' (Microsoft
style of course :0)
Even now, ... maybe even this weekend, the executives at SUN, BEA and IBM
are conspiring to keep the Biztalk and SharePoint program managers from
being fired (the normal cure for a five year period of corporate wide
server product TCO problems).
..... moral of the story...
Yes its true. Sr. developers ARE not politically correct.
Yes its true. Sr. developers Have a 'live free or die' attitude.
Yes its true. Sr. developers HATE (or to be more elegant 'LOATH') to dork
around with products that should have shipped with a configuration manager.
Yes its true. Sr. developers DO tend to stay out of the executive circles.
BUT......
The world is safer place because of this...
Even now, ... somewhere in the bowels of the vast Microsoft campus,
a lone champion software engineer (of the soon to be
developed/tested/released Biztalk Configuration Manager)
is working to free the world of configuration nightmares like this.
My friend, the hope of future Biztalk 'new users' is your hands.
Signed, Yet another 'new' Biztalk 2004 user with configuration problems :o)
PS. Thanks ahead of time for your professional patience with this flaming
post.
PPS. What is my problem? ... my retinas are all screwed up!!!
.
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