Creating software for sysops

https://plumbr.eu/blog/creating-software-for-operations-make-sure-you-do-not-suck

by theotown • 12 years ago

24 17 12 years ago

nailer4• 12 years ago

Damn straight. Having been on the other side of the fence - having a budget and a few thousand servers - a vendor that wants a hundred grand and can't even be bothered making an rpm has a lot to do to make up for it.

Your agent isn't any more special than the hundred other pieces of software on the same box.

FooBarWidget2• 12 years ago

And what if your boss wants you to deal with them not providing any RPMs, because the stuff has already been paid for?

nailer4• 12 years ago

Good question. If I wasn't in the position of having a budget, I'd:

a) first approach the company asking me to send a link to their packages, making sure their support staff know the company expects packaged software.

b) I'd package it myself, letting my boss know my time was spent doing work the vendor should have.

codegen• 12 years ago

(Just interested from an academic perspective) What are the decision making criteria for your boss? Which parameters trump "Do my guys want to use that stuff"?

laichzeit0• 12 years ago

ssh -X is the usual approach.

nl• 12 years ago

I've been on both sides of that (or all three sides if you count the vendor, too).

Boss: use it to leverage either a better deal, or extra support hours, or make them package it. (Unless it is Oracle. Then you just bend over).

Tech: Tell the boss exactly how much it sucks, and how you wonder if this vendor actually knows what "operate at scale" means. Take the extra support hours and get them to write an installation package.

Vendor: Oh, shit. Another thing to add to my list of 1000 things to do. Is this or feature X more likely to be useful? Damn, let's just offer extra support hours.

gaius2• 12 years ago

This is a constant tension in software, when the people who sign the cheques don't use it themselves and so never feel any of the pain (just pick up a sweet bonus for saving so much money on the support contract).

Someday for example I'd like to visit SAP in Germany and see how they book their vacations and submit their expenses. It can't be with their own product. I'll wager they still use paper.

icebraining2• 12 years ago

Sorry, I downvoted you by mistake.

As a developer and amateur sysadmin, I'm moving our own whole system to native packages. Dealing with ad-hoc installation mechanisms is just too painful.

skywhopper• 12 years ago

Fantastic list of things sysops wants, no, needs, no, requires out of "good" software. Kudos to Plumbr for understanding and working towards that goal.

zemanel• 12 years ago

although not exactly for the Java world (but not necessarily so), even since i attended PyData recently, i've been capturing requirements/ideas for a "Python [c]Profile data visualizer web application spec":

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tPhW2FLjHG47rS6xJGzP6R30...

and this article was a good read.

gaius2• 12 years ago

This is a refreshing change - contrast with the MongoDB guys who sell it as "you don't need DBAs" then the devs chuck it over the fence into production and wonder why everyone now hates them.

Creating software for sysops

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