Re: taking deployment/operations considerations into account

Vic,

Your situation sounds nearly pathological, but in the interest of furthering the intent of my thread:  do you think there's something that the design of your software product could have incorporated that would make dealing with the deployment environment you find yourself in easier?

 
Al

----- Original Message ----
> From: Vic Williams <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 4:41:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [pragprog] taking deployment/operations considerations into account
> 
> Hi,
> 
> We have something akin to that.  We develop courseware and courses and 
> training for
> language schools in China, so we periodically send hardcopy and 
> electronic copies of
> about 500 files to 12 other sites in China. The Chinese control the shipping
> and the servers. We have one server officially and one that they don't 
> tell us about
> that sits on the floor about 4 meters from my desk. Officially only 
> three of us have
> access to our files.
> 
> The IT manager edits our files to make them "look beautiful."  (He's not 
> one of the 'three'.)
> Especially the first screen or page in a file. This sometimes includes 
> removing things on the first screen/page.
> 
> Things like source control just disappear. Or, as another example, I run 
> two browsers
> to bypass the Great Firewall. Their software locks one to cut web 
> access, so I bypass
> with a second browser and an anonymiser. And dynamically switch, to see 
> dramatic
> improvements in access and speed. So one browser will be uninstalled 
> overnight.
> (They say firefox "causes problems" so they always delete Internet 
> Explorer. Go figure.)
> 
> There has been a bit of negative feedback to such antics so now the 
> Chinese shipping
> manager deals directly with us. He recently came into the office and 
> told our manager that
> her password had just been changed, then told us all what the new 
> password is. Of
> course we can't change our passwords. We provided a bit more negative 
> feedback
> so we now have 3 IT support staff and the same 'secure' 
> open-to-nutty-managers
> server, and the overall manager will take us out to KTV this week.
> 
> So the solution is to add more support staff and a whiff of 
> entertainment (that
> none of the three of us are interested in attending).
> 
> Good sound practice?
> 
> Al Chou wrote:
> > ... (there are plenty of organizations among our customers where the 
> machine/OS-level administrator is not allowed to see the application data, and 
> the application administrator is not
> >  allowed administrative access to the OS).
> >
> > I'm wondering how much such issues are taken into account by the individuals 
> on this mailing list?
> >   
> bye,
> vic
> 
> -- 
> “The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell, 
> there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously 
> observed.” -- Grant Gilmore (The Ages of American Law 1977, p. 111)
> Vic Williams   13066824980





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