hi ya,
Does this mean the image off IT staff sitting around twiddling their fingers
and listening to phones ring will be a thing of the past. Will they now need
to respond to the real world of work, :)
terry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Strata Rose Chalup" <strata@virtual.net>
To: "FoRK" <fork@xent.com>
Cc: "Magi Discuss" <magi-discuss@endeavors.org>
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 1:19 AM
Subject: [magi-discuss] Re: OC Register
>
>
> Gregory Alan Bolcer wrote:
>
> > ...
> > http://ocregister.com/business/ptop00222cci.shtml
>
> > True P2P is when two people have P2P
> > software and share files over the Web
> > without the interference of a central server,
> > which still is needed to provide Internet
> > access.
> >
> > An office working on P2P could
> > collaborate instantly. If one employee is at
> > lunch with a cell phone and another is at
> > the airport with only his Palm Pilot, they
> > could simultaneously edit a power-point
> > presentation on a third employee's personal
> > computer.
>
> One man's "interference" is another man's "lower MTBF".
>
> The kind of P2P this author envisions is going to be a nightmare
> for support staff and result in lower productivity and more frustration
> for offices in general. An environment where desktop machines can
> contain critical data is one which is infinitely more difficult to
> back up-- there is a reason why there are file servers in an office.
>
> Desktops are also more susceptible to viruses and to users installing
> non-supported HW/SW on them (which usually causes trouble). The only
> nice thing about this currently is that only two people get screwed
> by this-- the desktop user him/herself and the poor bugger from IT or
> IS who has to untangle the mess. Just wait until critical documents
> are trapped on Joe Sixpack's machine when he nukes it with some lame
> drivers from who knows where.
>
> Then there's the load factor on the desktop itself. Suppose you're
> crunching Excel spreadsheets, or running one of those "eat your box
> alive" fancy report generators? When you're in the field waiting
> to edit that document on your cellphone, that's not going to be
> any fun for you. To say nothing of when good ol' Joe is staying
> late at the office so he can fire up Flight Simulator 2000.
>
> The other thing about desktops is that in order for them to be
maintainable
> at all from an IT/IS perspective, you have to be able to get at them
> during off-hours. Big financials firms like Goldman Sachs actually
> run jobs on many classes of desktops that completely wipe the box
> overnight and reinstall the OS. Keeping the box in a known state is the
> key. It's also how you keep people using current versions of software,
> and make upgrades available without the unscaleable process of sending
> an admin to somebody's desktop. Admittedly there are tools where you
> can autokey upgrades to run when the user permits. But if you know that
> folks are going to be trying to access your data from Singapore, suddenly
> that 3am autoexec reboot job doesn't look so good.
>
> P2P is a great concept, but not necessarily for business-critical data.
> I think that the only feasible applications for P2P in key business
> areas are ones where individual desktops store A copy, not THE copy,
> of a file. Of course, then you get into locking and updating issues.
> I'll be surprised if there isn't a CVS pserver or similar lurking under
> the covers of the first P2P app to make it big in business.
>
> More businesses could do well by running themselves on a mirroring basis
> internally, with replications and referral-on-write. Then the P2Pness
> would make a data finding mesh which pointed to a much smaller mesh of
> places to actually get the data. A compromise from both perspectives,
> but one which is much more maintainable in the long run. Servers are
> servers for a reason. If you care about always getting to your data,
> you have to do certain things, and those things are not desktop kinds
> of things.
>
> Fortunately there's a rich mix of data which is NOT mission critical
> and which P2P apps can sequester on little desktop blackholes to their
> hearts' content. :-)
>
> Cheers,
> _Strata
>
>
> --
> ========================================================================
> Strata Rose Chalup [KF6NBZ] strata "@" virtual.net
> VirtualNet Consulting http://www.virtual.net/
> ** Project Management & Architecture for ISP/ASP Systems Integration **
> =========================================================================
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 27 2001 - 23:18:21 PDT