The Server Guy

When did computer systems, data center products specifically, start getting released for purchase with Beta quality software and/or firmware. It seems the last several months (couple of years, really) I’ve spent a good portion of my time dealing with firmware updates to servers, storage controllers, and even our freaking HP SAN… That’s right our quarter million dollar SAN has software updates released more often than any electronic device I’ve ever owned, worked with, or even read about.

Now I’m not just talking about updates to add new features or make menus more intuitive… I’m talking about major issues, like, oh say, causing the entire SAN to crash which in turn drops our file cluster, databases, etc. This all impacts roughly 3000 employees directly and another 1500 or so indirectly. That’s not even the most irritating part of the scenario.  When I contacted HP to deal with the issue the response was basically, “this isn’t our fault. You haven’t been keeping up with firmware releases.” Well, screw off HP! I am not able to take the SAN down every three to four weeks when you come up with new firmware updates, which may or may not resolve the issues I’m experiencing.

It’s true that now the firmware on our SAN can be updated online, so we don’t have to take 80% of our server environment down for updates… but still, what happened to the days when you could purchase a piece of equipment and it just worked? When you didn’t have to worry about updating anything unless you were looking for new functionality that a software or firmware update provided. It wasn’t that long ago… I mean, I’m only 29… I’ve been in the IT field for less than a decade.

I blame most of this on Microsoft. Don’t get me wrong, their software works just fine (most of the time). They’re the ones, in my opinion anyway, who started selling a product that hadn’t been properly tested and debugged. Really, have you seen any of their recent products. They’re so bug ridden that they’ve included an automated option that’s enabled by default to prompt the end user to send a bug report when (not if) a piece of their software crashes. Of course the response from Microsoft is that their software is perfectly stable… it’s those darned applications you run that cause problems… because, you know, an OS is so useful in every situation without third party software running on it… or even additional Microsoft apps for that matter.

Just because Microsoft and HP are the only companies I’ve mentioned don’t think they’re the only one’s who are guilty. Just about everyone in the industry is guilty of getting lazy. The mentioned companies are just the most recent that I’ve had to deal with.

Of course the whole problem comes down to the fact that end users have become such sheep that they’re willing to accept Beta versions of this stuff as products that are worth their hard earned money. It seems to me if we all quit accepting poorly tested devices the manufacturers would have to get off their butts and fix the problem. Of course I don’t really expect that because I’ve come to realize the majority of the population are sheep who will accept anything that’s done to them. That, however is a whole different rant.

My message is this: Provide me with quality equipment. I am not willing to pay for the “privilege” of Beta testing for you anymore.

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