It’s an issue that has plagued information technology discipline for a long time. One part information technology professionals, one part users, one part vendor hegemony the reality is a broken culture and system of getting things done in cyber space. Now, you might say, “Hey we do more with less, faster, better, and greater”. Phooey. If we weren’t dealing with orders of magnitude on the technology side of things we’d all still be wondering what all those blinking lights are about. Information technology can be implemented in a secure, capable, and desirable manner without knocking users on their collective posteriors. We just don’t do it because most information technology professionals are jerks.
As I’ve moved from the ivory tower of traditional academia to the ivory tower of professional military education the one thing I’ve noticed is that nobody can do information technology correctly. Vivak Kundra has 25 points for transforming the government, but the most traction he can get is with younger people who haven’t been tainted to much. Younger though isn’t a relative age, but it is a euphemism for the powerless non-senior people. The culture of the government like most large organizations is entrenched in zero defect mentality. The current way of doing things is costly, can actually decrease security, increases work factor for users, decreases productivity, and hides the petty jealousies of information technology professionals behind a façade.
There was a garden of data and accountants and actuaries tilled the garden. Computers were people with a good idea for numbers and sharp pencils. Yet machines would soon dominate this garden. Computing as machinery flourished in a post world war two environment of industry and the fledgling computer scientist was a processing priest. Wearing flowing white robes (lab coats), the penitent sinners would deliver their data sets to the priests, the priests would then process the data, and if all were good the results would be given back to the penitent as absolution of a good program. Access was controlled, the costs were staggering, and people became acculturated to the difference of information technology. Somebody else had control, somebody else was special enough to work with the ‘device’.
If it weren’t for the nearly obscene vendor and information systems manager relationship we would still be stuck in those halcyon days of tubes and wires. The relationship based on the original sin of the service level agreement. The relationship business though is always booming and vendors are there to make a buck. So, newer, faster, easier computers were born and installed. The priests of the mighty CPU gained power, and with that power they did good things (with other peoples data, ideas, and in general they just stood in the way of progress. Things never change.).
There was a storm in the future and a great evil loomed out of the darkness and that beast was named “commodity computing”. The priests were stunned when computing on par with their great big iron CPU could be found on anybody’s desktop for pennies of cost to their mainframe behemoths. At first the white-coated specialists scoffed at the itsy-bitsy computers, but they noticed something new. Less users were visiting their hallowed grounds of processing and this was bad. A mockery of programming had been born, and there was Lotus 123. These priests though as shocked as Beowulf to find Grendel, were to be more shocked when they met up with Grendels Mother. The network. Where the personal computer beget commodity computing, the network would unleashed utility computing. Anybody, anywhere, could access information and communicate. The priests of the information technology domain scrambled. The bones, the bones, were foreboding. This new network would be a web of deceit and lies and only lead to new disasters.
As the mainframe days waned and the newer lighter computers of the desktop gained in popularity what are the priests of information technology to do? Hang up the lab coat and get a job where they might have to do work? What to do with a cadre of trained people ready to obscure any solution, create dissatisfaction with users, and in general get in the way? The priests hung up their lab coats and under them were tan khakis and vendor golf shirts. These priests were young. The exuded a quiet and near awesome amount of bravado. “You need us” they told the users. “You must have our services because who else will keep the network running?” they asked the users. All of this while they randomly unplugged users from the backbone. The users were scared and couldn’t really program their home DVR so they accepted the priests from information technology.
An unholy alliance was forged between the information technology staff and the vendor. The vendors would continue to provide unusable equipment with large cryptic manuals, assuage the information technology priests with gifts of logo imprinted golf shirts, and the information technology managers would continue to buy these misbegotten evil products that were way to expensive. Thus the information technology priests would hold power over the information technology users even as they sold their souls to the vendors. The alliance though would not last.
First there was commodity computing, then utility computing, but then there was a flash and convergence happened. Not that we like the memory hog Flash ™. Much like the heathen SCADA the cell phone snuck through the door of information technology temples and peed on the floor. When first seen the cell phone was managed more by automotive mechanics and car-stereo installers than it was by the acolytes and priests of information technology. Who would use such dumb devices, large, unwieldy and expensive, and even then not provided by the alliance of information technology priests and the vendors? Yet users did use them, and worse they quit using the audix and telecom systems of the company. Going around the information technology priests. Sinners!!!
Consumer (code phrase for stupid user) companies had started building devices that horrified the information technology priests. They just worked. As these consumer grade devices got smarter, and faster, and better, and neater. The devices started to supplant the gelded information technology allowed the users. Like monarchs of ages past, the users who sat in power, started to exempt themselves from the rules of the information technology priests. The powerful stupid users started to adopt tools and remembering the days of cold iron processing power the priests adapted along with the users. The priests made an alliance with a particular phone vendor and anointed it king of the hip. All was well, as the priests eroded the smart cell phones intelligence, and once again the useful device was a pauper in ignorance. All monarchy thoughts neutered on the way to poverty of the soulless.
In the waning darkness a new threat was emerging. Devices that “just worked”. Smart phones, computers, and other information technology devices were being created by the vendors. Scrambling to enact rules upon the soulless vendors mechanizations’ the information technology priests fought the new devices. User started carrying two devices and the vendors smiled their greed never to be assuaged. The information technology priests wailed. Leaders of the land began to fight the scourge of evil golf shirt wearing information technology priests. These consumer leaders would have devices that would do what they wanted, when they wanted, and how they wanted. If they wanted to surf pron while at work they would do so at will. If they wanted music or movies on their devices they would have that freedom. Chat with their children while in meetings? They would have that freedom. Meanwhile the priests devices moldered unused and the titan awoke.
The fear of the priests of information technology has always been “THE TITAN” < must be said loud in a low booming voice> Long slumbering after having eaten a few accountants the “THE TITAN” also known as the chief financial officer had the power of budget. The priests knowing the evil that they had done to the bottom line, but secure in their fiscal controls policy (neither providing security or control let’s not get crazy), realized that cheaper was an evil wind blowing through their data center. Should the ponderous eye of “THE TITAN” gaze upon them their hopes might be dashed in the spilled red ink. And “THE TITAN” was carrying two phones.
The information technology priests having had very little liberal arts education, and not being able to do much but study for vendor certificates, did not remember their history. With their eye on convergence and no radical paradigm change in computing for nearly a decade (while a certain operating system took over) the stupid users became consumers who learned. The users were learning the arcane art of ctrl-alt-del and recovering lost files from the trash bin. They adopted technology for the home and found that the experience was not so scary. The priests watched as their help desk staffs were outsourced, right sized, and replaced with social media (where did that come from? Priests aren’t social!) While the dusty operating system continued to be used the divergence between user and priest became wider.
A new alliance was needed and the priests yearned for the day of old big processing iron. The vendors heard the priests yearning. Yet they saw the consumers as a new revenue stream. How to answer the controls and fiscal legislative agendas imposed by the priests with the yearning freedom of device independence (and easy access to pron) that the users wanted? More importantly how could the vendors make bucket loads more money by making everybody “THINK” they were happy? The vendors beget a new term as almost as silly as the concept, but filled with just enough hope to make the constituency happy. From convergence cloud computing was born.
People asked, “But, what is the cloud?”
The vendors answered, “It is.”
“Is the cloud processing?” asked the priests.
“It is” the vendors had told them.
“Storage?” The priests wailed.
“Yes.” Intoned the vendors.
“Connectivity?” Asked the users.
“Yes.” Said the vendors.
“Control?” Queries the priests.
“Yes.” Answered the vendors.
“Security?” Quaked the users.
“Yes.” Rumbled the vendors.
All of the queries of what it might be were affirmative. Finally “THE TITAN” asked, “Then what is the cloud not?” The vendors quaked for they knew this question would be asked. They answered in unison “Cheap.” “THE TITAN” felt the comforting weight of his smart phone in one pocket and the BES server rebooted.
We can gain some lessons from the above story. Though we had some fun at the expense of our information technology staff you can assume a few things.
1) As long as we treat information technology as “special” and not requiring the professionalism we expect in other areas it won’t grow as a discipline.
2) The only power that matters to information technology is budgetary authority. A Czar in government or a CIO in business has zero ability to effect change without the power of the purse.
3) If information technology is the core of our business why is it ironically the one place we allow slovenly individuals to work who could use a bath? More professionalism and a little less liberty with our budgets please.
4) We are concerned about information not technology. Information technology people have lost that as a halberd of their professionalism. Information first, technology second. Vendors don’t like this.
5) There is a tendency for vendors to get a little to chummy with the information technology staff and procurement staffs. In most areas of contracting we would never do this, but in information technology it is extremely dangerous.
6) The heart of the network is the user not the technology. No security mechanism will stand up to a protracted attack by a suitably motivated user. Take that anyway you want, but the reality is the user has the ultimate power. Information technology professionals who tell users no, instead of enabling users regardless, are called unemployed information technology professionals.
7) Standardization of networking and computing resources is like saying all users are the same. This stifles innovation, directly impacts the bottom line, and is an excuse for being lazy as an information technology professional and user. Users who do stupid things should be penalized. Information technology professionals who restrict users should be fired. Accountability is a two way street.
8) Governance is a topic information technology professionals use to tell users what to do. Governance is usually a set of policies and standards imposed on users without their input and without representation. It is bad for government but it directly impacts productivity and security when you do this to users.
9) All information technology is about information first, and technology second. If you secure information by technology you haven’t secured it. The user is part of the network and the more you restrict the access by the user the more you create a danger of the information being exposed. This is the principle of perverse incentives. If I gotta get my job done or be fired, which policy means more to me?
The way we’ve been doing things must change. The costs of information technology are extreme and the restrictions on access are becoming less important. As companies begin to open their networks we must think about protecting data. As the principles of convergence play off the access potentials of cloud computing the information technology priesthood better start thinking. In a world of converged cloud computing the information technology professional is an unemployed anachronism.
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