To: Francis Muir who wrote (34043 ) 10/30/1997 10:46:00 PM From: Cogito Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 58324
>>Truf, its PC to blame it on Customer Relations, not the systems or netnotworking people.<< Francis - I see that I have not explained myself well. I would really like people to understand where I'm coming from, so please allow me to try again. Or just hit next, if you like. If Customer Relations lies to you, doesn't apologize when things don't work, and doesn't make you happy in your relationship to a company, then blame Customer Relations for that. If the networking systems are down, there may be many reasons. You can blame the systems people and demand that they be fired, but that won't necessarily be justified, nor will it necessarily solve the problem. Modern networks consist of hardware and software components from thousands of different manufacturers, all of which must be made to work together. And the various components are changing all the time. Keeping up with all the changes is far more than a full time job. As a customer of a big online brokerage, I would have a right to demand that they install redundant, highly fault tolerant systems which would not fail under heavier-than-normal loads. However, the more redundant and over-scaled you design a system to be, the more expensive it becomes to build. CEOs don't usually give the IS department a blank check and tell them to go to town. There are always compromises which must be made due to budget constraints. (I promise I won't go on much longer.) And no matter how good any system is, there can always be mistakes, multiple failures, and unforeseen situations. Due to the complexity of modern networks, pinpointing a problem is often a grueling, time-consuming process which is invariable undertaken in a high pressure situation. I know this is all totally off the topic. I hope anyone who has read this far understands that I am just trying to clear up a misunderstanding. - Allen