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  • Vlad Mazek - "What is service management" and "how to avoid being hit by a truck when it is most inconvenient"

    I love Vlad's straight talking. If you get a chance read the whole of the blog entry Vlad Mazek - Vladville Blog » Blog Archive » Windows Server 2003 SP2 EEULA & CYA because as far as I am concerned he is preaching to the converted. I will stand by my view that Service Packs are tested as much as possible, but you need to do your own validation (see Who should test software and service packs - I think vendors,customers and partners - others thi ) to ensure that your application vendor is also happy to support their products on that service pack. If you only have MS products, check the release notes AND SUPPORT.MICROSOFT.COM as both may well have important information. I've extracted part of Vlads process to avoid a bloody head - read his post for more as people like Susan Bradley wishes she had :-) However, a part of me wonders just how heavy the rock was. You know, the one that he was under since Microsoft started releasing service packs. As painful as the above is to read, and as painful as this...
  • Who should test software and service packs - I think vendors,customers and partners - others think it is just Microsoft (vendors)

    I saw this in a forum and got a bit upset by it... it read: “SP2 is not going anywhere near anything we manage until some other people have tried it and seen whether it has any unexpected side effects.” This was followed by “What would happen if everyone took that attitude? I believe that we have to take responsibility for testing these service packs ourselves for the benefit of our customers, not waiting for someone else to try it first.” And then “That's MS's job - not ours.“ And “It's not about whether others can be bothered it's about whose job it is to test these patches. It's not mine, nor my customers. There are far too many Microsoft bashers and there are far too many Microsoft sycophants - the rest of us just get shouted down when we say it like we see it.” The last comment really got my goat, so much so that I posted back to the forum this reply, but I thought I would make it wider as I think the conversation should be discussed broader. Now in defence, I have snipped little bits of the conversations...

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