RE: OT: Consultant/Admin Rant
- From: Danny <nocmonkey@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "[ISAserver.org Discussion List]" <isalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 16:17:30 -0500
(John Tolmachoff from the MS Exchange invited us to this discussion,
so I am new to this list)
I agree with what you say for the most part, Amy, but ...
In my opinion, wizards that configure otherwise complex systems
(software) invite unqualified people to do things that they otherwise
would not be capable of doing.
Software configuration wizards do not have a good image in the IT
industry from a knowledge gain and future troubleshooting perspective.
Maybe these unqualified SBS consultants would learn more if all these
wizards weren't available; most people are lazy by nature.
Easier to configure software, specifically wizards, equals more sales
for Microsoft, so I can see why the wizards are present in SBS.
...D
On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 15:44:14 -0500, Amy Babinchak
<amy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> http://www.ISAserver.org
>
>
>
> ISA and Exchange are the pieces of SBS that aren't point and click. I see
> just as many idle Exchange servers as ISA Servers. Too many people enter
> this biz without the necessary skills. Zone Alarm...don't get me started. If
> PSS isn't jiggy on SBS/ISA then they had better get with it. This is the
> fourth generation of SBS after all. There's some cool stuff in SBS that even
> you, Tom, would get a kick out of but you have to get past the .local bias.
>
>
>
> Jim et al. have done wonderful things wizardizing the setup of SBS. No
> matter how simple you make it though someone will manage to screw it up. The
> "big" network guys screw it up by applying what they think they know and not
> using the wizards and the rest can't find their head without the help of a
> wizard. I like wizards they make mundane tasks easy. They can make complex
> tasks simple because it usually turns out that the task that appears complex
> isn't, it just requires a whole bunch of tiny steps to accomplish. But they
> aren't going to handle every situation.
>
>
>
> Yes, SBS gets slammed on this list. But it's getting friendlier here. The
> problem is that because SBS is different in it's configuration that SBSers
> that stray from the SBS specific sites end up getting bad advice and don't
> know it. The SBS product has some really good things going for it and some
> of these are actually going to be moving up the food chain. I'll think that
> we'll come to live in harmony eventually. But Microsoft's big push to get
> more and more and more and more people pushing SBS is bringing a large
> number of unqualified <your favorite derogatory term here> into the field.
>
>
>
> Understanding networking is a battle no matter what product you use. I had a
> client call today. No Internet access. Internal network is fine. They called
> SBC. SBC tech told him that there was a problem with the network
> configuration because the Gateway was blank on the NIC and therefore there
> was no way that it could have ever worked. Fortunately this customer has
> been with me long enough that he knew to hang up at that point and call me.
>
>
>
>
> Amy
>
>
>
> Harbor Computer Services
>
> Small Business Computer Specialists
>
>
>
> Office (248) 546-6056
>
> Mobile (248) 890-1794
>
>
>
> Client Blog: http://smalltechnotes.blogspot.com/
>
> Tech Blog: http://isainsbs.blogspot.com/
>
> Help: http://helpdesk.harborcomputerservices.net/
>
> Website: http://www.harborcomputerservices.net/
>
>
>
> Hi Amy,
>
> No problem with that. I understand your experience, and I see this all the
> time myself.
>
>
>
> My analysis is that people in the SBS space don't care for ISA because there
> really isn't any good guidance for it. In order to get it to work right on
> an SBS box, the SBS and ISA guys (like Jim) have to work long, hard, hours
> to break ISA's fundamental design goal of that of a network firewall. They
> have to make a lot of compromises and tweaks to turn ISA into a mixture of
> host-based firewall and networkf firewall, which even if some PM told they
> ISA dev team that is what they needed to do, the end result was that they
> created a enterprise ready network firewall and let the lab guys figure out
> how to munge it into ZoneAlarm for SBS :)
>
>
>
> From conversations that I've had with a number of folks in difference places
> and spaces, the key issues are:
>
>
>
> * SBS PSS isn't too jiggy on the ISA/SBS combo
>
> * They tell people to go to www.isaserver.org for help
>
> * There's almost nothing there on www.isaserver.org re: SBS because you're
> the only one who has contributed relevant content in this area
>
> * The SBS customers go to the www.isaserver.org Web boards and get nailed to
> the wall for co-lo'ing ISA on a DC/Exchange Server
>
> * The SBS customers get sad and mad because they were told to go to
> www.isaserver.org and then assailed by the crowd
>
> * There is no SBS design doc on what was done with SBS to make it work with
> the various ISA sceanrios and how they Wizes deviate from general network
> security best practices
>
> * And all the other things ... :)
>
>
>
> I'm not much help because I don't know much about how SBS does things, and I
> don't even work in spaces where its deployed. My expereinces with just
> installing SBS 2003 and not letting me set things up "correctly" out of the
> box, in terms of network settings, had me frothing at the mouth. Just at
> Debi :-))
>
>
>
> Thanks!
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> http://www.ISAserver.org
>
> I don't have anywhere else for this, so sorry Tom but I've got to hijack for
> minute. I don't think that I've ever done this before but since attending
> the SBS Users Group Tour last night I've been in such a state that I didn't
> sleep very well. I'm a member of the local group and we're generally a small
> (30-ish) bunch of knowledgeable people but this event was different. What's
> keeping me up at night? The sorry state of ISA knowledge among people
> calling themselves small business consultants. I handed out all the business
> cards I had after I scrawled my ISA blog address on the back of them to
> these sorry souls. Unfortunately I didn't have very many with me. Imagine
> their surprise when (gasp) a women came to them with the answers they were
> looking for. All I got back was st..st..stunned, ugh thanks. What kind of
> self respecting consultant raises his hand in front of a crowd of 130 and
> says I had so much trouble with my SBS install that I had to call business
> down critical support to install it from the Action Pack?? Good God!!! The
> whole purpose of the Action Pack is so you can learn the product not take up
> the valuable time of Business Down Critical Support! Why didn't they hang up
> on you? Then there was the guy that asked why Microsoft wasn't helping him
> learn ISA and how there isn't any information available anywhere and the two
> behind me that went on and on all night about how ISA is only good for
> simple things and the ones in front of me that spent the night trashing the
> product too. I was in ISA heck and it was killing me to have to sit there
> quietly. When the presenters asked if there were any MVP's in the room,
> there were none. There's a huge gap here that needs to be filled. These guys
> are scaring me. If you run into any of them please send them over to my
> blog. If it doesn't have what they are looking for have them contact me and
> I'll get them what they need. I don't want to be sitting in the same room
> with these kind of guys ever again.
>
>
>
>
> Amy
>
>
>
> Harbor Computer Services
>
> Small Business Computer Specialists
>
>
>
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