TCB

May 8th, 2009, by Scott Kantner

Describing our IT jobs to friends and family can be a bit of a challenge, and sometimes a simple answer is best.

So what do we do all day in the world of IT? In the smaller server closets of the world, very little needs to be done on a daily basis unless something breaks. However, in shops of any significant size, here is just a starter list for daily computer TCB:

Did last night’s backups run OK?
Did last night’s batch processing run OK?
Are the online applications healthy and responsive?
Did all of scheduled change activity go well?
Are all of the servers operating at nominally (e.g. acceptable response time, no 100% hung CPUs, etc.)
Is free disk space at acceptable levels?
Are there any trouble tickets from the overnight hours?
Is the network performing normally?
Are there any suspicious entries in the security logs?
Are any equipment alarm lights lit?

Any wrong answers to the above questions become the day’s TCB workload. Intertwined with that comes the standing to-do list items:

Returning phone calls
Answering Email
Attending Meetings
Performing project work
Managing staff
Meeting with customers
Closing business
Handling the unexpected, which usually trumps everything else.

Are you tired yet?

Regardless of the level of automation one can employ to keep the infrastructure running, there are certain activities that require human attention. There simply is no substitute. If infrastructure is not your core business, you may want to take a hard look at whether caring and feeding for your IT systems is the best use of your time and resources.

We don’t each generate our own power, but we certainly need it to run our businesses. There simply is no reason for each of us to invest in the people and equipment to generate electricity – it’s impractical and unaffordable. Likewise, you certainly need computing resources to run your business, but unless IT infrastructure is your business, the ever-increasing complexity and cost of IT is making in harder to find a compelling business reason to continue building and running it yourself.

Not to mention that good IT staff is hard to find…